Midnight In Madrid

SIXTY-THREE

MADRID, SEPTEMBER 18

The next morning, Alex obtained her necessary permits and keys from the Policia Nacional as well as the City Police. She also placed a second call to Mark McKinnon and demanded an urgent meeting with him late that afternoon. He resisted at first, then relented. He asked that she find her way to a bench in a busy downtown area on the Calle de Bailén, across the street from the Palacio Real, the royal palace where the king no longer lived but where state functions were held. The meeting time was set for the window between 4:00 p.m. and 4:15.

Alex traveled there by buses, three of them, a roundabout route. She got off the first bus quickly, reversed her path down a busy street, then caught the second and the third. Each time, she jumped off abruptly just before the vehicle was to pull out of a stop, each time watching to see if anyone followed. The only other American at the meeting involving the pieta’s theft had gone out a tenth-floor window, probably not voluntarily. One could never be too careful.

She found the designated bench in the shadow of the Grand Palacio. Across the street was the Cathedral of the Virgin of Almudena, patroness of Madrid. Alex’s eyes swept the block for danger. She saw none, but her insides were as jittery as a half-dozen frightened cats. She didn’t see McKinnon, either.

The security code with McKinnon: if she felt she had been followed, she would be reading a newspaper. If she was sure she was clean, no newspaper open. She felt secure. She sat down on the bench at a bus stop with a copy of El Mundo folded neatly across her lap. She picked up on the activities of passers-by. She noted footwear. She was wary of anyone with concealed hands. She carried her pistol in a holster on her hip.

She asked herself: How fast could she have her gun out and ready?

One second? Two?

She drew a breath, then let it go. It was 4:00 p.m. Then six minutes past four. Where was McKinnon?

A homeless man approached her. He engaged her in a pointless conversation and eventually asked for money. She gave him two euros, and he went about his way, replaced immediately by a twenty-something couple holding hands, smooching, and not saying a thing as they seemed to wait for a bus.

Then the man took out a cell phone, made a call, and the two of them turned to walk away. There needed to be nothing to it, but linked to the homeless man, the events were consecutive, overlapping by seconds, as if the three of them were one of McKinnon’s pavement mini-teams, the first man pegging the prey, the couple keeping watch while Mark approached from somewhere. And, thinking back, the homeless man hadn’t had a homeless stench.

Or was she imagining things, she asked herself. She glanced at her watch.

Ten after. The heck with the pavement teams, maybe Mark was blowing her off with a no-show. She held her seat on the bench across from the palace. She watched the guards. The palace was magnificent, built to impress, just like Versailles, just like Buckingham Palace, just like Donald Trump’s home in Florida.

She tried to settle herself.

She turned her attention to the cathedral. The history gene within her reminded her of the Roman Catholic Church’s centuries of influence in Spain, from the pilgrims in the first ten centuries after Christ, through the Inquisition, through the Franco regime, and more subtly, into the present day. Her eyes drifted thoughtfully over the architecture, a gray neoclassic façade that echoed the architecture of the Palacio Real across the street. The pairing of the two buildings, the similarity in their feel and appearance, had been intended to emphasize the Church’s relationship with the Crown.

Four fifteen. She glanced at her cell phone. No calls. No alert involving Jean-Claude. Typical in this line of work. One never knew what was going on. Never.

She grew restless. Her back started to cramp. She stood up and strolled the block. A raging paranoia was rolling in on her, a sense that something big had been missed.

She came back to the bench. She felt eyes on her. She kept looking over her shoulder as she walked. The smooching young couple reappeared, hand in hand. The lovebirds stayed a constant half-block away from her.

Yeah, she had made them, all right. Now, with their reappearance, she knew Mark was imminent. So she remained seated. Four twenty. He was late. But sometimes late had no significance other than late.

