Fitzduane 03 - Devil's Footprint, The

by O'Reilly-Victor

  He was looking forward to meeting this Colonel Fitzduane.

  He looked at his watch. It was after one in the morning. He had given the company an eighteen-hour day. A little personal time did not seem unreasonable.

  He put on swim trunks and then slid on a terry-cloth robe and headed for the pool.

  The corridors were empty, and when he got outside he could see that most of the rooms were in darkness. For all practical purposes he had the hotel to himself. It was not true, of course, because there was still a night staff on duty, but the illusion was there and he savored it. An exhibition was the unrelenting pressure of people day after day. Well, mostly he liked people, but sometimes he craved some personal space.

  Silent in his bare feet, he walked slowly down the path that led through landscaped vegetation to the pool. The vegetation was normally floodlit, but at this late hour the lights had been turned off and only the pool in the center was still illuminated.

  The water glowed like the entrance to a magical world. When he dived in, he thought, he would keep on swimming down and the waters would part and mysteries beyond compare would be revealed.

  He was just about to leave the darkness to enter the pool area when he saw ripples on the surface of the water. He paused, and seconds later a nearly naked woman emerged from the pool. She did not use the ladder but instead levered herself up effortlessly onto the poolside. Her body was long and lithe and glowed in the soft light.

  She was not just fit. She was in perfect condition. Muscles rippled under golden skin, and her figure was showed off to perfection by the minimal black fabric of her costume.

  She ran her hands back over her head, squeezing water from her close-cropped blond hair. Her carriage was erect, and something about her posture suggested formal training. If she had been a man, he would have thought military. Ballet? Modeling? No, she had the discipline, but there was too much hard muscle there in the upper body. In this case, functionality ran ahead of appearance.

  This woman did not just want to be fit. She needed the strength and stamina.

  As he watched, she leaned down casually and picked up a towel. She dried her face, and as she did so she turned quite naturally to face in his direction.

  "Come on in," she said. "It really would be a cool idea. Don't be shy. It makes me nervous."

  Her hands were outstretched. They were not empty.

  Shanley looked down at the front of his robe. The red dot of the laser sight rested neatly on his torso. It was not quite central but sat slightly to the left. The red dot was steady.

  Rib cage, heart, lungs, and all kinds of other useful bits he was quite attached to in one burst. It looked like a mini-Uzi. Neat trick, that, with the towel.

  He stepped into the light. It seemed like a remarkably good idea.

  "Ah, Mr. Magnavox," she said slowly. "I saw you on the stand. You were playing with a Stinger missile. Thermal sights, if I recall."

  Shanley nodded. She looked at him carefully as if checking, and then the outstretched arms relaxed. He looked at his torso. The red dot was gone. He could feel his heart pounding.

  "You don't seem to need them," he said.

  * * * * *

  He swam hard for fifteen minutes, notching up the lengths in a fast crawl. He was a strong swimmer. The luminous water was as he had thought. It was another world.

  Finally he slowed and turned onto his back to float. Stars glittered in the night sky above him.

  She had left earlier. Now she stood there with two glasses in her hands. She was wearing a white djellaba trimmed with gold. The hood was down. She had, he thought, the most beautifully shaped head.

  He hauled himself out of the pool, conscious that fit though he was, he was making heavier weather of it than she had. Of course, he was a good ten years older, but still...

  "I talked to the kitchen," she said. "Irish coffee. Tastes good after a swim."

  He put on his robe and took the hot glass. They sat at a poolside table facing each other. His wedding ring glinted in the light as he drank. She wore none, he noticed.

  "My name's Shanley," he said. "Don Shanley."

  "I know," she said. "I asked. You looked interesting. Married, but interesting."

  Shanley smiled. "I'm still married," he said.

  She laughed. "You still look interesting," she said. "That doesn't mean I have to sleep with you — even at a trade show where sex seems to go with the territory. I guess I want to talk. I don't know why. It's just one of those nights. I just don't want it to end."

  They talked about everyone and everything until the sky began to lighten and there was no choice but to part. They never touched.

