Midnight In Madrid

SEVENTY-THREE

MADRID, SEPTEMBER 21, AFTERNOON

She drove faster than she should have getting back into Madrid. The traffic was thick but allowed her to move around quickly. Her first stop was the rental car company. Quickly scanning the car to check for any of her own property, she found the black box in the trunk-the stealth box that would beat bank security-that Peter had mentioned.

She placed it in a black tote bag and took it with her. She dropped off the paperwork and the car keys, without going to the desk. So much the better, she mused. She had never been listed as an insured driver, so just as soon skip the desk. Nothing good could happen there.

She was in the old city. She knew the neighborhood well enough to know that the branch of El Banco de Santander where Peter kept his stash was a pleasant ten-minute walk away. She had on a good pair of walking shoes and a comfortable skirt. She pushed her sunglasses in place and hoofed the few blocks to the bank.

Twenty minutes later, she sat in the small private room that she had visited once in her life. A bank security man wearing white gloves delivered the safety deposit box to her. This was her first trip to the box alone, but obviously Peter, as he had casually said a few days earlier, had returned on the afternoon of the Connelly murder.

He had returned and made some adjustments.

“Muchas gracias,” she said to the bank guard.

“Da nada, Señorita,” he said with a slight bow. Spanish bank employees tended to elevate courtesy to an art form.

When the clerk was gone, Alex opened the safety deposit box. Everything was exactly as she had last seen it, with the exception of the cash, which Peter had drawn on. Well, those Madrid evenings, she noted with a wry smile, didn’t come cheap.

She lifted the gift box out, the one with the wrapping paper from the Swiss jeweler, and set it aside. It was slightly heavier, and she could see that Peter had opened it and rewrapped it. Typical male fingers, good at larger, more complicated tasks, not so good with the small stuff.

She smiled to herself at the thought.

She looked at the two stacks of money, the dollars and the euros. About twenty-five thousand dollars in US currency, depending on how much the people in the foreign exchange section upstairs were finagling with the daily rate.

She fingered the money and shook her head. She didn’t need any and didn’t want it. Her employer paid her for an honest day’s work and got it from her. She didn’t need to drink from a pool of poisoned water.

Twenty-five grand. In her grandfather’s day you could have bought a small house for dough like that. In her parents’ day, you could have made the down payment. These days, you were lucky to get lunch.

She pulled the black box, the one with Peter’s gun in it, out of her tote bag. She positioned it into the deposit box. It fit easily with the gift wrapped box gone.

She smiled again and gently slid the gift box into her tote. She completed her business in the bank within a few minutes, politely thanked the guard and was gone.

It was only three o’clock. She was doing fine.

She took lunch at one of the local cafés, relaxed slightly, added a bold glass of chilled Spanish white Rioja to her meal, then a second glass. She felt her nerves finally settle. She was surprised that she felt that way because the meeting at the museum was still in front of her and she was guarded about what direction it would take. She took out her cell phone and made some calls.

She emerged from the café less than an hour later and walked directly to the Museo Arqueológico. Rivera, the curator, was there in the lobby to meet her.

“Thank you for phoning ahead,” he said. He spoke English out of courtesy and out of gratitude. “I might have been out. But I cancelled the rest of my afternoon.”

“Thank you,” she said. “It will be worth it.”

They met in a special conference room. Colonel Pendraza of the National Police arrived next and Colonel Sánchez, the real Colonel Sánchez, of the Guardia Civil entered at almost the same time. There were no police there from foreign agencies, though Alex had notified them all. The meeting had been called too quickly for any to attend, and in any event, Alex had notified them by email or phone that the issue of the stolen pietà had been resolved to the likings of two governments. Floyd Connelly, of course, remained booked out of town.

Rivera convened the meeting and turned it over to Alex.

“I suspect several of you have been briefed so far,” Alex said. “To backtrack, we know that a small objet d’art disappeared from this museum several weeks ago. Within the past fortnight some of us in this room came together to see what the implications of the theft were and whether, in the best of all possible worlds, there was any room for recovery of the item.”

The men assembled in the room waited.

“I’m happy to announce that this is one of those rare cases where justice, perhaps in a crude way, has been dealt to those who engineered the theft. They were also on the path of a greater evil, which has quietly been averted. And as an added bonus, The Pietà of Malta is back here for the people of Spain.”

She set the gift wrapped box on the table.

Pendraza looked at the box. “How do we know it’s not going to explode?” Pendraza asked, making a joke of it.

“It hasn’t yet,” she said. She paused. “Don’t worry. It won’t,” she said.

The package sat benignly in front of all of them.

