The Invisible

“You’re wrong, Ryan.” Naomi’s gaze was still angry, but also adamant.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking, but you’re making a big mistake by cutting me out of this.”

“I hope you’re right,” he said, fixing her with a meaningful look.

“But this isn’t the time to get into it.” Kealey pulled open the sliding door and climbed out, Petain following close on his heels. Seconds later, they disappeared into the crowd, and the van pulled away from the curb, joining the traffic streaming north on Calle de San Leonardo de Dios.

CHAPTER 15

MADRID

Ramirez had selected the spot well. Kealey realized as much as he moved down the sidewalk, Petain trailing a few steps behind. The operative had dropped them 100 meters south of the gate leading into the building site, but more importantly, he’d picked an area where the road was completely shielded from the site. Not only by the 5-foot chain-link fence, but by a flimsy wooden fence. It meant the workers wouldn’t have seen the vehicle that dropped them off. It was a small point, admittedly, but major operations had been blown on far less. Every intelligence agency around the world had suffered its fair share of embarrassments, including the CIA. Hopefully, today’s work wouldn’t fall into that category.

As they approached the east gate, Kealey saw with relief that it was already open. It would save them some time loitering outside, where they might be noticed by the wrong person. The second gate was on the other side of the site, where it opened onto a parallel street. A dump truck filled with stone was edging into traffic, and a number of workers in khakis, T-shirts, and hard hats were waiting to close the gate once the vehicle had made the turn. The street wasn’t especially busy, but noise seemed to be hitting them from all directions: the staccato sounds of rapid-fire Spanish, the groan of machinery on the other side of the fence, as well as the steady thump of rap music emanating from a passing Land Rover. To their left, an African street vendor plied his trade, his wares—bootlegged CDs and DVDs, for the most part—neatly lined up on a white cotton sheet spread over the cement. A few tourists stopped to gape at the blatant display of illegal merchandise, but the vendor ignored them, his wary eyes scanning the crowd for the smallest sign of an undercover police officer.

Kealey shifted his eyes from the scene and kept moving forward, Petain a few feet to his rear. The strap of the bag was biting into his shoulder, and sweat was streaming down the back of his neck. Every inch of his skin was damp, his shirt soaked completely through.

A hand tightened around the back of his arm, pulling him out of his distracted state. He turned to face Marissa Petain.

“What are you going to say?” she shouted over the roar of the dump truck and passing traffic. He frowned, pulling her close, and she caught the hint, lowering her voice as she put her mouth next to his ear. “They’re not going to let us walk right in there, you know. How are you going to get us in?”

“I’m going to tell them the truth.”

She stared at him for a long moment, her mouth hanging open. He didn’t wait for her to snap out of it, instead hurrying forward, sliding past a tight knot of wayward tourists. Someone bumped him hard, nearly shoving him into the road, where cars were streaming by at a steady clip. He swore under his breath and kept going. He was angry with himself for letting the heat distract him. Petain’s question had slowed him down as well; he shouldn’t have stopped to answer her. In truth, he would have preferred to leave her out of this altogether. She wouldn’t be contributing much to the conversation; he just wanted her there to lower the tension, or at least keep it in check. Ghafour would be less suspicious, less confrontational, with a woman present. At least, that was the hope. According to the file, Ghafour had lost his father at an early age, and he’d grown up with his mother and four older sisters. That kind of upbringing would likely leave a lasting impression.

Kealey sprinted the last few feet as the gate swung shut. He reached it and grabbed the chain-link with his fingers. The man who was trying to pull it closed stopped and shot him a confused, slightly irritated look. “? Que deseas?”

“Deseo hablar con un hombre que trabaje contigo, ” Kealey replied.

“Kamil Ghafour.”

The burly Spaniard froze and looked at him hard, his dark eyes unreadable beneath the plastic brim of his hard hat. “?Por que?”

“That’s my business,” Kealey continued in Spanish. Petain stood next to him silently, nervously shifting from one foot to the other.

“But he’ll want to talk to me. Tell him I have something to give him. Something to offer.”

The man shook his head, spat on the ground, and turned to walk away. Kealey called out, and when the man looked back, he lifted a crumpled fistful of Euros. The worker walked back cautiously and eyed the obvious bribe.

“One hundred Euros,” Kealey said. “Fifty when you let me in, another fifty when you point him out.”

The Spaniard hesitated, looked around slowly, then nodded his agreement. He lifted a finger, indicating they should wait, and walked off. Petain started to speak, but Kealey silenced her with a quick gesture. “He’ll be back,” he told her. “Just give it a minute.”

The construction worker reappeared in two. He opened the gate, waved them in, and handed them a couple of hard hats. They put them on and Kealey handed over the first fifty. The man held it up to the afternoon sun, as though verifying its authenticity. Satisfied, he turned and waved a heavily calloused hand, indicating they should follow. Kealey thought it strange that the man hadn’t given Petain so much as an appraising glance, but he quickly pushed aside the distracting thought. They walked toward a series of trailers, following the deep impressions left by a heavy vehicle’s tires. The ground was hard beneath their feet, red soil heaped to the right, the concrete pad to the left. The sound of an electric bolt gun filled the air, drowned out a moment later by the low, throaty rumble of a diesel crane. After another 50 feet, the Spaniard stopped and pointed to the third trailer. “He’s in there,” he said in his native language. There was a hint of derision in his voice, and he paused again to spit on the ground.

“The maricon doesn’t get his hands dirty anymore, not since the police came. He sits inside, where it’s cool, and does the paperwork.”

Kealey looked around, trying to get a better sense of his surroundings. No one was paying them too much attention, and he didn’t see the face he was looking for. As far as he could tell, the construction worker was telling the truth.

He handed over the second fifty, and the Spaniard grunted his approval. He shoved the money into the right pocket of his filthy khakis. Then, finally, he shot a lecherous look at Petain. She pretended not to notice as she nudged the solid clay with her foot, her eyes stubbornly fixed on the trailer in the near distance. Finally, the man snorted and lumbered off.

“Asshole,” Petain muttered. Once the worker was out of earshot, she turned to Kealey and said, “So, what do you think?”

“I think he’s in there. Most of these guys are natives. They’ll put up with an Algerian boss, if the money is right, but I doubt their goodwill extends to a favored employee. Especially one born on foreign soil.”

“That’s how it looks,” she agreed. “So what now?”

“Now we go in.” Kealey moved forward suddenly, Petain scrambling to keep up. As he crossed the uneven terrain, he couldn’t help but feel a tinge of doubt. There was no guarantee that Ghafour could point them in the right direction, and just approaching him entailed a huge risk. All he had to do was call out for his coworkers. They might not care for him, but they would back him up if it came to that; Kealey was sure of it. If summoned, they would arrive in a matter of seconds, and the police wouldn’t be far behind. Should that happen, the whole operation would be blown wide open. The Agency would suffer a major embarrassment, and they’d be no closer to finding Amari Saifi. At the same time, they only had one shot at this—one shot at getting Ghafour to talk. If he did know something, they had to get it out of him. By any means necessary. A low, pointed cough brought him back to reality. They had reached the trailer, and Petain was staring at him expectantly, flapping her blouse in a fruitless attempt to dispel the suffocating heat.

“Okay,” he said, after listening for noise inside the unit. He couldn’t hear a thing over the sound of the crane’s engine and the high-pitched, rattling whine of the bolt gun. Even here, more than 200 feet from the street, the