The heat and humidity assaulted her. Rain clouds had formed. A few sprinkles came and went. Then, bingo. She saw a car stop quickly on the palace side of the street. Mark McKinnon jumped out. McKinnon was in a suit, a white shirt, and tie. She slid her gaze to her left and saw that the lovebirds turned tail immediately and departed. She noted the time. Four twenty-six.

She watched Mark and knew the drill with the vehicle. His car would circle the block while they met, and somewhere another car had probably put one or two bodyguards on the street.

She scanned the block nearby, more carefully than ever. There was an ill-dressed man looking through a souvenir stall, but not really looking. A man in a small truck with Madrid plates had pulled to the curb right behind her, stopping in contravention of all traffic rules, and was talking on his cell phone.

She doubted that McKinnon had more than two guns backing him up, but it barely mattered. Mark had already told her so much. This was one high-testosterone operation in progress today if Mark had this sort of entourage.

That, or she had imagined everything. But she didn’t think she had. This venue was like a fuse to a cherry bomb.

McKinnon jaywalked lazily toward her, stepping between angry drivers. Then he quickly jogged the rest of the way across the street and came to the bench where she sat.

“Hello, LaDuca,” he said. “What’s got your panties in a twist today?”

“I need to know a few things,” she said.

“We all do,” he answered. “What’s on your list? Then I’ll tell you what’s on mine.”

He sat. She stood. “Let’s walk,” she said.

“I’d prefer not to.”

“Let’s do it anyway.”

With a sigh, he acceded. He was up on his feet.

“Did you contact Peter yesterday and ask him to go see Floyd Connelly?” she asked as they moved.

“Distrustful, aren’t you? You’re checking up on Peter Chang.”

“That’s right. I am.”

“Peter’s your partner. What am I to think?”

“I’m being thorough. Could you answer my question?”

“Yes, I asked Peter to go over to see Connelly,” he said.

“Why?” she asked.

“Why? Why not? That’s how I often do things if they’re important,” McKinnon snapped. “If I ask two people to do something, maybe one of them will get it done. You okay with that?-because I don’t care if you are or not.”

“You didn’t ask him to kill Connelly, did you? I know you didn’t ask me to.”

“Ha! No. Why? Do you think I did?”

“A lot of things cross my mind,” she said. “Our black bird isn’t the most normal case.”

“What case is?” he asked. “Are you the normal working girl from Treasury? Is Peter the normal Chinaman from Shanghai? Lighten up, LaDuca. There is no normal. If something were normal, it would be abnormal, which would make it suspicious.”

“Even if you didn’t order it, I’m wondering if Peter freelanced it,” she said. “His interests in this case coincide with ours, but they’re not perfectly compatible.”

“Oh,” McKinnon said dismissively, “I doubt that he did. But if he pushed old Floyd out of the lousy window, so what, really? Floyd was a liability. Senior moments, twenty-four seven. And that hotel he was staying at. It wasn’t the Four Seasons; it was more like a One Season. Bad publicity, my buttcrack! They probably won’t even bother to get their fence fixed. They’re going to parlay the publicity and sell out all summer to the tourists from Kansas. They’ll probably open a café in the alley and name a drink after Floyd. They’ll call it ‘The Dead American’ and put a couple of little skewers through it.”

“Mark, would you come down to earth?”

But Mark didn’t. “I’ve got this theory, you see,” McKinnon continued. “More than a theory, really. An analysis of what’s been going down. Floyd was the leak in the room at the embassy, you see. We know that. In the room and for many months dating back. He’s the one who nearly got you killed by letting go with inside information and not securing either his computer or his phone. He’d get soused and pop off at the hotel bar about why he was in Madrid. Used to trade info for sex. Did you know that? Did you know he mentioned your name a couple of weeks back to some bad people. Did you know that he used to play golf with a cranky old dinosaur of an arms dealer in Switzerland named Tissot, who payrolled a mistress for him, and set up a bank account for him?”

“Is that true?” she asked.

