Balance of Power

FORTY-FIVE

It was easy for Aideen to follow the trail of blood. The drops were so close together they overlapped in spots. Amadori was losing blood quickly. What she hadn’t anticipated was that the general would be alone when she caught up to him. Alone and waiting for her.

Amadori fired once as Aideen came around the corner. She jumped back as soon as she saw him and the bullet whizzed by. There was silence after the echo of the gunshot died. Aideen stood there listening, trying to determine if Amadori moved. As she waited, she felt something pressed hard against the small of her back. She turned around and saw a man step the rest of the way from a doorway. It was the major general. He was holding a gun on her.

Aideen cursed under her breath. The officer was wearing his RSS goggles. He must have been tuned in to the cameras behind them and spotted her. They’d separated and now she’d been snared.

“Face front and raise your hands,” he commanded in Spanish.

Aideen did. He relieved her of her gun.

“Who are you?” he asked.

Aideen didn’t answer.

“I don’t have time to waste,” the major general said. “Answer and I’ll let you go. Refuse and I’ll leave you here with a bullet in your back. You have a count of three.”

Aideen didn’t think he was bluffing.

“One,” said the officer.

Aideen was tempted to tell him that she was an Interpol operative. She had never faced death that seemed so imminent. It had a way of weakening one’s resolve.

“Two.”

She doubted that the major general would spare her even if she told him who she was. But she would definitely die if she didn’t.

Yet by telling the truth, she could very well ruin the lives and careers of María, Luis, and their comrades. And she would destroy countless other lives if she helped Amadori survive this assault.

Maybe she’d been meant to die in the street with Martha. Maybe there was no escaping that.

Aideen heard the gun bark behind her. She jumped. She felt blood on her neck. But she was still standing.

A moment later Aideen felt the major general stumble against her. She lurched involuntarily as he fell forward. The two guns clattered on the floor. She glanced back at the officer. Blood spurted like a water fountain from the back of his head. She looked up.

A familiar man was walking toward her, down the corridor. He was holding a smoking pistol and wearing a look of grim satisfaction.

“Ferdinand?” she said.

The familia member hesitated.

“No, it’s all right,” she said. She looked around quickly. Then she turned her back toward the surveillance camera behind her. Certain she wouldn’t be seen, Aideen lifted her black mask just enough for him to see her face. “I’m here with others,” she said. “We want to help.”

Ferdinand continued walking toward her. “I’m glad to hear that,” he said. “Juan and I doubted you back at the factory, after the attack. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t blame you. You had no way of knowing.”

Ferdinand held up the gun. “This came to me when your friend caused an uproar before. They took her away, and also Juan. I want to find them — and I want to find Amadori.”

“Amadori went this way,” Aideen said. She pointed as she stopped to pick up her gun. She also picked up the major general’s gun and goggles.

The dead man’s blood was cooling on the back of Aideen’s neck and she used the sleeve of her black shirt to wipe it off. She felt sick as she walked away. Not because the man had died; he’d been ready enough to kill her. What bothered her was that neither the general nor the major general had had a hand in the event that brought Op-Center into this situation in the first place, the murder of Martha Mackall. To the contrary. These people had killed the men behind the murder. The crime for which they were being hunted was having orchestrated a coup against a NATO ally — a coup that, ironically, a majority of the people in Spain might have supported had it been put to a vote.

Martha was wrong, Aideen thought miserably. There are no rules. There’s only chaos.

Aideen and Ferdinand started off after Amadori. Aideen was in the lead, Ferdinand a few paces behind her. Aideen checked the gun she’d retrieved. The safety was switched off. That bastard of a major general had been ready to shoot her in the back.

The corridor ahead was empty. They heard a shot and quickened their pace. Aideen wondered if someone else — possibly Maria? — had found Amadori. The trail of blood continued around the corner. They followed it, stopping short as they entered the hallway leading past the music room. They saw General Amadori standing there with a gun in his white-gloved hand. The gun was being held to someone’s head. It took a moment for Aideen to realize who the general was holding in front of him.

It was Father Norberto. And at his feet was another man lying faceup. He wasn’t moving.

It was Darrell McCaskey.