The Devil's Footprint (10 page)
Read The Devil's Footprint Online
Authors: Victor O'Reilly
"Might is
right?"
"Close
enough," said Fitzduane.
"Basically I am saying that if you have the will and enough
firepower, you can get away with it.
Suddenly you are a nation.
Strength apart, there are no inherent ground rules to this thing.
As General Nathan Forrest
said — more or less:
‘The secret of
success is to be the firstest with the mostest.’"
Kathleen
laughed.
Hugo believed in doing the
right thing more than most people she had encountered in her life, but he liked
to talk on occasion as if he was pragmatic.
His friend Shane Kilmara was pragmatic.
Fitzduane would die an idealist, and she loved him for it.
He was old enough to know better, but he
would not change.
He could assess the
actuality of a situation as well as anyone, and better than most.
But he was a romantic.
"
place," said Fitzduane, "and Diego Quintana, the governor of Tecuno,
is a very shrewd man.
On the one hand,
he has steadily built up his power base in Tecuno to the point where he can do
exactly what he wants, and to further consolidate his position, he is a leading
mover and shaker of the PRI, the ruling party in
"Quintana's
PRI involvement means that no one will ever move against him as long as the PRI
are in power.
He is one of the people
who run the whole of
so no one is going to worry too much about his own backyard.
Also, you must realize that Tecuno is in the
middle of nowhere.
People think
Or maybe
Who, outside
ever heard of
Well, now you have a
picture of Tecuno.
"Tecuno
is Quintana's private fiefdom.
Not only
is he one of the most powerful men in
cousin, General Luis Barragan,
runs
all the police and
security forces of Tecuno.
"Quintana
is a great believer in family.
You want
a rough parallel?
Think Noriega in
The only difference here is that Quintana has
constructed his state within the borders of another.
But that does not mean he will keep it
there.
Tecuno could shoot for
independence.
It won't be the first time
a piece of a large entity broke away.
Look at the
States of America
It used to belong to the
Empire
Kathleen
absorbed what she was hearing.
Like most
people in Western democracies, she had been brought up to believe in the
primacy of governments and official structures and institutions and the rule of
law,
and in her earlier life had not really questioned
these assumptions.
But living in
Fitzduane's world had opened her eyes.
She now was beginning to understand the fragility of so many human
institutions, and the many hidden forces that swirled around them — and in so
many cases actually dominated them.
The
public face of power was often not where the real power lay.
"It would
seem to me," she said, "that Governor Diego Quintana is sitting
pretty as long as his party stays in power.
On the other hand, if Valiente Zarra gets enough popular backing, then
who knows.
But can Zarra ever get
elected?"
"He
could," said Fitzduane.
"
to the
country as a thriving, growing economy with a genuinely democratically elected
government.
"The
means PRI's traditional approach of playing ‘stuff the ballot box’ or publicly
taking a machete to your opponent and serving him up in tortillas is frowned
upon.
It makes for bad press.
"Quintana
has emerged as the main focus of opposition to Zarra.
And Quintana is not the kind of person it is
much fun to be up against.
Zarra and his
people began to get extremely worried.
No one was killed publicly, but key Zarristas started disappearing —
permanently.
Major financial
contributors started to get cold feet."
Kathleen
pursed her lips.
She had, considered
Fitzduane, decidedly kissable lips.
She
was
also,
he kept on finding, a very sharp lady.
"So,"
Kathleen deduced, "Zarra decided to do some serious investigation of
Quintana.
He called upon his old
university buddy, gringo Lee Cochrane, for some help, and Patricio Nicanor was
sent in to Tecuno to sniff around.
"But why
Patricio?" she mused.
"Let me
think.
First of all, he must be a Zarrista
— because otherwise why would Zarra and Cochrane trust him
?
—
but
secondly, he must have some connection with
Quintana which would give him some access.
So, since we are talking about
family.
Patricio Nicanor was related one
way or another to Quintana or one of his people."
Fitzduane
grinned.
"Patricio was General Luis
Barragan's brother-in-law," he said, "and he was an engineer by
training and apparently a very good one.
He was also a qualified metallurgist.
Barragan need such a man and naturally turned to a relative.
Blood would have been better, but Patricio
would do.
He was still better than a
stranger.
"However,
Barragan did not know that Patricio was a Zarra supporter.
So Patricio went to Zarra, who introduced him
to Cochrane, and together they mounted a series of penetration operations of
Tecuno.
"At
first, all they got was useful but relatively low-grade intelligence because
Patricio was working in a lab in
moved to a highly classified base in a place called the Devil's Footprint.
Nothing for several months, because even
senior employees are restricted to the compound and access to the outer world
is strictly controlled, and then Patricio made a run for it.
