Free The Devil's Footprint by Victor O'Reilly

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