Fitzduane 03 - Devil's Footprint, The Read online

  "You were traveling," said Cochrane soothingly.

  "Fitzduane," said Maurice, "who is he? What's his history?"

  "Jesus, Maury," said Cochrane, "you want history, I'll give you history."

  He sighed. "About seven hundred years ago, a Norman knight, Sir Hugo Fitzduane, part of the initial British invasion force of Ireland, quarreled with someone on high and then left the main force and set off for the West of Ireland.

  "He fought the bad guys, married a local Irish princess, and found himself on an island off the West of Ireland to build a castle on. Duncleeve, it's called. The Castle of the Sword. It says a great deal of what you need to know about the Fitzduanes.

  "All these centuries later, a Hugo Fitzduane still lives there. The Fitzduanes seem to be a persistent bunch with something of a — ‘What I have I hold’ outlook on life. And a tradition of arms."

  The swivel chair began to turn slowly. Cochrane had Maury's attention.

  "The present Fitzduane followed that tradition. He joined the Irish Army and was posted to the Congo with the United Nations. Special forces. His commander was a Colonel Shane Kilmara. His unit racked up quite a reputation for itself. The Congo in those days was something of a bloodbath."

  "Ah!" said Maury. "General Kilmara these days, I think. Now it's coming back to me. He's turned up all over the globe over the last couple of decades. He is probably the best counterterrorist military man out there."

  About bloody time, thought Cochrane. Maury never forgot anything, but he did not always remember where he stored what he knew and the protocol was to help him find it.

  "Kilmara seems to have always accepted his calling as a warrior. Fitzduane was more ambivalent and has always had something of a love-hate relationship with violence. He resigned from the army after the Congo business and then spent the next twenty years as a combat photographer. Cover of Time, that kind of thing. Still, you name a war and he's been there. The word is that he's forgotten more about combat than most generals ever knew.

  "The word also has it that though Fitzduane is a reluctant warrior he has proven to be very good in combat. One of the best."

  "The Hangman affair," breathed Maury.

  Cochrane nodded. "It was a classic counterterrorist operation, and during it our friend Hugo Fitzduane began to lose his amateur status. He was to find out the hard truth that once you enter the game, it is nearly impossible to leave it alive. A few years later, when he thought the whole Hangman thing had blown over, a hit team of Japanese terrorists bent on revenge landed on his island and shot up both him and his young son. Both recovered, but it was a close thing. After he had sorted out that little affair, he realized if he was going to be forced to be a permanent player he had better become a good one."

  "I've got it!" said Maury, rising to his feet and beginning to prowl around the office. "This is the same man who set up that counterterrorism think tank. We trade information, but I deal with a man called Henssen, a German, I think."

  "Yeah," said Cochrane, "Henssen runs the show on a day-to-day basis, leaving Fitzduane time to pursue his various other interests, which include an involvement with the Rangers, Ireland's special forces. Hugo Fitzduane is a reserve colonel with them and still very close to Kilmara."

  Maury suddenly paused in his pacing and froze, his back hunched.

  Cochrane sighed. Maury was remembering again that he had not been consulted. It was time for diplomacy or Maury would suddenly make a break for it.

  "It was your idea, Maury," said Cochrane, lying, his blue eyes guileless. "Since we're blocked from using U.S. forces, let's find someone else to do the job. So while you were away, we looked and came up with Fitzduane. He thinks he's coming here on a routine courtesy visit, but I think we can persuade him. That is why I want him to meet Patricio."

  Maury's interest was engaged again. He picked up Fitzduane's file and studied it intently, then he read Cochrane's notes.

  "There is no report here from Patricio," said Maury accusingly.

  "Patricio did not like to go into any detail over a Mexican phone," said Cochrane, "nor any U.S. phone, given the currently political climate." He grinned and looked at his paranoid friend. "That is something you understand, Maury. Anyway, relax. Patricio has made it out of Mexico. He rang from National half an hour ago. He'll be here any minute."

