Balance Of Power (1998)

by Tom - Op Center 05 Clancy

  "I understand you were out of the police business for a while," she said. "What did you do?"

  "I managed a small legitimate theater in Barcelona," she said. "For excitement I took up skydiving. For even more excitement I acted in some of the plays. I've always loved acting, which is why I loved undercover work." Her tone was personable, her eyes unguarded. Whatever memories had troubled her back at the airfield were passing.

  "That was your specialty?" Aideen asked.

  Maria nodded. "It's very theatrical and that's what I enjoy." She tapped her duffelbag. "Even the codes are from plays. Luis uses numbers which refer to acts, scenes, lines, and words. When I work out of town he phones them. When I work in town he often leaves slips of papers under rocks. Sometimes he even writes them in the open as graffiti. He once left me--what do you call them? Good-time numbers on a telephone booth."

  "That's what they call 'em in the States," Aideen said.

  Maria smiled a little for the first time. With it, the last traces of her anger appeared to vanish. Aideen smiled back.

  "You've had a terrible day," Maria said. "How are you feeling?"

  "Still pretty shell-shocked," Aideen replied. "All of this hasn't really sunk in yet."

  "I know that feeling," Maria said. "For all its finality death never seems quite real. Did you know Martha Mackall well?"

  "Not very," Aideen replied. "I'd only worked with her a couple of months. She wasn't a very easy woman to get to know."

  "That's true," Maria said. "I met her several times when I lived in Washington. She was intelligent but she was also very formal."

  "That was Martha," Aideen said.

  Mentioning her stay in America seemed to bring Maria back down again. Her little smile evaporated. Her eyes darkened under her brow.

  "I'm sorry about what happened back there," Maria said.

  "It's all right," Aideen said.

  Maria stared ahead. "Mack and I were together for a while," she continued as though Aideen had not spoken. "He was more caring and more devoted than any man I've ever met. We were going to stay together forever. But he wanted me to give up my work. He said it was too dangerous."

  Aideen was starting to feel uncomfortable. Spanish women talked openly about their lives to strangers. Ladies from Boston didn't.

  Maria looked down. "He wanted me to give up smoking. It was bad for me. He wanted me to like jazz more than I did. And American football. And Italian food. He loved his things passionately, including me. But he couldn't share all of that the way he wanted to, and eventually he decided he'd rather be alone than disappointed." She looked at Aideen. "Do you understand?"

  Aideen nodded.

  "I don't expect you to say anything critical," Maria said. "You work with him. But I wanted you to know what that was about back there because you'll be working with me, too. I only learned he was here when I learned you would be coming with me. It was a difficult thing to accept, seeing him again."

  "I understand," Aideen said. She practically had to shout to be heard over the roar of the rotor.

  Maria showed her a little half-smile. "Luis tells me you worked to bring in drug dealers in Mexico. That took courage."

  "To tell you the truth," Aideen said, "what it took was indignation, not courage."

  "You are too modest," Maria shot back.

  Aideen shook her head. "I'm being truthful. Drugs helped to wreck my neighborhood when I was a kid. Cocaine killed one of my best friends. Heroin took my cousin Sam, who was a brilliant organist at our church. He died in the street. When I got some experience under my belt, I wanted to do more than wring my hands and complain about it."

  "I felt the same way about crime," she said. "My father owned a cinema in Madrid. He was killed in a robbery. But both of our desires would have been nothing if they weren't backed by courage and resolve. And cunning," she added. "You either have that or you acquire it. But you need it."

  "I'll go along with resolve and cunning," Aideen said, "and one thing more. You have to learn to stifle your gag reflex in order to learn."

  "I don't understand."

  "You have to close down your emotions," Aideen explained. "That's what allowed me to walk the streets undercover--to observe dispassionately and to learn. Otherwise, you'd spend all your time hating. You have to pretend not to care as you talk to hawkers, learn the names of the 'houses' they represent. In Mexico City there were the Clouds, who sold marijuana. The Pirates, who sold cocaine. The Angels, who sold crack. The Jaguars, who sold heroin. You have to learn the difference between the users and the junkies."

