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
