Balance of Power o-5

by Tom Clancy

  A few heads turned to look at her but she was gone before anyone had a chance to see her face.

  As María was about to turn into the doorway of the Hall of the Halberdiers, a familiar figure strode out, nearly colliding with her. It was the captain who had had her beaten. The officer stopped and glowered at María as she saluted and sidled past him. She tried to hide her face with the salute and didn’t look up. All she needed was a few more seconds.

  María saw Juan and Ferdinand ahead. They were sitting cross-legged along the near side of the crowd, looking down. The number of prisoners had thinned somewhat since she was last here. The prisoners were also more restless. That was probably a result of concern over where the others had been taken and the fact that the ranks of guards also had thinned. María assumed the soldiers were out looking for her. None of the guards in the room looked at her as she made her way toward the two Ramirez familia members.

  “Wait!” the captain’s voice broke loud and hard from the doorway behind her.

  Juan and Ferdinand looked up. María continued walking toward them.

  “I said you!” the captain bellowed into the room. “Sergeant! Stop where you are!”

  María was about twenty paces from Juan. She wasn’t going to make it before she had to deal with the captain. She swore silently and continued walking toward Juan. The prisoner was looking directly at her. It was frustrating that the captain may have recognized her but Juan didn’t. The door to the throne room was about forty feet straight ahead, through the crowd. There were still guards on either side of the door. They were looking at her now, too. She had to get there and she wouldn’t be able to do it alone.

  “Sir, I have a report for the general,” she said angrily without stopping or turning.

  Right now, seconds mattered. She needed to get closer to Juan. She also wanted him to hear her voice and know who she was. The captain would know who she was too, for certain, but there was no way of avoiding that.

  “It is you!” the captain roared when María spoke. “Stop at once and raise your arms!”

  María slowed but she didn’t stop. She needed to be in front of Juan.

  “I said stop!” the captain cried.

  María reached the edge of the crowd. She stopped.

  “Now,” the captain said, “raise your arms slowly with your hands out. If you make any sudden motions you will be shot,” the captain said.

  The young woman did as she’d been told. She watched Juan’s eyes as they widened with surprised recognition. The soldiers stationed around the room still hadn’t gone for their own weapons. She only had a few moments before they would be ordered to do so.

  “You,” the captain barked. “Corporal.”

  One of the noncommissioned officers standing beside the throne room door came to attention. “Sir?”

  “Take her weapon!” the captain ordered.

  “Yes, sir!”

  “My — my legs,” María said. She stopped in front of Juan and started to wobble. “May I sit down?”

  “Stand where you are!” the captain snarled.

  “But they were hurt when I was beaten—”

  “Silencio!” he yelled.

  María trembled for a moment more. The soldier had entered the crowd of prisoners on the opposite side and was making his way toward her. She couldn’t wait any longer. She didn’t think they would shoot her here, especially if she were down. That might start a riot. Moaning loudly, she dropped to her knees and fell forward against Juan.

  “Get up!” the captain yelled.

  María attempted to rise. As she pretended to struggle back to her feet, she drew the guns from her waistband. She shoved them into Juan’s hand.

  He took them clandestinely. Ferdinand had leaned over to help María. Juan slid a gun under his bent knee.

  “Amadori’s in the throne room,” María whispered as hands helped her to her knees.

  “We’ll never make it—” Juan whispered back.

  “We must!” she hissed. “We’re dead anyway!”

  Just then, the guard finished making his way through the crowd. He bent over María and yanked her up by the collar. She grunted as she stood and then pretended to stumble to one side. As soon as she was out of the way, Juan raised his gun, pointed at the soldier’s thigh, and fired. The guard shrieked and staggered backward on a spray of blood. His gun dropped to the floor and one of the prisoners snatched it up. Regaining her balance, María unholstered her own weapon and turned toward the captain.

