voices way down. Sound traveled at night in the desert.
'SAS have more than paid their dues,' said Fitzduane, referring to the injured Peter Hayden and the dead Steve Kent from that unit, 'and I represent the Irish Rangers.'
'Which leaves Delta,' said the Delta contingent, including Calvin, virtually in unison.
'And since I was in at the beginning,' said Al Lonsdale, 'it just seems appropriate.'
Fitzduane nodded. 'Now let's do it, people. We go in ten minutes.'
The team dispersed and went to complete the final preparations. Fitzduane walked across to Shadow Three, where Kathleen lay sedated and wrapped in a sleeping bag against the night cold. He put his arms around her and held her close. Then he kissed her and hugged her again.
'Half from me and half from Boots,' he said. 'We missed you, little love. But now you're back and you're safe.'
'I knew you'd come, Hugo,' said Kathleen sleepily. ' I knew you'd come – and you have. I love you, Hugo. I never stopped thinking about you. And it made it all right, you know. Truly. It was terrible, but it was all right. I was strong. I was…'
Fitzduane tried to smile. It was difficult, because he was crying. All right! Jesus Christ! Kathleen looked terrible and he did not want to think about what she had been through. The baby? It would be too much to hope for. He did not ask.
He hugged her again and held her. 'I love you, Kathleen,' he said over and over again. She was already asleep; the drugs had won out.
Chifune was guarding Shadow Three. He took her hand briefly between his, and she smiled.
'All the way,' she said. And there were tears in her eyes.
'Always,' said Fitzduane. 'Always…'
They looked at each other. There was no need to speak. They had never been closer.
'Let's go,' said Fitzduane.
The convoy of four Guntracks moved out. Their next destination was the pickup point – and airborne to home.
Tecuno, Mexico
Governor Diego Quintana's mercenaries were mainly Mexican but included soldiers from many nations.
Major Khalifa Sherrif's country of birth was Libya. Major Sherif was not without military talent, but his map- reading skills were minimal. He could get lost crossing the street, which was why currently he was within striking distance of the Arkono airstrip instead of a hundred kilometers to the west as his original orders dictated.
Normally he could rely on his adjutant to keep him more or less on course, but a shotgun blast from one recalcitrant peasant had put paid to that convenient solution and had also fucked up Major Sherrif's one and only map of this dreadful area.
He had been fast asleep when the new orders came in, and he did not take kindly to being roused so abruptly. His mood took a sharp turn for the worse when he heard that he was to prepare for action and that he was to hand over command to the Japanese woman called Reiko Oshima.
THAT WOMAN! It was unbelievable. Women had their place in his particular world, but so did camels and dust and crawly things he did not even want to think about, and he only calmed down slightly when his ever-reliable sergeant brought him hot sweet tea.
A Mi-4 Hound helicopter beat its way through the darkness and landed to the side of the armored column in a haze of dust. He sipped his tea again as he waited for this Amazon to emerge and found that he was not sipping grit.
Two minutes later, he found that his command tank and his bloodstained map had been commandeered and he had been packed into the back of an APC like a common private.
With Reiko Oshima in the lead tank, the column headed at full speed for the Funnel, the narrowing valley that led to the airstrip. The hound had already taken off again to scout the terrain.
The column was able to make excellent time. All vehicles and the helicopter were equipped with active infrared searchlights that projected a beam that was invisible to the naked eye but showed up as illumination to anyone wearing the right goggles. It was an effective enough technique unless your opponent had infrared detection capability, in which case it was like driving along with full headlights on. You could see where you were going, but then everyone could see you – and from a considerable distance away.
Twenty minutes later, when the column was within just a few kilometers of the Funnel, a radio message came in from the helicopter that a cloud of dust heading at high speed toward the old airstrip had been sighted.
Reiko Oshima felt a surge of optimism and passed the order to prepare for action to her new command. The enemy, whoever they were, had every reason to believe that, in the middle of this vast empty space, no one would ever think of one long-abandoned airstrip among dozens built by the oilmen more than a decade ago.
Unfortunately for them, Reiko Oshima had scouted Arkono airstrip as a possible base for Yaibo only a year back and she knew the strip and the surrounding terrain intimately. She was also, she considered, getting to know her enemy.
The Arkono strip was not an obvious choice, but it would do – which made it a strong possibility. Other units were fanning out to cover other locations.
The black silhouette of the Funnel showed up in the distance, and Fitzduane thought of Calvin and how nice it would be to be able to check the valley and its environs from the air before entering their confines.
For all they knew, the valley now contained hostiles waiting to shoot them up. It was a near-perfect choke point. Nearly a kilometer wide on the way in, it narrowed to less than a hundred meters as it approached the airstrip. The Funnel was well-named.
He banished wishful thinking and focused entirely on the task at hand. He had a feeling he was missing some obvious move or precaution. He checked his watch and ran through the plan of the final stages of the exfiltration and the various contingencies and options. There was something there, he was sure of it, but what?
He switched to the Team Rapier radio net and pressed the transmit button. There was now less than twenty minutes to go before the pickup time, and they had reached the stage when speed was more important than running silent. 'Rapier Team, this is Shadow One. Deactivate super traps and increase to sixty.'
The diamond-shaped fighting group of four Guntracks surged ahead as the sound-suppression units were deactivated. The increased speed would be hell for the wounded, but the alternatives would be a great deal worse.
There was a sudden flash from the sky as the Mi-4 Hound turned on its infrared searchlight and swooped to try to see what this mysterious enemy consisted of. Reports had suggested armed jeeps, but no one seemed quite sure, and the armored column desperately needed more intelligence.
'Bomburst!' said Fitzduane, and instantly the four vehicles spread in four directions. 'Shadow One will take it.'
Heavy machine-gun fire arched up at the helicopter from three Guntracks while Shadow One halted and Al Lonsdale aimed a Starburst surface-to-air missile.
Green tracer and rocket fire from the helicopter plowed into the ground around the fleeing Guntracks, but the small black vehicles were extremely hard to hit. They were very fast and changed direction constantly, and clouds of smoke and dust confused the issue.
The helicopter's infrared searchlight showed up in Lonsdale's night-vision goggles like an arrow pointing toward a target.
Seconds later the searchlight vanished as machine-gun fire from the ground blew it apart, but he could still see the big machine through the Starburst's six-power sights.
Shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles were not foolproof, and the pilot knew that the Stinger, to give the example he was most familiar with, could be outmaneuvered under some circumstances and that its range was
