Read The Devil's Footprint Online
Authors: Victor O'Reilly
Lonsdale nodded.
"Geronimo Grady.
One hell of a driver.
You know, one name on that Delta list has set
me to thinking," said Lonsdale.
"Who?" said
Fitzduane.
"Calvin Welbourne," said Lonsdale.
"Short thin black guy
with a manic sense of humor and no nerves that I've ever detected.
A very bright fellow.
Thinks in three
dimensions."
"What does Calvin do?" said Fitzduane.
Lonsdale flashed a grin.
"Delta, Colonel, as you know, walks on water.
Calvin goes one better."
"Hit me with it," said Fitzduane.
"He flies," said Lonsdale.
*
*
*
*
*
They started into the finer details of the mission.
Lonsdale's police radio chattered occasionally in the background.
He was on duty around the clock if he was
needed, but apart from that proviso, his hours were flexible.
The main issue on the radio seemed to be
where the two officers on duty should meet up for lunch.
The phone rang.
It was Lee
Cochrane calling from
"Developments, Hugo," he said, his voice sounding tired and
serious.
"You'd better get back
here fast."
"Anything you can talk about?"
"Negative," said Cochrane firmly.
Tension and fatigue could be detected in his
voice.
"Some serious shit is going
down.
So ASAP,
Hugo."
"Roger that," said Fitzduane.
He replaced the receiver.
Outside, on the deck, Lonsdale was standing talking intently into his
radio.
He finished as Fitzduane emerged
into the bright sunlight.
"Come on, Hugo.
Let's
go!" he said.
Fitzduane looked at him.
"I've got to get back to
he said.
"Something's
happened."
"You don't have to go back to
the radio to it.
"The fucking bank
has been robbed.
I'll never get away if
this is not sorted out.
Are you
carrying?"
Fitzduane nodded, trying to suppress a smile.
"I thought nothing ever happened in
Medora."
"Nothing does except when you're around, Hugo," said
Lonsdale.
"Come on!
Let's move!"
He headed down the stairs that led from the
deck to the yard below.
"What are we doing?" said Fitzduane, following in Lonsdale's
footsteps.
"We're going to try and cut them off," said Lonsdale, getting
into his vehicle.
"There are four
of them in a jeep, and they are headed out of Medora this way.
Lots of places to hide out
in.
This is big country."
"Armed?" said Fitzduane.
Lonsdale roared away, leaving a bunch of disturbed-looking snakes in his
wake.
"Of course they're armed," said Lonsdale irritably.
"I don't know how they rob banks in
Guns are the American way.
The right to bear them is written into our
Constitution.
So far we have one dead
bank guard and a teller who is not looking so good."
"What kind of firepower?" said
Fitzduane.
"Assault rifles and shotguns and doubtless a few handguns,"
said Lonsdale.
He grinned.
"And they seem quite happy to use
them.
So if the shit hits, shoot fast
and often."
"Very nice," said Fitzduane.
"But don't forget to tell them that I'm a tourist."
12
Kathleen had not expected the violence.
The possibility was always there, she knew, but she had rationalized
that it was remote.
Outside the
high-crime areas, the
States
peaceful.
She was vacationing, relaxing
in the warmth of the day.
Her depression
had passed.
She had been feeling mellow
and outgoing, and it was in that spirit that she had picked up the perky army
sergeant who had been hitching back to
The shock of the assault had stunned her.
The hitchhiker she had picked up had been alive and chatting to this lost
Japanese tourist, and a short while later she was spewing blood all over
Kathleen, her throat gaping open like some obscene parody of a mouth.
Her eyes were still alive and her body was dying, and she knew and was
afraid and there was nothing either of them could do.
It was only a few seconds, but it seemed an
endless horror.
And then the light went from
her eyes and her face grew slack and she was no longer a human being.
And Kathleen screamed.
"My b—"
My baby!
My baby!
Her words were cut off half spoken and unheard as a fist slammed into her
mouth.
Dazed, she was dragged from the
rental, thrown to the ground facedown, and then bound and gagged in seconds.
There was no time to resist or protest.
She felt a needle and she was unconscious.
She had a faint recollection of the beating of rotor blades and of
vibration, and then there was an increase in tempo as the helicopter took
off.
The flight seemed to be short.
She had been thrown onto the floor and
handcuffed to the metal frame of the seat.
She was injected again and lost consciousness.
She woke up as someone was chaining her hands.
She had thought at first that she was still
on the aircraft, but then realized that the floor was different.
She was now lying on rough concrete and the
air was hot and dry and there was no drone of an aircraft.
Shortly afterward, she felt someone put chains on her ankles and she
started to sob and was slapped in the face.