  But the captain had already drawn his own weapon. He fired two rounds, one of which struck María in the left side. She twisted in pain and her own shot went wide. She landed on the man who had picked up the gun. Her hat tumbled off and her hair spilled out.

  Juan rose as María fell. “¡Asesino!” Juan shouted. “Assassin!”

  Before he could fire, a bullet struck him in the left shoulder. He twisted as he fell, his arms flying outward. His gun went spinning along the floor toward the hallway. The captain picked it up as he stalked toward them. The man who had fired, the other soldier standing guard at the throne room, came forward.

  “Stay at your post!” the captain yelled.

  The crowd of prisoners began to murmur loudly and the guards unholstered their weapons. Suddenly, the throne room door opened. General Amadori’s personal aide, Major General Antonio Aguirre, stepped out. He was holding a 9mm automatic, which looked only slightly less intimidating than his scowl. The tall, lean, broad shouldered man took a moment to look around the room.

  “Is there a problem, Captain Infiesta?” he asked.

  “No, sir,” the captain replied. “Not any longer.”

  “Who is he?” Aguirre asked, pointing the gun toward the man he’d shot.

  He pointed to María. “Her accomplice,” he said.

  Aguirre’s dark eyes settled on the woman. “Who is she?”

  “I believe she’s a spy,” the captain informed him.

  María stood unsteadily. “I am not… a spy, Major General,” she insisted. She was clutching her side just below her ribs and leaning into the wound. It was bloody and it throbbed hotly. “I am Maria Corneja from Interpol. I came here with information for the general. Instead of listening to me, this man had me beaten.” She raised a hand weakly and gestured toward the captain.

  “I will listen to you,” said the major general. “Talk.”

  “No,” María said. “Not here—”

  “Here and now,” Aguirre said curtly.

  María shut her eyes for a moment. “I’m dizzy,” she said truthfully. “Can I sit down somewhere?”

  “Certainly,” Aguirre said. His scowl remained fixed. “Captain — take her and her accomplice outside. Let her talk and then conclude your business with her.”

  “Yes, sir,” the captain said.

  María turned. “Sir!” she shouted and started limping through the crowd, toward the major general. She was still thinking that if she could get into the throne room there might be something she could do—

  She felt herself yanked back by the hair.

  “You’ll come outside as you’ve been ordered,” the captain said as he tugged her from the crowd.

  Maria was too weak to argue. She stumbled and nearly fell as she was pulled toward the hallway door.

  “Bring him as well,” the captain commanded, pointing to Juan.

  Two of the guards came forward and grabbed Juan under the armpits. The Ramirez familia member grimaced with pain as they hoisted him to his feet and dragged him forward.

  Behind them, the major general returned quietly to the throne room. He shut the door.

  The click of the latch was the only sound in the otherwise silent hall. To María it was a noise as loud as the closing of a tomb door. It not only marked the end of her efforts to get inside the throne room, very possibly it marked the end of Spain itself. She was angry at herself for having blown the mission. For having gotten so damn close and screwing up.

  The captain turned
María around. Still holding her by the hair, he walked her toward the door. She went painfully, each step sending a lance of pain up her left side from heel to jaw.

  “What — what are you going to do?” María demanded.

  “We’re going to take you outside to see what you know.”

  “Why outside?” María asked.

  The captain didn’t answer, and that in itself was an answer. They were being taken outside because that was where the plain, unadorned walls were.

  The walls which condemned prisoners were put against to be shot.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Tuesday, 10:46 A.M. Madrid, Spain

  As soon as he heard gunshots inside the palace, Colonel August casually removed his cellular phone from his deep pants pocket. He punched in Luis’s office number but kept his face turned toward the warm sun as it crept over the buildings — soaking it up like any young vacationer. Behind him, except for Private Pupshaw, the other Strikers were pretending to study a tour book. Pupshaw was down the street, tying his shoe on the fender of a car. One of the aglets at the end of his shoelace contained a highly compressed irritant agent, primarily Chloroacetophenone — a mild but smoky form of tear gas. The other aglet contained a tiny heating coil that was activated when removed from the shoelace. It would cause the gas to be released two minutes after being placed inside the other aglet.

