"For the moment, yes. If possible, I'd like to go wherever the investigation is being handled."
"I see. You have a background in law enforcement, I recall."
"That's right," said McCaskey. "I spent a lot of time working with Interpol when I was at the FBI."
Serrador nodded. "I'll look into it, of course. Is there anything else I can do for either of you?"
McCaskey shook his head. Aideen did not move. She was seething. Again, politics. Not leadership, not vision. Just a cautious "T-step," as they used to call a little dance move back in Boston. She wished she'd saved some of the mierda de perro for this meeting.
"My automobile is bulletproof and two of the guards will accompany you," Serrador said. "You will be safe. In the meantime, I will speak with those of my colleagues who were scheduled to participate in today's meeting. I will contact you in a few days--in Washington, I imagine?--to let you know how and if we wish to proceed."
"Of course," McCaskey replied.
"Thank you." Serrador smiled thinly. "Thank you very much."
The deputy extended his hand across the large mahogany desk. McCaskey shook it. Serrador swung his hand toward Aideen. She shook it as well, very briefly. There was no warmth in the short look they exchanged.
McCaskey had eased his hand onto Aideen's back. He half-guided, half-pushed her out the door and they walked the corridor in silence.
When they were inside the deputy's limousine, McCaskey turned to Aideen. "So."
"So. Go ahead. Tell me I was out of line."
"You were."
"I know," she replied. "I'm sorry. I'll take the next plane home." This was becoming the theme of the day. Or maybe it was something larger, the wrong fit of Aideen Marley and ivory tower diplomacy.
"I don't want you to do that," McCaskey said. "You were out of line but I happen to agree with what you were saying. I don't think our accidental good-cop, bad-cop routine worked, but it's got potential."
She looked at him. "You agreed with me?"
"Pretty much. Let's wait until we can call home and see what the rest of the clan has to say," McCaskey continued.
Aideen nodded. She knew that that was only part of the reason McCaskey didn't want to talk. Limousine drivers were never as invisible as passengers presumed: they saw and heard everything. And putting up the partition wouldn't guarantee privacy. Chances were good that the car was bugged and their conversation was being monitored. They waited until they had returned to McCaskey's hotel room before continuing. He'd set up a small electromagnetic generator designed by Matt Stoll, Op-Center's technical wizard. The unit, approximately the size and dimensions of a portable CD player, sent out a pulse that disrupted electronic signals within a ten-foot radius and turned them to "gibberish," as Stoll described it. Computers, recorders, or other digital devices outside its range would be unaffected.
McCaskey and Aideen sat on the side of the bed with the Egg, as they'd nicknamed it, between them.
"Deputy Serrador thinks that there isn't much we can do without cooperation on this end," McCaskey said.
"Does he," Aideen said bitterly.
"We may be able to surprise him."
"It might also be necessary to surprise him," Aideen said.
"That's true," McCaskey said. He looked at Aideen. "Anything else before I call the boss?"
Aideen shook her head, though that wasn't entirely true. There was a great deal she wanted to say. One thing Aideen's experiences in Mexico had taught her was to recognize when things weren't right. And something wasn't right here. The thing that had pushed her buttons back in the deputy's office wasn't just the emotional aftermath of Martha's death. It was Serrador's rapid retreat from cooperation to what amounted to obstruction. If Martha's death were an assassination--and her gut told her that it was--was Serrador afraid that they'd target him next? If so, why didn't he take on extra security? Why were the halls leading to his office so empty? And why did he assume--as clearly he did--that simply by calling off the talks word would get back to whoever did this? How could he be so certain that the information would get leaked?
McCaskey rose and went to the phone, which was outside the pulse-radius. As Aideen listened to the quiet hum of the Egg, she looked through the twelfth-floor window at the streetlights off in the distance. Her spirit was too depleted, her emotions too raw for her to try to explore the matter right now. But she was certain of one thing. Though these might be the rules by which the Spanish leaders operated, they'd crossed the line into three of her own rules. First, you don't shoot people who are here to help you. Second, if shooting them is designed to help you, then you're going to run into rule number three: Americans--especially this American--shoot back.
