Clancy, Tom - Ballance of Power

by Balance of Power [lit]

  A lot of guilt comes along with that. Guilt and a

  responsibility to see the job through at any cost.

  She won't sleep and she probably won't eat.

  A person can't maintain those countershock and

  resistance levels for long."

  "What's 'long"?" Herbert asked.

  "Two or three days, depending on the person,"

  Liz said. " 'After that, the person

  enters a state of clinical exhaustion. That brings

  on a mental and physical breakdown. If

  countershock is left untreated for that long, there's a

  good chance our girl's in for a long, long stay in a very

  quiet rest home."

  "How good a chance?" Herbert asked.

  "I'd say sixty-forty in favor of a crash,"

  Liz said.

  Hood's phone beeped as Liz was speaking. As

  soon as she was finished Hood picked it up. His

  executive assistant, "Bugs" Benet, said that

  Darrell McCaskey was on the line. Hood put

  McCaskey on the speakerphone.

  Herbert settled back into his wheelchair.

  Until recently, a call like this wouldn't have been

  possible over an unsecured line. But Matt

  Stoll, Op-Center's Operations Support

  Officer and resident computer genius, had designed

  a digital scrambler that plugged into the data port

  of public telephones. Anyone listening in over the

  line would hear only static. A small speaker

  82 OP-CENTER

  attached to the scrambler on McCaskey's end

  filtered out the noise and enabled him to hear the conversation

  clearly.

  "Darrell, good evening," Hood said softly.

  "I've got you on speaker."

  "Who's there?" he asked.

  Hood told him.

  "I've gotta tell you," McCaskey said,

  choking, "you can't imagine what it means to have a team

  like you back there. Thanks."

  "We're in this together," Hood said.

  Hood rolled his lips together. It was the closest

  Herbert had seen the boss come to losing it.

  Hood collected himself quickly. "How are you both?

  Do you need anything?"

  The compassion was real. Herbert had always said that when it

  came to sincerity in government Hood was in a

  category all by himself.

  "We're still pretty shaken up," McCaskey

  answered, "as I'm sure you are. But I guess

  we'll be all right. As a matter of fact,

  Aideen seems to be in a pretty combative

  mood."

  Liz nodded knowingly. "Countershock," she said

  softly.

  "How so?" Hood asked.

  "Well, she kind of took Deputy Serrador

  apart for getting cold feet,"

  McCaskey said. "I called her on the carpet for

  it but I have to say I was actually pretty proud of

  her. He had it coming."

  "Darrell," Hood asked, "is Aideen there?"

  "No, she isn't," said McCaskey. "I left

  her in her room with Deputy Ambassador

  Gawal from the Amer-

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  ican embassy. They're on the phone with my friend

  Luis at Interpol, discussing security measures

  if you decide to keep us here. Like I said, she's

  pretty worked up and I wanted her to have time

  to settle down a little. But I also didn't want

  her to feel left out of the process."

  "Good thinking," Hood said. "Darrell, are you

  sure

  you

  feel up to talking now?"'"

  "It's got to be done," McCaskey said, "and

  I'd rather do it now. I'm sure I'll feel a

  lot lower when all of this sinks in."

  Liz gave Hood a thumbs-up.

  Herbert nodded. He knew the feeling.

  "Very good," Hood said. "Darrell, we were just

  discussing the idea of you two staying. How do

  you feel about that-and what's the problem with Deputy

  Serrador?"

  "Frankly," McCaskey said, "I'd feel

  fine about staying. Only the problem isn't me.

  Aideen and I just came from Serrador's office.

  He's made it pretty clear that he doesn't

  want to continue."

  "Why?" Hood asked.

  "Cold feet," Herbert suggested.

  "No, Bob, I don't think it's that,"

  McCaskey said. "Deputy Serrador told us

  that he wants to talk to the investigators and to his

  colleagues before he decides whether to proceed with

  our talks. But it seemed to me-and this is only a

  former G-man's hunch-that that was bull. Aideen had

  the same feeling. I think he

  wanted to

  shut us down."

  "Darrell, this is Ron Plummer. Deputy

  Serrador was the one who initiated these

  exploratory talks

  84 OP-CENTER

  through Ambassador Neville. What does he

  possibly gain by terminating them?"

  "Terminating them?" Herbert muttered. "The

  son of a bitch didn't even start them!"

  Hood motioned the intelligence chief to silence.

  "I'm not sure what he gains, Ron,"

  McCaskey replied. "But I think that what Bob

  just said-that was you grumbling. Bob, wasn't it?"

  "Who else?"

  "I think that what he said is significant,"

  McCaskey said. " "From the time Av Lincoln

  first put Serrador in touch with Martha-at

  Serrador's request, remember- the deputy has

  insisted that he only wanted to talk with Martha.