  “This is Slugger,” August said. “We’ve just heard from three of the players in the stadium.” That meant he’d heard three shots in the palace. “Sound like they’re pretty close to the spot where we want to go.”

  “Could be our teammate warming things up,” Luis said. The line was quiet for a moment. Then Luis came back on. “Coach says to go to second base and put on your uniforms. He’ll call the upper deck to see what they know.”

  Second base was the dungeon directly below the Hall of Tapestries. The upper deck was the spotters.

  “Excellent,” August said. “We’re on our way.” He turned the phone from ring to vibrate and returned it to his pocket. He told the other Strikers to follow him and then he raised his arm for Pupshaw to see. August crossed his second and third fingers.

  The young private extended two crossed fingers and waved back. The two crossed fingers meant to put the aglets together.

  August led his team quickly toward the sewer on the northwest corner of the Plaza de Oriente. They had videotaped the manhole cover when they’d first arrived and studied the playback as they stood around. Corporal Prementine and Privates David George and Jason Scott had their Walkman headsets in hand, ready to slide into the holes in the cover and lift it up. The headsets were actually made of titanium and would be able to handle the weight of the iron lid.

  August put his arm around Sondra DeVonne as though she were his traveling companion. The two laughed as they walked. But when August looked at her he was actually looking past her at the traffic. It was virtually nonexistent due to all the military activity in the area. When Sondra looked at August she was keeping an eye on pedestrians. Like the streets, the sidewalks were relatively deserted.

  They reached the corner and waited. Pupshaw had run over and caught up to them. No sooner had he arrived than the middle of the street erupted into a bright billowing cloud of orange smoke.

  The wind blew the smoke toward them, which was why they had selected that site. Before it arrived, George, Scott, and Prementine had walked into the middle of the street. They stopped and knelt and pointed toward the smoke with their right hands. As they did, they lowered one end of the headphones into the manhole cover holes. A few seconds before the smoke reached them, they hoisted it up and moved it aside. Sondra whipped a palm-sized flashlight from the pocket of her windbreaker and shined it down. The light was not only for illumination: once the operation was underway, hand signals and on/off signals from flashlights would be their normal form of communication.

  As the Interpol street plans had indicated, there was a ladder just inside. She went down quickly, followed by August, Aideen, and Ishi Honda. The other four men went down next, the burly Pupshaw waiting on the ladder to pull the lid back over the hole.

  The entire operation took less than fifteen seconds.

  The sewer was approximately ten feet tall and it was easy to walk through it. The system was flushed at noon and one A.M., and refuse was slightly more than knee-deep. But the relief of being inside and on the way compensated for the discomfort of the viscous liquid and its stench. They followed Sondra’s flashlight to the west and the catacombs.

  As they walked, August put in his EAR plug — Extended Audio Range. This device looked like a hearing aid and allowed secure audio reception within a two hundred mile range. A Q-tip-shaped microphone taped to his chest allowed him to communicate with Interpol headquarters.

  The sewer turned to the north at a brick wall that stood almost shoulder-high. There was a nearly three-foot gap at the top — the entrance to the catacombs. DeVonne handed the flashlight to Private George while Private Scott boosted her up and over. It had been agreed ahead of time that she would handle point for the mission. August was next in line followed by Aideen, with Corporal Prementine bringing up the rear. Private DeVonne was still suffering from occasional emotional slumps over Lt. Col. Squires’s death. That had occurred during her first mission with Striker. However, August was pleased to see that she’d been completely focused since they’d reached Madrid. And she was even more so down here — moving like a cat, quiet and alert. Since they’d entered the sewer, not a rat had passed that she’d failed to notice.

