The Devil's Footprint (30 page)

Life should be more rational, in Kilmara's opinion, but for Fitzduane, in
situations like this, intuition was rationality.

"Kathleen is in Tecuno," said Fitzduane flatly.

"Has that been confirmed?" said Kilmara.
 
"A positive ID?"

"No," said Fitzduane slowly.
 
"Nothing more than you know, and now the near
certainty that Oshima and Yaibo are behind this.
 
I've talked more to Chifune, and it's the
only thing that makes sense.
 
Incidentally, Chifune thought Oshima was dead also.
 
Now it appears that some of her superiors in
the Japanese intelligence community have been mounting an operation which has
gone somewhat adrift.
 
Instead of a
terrorist on an invisible string leading them to her colleagues, they've got
a loose
cannon.

"Even worse from their point of view, it looks like Oshima is
mounting operations against the
U.S.
from her Mexican base.
 
Given the
uncertain relations between the
U.S.
and
Japan
,
this is worse than embarrassing.
 
It's
bloody serious.
 
It might just occur to
someone in the
U.S.
government that the Japanese are behind this in some way.
 
They are not, she insists, but it looks
bad.
 
The
Tokyo
bureaucrats involved hoped the problem
would just go away.
 
Now it has escalated
and Chifune has been sent over to try and resolve it discreetly."

Kilmara tried to drink his Irish coffee without giving himself a cream
mustache.
 
He more or less succeeded.

He remembered Koancho agent Chifune Tanabu vividly from
Japan
.
 
Now, there was a woman of true worth, if not
exactly the wife and mother type.
 
He had
the feeling that she and Fitzduane had been involved briefly, but Hugo had
never said anything.
 
He had returned and
married Kathleen, the homemaker.

"Chifune knows Oshima better than anyone," he said.
 
"What's her take on Oshima's motive in
grabbing Kathleen?"

"Pure revenge," said Fitzduane.
 
"Interesting, Chifune thinks kidnapping Kathleen was a secondary
objective, a pure target of opportunity.
 
I tend to agree."

"So you don't think Kathleen is being held as bait," said
Kilmara.
 
"A sprat
to catch a mackerel, with Hugo Fitzduane being the fish in question?"

Fitzduane shook his head.
 
"It's possible, but I don't think so.
 
To spring a trap she would have to be sure
that I knew about the Devil's Footprint, and that would mean laying a
trail.
 
So far all the evidence is that
their base is being kept under wraps.
 
No, my gut tells me that Oshima has a different agenda and Kathleen is
peripheral.
 
If precedent is anything to
go by, Oshima will play with Kathleen for months, try to break her, and
eventually kill her.
 
That's the
pattern.
 
Oshima likes having a few
victims around.
 
It's a power thing.
 
She kidnapped a policeman in
Japan
and kept him chained up for two years in a cave."
 
He did not mention what Oshima had done to
her victim.
 
When the policeman had been
found he had been alive, but...
 
He
blocked the picture from his mind.
 
The
only consolation was that Oshima tended to leave serious physical torture until
late in the game.
 
Her initial torture
was always psychological.

"Tell me more about this Japanese agent in Tecuno," Kilmara
said.
 
"If there is someone on the
inside, surely you can get confirmation on whether they've got Kathleen."

Fitzduane recounted the history of the Japanese operation as he knew
it.
 
Then he continued.
 
"The good news is that thanks to
Chifune's man we now know much more about the physical layout and other details
of the base.
 
The bad news is that Hori-
san
, although in place and close to
Oshima, is having great difficulty in communicating.
 
In
Tokyo
,
he could use the phone or mail a letter or meet a contact in the subway and
do a brush
pass.
 
In
Tecuno, trusted by Oshima or not, the poor guy is damn close to being a
prisoner.
 
These people are
paranoid.
 
That's how they have survived
so long.
 
Informers are THE enemy, so
every precaution is taken against them.
 
Worse
still, the track record shows that your nearest and dearest are most likely to
betray you, so even the inner circle like Hori-
san
are not excluded."

"How had Hori gotten information out so far?" said
Kilmara.
 
"From what you say, there
has been some contact?"

"I asked Chifune exactly the same question," said
Fitzduane.
 
"Apparently he has been
there for about fifteen months and has gotten messages out only twice.
 
The first time he risked the mail to a
Koancho address in
Mexico City
.
 
The second time, he passed a package to a
Japanese service technician who was inside the perimeter servicing some
electronic gear.
 
That was a real risk,
because he did not know the guy.
 
He must
have been desperate.
 
But it
worked."

"Why not use the technician again if he has access?" said
Kilmara.

"It was a one-off technical problem," said Fitzduane.
 
"Normally, all the gear in the inner
compound is serviced by Quintana's people.
 
Further, the original serviceman was posted back to
Tokyo
.
 
Koancho did try and initiate a follow-up call from a planted substitute,
but no dice.
 
Insofar as is possible in
that place, no one goes in and no one goes out.
 
The word is that there is not the normal Mexican mañana approach to
security.
 
This place is very tight, and
it was precisely for this reason the Quintana brought terrorist mercenaries in.

