Balance of Power

TEN

The International Crime Police Organization — popularly referred to as Interpol — was established in Vienna in 1923. It was designed to serve as a worldwide clearinghouse for police information. After the Second World War, the organization was expanded and re-chartered to focus on smuggling, narcotics, counterfeiting, and kidnapping. Today, one hundred seventy-seven nations provide information to the organization, which has offices in most of the major cities of the world. In the United States, Interpol liaises with the United States National Central Bureau. The USNCB reports to the Undersecretary for Enforcement of the U.S. Treasury Department.

During his years with the FBI, Darrell McCaskey had worked extensively with dozens of Interpol officers. He had worked especially closely with two of them in Spain. One was the remarkable María Corneja, a lone wolf special operations officer who had lived with McCaskey in America for seven months while studying FBI methods. The other was Luis García de la Vega, the commander of Interpol’s office in Madrid.

Luis was a dark-skinned, black-haired, bear-large, two-fisted Andalusian Gypsy who taught flamenco dancing in his spare time. Like the dance style, the thirty-seven-year-old Luis was spontaneous, dramatic, and spirited. He ran one of the toughest and best-informed Interpol bureaus in Europe. Their efficiency and effectiveness had earned him both the jealous loathing and deep respect of local police forces.

Luis had intended to come to the hotel right after the shooting, but the events in San Sebastián had caused him to delay his visit. He arrived shortly after eleven-thirty P.M., as McCaskey and Aideen were finishing dinner.

Darrell greeted his old friend with a long embrace.

“I’m sorry about what has happened,” Luis said in husky, accent-tinged English.

“Thank you,” McCaskey said.

“I’m also sorry to be so late,” Luis said, finally breaking the hug. “I see that you have adapted the Spanish way of dining. Eat very late at night and then sleep well.”

“Actually,” said McCaskey, “this is the first chance we’ve had to order room service. And I’m not sure either of us will be able to sleep tonight, however much we eat.”

“I understand,” Luis remarked. He squeezed his friend’s shoulders. “A terrible day. Again, I’m very sorry.”

“Would you care for something, Luis?” McCaskey asked. “Some wine, perhaps?”

“Not while I am on duty,” Luis replied. “You should know that. But please, you two go ahead.” His eyes fell on Aideen and he smiled. “You are Señorita Marley.”

“Yes.” Aideen rose from the table and offered her hand. Though she was physically and emotionally exhausted, something came alive when she touched the man’s hand. He was attractive, but that wasn’t what had stimulated her. After everything that had happened today she was too numb, too depleted to care. What he gave her was the sense of not being afraid of anything. She had always responded to that in a man.

“I’m sorry about your loss,” Luis said. “But I’m glad that you are all right. You are all right?”

“Yes,” she said as she sat back down. “Thanks for your concern.”

“Mi delicia, ” he said. “My pleasure.” Luis pulled over an arm chair and joined them at the table.

McCaskey resumed eating his spicy partridge. “So?”

“That smells very good,” Luis said.

“It is,” McCaskey said. His eyes narrowed. “You’re stalling, Luis.”

Luis rubbed the back of his neck. “Sí,” he admitted. “I’m stalling ‘big time,’ as you say in America. But it’s not because I have something. It’s because I have nothing. Only thoughts. Ideas.”

“Your thoughts are usually as good as someone else’s facts,” McCaskey said. “Would you care to share them?”

Luis took a drink from McCaskey’s water glass. He gestured vaguely toward the window. “It’s terrible out there, Darrell. Simply terrible. And it’s getting worse. We’ve had very small anti-Basque and anti-Catalonian riots in Avila, Segovia, and Soria.”

“All Castilian regions,” Aideen said.

“Yes,” Luis remarked. “It doesn’t appear as if the police there are doing everything they can to prevent these outbursts.”

“The police are standing along racial lines,” McCaskey said.

Luis nodded slowly. “I’ve never seen such — I’m not even certain what to call it.”

