The Devil's Footprint (38 page)

"So the next thing you did," said Fitzduane, "was take a
computer-enhanced photo of Dali and strip out the pipes where there was no
activity?"

Maury's jaw dropped.
 
"Fuck
it, Hugo, how did you know?"

Fitzduane grinned enigmatically.
 
Back on his island, Henssen played these kinds of games routinely when
doing intelligence analyses, and Fitzduane, while no expert, had become quite
used to some of the procedures.

Combat was becoming more technological, and there was no choice but to keep
up.
 
Fitzduane had gotten through most of
his early years with nothing much more complex than an electronic calculator
and automatic exposure meters on his cameras, but his hunt for the terrorist
known as the Hangman had changed all that.

The slide changed again.
 
The new
image of the valley known as Dali showed a much simpler picture.
 
Most of the steel spaghetti had gone.
 
There was now one dominant pipe and a host of
supporting equipment.
 
The dominant pipe
ran up the side of one wall of the valley.
 
It was made of bolted-together sections and looked rather like a massive
irrigation pipe, or maybe part of a sewage scheme.

"The Purloined Letter," said Grant Lamar quietly.
 
"It's an Edgar Allan Poe story, as I
recall.
 
Everyone was looking for the
missing letter, but it was in plain sight all along.
 
I fear our Governor Quintana is a very clever
man.
 
I just hope we are not
underestimating him."

"I'm not sure this was Quintana's idea," said Maury.
 
"There is another name to factor
in."
 
I think I'll let Dr. Jaeger
take it from here.
 
He's more familiar
with the background and the technologies.
 
John?"

Maury sat down and Jaeger ambled to his feet.
 
His body language was disarmingly
reassuring.
 
He was more the kindly uncle
than someone who worked in one of the foremost
U.S.
weapons laboratories.

"Interesting problems you people do have," he said
agreeably.
 
"Me, I like crossword
puzzles, but the kind of things that Maury comes up with are more fun.
 
Part detective work and
part science.
 
And I have to admit
that I'm no good at crossword puzzles.
 
But here I think I can make a contribution."

"When Patricio Nicanor was killed — in front of some of you, I
gather, which must have been most unpleasant — he brought with him several
items that seemed to make little sense.
 
You may remember them:
 
a sample
of maraging steel; some concrete; a gas controller; an unfinished layout of the
Devil's Footprint; and a three-and-a-half-inch computer floppy disk.

"Not exactly good reasons to die for, especially since the floppy
disk proved to be blank.
 
Nothing on it.
 
Classic example of what happens to magnetic media when you go through a
magnetic field.
 
And we've now learned
that walking through such a field is standard procedure when you either enter or
leave the terrorist base.
 
These people
are serious about security.
 
They don't
want a virus being brought in or their trade secrets being brought out.
 
Very thorough.
 
Not foolproof, but a good precaution and
enough to zap Patricio's contribution.
 
Or so we thought!

"The concrete interested us.
 
Normal concrete is crude stuff, because it is full of air bubbles and
rather brittle, but it is cheap and malleable and you can strengthen it
adequately with reinforcing rods and sheer mass.
 
Now, when examined under a microscope and
with the kind of technology we have at
Livermore
— where atom splitting is routine business and quarks are particles we hunt,
not put on our bread — this stuff was rather special.

"The air bubbles had been squeezed out and microfibers of steel and
polymer had been added.
 
The end result
was a product comparable in strength to high-grade steel.
 
Brittleness was down to a fraction of a
percent of conventional concrete, and this stuff, according to our computer
simulations, also had tensile strength.
 
It was flexible.
 
It could take
shock without shattering.
 
Remarkably strong shit indeed."

He paused to drink some water.
 
Fitzduane's brain was in high gear.
 
"What could you make from it, John?" he said.

"Well, I don't know the cost implications," said Jaeger
cheerfully.
 
"You know us
scientists.
 
But theoretically you could
manufacture anything you could make with conventional concrete but without
using reinforcing bars and with vastly less mass.
 
Additionally, you could make near anything
you could manufacture with steel and it would perform as well or better
according to the grade of steel we are talking about.
 
Now, only practical experimentation would
determine the reality of this, but based on the sample we have, it looks damn
good."

"So, for example, you could make a car out of this concrete?"
said Cochrane.

"Sure," said Jaeger.
 
"Your greatest difficulty would be with the molding, and there
would be a slight weight penalty, but you could do it.
 
The point is
,
materials are more adaptable than you would think."

Fitzduane looked at the slide and then at Jaeger.
 
"John, I take it you don't want us to
guess where you're going with this?"

Jaeger looked shocked.
 
"Good
heavens, no!
 
It would take the enjoyment
out of it.
 
Have faith.
 
I'm getting there."

"Crank it up, John," said Cochrane firmly.

Jaeger made an agreeable gesture.
 
"Okay, we've covered maraging steel and super concrete.
 
The layout of Dali is up on the screen.
 
Now we come to the useless floppy disk.
 
Maury had it checked by his computer people,
and when we got it to
Livermore
we really go to work.
 
You have never
seen so much technology thrown at a floppy in your life."

"So how did it go?" said
Fitzduane.

