then waited a moment to make sure no one had heard
them. When they were certain no one had, they walked
swiftly toward the metal door in front. They
walked carefully, crossing the open area in
relative silence.
The other three men had crowbars as well and Ferdinand
had a .38 revolver in his deep-cut right pants
pocket. There were extra shells in his left
pocket, wrapped in a handkerchief so they wouldn't
jangle.
BALANCE OF POWER 177
Juan and his people did not want to kill any more people. But
after what had been done to Senor Ramirez, they
would not hesitate to do anything that was necessary to complete
their mission.
They knew that the door would be locked and had planned
accordingly. Juan was the tallest of the men and he placed
his crowbar on the top left side of the door, between the
door and the jamb. Martin bent low and put his bar on
the bottom left side. The other man, Sancho,
inserted his crowbar to the left of the knob. Ferdinand
pulled the gun from his pocket and stood back, ready
to fire in case they were attacked.
The men wedged the prongs of the crowbars in as far as they
would go. If they didn't get it open on
the first try they would push them back in unison and
try again. They figured that two strong pulls should do
it. Martin had worked in construction and said that even if
the door were double-bolted, the jambs wouldn't be steel
reinforced. Grounded metal like that would wreak hell with the
radio broadcasts, he said.
The men pulled hard on Juan's count of three.
The door flew open on the first try, large wood
splinters fracturing up and down the jamb. As
soon as Ferdinand gave them the all-clear they ran
in.
There were three people inside. One man was inside a
soundproof booth and two people, a man and a woman, were
seated at a control panel. As planned, Martin
sought out the fuse box. He found it quickly and killed
the electricity. The station died before the announcer could
report what was happening. Under the brilliance of
two battery-powered emergency lights mounted on the
ceiling, Juan and Sancho ran over to
178 OP-CENTER
the technicians. They clubbed each one hard across the
collarbone. They fell to the ground, the woman
moaning and the man shrieking. While Ferdinand covered
them, Juan entered the booth. He walked calmly
toward the announcer.
" "I want to know who gave you the tape you
played earlier," Juan said.
The slender young man, bearded and indignant, moved
back on the rolling chair.
"I'll ask you one more time," Juan said, raising the
crowbar. "Who gave you the tape recording?"
"I don't know who he was," the man said. His
voice was high and squeaky. He cleared his throat.
"I don't know."
Juan swung the crowbar against the man's left
tricep. The man grabbed his arm as his mouth dropped
open and let out air, like a furnace. Tears formed
in his wide eyes.
"Who gave you the tape?" Juan repeated.
The man tried to close his mouth. It didn't seem
to want to work. The chair thumped up against the wall and
stopped.
Juan continued toward him. He looked at the fingers
of the man's right hand. They were wrapped around his upper
arm. He swung the crowbar again, at the fingers.
The iron bar smashed the back of his hand, just below the
lower knuckles. There was an audible crack, like the
snap of dry chicken bones. The hand dropped onto
the man's lap. Blood pooled and caused the skin
to bulge at once. This time the victim was
able to scream.
BALANCE OF POWER 179
"Adolfo!" he shouted from that wide, open mouth.
"Who?" Juan repeated.
"Adolfo Alcazar! The fisherman!" The man
provided Juan with the address and Juan thanked
him. Then he swung the crowbar one more time, just hard
enough to break the man's jaw. Juan looked out at
Martin and Sancho, who did likewise. There
wasn't time to check for cellular phones and he
didn't want them calling ahead to warn the
fisherman.
Five minutes later the four
familia
members were driving back down the road toward San
Sebastian.
SIXTEEN
Monday, 8:15 p.m. Washington, D.c.
When Hood called home, neither Sharon nor the
kids picked up the phone. The answering machine
message came on after four rings; it was
Harleigh's from the day before.
"Hi. You've reached the Hood family. We're
not home right now. But we're not going to tell you
to leave a message because if you don't know
that, we don't want to talk to you."
Hood sighed. He'd asked the kids not to leave
smart-ass messages like that. Maybe he should have
insisted on it. Sharon had always said he wasn't
strict enough with them.
"Hey, guys, it's me," Hood said. The
conviviality in his voice was difficult, forced.
"I'm afraid I'm going to be at the office a
while longer. I hope you all had a good first day of
spring vacation and that you're out at the movies or the
mall or something fun. Sharry, would you please give
me a call when you get back? Thanks. Love you
all. Bye."