FIVE
Monday, 8:21 P.M. San Sebastian, Spain
The hull of the small fishing boat was freshly painted. The smell of the paint permeated the cramped, dimly lighted hold. It overpowered the bite of the handrolled cigarette Adolfo Alcazar was smoking as well as the strong, distinctive, damp-rubber odor of the wetsuit that hung on a hook behind the closed door. The paint job was an extravagance the fisherman couldn't really afford but it had been necessary. There might be other missions, and he couldn't afford to be in drydock, replacing rotted boards. When he'd agreed to work with the General, Adolfo knew that the old boat would have to last them for as long as this affair took. And if anything went wrong, that could be a while. One didn't undermine one takeover and orchestrate a counterrevolution in a single night--or with a single strike. Not even with a big strike, which this one would be.
Although the General is going to try, Adolfo thought with deep and heartfelt admiration. And if anyone could pull it off, a one-day coup against a major world government, it was the General.
There was a click. The short, muscular man stopped staring into space. He looked down at the tape recorder on the wooden table beside him. He lay his cigarette in a rusted tin ashtray and sat back down into the folding wooden chair. He pushed PLAY and listened through the earphones, just to make sure the remote had picked up the sounds. The General's technical officer from Pamplona, the man who had given him the equipment, had said the equipment was extremely precise. If properly calibrated, it would record the voices over the slosh of the ocean and the growl of the fishing boat's engine.
He was correct.
After nearly a minute of silence Adolfo Alcazar heard a mechanical-sounding but clear voice utter, "It is accomplished." The voice was followed by what sounded like crackling.
No, Adolfo realized as he listened more closely. The noise wasn't static. It was applause. The men in the yacht were clapping.
Adolfo smiled. For all their wealth, for all their planning, for all their experience at managing their bloodthirsty familias, these men were unsuspecting fools. The fisherman was pleased to see that money hadn't made them smart--only smug. He was also glad because the General had been right. The General was always right. He had been right when he tried to arm the Basques to grease the wheels of revolution. And he was right to step back when they began fighting among themselves--the separatists battling the antiseparatists. Killing themselves and drawing attention from the real revolution.
The small dish-shaped "ear" the fisherman had placed on top of his boat's cabin, right behind the navigation light, had picked up every word of the conversation of that altivo, the haughty Esteban Ramirez, and his equally arrogant compadres on board the Veridico.
Adolfo stopped the cassette and rewound it. The smile evaporated as he faced another unit directly to the right. This device was slightly smaller than the tape recorder. It was an oblong box nearly thirteen inches long by five inches wide and four inches deep. The box was made of Pittsburgh steel. In case it were ever found, there would be metallurgic evidence pointing to its country of origin. Ramirez, the traitor, had ties to the American CIA. After seizing power, the General could always point to them as having removed a collaborator who had outlived his usefulness.
There was a green light on the
top of the box face and a red light beneath it. The green light was glowing. Directly below them were two square white buttons. Beneath the topmost button was a piece of white tape with the word ARM written in blue ink. That button was already depressed. The second button was not yet depressed. Below it was a piece of tape with the word DETONATE written on it. The General's electronics expert had given this device to Adolfo as well, along with several bricks of U.S. army plastique and a remote detonator cap. The fisherman had attached two thousand grams of C-4 and a detonator below the waterline of the yacht before it left the harbor. When the blast occurred, it would rip through the hull at a velocity of twenty-six thousand feet per second-- nearly four times faster than an equivalent amount of dynamite.