"Oshima's primary job is to run a tight ship, and that she seems to
do.
 
Everyone is scared shitless of
her.
 
She does not give you ten days in
the cells if you fail to search a truck properly.
 
She has you staked out in the sun with your
balls cut off and ants and scorpions for company.
 
This is not a sweet-natured woman."

Kilmara smiled and then turned serious.
 
"There has got to be some way of making contact," he
said.
 
"Tell me something about the
layout and the routines."

"Tecuno is vast and the least-populated state in
Mexico
,"
said Fitzduane.
 
"Virtually all the
population live
on the coastal strip or in the port city of
Tecuan
.
 
Inland, it is hot, dry, arid plateau
country.
 
On average, inland is about
three to five thousand feet up.
 
You bake
during the day and you freeze at night.
 
There are few roads, because there is nowhere to go to.
 
Mexico
is railway country, but the
only railway line in this case goes along the coast."

"But the oil is inland?" said Kilmara.

"Oil seems to like emerging from godforsaken spots like the Saudi
desert or the
North Sea
," said Fitzduane,
"and inland Tecuno surely qualifies.
 
So the oil is under the central plateau, which consists mainly of rock,
shale, boulders, and sand.
 
It gets
pumped up by mainly automated equipment and piped down to the coast.
 
It is a strategic resource, so the whole
inland portion of Tecuno is off-limits to visitors on the grounds of protecting
the oil fields against bandits and saboteurs.
 
Because of the sheer scale of the distances involved, the security in
the area is carried out by the local militia operating from a joint army and
air force base called Madoa.
 
About eight
kilometers from that is the Devil's Footprint.
 
And the Devil's Footprint is where the terrorist base is located."

"The first thought that comes to me," said Kilmara, "is
that if I were Quintana, and wanted optimum security, I would have put my
terrorist base inside the airfield perimeter.
 
So why is it located eight kliks away?
 
Quintana isn't dumb by all accounts, so there has to be a reason.
 
And that brings us back to the Devil's
Footprint.
 
What has it got that makes it
worthwhile compromising security?"

"Their security has not been much affected — unfortunately,"
said Fitzduane, "though your point is valid.
 
It would be ideal for them if the two
locations were merged into one or at least side by side.
 
However, the terrain makes that impossible.
 
You need flat land for an airfield, and the
ground between the airfield and the Devil's Footprint is anything but.
 
So this is the best arrangement under the
circumstances and there is a road between the two camps.
 
The road encircles the two locations, so it
constitutes a perimeter in itself.
 
It is
too big an area to fence off, but it is patrolled regularly by light armor and
there is an armored column on standby which sometimes does a circuit as
well.
 
These people are serious."

"Let's get back to the Devil's Footprint," said Kilmara.
 
"El
Huella
del
Diablo!"

Fitzduane smiled.
 
Kilmara had had
to return to
Ireland
and his
beloved Rangers after the
Fayetteville
incident, and although they talked regularly, still had missed out on much of
the detail.
 
And that frustrated
him.
 
General Kilmara was used to being
on the inside track.

"The Devil's Footprint," said
Fitzduane,
"gets its name from resembling the footprint that might be made by a
cloven hoof.
 
It consists of two box
canyons side by side and from the air looks something like a pair of
horseshoe-shaped valleys.
 
To secure each
valley, all you have to do is to establish a fortified position on the high
ground and fence off each open end, and that is exactly what our friends have
done.
 
The first valley holds the
terrorist base and the second valley, nominally the site of a top-secret
oil-extraction process — so it is full of pipes and process plat — is what they
are guarding."

"And what is that?" said Kilmara.

Fitzduane spread his hands.
 
"I don't know," he said.
 
"Theories abound.
 
I have
heard everything from a missile site to a biological weapons production
facility.
 
When I next see pigs flying I
could even believe it to be that much-referred to oil extraction process.
 
Personally, I don't much care.
 
I am going down there to get Kathleen back
and wipe out some people who really do not do much for the advancement of the
human condition.
 
If
there is a third leg to the mission.
 
All I can say is that I hope we can do it fast, because it is not going
to be healthy to stick around."

Kilmara poured himself a mug of straight black coffee.
 
There had been a time when both men would
have mortally wounded a bottle of Irish whiskey over an evening's talking, but
Fitzduane was no longer much of a drinker and his sobriety was catching.
 
Also, there was much to think through, and a
reasonably clear head helped.
 
He stood
up and stretched.
 
"I need some air,
Hugo," he said.

Fitzduane opened the sliding doors and both men stood on the
balcony.
 
Fitzduane found he was quite
affected by the
Iwo Jima
memorial each time he
saw it.
 
It had not just become an
everyday part of the view from the apartment.
 
It touched something in him.
 
Life
was the way it was — imperfect but still precious — because some people, always
a minority, were willing to risk all.

"The paradox," said Kilmara, as if reading his
mind,
"is that the other side have beliefs and values
and dedicated people too.
 
We have
patriots and they have fanatics.
 
They
are both two sides of the same coin.
 
The
only distinction is that we think they are wrong."