Free The Devil's Footprint by Victor O'Reilly Page B

hot days.   Freezing nights.   The Badlands of New Mexico, only much
worse.   Most of the country is deserted
since the Tuscalero Indians were wiped out.   So what are you left with?"
    "Oil,"
said Kathleen.   "I don't just read
the backs of cereal packages."
    "Oil,"
agreed Fitzduane.   "And
a very large quantity of it.   Only, some of it is locked into porous rock formations and the big
question is how to get it out.   So one idea is to force something or other in so that the oil comes out .   Like steam or gas, for
instance.   Lots of stuff like that, only under high pressure.   You are trying to force the stuff out of rock , after all.   And rock is bloody hard stuff even when
geologists describe it as porous.   If I
hit you on the head with a porous rock you would not be pleased."
    "I'd kick
you in the balls," said Kathleen, "and with precision.   As to all this high-pressure stuff, I assume
that is an application for maraging steel."
    "So they
say," said Fitzduane.   "So
there's your answer."
    "Why did
they kill Patricio?" said Kathleen.
    "Maybe
they didn't," said Fitzduane.   "The killers were all Japanese."
    "Which
brings us back to Reiko Oshima," said Kathleen.   "Who is supposed to be dead but seems to
have surfaced.   Where was she seen?"
    "Tecuno,"
said Fitzduane, "by the CIA."
    Kathleen
looked genuinely puzzled.   "I
thought the CIA would not talk to Cochrane's people.   They regard the Task Force as an impertinence .   A
congressional sub-committee should not be involved in counterterrorism."
    "That is
the official line," said Fitzduane.   "But they also read and use the Task Force's stuff.   Otherwise, how old they know what Cochrane
and his boys are up to?   Even more to the
point, institutions aren't monolithic.   Hell, some CIA even talk to the FBI, though
only in parking lots with paper bags over their heads.   Or so they tell me."
    "This is
cuckoo land," Said Kathleen.
    "It's
Washington
," said
Fitzduane, "a land of shifting alliances.   A kind of architecturally superior Wonderland.   And Maury is certainly the Mad Hatter."
    "So who
gets their head chopped off?" said Kathleen without thinking.
    It broke the
mood.   There was a break in the
conversation.
    "That,
unfortunately, we already know," said Fitzduane grimly after the
pause.   "But who or where is to be
next is an open question."
    "Why do
these people do these things?" said Kathleen quietly.
    "Because
for a host or reasons we let them," said Fitzduane.   Because they can."
    He put his
arms around her.
    I am glad you
turned them down, Hugo, said Kathleen silently.   You have done enough . It's not your war.   I want you alive with me and our
children.   I need you alive.
    Let someone
else do it.

     

4

     
    Chifune Tanabu
regarded the serried ranks of Kidotai drawn up in full riot and combat gear in
the narrow lane and sighed.
    In their kendo-like
helmets and body armor and shields, it appeared almost as if a company of
medieval samurai had invaded suburban
Tokyo
.   They looked truly magnificent.
    Unfortunately,
seventy-five fine , upstanding members of the Tokyo
Metropolitan Police Department's heavy squad was not exactly what she had in
mind when she had called for backup.
    The
good-looking young — very young — police inspector who was her new liaison with
the security unit was carrying his protective streak too far.   Evidently, he had not much faith in her
ability to look after herself, even though he had been briefed that she was a
senior agent in Koancho, the Japanese internal security service, and had dealt
with more armed terrorists than he had years in the force.
    Well, Japanese
men.   What else could you expect?   Sexism did not even begin to describe
it.   They did not seem to realize that
times were changing.   A Japanese woman
today did not have to set her sights on becoming an office decoration while
waiting for the right salaryman to marry.   Some even carried guns, and right now Chifune