Read The Devil's Footprint Online
Authors: Victor O'Reilly
Media reports
all described Zarra as ‘charismatic.’
Right now he
looked tired, as if he had slept in his clothes, but interested.
Even involved.
And this
was
significant, because the Mexican presidential elections were only months away
and Valiente should have had other priorities than socializing secretly in
Fitzduane had
strong doubts that ‘socializing’ was the appropriate term.
He was more of the view that Zarra needed
something.
Needed it
quite badly.
His followers,
who worked with the same passion that supporters in the past had worked for
John Kennedy, were known as ‘Zarristas.’
The Congress of the
America
It was becoming a decidedly rich stew.
Nonetheless, Fitzduane had the strong feeling
that there were more ingredients and he could just end up as one of them.
An Irish stew?
Personally, he hated the stuff.
*
*
*
*
*
Cochrane was
speaking.
"About
three years ago, we started paying attention to
state of Tecuno.
There was the Camerena
affair where a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent was kidnapped,
tortured, and killed.
Definite links
between narcotics and terrorism were established, and the term ‘narcoterrorism’
came into use.
"The
upshot was that more and more terrorist activities and incidents seemed to have
some links with Tecuno.
However, these
leads were either never firm or merely a link in a chain of locations.
It always seemed to be ‘soft intelligence.’
Nonetheless, connections were established
with drug smuggling, money laundering, forgery, and incidents of terrorist
violence and political assassination.
It
began to look to us as if Tecuno was becoming a haven for terrorists, much like
"It did
not occur to us at the time that Tecuno was becoming much more than this.
It was not merely an element in these various
problems.
Tecuno was the very source of
such activities.
"But we
might still be in the dark if it had not been for our good friend Professor
Valiente Zarra."
Cochrane gestured
toward the Mexican presidential candidate.
"I will let the professor explain his perspective."
Zarra stood up
and went behind the lectern.
He adjusted
his half-glasses and then focused on his audience.
It was true,
thought Fitzduane, the man did have something.
There was the quality of a leader about him and that intangible called
integrity.
And when Zarra began to
speak, there was also that extraordinary, quite compelling voice.
As a speaker,
even in English rather than his native Spanish, well practiced after two
decades of university lecturing, Valiente Zarra was dynamite.
And charming.
And, regardless of his
academic background, highly political.
"My
friends, I will start by making a confession.
In my country we are rightly proud of our heritage, and it is not always
a good thing to admit that one was educated for a time in the
Well, I attended Wharton for several years
and that was how I met Lee.
We were at
university together.
It is something, of
course, I try to hide in my home country," he said with a smile, "but
it is the reason I am here today.
"My
interest in the state of Tecuno,
señors
,
started off as a pure matter of politics.
What I — my people — have discovered is why we are here today."
He spoke for
another twenty minutes.
The punch line
made the blood drain from Fitzduane's face.
Reiko Oshima!
It was the
name of someone he had been absolutely sure was dead.
Whom he had killed.
The name of a Japanese terrorist leader who had been the lover of
the Hangman.
Who had killed one
of his closest friends, Christian de
Guevain.
Who had been the leader of the fanatical
group Yaibo — in English, "The Cutting
Edge.
"
Whose people had come within a hairsbreadth
of killing Fitzduane and his small
son.
Reiko Oshima — also known as ‘The Lethal Angel.’
Fitzduane had
seen her die, had seen her helicopter explode over
No one
could have survived that holocaust, he was sure.
But the evidence was overwhelming.
She lived.
And if she
lived, she was an active threat.
She had
to be stopped.
The rationale
was indisputable.
Cochrane and Valiente
Zarra were passionate and persuasive advocates.
Others joined in.
Even Maury
fixed Fitzduane with his soulful eyes.
"No,"
said Fitzduane.
"Hugo,"
said Cochrane.
"You're the
best-qualified man to do the job.
It is
a matter of fact, not opinion.
You're
the best there is at what needs to be done.
We know what this woman has done to you and your son.
You know she will try again.
You can't leave it."
"No!"
said Fitzduane heavily.
"I cannot —
my family comes first — and that is all there is to it."
*
*
*
*
*
Kathleen lay
back, glowing nicely from the aftereffects of making love.
She had heard
that pregnancy could go one of two ways, but certainly she had not found her
own ardor diminished, and Hugo, if anything, seemed sexier than ever.
He was,
without question, a very passionate man.
Since she had found out she was pregnant, he had announced that he was
particularly turned on by the notion that
their very own
little human was growing inside her, and there was certainly frequent evidence
that this was so.