  "Did he say anything?" said Maury.

  "He sounded immensely relieved to be out of Mexico in one piece, and he said he had brought some physical evidence."

  "Evidence of what?" said Maury.

  "I have absolutely no fucking idea," said Cochrane cheerfully. "He just said that the whole thing was more serious than we had thought, and he added it was the luck of the devil that Rheiman had made it down there. Rheiman meant diddly to me, but Patricio was anxious to get over here, so I figured it could wait."

  Maury crashed back into his swivel chair, and rotated it a few times, his legs stretched straight out in front of him. Suddenly, he dropped his feet as he centered on Cochrane, bringing the chair to an immediate halt.

  He leaned forward to emphasize his words.

  "Why should colonel Hugo Fitzduane, this good-natured Irish aristocrat with his island and his castle and his think tank, go on a mission for us? According to what I read here, he's recently married and he has a young son by a previous arrangement. Why would he risk his life to do the Task Force's dirty work?"

  "Well," said Cochrane, "that's the beauty of it. Fitzduane doesn't know it yet, but there's a problem down there he won't be able to walk away from. Remember a certain someone who was reported as being very dead but reappeared in Tecuno? A Japanese connection? A certain Reiko Oshima?"

  Maury thought for a few seconds, then a look of perfect understanding came over his face. "A brilliant plan, Lee," he said.

  "Entirely your concept, Maury," said Cochrane tactfully.

  2

  The landing was not one of the airline's finest.

  It belonged to the ‘any landing you can walk away from is good’ variety by a slim margin, but Patricio Nicanor was so relieved to be on U.S. soil that he felt like hugging the pilot and then kissing the world-weary face of the Washington National Airport immigration official who queried him.

  Patricio's only baggage was a shoulder-slung carry-on one-suiter. He stopped at a kiosk and bought two foldaway nylon shopping bags and a length of strapping, the kind used to bind and identify a suitcase. He then headed for the rest room and entered the stall reserved for the physically disabled.

  He needed the extra space to open his suitcase. The two packages inside, each contained in a thick bubble envelope about the size of a paperback book, had aroused the interest of customs. "Mining samples," Patricio had said, and had opened the retaining clip of one of the packages and pulled out a plastic bag containing what looked like concrete chippings.

  The customs man had looked at Patricio's profession, which was written into his passport. "Ingeniero de Minas," it said in Spanish. Samples seemed to make sense.

  Obtaining the contents of the two packages had been both difficult and dangerous in the extreme. Patricio wanted to keep them as close as possible until he delivered them to his friends in Congress.

  Removing his jacket and working swiftly, he constructed a simple harness that hung each package securely under each arm like twin shoulder holsters. Both strapping and bags were of strong black nylon.

  He replaced his jacket. He would look somewhat bulkier, but nothing could be seen. It would be safer to have the items actually on his person.

  He reshouldered the carry-on case, made a brief phone call to Cochrane, and found a cab.

  They had a funny charging system, he remembered. Zones instead of a meter. What you might call a game of chance if you were a tourist.

  * * * * *

  Warner started to emit electronic chirping sounds as they left the elevator on the floor where the subcommittee offices were located. He made a gesture of apology at Fitzduane and reached under his T-shirt for t
he compact mobile phone that was clipped there.

  "You got the Irishman?" said Cochrane cryptically.

  "Yo!" said Warner. "We've just got out of the elevator and we are down the hall. I can shout if this thing breaks down."

  "Shit!" said Cochrane. "Wiseass!" he added.

  "Maury?" said Warner.

  "Yeah," said Cochrane. "We've still got a few things to settle, and Patricio's not here yet. Give me fifteen. Maybe prep Fitzduane a little."

  "Lee's schedule is running late," said Warner. "I'll buy you a cup of coffee."

  The cafeteria was nearly empty. Warner picked a quiet corner.

  "The Task Force," said Warner. "Lee asked me to prep you. What do you know about us, Hugo?"

