Balance of Power

eliminated. He knew exactly who to go after: the Ramirez familia. No one else would have a reason or the means to eliminate Adolfo. Their deaths would be an example to others that he intended to treat resistance with terminal force.

And, of course, as the General told Antonio, the roundup and execution of the Ramirez familia would serve one other purpose. It would frighten and scatter other familias that might be inclined to oppose him. Which was why the strike had to be very public and very dramatic.

The General gave Antonio the order to make that happen. Antonio saluted smartly, turned, and left without saying a word. He went directly to his desk and phoned General Americo Hoss at the Tagus Army Air Base outside of Toledo. The General’s orders were communicated verbally. Like Adolfo, General Hoss would do whatever was necessary to serve the General.

It was still dark when the four aging HA-15 helicopters lifted off. Like most of the helicopters in the Spanish army, the HA-15s were transport choppers rather than gunships. The thirty-year-old aircraft had been outfitted with a pair of side-door-mounted 20mm cannons, which had been fired only in practice missions.

This was not a practice mission.

Each helicopter carried a complement of ten soldiers, each of whom was armed with a Z-62 submachine gun or a Modelo L-1-003 rifle adapted to accomodate standard M16 magazines. Mission commander Major Alejandro Gomez had orders to take the factory and to use whatever means were necessary to obtain the names of the killers.

Gomez was expected to return with prisoners. But if they refused to come, he was expected to return with bodybags.

TWENTY-ONE

Tuesday, 5:01 A.M. San Sebastian, Spain

Maria pulled up to the security booth at the Ramirez factory and flashed her Interpol credentials. She’d decided en route that she didn’t want to be a tourist here. She was relatively confident that the guard would phone ahead to warn the plant manager that she and Aideen were coming in. The manager, in turn, would inform any of the murderers who might be on the premises. Ordinarily, the killers would probably have hidden or fled. That was why Maria had taken the precaution of informing the guard, “We have no jurisdiction here. We only want to talk to members of the familia.”

“But Senorita Cornejas,” the burly, gray-bearded sentry replied, “there is no familia.”

It was a cool disavowal. It reminded Aideen of the drug dealers in Mexico City who had always insisted that they never heard of el senorio—“the lord of the estate”—the drug lord who provided them with all the heroin sold in the nation’s capital.

“Actually, you’re a little premature,” Maria replied, gunning the car engine in neutral. “I have a very strong suspicion that in just a little while there will be no familia.”

The guard gave her a veiled but puzzled look. He wore a ribbon for valor and had the gruff, immutable bearing of a drill sergeant. In Spain, as elsewhere, security positions were a haven for former soldiers and police officers. Very few of them appreciated being ordered around by civilians. And far, far fewer liked being lectured by women. As Maria had suspected when she first set eyes on him, this one was going to need another little push.

“Amigo,” she said, “trust me. There won’t be a familia unless I get to talk to them. A few of them took it upon themselves to kill a man in town. That man has some very powerful friends. I don’t think those friends are going to let this matter sit.”

The sentry looked at her for a long moment. Then, turning his back to them, he made a phone call. His voice did not carry outside the booth. But after a short conversation the sentry hung up, raised the bar, and admitted the car to the parking lot. Maria told Aideen that she was convinced now that one or more members of the familia would see them. And, Aideen knew, Maria would press them to tell her whatever they knew about General Amadori. With Ramirez and his people dead, their plan — whatever it had been — was probably dead as well. Amadori was the one they had to worry about. She needed to know, as fast as possible, how much they needed to worry about him.

Two men met Maria and Aideen at the front door of the factory. The women parked the car nose in and emerged with their arms extended downward, their hands held palms forward. Maria stood by the driver’s side, Aideen by the passenger’s door, as the men walked over. They stopped a few yards away. While one man watched, the other — a big, powerfully built fellow — took the women’s guns and telephone and tossed the items in the car. Then he checked them for wires. His check was thorough but completely professional. When he was finished, the two men walked in silence to a large van parked nearby. The women followed. The four of them climbed into the back and sat on the floor amid cans of paint, ladders, and drop cloths. The men sat beside the door.

“I am Juan and this is Ferdinand,” said the man who had watched the frisking. “Your full names, please.”

“Maria Corneja and Aideen Sanchez,” Maria said.

Aideen picked up on the “change” in her own nationality. It was an inspired move on Maria’s part. These two might not trust fellow Spaniards right now but they’d trust foreigners even less. Internal warfare was a perfect environment for foreign powers to spread weapons, money — and influence. Roots like that were often difficult to dislodge.

Aideen looked from one to the other of the men. Juan was the older of the two. He looked tired. The skin was deeply wrinkled around his nervous eyes and his slender shoulders were bent. The other man was a colossus whose eyes were deep-set under a heavy brow. His flesh was smooth and tight like the face on a coin and his broad shoulders were straight.

“Why are you here, Maria Corneja?” Juan asked.

“I want to talk to you about an army General named Rafael Amadori,” Maria said.

Juan looked at her for a moment. “Go ahead.”

Maria pulled the cigarettes from her jacket. She took one and offered the pack around. Juan accepted one.

Now that they were here, it bothered Aideen that they were collaborating with killers. But as Martha had said, different countries had different rules. Aideen could only trust that Maria knew what she was doing.

Maria lit Juan’s cigarette and then she did her own. The way she lit his smoke — cupping the match under Juan’s cigarette, inviting him to take her hands and move them toward the tip — made the action very intimate. Aideen admired how she used that to establish a rapport with the man.

“Senor Ramirez and the heads of other business groups and familias were slain yesterday by a man working for Amadori,” Maria said. “I believe you’ve met him. Adolfo Alcazar.”

Juan said nothing.

Maria’s voice was softer than Aideen had ever heard it. She was wooing Juan.

“Amadori is a very powerful officer,” Maria continued, “who appears to hold a key place in the food chain of what’s been going on. Here’s how it looks to me. Ramirez had an American assassinated yesterday. Amadori knew this was going to happen and let it happen. Why? So that he could present an audiotape to the nation implicating Deputy Serrador. Why? So that Serrador and the Basques he represents would be discredited at home and abroad. Then he had Alcazar murder your employer and his coconspirators. Why? To discredit the Catalonians and destroy their power-base. If Serrador and the business leaders were planning some kind of political maneuver, that’s finished now.

“More importantly,” Maria went on, “the presence of a conspiracy weakens the government considerably. They don’t know who they can trust or who to turn to for stability. Words won’t reassure the people. They’re fighting each other from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, from the Bay of Biscay to the Strait of Gibraltar. The government needs someone strong to establish order. I believe that Amadori has orchestrated things to make himself that man.”

Juan stared at her through the smoke of his cigarette. “So?” he said. “Order will be restored.”