The young man ran a calloused hand through his curly black hair. Then he looked at his watch. Esteban Ramirez, the wealthy son of a bitch who was going to bring them all under the iron heel of his monied Catalonian cohorts, had said that the assassin would be arriving at the airport in an hour. When Adolfo had heard that, he'd used his ship-to-shore radio to pass the information along to his partners in the northwestern Pyrenees, Daniela, Vicente, and Alejandro. They'd hurried out to the airport, which was located outside of Bilbao, which was seventy miles to the east. Just two minutes ago they'd radioed back that the airplane had landed. One of Ramirez's petty thugs would be bringing him out here. The other members of the familia would be rounded up and dealt with later. That is, if they didn't panic and disperse of their own accord. Unlike Adolfo, so many of those bastards were only effective when they worked in big, brutal gangs.
Adolfo picked up his cigarette, drew on it one last time, then ground it out. He removed the audiocassette from the recorder and slipped it into his shirt pocket, beneath his heavy black sweater. As he did so, his hand brushed the shoulder holster in which he carried a 9mm Beretta. The gun was one that had been used by U.S. Navy SEALs in Iraq and retrieved by coalition forces. It had made its way to the General through the Syrian weapons underground. Adolfo slipped in a tape of native Catalonian guitar music and pressed PLAY. The first song was called "Salou," a song for two guitars. It was a paean to the magnificent illuminated fountain in the beautiful town south of Barcelona. The young man listened for a moment, humming along with the lilting tune. One guitar played the melody while the other made pizzicato sounds like water droplets hitting the fountain. The music the instruments made was enchanting.
Reluctantly, Adolfo turned off the tape. He took a short breath and grabbed the detonator. Then he doused the battery-powered lantern that swung from an overhead hook and went upstairs to the deck.
The moon had slid behind a narrow bank of clouds. That was good. The crew of the yacht probably wouldn't pay attention anyway to a fishing boat over six hundred feet off their portside stern. In these waters, fishermen often trolled for night-feeders. But the men on the yacht would be less likely even to see him if the moon were hidden. Adolfo looked at the boat. It was dark save for its navigation lights and a glow from behind the drawn curtain of the midcabin porthole.
After several minutes Adolfo heard the muffled growl of a small boat. The sound was coming from behind him, from the direction of the shore. He turned completely around and watched a small, dark shape head toward the yacht. It was traveling about forty miles an hour. From the light slap of the hull upon the water Adolfo judged it to be a small, two-person runabout. He watched as it pulled up to the near side of the yacht. A rope ladder was unrolled from the deck. A man stood unsteadily in the passenger's seat of the rocking vessel.
That had to be the assassin.
The detonator felt slick in Adolfo's perspiring hand. He gripped it tightly, his finger hovering above the lower button.
The seas were unusually active. They seemed to be reflecting the times themselves, uneasy and roiling below the surface. There were only four or five seconds from the peak of one uproll to the peak of the next. But Adolfo stood at the edge of the rolling deck with the sure poise of a lifelong fisherman. According to the General, he needed to be in a direct and unobstructed line with the plastique. Though they could have given him a more sophisticated trigger than the line-of-sight transmitter, these were more commonly available and less easy to trace.
Adolfo watched as the yacht rocked gently from side to side. The assassin started uncertainly up the short ladder and the runabout moved away to keep from being rocked by the yacht's swells. A man appeared on deck. He was a fat man smoking a cigar--clearly not one of the crewmen. Adolfo waited. He knew exactly where he'd placed the explosives and he also knew the precise moment when they'd be exposed by the roll of the boat.
The yacht tilted to port, toward him. Then it rolled away. Adolfo lowered the side of his thumb onto the bottom button. One more roll, he told himself. The ship was inclined toward the starboard for just a moment. Then gently, gracefully, it righted itself for a moment before angling back to port. The hull of the yacht rose, revealing the area just below the waterline. It was dark and Adolfo couldn't see it, but he knew that the package he'd left was there. He pushed hard with his thumb. The green light on the box went off and the red light ignited.