“You’re the curator,” Alex said, turning to Rivera. “You’re used to dealing delicately with fine objects. Please open the package.”

Rivera’s fingers did the walking. In the quiet room, the ribbon came off. The curator smiled and worked with the joy of a little girl opening a present on Christmas morning. Then away came the firm tactile wrapping paper and within was a wooden box. The box was nondescript, unmarked, sturdy but light, the type of thing that might normally house Japanese chocolates.

The curator held the box carefully in his hand, raised his eyes to Alex again. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like the honor, yourself?” he asked her.

“No, thank you,” she said

He opened it and, although he knew what to expect, astonishment crossed his face. He stared at it for several seconds and no one else in the room could see.

From his pocket, he took out a small velvet pad, the type upon which jewelers place diamonds on for inspection. He laid the pad on the table. And then, from the box that Alex had presented, he removed the contents and placed it on the mat to the further astonishment of those gathered.

And there before them was the primitive miniature carving that had served as the inspiration for Michelangelo’s masterpiece. There in the center of the room sat The Pietà of Malta, the earliest lamentation known to the art world, a tiny replica of Mary comforting and caressing the body of the slain Christ.

Across eighteen centuries, perhaps in and out of tombs, there it was.

There were gasps around the room.

“Think of this as a gift from the people of the United States to the people of Spain. The return of your black bird.”

“How on earth-?” Rivera began, shaking his head.

“A contact in the underworld and some invaluable assistance from another intelligence service. I’m equally grateful and indebted to both for their assistance and good will.”

“Extraordinary,” said Pendraza. “Excellent work.”

“I can tell you this much,” Alex said. “Your thieves were homegrown and highly amateur, based right here in Madrid. But they were also unpredictable and tightly knit, which made them both dangerous and a challenge. Your security system was compromised, and they walked through it. They made contact with forces within the Middle East and set in motion a terrorist plot against the United States of America. But like most amateurs, they committed mistakes that caused their undoing. Their first mistake was greed. They attempted to sell the pietà to a collector in Asia. They never delivered because they were greedy. They wanted to try to sell it twice to raise twice as much money. It turned out to be a bad way to do business.”

“Please tell us enough to make proper arrests,” Pendraza said.

“A friendly intelligence service already put them out of business,” said Alex. “I don’t even know where the bodies are. I’ll review the details with you privately if you wish. I will also need to teleconference later with the French police, the Swiss, and Interpol to cover some ancillary details. My recommendation, however, would be to terminate this inquiry and everything related to it. No good will come from any further investigation. Any subsequent time and expense will be wasted.”

Pendraza held her steadily in his gaze, as did Sanchez of the Guardia Civil.

She addressed them in return.

“Related to this is the death of the unfortunate worker in the Metro system,” she said, “the track walker Maria Elena Gómez. I suspect she stumbled across something she shouldn’t have. In any case, those responsible, and those who would have been responsible for an even more horrific incident at one of the embassies on the Calle Serrano, have been summarily brought to justice. This was not of my doing specifically. Again, another intelligence service acted, but they acted with lethal efficiency.”

Colonel Pendraza’s eyes went to the lamentation at the center of the table. “And where did you find this?” he asked.

“The actual retrieval of the pietà took place, I would surmise, in Switzerland. It would appear that an agent of another service called upon a businessman in Geneva, a man of questionable commercial affairs. My guess is that the agent came across the ‘lamentation’ in the man’s possession. The agent surely would have been looking for it. In any event, he passed it along to me for return to its rightful owners.”

Pendraza nodded thoughtfully. “I’m just curious,” Pendraza said. “Certainly you knew that this team from a ‘friendly’ intelligence service was in Spain.”

“Yes, I did,” she said.

“Did you know that their ultimate task was to use lethal force on the conspirators?” he asked.

“No, I didn’t,” she said. “I didn’t even know that had happened until I was released from the hospital a day later.”

“Who told you?”

“A friend of mine and, I would submit, a friend of the Spanish and American people, considering how many lives were saved. And putting two and two together, I now realize that the gentleman who approved this exercise on behalf of US intelligence was trying to distract me during the final hours of the exercise. I met with the gentleman across from La Almudena late three afternoons ago. I couldn’t understand why he was allowing the Spanish police to act so slowly. He just wanted to get to these dangerous amateurs first.”

“Understandably,” said Pendraza.

“So while it was not my decision to launch an execution team,” Alex said, “once that team was launched there was no holding them back. And honestly, I have reservations about what happened, the fate of those who were executed. They were a small band of amateurs playing at being world-changing revolutionaries. The leader, a misguided young man named Jean-Claude, organized his own murderous little cell.