“Collective insanity,” Aideen said.

Luis regarded her. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s the kind of thing psychologists have been warning about regarding the coming millennium,” Aideen said. “The fear that we’re all going into it but most of us won’t be coming out alive. Result: a sense of mortality which brings out panic. Fear. Violence.”

Luis looked at her and pointed. “Yes, that’s right. It’s as though everyone has caught some kind of mental and physical fever. My people who have gone to those regions say there’s a sense of hatred and excitement you can almost feel. Very strange.”

McCaskey frowned. “I hope you’re not saying that Martha’s shooting is part of a mass psychotic episode.”

Luis waved his hand dismissively. “No, of course not. I’m merely remarking that something strange is happening out there. Something I’ve never felt before.” He leaned forward, toward the Egg. “There is also something brewing, my friends. Something that I think is very well planned.”

“What kind of ‘something’?” McCaskey asked.

“The ship that sank in San Sebastián was destroyed with C-4,” Luis said. “Traces were found on some of the debris.”

“We heard that from Bob Herbert,” McCaskey said. He regarded Luis expectantly. “Go on. There’s an ‘and’ in your voice.”

Luis nodded. “One of the dead men, Esteban Ramirez, was at one time a CIA courier. His company’s yachts were used to smuggle arms and personnel to contacts around the world. There have been whisperings about that for a while, but those whisperings are bound to become louder now. People here will say he was hit by American agents.”

“Do you believe that the CIA was involved in the attack, Luis?” Aideen asked.

“No. They wouldn’t have done something so public. Nor would they have been so quick to retaliate for the murder of your colleague. But there will be loud gossip about that in political circles. No one talks more than people in government. You know that, Darrell.”

McCaskey nodded.

“And the Spanish people will hear about it,” Luis continued. “Many will believe it and turn on Americans here.”

“According to Bob Herbert, who I spoke with earlier,” McCaskey said, “the Agency is as surprised by the attack on the yacht as everyone else is. And Bob always gets through the bureaucratic double-talk over there. He knows when they’re bullshitting him.”

“I agree that the CIA probably isn’t behind this,” Luis said. “So here is a possible scenario. An American diplomat is murdered. That sends a message to your government to stay out of Spanish affairs. Then the men who killed her are murdered. The tape recording tells all of Spain that the Catalonian dead and their Basque accomplice, Deputy Serrador, are ruthless assassins. That turns the rest of the nation against those two groups.”

“To what end?” McCaskey asked. “Who benefits from a civil war? The economy is ravaged and everyone suffers.”

“I’ve been considering that,” Luis said. “By law, treason is punishable by capital punishment and a seizure of assets. The taking of Catalonian businesses would help to distribute power more evenly among other groups. Conceivably, the Castilians, Andalusians, and Galicians would all benefit.”

“Back up a moment,” Aideen said. “What would the Catalonians and Basques gain by joining forces?”

“The Catalonians control the heart of Spain’s economy,” Luis said, “and a core group among the separatist Basques are highly experienced terrorists. These are very complementary assets if one is looking to paralyze a nation and then take it over.”

“Attack the physical and financial infrastructure,” McCaskey said, “then come in and save it like a white knight.”

“Exactly. A cooperative effort supports intelligence we have had — not first hand and not enough to act upon — that they have been planning a combined action of some kind.”

“How’d you come by this information?” McCaskey asked.

“Our source was a longtime hand on the Ramirez yacht,” Luis said. “A good man. Reliable. He was killed in the explosion. He reported on frequent meetings between Ramirez and key members of industry, as well as regular trips along the Bay of Biscay.”

“Basque Country,” remarked McCaskey.

Luis nodded. “With frequent disembarkments by Ramirez. Our informant reported that a bodyguard always went with him, some member of his familia. He had no idea who Ramirez met there or why. He only knew that over the last six months the meetings increased from once-monthly to once-weekly.”

