Balance of Power o-5 Read online

  If only we’d had a little more time to prepare, Aideen thought as they walked around snapping pictures, acting like tourists as they slowly made their way to the gate. Op-Center had barely had time to catch its breath from the hostage situation in the Bekaa Valley when this matter had been relayed to them from the U.S. Embassy in Madrid. Relayed so quietly that only Deputy Serrador, Ambassador Neville, President Michael Lawrence and his closest advisors, and the top people at Op-Center knew about it. And they would keep quiet. If Deputy Serrador were correct, tens of thousands of lives were at risk.

  A church bell rang in the distance. To Aideen, it somehow sounded holier in Spain than it did in Washington. She counted out the tolls. It was six o’clock. Martha and Aideen made their way to the guardhouse.

  Nosotros aqui para un viaje todo comprendido, Aideen said through the grate in the glass. “We’re here for a tour.” Completing the picture of the excited tourist, she added that a mutual friend had arranged for a private tour of the building.

  The young guard, tall and unsmiling, asked for their names.

  Señorita Temblón y Señorita Serafico, Aideen replied, giving him their cover identities. Before leaving Washington Aideen had worked these out with Serrador’s office. Everything, from the airplane tickets to the hotel reservations, was in those names.

  The guard turned and checked a list on a clipboard. As he did, Aideen looked around. There was a courtyard behind the fence, the sky a beautiful blue-black above it. At the rear of the courtyard was a small stone building where auxiliary governmental services were located. Behind that was a new glass-covered building, which housed the offices of the deputies. It was an impressive complex that reminded Aideen just how far the Spanish had come since the death in 1975 of El Caudillo, “the leader,” Francisco Franco. The nation was now a constitutional monarchy, with a prime minister and a largely titular king. The Palacio de las Cortes itself spoke very eloquently of one of the trying times in Spain’s past. There were bullet holes in the ceiling of the Chamber of Sessions, a remnant and graphic reminder of a right-wing coup attempt in 1981. The palace had been the site of other attacks, most notably in 1874 when President Emilio Castelar lost a vote of confidence and soldiers opened fire in the hallways.

  Spain’s strife had been mostly internal in this century, and the nation had remained neutral during World War II. As a result, the world had paid relatively little attention to its problems and politics. But when Aideen was studying languages in college her Spanish professor, Señor Armesto, had told her that Spain was a nation on the verge of disaster.

  Where there are three Spaniards there are four opinions, he had said. When world events favor the impatient and disaffected, those opinions will be heard loudly and violently.

  Señor Armesto was correct. Fractionalization was the trend in politics, from the breakup of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia to the secessionist movement in Quebec to the rising ethnocentrism in the United States. Spain was hardly immune. If Deputy Serrador’s fears were correct — and Op-Center’s intelligence had corroborated it — the nation was poised to suffer its worst strife in a thousand years. As Intelligence Chief Bob Herbert had put it before Martha left Washington, “This will make the Spanish Civil War look like a brawl.”

  The guard put his list down. “Un momento,” he said, and picked up the red telephone on the console in the back of the booth. He punched in a number and cleared his throat.

  As the sentry spoke to a secretary on the other end, Aideen turned. She looked toward the broad avenue, which was packed with traffic—la hora de aplastar, or “crush hour,” as they called it here. The bright lights of the slow-moving cars were blinding in the dark twilight. They seemed to pop on and off as pedestrians scurried past. Occasionally, a flashbulb would fire as a tourist stopped to take a picture of the palace.

  Aideen was blinking off the effects of one such flash when a young man who had just taken a picture put his camera in the pocket of his denim jacket. He turned toward the booth. She couldn’t see him clearly beneath the brim of his baseball cap, but she felt his eyes on her.