“Hundreds of innocent people might have died at their hands.” She smiled wryly. “What can I say? I tend to be a person of faith who tries to live her faith. God sometimes works in strange ways.” She paused. “Then again, to paraphrase a personal friend, a streetwise philosopher of sorts, ‘The world is better off without such people.’”

“So the terminations took place on Spanish soil?” Pendraza said.

“That is correct,” she said.

“Was it done in conjunction with the American intelligence service?” Pendraza asked. “Or with their approval?”

“To answer that, Colonel,” Alex said, “let me just say that if I decline to answer your question, then, if asked, you won’t know the answer.”

He smiled faintly and nodded.

“I would have to agree with your philosopher friend,” Pendraza said. “Certainly Madrid is better off without a few extra individuals prone to terrorist attacks. I could argue that the world is better off too.”

“I have some homicide reports this morning from the city police,” Sanchez of the Civil Guard said quietly. “Four murders, maybe five. Including a fire. Related. No further victims of the fire fortunately.”

“The further details are known only to the participants and to God,” Alex said. “I suspect that might be the best way to leave things.”

Pendraza glanced around the room. “I suspect it might be,” he said.

“Is there anything else?” Alex asked.

“Maybe, if we inquire, the rival service that solved this problem for us would be able to give us a few more details,” Sanchez suggested.

Alex shook her head. “Don’t even bother asking,” she said. “They won’t. And I’m not planning to divulge what country’s intelligence service helped us. I’m disinclined to discuss it. Even when I’m back in Washington, I suspect my memory will grow hazy.”

She glanced around.

“Now,” she said, “unless anyone has something else, I’d like to excuse myself. I believe this investigation is finished. Muchas gracias, Señores.”

Alex rose. The small group in the room rose with her. One by one, the men around the table offered congratulatory handshakes, which she accepted as she moved toward the door. Sanchez gave her an embrace. The last man to stand before her was Colonel Pendraza of the National Police.

His eyes were gray and almost sad. He gave her a slight nod. “I have many questions, but I’m going to pose none of them,” he said. “But I wish to thank you. You and whatever other service you worked with. You spared us enormous problems.”

“De nada,” she said.

“No, no. It was more than nada,” he said. “It was everything.”

Then he too gave Alex a hug, replaced his cap, seemed to stand an inch taller on the spot, and was on his way.

She walked back to the hotel.

It was evening now and a warm evening gripped Madrid.

In a way, she felt suddenly very alone, that strange kind of loneliness that one can only feel in a large city when one is surrounded by millions of people, but all of them are strangers, and everyone else seems to be in the company of someone else.

Back at the hotel a short time later, she wandered into the bar on the first floor. She ordered herself a cognac and sat at a quiet table in the corner. From her table, she could watch the street and the nearby gardens.

She settled back and relaxed.

She pondered. Peter’s flight would have departed by now. So he was well on his way back to Shanghai. Federov was back in Zurich, Rizzo in Rome. What a weird world it was. Violent, beautiful, and unpredictable, a world in which an ancient carving of a slain man of peace and charity could set off a bloody chain of events.

She had already decided what she would do. She would check out the next day and go somewhere. Maybe Paris. Maybe London. Not Washington just yet. Maybe back to Barcelona.

That was it, she decided after another sip of cognac. Back to Barcelona. No one would know her there; this time no one would find her. She fingered the pendant at her neck, then released it.

She could use the relaxation and a week at the beach. If she worked it right, it would seem as if she had never left. She looked forward to finishing her vacation.

Then her eyes glanced to the left, from the gardens and skylight of a great city to the entrance to the bar. Her eyes focused on a man who had just entered, and the shock of recognition was immediately upon her.

He was ruddy faced and wore glasses. He wore a light blue suite, white shirt, and tie. He had one of those straw hats that she always associated with men in their sixties or musicians of the Buena Vista Social Club.

“Oh, Lord,” she muttered to herself.

The man, Sam Deal, spotted her at the same time and smiled. Then she realized. It was the week of September 18, and as promised, Mr. Collins had sent an emissary.

And of all people, he had sent Sam. His South American hatchet man.

Sam grinned broadly, walked to her, and sat down.

“Hello, Alex,” he said.

“Hello, Sam.”

“Funny coincidence. Fancy meeting you here, Alex LaDuca,” he said.

“It’s not fancy, and it’s not a coincidence, either,” she said. “But as long as you’re here, you might as well order a drink.”

Sam signaled to a waiter who was already on the way over. Sam ordered something cold and powerful.

Then he turned back to Alex.

“Venezuela?” she asked.

“Order yourself another drink,” Sam said, “and I’ll explain.”