Balance of Power

added. “You either have that or you acquire it. But you need it.”

“I’ll go along with resolve and cunning,” Aideen said, “and one thing more. You have to learn to stifle your gag reflex in order to learn.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You have to close down your emotions,” Aideen explained. “That’s what allowed me to walk the streets undercover — to observe dispassionately and to learn. Otherwise, you’d spend all your time hating. You have to pretend not to care as you talk to hawkers, learn the names of the ‘houses’ they represent. In Mexico City there were the Clouds, who sold marijuana. The Pirates, who sold cocaine. The Angels, who sold crack. The Jaguars, who sold heroin. You have to learn the difference between the users and the junkies.”

“The junkies are always the loners, no?”

Aideen nodded.

“It’s the same everywhere,” Maria said.

“And the users always travel in packs. You had to learn to recognize the dealers in case they didn’t open their mouths. You had to know who to follow back to the kingpins. The dealers were the ones with their sleeves rolled up — that was where they carried the money. Their pockets were for guns or knives. But I was always scared in the field, Maria. I was scared for my life and scared of what I would learn about the underbelly of someone else’s life. If I hadn’t been angry about my old neighborhood, if I weren’t sick for the families of the lost souls I encountered, I could never have gone through with it.”

Maria let the smile blossom fully now. It was a rich smile, full of respect and the promise of camaraderie. “Courage without fear is stupidity,” Maria said. “I still believe that you had it, and I admire you even more. We’re going to make a very good team.”

“Speaking of which,” said Aideen, “what’s the plan when we reach San Sebastian?” She was anxious to turn the conversation away from herself. Attention had always made her uneasy.

“The first thing we’ll do is go to the radio station,” Maria told her.

“As tourists?” Aideen said, perplexed.

“No. We have to find out who brought them the tape. Once we do that, we find those people and watch them as tourists. We know that the dead men were planning some kind of conspiracy. The question is whether they died because of infighting or because someone found out about their plan. Someone who hasn’t come forth as yet.”

“Meaning we don’t know if they’re friend or foe.”

“Correct,” Maria said. “Like your government, Spain has many factions, which don’t necessarily share information with other factions.”

As she was speaking, the pilot turned the stick over to the control pilot and leaned back. He removed his headset.

“Agent Corneja?” he shouted. “I just got a message from the chief. He said to tell you that Isidro Serrador was killed tonight at the municipal police station in Madrid.”

“How?”

“He was shot to death when he tried to take a gun from an army officer.”

“An army officer?” Maria said. “This case doesn’t fall under military jurisdiction.”

“1 know,” he replied. “The chief is looking into who it was and what he was doing there.”

Maria thanked him and he turned back to the controls. She looked at Aideen.

“Something is very wrong here,” Maria said gravely. “I have a feeling that what happened to poor Martha was just the first shot of what is going to be a very long and very deadly enfilade.”

FIFTEEN

Tuesday, 2:55 A.M. San Sebastian, Spain

The familia is an institution that dates back to the late nineteenth century. It is part of the same Mediterranean culture that gave rise to crime families in Sicily, Turkey, and Greece. The variation created by the Spanish was that a member’s loyalty was to a legitimate employer, usually the owner of a plant or labor group like bricklayers or icemen. To keep the employer’s hands unsullied, a cadre of employees was selected and trained to perform or protect the owner against acts of violence or sabotage and to execute the same against rivals. The targets were almost always business sites; attacks against home and members of one’s personal family were considered uncivilized. Occasionally, familia members engaged in smuggling or extortion, though that was rare.

In return for their services, familia members were occasionally rewarded with extra wages. Perhaps a college education for their children. Usually, however, their loyalty earned them only the thanks of their employer and guaranteed lifetime employment.

Juan Martinez considered the attack against the yacht to be uncivilized. Certainly the scope of it was unparalleled — so many familia members killed at once. Juan had never shied from violence during his years of service to Senor Ramirez. The violence committed against the boating concern, especially in the early years, was usually directed at ships or machines or buildings. Once or twice a worker was attacked, but never the owners or senior management. What had been done tonight demanded a response in kind. Juan, a street kid from Manresa who had worked for Senor Ramirez for twelve years, was eager to deliver it. But first he needed a target. The radio station was a good place to start looking for one.

Juan and three coworkers drove out to the small broadcast facility. It was located on a nine-hundred-foot- high hilltop, one of three hills located just north of La Concha Bay in San Sebastian. A narrow paved road led halfway to the summit. Near the top, an enclave of expensive, gated homes had been built overlooking the bay.

How many heads of familias live here? Juan wondered, sitting in the passenger’s side of the car. He was carrying a backpack, which he’d packed at the factory. He had never been up this way before and the view of the coastline, spectacular and serene, made him uncomfortable. He was a man who enjoyed work and activity. He felt as out of place here as he would have in the moonlit gardens that were visible just past the gates.

A narrower dirt road, typically traveled by motorbikes and hikers, led the rest of the way. The view of the bay was blocked by a turn in the hill; the grasses were not clipped and lush but scrublike and sparse. This was Juan’s kind of place again. He looked up the road toward the low-lying cinderblock building at the end. It was surrounded by a chain-link fence just over eight feet high, with barbed wire strung thickly across the top.

Radio Nacional de Publico was a small, 10 kw station that reached as far south as Pamplona and as far north as Bordeaux, France. The RNP typically broadcast music, news, and local weather during the day and matters of interest to the Basque population in the evening. The owners were avowed antiseparatist Basques who had endured gun attacks and a fire-bombing. That was why the building was made of cinderblock and was set well back from the fortified fence. The broadcast antenna stood in the center of the roof. It was a tall, skeletal spire made of red and white girders. It stood approximately one hundred fifty feet tall and was topped by a winking red light.

The familia driver, Martin, had cut the headlights as the car approached. He pulled over three hundred yards from the gate and parked beside the domed crest of the hill. The four men got out. Juan pulled a bicycle from the trunk, slung a backpack on his shoulder, and sprinkled water from a bottle on his face. The water trickled like sweat along his cheeks and down his throat. Then he walked boldly toward the gate. The other three men fixed silencers to their pistols and followed one hundred feet behind him. Juan huffed and walked loudly, partly to cover the footsteps of the others, and partly to make sure he was heard.

As Juan had expected, there were guards inside the perimeter. They were three men with guns, not professional security people. They had undoubtedly been brought here to keep an eye on the station in the aftermath of the broadcast. Juan and the others had decided ahead of time that if there were people patrolling the grounds, they would have to be taken out quietly and simultaneously.

Juan forced himself to relax. He couldn’t afford to let the men see him shiver. This was his operation and he didn’t want the other members of the familia to think he was nervous.

Juan stopped when he saw the gate. “Son-of-a-bitch,” he said loudly.

One of the guards heard him. He walked over urgently while the other two stayed back, covering him.