  A street extortionist posing as a tourist? she wondered impertinently as the man ambled toward her. Aideen decided to let Martha handle this one and she started to turn away. As she did, Aideen noticed a car pulling up to the curb behind the man. The black sedan didn’t so much arrive as edge forward, as though it had been waiting down the block. Aideen stopped turning. The world around her suddenly seemed to be moving in slow motion. She watched as the young man pulled what looked like a pistol from inside his jacket.

  Aideen experienced a moment of paralytic disbelief. It passed quickly as her training took over.

  “Fusilar!” she shouted. “Gunman!”

  Martha turned toward her as the gun jerked with booming cracks and dull flares. Martha was thrown against the booth and then dropped to her side as Aideen jumped in the opposite direction. Her thinking was to draw the man’s fire away from Martha. She succeeded. As Aideen dove for the pavement, a startled young mailman who was walking in front of her stopped, stared, and took a bullet in his left thigh. As his leg folded and he pitched forward, a second bullet hit his side. He landed on his back and Aideen dropped flat beside him. She lay as low as she could and as close to him as she could as he writhed in agony. As bright blood pumped from his side, she reached over and pressed her palm to the wound. She hoped that pressure would help stanch the bleeding.

  Aideen lay there, listening. The popping had stopped and she raised her head carefully. As she watched, the car pulled from the curb. When people began to scream in the distance, Aideen rose slowly. She kept up pressure on the man’s wound as she got on her knees.

  “Ayuda!” she yelled to a security guard who had run up to the gate at the Congress of Deputies. “Help!”

  The man unlocked the gate and rushed over. Aideen told him to keep pressure on the wound. He did as he was told and Aideen rose. She looked back at the booth. The sentry was crouched there, shouting into the phone for assistance. There were people across the street and in the road. The only ones left in front of the palace were Aideen, the man beside her, the guard — and Martha.

  Aideen looked at her boss in the growing darkness. Passing cars slowed and stopped, their lights illuminating the still, awful scene. Martha was lying on her side, facing the booth. Thick puddles of blood were forming on the pavement beneath and behind her body.

  “Oh, Jesus,” Aideen choked.

  The young woman tried to rise but her legs wouldn’t support her. She crawled quickly toward the booth and knelt beside Martha. She bent over her and looked down at the handsome face. It was utterly still.

  “Martha?” she said softly.

  Martha didn’t respond. People began to gather tentatively behind the two women.

  “Martha?” Aideen said more insistently.

  Martha didn’t move. Aideen heard the sound of running feet inside the courtyard. Then she heard muted voices shouting for people to clear the area. Aideen’s ears were cottony from the shots. Hesitantly, she touched Martha’s cheek with the tips of two fingers. Martha did not respond. Slowly, as though she were moving in a dream, Aideen extended her index finger. She held it under Martha’s nose, close to her nostrils. There was no breath.

  “God, oh God,” Aideen was muttering. She gently touched Martha’s eyelid. It didn’t react and, after a moment, she withdrew her hand. Then she sat back on her heels and stared down at the motionless figure. Sounds became louder as her ears cleared. The world seemed to return to normal motion.

  Fifteen minutes ago Aideen was silently cursing this woman. Martha had been caught up in something that had seemed so important — so very damned important. Moments always seemed important until tragedy put them in perspective. Or maybe they were important because inevitably there would be no more. Not that it mattered now. Whether Martha had been right or wrong, good or bad, a visionary or a control freak, she was dead. Her moments were over.

  The courtyard gate fle
w open and men ran from behind it. They gathered around Aideen, who was staring vacantly at Martha. The young woman touched Martha’s thick, black hair.

  “I’m sorry,” Aideen said. She exhaled tremulously and shut her eyes. “I’m so very, very sorry.”

  The woman’s limbs felt heavy and she was sick that the reflexes that had been so quick with those street kids had failed her completely here. Intellectually, Aideen knew that she wasn’t to blame. During her week-long orientation when she first joined Op-Center, staff psychologist Liz Gordon had warned Aideen and two other new employees that if and when it happened, unexpectedly facing a weapon for the first time could be devastating. A gun or a knife pulled in familiar surroundings destroys the delusion that we’re invincible doing what we do routinely every day — in this case, walking down a city street. Liz had told the small group that in the instant of shock, a person’s body temperature, blood pressure, and muscle tone all crash and it takes a moment for the survival instinct to kick in. Attackers count on that instant of paralysis, Liz had said.