The portside bottom of the hull exploded with a white-yellow flash. The man on the ladder evaporated as the blast followed a nearly straight line from prow to stern. The fat man flew away from the blast into the darkness and the deck crumpled inward as the entire vessel shuddered. Splinters of wood, shards of fiberglass, and torn, jagged pieces of metal from the midcabin rode the blast into air. Burning chunks arced brightly against the sky while broken fragments, which had been blown straight along the sea, plopped and sizzled in the water just yards from Adolfo's fishing boat. Smoke rose in thick sheets from the opening in the hull until the yacht listed to port. Then it became steam. The yacht seemed to stop there for a moment, holding at an angle as water rushed through the huge breach; Adolfo could hear the distinctive, hollow roar of the sea as it poured in. Then the yacht slowly rolled onto its side. Less than half a minute after the capsizing, the wake caused the fishing boat to rock quickly from side to side. Adolfo easily retained his balance. The moon returned from behind the clouds then, its bright image jiggling on the waves with giddy agitation.
Dropping the detonator into the water, the young man turned from the sea and hurried back into the cabin. He radioed his associates that the job had been accomplished. Then he walked to the controls, stood behind the wheel, and turned the boat toward the wreckage. He wanted to be able to tell investigators that he had raced to the scene to look for survivors.
He felt the weight of the 9mm weapon under his sweater. He also wanted to make sure there weren't any survivors.
SIX
Monday, 1:44 P.M. Washington, D.C.
Intelligence Chief Bob Herbert was in a gray frame of mind as he arrived in Paul Hood's bright, windowless basement office. In contrast to the warm fluorescence of the overhead lights, the gloomy mood was much too familiar. Not long ago they'd mourned the deaths of Striker team members Bass Moore, killed in North Korea, and Lt. Col. Charles Squires, who died in Siberia preventing a second Russian Revolution.
For Herbert, the psychological resources he needed to deal with death were highly refined. Whenever he learned of the demise of enemies of his country--or when it had been necessary, early in his intelligence career, to participate in some of those killings--he never had any problems. The life and security of his country came before any other considerations. As Herbert had put it so many times, "The deeds are dirty but my conscience is clean."
But this was different.
Although Herbert's wife, Yvonne, had been killed nearly sixteen years ago in the terrorist bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, he was still mourning her death. The loss still seemed fresh. Too fresh, he thought almost every night since the attack. Restaurants, movie theaters, and even a park bench they had frequented became shrines to him. Each night he lay in bed gazing at her photograph on his night table. Some nights the framed picture was moonlit, some nights it w
as just a dark shape. But bright or dark, seen or remembered, for better or for worse, Yvonne never left his bedside. And she never left his thoughts. Herbert had long ago adjusted to having lost his legs in the Beirut explosion. Actually, he'd more than adjusted. His wheelchair and all its electronic conveniences now seemed an integral part of his body. But he had never adjusted to losing Yvonne.
Yvonne had been a fellow CIA agent--a formidable enemy, a devoted friend, and the wittiest person he'd ever known. She had been his life and his lover. When they were together, even on the job, the physical boundaries of the universe seemed very small. It was defined by her eyes and by the curve of her neck, by the warmth of her fingers and the playfulness of her toes. But what a rich and full universe that had been. So rich that there were still mornings when, half-awake, Herbert would reach his hand under her pillow and search for hers. Not finding it, he'd squeeze her lumpy pillow in his empty fingers and silently curse the killers who'd taken her from him. Killers who had gone unpunished. Who were still permitted to enjoy their own lives, their own loves.
Now Herbert had to mourn the loss of Martha Mackall. He felt guilty. Part of him was pleased that he wasn't the only one grieving now. Mourning could be an oppressively lonely place to be. Less guiltily, Herbert also wasn't willing to laud the dead just because they were dead, and he was going to have to listen to plenty of that over the next few days and weeks. Some of the praise would be valid. But only some of it.
Martha had been one of Op-Center's keystones since the organization's inception. Regardless of her motivation, Martha had never given less than her utmost. Herbert was going to miss her intelligence, her insights, and her justified self-confidence. In government, it didn't always matter whether a person was right or wrong. What mattered was that they led, that they roused passions. From the day she arrived in Washington Martha certainly did that.
Balance Of Power (1998) Page 6