Hood felt a flash of desperation as he hung
up. He wanted very badly to talk to Sharon. He
hated having this barrier between them and he wanted to make
BALANCE OF POWER 181
things better. Or at least to make peace until
he could sit down, talk to her, and make things
better. He tried Sharon's cellular phone but
got kicked into the answering system. He decided not
to leave a message.
Almost the moment he put the phone in the cradle his
private line rang. It was Sharon. He smiled
and a weight seemed to rise from his chest.
"Hi there," he said. This time the conviviality was
effortless, genuine. There was noise behind her-loud
talking and garbled announcements. "You guys at the
mall?"
"No, Paul," she said. "We're at the
airport."
Hood had been slumped back tiredly in his big
leather chair. He sat up. He didn't say
anything for a moment; it was a good habit he'd picked
up during his political career.
"I've decided to take the kids to Connecticut,"
Sharon continued. "You won't be seeing them much
anyway this week and my folks have been asking us
to come up."
"Oh," he said. "How long do you intend to stay?"
His voice was calm but his insides weren't. He was
looking at the framed family photograph on his
desk. The picture was three years old but the
smiles on the four faces suddenly seemed to belong
to another lifetime.
"I honestly don't know," she a
nswered.
Ron Plummer and Bob Herbert arrived then.
Hood held up a finger. Herbert saw that he was
on his private line. He nodded and the men turned
their backs to the doorway. Arm Farris
arrived a moment later. She joined the two men
waiting in the hall.
182 OP-CENTER
"I guess that depends on-was Sharon said, then
stopped.
"On what?" Hood asked. "On me? On whether
I want you here? You know the answer to that."
"I know," Sharon said, "though I don't know why.
You're never around. We go on vacations and you leave
the first day."
"That happened once."
"That's only because we haven't even tried to take
another vacation," Sharon said. "What I was going
to say is, my coming back to Washington depends on
whether I want to watch the kids get disappointed
over and over again-or whether I want to put a stop
to it altogether."
"That's what
you
want," Hood said. He had raised his voice and
lowered it quickly. "Have you asked them what they want?
Does that matter?"
"Of course it matters," she said. "They want their
father. And so do I. But if we can't have him, then
maybe we ought to settle that now instead of
letting this drag on."
Herbert turned back toward the office. His lips
were pursed and his eyebrows were raised. Whatever he
had was important. As Herbert turned back
around. Hood found himself wishing that he could start
everything over again. The day, the year, his entire
life.
"Don't go up there," Hood said. "Please.
We'll figure something out as soon as the situation
is under control."
"I figured you'd say that," Sharon replied. Her
voice wasn't hard, just final. "If you want
to figure it
BALANCE OF POWER 183
out, Paul, you know where we'll be. I love you-and
I'll talk to you, okay?"
She hung up. Hood was still looking out the door at
the backs of the heads of his subordinates. He had
always regarded Bob and Mike and Darrell in
particular as a special kind of family. Now,
suddenly, they were his only family. And it wasn't
enough.
He hung up the phone. Bob heard it and turned.
He wheeled in followed by the others. His eyes were on
Hood.
"Everything okay?" Herbert asked.
It suddenly
hit
him. His wife had just left their home and taken the
kids with her. He half had it in mind to send someone
to the airport to stop them. But Sharon would never
forgive him for muscling her. He wasn't sure
he'd be able to forgive himself.
"We'll talk later," Hood said. "What've you
got?"
"A major crapstorm, as they say back in my
hometown of Philadelphia, Mississippi.
I've just got to make sure you still want Darrell
and Aideen in the middle of it."
"Paul," Arm said, tapping her notebook in her
open hand, "if I could just steal a minute I can be out
of here."
Hood looked at Herbert.
The intelligence chief nodded. "Okay if I
stay?"
Arm nodded.
"Okay," Hood said to Arm.
"Thanks," she said.
Hood's eyes dropped briefly to Ann's
fine-boned fingers under the notepad. The
long, red fingernails seemed very feminine. He
looked away. He was angry
184 OP-CENTER
at Sharon and was drawn to Arm, who wanted him.
He hated feeling that way but he didn't know what
to do about it.
"I've just had a call from the BBC," Arm said.
"They obtained a tourist's videotape of the scene
around the Congress of Deputies in Madrid. It
shows Martha's body being removed-was
"Freakin" ghouls," Herbert complained.
"They're newspeople," Arm countered, "and whether
we like it or not, this is news."
"Then they're ghoulish newspeople," Herbert said.
"Let it go. Bob," Hood said. He wasn't in
the mood for another family squabble. "What's the
bottom line, Arm ?"