  "What's your name?" said Shanley just before he left. And then he added as an afterthought, "And rank?"

  "Folks call me Texas," she said. "I made captain before I quit. Airborne."

  "It shows, Texas," said Shanley. "Thank you. You're a pleasure to meet."

  After he left, Texas sat by the pool for quite some time.

  7

  Kathleen was subdued and distant in the morning.

  She breakfasted early and lightly and headed for the coast to do some sightseeing. She wanted to get as far away from Fayetteville/Fort Bragg as possible. The entire area seemed to be making an industry out of preparing to kill other humans, and she found it all depressing. Even the hotel pool offered no relief. During the day it was used to demonstrate equipment by Navy SEALs.

  The military presence was unrelenting. And they were all so damned cheerful and gung-ho about it. She was awash in camaraderie and male bonding, and if she was not careful she would drown.

  She loved Hugo and would endure what was necessary given their situation, but it was not her world. She understood that Fitzduane did not enjoy being under threat either, but there was a fundamental difference. Hugo was comfortable with his world of weapons. He was not confined to it, but he functioned supremely well in it. It was something of a shock seeing him this way. In Ireland, on the island, Hugo trained with the Rangers, but it was somehow more subdued. Here it was very American and very extroverted, and she felt the whole damn thing was being rammed down her throat.

  She had heard that much of the North Carolina coast was very beautiful. Some totally civilian scenery would be nice. She savored the word civilian. It had always seemed such a dull word. Now it carried with it an ethos her heart cried out for.

  * * * * *

  "You look vaguely shook, Hugo," said Kilmara cheerfully as he found Fitzduane alone having breakfast. "The wife been beating you again, or is it the prospect of yet another warm sunny day? It's disorienting for us Irish. We're like certain types of plants. We expect to get rained on regularly but unpredictably."

  Fitzduane did not wear his heart on his sleeve, but Kilmara was someone who was very close to him.

  He smiled. "Kathleen is not a happy lady, which is unusual. She awoke not in good form and headed as far away from uniforms and military hardware as possible. I think she plans to roam and sunbathe along the North Carolina coast."

  "Lucky North Carolina," said Kilmara. "If you don't mind me commenting on your wife, Kathleen looks sumptuous in a swimsuit. Also, she is right. All this military stuff is bullshit. It's fun, but it's ridiculous. And it gets people killed. If I wasn't a general, I would jack the whole thing in. And hell, man, you don't want a wife who wears jump boots in the kitchen."

  Fitzduane did not reply to this sally, which was unusual. He normally enjoyed Kilmara when he was being outrageous. There was something else to all this.

  Kilmara gave his friend space and focused on his scrambled eggs. Soon enough, Fitzduane spoke.

  "Out of the blue, for no reason that I could think of, Kathleen asked me if I ever thought of Etan. Well, the question was so unexpected, I did not dissemble in any way. I told her the truth."

  Kilmara was silent under the cover of hunting for some marmalade. He did not really understand American breakfasts.

  He was also very fond of Etan, Boots
's mother, and had been quite upset when she had opted for a career ahead of Fitzduane. Particularly when she still loved the man. But people were nothing if to perverse. He was also very fond of Kathleen. He thought his friend had excellent taste in women. A Japanese name also came into his mind, but he could not quite recall it. That was the trouble with these military conventions. Soldiers all drank as if there were no tomorrow. Of course, sometimes they were right.

  "Some men can sleep with a woman and then wipe the encounter from their mind as if it was of no consequence," said Fitzduane. "You can do that, Shane. I can't."

  "Sometimes it is of no consequence," said Kilmara. "Sex should not be confused with romance, though I admit they can overlap. But if you carve the name of every woman you have slept with on your body, you'll end up looking like an old oak tree on lovers' lane. Well, I like my bark pristine. I also believe in concentration of effort. Remember only the good ones — and for heaven's sake, be quick or selective."

  Fitzduane smiled.

  "So what did you tell Kathleen when she asked about Etan?" Kilmara asked.

