There were always others.
Endo- san would die too. But perhaps not yet.
No, for the moment, Hori would die alone.
Approaching the Devil's Footprint,
Tecuno, Mexico
'Here comes SkyEye,' said Chuck Freeman, one of the Delta contingent, his eyes glued to image-intensifying binoculars. 'Just watch that sucker land. I swear Calvin flew before he crawled.'
Fitzduane smiled and raised his own night-vision binoculars in the direction that Chuck was indicating. He was just in time to see Calvin make one of his famed landings.
The aviator took full advantage of the airfoil qualities of the dihedral wing and the very low stall speed of the microlight, and did not so much land as drop the tiny aircraft gently onto the ground at the last minute after a gentle glide with all the power switched off.
With forward momentum virtually canceled by air resistance when still airborne, the microlight rolled for only a few yards before coming to a halt.
Fitzduane had been worried about the feasibility of finding suitable landing and takeoff surfaces in the rough terrain, but he need not have. Calvin could take off and land almost anywhere.
The decision to bring the microlight had turned out to be a fortunate one. Their maps and satellite photos were inadequate for the finer details of the terrain, and on several occasions so far aerial reconnaissance had enabled them to steer around obstacles.
Guntracks could handle most surfaces, but gullies, ravines, and wadis could pose problems. Of course, even near-vertical surfaces could be handled with the right winch technique – and every vehicle mounted a built-in winch with a forty-nine meter cable – but winching vehicles up and down was notoriously time-consuming, and surplus time was a commodity that Team Rapier did not possess.
Fitzduane and Freeman helped Calvin pack up the microlight and slide it into its travel tube.
'The recce team is on the way back, Colonel,' said Calvin. 'They should be here in about twenty minutes.'
He was wearing black flame-resistant Nomex overalls, black body armor, and a black helmet, so he might have looked a little like Batman except for the black goose-down parka he wore over the top.
It was cold in the desert plateau at night, and even colder when you were flying in an open cockpit, so Calvin – whose unclothed build was slight – when fully bundled and padded out, looked more like the exceptionally rotund Penguin. Add in the night-vision goggles and he looked even more horrific.
Fitzduane thought he was probably scaring hell out of the local vultures. There did not seem to be any more friendly bird life in the area. Vultures set the tone.
Since Calvin had come recommended by people he trusted, and the mission had been put together in a hurry, Fitzduane had not looked at his file at first. Special forces were NCO heavy and everyone seemed to call Calvin by his first name, so he had assumed the man was a sergeant. Though he looked far too young, it turned out Calvin was a major. It was not important. What counted was not your rank but how you did your job, and in that context the aviator was a formidable asset.
Minutes later, the recce team were detected over a kilometer away by the mast-mounted FLIR on Fitzduane's Guntrack.
Weapons were trained on them until they were identified. Soon they entered the perimeter of the concealed camp. It was good navigation in this rocky wasteland, but although they were using traditional methods – it did not come easy to put all your faith in technology – they were also equipped with GPS, or global positioning sets, which determined one's position by picking up pre-positioned navigation-satellite signals.
Fitzduane gave the recce team a few minutes to eat and drink and then called a briefing. He used the flattopped rear engine compartment of his Guntrack as a map board.
The layout of the camp was now augmented by the observations of the recce team over twenty-four hours. The team reported in detail. All the electronic intelligence in the world could not substitute for hands-on human intelligence. These people had felt the texture of the enemy position. They had been close enough to reach out and nearly touch the very people they had come to kill. But first they had looked and learned.
The assault plan remained intact. There were changes of detail to be accommodated, but that was normal. Fitzduane summarized.
'We're going to be in position by 2200 hours. At 0100 hours, having had three hours to eyeball the target and fine-tune our understanding of the opposition, we're going to attack.
'The assaults will be silent and simultaneous. Shadow Four will infiltrate Dali and do what has to be done on the supergun. Shadow Two will take out the blockhouse on the central spur. Shadow Three and Shadow Five will enter Salvador, hit the Yaibo barracks, extract Kathleen, and kill all Yaibo members, including – if we are so lucky – Reiko Oshima. Shadow One, my track, will run interference from the other side of the perimeter road and will coordinate. Calvin will fly topside and advisee us of any approaching hassle. We go in and out in twenty minutes – no more! So no stopping for a shower, a shit, and a shave. We are not tourists, people.
'Now to the detail.'
The briefing continued. The twenty-four-hour reconnaissance, as well as confirming intelligence they already possessed, had added detail that could only be gathered by close observation.
The two valleys had separate generator systems. The main camp generator in Salvador was particularly noisy and prone to brownouts and breakdowns. It had cut out twice while the recce team was in position, and each time a bored soldier had left the guardhouse a the main gate and after ten minutes or so had restored it to life. There had been no reaction from elsewhere in the camp when the lights had died. It was clear that this was a routine occurrence.
In contrast, the generator in Dali, while still noisy, was quieter and manifestly more reliable. There, illuminating the maze of pipes that included the supergun, the security lights burned bright and even. Even more to the point, it had been ascertained that the double fence that circled the camp from the main gate at the front to the rim of the valley at the back was electrified on the inside perimeter. It would have been convenient if this had been powered by the faulty generator in the main camp, Salvador, but unfortunately that was not so.
'That's the bad news,' continued Fitzduane. 'However, by the standards of this landscape, the ground beneath the fence is soft – well, vulnerable – in places, and the recce team have already probed an entry point on the rim. Al's team, Shadow Two, will go in from there. A regular jeep patrol goes by every fifteen minutes, but that apart, it will be just good old-fashioned burrowing. Healthy exercise, I'm told.'
The team of Shadow Two looked appropriately thrilled. In fact, their digging had been extensively rehearsed and their Guntrack was equipped with a variety of powered tools to cope with various contingencies. The fastest was a compressed-air powered auger that was portable and virtually silent. Other equipment was hydraulically based and derived from devices used by rescue teams and police SWAT teams to prize apart obstacles. Such specialized tools could peel armor plate back in seconds as if it were aluminum foil.
There had been concern about motion sensors or beams, even though the notes on Patricio Nicanor's plan had stated they were not being used. The reconnaissance using sensors had shown he was right. A high-technology fence of such dimensions would have been expensive and difficult to maintain in such a location. Further, motion sensors would have been hard to coordinate with the jeep patrols and vulnerable to being set off by wild animals. Still, two fences, the inner one electrified, separated by a patrolled strip and overlooked by a blockhouse, were not insignificant.
'In sum,' continued Fitzduane, 'while Shadow Two is infiltrating from behind to take out the blockhouse on the high ground, three other teams are going to enter by the front gates. After all, what are gates for?
'In Salvador, the valley containing the mercenary garrison and the terrorists, the sentries will be taken out with silenced weapons, and two teams, six people, Chifune Shadow Three and Peter Harty's Shadow Five, will enter on foot and head immediately for the Yaibo barracks building. You will shut off the generator silently so it looks like a normal breakdown. You will also destroy the radio room, which is on the first floor of the main building. Then, again using silenced weapons, you will kill – I repeat kill – all Yaibo inside and anyone else you encounter except for the hostage. In the ensuing darkness, all of you will exfiltrate with the hostage and rejoin your vehicles, which will
