“We’ve survived a couple of world wars and a nuclear cold war,” August replied. “For a bunch of territorial carnivores not far removed from the caves, that ain’t bad.” He took a long, slow sip of tea. “Besides, forget about recreation and weekends. What started this all was you making a joke and me approving of it. Humor ain’t weakness, pal, and don’t start coming down on yourself for it. It’s a deterrent, Mike, a necessary counterbalance. When I was a guest of Ho Chi Minh, I stayed relatively sane by telling myself every bad joke I could remember. Knock-knocks. Good news, bad news. Skeleton jokes. You know: ‘A skeleton walks into a bar and orders a gin and tonic… and a mop.’ ”
Rodgers didn’t laugh.
“Well,” August said, “it’s amazing how funny that seems when you’re strung up by your bleeding goddamn wrists in a mosquito-covered swamp. The point is, it’s a bootstrap deal, Mike. You’ve got to lift yourself out of the muck.”
“That’s you,” Rodgers said. “I get angry. Bitter. I brood.”
“I know. And you let it sit in your gut. You’ve come up with a third kind of symphonic music: loud passages that you keep inside. You can’t possibly think that’s good.”
“Good or not,” Rodgers said, “it comes naturally to me. That’s my fuel. It gives me the drive to fix systems that are broken and to get rid of the people who spoil it for the rest of us.”
“And when you can’t fix the system or get back at the bad guys?” August asked. “Where does all that high octane go?”
“Nowhere,” Rodgers said. “I store it. That’s the beauty of it. It’s the far eastern idea of
“Or ready to explode. What do you do when there’s so much that you can’t keep it in anymore?”
“You burn some of it off,” Rodgers said. “That’s where recreation comes in. You turn it into physical exertion. You exercise or play squash or call a lady-friend. There are ways.”
“Pretty lonely ones.”
“They work for me,” Rodgers said. “Besides, as long as you keep striking out with the ladies I’ve got you to dump on.”
“Striking out?” August grinned. At least Rodgers was talking and it was about something other than misery and the fall of civilization. “After my long weekend with Barb Mathias I had to take a sabbatical.”
Rodgers smiled. “I thought I was doing you a favor,” he said. “She loved you when we were kids.”
“Yeah, but now she’s forty-four and all she wants is sex and security.” August twirled noodles around his fork and slid them into his mouth. “Unfortunately, I’m only rich in one of those.”
Rodgers was still smiling when his pager beeped. He twisted to look at it then winced as his bandages pulled at the side.
“Those pagers are made to slip right off your belt,” August said helpfully.
“Thanks,” Rodgers said. “That’s how I lost the last one.” He glanced down at the number.
“Who wants you?” August asked.
“Bob Herbert,” Rodgers said. His brow knit as he took his napkin from his lap. He rose very slowly and dropped it on the chair. “I’ll call him from the car.”
August leaned back. “I’ll stay right here,” he said. “I’m told that there are three women to every man in Washington. Maybe one of them will want your plate of cold-growing string beans.”
“Good luck,” Rodgers told him as he moved quickly through the small, crowded restaurant.
August finished his lo mein, drained his cup, and poured more tea. He drank it slowly as he looked around the dark restaurant. This state of mind Rodgers was in would not be easy to dispel. August had always been the more optimistic of the two. It was true, he couldn’t glance at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial or flip past a cable documentary about the war or even pass a Vietnamese restaurant. Not without his eyes tearing or his belly burning or his fists tensing with the desire to hit something. August was usually upbeat and hopeful but he was not entirely forgiving. Still, he didn’t hold on to bitterness and disappointment the way Mike did. And the problem here was not so much that society had let Mike down but that Mike had let himself down. He wasn’t about to let that go without a serious struggle.
When Rodgers returned, August knew at once that something was wrong. The bandages and pain notwithstanding, the general moved assertively through the crowded restaurant, weaving around waiters and customers instead of waiting for them to move. He did not rush, however. The men were in uniform and both foreign agents and journalists paid close attention to military personnel. If they were called away in a hurry, that told observers which branch and usually which group within that branch was involved in a breaking event.
August rose calmly before Rodgers arrived. He stretched for show and took a last swallow of tea. He dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the table and moved out to greet Rodgers. The men didn’t speak until they were outside. The mid-fall air was biting as they walked slowly down the street to the car.
“Tell me more about the good things in life,” Rodgers said bitterly. “Martha Mackall was assassinated about a half hour ago.”
August felt the tea come back into his throat. “It happened outside the Palacio de las Cortes in Madrid,” Rodgers went on. His voice was clipped and low, his eyes fixed on something in the distance. Even though the enemy was still faceless, Rodgers had found a place to put his anger. “The status of your team is unchanged until we know more,” Rodgers went on. “Martha’s assistant Aideen Marley is talking to the police. Darrell was in Madrid with her and is heading over to the palace now. He’s going to call Paul at fourteen hundred hours with an update.”
August’s expression hadn’t changed, though he felt tea and bile fill his throat. “Any idea who’s responsible?”
“None,” Rodgers said. “She was traveling incognito. Only a few people even knew she was there.”
They got into Rodgers’s new Camry. August drove. He started the ignition and nosed into traffic. The men were silent for a moment. August hadn’t known Martha very well, but he knew that she was no one’s favorite person at Op-Center. She was pushy and arrogant. A bully. She was also damned effective. The team would be much poorer for her loss.
August looked out the windshield at the overcast sky. Upon reaching Op-Center headquarters, Rodgers would go to the executive offices in the basement level while August would be helicoptered over to the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, where Striker was stationed. Striker’s status at the moment was neutral. But there were still two Op-Center personnel in Spain. If things got out of hand there they might be called upon to leave in a hurry. Rodgers hadn’t told him what Martha was doing in Spain because he obviously didn’t want to risk being overheard. Bugging and electronic surveillance of cars belonging to military personnel was not uncommon. But August knew about the tense political situation in Spain. He also knew about Martha’s involvement in ethnic issues. And he assumed that she was probably involved in diplomatic efforts to keep the nation’s many political and cultural entities from fraying, from becoming involved in a catastrophic and far-reaching power struggle.
He also knew one thing more. Whoever had killed her was probably aware of why she was there. Which raised another question that transcended the shock of the moment: whether this was the first or the last shot in the possible destruction of Spain.
THREE
Countless pieces of moonglow glittered atop the dark waters of La Concha Bay. The luminous shards were shattered into shimmering dust as the waves struck loudly at Playa de la Concha, the expansive, sensuously curving beach that bordered the elegant, cosmopolitan city. Just over a half mile to the east, fishing vessels and recreational boats rocked in the crowded harbor of Parte
Beyond the nesting birds and the idle boats, slightly more than a half mile north of the coast of Spain, the
