“I don’t want you to do that,” McCaskey said. “You were out of line but I happen to agree with what you were saying. I don’t think our accidental good-cop, bad-cop routine worked, but it’s got potential.”
She looked at him. “You agreed with me?”
“Pretty much. Let’s wait until we can call home and see what the rest of the clan has to say,” McCaskey continued.
Aideen nodded. She knew that that was only part of the reason McCaskey didn’t want to talk. Limousine drivers were never as invisible as passengers presumed: they saw and heard everything. And putting up the partition wouldn’t guarantee privacy. Chances were good that the car was bugged and their conversation was being monitored. They waited until they had returned to McCaskey’s hotel room before continuing. He’d set up a small electromagnetic generator designed by Matt Stoll, Op-Center’s technical wizard. The unit, approximately the size and dimensions of a portable CD player, sent out a pulse that disrupted electronic signals within a ten-foot radius and turned them to “gibberish,” as Stoll described it. Computers, recorders, or other digital devices outside its range would be unaffected.
McCaskey and Aideen sat on the side of the bed with the Egg, as they’d nicknamed it, between them.
“Deputy Serrador thinks that there isn’t much we can do without cooperation on this end,” McCaskey said.
“Does he,” Aideen said bitterly.
“We may be able to surprise him.”
“It might also be necessary to surprise him,” Aideen said.
“That’s true,” McCaskey said. He looked at Aideen. “Anything else before I call the boss?”
Aideen shook her head, though that wasn’t entirely true. There was a great deal she wanted to say. One thing Aideen’s experiences in Mexico had taught her was to recognize when things weren’t right. And something wasn’t right here. The thing that had pushed her buttons back in the deputy’s office wasn’t just the emotional aftermath of Martha’s death. It was Serrador’s rapid retreat from cooperation to what amounted to obstruction. If Martha’s death were an assassination — and her gut told her that it was — was Serrador afraid that they’d target him next? If so, why didn’t he take on extra security? Why were the halls leading to his office so empty? And why did he assume — as clearly he did — that simply by calling off the talks word would get back to whoever did this? How could he be so certain that the information would get leaked?
McCaskey rose and went to the phone, which was outside the pulse-radius. As Aideen listened to the quiet hum of the Egg, she looked through the twelfth-floor window at the streetlights off in the distance. Her spirit was too depleted, her emotions too raw for her to try to explore the matter right now. But she was certain of one thing. Though these might be the rules by which the Spanish leaders operated, they’d crossed the line into three of her own rules. First, you don’t shoot people who are here to help you. Second, if shooting them is designed to help you, then you’re going to run into rule number three: Americans — especially this American — shoot back.
FIVE
The hull of the small fishing boat was freshly painted. The smell of the paint permeated the cramped, dimly lighted hold. It overpowered the bite of the handrolled cigarette Adolfo Alcazar was smoking as well as the strong, distinctive, damp-rubber odor of the wetsuit that hung on a hook behind the closed door. The paint job was an extravagance the fisherman couldn’t really afford but it had been necessary. There might be other missions, and he couldn’t afford to be in drydock, replacing rotted boards. When he’d agreed to work with the General, Adolfo knew that the old boat would have to last them for as long as this affair took. And if anything went wrong, that could be a while. One didn’t undermine one takeover and orchestrate a counterrevolution in a single night — or with a single strike. Not even with a big strike, which this one would be.
Although the General is going to try, Adolfo thought with deep and heartfelt admiration. And if anyone could pull it off, a one-day coup against a major world government, it was the General.
There was a click. The short, muscular man stopped staring into space. He looked down at the tape recorder on the wooden table beside him. He lay his cigarette in a rusted tin ashtray and sat back down into the folding wooden chair. He pushed PLAY and listened through the earphones, just to make sure the remote had picked up the sounds. The General’s technical officer from Pamplona, the man who had given him the equipment, had said the equipment was extremely precise. If properly calibrated, it would record the voices over the slosh of the ocean and the growl of the fishing boat’s engine.
He was correct.
After nearly a minute of silence Adolfo Alcazar heard a mechanical-sounding but clear voice utter, “It is accomplished.” The voice was followed by what sounded like crackling.
No, Adolfo realized as he listened more closely. The noise wasn’t static. It was applause. The men in the yacht were clapping.
Adolfo smiled. For all their wealth, for all their planning, for all their experience at managing their bloodthirsty familias, these men were unsuspecting fools. The fisherman was pleased to see that money hadn’t made them smart — only smug. He was also glad because the General had been right. The General was always right. He had been right when he tried to arm the Basques to grease the wheels of revolution. And he was right to step back when they began fighting among themselves — the separatists battling the antiseparatists. Killing themselves and drawing attention from the real revolution.
The small dish-shaped “ear” the fisherman had placed on top of his boat’s cabin, right behind the navigation light, had picked up every word of the conversation of that altivo, the haughty Esteban Ramirez, and his equally arrogant compadres on board the Verídico.
Adolfo stopped the cassette and rewound it. The smile evaporated as he faced another unit directly to the right. This device was slightly smaller than the tape recorder. It was an oblong box nearly thirteen inches long by five inches wide and four inches deep. The box was made of Pittsburgh steel. In case it were ever found, there would be metallurgic evidence pointing to its country of origin. Ramirez, the traitor, had ties to the American CIA. After seizing power, the General could always point to them as having removed a collaborator who had outlived his usefulness.
There was a green light on the top of the box face and a red light beneath it. The green light was glowing. Directly below them were two square white buttons. Beneath the topmost button was a piece of white tape with the word ARM written in blue ink. That button was already depressed. The second button was not yet depressed. Below it was a piece of tape with the word DETONATE written on it. The General’s electronics expert had given this device to Adolfo as well, along with several bricks of U.S. army plastique and a remote detonator cap. The fisherman had attached two thousand grams of C-4 and a detonator below the waterline of the yacht before it left the harbor. When the blast occurred, it would rip through the hull at a velocity of twenty-six thousand feet per second— nearly four times faster than an equivalent amount of dynamite.
The young man ran a calloused hand through his curly black hair. Then he looked at his watch. Esteban Ramirez, the wealthy son of a bitch who was going to bring them all under the iron heel of his monied Catalonian cohorts, had said that the assassin would be arriving at the airport in an hour. When Adolfo had heard that, he’d used his ship-to-shore radio to pass the information along to his partners in the northwestern Pyrenees, Daniela, Vicente, and Alejandro. They’d hurried out to the airport, which was located outside of Bilbao, which was seventy miles to the east. Just two minutes ago they’d radioed back that the airplane had landed. One of Ramirez’s petty thugs would be bringing him out here. The other members of the familia would be rounded up and dealt with later. That is, if they didn’t panic and disperse of their own accord. Unlike Adolfo, so many of those bastards were only effective when they worked in big, brutal gangs.