The Devil's footprint

3

Kathleen Fitzduane, clad in a silk kimono that one of Hugo's Japanese friends had sent as a wedding present, leaned on the terrace railing of their borrowed apartment in Arlington and gazed out toward Washington.

Graced with rich auburn hair and long shapely legs, she was the kind of natural Irish beauty who seems almost unaware of her charms. She had an easy laugh and an infectious smile, and there was a caring warmth about her. Right now her face was in repose and there was concern in her eyes.

Directly in front and below her, less than half a mile away, was the Iwo Jima memorial showing U.S. Marines raising the Stars and Stripes on Mount Suribachi after the bloody conquest of the island. In the middle distance was the Potomac and the Pentagon, and beyond that Washington, D.C. itself. Nearby was ArlingtonNationalCemetery and FortMyer, the home of the Old Guard.

It was a particularly good location to inspire an understanding of American history, and, as such, was not an accident, Kathleen was sure.

Lee Cochrane had arranged it, and she had some honest reservations about the chief of staff. He was a little too dedicated for her taste – if that was an adequate word – and she was concerned about her husband.

Hugo Fitzduane had a penchant for causes and a deep affection for America. Hugo and Cochrane seemed like a volatile combination. Indeed, it had already produced a nightmare of violence, though, to be fair, she could scarcely blame Cochrane for that. Or could she?

Kathleen's priorities were strongly influenced by her biological clock. It did not show yet but she was now three months pregnant, and the thought of the man she loved not being there at the birth was disturbing.

Yet in her heart she knew she was helpless. Hugo's ancestors had held – indeed enhanced – their positions by force of arms for many centuries, and the urge to take a stand and test oneself in harm's way seemed to be programmed into him.

But there was a heavy price, and she had witnessed it. She had been there when Fitzduane had been brought in close to death from terrorist bullets.

Later, she had become involved herself when terrorists had taken her family hostage and tried to use her information to kill Hugo in the hospital. They had killed her father, and she still paled at the recollection. She had seen the true face of terrorism, and Hugo was right. It had to be stopped. But by her husband? That was another matter.

It had been a strange way to meet, and though she had fallen in love almost immediately, she had not expected it to work. It was too neat: patient and nurse. Such relationships rarely endured.

But they had gotten married and they were content, and even the shadow of Fitzduane's former lover did not intrude more than was inevitable. Etan had lived with Fitzduane and had borne him a son, but then she had chafed at domesticity and had moved on to greater heights in her media world and Fitzduane had been left to bring up Boots alone. Until Kathleen came along. Now Boots was for all practical purposes her son, and soon there would be another arrival. It was happiness beyond her dreams.

Kathleen smiled at herself. But it was literally true. It was not perfection because it was the nature of life that nothing was quite straightforward, but it truly was – beyond anything she had hoped for in the past.

She smiled to herself as she remembered Fitzduane asleep with little Boots in his arms. This big tall man with his steel-gray hair en brosse and his curiously gentle, unlined face and his wound-scarred body, and this tiny cheeky boy, hair all tousled, splayed across his father, totally secure in his arms and in his love. Of course, Boots – real name Peter – was not so small now. At five he was shooting up like a little rocket, but he was still very cuddly and still liked to be hugged.

Long may it last, she thought, they grow up so fast. If they have a chance to grow up. The shadow of the terrorist threat was ever present.

Hugo had first encountered terrorism by accident, and then curiosity followed by a disgust for what the man stood for had led him deeper and deeper into the hunt for the Hangman. It had all escalated into something much worse than anyone had foreseen, and the fact that they had eventually triumphed was of limited consolation.

With the terrorist's death, he had taken sensible precautions, but, in truth, had thought such violence was behind him. And then had come the Hangman's revenge.

Terror was just a word until you experienced it, and then you knew that it was worse than anything you could have imagined, worse than any nightmare. Because it was not something that you were looking at in fear. It was reality and it was happening to you.

Fitzduane had just survived that second encounter, but then he had known that this was something he would have to live with – perhaps until he died. He and his family were permanently under threat.