McKinnon laughed. “You Treasury eggheads might dislike all us Agency people, Alex,” he said, “but we do know a thing or two. Connelly was a health hazard to all of us. So I’m not bawling my eyes out this morning. It’s pretty clear that Floyd was finally set up. Outlived his usefulness to the opposition and in fact had turned into a liability for them as well as us. He bought half a recent bill of goods from someone, but his good information was laced with the bad stuff. And yet he stumbled across enough solid stuff so that he decided to play Clark Kent out of the hotel window. I say, good riddance! He got killed instead of you getting killed. So even if Peter freelanced, so what?”

“Maybe nothing, unless you’re Connelly’s family back home.”

“Floyd had a big government insurance policy. It actually will save the taxpayers some money. Maybe his wife had him pushed. I hear she’s not that upset, a bit of a merry widow. It’s as if she won the lottery, you know, and she doesn’t have to be worried about a wandering husband any more.”

“You disgust me sometimes, Mark. That’s a human life you’re talking about.”

“What else is on your mind, LaDuca? You carry yourself well, but you can be a pain in the neck.”

They stopped walking. He glanced at the palace and continued before she could say anything.

“Hell of a building, isn’t it, the palace? But you know what? They should chainsaw that palace into condos and make some money with the way the economy is crashing. I don’t care much for the Spaniards, truth be known. They invented the auto-da-fé here, you know. What’s the old jingle? What a day, what a day, for an auto-da-fé.”

“This ‘Jean-Claude al-Masri’,” she said. “You know about him?”

“We have some of the same sources, so yes. Of course I do. A potential suspect. Marvelous. Whoop dee do.”

“Are the Spanish police going to bring him in?” she asked.

“Hell, no.”

“Why not?”

“The Spanish police are involved in the black fricking bird, not in the plot against the embassy.”

“What?”

“This is the twenty-first century. We handle these things directly.”

“Give me a break.”

“No, LaDuca, you give us one and don’t exceed your assignment here. These things take care of themselves when we’re lucky,” he said.

“What are you doing behind my back?” she asked. “I need some help with this, Mark, and you’re not coming across with it.”

“The world is imperfect, but we just discussed that.”

“What about the embassy?” she asked.

“What about it?”

“I’m told it’s in stand-down today,” she said. “Being searched roof to basement.”

“Who told you that?” he asked.

“Colonel Pendraza.”

“He’s kind of sweet on you, the old guy, isn’t he? Feeds you tidbits so he can hang out with a girl a third his age. You know, I think he’d like to get you in bed at least once. It would kind of cap his career, if you want to give it some sympathetic thought.”

“At least he acts professionally.”

“Okay,” he said. “Touché. And he’s only two and a half times your age. Listen, Madrid is in Spain, Spain is in Europe, Mercury is in retrograde, I’m in a good mood, and the embassy is in stand-down, yes, as are several dozen other locations around Madrid. We make sure the premises are clean and then we triple the security on anything or anyone coming in.”

“What about underneath the embassy?”

“What? The sewers?”

“Has anyone considered that the embassy could be accessed from underneath?”

“Pretty miniscule, the possibilities.”

“So was flying a pair of planes into the World Trade Center.”

McKinnon was silent. Then, still in Spanish, “But for the dual sake of both argument and personal irritation, I’ll give you a minute to convince me,” he said.

“This in an old city, one set of walls and ruins on top of another,” Alex said. “Same as Rome, London, Paris, Vienna. Ever see The Third Man? Ever see Ocean’s Thirteen? Ever read about Dien Bien Phu where the Viet Cong came up out of underground tunnels to blow the French out of Indochina? You had a tunnel under the Berlin Wall, and you got tunnels under the Tex-Mex borders in Arizona and Texas that you can drive small trucks through. And how about this? Did you read about the way the thieves got into the Museo Arqueológico to steal the bird the first time? There’s twelve centuries of stuff under our feet, Mark. They’re always finding Moorish walls and cellars in all those places, so it’s not outside the realm of possibility that someone could be burrowing.”

