Balance of Power

Serrador felt a chill. “Who is this?”

“My name is Juan Martinez, senor,” said the caller. “Are you Deputy Serrador?”

“Who is Juan Martinez?” Serrador demanded. And who is at the door? What the hell is going on?

“I’m a member of the familia,” Martinez said.

A key clattered against the door. The bolt was thrown back. Serrador glared over as the door opened. The superintendent stood in the hallway. Behind him were two police officers and a sergeant.

“I am sorry, Senor Deputy,” said the concierge as the other men entered around him. “These men I had to let up.”

“What are you doing?” Serrador demanded of them. His voice was indignant, his eyes unforgiving. Suddenly, he heard the phone click off, followed by the dial tone. He froze with the buzzing phone pressed to his ear, realizing suddenly that something had gone terribly wrong.

“Deputy Delegado Isidro Serrador?” asked the sergeant.

“Yes—”

“You will please come with us.”

“Why?”

“To answer questions regarding the murder of an American tourist.”

Serrador pressed his lips together. He breathed loudly through his nose. He didn’t want to say anything, ask anything, do anything until he’d had a chance to speak with his attorney. And think. People who didn’t think were doomed before they started.

He nodded once. “Permit me to dress,” he said. “Then I will come with you.”

The sergeant nodded and sent one of the men to stand by the bedroom door. He wouldn’t let Serrador shut it but the deputy didn’t make an issue of it. If he let his temper go there’d be no getting that genie back in the bottle. It was best to suffer the humiliation and stay calm and rational.

The men took Serrador down to the cellar and out through the garage of the building — so he wouldn’t have to suffer the embarrassment of being arrested, he assumed. At least they didn’t handcuff him. He was placed in an unmarked police car and driven to the municipal police station on the other side of the park. There, he was escorted into a windowless room with a photo of the king on the wall, a hanging fixture with three bulbs in white tulip- shaped shades, and an old wooden table beneath it. There was a telephone on the table and he was told he could use it to make as many calls as he wished. Someone would come to speak with him shortly.

The door was shut and locked. Serrador sat in one of the four wooden chairs.

He phoned his attorney, Antonio, but he was not in. Probably out with one of his young women, as a wealthy bachelor should be. He didn’t leave a message. He didn’t want Antonio coming home and some talkative nymph overhearing the message. There hadn’t been any press waiting outside so at least this was being done quietly.

Unless they were at the front of my apartment? he thought suddenly. Maybe that was why the police had taken him out through the garage door. Maybe that was what the concierge had meant: These men I had to let up. The press often tried to get to people who lived in the building, and the staff was good about insulating celebrity tenants from reporters. And his telephone number was changed regularly so they wouldn’t be able to bother him.

But the caller had had it. He still wondered who that was and what he had tried to warn him about. No one could have known that he was involved with the people who had killed the American. Only Esteban Ramirez knew that and he wouldn’t have told anyone.

It occurred to him then to telephone the answering machine in his office. It also occurred to him that this telephone might be bugged, but that was a chance he was willing to take. He didn’t have much of a choice.

But before he could place the call, the door opened and two men walked in.

They were not police.

TEN

Tuesday, 12:04 A.M. Madrid, Spain

The International Crime Police Organization — popularly referred to as Interpol — was established in Vienna in 1923. It was designed to serve as a worldwide clearinghouse for police information. After the Second World War, the organization was expanded and re-chartered to focus on smuggling, narcotics, counterfeiting, and kidnapping. Today, one hundred seventy-seven nations provide information to the organization, which has offices in most of the major cities of the world. In the United States, Interpol liaises with the United States National Central Bureau. The USNCB reports to the Undersecretary for Enforcement of the U.S. Treasury Department.

During his years with the FBI, Darrell McCaskey had worked extensively with dozens of Interpol officers. He had worked especially closely with two of them in Spain. One was the remarkable Maria Corneja, a lone wolf special operations officer who had lived with McCaskey in America for seven months while studying FBI methods. The other was Luis Garcia de la Vega, the commander of Interpol’s office in Madrid.

Luis was a dark-skinned, black-haired, bear-large, two-fisted Andalusian Gypsy who taught flamenco dancing in his spare time. Like the dance style, the thirty-seven-year-old Luis was spontaneous, dramatic, and spirited. He ran one of the toughest and best-informed Interpol bureaus in Europe. Their efficiency and effectiveness had earned him both the jealous loathing and deep respect of local police forces.

Luis had intended to come to the hotel right after the shooting, but the events in San Sebastian had caused him to delay his visit. He arrived shortly after eleven-thirty P.M., as McCaskey and Aideen were finishing dinner.

Darrell greeted his old friend with a long embrace.

“I’m sorry about what has happened,” Luis said in husky, accent-tinged English.

“Thank you,” McCaskey said.

“I’m also sorry to be so late,” Luis said, finally breaking the hug. “I see that you have adapted the Spanish way of dining. Eat very late at night and then sleep well.”

“Actually,” said McCaskey, “this is the first chance we’ve had to order room service. And I’m not sure either of us will be able to sleep tonight, however much we eat.”

“I understand,” Luis remarked. He squeezed his friend’s shoulders. “A terrible day. Again, I’m very sorry.”

“Would you care for something, Luis?” McCaskey asked. “Some wine, perhaps?”

“Not while I am on duty,” Luis replied. “You should know that. But please, you two go ahead.” His eyes fell on Aideen and he smiled. “You are Senorita Marley.”

“Yes.” Aideen rose from the table and offered her hand. Though she was physically and emotionally exhausted, something came alive when she touched the man’s hand. He was attractive, but that wasn’t what had stimulated her. After everything that had happened today she was too numb, too depleted to care. What he gave her was the sense of not being afraid of anything. She had always responded to that in a man.

“I’m sorry about your loss,” Luis said. “But I’m glad that you are all right. You are all right?”

“Yes,” she said as she sat back down. “Thanks for your concern.”

“Mi delicia, ” he said. “My pleasure.” Luis pulled over an arm chair and joined them at the table.

McCaskey resumed eating his spicy partridge. “So?”

“That smells very good,” Luis said.

“It is,” McCaskey said. His eyes narrowed. “You’re stalling, Luis.”

Luis rubbed the back of his neck. “Si,” he admitted. “I’m stalling ‘big time,’ as you say in America. But it’s not because I have something. It’s because I have nothing. Only thoughts. Ideas.”

“Your thoughts are usually as good as someone else’s facts,” McCaskey said. “Would you care to share them?”

Luis took a drink from McCaskey’s water glass. He gestured vaguely toward the window. “It’s terrible out