“And what will the world think of the Castilian who killed these men?” Norberto managed to lower his voice on the word
“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
“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.
The last two agents were in Cuba, keeping an eye on developing political situations in that nation. The reports were that the aging Castro’s hold was beginning to fray. Whatever the dictator’s drawbacks — and they were considerable — his iron heel had ironically kept the entire Caribbean more or less stabilized. Whatever tyrant came to power in Haiti, Grenada, Antigua, or on any of the other islands still needed the approval of Castro to run arms or drugs or even maintain a sizeable military force. They knew that the Cuban leader would have rivals assassinated before he let them become too powerful. The concensus was that as soon as Castro was gone, chaos and not democracy would come to the island and to the region. The United States had a contingency plan, Operation Keel, to fill and control that power vacuum using the military and economic incentives. Op-Center’s agents were key parts of the EWAP network — early warning and preparedness — which was designed to pave the way for the plan.
Nine lives, Hood thought. And for each of those lives there were maybe two, three, or four dependents. That was not a responsibility to be taken lightly. He examined the afternoon reports and saw that the situations were relatively stable and unchanged. He closed the file.
These foreign operatives counted on their files and their communications with Op-Center to be absolutely secure. They contacted Op-Center by calling a telephone number at an office in Washington, an office that rented space to executives. The number was registered to Caryn Nadler International Travel Consultants. The operatives spoke in their native languages, though each word they used was assigned a different meaning in English. “Can I book a flight to Dallas?” in Arabic could mean “The Syrian President is gravely ill” in English. Though the translation files were all dedicated, seven people other than Paul Hood had access to them… and also to the identities of the operatives. Bob Herbert and Mike Rodgers were two of them and Darrell McCaskey was the third. Hood trusted them completely. But what about the other four people, two of them in Herbert’s office, one in McCaskey’s group, and one on Rodgers’s team? All of them had passed standard background checks, but were those checks thorough enough? Were the codes themselves sufficiently secure in the event that foreign surveillance picked them up? Unfortunately, one never knew the answer to that until someone disappeared or a mission was sabotaged or a team was ambushed.
There was peril in espionage and intelligence work. That was a given. For the operatives, the danger was also part of the excitement. Despite what had happened to Martha in Spain, Op-Center was doing everything it could to minimize the risks. At the moment, the shooting of Martha Mackall was being investigated by Darrell McCaskey, Aideen Marley, and Interpol in Spain. Mike Rodgers and Bob Herbert were studying intelligence reports here and Ron Plummer was talking to foreign diplomats in Washington and abroad. Carol Lanning was conferring with State Department contacts. Whether it was NASA, the Pentagon, or Op-Center, the cleanups were always so damn thorough.
What had they done wrong here? Op-Center had had no choice about sending Martha. After Av Lincoln had suggested her name and Serrador had approved her, she had to go. As for Aideen working as her assistant instead of Darrell — it made complete sense. Aideen spoke the language, which Darrell did not. Serrador had risen from a working-class family and so had Aideen — Hood thought that might help them. And even if Darrell had been there