Any day, some complete stranger, for reasons that made no sense to most civilized people, might attempt – and might even succeed – to snuff out his life.

The day was hot and humid as only a Washington summer can be, but Kathleen shivered.

When she had married Hugo, she knew, she had accepted the nature of the man and of their situation. She supported Fitzduane's decision to become actively involved in counterterrorism instead. But because it was the right thing to do, that did not mean she was happy with it. She wanted a live husband, not a dead hero.

Fortunately, Hugo's counterterrorism work was not an obsession. He did it because it had to be done, but he realized full well that such an essentially destructive activity could have a corrosive negative effect. And that was not the nature of the man. So he actively tried to do work as well that was essentially constructive. And that helped greatly. It gave their life a balance and was interesting in itself.

The threat remained. Rangers – Ireland's counterterrorist unit – now trained on the island as part of a security arrangement that Hugo had made with his old friend and ex-commanding officer, General Shane Kilmara. And Hugo's reserve status with the unit was not just a sinecure. He completed weapons practice and training daily, and was also involved in developing a new strike unit.

Hugo Fitzduane was a man of parts indeed, but, she feared, however he tried to disguise it, the warrior side of him was in the ascendant. But this was the man she had wanted and won, and despite her fears she was at heart content.

She thought of Boots, now staying with his grandmother, and laughed out loud. She missed the little monster, and she knew Hugo did too. He loved children. He had asked how big the little baby inside her was and when she had spaced her hands just so and said it was about the length of a good cigar, he christened the fetus "Romeo/Julietta." The name covered both the options he had pointed out.

But men weren't perfect. He had soon shortened the name for convenience to Romeo. To balance matters out, Kathleen used Julietta.

Neither really minded what sex the new arrival might be just as long as he or she was the child of Hugo and Kathleen Fitzduane.

The long-wheelbase limousine that had picked up Fitzduane from the apartment had tinted windows.

The heft of the door confirmed his initial impression. It was armored. ‘Bulletproof’ was overly optimistic in a world where armor-piercing RPG launchers were part of every fanatic's standard equipment. Technology, unfortunately, helped all sides.

Based on what Cochrane had said when he had called, Fitzduane expected to see a couple of hard-faced heavies in the front seats. Instead, a quite stunning redhead in her late twenties had ushered him into the vehicle, and when the driver turned he saw that the slim neck and smooth blond hair belonged, not to a rather elegant-looking male with a talented barber, but to a woman as similarly attractive as the redhead.

If this was security in Washington, D.C., he was sorry it had taken him so long to get here.

"Dana," said the redhead with the kind of stunning smile that could blow away a line of marines, "and this is Texas."

The blond head bobbed a greeting. She was otherwise occupied accelerating the limo through Arlington as if were a sports car instead of multiple tons of armored deadweight.

The dividing panel slid shut. This was a pair who focused on their work, which was currently the matter of keeping his body in one piece. Fitzduane thought there was a great deal to be said for travel. There were some sights and sounds and customs he really did not run across much back in Ireland. Dana and Texas certainly came into that category.

The limousine purred on. The internal loudspeaker pinged tactfully and then Texas's voice cut in. She managed to combine crystal-clear diction with a mellifluous twang.

"Lee asked me to point out Langley as we passed. If you look to your right, Mr. Fitzduane, you'll see the turnoff for the CIA. A short time back, an Iranian pulled up beside a row of cars waiting to turn and went down the line and shot each driver in turn with a Kalashnikov. Four dead. The CIA said it was an isolated incident."

"Wasn't it?" said Fitzduane.

"No, sir," said Texas quietly, and there was a further ping as the speaker shut off.

Fitzduane stopped thinking about voices like corn syrup and wondered again about the late Patricio Nicanor.

The assault was being passed off by the administration as an outrage against the subcommittee by Japanese extremists. The fact that a Mexican citizen had been among those killed had been attributed no special significance. This was an attack by the Japanese Red Army against the United States of America. Senor Nicanor's death was a regrettable accident. He certainly had not been specifically singled out.

It seemed to Fitzduane that being manually decapitated with the equivalent of a razor-sharp cheese wire was about as specific and unaccidental as you could get. But clearly the administration did not want any attention focused on Mexico.

