Midnight In Madrid

too careful.

She found the designated bench in the shadow of the Grand Palacio. Across the street was the Cathedral of the Virgin of Almudena, patroness of Madrid. Alex’s eyes swept the block for danger. She saw none, but her insides were as jittery as a half-dozen frightened cats. She didn’t see McKinnon, either.

The security code with McKinnon: if she felt she had been followed, she would be reading a newspaper. If she was sure she was clean, no newspaper open. She felt secure. She sat down on the bench at a bus stop with a copy of El Mundo folded neatly across her lap. She picked up on the activities of passers-by. She noted footwear. She was wary of anyone with concealed hands. She carried her pistol in a holster on her hip.

She asked herself: How fast could she have her gun out and ready?

One second? Two?

She drew a breath, then let it go. It was 4:00 p.m. Then six minutes past four. Where was McKinnon?

A homeless man approached her. He engaged her in a pointless conversation and eventually asked for money. She gave him two euros, and he went about his way, replaced immediately by a twenty-something couple holding hands, smooching, and not saying a thing as they seemed to wait for a bus.

Then the man took out a cell phone, made a call, and the two of them turned to walk away. There needed to be nothing to it, but linked to the homeless man, the events were consecutive, overlapping by seconds, as if the three of them were one of McKinnon’s pavement mini-teams, the first man pegging the prey, the couple keeping watch while Mark approached from somewhere. And, thinking back, the homeless man hadn’t had a homeless stench.

Or was she imagining things, she asked herself. She glanced at her watch.

Ten after. The heck with the pavement teams, maybe Mark was blowing her off with a no-show. She held her seat on the bench across from the palace. She watched the guards. The palace was magnificent, built to impress, just like Versailles, just like Buckingham Palace, just like Donald Trump’s home in Florida.

She tried to settle herself.

She turned her attention to the cathedral. The history gene within her reminded her of the Roman Catholic Church’s centuries of influence in Spain, from the pilgrims in the first ten centuries after Christ, through the Inquisition, through the Franco regime, and more subtly, into the present day. Her eyes drifted thoughtfully over the architecture, a gray neoclassic facade that echoed the architecture of the Palacio Real across the street. The pairing of the two buildings, the similarity in their feel and appearance, had been intended to emphasize the Church’s relationship with the Crown.

Four fifteen. She glanced at her cell phone. No calls. No alert involving Jean-Claude. Typical in this line of work. One never knew what was going on. Never.

She grew restless. Her back started to cramp. She stood up and strolled the block. A raging paranoia was rolling in on her, a sense that something big had been missed.

She came back to the bench. She felt eyes on her. She kept looking over her shoulder as she walked. The smooching young couple reappeared, hand in hand. The lovebirds stayed a constant half-block away from her.

Yeah, she had made them, all right. Now, with their reappearance, she knew Mark was imminent. So she remained seated. Four twenty. He was late. But sometimes late had no significance other than late.

The heat and humidity assaulted her. Rain clouds had formed. A few sprinkles came and went. Then, bingo. She saw a car stop quickly on the palace side of the street. Mark McKinnon jumped out. McKinnon was in a suit, a white shirt, and tie. She slid her gaze to her left and saw that the lovebirds turned tail immediately and departed. She noted the time. Four twenty-six.

She watched Mark and knew the drill with the vehicle. His car would circle the block while they met, and somewhere another car had probably put one or two bodyguards on the street.

She scanned the block nearby, more carefully than ever. There was an ill-dressed man looking through a souvenir stall, but not really looking. A man in a small truck with Madrid plates had pulled to the curb right behind her, stopping in contravention of all traffic rules, and was talking on his cell phone.

She doubted that McKinnon had more than two guns backing him up, but it barely mattered. Mark had already told her so much. This was one high-testosterone operation in progress today if Mark had this sort of entourage.

That, or she had imagined everything. But she didn’t think she had. This venue was like a fuse to a cherry bomb.

McKinnon jaywalked lazily toward her, stepping between angry drivers. Then he quickly jogged the rest of the way across the street and came to the bench where she sat.

“Hello, LaDuca,” he said. “What’s got your panties in a twist today?”

“I need to know a few things,” she said.

“We all do,” he answered. “What’s on your list? Then I’ll tell you what’s on mine.”

He sat. She stood. “Let’s walk,” she said.

“I’d prefer not to.”

“Let’s do it anyway.”

With a sigh, he acceded. He was up on his feet.

“Did you contact Peter yesterday and ask him to go see Floyd Connelly?” she asked as they moved.

“Distrustful, aren’t you? You’re checking up on Peter Chang.”

“That’s right. I am.”

“Peter’s your partner. What am I to think?”

“I’m being thorough. Could you answer my question?”

“Yes, I asked Peter to go over to see Connelly,” he said.

“Why?” she asked.

“Why? Why not? That’s how I often do things if they’re important,” McKinnon snapped. “If I ask two people to do something, maybe one of them will get it done. You okay with that?-because I don’t care if you are or not.”

“You didn’t ask him to kill Connelly, did you? I know you didn’t ask me to.”

“Ha! No. Why? Do you think I did?”

“A lot of things cross my mind,” she said. “Our black bird isn’t the most normal case.”

“What case is?” he asked. “Are you the normal working girl from Treasury? Is Peter the normal Chinaman from Shanghai? Lighten up, LaDuca. There is no normal. If something were normal, it would be abnormal, which would make it suspicious.”

“Even if you didn’t order it, I’m wondering if Peter freelanced it,” she said. “His interests in this case coincide with ours, but they’re not perfectly compatible.”

“Oh,” McKinnon said dismissively, “I doubt that he did. But if he pushed old Floyd out of the lousy window, so what, really? Floyd was a liability. Senior moments, twenty-four seven. And that hotel he was staying at. It wasn’t the Four Seasons; it was more like a One Season. Bad publicity, my buttcrack! They probably won’t even bother to get their fence fixed. They’re going to parlay the publicity and sell out all summer to the tourists from Kansas. They’ll probably open a cafe in the alley and name a drink after Floyd. They’ll call it ‘The Dead American’ and put a couple of little skewers through it.”

“Mark, would you come down to earth?”

But Mark didn’t. “I’ve got this theory, you see,” McKinnon continued. “More than a theory, really. An analysis of what’s been going down. Floyd was the leak in the room at the embassy, you see. We know that. In the room and for many months dating back. He’s the one who nearly got you killed by letting go with inside information and not securing either his computer or his phone. He’d get soused and pop off at the hotel bar about why he was in Madrid. Used to trade info for sex. Did you know that? Did you know he mentioned your name a couple of weeks back to some bad people. Did you know that he used to play golf with a cranky old dinosaur of an arms dealer in Switzerland named Tissot, who payrolled a mistress for him, and set up a bank account for him?”

“Is that true?” she asked.

McKinnon laughed. “You Treasury eggheads might dislike all us Agency people, Alex,” he said, “but we do know a thing or two. Connelly was a health hazard to all of us. So I’m not bawling my eyes out this morning. It’s pretty clear that Floyd was finally set up. Outlived his usefulness to the opposition and in fact had turned into a