  After the seven Strikers and Aideen had gone over the brick wall, they pressed on following a map Luis had had printed out. It wasn’t as easy moving in here. The roof was only five feet high here, and the rubble and dirt crunched loudly under their feet. Their clothes were clammy at first, then thick and hard as they dried in the cool, extremely musty air.

  Suddenly, August stopped.

  “Incoming message,” he whispered to the others.

  The Strikers formed a tight circle around him. Sondra reminded in front and Corporal Prementine stayed behind. The other Strikers and Aideen had gathered close in on either side. Their proximity would enable Colonel August to speak quietly if there were new orders.

  “Are you in?” Luis asked.

  “We’re about fifty feet into the catacombs,” August replied. Since the audio line was secure, scrambled on both ends, there was no chance of it being intercepted and no reason to speak in code. “We should reach the dungeon in about three minutes.”

  “You’ll probably get the go-ahead then,” Luis informed him. “We’ve just heard from the spotters.”

  “What’s happening?” August asked.

  “María Cornejas has been taken outside, into the courtyard,” he said. “It looks like she’s bleeding.”

  “Those shots we heard—?”

  “Very possibly,” Luis agreed. “The problem is, it doesn’t look like those will be the last ones.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It looks as if one of the officers is selecting men for a firing squad,” Luis told him.

  “Where?” August asked.

  “Outside the chapel,” he said.

  August snapped his fingers at Sondra and pointed to the map. She immediately brought it closer and turned the flashlight on it. He indicated for her to turn it over to the blueprint of the palace.

  “I’m looking at the map now,” August said. “What’s the most direct route to the—”

  “Negative,” Luis replied.

  “Sir?”

  “This update is not to be acted upon. We wanted you to know what was going on in case you hear the volley. Darrell has already consulted with General Rodgers and Director Hood at Op-Center and they concur that your target must remain Amadori. If he’s beginning to execute prisoners, it’s vital that he be contained as soon as possible.”

  “I understand,” August said, and he did. The mission objective was crucial. But the colonel felt the same
nauseating kick in the gut he’d experienced in 1970 when his battle-weary company engaged a vastly superior North Vietnamese force outside of Hau Bon on the Song Ba River in Vietnam. August needed to cover the company’s retreat and selected two men to stay behind with a pair of standoff rifles and hold the road as long as possible. He knew he would probably never see those two soldiers again, but the life of the company depended upon them. He also knew he would never forget the crooked half-smile one of the men gave him as he looked back at the company. It was a boy’s smile — a boy who was struggling very hard to be a man.

  “As soon as you’re in position under the Hall of Tapestries,” Luis said, “Darrell wants you to get into gear. He expects to give you the go command within the next ten to fifteen minutes.”

  “We’ll be ready,” August replied.

  He briefed the team succinctly and then ordered them forward. There was no extraneous conversation. The Strikers reached their target in just over two minutes, after which Colonel August ordered them to remove their outer clothes. Beneath their damp jeans and jackets were kevlar-lined black jumpsuits. Reaching into their grips, the Strikers traded their Nikes and sandals for black “grippers,” high-top sneakers with deeply ridged hard-rubber soles. The customized soles were designed to keep the wearer from slipping on slick surfaces and to enable them to stop suddenly and with precision. They were backed with kevlar to help prevent anyone from shooting up through a floor to bring the soldiers down.

  The Strikers also strapped black leather sheaths around their thighs; the sheaths contained eight-inch-long serrated knives. A loop around the other thigh contained a pencil-thin flashlight. They tucked Uzis under their arms and pulled black ski masks over their heads. When they were ready, August moved them from the catacombs to the dungeon. Six of the Strikers went ahead two at a time, the middle group of two leapfrogging over the first pair and the last pair moving up to take their place. Aideen was teamed with Ishi Honda. This allowed the two stationary pairs to cover the front and rear, respectively. They reached the dungeon in slightly over three minutes. It looked exactly like it had in the photographs they’d seen back at Interpol.