  Fitzduane took his time replying. "I think about Etan every day," he said. "She is the mother of my son. Every time I see Boots I am reminded of her. I think of what might have been — of what should have been. And it makes me a little sad. She was my lover and she was my friend. I've adapted, but I miss her."

  Kilmara's cup of coffee was frozen in midflight. "You said all that, Hugo?" he said. "Holy shit! Someone is going to have to lock you up." He rolled his eyes. "Basic training: Women do not like to be reminded of other women unless you have a ménage à trois. What am I going to do with you!"

  "I also said that I have never been happier than with Kathleen and I love her with every atom of my being," said Fitzduane quietly. "And that's true also."

  Kilmara waggled his hand and beamed. "Well, for an idiot you recover well." He frowned. "And you did this all over breakfast? Now, that is ridiculous."

  Fitzduane smiled and then changed the subject. "Where is Maury?" he said.

  "In his mobile home," said Kilmara. "He has got an encrypted mobile phone that he talks to Lee Cochrane with. Mark my words. Those guys are plotting."

  "What about?" said Fitzduane.

  "Think of them as travel agents," said Kilmara. "I think they are still planning to get you to Mexico. They have this thing about Tecuno, and they think you are the best man for the job. Kind of flattering in its way."

  "Not a chance," said Fitzduane. "I have enough firefighting to do at home."

  "With Kathleen?" said Kilmara, slightly taken aback.

  "With Boots," said Fitzduane with a smile. "My sweet little five-year-old son. You know, the one who was found playing with your loaded service automatic the last time you were staying. He nearly got it into action, too."

  Kilmara went pale. He remembered all too well. Terrorism was something he was used to dealing with, but a curious five-year-old was a higher order of threat altogether. And television made the kids familiar with safety catches and the like. Boots had found he was not strong enough to work the slide and had been experimenting holding the weapon in a vise and using two hands when he was caught. He was an ingenious little monster.

  "You've got a point," Kilmara said with some feeling.

  * * * * *

  About fifteen minutes away from the main exhibition, live-firing demonstrations were being given in a converted quarry. You could evaluate weapons just so far in a booth.

  Fitzduane and Kilmara took the shuttle bus over. They had not told either Dana or Texas, so they felt a little bit like kids dodging school. On the other hand, it would have been a foolish terrorist indeed who tried anything.

  The passengers were equipped with every conceivable kind of weapon to try out on the range. In addition, both men were armed, though automatics were as nothing compared to the exotic firepower they were surrounded with. Fitzduane reflected that the domestic pop-up toaster might not have seen much development over the last half century, but certainly weapons manufacturers had not stunted their ingenuity.

  It was hot in the quarry, and a blazing sun in a clear blue sky indicated that it was going to get hotter still.

  About forty attendees were gathered in a rough semicircle behind the firing line. Perhaps a third were uniformed, and the rest wore every from black T-shirts emblazoned with slogans — matched with fatigues bloused into combat boots — to suits and ties. More than a dozen were women.

  "I don't know whether this is fun or horrible," said Fitzduane.

  "Watching things go bang. This is fun," said Kilmara cheerfully. "When the quarry starts to shoot back... that is horrible."

  There was movement at the firing line, and a man dressed in well-worn but starched fatigues faced the gathering. He wore a DI's flat-brimmed hat as if it had grown with him in his mother's womb.

  "My name is Cutler," he said. "You're about to see a demonstration of the Brunswick RAW — Rifleman's Assault Weapon. It's an unusual weapon."

  A 5.56 FN Minimi light machine gun, bipod extended, was positioned on the ground beside him with its muzzle pointed toward a sandbag bunker two thicknesses thick about three hundred meters away.

  In front of the bunker and leaning against it was a heavy steel armor plate.

  "The trouble with the bad guys," continued Cutler, "is that they are not always willing to stand up and be shot at. They don't play fair. They get behind cover like bunkers or reinforced concrete positions that your itty-bitty rounds can't penetrate, and then what the fuck do you do? It's downright embarrassing."

  There were smiles from the assembled group.