  She's murdered and now Serrador doesn't want

  to talk. One conclusion, the obvious conclusion, is that

  someone who has access to Serrador's political

  agenda-as well as his calendar-killed her

  to intimidate him."

  "Not just to intimidate him," Plummer pointed out,

  "but to shut down everyone who's a member of his

  pronationalism team."

  "That's right," said McCaskey. "Also, by attacking

  Martha, they send a message to our diplomats

  to stay out of this matter. But I still feel that those are the

  things we're supposed to think. I don't believe

  that they're the real reason behind the killing."

  "Mr. McCaskey, this is Carol

  Lanning with State." Her voice was composed, though

  just barely. "I'm coming in a little late on all of

  this. What else is going on here? What does

  somebody want our diplomats to stay out of?"

  "I'll take this one, Darrell," Hood said.

  He fixed

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  his eyes on banning. "As you know, Ms. banning,

  Spain has been going through some serious upheavals

  over the last few months."

  "I've seen the daily situation reports,"

  banning replied. "But it's mostly separatist

  Basques attacking antiseparatist Basques."

  "Those are the very public disputes," Hood

  confirmed. "What you may not know is how concerned some

  of Spain's leaders are about other recent events

  involving violent attacks on members of the

  country's largest ethnic groups. The government

  has conspired to keep these very, very quiet. Arm,

  you've got some intel on this."

  The slender, attractive, brown-haired press

  liaison nodded professionally
but her rust-colored

  eyes smiled at Hood. Herbert noticed; he

  wondered if "Pope" Paul did.

  "The Spanish government has been working very

  hard with journalists to keep the news out of the press

  and off the air," Arm Farris said.

  "Really?" Herbert said. "How? Those ambulance

  chasers are even worse than the Washington press

  corps."

  "Frankly, they're paid off," Arm said. "I know

  of three incidents in particular that were hushed. A

  Catalonian book publisher's office was burned

  after distributing a new novel that seriously bashed the

  Castilians. An Andalusian wedding party was

  attacked leaving a church in Segovia in

  Castile. And a Basque antiseparatist-a leading

  activist-was killed by Basque separatists

  while he was a patient in the hospital."

  86 OP-CENTER

  "Sounds like a lot of brushfires," Plummer said.

  "They are," Hood agreed. "But if those fires

  should ever join up they could consume Spain."

  "Which is why local reporters have been bribed

  to bury these stories," Arm went on, "while

  foreign reporters have been kept away from crime

  scenes altogether. UPI, ABC, the

  New York Times,

  and the

  Washington Post

  have all filed complaints with the government but to no

  effect. That's been going on for a little over a month

  now."

  "Our own hands-on involvement in Spain began just

  about three weeks ago," Hood continued.

  "Deputy Serrador met secretly with

  Ambassador Neville in Madrid. It was a very

  quiet backdoor get-together at the U.s.

  Embassy. Serrador told the ambassador that a

  committee had been formed, with himself as the chair,

  to investigate this growing tension between Spain's five

  major ethnic groups. He said that during the

  previous four months, in addition to the crimes Arm

  mentioned, over a dozen ethnic leaders had been

  murdered or kidnapped. Serrador wanted help

  obtaining intelligence on several of the groups.

  Neville contacted Av Lincoln, who brought the

  matter to us, and to Martha."

  Hood's eyes lowered slowly.

  "And if you remember correctly," Herbert said

  quickly, "as soon as Deputy Serrador had a

  look at our diplomatic roster he asked for

  Martha specifically. And she couldn't wait to get

  her arms around this situation and make it hers. So

  don't even think about second-guessing

  what you did."

  "Hear, hear," Arm Farris said quietly.

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  Hood looked up. He thanked them both with his

  eyes then looked at Carol Lanning.

  "Anyway," he said, "that was the start of our

  involvement."

  "What do these groups want?" Lanning asked. "

  "Independence?"'"

  "Some do," Hood said. He turned to his computer

  screen and accessed the file on Spain. "According

  to Deputy Serrador, there are two major

  problems. The first is between the two factions of

  Basques. The Basques comprise just two percent

  of the population and are already battling among themselves. The

  bulk of the Basques are staunch antiseparatists

  who want to remain part of Spain. A very small

  number of them, less than ten percent, are

  separatists."

  "That's point two percent of the population of

  Spain," Lanning said. "Not a very considerable

  number."

  "Right," Hood said. "Meanwhile, there's also a

  long-simmering problem with the Castilians of central

  and northern Spain. The Castilians

  make up sixty-two percent of the population of

  Spain. They've always believed that they

  are

  Spain and that everyone else in the country isn't."

  "The other groups are regarded as squatters,"

  Herbert said.