“Even if you burrowed, you’d need a real wallop of explosives,” he said.

“Yes. Like HMX with RDX. That’s exactly what’s out there somewhere.”

“Uh huh. Look, it’s under control, LaDuca. Stick to your job, which is the stupid figurine. Now, what else do you want from me?”

“You’re head of the Agency in Europe. I could use some help examining the area around the embassy. The underground pathways and all.”

“What? You want to go looking for souvenirs of the Inquisition?”

“I want to be thorough.”

“Thorough!” he laughed. “Have you seen our budget this year?”

“How much does a search cost compared with the cost of if we miss something?”

“You’re good. I should send you before Congress and you can ask them that. Someday, they’re going to ask me why I do things the way I do, and I’m going to reply by asking them why they use a jet bomber to kill a couple of camels. Dialogue. Socratic method. You like it?”

She seethed. “Can I get some help around the embassy? Please?” she pleaded. They were back at the bench.

“I’ll tell you,” he said. “You make a point. So maybe. Next week. How’s that. In the meantime, go to a hardware store, get a pick, a shovel, some gardening gloves, and a pair of bib overalls, and feel free to look around all you want, okay?”

“Why are you playing dumb, Mark?”

He ignored the question.

She scanned the street around them, the people, the traffic. “With all due respect, you’re being a jerk, Mark.”

“Yes, yes. What else is new? Request denied. I have to keep a lid on the budgets. And I’m not convinced enough that you know what you’re talking about.”

“No?”

“No,” he said.

“Why? Because I’m female?” she asked, heating up.

“No, because you see things that other people don’t see, which would be fine, except the things you see sometimes aren’t there. See that lamppost over there?” He waited for an answer.

She glanced. “I see it,” she said.

“Nice lamppost. Distinctive Madrid architecture. Quite charming. Except you probably look at it and see a potential gibbet.”

“Not to put too keen an edge on it, but in the Middle Ages, that’s exactly what they used the lampposts for. Hanging people.”

“See. That’s what I mean. Did anyone ever tell you that you’re overeducated?”

“Frequently,” she said. “It’s how I got hired.”

“There you go. But I didn’t hire you. I go for more utilitarian types, like Peter.”

“Four,” she said next.

“Four?”

“Four guns,” she said. “That’s how many people you have watching your back right now. You’ve got the guy at the souvenir stand, and the guy in the maintenance truck. Then there’s your driver who’s been circling the block. I also see,” she said, indicating, “the guy standing outside the leather shop. He’s supposed to look like a customer, but all he’s been doing is watching us, and he’s got American shoes. If you want to have a pavement team, do something about the shoes.”

“You are good,” he said. “I wish you also understood when you should just shut up and let our people handle things.”

“You’ve got your own back covered nicely, Mark. Unless the embassy blows from underneath, in which case people are going to ask how it could have happened, and I’m going to tell anyone who asks that it started with a theft of a ‘lamentation’ from the Museum of Old Stuff here in Madrid, and the CIA guy wouldn’t listen to me. So now can I please have some backup? Or assign your own people and let me go with them.”

He thought further and sighed.

“I got to admire your nerve. You’re a bureaucratic extortionist. You don’t even work for us. You’re Treasury.”

“But we’re both looking out for American interests, aren’t we?”

“All right, all right,” he said. “Maybe next week. Maybe by Monday. I can pull some people off some cases in Malaga and bring them up here to burrow through the dirt with you. The people they’re working for won’t be happy, but let ’ em scream. They ’re not as smart as you, they shut up sooner, and they’re not in my face every day. How’s that?”

“Not acceptable. I need something sooner,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said. “Right. So would everyone. That’s all, LaDuca. Have a good evening.” He turned away from her.

A moment passed, and he drew ahead of her. Then, furious, she followed him and stepped in front of him, blocking his path. He stepped around her and moved to the curb. His car, already shadowing him, moved to a sudden jerky halt in a no-stopping zone and waited for him. Behind it, an irate Madrid cab driver blasted a horn. McKinnon’s driver rolled down his window, raised an arm, and responded with a universally understood gesture of ill will.

