“What part did I have?” Adolfo said quietly. “I did it,” he blurted out. “I’m the one who destroyed the yacht.”
Norberto recoiled as though he’d been slapped.
“Millions of our people would have suffered had those monsters lived,” Adolfo said.
Norberto made the sign of the cross on his forehead. “But they were men, Adolfo. Not monsters.”
“They were ruthless, unfeeling things,” Adolfo snapped. He didn’t expect his brother to understand what he had done. Norberto was a Jesuit, a member of the Society of Jesus. For over five hundred years the order’s adherents had been trained to be soldiers of virtue, to strengthen the faith of Catholics and to preach the Gospel to non-Catholics.
“You are wrong.” Norberto trembled as he squeezed Adolfo’s arm even tighter. “These ‘things,’ as you call them, were people. People with immortal souls created by God.”
“Then you should thank me, brother, for I have returned their immortal souls to God.”
There were tears in the priest’s eyes. “You take too much on yourself. Only God has the right to take a soul.”
“I have to leave.”
“And those millions you speak of,” Norberto continued, “their suffering would only have been in this world. They would have known perfect happiness in the presence of God. But you — you risk damnation for eternity.”
“Then pray for me, brother, for I intend to continue my work.”
“No, Adolfo! You mustn’t.”
Adolfo gently pulled away his brother’s fingers. He squeezed them lovingly before dropping them.
“At least let me hear your confession,” Norberto urged.
“Some other time,” Adolfo replied.
“Some other time may be too late.” Norberto’s voice, like his eyes, were now full of emotion. “You know the punishment if you die unrepentant. You will be estranged from God.”
“God has forgotten me. Forgotten all of us.”
“No!”
“I’m sorry,” Adolfo said. The fisherman looked away from his brother. He didn’t want to see the hurt in his kind eyes. And he didn’t want to face the fact that he’d caused it. Not now. Not with so much left to do. He took another swallow of stew and thanked his brother again for bringing it. Then he pulled a cigarette from the crushed pack in his pants pocket — his last, he noted. He’d have to stop and buy pre-mades. Lighting it, he headed toward the door.
“Adolfo, please!” Norberto grabbed his brother’s shoulder and turned him around. “Stay here with me. Talk to me. Pray with me.”
“I have business up on the hill,” he replied evenly. “I promised the General I’d deliver the taped conversation to the radio station there. They are Castilians at the station. They will play the tape. When they do, all the world will know that Catalonia has no regard for life, Spanish or otherwise. The government, the world will help end the financial oppression they’ve forced on us.”
“And what will the world think of the Castilian who killed these men?” Norberto managed to lower his voice on the word killed lest he be overheard. “Will they pray for your soul?”
“I don’t want their prayers,” Adolfo said without hesitation. “I only want their attention. As for what the world will think, I hope they’ll think that I had courage. That I didn’t resort to shooting an unarmed woman in the street to make a point. That I went right to the heart of the devils’ conspiracy and cut that heart out.”
“And when you have done that,” Norberto said, “the Catalonians will try to cut your heart out.”
“They may try,” Adolfo admitted. “Perhaps they will even succeed.”
“Then where does it end?” Norberto asked. “When every heart has been cut out or broken?”
“We didn’t expect that one strike would end their ambitions or that Castilian lives would not be lost,” Adolfo said. “As for when the bloodshed will end, it should not be very long. By the time the Catalonians and their allies mobilize it will be too late to stop what is coming.”
Norberto’s broad shoulders slumped and he shook his head slowly. The tears rolled easily from his eyes. He suddenly seemed spent.
“Dear God, Dolfo,” he sobbed. “What is coming? Tell me, so that at least I can pray for your soul.”
Adolfo stared at his brother. He rarely saw Norberto cry. It had happened once at their mother’s funeral and another time over a young parishioner who was dying. It was difficult to see it and be unmoved.
“I and my comrades are planning to give Spain back to its Castilian people,” Adolfo said. “After a thousand years of repression, we intend to reunite the body of Spain with its heart.”
“There are other means with which to accomplish that goal,” Norberto said. “Nonviolent means.”
“They’ve been tried,” Adolfo said. “They don’t work.”
“Our Lord never raised a sword nor took a life.”
Adolfo lay a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “My brother,” he said as he looked into Norberto’s tear-glossed eyes, “if you can arrange for His help, then I will not take another life. I swear.”
Norberto looked as if he wanted to say something but stopped. Adolfo patted his cheek and smiled. Turning, he opened the door and stepped out. He stopped and lowered his head.
Adolfo believed in a just God. He did not believe in a God who punished those who sought freedom. He couldn’t let his brother’s beliefs affect him. But this was Norberto, a good man who had worried about him man and boy and cared for him and loved him whatever he did. He couldn’t leave him in pain.
Adolfo looked back. He smiled at his brother and touched his soft cheek. “Don’t pray for me, Norberto. Pray for our country. If Spain is damned, my salvation will be unhappy — and undeserved.”
He drew on the cigarette and hurried down the steps leaving a trail of smoke and his weeping brother behind him.
EIGHT
Paul Hood took his daily late-afternoon look at the list of names on his computer monitor. Just a few minutes before he had put his thumb on the five-by-seven-inch scanner beside the computer. The laser unit had identified his fingerprint and had asked for his personal access code. One point seven seconds later it brought up the closed file of HUMINT personnel reporting to Op-Center from the field. Hood used the keyboard to enter his wife’s maiden name, Kent. That opened the file and the names appeared on the screen.
There were nine “human intelligence” agents in all. Each of these men and women was a national on Op-Center’s payroll. Beside the names were their present whereabouts and assignments; a summary of their last report, which had been prepared by Bob Herbert (the full report was on file); and the location of the nearest safe house or exit route. If any of the operatives were ever found out, Op-Center would look for them at those places and make every effort to extricate them. To date, none of the agents had ever been compromised.
Three of the operatives were based in North Korea. Their mission was an ongoing follow-up to the Striker team’s destruction of the secret missile site in the Diamond Mountains. The agents’ job was to make sure that the missile launchers weren’t rebuilt. Even though a traitorous South Korean officer had masterminded the construction of the base originally, no one put it past the opportunistic North Koreans to take advantage of the equipment that had been left behind by attempting to build a new missile installation.
Two Op-Center agents were located in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon and two others were working in Damascus, Syria. Both teams were based in terrorist hideouts and were reporting on the political fallout due to Op-Center’s activities there. The fact that Op-Center operatives had helped to avert a war between Syria and Turkey was not being looked upon favorably: the feeling in the Middle East was that nations there took care of their own problems, even if that solution was war. Peace brought by outside forces, particularly by the United States, was looked upon as illicit and dishonorable.