  "We already have rocket and grenade launchers," Cutler went on, "but rocket launchers are bulky and the 40mm grenade does not quite have the punch for a strongpoint. And so they came up with the RAW. Essentially, it is a spin-stabilized elongated ball five and a half inches in diameter — a teardrop shape — that you fire from a launching mechanism that you attach under the muzzle of your personal weapon."

  Cutler opened a compact clamshell container and clipped the mechanism and then the projectile in place. The entire exercise took less than ten seconds.

  "With the RAW in place, you can still use your weapon as normal. The interesting thing is that for three hundred meters, the projectile's trajectory is virtually flat. Using your rifle sights, where you point it will hit. At longer ranges we're talking indirect fire, but it will go up to fifteen hundred meters."

  Cutler picked up the Minimi with the RAW now attached. "As I said, there is no recoil or backblast, so you can fire it standing or sitting or however you want. The bipod is not necessary except to steady your aim."

  He then reached out his hand, turned the RAW activator switch, aimed at the bunker, and fired.

  The projectile hissed from its nest under the barrel and then accelerated rapidly.

  It looked harmless, thought Fitzduane, more like a well-spun ball than a weapon. But after its initial acceleration, it was extremely fast.

  The distant bunker protected by its armor plate could be clearly seen.

  And then it just disintegrated, the explosion startlingly violent and more like a heavy artillery shell than a grenade. It seemed an extraordinary amount of destructive power from such a small sphere.

  "Well, I'm buggered," said Kilmara. "That little thing does all that damage by itself? You must have set off some explosives in it. You're pulling a fast one, Sergeant."

  Cutler grinned. "No, sir," he said. "What you saw is what you got. The RAW is one effective sucker. Ain't technology a wonderful thing. In destructive power, the grapefruit is equivalent to a 105mm howitzer shell."

  "Suppose that grapefruit catches an incoming round?" said Fitzduane.

  The fact that the RAW had neither recoil nor backblast had caught his imagination. You could use it in a confined space and mount it near anywhere.

  "Good question," said Cutler, "but not to worry. The explosive used is insensitive. If it gets too hot it won't explode,
and the same applies if it takes a round. We tested it with a .50, and nada."

  "Any more tricks?" said Fitzduane.

  Cutler nodded. "There is also a dual-purpose projectile that combines anti-armor or bunker busting with antipersonnel capability. You set the range at which it will explode with a built-in display and then it will fire three thousand tiny tungsten balls that will kill or injure everything an arc with a radius of about a hundred and sixty square meters. The balls have an escape velocity of six thousand feet per second. That momentum will take you through a flak vest or a Kevlar helmet. That's a lot of very destructive metal flying around. It will shred people, soft vehicles, light armor and aircraft — and it's very bad news for helicopters."

  He turned and faced another target about two hundred meters away. This time, instead of one bunker, a hundred and fifty combat targets showing a menacing crouching infantryman advancing had been set out to simulate an attacking enemy force. They were in three irregular rows and were spread out in a line over two hundred meters wide and fifty meters deep.

  Cutler picked up a RAW munition and fitted it, then adjusted the range on a small LED dial. Then he aimed slightly high. "Airburst," he said, and fired.

  Every man in the assembled group examined every target after the demonstration. And every single target had been hit.

  One single RAW round.

  * * * * *

  Somewhat subdued by what they had seen, Fitzduane and Kilmara had a quick lunch and headed for Maury's mobile home to meet their Magnavox contact.

  Having a serious discussion at a busy exhibition stand was not easy. Also, Maury's vehicle was more working base than home. In it were excellent communication and office facilities.

  Maury liked to travel, but he also liked to work. In truth, he never seemed to stop working. Certainly, one element that underpinned his detailed knowledge of the terrorist world was sheer application.

  So far he had spent just one hour at the exhibition. He had done a lightning tour and then returned to his mobile burrow. Military gadgetry was all very well and he kept himself informed, but what really turned Maury on was the live game. Thanks to modern satellite communications, he could play that anywhere — and he did.