“Is there any chance that your informant was double-dipping?” McCaskey asked.

“You mean selling this information to someone else?” Luis asked.

“That’s right.”

“I suppose it’s possible,” Luis said. “Obviously, some outside person or group learned what Ramirez and his people were planning and made sure that things went wrong. The question is who. To begin with, whoever stopped Ramirez and his group knew that the assassination of your diplomat was going to happen.”

“How do you know that?” McCaskey asked.

“Because the yacht was bugged and booby-trapped before the assassination,” Luis informed him. “They obtained the taped confession, the man who shot Martha arrived, and they blew the yacht up.”

“Right,” McCaskey said. “Very neat and professional.”

“The whole thing has been very neat and professional,” Luis agreed. “You know, my friends, talking about civil war — there are those who believe that the last one never really ended. That differences were merely patched over with — what do you call them?”

“Band-Aids?” Aideen offered.

Luis pointed at her. “That’s right.”

Aideen shook her head. “Can you imagine,” she said, “the enormous impact that a person — not a group, but an individual — would make by bringing a final and lasting end to the strife?”

Both men looked at her.

“The new Franco,” Luis said.

“Right,” said Aideen.

“That’s a helluva thought,” McCaskey agreed.

“It’s like the old Boston election racket my father used to talk about when I was a kid,” Aideen continued. “A guy hires thugs to terrorize shopkeepers. Then one day that same guy picks up a baseball bat and stands guard at a fish store or shoe shop or news-stand and chases the thugs away — which he’d also paid them to do in the first place. Next thing you know he’s running for public office and gets the working-man’s vote.”

“The same thing could be happening here,” Luis said.

Aideen nodded slowly. “It’s possible.”

“Anybody you know who might fit that profile, Luis?” McCaskey asked.

“Madre de Dios, there are so many politicians, officers, and business figures who could do that job,” Luis said. “But what we have decided is this. Someone in San Sebastián destroyed the yacht. Someone else delivered the tape to the radio station. Whether these people are still in the village or not, there has to be a trail. We have asked someone to go up there tonight and have a look. She’s being helicoptered up”—he looked at his watch—“in two hours.”

“I’d like to go with her,” Aideen said. She threw her napkin on the table and rose.

“I’ll be happy to send you,” Luis said. He regarded McCaskey warily. “That is, if you don’t mind.”

McCaskey gave him a funny look. “Who’s going up there?”

“María Corneja,” Luis answered softly.

McCaskey quietly placed his knife and fork on his plate. Aideen watched as a strange discomfiture came over the normally stoic former G-man. It started with a sad turn of the mouth then grew to include the eyes.

“I didn’t realize she was working with you again,” McCaskey said. He touched his napkin to his lips.

“She returned about six months ago,” Luis said. “I brought her back.” He shrugged. “She needed the money so she could keep her small theater in Barcelona going. And I needed her because—pues, she is the best.”

McCaskey was still looking away. Far away. He managed a weak smile. “She is good.”

“The best.”

McCaskey finally raised his eyes. He looked at Aideen for a very long moment. She couldn’t imagine what was going through his mind.

“I’ll have to clear it with Paul,” he said, “but I’m in favor of having our own intel from the site. Take your tourist papers.” He looked at Luis. “Will María be going as an Interpol officer or not?”

“That will be her call,” he replied. “I want her to have the freedom to act.”

McCaskey nodded. Then he fell silent again.

Aideen looked at Luis. “I’ll get a few things together. How are we going to San Sebastián?”

“By helicopter from the airport,” he said. “You’ll have a rental car when you arrive. I’ll phone María to let her know that you will be accompanying her. Then I will take you over.”

McCaskey looked at Luis. “Did she know I was here, Luis?”

“I took the liberty of informing her.” He patted the back of his friend’s hand. “It’s all right. She gave you her best.”

McCaskey’s expression grew sad again. “That she did,” he replied. “That she most surely did.”