Midnight In Madrid

TWENTY-FIVE

MADRID, SEPTEMBER 8, EVENING

The Iberia flight from Geneva to Madrid glided into its landing trajectory at 10:15 that evening. In a business-class seat by a window, John Sun gazed out the window and watched the lights of the city stretch out below him. Then the plane descended from its path in the purple sky, and as the 727 banked, the traveler picked up the lead-in lights that beckoned the aircraft into Aeropuerto Barajas, one of Europe’s busiest and most modern facilities.

There was much on his mind. In one capacity or another, he had presided over three deaths in Switzerland. Now he was just as happy to be out of the country. The farther and faster he got away from the place, the better he would feel. The business of death, the back-alley enforcement of his nation’s interests, was never an attractive business. He was experienced in it and efficient at it, but that didn’t mean he was wedded to it or even liked it. In fact, in ways that he couldn’t even explain to himself, it always unsettled him. Then again, the world was a cruel, nasty place, and all other rules of life followed from that one.

So what else could he do?

His mind was flooded with thoughts like these as the soil of Spain rose to meet his arriving flight. He glanced downward through his window and saw that the flight was above the grassy terrain leading to the runway.

Then the grass was replaced by a stream of runway lights and then a blur of numbered panels, white on gray-black asphalt. Then came the welcome thump and bump of the tires. There followed the roar of the brakes and the lifting of the wing flaps, and then the deceleration on the runway.

Sun had actually been hoping to go home to his special lady, but at least he had had a few hours in Switzerland to pick up a piece of jewelry for her, a beautiful diamond and gold bracelet. This he carried with him, though it was the least of his concerns right now. There were others to deal with first and an assignment that started to appear open-ended. So be it. Life had its strange twists and turns. Even the cultural icon of his grandfather’s generation, Confucius, would not have disagreed with that.

The plane rolled smoothly to a halt. It taxied to a gate.

John Sun was traveling light as always. He passed easily through immigration. He spoke fluent Spanish with the agents while also keeping an eye on the uniformed Spanish police who patrolled the airport with automatic weapons. He also easily spotted the plainclothes people. In his peripheral view, he also checked the surveillance cameras, both the obvious ones and the hidden ones. It was almost a game to him to find them without looking directly at them.

Then he passed through customs with equal ease. A trio of uniformed customs officers, two men and a woman, waved him through to the concourse.

Now he was officially in Spain.