  "The junkies are always the loners, no?"

  Aideen nodded.

  "It's the same everywhere," Maria said.

  "And the users always travel in packs. You had to learn to recognize the dealers in case they didn't open their mouths. You had to know who to follow back to the kingpins. The dealers were the ones with their sleeves rolled up--that was where they carried the money. Their pockets were for guns or knives. But I was always scared in the field, Maria. I was scared for my life and scared of what I would learn about the underbelly of someone else's life. If I hadn't been angry about my old neighborhood, if I weren't sick for the families of the lost souls I encountered, I could never have gone through with it."

  Maria let the smile blossom fully now. It was a rich smile, full of respect and the promise of camaraderie. "Courage without fear is stupidity," Maria said. "I still believe that you had it, and I admire you even more. We're going to make a very good team."

  "Speaking of which," said Aideen, "what's the plan when we reach San Sebastian?" She was anxious to turn the conversation away from herself. Attention had always made her uneasy.

  "The first thing we'll do is go to the radio station," Maria told her.

  "As tourists?" Aideen said, perplexed.

  "No. We have to find out who brought them the tape. Once we do that, we find those people and watch them as tourists. We know that the dead men were planning some kind of conspiracy. The question is whether they died because of infighting or because someone found out about their plan. Someone who hasn't come forth as yet."

  "Meaning we don't know if they're friend or foe."

  "Correct," Maria said. "Like your government, Spain has many factions, which don't necessarily share information with other factions."

  As she was speaking, the pilot turned the stick over to the control pilot and leaned back. He removed his headset.

  "Agent Corneja?" he shouted. "I just got a message from the chief. He said to tell you that Isidro Serrador was killed tonight at the municipal police station in Madrid."

  "How?"

  "He was shot to death when he tried to take a gun from an army officer."

  "An army officer?" Maria said. "This case doesn't fall under military jurisdiction."

  "1 know," he replied. "The chief is looking into who it was and what he was doing there."

  Maria thanked him and he turned back to the controls. She looked at Aideen.

  "Something is very wrong here," Maria said gravely. "I have a feeling that what happened to poor Martha was just the first shot of what is going to be a very long and very deadly enfilade."

  FIFTEEN

  Tuesday, 2:55 A.M. San Sebastian, Spain

  The familia is an institution that dates back to the late nineteenth century. It is part of the same Mediterranean culture that gave rise to crime families in Sicily, Turkey, and Greece. The variation created by the Spanish was that a member's loyalty was to a legitimate employer, usually the owner of a plant or labor group like bricklayers or icemen. To keep the employer's hands unsullied, a cadre of employees was selected and trained to perform or protect the owner against acts of violence or sabotage and to execute the same against rivals. The targets were almost always business sites; attacks against home and members of one's personal family were considered uncivilized. Occasionally, familia members engaged in smuggling or extortion, though that was rare.

  In return for their servic
es, familia members were occasionally rewarded with extra wages. Perhaps a college education for their children. Usually, however, their loyalty earned them only the thanks of their employer and guaranteed lifetime employment.

  Juan Martinez considered the attack against the yacht to be uncivilized. Certainly the scope of it was unparalleled--so many familia members killed at once. Juan had never shied from violence during his years of service to Senor Ramirez. The violence committed against the boating concern, especially in the early years, was usually directed at ships or machines or buildings. Once or twice a worker was attacked, but never the owners or senior management. What had been done tonight demanded a response in kind. Juan, a street kid from Manresa who had worked for Senor Ramirez for twelve years, was eager to deliver it. But first he needed a target. The radio station was a good place to start looking for one.

  Juan and three coworkers drove out to the small broadcast facility. It was located on a nine-hundred-foot-high hilltop, one of three hills located just north of La Concha Bay in San Sebastian. A narrow paved road led halfway to the summit. Near the top, an enclave of expensive, gated homes had been built overlooking the bay.