  But understanding what had happened didn’t help. Not at all. It didn’t lessen the ache and the guilt that Aideen felt. If she’d moved an instant sooner or been a little more heads-up — by just a heartbeat, that’s all it would have taken — Martha might have survived.

  How do you live with that guilt? Aideen asked herself as tears began to form.

  She didn’t know. She’d never been able to deal with coming up short. She couldn’t handle it when she found her widower father crying at the kitchen table after losing his job in the Boston shoe factory where he’d worked since he was a boy. For days thereafter she tried to get him to talk, but he turned to scotch instead. She went off to college not long afterward, feeling as though she’d failed him. She couldn’t handle the sense of failure when her college sweetheart, her greatest love, smiled warmly at an old girlfriend in their senior year. He left Aideen a week later and she joined the army after graduation. She hadn’t even attended the graduation ceremony; it would have killed her to see him.

  Now she’d failed Martha. Her shoulders heaved out the tears and the tears became sobs.

  A young, mustachioed sergeant of the palace security guard raised her gently by the shoulders. He helped her stand.

  “Are you all right?” he asked in English.

  She nodded and tried to stop crying. “I think I’m okay.”

  “Do you want a doctor?”

  She shook her head.

  “Are you sure, señorita?”

  Aideen took a long, deep breath. This was not the time and place to lose it. She would have to talk to Op-Center’s FBI liaison, Darrell McCaskey. He had remained at the hotel to await a visit from a colleague with Interpol. And she still wanted to see Deputy Serrador. If this shooting had been designed to prevent the meeting, she’d be damned if she was going to let that happen.

  “I’ll be fine,” Aideen said. “Do you — do you have the person who did this? Do you have any idea who it was?”

  “No, señorita,” he replied. “We’ll have to take a look and see what the surveillance cameras may have recorded. In the meantime, are you well enough to talk to us about this?”

  “Yes, of course,” she said uncertainly. There was still the mission, the reason she’d come. She didn’t know how much she should tell the police about that. “But—por favor?”

  “Sí?”

  “We were to be met by someone inside. I would still like to see him as soon as possible.”

  “I will make the necessary inquiries—”

  “I also need to contact someone at the Princesa Plaza,” Aideen said.

  “I will see to those things,” he said. “But Comisario Fernandez will be arriving presently. He is the one who will be conducting the investigation. The longer we wait, the more difficult the pursuit.”

  “Of course,” she said. “I understand. I’ll talk to him and meet with our guide after. Is there a telephone I can use?”

  “I will arrange for the telephone,” the sergeant said. “Then I will personally go and see who was to meet you.”

  Aideen thanked him and rose under her own power. She faltered. The sergeant grabbed one of her arms.

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to see the doctor first?” the man asked. “There is one in residence.”

  “Gracias, no,” she said with a grateful smile. She wasn’t going to let the attacker claim a second victim. She was going to get through this, even if it were one second at a time.

  The sergeant smiled back warmly and walked with her slowly toward the open gate.

  As Aideen was being led away the palace doctor rushed by. A few moments later she heard an ambulance. The young woman half turned as the ambulance stopped right where the getaway car had been. As the medical technicians hurriedly unloaded a gurney, Aideen saw the doctor rise from beside Martha’s body. He’d only been there a moment. He said something to a guard then ran over to the mailman. He began opening the buttons of the man’s uniform then yelled for the paramedics to come over. As he did, the guard lay his jacket over Martha’s head.

  Aideen looked ahead. That was it, then. It took just a few seconds, and everything Martha Mackall had known, planned, felt, and hoped was gone. Nothing would ever bring that back.