Why not? Because the administration wanted free trade with Mexico, and that meant presenting Mexico as an expanding democracy – which was not exactly the way things were.

And why had it been so important to kill Nicanor before he could talk?

The turnoff was heavily wooded. The limo slowed and a pair of unmarked gates opened.

The limo entered and halted. The gates closed immediately behind them. They were on a paved drive carved out of the wooded terrain. The drive curved ahead of them and then vanished behind a bend.

"Mr. Fitzduane?" It was Texas's voice. "Could you please step out of the car?"

Fitzduane opened the door. He could see no guardhouse, nothing but trees, but he had a definite sense of being observed."

As he looked around, he noticed a hydraulically operated spiked vehicle barrier in front of the limo and a space beyond that, a rather deep space.

Forcing the barrier would not have been a good idea. This place was protected by the equivalent of a moat and who knew what else. Someone was very serious about security; very low key but very serious. The whole approach? Someone with an interesting mind.

"Mr. Fitzduane?" said Texas pleasantly. "When you're ready."

Fitzduane stepped back into the limo's air-conditioning with alacrity. Virginia summer weather was doubtless an acquired taste.

How had these people fought in this stuff? His respect for Grant and Lee and Longstreet and all their good people ramped up a notch or two. This was his mother's country, and it had been hard won.

The car surged forward.

Fitzduane gazed around him.

He was in a room that screamed military.

Of operations. Of missions planned and implemented and of the consequences.

The V-shaped table, the bank of giant screens, the lectern for the briefer. And the security.

The security here was of the more traditional kind. Armed, uniformed guards outside the door. Dana and Texas vanished.

He was underground. The limo had dipped without warning. He had been told the Pentagon was like this. You could recognize all the people who really counted by their pale skins. They rarely saw daylight or their families.

Fitzduane interrupted his musings to examine a large version of the logo that he had noticed on the shoulder patches of the uniformed guards and various other locations as he was ushered in.

In this case the logo was incorporated in an embossed shield that was mounted on the light oak paneling just behind the central chair at the head of the V. It showed a black Vietnam-era Cobra helicopter gunship head-on against a dark blue background. The contrast was slight. The helicopter silhouette was almost invisible. At the base of the shield were the letters ‘STSF.’

"‘Son Tay Semper Fi’" explained Cochrane as he emerged from a nearly invisible door in the paneling. It hissed closed behind him. They were alone in the room.

Fitzduane did not feel a whole lot wiser. Son Tay had been a famous U.S. raid into North Vietnam during the Vietnam war to rescue American prisoners. The raid had been a military success except that the prisoners had already been moved.

Semper Fidelis. Literally, “Always faithful.” The motto of the marines. “Keep the faith,” in modern parlance.

Easy to say. Hard to do.

There was a persistent rumor that the CIA had known in advance about the removal of the prisoners but had not told the raiding party. They had not wanted the North Vietnamese to be upset, so went the rumor, because the peace negotiations were at a difficult stage.

Fitzduane was far from sure he believed the rumor, but felt the story said a great deal about the chronic internecine warfare inside the U.S. military and intelligence communities. And that was before the administration and Congress got into the picture.

"STR – the STR Corporation," said Cochrane, "was founded by a Son Tay raider called Grant Lamar. Grant felt there were things that needed to be done in defense of this country that traditional structures were not really well-equipped to do. Too much red tape, too much oversight, too much media attention. His judgment was correct. His operation has been very successful. There are quite a number of companies like STR in and around Washington, but Grant is a major player though little known outside the community. He prefers discretion to prominence."

"An interesting man," said Fitzduane.

"He is," said Cochrane simply, "and he is a friend, which is why we are meeting here. The Hill has become all too public recently."

"It's your party, Lee," said Fitzduane.

Cochrane gave a slight smile. "I hope to change that, Hugo," he said, and Fitzduane felt conflicting emotions. There was the lure of the hunt, which brought a surge of adrenaline, and then there was an interjection of guilt and concern as he thought about Kathleen and Boots and Romeo and Julietta.

