explosion of pent-up feeling.
Right now the mask of normality was down. It was almost convincing.
Fitzduane had made some calls before sitting. Since the kidnapping there had been no word of Kathleen at all. No messages, no demands for ransom, nothing.
Kathleen had vanished without a trace, yet Fitzduane proceeded as if he knew with absolute certainty that she was in Mexico. He was running entirely on instinct. He was probably right, Kilmara reflected. He had seen Hugo like this on a number of occasions before, and it was uncanny how often the man's feelings had proved right.
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 manana 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