  The young woman continued to hold back tears as she was led into a small office along the palace’s ornate main corridor. The room was wood-paneled and comfortable and she lowered herself into a leather couch beside the door. She felt achy where her knees and elbows had hit the pavement and she was still in an acute state of disbelief. But a countershock reflex was going to work, replenishing the physical resources that had shut down in the attack. And she knew that Darrell and General Rodgers and Director Paul Hood and the rest of the Op-Center team were behind her. She might be by herself at the moment, but she was not alone.

  “You may use that telephone,” the sergeant said, pointing to an antique rotary phone on a glass end table. “Dial zero for an outside line.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I will have a guard posted at the door so you will be safe and undisturbed. Then I will go and see about your guide.”

  Aideen thanked him again. He left and shut the door behind him. The room was quiet save for the hissing of a radiator in the back and the muted sounds of traffic. Of life going on.

  Taking another deep breath, Aideen removed a hotel notepad from her backpack and looked down at the telephone number printed on the bottom. She found it impossible to believe that Martha was dead. She could still feel her annoyance, see her eyes, smell her perfume. She could still hear Martha saying, You know what’s at stake here.

  Aideen swallowed hard and entered the number. She asked to be connected with Darrell McCaskey’s room. She slipped a simple scrambler over the mouthpiece, one that would send an ultrasonic screech over the line, deafening any taps. A filter on McCaskey’s end would eliminate the sound from his line.

  Aideen did know what was at stake here. The fate of Spain, of Europe, and possibly the world. And whatever it took, she did not intend to come up short again.

  TWO

  Monday, 12:12 P.M. Washington, D.C.

  When they were at Op-Center headquarters at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland or at Striker’s Base in the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, the two forty-five-year-old men were Op-Center’s Deputy Director, General Michael Bernard Rodgers, and Colonel Brett Van Buren August, commander of Op-Center’s rapid-deployment force.

  But here in Ma Ma Buddha, a small, divey Szechuan restaurant in Washington’s Chinatown, the two men were not superior and subordinate. They were close friends who had both been born at St. Francis Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut; who had met in kindergarten and shared a passion for building model airplanes; who had played on the same Thurston’s Apparel Store Little League team for five years — and chased home run queen Laurette DelGuercio on the field and off; and who had blown trumpet in the Housatonic Valley Marching Band for four years. They served in
different branches of the military in Vietnam — Rodgers in the U.S. Army Special Forces, August in Air Force Intelligence — and saw each other infrequently over the next twenty years. Rodgers did two tours of Southeast Asia, after which he was sent to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to help Colonel “Char-gin’ Charlie” Beckwith oversee the training of the U.S. Army’s 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment — the Delta Force. Rodgers remained there until the Persian Gulf War, where he commanded a mechanized brigade with such Pattonesque fervor that he was well on his way to Baghdad while his backup was still in Southern Iraq. His zeal earned him a promotion — and a desk job at Op-Center.

  August had flown eighty-seven F-4 spy missions over North Vietnam during a two-year period before being shot down near Hue. He spent a year as a prisoner of war before escaping and making his way to the south. After recovering in Germany from exhaustion and exposure, August returned to Vietnam. He organized a spy network to search for other U.S. POWs and then remained undercover for a year after the United States withdrawal. At the request of the Pentagon, August spent the next three years in the Philippines helping President Ferdinand Marcos battle Moro secessionists. He disliked Marcos and his repressionist policies, but the U.S. government supported him and so August stayed. Looking for a little desk-bound downtime after the fall of the Marcos regime, August went to work as an Air Force liaison with NASA, helping to organize security for spy satellite missions, after which he joined the SOC as a specialist in counter-terrorist activities. When Striker commander Lt. Colonel W. Charles Squires was killed on a mission in Russia, Rodgers immediately contacted Colonel August and offered him the commission. August accepted, and the two easily resumed their close friendship.