The proposed raid into Tecuno would not put Quintana out of business, Warner considered, but it would weaken him. A weakened power broker would be easy prey for others to finish off. It would probably be done by his own party. The PRI had quite a tradition of turning on its own. The PRI was less a united party than a coalition of interests of those who wanted to hang onto power by whatever means were necessary. Some wanted to reform the PRI. Others did not. Blood had already been spilled.
The cantina was in a backwater town about eighty miles south of Guadalajara. The place had once had a silver mine, which had closed down some sixty years earlier, and right now Warner could see no economic reason for the town's existence at all. Except for a magnificent crumbling church, the cantina, and – he had been told – a whorehouse.
The reason for a location this remote was not campaigning – even Zarra drew the line somewhere, and this town was way below somewhere – but a discreet meeting with reformers in the Mexican military. The 170,000-man Mexican Army was conservative, and its officer corps schooled at the Escuela Superior de Guerra and the Colegio de Defensa Nacional even more so, but even those diehards wanted to be on the winning side.
Tentative approaches had been made by the military to the Zarristas. Zarra had replied with promises to reform the Mexican Army along modern lines – not a hard promise to fulfill, since the existing deployment was based on a 1924 plan. The end result was an agreement that in exchange for Zarra's new military program, the Mexican Army would move ‘when the time was right.’
It was a little vague for Warner's liking, but the complexities of Mexican politics took a lifetime to understand, even if its fundamentals were clear enough. The end result was that if Fitzduane's force opened up Tecuno, the Mexican Army would probably go in and finish the job. If Zarra was still high in the polls and virtually certain to become the next president. And there were a few more ‘ifs.’
The deal between Zarra and the Mexican military had not been worded with any degree of precision. It focused more on broad aspirations. To be fair, Zarra had wanted to mention Tecuno specifically as the target to enable the Mexicans to get their troops into place. It made sense in military terms, he had argued.
Warner had fought against this and had stressed the importance of keeping the assault on the Devil's Footprint a secret. A secret!
No one – but no one – was to know except Zarra himself.
Reluctantly, Zarra had agreed. The Mexican Army merely knew that they were likely to be called upon to take action at a time and place unspecified.
They expressed irritation but were secretly pleased. Valiente Zarra was proving to be a man who understood the realities. They had no desire to be allied with a political naif. Certainly the army would back him if it looked as if he was winning, but equally certainly someone – more likely several people – in the army high command would be keeping the current el Presidente and his party, the PRI, posted. Precise information would have got back to Quintana rather faster than shit through a goose. Such was the world of politics.
So this secret meeting between Zarra and the Mexican high command might, in fact, have taken place in Mexico City in the full hearing of the Presidential Palace or the Ministry of War and National Defense, for all the secrecy it really invoked. But such was Mexico, where going through the motions was very important. A secret meeting – even if not really secret – showed that the generals were really serious about supporting Zarra and had taken something of a risk. Accordingly, Zarra, when he became president, would now owe them. On the other hand, since the PRI and the incumbent el Presidente had been kept informed, they would owe the generals also.
It made Dan Warner feel right at home. It was just like Washington in high summer, but without the humidity.
But it was even HOTTER! And that was saying something.
16
"You want us to WHAT?" said Fitzduane incredulously.
"Take out Governor Quintana's supergun," said Jaeger helpfully. "I think that is the military term. Hell, man, you'll be down in the Devil's Footprint anyway. A bit of this and a bit of that, and you'll be outta there with almost no time lost."
Fitzduane looked around the conference table. Lamar was there and so were Cochrane and Maury and Kilmara, but there were also some new faces. General Frampton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was there unofficially, and so was William Martin of the CIA, doubtless equally unofficially.
It was a regular unofficial teddy bear's picnic, and it was beginning to look as if he was the main course. If these yo-yos had their way, he was going to end up unofficially dead.
"I thought you were watching my back," Fitzduane said to Kilmara, "keeping me free of the political shit so I could concentrate on the mission. Terrific job you're doing."
Kilmara looked uncomfortable. "The mission is getting every cooperation," he said. "But in turn, they would like – would appreciate – a certain quid pro quo. They help us and we help them."
Fitzduane stared at General Frampton, William Martin, and Grant Lamar. "Who are ‘they.’ He said.
"I think you know, Hugo," said Lamar quietly. "We're not going to insist on it. It will be your decision. But we'd like to make the case. The fact is that we are faced with a threat to national security which, for various reasons, we cannot officially act against right now. You know the background. You know all about PresidentFalls's Mexican Policy and NSA Slade's influence. Hands off Mexico. That was serious enough when we were talking conventional terrorism. Add in an offensive capability, and we have just got to act. Your mission is jumping off in a couple of weeks. So you, Colonel, are the obvious candidate."
Fitzduane leaned forward to emphasize his point. "According to the latest intelligence, General Luis Barragan has at least two thousand troops equipped with Eastern bloc armor at Madoa Airfield eight kilometers away from the base. At the Devil's Footprint itself, there are fifty hard-core terrorists and a further six hundred mercenary troops, also equipped with all kinds of nasty things and an unfriendly attitude towards good guys like us.
"Now, since you people won't send in air strikes and the kind of sizable force this mission really requires, I'm going in with a total force of fifteen personnel – not to go head-to-head with these vermin, but because I think speed and stealth are our best weapons. Anything that delays us or makes us more likely to be discovered erodes our advantages. They are slim enough. We need to hang on to what we've got."
He looked around the group one by one. "Have I made myself clear?"
Grant Lamar nodded. General Frampton cut in before he had time to speak. "We understand the situation, Colonel Fitzduane. We would not be raising this if we had an alternative."
William Martin spoke. "Colonel Fitzduane, her out Dr. Jaeger and then decide."
"Have you gentlemen ever heard the term ‘mission creep’?" said Fitzduane. "It is something of a U.S. custom. A nice clean mission with a simple objective and a clear chain of command gets truly fucked up with so many additional requirements and idiotic restrictions that no one knows quite what they are supposed to be doing. Add micromanagement and a dose of friendly fire and you've got a recipe for a lot of people dying and your objective lost in a cacophony of sound bites."
General Frampton met Fitzduane's gaze. "Ouch!" he said grimly. He paused for a beat. "But we have learned a few things from our mistakes."
"Maybe," said Fitzduane without conviction. He glanced over at Jaeger. "Go ahead, John. I'm a reasonable man."
Jaeger laughed. "With a hard edge, Colonel. With a very hard edge."