"I'm going to shoot him," said Brock sleepily. "He didn't say positively."
"But what about Oshima?" said Jaeger. "Where's Oshima?"
"Good question," said Fitzduane.
"Well, if she's inside the command bunker, she's dead," said Jaeger. "And so would you lot have been if you'd blown that door."
There was silence. No one particularly wanted to be reminded of how close they had come to blasting their way into a slow and messy death. After Madoa Air Base had been secured, the command bunker had been drilled by a chemical warfare team and found to contain lethal quantities of Xyclax Gamma 18 under positive pressure. Opening the door would have cause the nerve agent to flood out into the subterranean complex and possibly to spread throughout the airfield itself.
The decision had been taken to seal off the bunker rather than break in, while the chemical-warfare team figured out a way to decontaminate it safely. The problem was not straightforward. The nerve gas was volatile and so would ignite, but if the bunker contained explosives in addition to the gas, the combination could be akin to exploding a rather large bomb. True, it was sixty feet underground, but the extensive subterranean evacuations meant that there was no guarantee the effects of an explosion would be contained.
Jaeger was confident that the problem was solvable, but meanwhile it meant that no one had actually physically searched the bunker. Special suits and equipment were being flown in. In the back of his mind was the thought that some 41,000 tons of chemical agent were lying around the former Soviet Union. This was a problem that was not going to go away.
"We don't think she's dead," said Fitzduane. "If the pattern is any indication, she is lying low waiting to make a break for it."
"So you think she left the command bunker and is now hidden in some hidey hole under this place," said Jaeger.
Fitzduane nodded.
"So one of these days – if your theory is right – she is going to pop out of the ground and make a run for it," said Jaeger. "But when and where? And how long can you wait? I love my country, but I know its faults. The U.S. of A. likes sprints, not marathons."
General Mike Gannon was feeling progressively more impatient.
The 82 ^ nd Airborne was designed to carry out strategic missions rapidly and then be pulled out. Subduing the Devil's Footprint terrorist complex had been achieved. Keeping two brigades tied up now that the mission had been accomplished struck him as a misuse of resources.
He was itching to head back to Bragg.
"One goddamn terrorist and the entire division is tied up," he growled. "This is ridiculous. How much effort is Oshima worth? We've searched the entire Devil's Footprint complex, and diddly squat. She's either dead or she's long gone."
"She's still here, General," said Fitzduane with absolute certainty.
Gannon glared at him. Colonels were supposed to agree with generals, but this damned Irishman had his own way of doing things.
"I agree, sir," said Dave Palmer.
Gannon's eyebrows shot skyward. Fitzduane was one thing, but Palmer was his exec and definitely part of the system. He was supposed to snap out "Airborne!" in agreement and go with the flow.
"Colonel Palmer," he said. "Getting shot down and reincarnated has scrambled your brains. This division is not a democracy."
"Airborne, sir," said Palmer. He had a great deal of sympathy for the CG. Gannon genuinely cared about his men and fought to see that they were properly utilized. But on this issue he backed Fitzduane, and his eyes still showed it.
Mollified but not fooled, Gannon looked at Palmer, then at Fitzduane and the others in the group. He tapped the map. "So where is she?" he said. "And why haven't we found her? What haven't we done?"
"If she has run true to form," said Fitzduane, "she will have left the command bunker through an emergency tunnel and be holed up somewhere sixty feet underground waiting to make her move. The emergency tunnel will have been deliberately collapsed behind her. The only way we could have found her would have been by stumbling over her ventilation point, and even that would have been disguised."
"Tunnels," said Gannon in disgust. "Hell of a way to fight a war. Vietnam was full of the things, and we never completely winkled the gutsy little bastards out of them. But who'd have thought they would have built hundreds of kilometers of the things."
"The positive news, General," said Fitzduane, "is that we've got hold of the geological reports and they indicate you couldn't tunnel as and where you like. There is too much rock. So if Oshima is sitting underground, the chances are that she is somewhere on the north side."
"So where will she come up?" said Gannon.
"Somewhere on the northern perimeter outside the minefields," said Fitzduane. "She will do it at night."
Gannon studied the map. "That's still a whole lot of territory to watch," he said. "Worse yet, it's broken ground. Not a lot of major cover, but more than enough for someone crawling on their belly. But after that, what then?"
"There will be a cache of supplies a couple of kliks away," said Fitzduane. "Food, water, weapons, and probably some kind of transport. Something easy to conceal that can handle this terrain. Maybe a motorcycle or all-terrain vehicle."
"We can't find the cache either?" said Gannon.
"No, sir," said Palmer. "But we're still looking."
Gannon was lost in thought. He tried to imagine what it must be like to spend days underground while others hunted you. Foul air, little or no food, stale water at best, the constant fear of suffocation, darkness, no sanitation, insects, snakes, and who knew what else. A vile existence, but some people were prepared to endure it. Evidently, Oshima was prepared to endure it. You could hate your enemies and kill them without compunction, but it never paid to underestimate them.
"Run me through the perimeter surveillance."
Palmer explained the system of observation posts. Each sector was being watched by two teams, one using thermal sights and the other using night vision. In addition, antipersonnel radar equipment and chemical sensors had been set up. Theoretically a snake should not have been able to slither through without being detected, but Gannon knew that completely sealing off an area in reality was close to impossible. People got tired, equipment failed, batteries had to be changed. Even if you put a soldier every couple of yards, a skilled operator could get through.
"How long will she wait?" said Gannon.
"Forty-eight hours minimum," said Fitzduane. "Up to a month if she has to. Her main problem will be water, but she's had plenty of time to prepare so there's probably a tank of it down there. But my guess would be that she'll try and move out sooner rather than later. If she gives us too much time we could just get lucky. Also, our chemical sensors will have more to work with. She could well have carbon filters down there, but every day the stench is going to get worse."
Gannon walked around the map. It was hard to fault the staff work, but something – some assumption – just wasn't right. Reluctantly, he admitted to himself that Oshima was probably still around and that she was certainly worth taking out of the loop.
But something was wrong. It came to him.
"Your surveillance is based on the assumption she's going to emerge outside the perimeter?" he asked.
Fitzduane nodded.
"And outside the perimeter minefields?" said Gannon.
"Affirmative, General," said Palmer.
Gannon shrugged. "Maybe," he said. "But if I was her, I would come up inside the minefield. Especially if I knew where the mines were laid."
"Tiptoe through the tulips," said Fitzduane. "Only, the next in line gets blown up."
"I've got another point," said Gannon. "This meticulous surveillance is all very well if the Tecuno plateau remains its normal equable self – hot days and cold clear nights. But if the weather takes a turn? If Oshima isn't alone?"