In this business it is your friends who betray you, she had been taught and she had not forgotten. The inner circle of Yaibo was regularly purged. It was a technique that worked. The terrorist leaders and dictators that survived practiced it. And Stalin, who had purged more than most, had died in his bed.
It was something of a paradox, but to survive in the world she had chosen, you had to kill your friends.
It was best that death served a purpose. Barragan was right. Rheiman would have to kept sweet for the moment – which meant Fitzduane's woman could not be touched physically. But the effect of the execution on her would be amusing. This was something she would not be used to. This would shake her up and maybe drive her into Rheiman's arms. Which would be a small revenge in its way.
The person to be executed? That was no problem. Who had served her best and most faithfully? Who had succored her after she had dragged herself from TokyoBay?
Hori would die. He was the man who least deserved to. It was appropriate. History had shown he was the most likely person to have betrayed her. Who else had become close?
Jin Endo had occupied her bed much recently, and her thoughts more than a little. He was young and he was devoted to her. He was a point of vulnerability. He had done well in the United States. He had served his purpose. 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.