But she fell into stride right next to him. “Okay, now I’ll remind you of something else,” he said, moving toward the car. “What’s your assignment here, your mission?”

“To find the pietà and discover why it was stolen.”

“What’s Peter’s?”

“I assume it’s to take care of business for the late Lee Yuan,” she said after a moment.

“Don’t lose sight of that,” he said. “Connelly’s laptop had everything in it we needed. Names and addresses. The whole Madrid network that wants to bomb our embassy. A handful of amateurs and one very dangerous central guy. We even have a photo now. The ones we don’t get will be hiding in caves eating beetles with their spiritual leader for another twenty years. So we’re going to roll them up.”

“Roll them up, how?” she asked.

McKinnon arrived at his car and opened the rear door. “In the only way that it will stay rolled up,” he said. “So stay out of it!”

McKinnon arrived at his vehicle and attempted to step into it. Alex drew her weapon and held the door with her other hand. She pointed her pistol at the car’s rear tire.

McKinnon looked at her in openmouthed bewilderment. His driver started to make a move to get out. McKinnon waved him off.

“Tell your ape to stay behind the steering wheel,” she said softly. “And if he hits the gas, I pull the trigger.” McKinnon gestured again, and his driver eased back into the car.

“You’re crazy!” McKinnon said. “You fire a shot here and-”

“And the Madrid police will be all over us. But I’ve got permission to carry a weapon here, Mark. Do you? Are you carrying a piece? Does the Spanish government know you have an operation going here? They know I do. In fact, I’m here with their permission. Can you say the same for yourself?”

The eyes of McKinnon’s driver were burning a reflected gaze at Alex through the rearview mirror. She glanced his way and back quickly.

McKinnon threw a long line of expletives at Alex. She gave him a similar one in return, nice and fast, his own attitude zapping back at him like a verbal yo-yo. She held her pistol steadily on the right-side rear tire.

“Give me something more, Mark,” she said to him. “I want to recover that piece of art, and I want to know where else this case is going.”

A second elapsed as he considered his many alternatives.

Then, “May I reach into my jacket pocket without you blasting my rear tire?” he asked. “That’s a new Pirelli back there. I’d hate for something to happen to it.”

“Try it slowly, Mark. You’ll find out quickly.”

He reached to his left side pocket and pulled out a cell phone. He punched in some numbers. Then he handed the phone to her. The small screen came alive, and on it was a clear image of a man who appeared to be in the custody, temporarily at least, of the Madrid police.

“That’s our pigeon,” he said. “Jean-Claude al-Masri. French citizen, Moroccan born. Resident here in Madrid. We’ve got the whole book on him, from smuggling explosives to recruiting his own terror network here in Spain. The dumb local cops had him, then let him go. What do you expect? We’re not going to let that happen twice. His file is attached to the photo.”

“It is, is it?” she said.

“It is.”

She looked at the photo. Then, with a quick one-handed procedure, she worked his phone keyboard with her thumb as he spoke.

“If you don’t believe me,” McKinnon continued, “then talk to your buddy Colonel Pendraza because two hours ago he gave us a thumbs-up to whacking Jean-Claude just as long as Pendraza doesn’t officially know about it. Oh, and your other new best friend Peter is on the case right now.”

She was still making thumb entries on his keyboard as he watched her.

“LaDuca, what are you doing?” he suddenly asked.

“I just sent myself the photo and the file,” she said. “I want both. Now I have them. Thanks.”

She started to politely hand the phone back to McKinnon, but he snatched it away from her. She put away her weapon and stepped back from the car.

“You know enough now. So stay away,” he said.

McKinnon slammed the door and barked an order to his driver. The vehicle screeched out into traffic and was gone in an instant, flagrantly running a red light in the process.