Priceless

FCC laid the first kilometers of modern highway in Spain, built a U.S. Air Force base, and modernized Madrid’s telephone exchange. Ernesto Koplowitz died unexpectedly in 1962, after he fell off his horse while riding at the chic Club de Campo in Madrid. He left FCC to his daughters, who were not yet teenagers. A caretaker executive ran the company until 1969, when, to great fanfare, Esther and Alicia Koplowitz married a pair of dashing banker cousins, Alberto Alcocer and Alberto Cortina, and installed them as top executives at FCC. For two decades, the husbands grew FCC dramatically, winning major public works contracts across Spain.

Scandal struck in 1989. Paparazzi photographed Alicia Koplowitz’s husband dancing in the arms of the scantily clad wife of a Spanish marquis. Alicia promptly divorced her husband and fired him from FCC. When a second tabloid caught Esther Koplowitz’s husband cheating with his secretary, she too filed for divorce and expelled him from the family company. The publicity-shy sisters suddenly found themselves feminist heroes in Spain and majority owners of a $3 billion company. In 1998, Esther bought out Alicia’s stake in FCC for $800 million.

By the time I arrived in Madrid in the summer of 2002, Esther Koplowitz was principal shareholder of FCC and an accomplished businesswoman in her own right. The company’s annual revenues were approaching $6 billion and it employed ninety-two thousand people worldwide. FCC grew so large it was now one of the thirty-five publicly traded Spanish corporations whose stock price set the Ibex index, the local equivalent of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Koplowitz had also become a noted philanthropist. A patron of the arts and the infirm, she started a foundation that contributed more than sixty-two million euros to Spanish charities. She gave fifteen million euros to create a national biomedical research center, and millions more to fund group homes and day-care centers for adults suffering from mental illness and cerebral palsy. Koplowitz and her three daughters enjoyed homes in the country, the city, and at the shore. The white, modern, two-floor penthouse from which the paintings had been stolen overlooked a lovely Madrid park.

UNDERCOVER WORK TAKES patience.

Criminals are rarely punctual. They may show up early to conduct countersurveillance or, more likely, arrive late to demonstrate who’s in control. Or forget where or when they were supposed to show up. They’re criminals, not bankers. Sometimes they just get there when they get there—whenever they feel like it, whenever they finish whatever it was they were just doing.

This drives most cops and agents nuts. They like to be in charge and are trained to try to control every situation. They take comfort in military precision and punctuality. They like to make a plan and follow it. I learned long ago to play it much looser.

On the morning of our sting, June 19, 2002, I locked my real wallet and passport in my hotel room safe, swapping them for my Robert Clay identification. I met Motyka and G in the lobby and we took a cab to the gleaming Melia Castilla Hotel, where the Spanish police had reserved the suite in my name. The five-star Melia rises in the heart of the city’s commercial center, not far from the Santiago Bernabeu soccer stadium and Paseo de la Castellana, one of Madrid’s grandest tree-lined avenues.

From my undercover suite, Motyka dialed Flores on his cell phone, at 10 a.m., right on schedule.

No one answered. Motyka tried again a half hour later and once more an hour after that. Each time, the call went straight to voice mail. At noon, Motyka dialed again.

He snapped his cell phone shut. “Negative.”

The comisario in the room frowned. He’d positioned perhaps one hundred officers in plainclothes wandering the lobby and streets outside the hotel. A lot of them were probably working overtime, earning time and a half. I chuckled to myself. Apparently, working a major undercover case in Spain was no different from working one in the United States—sometimes you had to work just as hard to keep your own side calm and focused as you did chasing your targets.

I broke the uneasy silence. “Hey, who’s hungry? Should we get some lunch? Walk around?”

“Good idea.”

We killed an hour wandering through the shops near the hotel, Motyka gripping his cell phone so he wouldn’t miss Flores’s call. I found a lovely hand-painted fan, black with red flowers, and bought it for my daughter, Kristin. G found a few souvenirs of his own. We slipped into one of the Museo del Jamon sandwich shops, with large hunks of ham hanging in neat rows. We ordered a couple of sandwiches and bottles of Orangina, and grabbed a standing table in the back, out of the sun.

Motyka glared at his silent cell phone. “I think the Spanish police are ready to pull the plug. What do you think?”

G said, “I don’t know. Doesn’t look good.”

I said, “I think everyone should relax. Give it time.” I held up my sandwich, trying to change the subject. “This is great, huh? Wonder if I could smuggle one on the plane for the ride back?”

“Shit,” Motyka said. “He’s not gonna call.”

“Whoa,” I cautioned. “These things happen on their own timetable. We gotta give it some time. Don’t worry about what the comisarios are saying—that this isn’t going to work out.” I lowered my voice. “Look, buddy, you’ve got to remember that the Spanish police have their own agenda here. They can’t be too crazy about us being here, after working a case for six months, getting nowhere. What’s it going to look like if the FBI waltzes in here and solves it in a few days? Now, they couldn’t refuse our offer to help—that would look bad— but they’re probably going to be pretty quick to shut us down. That way they can say they gave the FBI plan a fair shake. You can’t worry about that. What you’ve got to do is stay positive.”

“I don’t know.”

“Give them a couple of days,” I said. “We’re offering ten million. They’ll call.”

Motyka looked glum. “Hmmm.”

“Look,” I said, “we finish our sandwiches. We walk back. We call again. If Flores doesn’t answer, we call back in a few hours. It’s all we can do.”

“I don’t know.” He was beginning to repeat himself.

But back at the hotel, Motyka couldn’t keep his itchy finger off the redial button—3 p.m., 5 p.m., 6 p.m., and 9 p.m. I began worrying about the repeated calls. Only cops and fools pushed that hard. We had the money. They wanted it. We held the upper hand. The calls made us look desperate. Like amateurs, or worse, cops.

I let Motyka know. He shrugged off my advice.

When yet another call failed—this time around midnight—the comisario finally stepped forward.

“I’m sorry, but it’s late,” he said. “My men have been waiting a long time.”

Motyka reluctantly nodded. Suddenly, everyone seemed to be giving up. Some of the FBI agents even started talking about arrangements to fly home. It seemed premature, but I kept my mouth shut. It wasn’t my call. As I left for the night, Motyka was still huddling with an FBI agent from the embassy.

I went back to my hotel to call home and say good night to Donna and give my love to the kids, and then grab some sleep.

MY PHONE BUZZED in the early morning darkness.

“Bob?” It was Motyka.

“Yeah, what’s up?” I groggily asked, blinking at the alarm clock. It was 6 a.m. What the hell?

He could barely contain his excitement. “I talked to Flores! I tried him one more time after everybody left. And he answered! We got cut off but we spoke three times. He says he’s got the paintings. It’s on!”

I sat up wide awake. “Dude!”

“Yeah, I know.”

I wanted details. “So what was the deal? Why wasn’t he answering his phone?”

“Some bullshit. Said he had to go out of town. He says he’ll be back this afternoon, and to call at 5 p.m. But bottom line: We’re on.”

I asked about backup. “The comisarios?”

“Sanchez got ’em to agree to give us one more day.”

“Great news. I love good news. Nice work, buddy.”

We met again in my suite at the Melia that afternoon. At 5 p.m., we gathered around as Motyka dialed Flores.