I don't know what went wrong, but his cover
was blown and the word put out.
I guess
they had a shrewd idea where he was heading, or maybe he was followed.
And the rest you know.
It was a nasty way to die, but they were
determined he wouldn't talk.
And he
surely didn't."
"But surely
he brought something with him," said Kathleen.
"By the sound of it, he was an
intelligent man and he was a scientist.
He would have brought notes or tapes or negatives or something."
Fitzduane gave
a vaguely frustrating shrug.
"Two
packages were found on Patricio's body," he said.
"Clearly, he considered the material
important, because they were concealed and strapped to him under his
jacket.
One package contained a layout
of the base and the diagram of what they say is some kind of computerized controller.
The other consisted of a small metal bar and
some chips of concrete.
"A
controller for what?" said Kathleen.
"The lab
thinks gas," said Fitzduane.
"It controls the precise blending of gas.
There is a self-monitoring facility built in
and the processes are triplicated, and all three have to agree or the procedure
is shut down.
So whatever the system is,
precision is vital."
"Any idea
what gases," said Kathleen.
"We don't
know," said Fitzduane, "except that there are indications that the
quantities involved would be substantial."
"Does the
layout of the base give any hints?" said Kathleen.
"It might
have if it had been completed," said Fitzduane, "but though there is
considerable detail of the perimeter fencing, guard posts and the like, most of
the explanations are missing.
It looks
as if he started off with what he could see and was adding the rest as he
discovered what other buildings were for.
Different pens were used, for instance.
Anyway, he never finished it."
"What
about the metal bar?" said
Kathleen.
"Uranium?
Plutonium?
Radioactive who-knows-what?
Something sexy like
that?"
Fitzduane
smiled slightly and shook his head.
"There were no abnormal radiation readings from either the metal or
Patricio's body" — he saw the question on Kathleen's face — "nor from
the concrete chips."
Kathleen
wrinkled her nose in mock irritation.
"So what was the metal?"
"Steel,"
said Fitzduane,
"a high
-grade but relatively
common steel.
Maraging steel, it is
called."
"It
sounds like a cooking process," said Kathleen.
"First ‘marage’
your
steel.
Then add seasoning."
"That's
not so far from the way it is," said Fitzduane.
"Though the final use
can be less domestic.
The stuff
is used for all kinds of critical applications — including weapons."
"Gas, concrete,
and weapons-grade steel," said Kathleen, "in a heavily guarded remote
base.
This does not sound like a good
thing."
"Maybe
not," said Fitzduane.
"But
they all constitute elements in
a
high
-tech oil research facility — and
that is exactly what this is supposed to be."
"What are
they doing there?"
"Tecuno
is mostly on a plateau," said Fitzduane.
"High desert.
In that part of the world, that translates
into rocky, shale-festooned, waterless terrain.
Blazing hot days.
Freezing nights.
The Badlands of New Mexico, only much
worse.
Most of the country is deserted
since the Tuscalero Indians were wiped out.
So what are you left with?"
"Oil,"
said Kathleen.
"I don't just read
the backs of cereal packages."
"Oil,"
agreed Fitzduane.
"And
a very large quantity of it.
Only, some of it is locked into porous rock formations and the big
question is how to get it out.
So one idea is to force something or other
in
so that the oil comes
out
.
Like steam or gas, for
instance.
Lots of stuff
like
that, only under high pressure.
You are trying to force the stuff out of
rock
, after all.
And rock is bloody hard stuff even when
geologists describe it as porous.
If I
hit you on the head with a porous rock you would not be pleased."
"I'd kick
you in the balls," said Kathleen, "and with precision.
As to all this high-pressure stuff, I assume
that is an application for maraging steel."
"So they
say," said Fitzduane.
"So
there's your answer."
"Why did
they kill Patricio?" said Kathleen.
"Maybe
they didn't," said Fitzduane.
"The killers were all Japanese."
"Which
brings us back to Reiko Oshima," said Kathleen.
"Who is supposed to be dead but seems to
have surfaced.
Where was she seen?"
"Tecuno,"
said Fitzduane, "by the CIA."
Kathleen
looked genuinely puzzled.
"I
thought the CIA would not talk to Cochrane's people.
They regard the Task Force as
an impertinence
.
A
congressional sub-committee should not be involved in counterterrorism."
"That is
the official line," said Fitzduane.
"But they also read and use the Task Force's stuff.
Otherwise, how old they know what Cochrane
and his boys are up to?
Even more to the
point, institutions aren't monolithic.
Hell, some CIA even
talk
to the FBI, though
only in parking lots with paper bags over their heads.
Or so they tell me."