There were ventures he should not engage in now that he had a family. No matter how much he was tempted. He had, he knew, a high tolerance for risk, but for those who waited behind it was much worse.

Besides, he wanted to know without cheating which it would be. Romeo or Julietta. Boy or girl?

The conference room had filled up somewhat, though nowhere near its full capacity.

Dan Warner and Maury were both there. Fitzduane had also been introduced to Grant Lamar, and then Cochrane had said he would introduce other people in the course of the briefing. He wanted to move matters along.

Since Maury was actually sitting down, Fitzduane surmised he must either know all the assembled company or be on Prozac. When Maury got through the initial introduction stage, he was actually quite affable. It was breaking the ice that seemed to freak him out. Yet Fitzduane warmed to him. As he had sensed during the terrorist attack, Maury was sound.

Cochrane, head down, standing behind the lectern to one side of a giant screen, cleared his throat. The sound system was working. The room became silent, expectant. He looked up.

"Three days ago, Patricio Nicanor and five staff members of the Task Group were killed and others wounded. The purpose of this meeting is to cover the events leading up to it, discuss our findings, and to implement an appropriate response. As we know, no action is being taken elsewhere, for reasons which we will be discussing. I shall be covering some ground most of us are already familiar with for the benefit of our guest from Ireland, Hugo Fitzduane. I think everyone here knows his track record in counterterrorist work."

There were approving nods and looks from various people around the table, and then Fitzduane caught the eye of a familiar-looking face. He was sure he had not met the man before, yet the cast of features undoubtedly rang a chord.

The man was in his forties, good-looking if somewhat overweight, with a tousled crop of graying black hair and a thick mustache. He wore half-glasses and looked over them when he spoke. He had the air of an academic. He eyed Fitzduane with some interest before turning back to Cochrane.

"The Task Force came into being because some of us were concerned that the United States of America was not taking terrorism seriously enough. And I would like to add that although as Americans our first concern is for this country, we feel many of our neighbors and friends face the same threats and we should work together to counter them."

Here Cochrane made a gesture of acknowledgment toward the Hispanic-looking academic, and with a shock Fitzduane realized who he was. The man was Valiente Zarra, the founder and head of the Popular Reform Party of Mexico. He was generally considered the one man who was capable of toppling the PRI – the ‘Pree,’ the current ruling party in Mexico. The party that had ruled Mexico through fair means, and others decidedly more dubious, since the thirties.

Media reports all described Zarra as ‘charismatic.’

Right now he looked tired, as if he had slept in his clothes, but interested. Even involved. And this was significant, because the Mexican presidential elections were only months away and Valiente should have had other priorities than socializing secretly in Washington.

Fitzduane had strong doubts that ‘socializing’ was the appropriate term. He was more of the view that Zarra needed something. Needed it quite badly.

His followers, who worked with the same passion that supporters in the past had worked for John Kennedy, were known as ‘Zarristas.’

The Congress of the United States of America, Japanese terrorists, Mexico, and the Zarristas. It was becoming a decidedly rich stew. Nonetheless, Fitzduane had the strong feeling that there were more ingredients and he could just end up as one of them.

An Irish stew? Personally, he hated the stuff.

Cochrane was speaking.

"About three years ago, we started paying attention to Mexico and particularly to the state of Tecuno. There was the Camerena affair where a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent was kidnapped, tortured, and killed. Definite links between narcotics and terrorism were established, and the term ‘narcoterrorism’ came into use.

"The upshot was that more and more terrorist activities and incidents seemed to have some links with Tecuno. However, these leads were either never firm or merely a link in a chain of locations. It always seemed to be ‘soft intelligence.’ Nonetheless, connections were established with drug smuggling, money laundering, forgery, and incidents of terrorist violence and political assassination. It began to look to us as if Tecuno was becoming a haven for terrorists, much like Cuba, or East Germany when it was around, or Libya or the BekaaValley.

"It did not occur to us at the time that Tecuno was becoming much more than this. It was not merely an element in these various problems. Tecuno was the very source of such activities.