She could see nothing.
She was
blindfolded.
She could hear voices.
One language, she thought, was Japanese, but
she also heard Spanish.
She was sure about the Spanish.
Both sexes were speaking.
One
voice was authoritative, a woman's.
Other voices were agreeing with her orders.
She was thirsty and called for water.
None came, and the hours passed.
It grew cold and she started to shiver, and her thirst grew even
greater.
It was a nightmare, but she was
awake and there was no end.
She slept
until she was kicked awake.
Then bliss:
She could taste water, a whole mouthful of water.
She held up her chained hands to grasp the plastic bottle, and just as
she touched it, it was pulled away from her and there was laughter and she
could feel the water pouring over her body and draining onto the floor and she
pressed her face to the wet floor and licked it until her tongue bled.
Always, there was The Voice.
Oshima?
Could it be her?
She had tried to keep time by counting meals, such as they were, and
sleep, but after a while she realized that her captors were deliberately
varying food intervals and were also keeping her from sleeping for a natural
length of time.
She had an impression of
weeks rather than days, but there was no certainty in this thought.
She was kept blindfolded and chained, and
there was no point of reference.
The blindfold was totally opaque and was taped in place, and she had not
even the relief of light percolating through to tell whether it was day or
night.
She tried to tell by the
temperature, but sometimes the heat of the day seemed to last so long that she
was convinced they were heating her cell at night to further disorient
her.
She cried at the thought.
She had almost run out of tears, but this was
such a petty, malevolent act.
They were
leaving her nothing.
She grew thin and very weak on the minimal rice-and-water diet she was
fed, but every so often, when it seemed she would faint from hunger and escape
from her suffering, her food allocation would be increased for several meals.
There would be refried beans and perhaps an
orange, and occasionally some tinned fish.
They wanted her to suffer but not to die as yet.
She was being kept like an animal in a cage,
a curiosity.
She was far from sure there
was any other purpose.
She almost got used to being kicked and slapped and beaten, but The Voice
brought her to the edge of despair.
Since her body was held captive, she focused on her mind, and The Voice
followed her there seeking to destroy any positive thought, any remaining
hope.
And The Voice was without
pity.
Remorselessly, it focused on
destroying her until nothing would be left but despair.
The Voice, to Kathleen, was the true embodiment of evil, and it never
seemed to go away.
She could hear it
when it was not speaking.
She could hear
it in her troubled dreams.
The Voice would taunt her to her grave.
It reminded her that no one knew where she was.
Perhaps no one even cared.
She would be kept chained and blindfolded until she died.
After her spirit was broken,
then
would come pain.
She had pain to look forward to.
Pain was her future.
After pain would
come
death, Kathleen thought,
and she began to long for pain and the eventual release it would bring.
No, said The Voice.
After pain
would
come
the recovery and then more pain.
Pain would be her world for a very long time.
It would not just be pain.
When it
was explained what was to be done to her, the horror was too much and she
fainted.
They would start with her extremities, The Voice said, and then piece by
piece, limb by limb, she would be hacked apart.
Over time she would be completely dismembered.
After each procedure — to be carried out
without anesthetic — she would receive the best possible medical
treatment.
All in all, her destruction
could take several years.
Each body part would be sent to the
gaijin
,
her lover, her husband, the Irishman Fitzduane.
Kathleen herself was of no importance.
She was merely an instrument of revenge.
Of Justice.
Kathleen was given two days on extra rations after this
announcement.
She was then advised that
the first dismemberment would start in a week.
She was to have plenty of time to contemplate the horror of her
fate.
For seven remaining days her body
would be whole and entire, and from then on she would never know life as it had
been again.
The Voice had described the body parts she would lose.
Her toes and fingers, her feet and hands, her
ears, her legs below the knee, her arms to the elbow, the balance of her limbs,
her ears and lips and nose and eyes.
Her eyes.
She was too shocked to cry, too terrified to react in any way.
She felt sanity slipping away.
She could neither eat nor drink.
The she made herself eat something.
My baby
!
She thought.
Oshima does not know.
Must
not know!
I don't know how, but Hugo will come.
*
*
*
*
*
The law of unintended consequences.
Oshima smiled as she remembered the phrase.
The black DEA mission a year earlier had been
an attempt to prove there was a major drug-processing facility in Tecuno.
The word on the street was unambiguous, but
satellite surveillance went just so far.
Proof was needed.
Instead, the
two helicopters had been shot down shortly after they crossed the Tecuno
border, and the public outcry throughout
declaration.
The Yanquis were
interfering with a sovereign nation.
The
arrogance!
How dare
they
!