  Fitzduane smiled. "I've read your reports and traded information with you. I figured you were worth visiting. Beyond that, I know little."

  Warner nodded. "The Task Force was started by Lee. He made a bargain with Congressman Wayne Sanders. Lee would get Sanders elected if Sanders would back the setting up of a subcommittee on terrorism. Lee had come out of Vietnam feeling the U.S. was selling itself short and no one in power seemed to be paying any serious attention to dealing with the threats that were popping up all over the globe."

  "Why didn't Lee run himself?" asked Fitzduane.

  Warner laughed. "Lee Cochrane suffers from a bad case of integrity. In short, he is no politician, but he is bright and committed and knows his strengths and his weaknesses, so he found another way. He would piggyback right in as close to the center of power as he could get. He might prefer to work in the White House or the Senate, but he's a realist."

  "What got Lee focused on terrorism?" said Fitzduane. "It's an abstract to most people. Normally, it is only when you are touched personally that you start to take notice. Then you realize that the world is a vastly more dangerous place than most people like to believe."

  Warner nodded. "Lee had a commanding officer in Vietnam he much admired. The guy went on to work for the CIA, got kidnapped by fundamentalists in Lebanon, was tortured over many months and then hanged. That incident set him off. He also believed various agencies of the United States government did little about it."

  "So how do you guys really operate?" said Fitzduane. "Congress is there to legislate, not go hunting down bad guys. The media would have a field day if a bunch of armed staffers started invading sovereign nations and taking out terrorists. Look at Ollie North, and he didn't shoot anyone. Well, not that I know of, anyway."

  Warner laughed. "Ollie's heart and head don't always synchronize too well," he said, "but he's not the worst. Look at the Achille Lauro affair. The guys who killed the hostage in the wheelchair cut a deal with the Egyptians and were going to get away.

  "Ollie got their aircraft forced down. Was he right? I think he was. The United States of America should not sit idly by when its citizens are killed."

  Fitzduane drank some coffee. He did not dispute the basic thrust of Warner's argument, but he was having a hard time getting a fix on what a small group of motivated staffers could actually do against the reality of physical threat.

  "We're a small group with the great advantage of having a simple mission," said Warner, "and that is the identification and destruction of terrorism insofar as it threatens this country. And all of the team identify with that mission. We are not riddled with factions and feuds like the CIA and the FBI, or faced with opposing agendas like State or Treasury. Our rationale is not primarily our own preservation. And we care."

  Fitzduane's interest was piqued. He was well familiar with the CIA and State situations, but Treasury was a player he had not encountered much previously. "Treasury?" he asked.

  "It's a story that makes a point about how we let them get away with it," said Warner. "When the Shah of Iran was in power, the Iranian government was considered a close ally of the West. Better yet, Iran was a major purchaser of Western goods. The Shah wanted the latest and the best, and because he had oil, he could afford it. Along with the tanks and the aircraft and the missiles, the U.S. supplied him with the latest in printing technology so that he could get his profile just right on the Iranian currency.

  "Unfortunately, the equipment he bought was exactly the same as that used by the United States mint. Enter the Ayatollah and a bunch of fundamentalists who do not have the West's best interests at heart and suddenly we have a whole flood of crisp new dollars that are so technically perfect they are almost impossible to tell from the real thing.

  "It gets worse. The Syrians see the Iranian playing the game and Uncle Sam sitting idly by doing nothing, and they set up a raft of printing presses in the BekaaValley. Their quality is not as good but, hey, they've got volume on their side and they go after the lower end of the market."

  "How much are we talking about here?" said Fitzduane.

  "We say in our briefings a billion dollars a month because a higher figure is hard to swallow. Actually, we estimate a multiple of that — year after year for well over a decade. We are getting close to talking real money! The situation has gotten so bad that in parts of the world you have to sign each note and leave your address so that they have a comeback if someone down the line complains. So much for confidence in the dollar. No wonder it's worth less every year."

  Fitzduane laughed. "So where does Treasury come into all this?"