"But we might still be in the dark if it had not been for our good friend Professor Valiente Zarra." Cochrane gestured toward the Mexican presidential candidate. "I will let the professor explain his perspective."

Zarra stood up and went behind the lectern. He adjusted his half-glasses and then focused on his audience.

It was true, thought Fitzduane, the man did have something. There was the quality of a leader about him and that intangible called integrity. And when Zarra began to speak, there was also that extraordinary, quite compelling voice.

As a speaker, even in English rather than his native Spanish, well practiced after two decades of university lecturing, Valiente Zarra was dynamite. And charming. And, regardless of his academic background, highly political.

"My friends, I will start by making a confession. In my country we are rightly proud of our heritage, and it is not always a good thing to admit that one was educated for a time in the United States. Well, I attended Wharton for several years and that was how I met Lee. We were at university together. It is something, of course, I try to hide in my home country," he said with a smile, "but it is the reason I am here today.

"My interest in the state of Tecuno, senors, started off as a pure matter of politics. What I – my people – have discovered is why we are here today."

He spoke for another twenty minutes.

The punch line made the blood drain from Fitzduane's face.

Reiko Oshima!

It was the name of someone he had been absolutely sure was dead. Whom he had killed.

The name of a Japanese terrorist leader who had been the lover of the Hangman. Who had killed one of his closest friends, Christian de Guevain. Who had been the leader of the fanatical group Yaibo – in English, "The Cutting Edge." Whose people had come within a hairsbreadth of killing Fitzduane and his small son.

Reiko Oshima – also known as ‘The Lethal Angel.’

Fitzduane had seen her die, had seen her helicopter explode over TokyoBay as his rounds had pumped into it. No one could have survived that holocaust, he was sure. But the evidence was overwhelming.

She lived.

And if she lived, she was an active threat. She had to be stopped.

The rationale was indisputable. Cochrane and Valiente Zarra were passionate and persuasive advocates. Others joined in. Even Maury fixed Fitzduane with his soulful eyes.

"No," said Fitzduane.

"Hugo," said Cochrane. "You're the best-qualified man to do the job. It is a matter of fact, not opinion. You're the best there is at what needs to be done. We know what this woman has done to you and your son. You know she will try again. You can't leave it."

"No!" said Fitzduane heavily. "I cannot – my family comes first – and that is all there is to it."

Kathleen lay back, glowing nicely from the aftereffects of making love.

She had heard that pregnancy could go one of two ways, but certainly she had not found her own ardor diminished, and Hugo, if anything, seemed sexier than ever.

He was, without question, a very passionate man. Since she had found out she was pregnant, he had announced that he was particularly turned on by the notion that their very own little human was growing inside her, and there was certainly frequent evidence that this was so.

There was a whine from the kitchen, and at irregular intervals high-speed chomping sounds as if sand and the tentacles of an octopus had gotten into the gears of the appliance.

Kathleen smiled and then laughed out loud. Since he had been shot, Fitzduane had been forced to take his health very seriously while convalescing, and since then had become a permanent convert to hard daily exercise and healthier eating. The results certainly showed. However, sometimes, Kathleen felt, Hugo carried things to excess. He read widely and had recently discovered ‘juicing.’ The health benefits of this were apparent enough, but some of Hugo's blends were a little weird. He liked to experiment.

Frankly, Kathleen would have preferred if he confined this tendency more to their sexual relationship and kept it away from the juicer. He had once juiced raw leeks and turnip, and the resulting concoction had nearly killed them both. Still, he had been learning then. His recent blends were quite promising.

Hugo came into the bedroom clutching two pint glass mugs of a thick, frothy, multicolored liquid that looked as if it should have a rum base and a Polynesian name and have little umbrellas sticking out of it. Both mugs sprouted bent straws. Fitzduane wore the pleased look of an inventor whose latest experiment has worked, but otherwise not much else except a towel. His hair was still damp from the shower.

Kathleen took her mug and sipped it warily. Hugo was rational on most things, but he would juice, she had the impression, anything that grew. She had strong doubts as to whether the potted plants in the apartment were going to survive much longer. She was sure she had caught her husband eyeing them contemplatively.