"You know the computer nerds," said Jaeger.
 
"They only think in computer terms.
 
They were working on the premise that
something had been there but had been wiped, but just maybe could be brought
back.
 
So they went through the damn
thing trying to give the kiss of life to each magnetic particle.
 
Painful process.
 
I have never seen so much pizza and Chinese
eaten to so little purpose."

"And?" said Fitzduane.

"We can be slow sometimes at
Livermore
,"
said Jaeger.
 
"Personally I think
all the
MSG — but finally we got around to thinking more in
terms of Doom and less in terms of computer technology.
 
At 3:28
A.M.
in the
morning ,
one of the guys got carried away and
slit the floppy open with a pizza knife.
 
It was unusually hard to open, so he ended up smashing the thing."

Even Grant Lamar was showing involvement.
 
"And he found?" he said.

"Buckets of blood!" chortled Jaeger.

He held up his hands in apology.
 
"No, I jest, guys.
 
Inside he
found a liberal quantity of tomato sauce from the pizza knife, a passport-size
photograph, a bunch of letters and numbers that don't mean much, and several
names separated with dashes and a question mark afterwards.

"The photograph and the writing were on the inside of the case, so
the floppy could still rotate.
 
It had
been meticulously done.
 
You could see
nothing from the outside.
 
In retrospect,
the only revealing feature was that the casing on that brand of floppy was only
spot welded.
 
After it was glued it
appeared to be full-seam welded.
 
Your
Patricio Nicanor was a smart man and something of a craftsman."

"What were the names?" said Fitzduane.

"Edgar Rheiman
...
Edward Mann
...
George Bull?" said Jaeger.
 
"Probably the first two names don't mean
anything to you?"

Fitzduane nodded.
 
"They
don't," he said.

"Bu the third name?" said Jaeger.

Fitzduane looked up at the enhanced computer image and then leaned back
in his chair.
 
"I thought that was
technology that was going nowhere," he said.
 
"Nice idea but
outgunned by rockets?"

"That's what most people think," said Jaeger, "insofar as
they think at all.
 
The
supergun?
 
It's the notion of a
madman.
 
Well, I can tell you, most
people are absolutely wrong."

"How do you know?" said Fitzduane.

"I've built one at
Livermore
,"
said Jaeger over his half-glasses, "and though we make jokes" — he
paused for a beat — "we're serious people down there.
 
It works."

He leaned forward to emphasize the point, his face inches from
Fitzduane's.
 
"It really works.
 
It's fucking beautiful.
 
And the fuel source is everywhere."

Fitzduane raised an eyebrow.

"Tell me about your fuel," he said dryly.

Jaeger straightened and roared with laughter.
 
"The raw material is everywhere.
 
You drink it.
 
you
bathe in it, and for all I know you fuck in
it."

"But split out the oxygen?" said Fitzduane.

Jaeger froze in surprise and then beamed approval.
 
"Colonel Fitzduane, for the first time I
am beginning to think you may succeed on your mission."

Fitzduane smiled.
 
"If I get
into trouble, John, I'll think of you and die laughing."

Grant Lamar leaned across to Cochrane.
 
"Am I missing something here, Lee?" he said quietly.

"Hydrogen," said Cochrane.
 
"One of the main components of water.
 
Split out the oxygen and you've got a gas
that goes bang.
 
They've built a supergun
that runs on hydrogen, and apparently the fucking thing works."

"How far could such a weapon go?" said Lamar.
 
"From
Mexico
, that is?"

Jaeger roared with laughter.
 
"You guys don't know the half of it."

"How far?" said Lamar in the loudest and firmest tone of voice
that Fitzduane had ever heard him use.

"
Washington
,
D.C.
?
 
NO FUCKING PROBLEM!" said Jaeger.
 
He spread his arms wide and looked around the room.
 
"Am I getting through, people?"

"Could be," said Fitzduane.

*
         
*
         
*
         
*
         
*

Apart from the security lights, the camp was dark.
 
It was 2:30
A.M.
 
For once there was no night training, and the
team members were making the most of it.

Chifune tried not to notice Fitzduane's window as she jogged past.

Darkness.
 
A feeling of melancholy swept over her.
 
Just once she needed to talk to Hugo alone.
 
She knew what had happened before in
Tokyo
could not be
repeated — and certainly not under these circumstances — but she craved some
moments of intimacy with him.
 
Though she
yearned for his touch, for the feeling of his naked body under her fingers, a
simple conversation would be enough.
 
But
they had to be alone.
 
Completely
alone.

A small thing to want.
 
To need.

So far there was always someone else present.
 
It was in the nature of the training, she
knew, and in some ways the constant presence of others had made their meeting
again somewhat easier, but now her heart ached.

Behind her, his heart heavy with concern, Oga looked out through the
window of his hut at his charge until she vanished into the woods.
 
Then he lay on his bunk and tried to sleep.

Tanabu-
san
,
so beautiful, so strong, so competent in many ways — and yet so vulnerable.
 
What can I do to protect you?
 
You must rest.
 
Our fate will be decided in fractions of a
second, and if you are tired...

Chifune ran to the killing house.
 
The basic scenario was now second nature.
 
This time she focused on what might go wrong.