There was a
whine from the
kitchen,
and at irregular intervals
high-speed chomping sounds as if sand and the tentacles of an octopus had
gotten into the gears of the appliance.
Kathleen
smiled and then laughed out loud.
Since
he had been shot, Fitzduane had been forced to take his health very seriously
while convalescing, and since then had become a permanent convert to hard daily
exercise and healthier eating.
The
results certainly showed.
However,
sometimes, Kathleen felt, Hugo carried things to excess.
He read widely and had recently discovered
‘juicing.’
The health benefits of this
were apparent enough, but some of Hugo's blends were a little weird.
He liked to experiment.
Frankly,
Kathleen would have preferred if he confined this tendency more to their sexual
relationship and kept it away from the juicer.
He had once juiced raw leeks and turnip, and the resulting concoction
had nearly killed them both.
Still, he
had been learning then.
His recent
blends were quite promising.
Hugo came into
the bedroom clutching two pint glass mugs of a thick, frothy, multicolored
liquid that looked as if it should have a rum base and a Polynesian name and
have little umbrellas sticking out of it.
Both mugs sprouted bent straws.
Fitzduane wore the pleased look of an inventor whose latest experiment
has worked, but otherwise not much else except a towel.
His hair was still damp from the shower.
Kathleen took
her mug and sipped it warily.
Hugo was
rational on most things, but he would juice, she had the impression, anything
that grew.
She had strong doubts as to whether
the potted plants in the apartment were going to survive much longer.
She was sure she had caught her husband
eyeing them contemplatively.
"Ummm!"
she said.
"This is really very
good."
"Mango,
carrot, apple, celery, kiwi fruit, sorrel, parsley, red peppers, and..."
Kathleen
looked at her husband.
"What?"
she said firmly.
"Ingredient
X," said Fitzduane.
"I'm like
the Coca-Cola
company
.
I keep my recipes secret.
There
could be billions at stake."
"Talk!"
commanded Kathleen.
She took another
long sip.
It really was extremely
good.
The straw got blocked and she
drank straight from the glass.
"You've
got froth on your nose," said Fitzduane.
"It's quite becoming when you're naked.
It sort of balances out
your pubic hair."
"Where?"
said Kathleen.
Fitzduane put
down his glass.
"Working from the
top," he said, "if you put a fingertip on your nose and then follow
it down over your mouth and chin and between your breasts and then down to your
tummy button and keep on going...
You
find your public hair.
And my hand.
And you
feel gorgeous."
"That's
not quite what I meant," said Kathleen, her voice a little thick as
Fitzduane worked on her.
Fitzduane did
not reply.
At the time he physically
could not, since his mouth was otherwise engaged.
Later on, as he entered his wife, she seemed,
in turn, to be otherwise preoccupied.
His nipples tingled as she tongued them, and later on she did other
things.
It went on for
some considerable time.
There was
definitely something to the idea, Kathleen thought as waves of pleasure
repeated again and again and gradually subsided, that juicing promoted
stamina.
"What is ingredient
X?" she asked dreamingly as she surfaced.
"Your
wife has to be pregnant," said Fitzduane.
"You're a
maniac, Hugo," said Kathleen, "and I love you."
"And love
doesn’t hurt either," said Fitzduane.
"But for true ecstasy, you want to add a little broccoli
ginger."
*
*
*
*
*
Their earlier
conversation had focused on Reiko Oshima and Fitzduane's refusal of the
mission.
And then other matters had
distracted them.
Now, after
they had made love and eaten, they talked late until the early hours.
There was much that Fitzduane would have
preferred to keep for Kathleen, but that was not the way it worked.
Kathleen, he felt, had earned the right to know.
In truth, she did not have to earn
anything.
He loved her.
Their child was in her womb.
"Apart
from Lee Cochrane and Zarra, a whole bunch of people talked," he
said.
"I'll try and summarize
it."
"Start
with Tecuno," said Kathleen.
"I'm curious to know how one state can act as if it is an
independent country.
Surely the Mexican
government would bring it into line?"
Fitzduane
smiled.
"When is an independent
nation truly a separate country?" he said.
"It is not as simple as a geographical accident.
Mostly, it is what people and power and what
people can get away with.
In essence,
might
wins
.
That's history in two words.
Look
at
It was four separate self-ruling provinces
until the
Then it became officially
British and, perversely, united.
Now
twenty-six counties are independent and
Irish,
and six
counties are British.
Is it a
coincidence that nearly twenty thousand British troops are stationed in the
North?
I'm not taking sides here, merely
illustrating a point."