A lot of guilt comes along with that. Guilt and a
responsibility to see the job through at any cost.
She won't sleep and she probably won't eat.
A person can't maintain those countershock and
resistance levels for long."
"What's 'long"?" Herbert asked.
"Two or three days, depending on the person,"
Liz said. " 'After that, the person
enters a state of clinical exhaustion. That brings
on a mental and physical breakdown. If
countershock is left untreated for that long, there's a
good chance our girl's in for a long, long stay in a very
quiet rest home."
"How good a chance?" Herbert asked.
"I'd say sixty-forty in favor of a crash,"
Liz said.
Hood's phone beeped as Liz was speaking. As
soon as she was finished Hood picked it up. His
executive assistant, "Bugs" Benet, said that
Darrell McCaskey was on the line. Hood put
McCaskey on the speakerphone.
Herbert settled back into his wheelchair.
Until recently, a call like this wouldn't have been
possible over an unsecured line. But Matt
Stoll, Op-Center's Operations Support
Officer and resident computer genius, had designed
a digital scrambler that plugged into the data port
of public telephones. Anyone listening in over the
line would hear only static. A small speaker
82 OP-CENTER
attached to the scrambler on McCaskey's end
filtered out the noise and enabled him to hear the conversation
clearly.
"Darrell, good evening," Hood said softly.
"I've got you on speaker."
"Who's there?" he asked.
Hood told him.
"I've gotta tell you," McCaskey said,
choking, "you can't imagine what it means to have a team
like you back there. Thanks."
"We're in this together," Hood said.
Hood rolled his lips together. It was the closest
Herbert had seen the boss come to losing it.
Hood collected himself quickly. "How are you both?
Do you need anything?"
The compassion was real. Herbert had always said that when it
came to sincerity in government Hood was in a
category all by himself.
"We're still pretty shaken up," McCaskey
answered, "as I'm sure you are. But I guess
we'll be all right. As a matter of fact,
Aideen seems to be in a pretty combative
mood."
Liz nodded knowingly. "Countershock," she said
softly.
"How so?" Hood asked.
"Well, she kind of took Deputy Serrador
apart for getting cold feet,"
McCaskey said. "I called her on the carpet for
it but I have to say I was actually pretty proud of
her. He had it coming."
"Darrell," Hood asked, "is Aideen there?"
"No, she isn't," said McCaskey. "I left
her in her room with Deputy Ambassador
Gawal from the Amer-
BALANCE OF POWER 83
ican embassy. They're on the phone with my friend
Luis at Interpol, discussing security measures
if you decide to keep us here. Like I said, she's
pretty worked up and I wanted her to have time
to settle down a little. But I also didn't want
her to feel left out of the process."
"Good thinking," Hood said. "Darrell, are you
sure
you
feel up to talking now?"'"
"It's got to be done," McCaskey said, "and
I'd rather do it now. I'm sure I'll feel a
lot lower when all of this sinks in."
Liz gave Hood a thumbs-up.
Herbert nodded. He knew the feeling.
"Very good," Hood said. "Darrell, we were just
discussing the idea of you two staying. How do
you feel about that-and what's the problem with Deputy
Serrador?"
"Frankly," McCaskey said, "I'd feel
fine about staying. Only the problem isn't me.
Aideen and I just came from Serrador's office.
He's made it pretty clear that he doesn't
want to continue."
"Why?" Hood asked.
"Cold feet," Herbert suggested.
"No, Bob, I don't think it's that,"
McCaskey said. "Deputy Serrador told us
that he wants to talk to the investigators and to his
colleagues before he decides whether to proceed with
our talks. But it seemed to me-and this is only a
former G-man's hunch-that that was bull. Aideen had
the same feeling. I think he
wanted to
shut us down."
"Darrell, this is Ron Plummer. Deputy
Serrador was the one who initiated these
exploratory talks
84 OP-CENTER
through Ambassador Neville. What does he
possibly gain by terminating them?"
"Terminating them?" Herbert muttered. "The
son of a bitch didn't even start them!"
Hood motioned the intelligence chief to silence.
"I'm not sure what he gains, Ron,"
McCaskey replied. "But I think that what Bob
just said-that was you grumbling. Bob, wasn't it?"
"Who else?"
"I think that what he said is significant,"
McCaskey said. " "From the time Av Lincoln
first put Serrador in touch with Martha-at
Serrador's request, remember- the deputy has
insisted that he only wanted to talk with Martha.
