until you looked closely.
'Have a look at that, for example. There, say my military friends, you are talking about a reinforced observation blockhouse. It is the kind of thing you would build if you wanted to look fairly closely at a missile taking off without being fried. Plenty of protection. You will note it is built into one side of the valley and overlooks the other.
'Our military friends identified other blockhouses designed, it would appear, purely for storage. Estimates suggest they are also heavily reinforced against blast. Hardened bomb or resistant structures.'
Fitzduane shook his head in some puzzlement. 'So we've got what looks like an oil installation of some kind – lots of pipes, and reinforced storage facilities and a blockhouse. I don't get it. Frankly, that kind of setup seems entirely consistent with a process for extracting oil under pressure. We're talking big numbers here. The compression of whatever they are pumping into the ground must be enormous. So if something blows you are likely to need all the protection you can get. A reinforced blockhouse seems entirely reasonable under such circumstances.'
Maury nodded. 'Fair enough if you exclude the street cop's instincts. But, in this case, we know Governor Quintana and Reiko Oshima and their followers. These are not people who take these kinds of precautions over an industrial process unless it can be put to practical – and normally destructive – use. These are seriously bad people.'
'So?' said Fitzduane quizzically.
'The U.S. of A. has ore than a passing interest in oil,' said Maury. 'We use a lot of the stuff, and we like to know where there is more and what people are doing with it and how we can lay our hands on it. That translates into a formidable intelligence capability. Not only can we detect where it is likely to be, but we can also monitor through various types of detection and sensor equipment where it is. We can, for instance, monitor oil flow through pipelines for remote satellite sensors. And frankly, we can do much more.
'Much of this technical capability had been focused on Tecuno recently. We have not learned much that is new – Tecuno's oil riches are no secret – but we were interested to find out that there is no evidence of oil in the Devil's Footprint itself except for the stuff required to run trucks. What looks like an oil installation, but positively no oil.
'None! Nada! Zilch!'
There was a long silence in the room. Then a collective reaction of surprise. Out of sheer curiosity, Fitzduane shot a look at Lamar. Even he was displaying a faint flicker of something or other.
'No oil?' said Fitzduane helpfully.
'No oil,' agreed Maury, 'and no activity in most of the pipes. We can detect that kind of thing with infrared and the like. You shove oil or water down a pipe and you do things to it. It becomes hotter or cooler compared to ambient. And there is more, but I'm not technical. But those are the principles.'
'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.