  How many heads of familias live here? Juan wondered, sitting in the passenger's side of the car. He was carrying a backpack, which he'd packed at the factory. He had never been up this way before and the view of the coastline, spectacular and serene, made him uncomfortable. He was a man who enjoyed work and activity. He felt as out of place here as he would have in the moonlit gardens that were visible just past the gates.

  A narrower dirt road, typically traveled by motorbikes and hikers, led the rest of the way. The view of the bay was blocked by a turn in the hill; the grasses were not clipped and lush but scrublike and sparse. This was Juan's kind of place again. He looked up the road toward the low-lying cinderblock building at the end. It was surrounded by a chain-link fence just over eight feet high, with barbed wire strung thickly across the top.

  Radio Nacional de Publico was a small, 10 kw station that reached as far south as Pamplona and as far north as Bordeaux, France. The RNP typically broadcast music, news, and local weather during the day and matters of interest to the Basque population in the evening. The owners were avowed antiseparatist Basques who had endured gun attacks and a fire-bombing. That was why the building was made of cinderblock and was set well back from the fortified fence. The broadcast antenna stood in the center of the roof. It was a tall, skeletal spire made of red and white girders. It stood approximately one hundred fifty feet tall and was topped by a winking red light.

  The familia driver, Martin, had cut the headlights as the car approached. He pulled over three hundred yards from the gate and parked beside the domed crest of the hill. The four men got out. Juan pulled a bicycle from the trunk, slung a backpack on his shoulder, and sprinkled water from a bottle on his face. The water trickled like sweat along his cheeks and down his throat. Then he walked boldly toward the gate. The other three men fixed silencers to their pistols and followed one hundred feet behind him. Juan huffed and walked loudly, partly to cover the footsteps of the others, and partly to make sure he was heard.

  As Juan had expected, there were guards inside the perimeter. They were three men with guns, not professional security people. They had undoubtedly been brought here to keep an eye on the station in the aftermath of the broadcast. Juan and the others had decided ahead of time that if there were people patrolling the grounds, they would have to be taken out quietly and simultaneously.

  Juan forced himself to relax. He couldn't afford to let the men see him shiver. This was his operation and he didn't want the other members of the familia to think he was nervous.

  Juan stopped when he saw the gate. "Son-of-a-bitch," he said loudly.

  One of the guards heard him. He walked over urgently while the other two stayed back, covering him.

  "What do you want?" the guard asked. He was a very tall, lanky man with a curly spray of thinning brown hair.

  Juan stood there for a long moment, apparently dumbfounded. "I want to know where the hell I am."

  "Where the hell do you want to be?" the guard asked.

  "I'm looking for the Iglesias campground."

  The guard snickered mirthlessly. "I'm afraid you've got a bit of a ride ahead of you. Or more accurately, behind you and to the east."

  "What do you mean?"

  The guard jerked a thumb to the right. "I mean the campground's on the top of that next hill over there, the one with the--"

  There was a dull series of phup-phup-phups behind Juan as the other familia members fired at the guards. The men dropped silently with red, raw holes in their foreheads.

  As the familia members moved forward, Juan set the bicycle down, pulled off his backpack, and went to work.

  The easiest way to get in was to announce yourself on the intercom and wait for the gate to be buzzed open. But that wasn't an option nor was it the only way in. Juan removed a cloth from the backpack as well as a crowbar. His undershirt was heavy with sweat and the cool air chilled him as he climbed halfway up the fence to the left of the gate.

  He flung the crowbar over the top while holding the free sleeve of his shirt. The shirt landed on top of the barbed wire. Juan reached his index and middle fingers through the nearest link, grabbed the crowbar, and pulled it back through. Then he removed the iron bar and tied the shirt sleeves together. When he was finished, he took the shirt belonging to Ferdinand, the muscular night watchman. He repeated the procedure so that there were two layers of fabric over the barbs. When he was finished, the men climbed over the safe zone they'd created on top of the fence. They dropped quietly inside the perimeter and 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. 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 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 s
aid, 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.

  "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.