Balance of Power

FOURTEEN

María Corneja was already waiting in a dark, grassy corner of the airfield when Aideen, Luis García de la Vega, and Darrell McCaskey arrived in an unmarked Interpol car. The helicopter that would ferry them north was idling some two hundred yards away on the tarmac.

Air traffic was extremely light. In his speech to the nation in six hours, the prime minister would announce that flights to and from Madrid were going to be cut by sixty-five percent in order to ensure the security of planes leaving the airport. But foreign governments had been informed of the plan shortly after midnight and flights were already being canceled or rerouted.

Aideen had gone back to her hotel room and pulled together some clothes and tourist accoutrements — including her camera and Walkman tape recorder, both of which could be used for reconnaissance. Then she went to Interpol headquarters with Luis while McCaskey phoned Paul Hood. Luis reviewed maps of the region in addition to briefing her on the character of the people up north and providing her with up-to-the-minute intelligence. Then they went back to the hotel, collected McCaskey — who had obtained an okay from Hood for Aideen’s participation in the mission — and drove out to the airport.

Aideen didn’t know what to expect from Maria. Little had been said about her, apart from the brief exchange in the hotel room. She didn’t know whether she’d be welcomed or whether being an American and a woman would work for her or against her.

Maria had been sitting astride her ten-speed bicycle, smoking. Flicking the cigarette onto the asphalt, she dropped the kickstand of the bicycle. She walked over slowly, with an athlete’s easy grace. She stood about five-foot-seven but seemed taller because of the way she held her square jaw high: high and set. Her long brown hair hung down her neck, the fine strands stirred by the wind. The top two buttons of her denim shirt were open over her green wool sweater and the bottoms of her tight jeans were tucked into well-worn cowboy boots. Her blue eyes swept past Luis and Aideen and came to rest on McCaskey.

“Buenas noches, ” she said to him in a husky voice.

Aideen didn’t know whether that was intended as a greeting or a dismissal. Obviously McCaskey wasn’t sure either. He stood stiffly beside the car, his expression blank. Luis hadn’t wanted him to come to the airport, but he insisted that it was his duty to see Aideen off.

They watched Maria as she approached. Her eyes didn’t flinch or soften. Luis put his hand around Aideen’s arm. He stepped toward María, drawing Aideen with him.

“María, this is Aideen Marley. She works with Op-Center and was present at the shooting.”

María’s deep-set eyes shifted to Aideen but only for a moment. She walked past her and stopped in front of Darrell.

Luis called after her. “María, Aideen will be accompanying you to San Sebastian.”

The thirty-eight-year-old woman nodded. But she didn’t take her eyes off McCaskey. Their faces were only, inches apart.

“Hello, María,” McCaskey said.

Maria was breathing slowly. Her thick eyebrows formed a hard, rigid line like a bulwark. Her pale, sensuously arched lips formed another. “I prayed that I would never see you again,” she said. Her accent, like her voice, was thick and deep.

McCaskey’s own expression hardened. “I guess you didn’t pray hard enough.”

“Maybe not,” she replied. “I was too busy crying.”

This time McCaskey did not respond.

Maria’s eyes ranged over him. Other than that, her features didn’t change. It seemed to Aideen that the woman was looking for something. A man she once loved, memories to soften the hate? Or was she searching for something different? Something to revitalize her anger. The sight of arms, a chest, thighs, and hands she had once held and caressed.

After a moment Maria turned and walked back to her bicycle. She snatched her grip from the basket behind the seat.

“Keep this for me, Luis,” she said, indicating the bicycle. She walked over to Aideen and offered her hand. “I apologize for my rudeness, Ms. Marley. I’m María Corneja.”

Aideen accepted her hand. “Call me Aideen.”

“I’m glad to know you, Aideen,” María said. She looked at Luis. “Is there anything else I need to know?”

Luis shook his head. “You know the codes. If something comes up, I’ll call on your cellular phone.”

María nodded and looked at Aideen. “Let’s go,” she said and started toward the helicopter. She made a point of not looking at McCaskey again.

Aideen slung her own backpack over a shoulder and scurried after her.

“Good luck to both of you,” McCaskey said to the women as they passed.

Aideen was the only one who turned and thanked him.

The Kawasaki chopper revved up as the women approached. Though they wouldn’t have been able to hear one another over the din, Aideen found the bitter silence awkward. She also felt torn. As McCaskey’s colleague she felt she should say something on his behalf. But as a woman she felt like she should have ignored him too — and, while she was at it, used her own eyes to curse all men. Curse her father for having been an abusive alcoholic. Curse the drug dealers who ruined lives and families and made widows and orphans in Mexico. Curse the occasional gentleman caller in her own life who was only a gentleman for as long as it took to become an intimate.

They climbed on board and were airborne in less than a minute. They sat close beside each other in the small, noisy cockpit, the silence continuing until Aideen finally had had enough of it.

“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,” María said. “How are you feeling?”

“Still pretty shell-shocked,” Aideen replied. “All of this hasn’t really sunk in yet.”

“I know that feeling,” María 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,” María 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 María back down again. Her little smile evaporated. Her eyes darkened under her brow.

“I’m sorry about what happened back there,” María said.

“It’s all right,” Aideen said.

María 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.

María 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,” María 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.

María 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,” María 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,” María 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, María. 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.”

María let the smile blossom fully now. It was a rich smile, full of respect and the promise of camaraderie. “Courage without fear is stupidity,” María 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 Sebastián?” 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,” María 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,” María 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?” María 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.”

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

“Something is very wrong here,” María 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.”