"Ummm!" she said. "This is really very good."

"Mango, carrot, apple, celery, kiwi fruit, sorrel, parsley, red peppers, and…"

Kathleen looked at her husband. "What?" she said firmly.

"Ingredient X," said Fitzduane. "I'm like the Coca-Cola company. I keep my recipes secret. There could be billions at stake."

"Talk!" commanded Kathleen. She took another long sip. It really was extremely good. The straw got blocked and she drank straight from the glass.

"You've got froth on your nose," said Fitzduane. "It's quite becoming when you're naked. It sort of balances out your pubic hair."

"Where?" said Kathleen.

Fitzduane put down his glass. "Working from the top," he said, "if you put a fingertip on your nose and then follow it down over your mouth and chin and between your breasts and then down to your tummy button and keep on going… You find your public hair. And my hand. And you feel gorgeous."

"That's not quite what I meant," said Kathleen, her voice a little thick as Fitzduane worked on her.

Fitzduane did not reply. At the time he physically could not, since his mouth was otherwise engaged. Later on, as he entered his wife, she seemed, in turn, to be otherwise preoccupied. His nipples tingled as she tongued them, and later on she did other things.

It went on for some considerable time. There was definitely something to the idea, Kathleen thought as waves of pleasure repeated again and again and gradually subsided, that juicing promoted stamina. "What is ingredient X?" she asked dreamingly as she surfaced.

"Your wife has to be pregnant," said Fitzduane.

"You're a maniac, Hugo," said Kathleen, "and I love you."

"And love doesn’t hurt either," said Fitzduane. "But for true ecstasy, you want to add a little broccoli ginger."

Their earlier conversation had focused on Reiko Oshima and Fitzduane's refusal of the mission. And then other matters had distracted them.

Now, after they had made love and eaten, they talked late until the early hours. There was much that Fitzduane would have preferred to keep for Kathleen, but that was not the way it worked. Kathleen, he felt, had earned the right to know. In truth, she did not have to earn anything. He loved her. Their child was in her womb.

"Apart from Lee Cochrane and Zarra, a whole bunch of people talked," he said. "I'll try and summarize it."

"Start with Tecuno," said Kathleen. "I'm curious to know how one state can act as if it is an independent country. Surely the Mexican government would bring it into line?"

Fitzduane smiled. "When is an independent nation truly a separate country?" he said. "It is not as simple as a geographical accident. Mostly, it is what people and power and what people can get away with. In essence, might wins. That's history in two words. Look at Ireland. It was four separate self-ruling provinces until the Normans invaded. Then it became officially British and, perversely, united. Now twenty-six counties are independent and Irish, and six counties are British. Is it a coincidence that nearly twenty thousand British troops are stationed in the North? I'm not taking sides here, merely illustrating a point."

"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.

"Mexico is a big 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 Mexico since before Hitler invaded France.

"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 Mexico, 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 Mexico City or Acapulco when they think of Mexico. Or maybe Guadalajara or Tijuana. Who, outside Mexico, ever heard of Chiapas until recently? 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 Mexico, but conveniently his 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 Panama or Saddam Hussein in Iraq. 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 United States of America. It used to belong to the British 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. "Mexico needs international investment and access to the U.S. and world markets big time, so a strong group of realists wants to portray 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 Mexico, maybe we're back to 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 TecunoCity, but then he got 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."

"This is cuckoo land," Said Kathleen.

"It's Washington," said Fitzduane, "a land of shifting alliances. A kind of architecturally superior Wonderland. And Maury is certainly the Mad Hatter."

"So who gets their head chopped off?" said Kathleen without thinking.

It broke the mood. There was a break in the conversation.

"That, unfortunately, we already know," said Fitzduane grimly after the pause. "But who or where is to be next is an open question."

"Why do these people do these things?" said Kathleen quietly.

"Because for a host or reasons we let them," said Fitzduane. Because they can."

He put his arms around her.

I am glad you turned them down, Hugo, said Kathleen silently. You have done enough. It's not your war. I want you alive with me and our children. I need you alive.

Let someone else do it.