She's murdered and now Serrador doesn't want
to talk. One conclusion, the obvious conclusion, is that
someone who has access to Serrador's political
agenda-as well as his calendar-killed her
to intimidate him."
"Not just to intimidate him," Plummer pointed out,
"but to shut down everyone who's a member of his
pronationalism team."
"That's right," said McCaskey. "Also, by attacking
Martha, they send a message to our diplomats
to stay out of this matter. But I still feel that those are the
things we're supposed to think. I don't believe
that they're the real reason behind the killing."
"Mr. McCaskey, this is Carol
Lanning with State." Her voice was composed, though
just barely. "I'm coming in a little late on all of
this. What else is going on here? What does
somebody want our diplomats to stay out of?"
"I'll take this one, Darrell," Hood said.
He fixed
BALANCE OF POWER 85
his eyes on banning. "As you know, Ms. banning,
Spain has been going through some serious upheavals
over the last few months."
"I've seen the daily situation reports,"
banning replied. "But it's mostly separatist
Basques attacking antiseparatist Basques."
"Those are the very public disputes," Hood
confirmed. "What you may not know is how concerned some
of Spain's leaders are about other recent events
involving violent attacks on members of the
country's largest ethnic groups. The government
has conspired to keep these very, very quiet. Arm,
you've got some intel on this."
The slender, attractive, brown-haired press
liaison nodded professionally
but her rust-colored
eyes smiled at Hood. Herbert noticed; he
wondered if "Pope" Paul did.
"The Spanish government has been working very
hard with journalists to keep the news out of the press
and off the air," Arm Farris said.
"Really?" Herbert said. "How? Those ambulance
chasers are even worse than the Washington press
corps."
"Frankly, they're paid off," Arm said. "I know
of three incidents in particular that were hushed. A
Catalonian book publisher's office was burned
after distributing a new novel that seriously bashed the
Castilians. An Andalusian wedding party was
attacked leaving a church in Segovia in
Castile. And a Basque antiseparatist-a leading
activist-was killed by Basque separatists
while he was a patient in the hospital."
86 OP-CENTER
"Sounds like a lot of brushfires," Plummer said.
"They are," Hood agreed. "But if those fires
should ever join up they could consume Spain."
"Which is why local reporters have been bribed
to bury these stories," Arm went on, "while
foreign reporters have been kept away from crime
scenes altogether. UPI, ABC, the
New York Times,
and the
Washington Post
have all filed complaints with the government but to no
effect. That's been going on for a little over a month
now."
"Our own hands-on involvement in Spain began just
about three weeks ago," Hood continued.
"Deputy Serrador met secretly with
Ambassador Neville in Madrid. It was a very
quiet backdoor get-together at the U.s.
Embassy. Serrador told the ambassador that a
committee had been formed, with himself as the chair,
to investigate this growing tension between Spain's five
major ethnic groups. He said that during the
previous four months, in addition to the crimes Arm
mentioned, over a dozen ethnic leaders had been
murdered or kidnapped. Serrador wanted help
obtaining intelligence on several of the groups.
Neville contacted Av Lincoln, who brought the
matter to us, and to Martha."
Hood's eyes lowered slowly.
"And if you remember correctly," Herbert said
quickly, "as soon as Deputy Serrador had a
look at our diplomatic roster he asked for
Martha specifically. And she couldn't wait to get
her arms around this situation and make it hers. So
don't even think about second-guessing
what you did."
"Hear, hear," Arm Farris said quietly.
BALANCE OF POWER 87
Hood looked up. He thanked them both with his
eyes then looked at Carol Lanning.
"Anyway," he said, "that was the start of our
involvement."
"What do these groups want?" Lanning asked. "
"Independence?"'"
"Some do," Hood said. He turned to his computer
screen and accessed the file on Spain. "According
to Deputy Serrador, there are two major
problems. The first is between the two factions of
Basques. The Basques comprise just two percent
of the population and are already battling among themselves. The
bulk of the Basques are staunch antiseparatists
who want to remain part of Spain. A very small
number of them, less than ten percent, are
separatists."
"That's point two percent of the population of
Spain," Lanning said. "Not a very considerable
number."
"Right," Hood said. "Meanwhile, there's also a
long-simmering problem with the Castilians of central
and northern Spain. The Castilians
make up sixty-two percent of the population of
Spain. They've always believed that they
are
Spain and that everyone else in the country isn't."
"The other groups are regarded as squatters,"
Herbert said.