  "We are talking economic terrorism here," said Warner, "we are talking forgery on a scale so huge that Treasury, who will set the Secret Service on you if you so much as photocopy a dollar bill, do diddly. They are afraid if it gets out the dollar will take a dive, so they say and do nothing. Also, the Secret Service are not rally set up to invade foreign countries. So we are going to end up changing our currency, but the guys we are up against are bright, so they won't just fold their tents and steal away. Goddamn it, they can now certainly afford the latest gear and we have been only too happy to sell them it. The U.S. has a balance-of-trade problem. We need exports. It's a hell of a thing. But the bottom line is that the United States government is nearly its own worst enemy."

  Fitzduane's spread hands and the look on his face indicated acknowledgment of the validity of at least some of what was being said, but also a mild impatience that the question he had already asked twice had not been answered.

  Warner grinned. "Okay," he said. "Let's focus. You want to know what we do and how we operate. We run an intelligence and analysis group based upon a very large network of contacts. There are many people who think like we do in structures like the CIA and State. The structures may be ossified and gridlocked by policy, but individuals have not lost their desire to do the right thing. We have connections as far afield as Afghanistan and as near as down the hall. We link them together, make sense of the pieces, and analyze the result. Then we feed our reports to the right people. Sometimes we get a result. More often we get filed. It's not easy."

  "And you also legislate?" said Fitzduane.

  "Sure," said Warner. "We work in Congress and that's what Congress does. And within the legislative process we pursue our own agenda. If we strengthen a program that can stem the terrorist tide, that is what we do. We have some successes. Mostly, it's a whole lot of work for very little return. The Founding Fathers did not set up this place to be efficient. That is understandable, but today's threats did not exist when they were around. Nor were they foreseen."

  "It sounds like a great deal of work for a modest return," said Fitzduane carefully. "It also sounds exceedingly frustrating."

  "Well, Hugo," said Warner, "now you are getting to the real meat. There are some situations where we cannot just sit on our hands like good citizens. Sometimes the threat is so major and the response so minimal that we have to take some action."

  "So how does that work?" said Fitzduane.

  "We find the right people and light the blue touch-paper," said Warner. "It is not exactly subcontracting — more a case of facilitating." He looked steadily at Fitzduane. "Like right now we have a situation in Mexico."

  "N
o," said Fitzduane flatly. "And this being a political town, that is not — ‘no’ meaning I'm willing to negotiate." He smiled. "Just so we understand each other."

  "I think you may change your mind," said Warner cheerfully, "when you have heard a little more. As far as Mexico is concerned, you're already involved. Drafted by circumstances, you might say."

  Fitzduane looked at Warner blankly and then shook his head firmly. He had great respect for the subcommittee's counterterrorism reports and he was looking forward to meeting the people who did the work, but that was where it ended.

  He could not conceive of any reason why he would want to be involved with Mexico in any way except to visit Acapulco and work on his suntan. That notion did have some appeal given the state of Ireland's weather. Even the snakes had fled because they were sick of the rain.

  "No," he repeated, "or as you say over here — "no way!"

  Warner grinned. "You didn't say ‘positively,’" he said. His belt began to cheep.

  He answered the mobile and then looked at Fitzduane. "Maury has stopped swinging from the chandelier and Patricio has just passed through security. Time to enlighten you, Hugo, about some dirty work south of the border. And then I know you will do the right thing. You may be Irish and your grandmother Spanish, but where it counts you are a true-blue American."

  "Lead on, Ollie," said Fitzduane wearily. But his curiosity was aroused, and the Fitzduanes, as a family, were nothing if not curious.

  Over the centuries it had killed more than a few of them.

  * * * * *

  For all the talk of congressional perquisites, the FarnsworthBuilding was a utilitarian structure.

  Inside, once you got past the entrance lobbies, it was little more than floor after floor of wide, imposing corridors with rather poky office suites leading off them for individual congressmen. The splendid marbled hallways had been given a higher priority than the humans who worked in the building.