  "Exactly. Serrador tells us that the

  Castilians have been trying to arm the separatist

  factions of the Basques to begin the process of tearing

  the Spanish minorities apart. First the Basques,

  then the Galicians, the Catalonians, and the

  Andalusians. As a result, Serrador had

  intelligence that some of the other groups might be talking

  about joining together for a political

  88 OP-CENTER

  or military move against the Castilians. A

  preemptive strike."

  "And it isn't just a national issue," McCaskey

  said. "My Interpol sources tell me that the

  French are supporting the antiseparatist

  Basques. They're afraid that if the separatist

  Basques get too much power, the French

  Basques will act to form

  their

  own country as well."

  "Is there a real danger of that?" Herbert asked.

  "There is," said McCaskey. "From the late

  1960's through the middle 1970's, the

  quarter-million Basques in France helped the

  two million Basques in Spain fight the

  repression of Francisco Franco. The

  camraderie between the French Basques and the Spanish

  separatist Basques is so strong that the

  Basques- Spanish and French alike-simply

  refer to the region as the northern and southern

  Basque country, respectively."

  " "The Basques and the Castilians are the two

  groups Serrador wanted us to investigate

  immediately," Hood said. "But in addition to them, there are

  the Catalonians, also of central and northern

  Spain, who make up sixteen percent of the

  population. They're extremely rich and

  influential. A large portion of the

  Catalonians" taxes go to supporting the other

  minorities, especially the Andalusians in the

  south. They would be just as happy to see the other groups

  disappear."

  "How happy would they be?" banning asked.

  "Happy enough to make that happen?"

  "As in genocide?" Hood asked.

  banning shrugged. "It doesn't take more than a

  few loud men to fan suspicion and hate to those

  levels."

  BALANCE OF POWER 89

  "The men on the yacht were Catalonian,"

  McCaskey said.

  "And the Catalonians have always been separatists,"

  Lanning said. "They were a key force in spurring on

  the Spanish Civil War sixty years ago."

  "That's true," Ron Plummer said. "But the

  Catalonians also have a bunker mentality regarding

  other races. Genocide is usually the result of

  an already dominant force looking to turn widespread

  public anger against a specific target. That's not

  what we have here."

  "I'm inclined to agree with Ron," Hood said.

  "It probably would have been easier for the

  Catalonians to exert financial pressure on

  the nation than to resort to genocide."

  "We'll be able to check this out more thoroughly after we

  find out who else was on the yacht," Herbert said

  confidently.

  Hood nodded and turned back to the computer

  monitor. "In addition to the Bas
ques,

  Castilians, and Catalonians, we've

  got the Andalusians. They comprise roughly

  twelve percent of the population and they'll side with

  any group in power because of their financial

  dependency. The Galicians are roughly eight

  percent of the population. They're an agricultural

  people- very Spanish, traditionally independent, and

  likely to stay out of any fray that might erupt."

  "So," Lanning said, "they've got a complex

  situation over there. And given the volatile history

  of the interrelations I can understand them wanting to keep the

  disputes quiet. What I don't understand is some

  90 OP-CENTER

  thing Mr. Herbert said-why this Deputy Serrador

  wanted to see Martha specifically."

  "Deputy Serrador seemed comfortable with her due

  to her familiarity with Spain and the language,"

  Hood said. "He also liked the fact that she was a

  woman who belonged to a racial minority. He said

  he could count on her to be both discreet and

  sympathetic."

  "Sure," Herbert said. "But I've been sitting

  here thinking that she also happened to be the perfect

  victim for one of those ethnic groups."

  Everyone looked at him.

  "What do you mean?" Hood asked.

  "To put it bluntly," Herbert said, "the

  Catalonians are male-supremacists who hate

  black Africans. It's an animosity that goes

  back about nine hundred years, to the wars with the

  Moors of Africa. If someone wanted to get the

  Catalonians on their side-and who wouldn't want

  the folks with the money in their camp?-they'd pick a

  black woman as a victim."

  There was silence for a moment.

  "That's a bit of a reach, don't you think?" Lanning

  asked.

  "Not really," the intelligence chief replied.

  "I've seen longer shots pay off. The sad truth

  is, whenever I go looking for muddy footprints in the

  gutter of human nature, I'm rarely

  disappointed."

  "What ethnic group does Serrador belong to?"

  Mike Rodgers asked.

  "He's Basque, General," McCaskey's

  voice came from the speakerphone, " 'with

  absolutely no record of antinationalist

  activity. We checked him out. To the

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  contrary. He's voted against every kind of separatist

  legislation."

  "He could be a mole," Lanning said. "The most

  damaging Soviet spy we ever had at State was

  raised in whitebread Darien, Connecticut, and

  voted for Barry Goldwater."

  "You're catching on," Herbert said, grinning. He

  had a feeling what was coming: there was no one more