"Exactly. Serrador tells us that the
Castilians have been trying to arm the separatist
factions of the Basques to begin the process of tearing
the Spanish minorities apart. First the Basques,
then the Galicians, the Catalonians, and the
Andalusians. As a result, Serrador had
intelligence that some of the other groups might be talking
about joining together for a political
88 OP-CENTER
or military move against the Castilians. A
preemptive strike."
"And it isn't just a national issue," McCaskey
said. "My Interpol sources tell me that the
French are supporting the antiseparatist
Basques. They're afraid that if the separatist
Basques get too much power, the French
Basques will act to form
their
own country as well."
"Is there a real danger of that?" Herbert asked.
"There is," said McCaskey. "From the late
1960's through the middle 1970's, the
quarter-million Basques in France helped the
two million Basques in Spain fight the
repression of Francisco Franco. The
camraderie between the French Basques and the Spanish
separatist Basques is so strong that the
Basques- Spanish and French alike-simply
refer to the region as the northern and southern
Basque country, respectively."
" "The Basques and the Castilians are the two
groups Serrador wanted us to investigate
immediately," Hood said. "But in addition to them, there are
the Catalonians, also of central and northern
Spain, who make up sixteen percent of the
population. They're extremely rich and
influential. A large portion of the
Catalonians" taxes go to supporting the other
minorities, especially the Andalusians in the
south. They would be just as happy to see the other groups
disappear."
"How happy would they be?" banning asked.
"Happy enough to make that happen?"
"As in genocide?" Hood asked.
banning shrugged. "It doesn't take more than a
few loud men to fan suspicion and hate to those
levels."
BALANCE OF POWER 89
"The men on the yacht were Catalonian,"
McCaskey said.
"And the Catalonians have always been separatists,"
Lanning said. "They were a key force in spurring on
the Spanish Civil War sixty years ago."
"That's true," Ron Plummer said. "But the
Catalonians also have a bunker mentality regarding
other races. Genocide is usually the result of
an already dominant force looking to turn widespread
public anger against a specific target. That's not
what we have here."
"I'm inclined to agree with Ron," Hood said.
"It probably would have been easier for the
Catalonians to exert financial pressure on
the nation than to resort to genocide."
"We'll be able to check this out more thoroughly after we
find out who else was on the yacht," Herbert said
confidently.
Hood nodded and turned back to the computer
monitor. "In addition to the Bas
ques,
Castilians, and Catalonians, we've
got the Andalusians. They comprise roughly
twelve percent of the population and they'll side with
any group in power because of their financial
dependency. The Galicians are roughly eight
percent of the population. They're an agricultural
people- very Spanish, traditionally independent, and
likely to stay out of any fray that might erupt."
"So," Lanning said, "they've got a complex
situation over there. And given the volatile history
of the interrelations I can understand them wanting to keep the
disputes quiet. What I don't understand is some
90 OP-CENTER
thing Mr. Herbert said-why this Deputy Serrador
wanted to see Martha specifically."
"Deputy Serrador seemed comfortable with her due
to her familiarity with Spain and the language,"
Hood said. "He also liked the fact that she was a
woman who belonged to a racial minority. He said
he could count on her to be both discreet and
sympathetic."
"Sure," Herbert said. "But I've been sitting
here thinking that she also happened to be the perfect
victim for one of those ethnic groups."
Everyone looked at him.
"What do you mean?" Hood asked.
"To put it bluntly," Herbert said, "the
Catalonians are male-supremacists who hate
black Africans. It's an animosity that goes
back about nine hundred years, to the wars with the
Moors of Africa. If someone wanted to get the
Catalonians on their side-and who wouldn't want
the folks with the money in their camp?-they'd pick a
black woman as a victim."
There was silence for a moment.
"That's a bit of a reach, don't you think?" Lanning
asked.
"Not really," the intelligence chief replied.
"I've seen longer shots pay off. The sad truth
is, whenever I go looking for muddy footprints in the
gutter of human nature, I'm rarely
disappointed."
"What ethnic group does Serrador belong to?"
Mike Rodgers asked.
"He's Basque, General," McCaskey's
voice came from the speakerphone, " 'with
absolutely no record of antinationalist
activity. We checked him out. To the
BALANCE OF POWER 91
contrary. He's voted against every kind of separatist
legislation."
"He could be a mole," Lanning said. "The most
damaging Soviet spy we ever had at State was
raised in whitebread Darien, Connecticut, and
voted for Barry Goldwater."
"You're catching on," Herbert said, grinning. He
had a feeling what was coming: there was no one more
Clancy, Tom - Ballance of Power Page 9