She glanced at her notes. "They pulled an
image of Martha's face," she continued, "ran it
through their data base, and came up with a picture of
Martha when she met with Nelson Mandela's Zulu
rival Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi in
Johannesburg in ninety-four. Jimmy
George at the Washington
Post
says he's got to run with what he knows tomorrow before the
BBC story gets out."
Hood pressed his palms into his eyes and rubbed.
"Does anyone know about Aideen being there with her?"
"Not yet."
"What do you recommend?" Hood asked.
"Lie," Herbert offered.
"If we try and fudge this," Arm replied with a
hint of annoyance, "if we say something like, "She
was a diplomatic troubleshooter but she was really there
on vacation," no one'll believe us. They'll
keep on dig BALANCE OF POWER 185
ging. So I suggest we give them the bare bones
truth."
"How bare bones?" Hood asked.
"Let's say that she was there to lend her experience
to Spanish congressional deputies. They were concerned
about rising ethnic tension and she's had experience in that
area. True, end of story."
"You can't tell the press that much," Herbert pointed
out.
"I have to," Arm said.
"If you do that," Herbert said, "they may figure out
that she wasn't there alone. And then the bastards who
shot Martha might come back for a second
try at Aideen."
"I thought the killers were all at the bottom of the
sea," Arm said.
"Maybe they are," said Hood. "What if
Bob's right? What if they're not?"
"I don't know," Arm admitted. "But if I
lie, Paul, then that could be deadly too."
"How?" Hood asked.
"The press'll find out that Martha was there with a
"Senorita Temblon," and they'll try
to track her down. It won't take them long
to figure out that there
is
no Senorita Temblon. Then they'll try to find
the mystery woman themselves. They'll also try
to figure out how she got into the country and where she's
staying. Their search could help lead the killers right
to her."
"That's a good point," Herbert had to admit.
"Thanks," Arm said. "Paul, nothing is
optimal. But if I give out this much, at least the
press'll be able to verify that what we're giving them
is the truth. I'll admit there was someone else and
I'll tell them that
186 OP-CENTER
because of security considerations her associate left
the country quietly. They'll buy that."
"You're sure?" Hood said.
Arm nodded. "The press doesn't always tell
everything. They like the feeling of being in on som
ething
secret. Makes them feel important at
cocktail parties, part of the inner workings."
"I was wrong," Herbert said. "They're not just
ghouls. They're
shallow
freakin' ghouls."
"Everybody's something," Arm said.
Herbert scrunched his brow at that but Hood
understood. His own integrity had taken a few good
hits over the last few hours.
"All right," Hood said. "Go with it. But contain it,
Arm. I don't want the whereabouts of Darrell or
Aideen found out. Tell the press that they're being
brought back here under very tight security."
"I will," she said. "What do I say about a
successor to Martha? Someone's bound to ask."
" 'Tell them that Ronald Plummer is Acting
Political and Economics Officer," Hood
said without hesitation.
Plummer thanked him with his eyes.
Acknowledging that in an official statement, without
attaching another name to the office, was a vote of
confidence in Plummer. The job was his to lose.
Arm thanked Hood and left. He didn't watch
her go. He turned to Herbert.
"So what's your crapstorm?" he asked.
"Riots," Herbert said. "They're bustin" out
everywhere." He hesitated. "You okay?"
"I'm fine."
BALANCE OF POWER 187
"You look faraway."
"I'm fine, thanks. Bob. What's the
overview?"
Herbert gave him a you-ain't-foolin'-me look and
moved on. "The riots are no longer contained in the
A vila, Segovia, and Soria corridor of
Castile," Herbert said. "Ron, you've got the
latest."
" 'This just came via fax from the U.s.
consulate in the city," Plummer said, "though I'm
sure several news services must be on it by now.
Word of the Barcelona soccer cancellation got out-n
surprising when the German players quietly tried
to skip town. Angry fans actually blockaded the
motorway with their cars as the bus headed to the
El Prat airport. The
policia nacional,
Spain's state troopers, came to try and rescue
them. When the
policia
were hit with rocks, the Mossos d'Escuadra were
called to help them."
"They're the autonomous police of
Catalonia," Herbert said. "They're mostly
responsible for government buildings and have a
take-no-prisoners attitude."
"Except that prisoners were taken," Plummer said.
"Over twenty. When the Mossos d'Escuadra
contingent brought them in, the police station was attacked
by a mob. Martial law is about to be declared in the
city, which is where we're at right now."
Clancy, Tom - Ballance of Power Page 18
