used her own eyes to curse all men.
Curse her father for having been an abusive
alcoholic. Curse the drug dealers who ruined
lives and families and made widows and orphans
in Mexico. Curse the occasional gentleman
caller in her own life who was only a gentleman
for as long as it took to become an intimate.
They climbed on board and were airborne in less
166 OP-CENTER
than a minute. They sat close beside each other in
the small, noisy cockpit, the silence continuing
until Aideen finally had had enough of it.
" "I understand you were out of the police business for a
while," she said. "What did you do?"
"I managed a small legitimate theater in
Barcelona," she said. "For excitement I took
up skydiving. For even more excitement I acted in
some of the plays. I've always loved acting, which is
why I loved undercover work." Her tone was
personable, her eyes unguarded. Whatever
memories had troubled her back at the airfield
were passing.
"That was your specialty?" Aideen asked.
Maria nodded. "It's very theatrical and that's what
I enjoy." She tapped her duffelbag. "Even the
codes are from plays. Luis uses
numbers which refer to acts, scenes, lines, and words.
When I work out of town he phones them. When I work
in town he often leaves slips of papers under
rocks. Sometimes he even writes them in the open as
graffiti. He once left me-what do you call
them? Good-time numbers on a telephone booth."
"That's what they call 'em in the States,"
Aideen said.
Maria smiled a little for the first time. With it, the last
traces of her anger appeared to vanish. Aideen
smiled back.
"You've had a terrible day," Maria said. "How are
you feeling?"
"Still pretty shell-shocked," Aideen replied.
"All of this hasn't really sunk in yet."
"I know that feeling," Maria said. "For all its
fi-
BALANCE OF POWER 167
nality death never seems quite real. Did you know
Martha Mackall well?"
"Not very," Aideen replied. "I'd only worked with
her a couple of months. She wasn't a very easy
woman to get to know."
"That's true," Maria said. "I met her several
times when I lived in Washington. She was
intelligent but she was also very formal."
"That was Martha," Aideen said.
Mentioning her stay in America seemed to bring Maria
back down again. Her little smile evaporated. Her
eyes darkened under her brow.
"I'm sorry about what happened back there,"
Maria said.
"It's all right," Aideen said.
Maria stared ahead. " "Mack and I were together for a
while," she continued as though Aideen had not spoken.
"He was more caring and more devoted than any man
I've ever met. We were going to stay together forever. But
he wanted me to give up my work. He said it was
too dangerous."
Aideen was starting to feel uncomfortable. Spanish
women talked openly about their lives to strangers.
Ladies from Boston didn't.
Maria looked down. "He wanted me to give up
smoking. It was bad for me. He wanted me to like
jazz more than I did. And American football.
And Italian food. He loved his things
passionately, including me. But he couldn't share
all of that the way he wanted to, and eventually he
decided he'd rather be alone than disappointed." She
looked at Aideen. "Do you understand?"
168 OP-CENTER
Aideen nodded.
"I don't expect you to say anything critical,"
Maria said. "You work with him. But I wanted you to know
what that was about back there because you'll be working with me,
too. I only learned he was here when I learned you
would be coming with me. It was a difficult thing to accept,
seeing him again."
"I understand," Aideen said. She practically had
to shout to be heard over the roar of the rotor.
Maria showed her a little half-smile. " "Luis
tells me you worked to bring in drug dealers in
Mexico. That took courage."
"To tell you the truth," Aideen said, "what it
took was indignation, not courage."
"You are too modest," Maria shot back.
Aideen shook her head. "I'm being truthful.
Drugs helped to wreck my neighborhood when I
was a kid. Cocaine killed one of my best friends.
Heroin took my cousin Sam, who was a
brilliant organist at our church. He died in
the street. When I got some experience under my
belt, I wanted to do more than wring my hands and
complain about it."
"I felt the same way about crime," she
said. "My father owned a cinema in Madrid. He was
killed in a robbery. But both of our desires would
have been nothing if they weren't backed by courage and
resolve. And cunning," she 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."
BALANCE OF POWER 169
"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
170 OP-CENTER
plan when we reach San Seba
stian?" 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 Comeja?" 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."
"I know," he replied. "The chief is looking
into who it was and what he was doing there."
BALANCE OF POWER 171
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
BALANCE OF POWER 173
unparalleled-so many
familia
members killed at once. Juan had never shied from
violence during his years of service to Serior
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-hundredfoot-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 families
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.
174 OP-CENTER
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 Pliblico 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 firebombing. 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 pro
BALANCE OF POWER 175
fessional 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 patro
lling 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-abitch," he said loudly.
One of the guards heard him. He walked over
urgently while the other two stayed back, covering
him.
"What do you want?" the guard asked. He was a very
tall, lanky man with a curly spray of thinning
brown hair.
Juan stood there for a long moment, apparently
dumbfounded. "I want to know where the hell I am."
"Where the hell do you want to be?" the guard asked.
"I'm looking for the Iglesias campground."
The guard snickered mirthlessly. "I'm afraid
you've got a bit of a ride ahead of you. Or more
accurately, behind you and to the east."
" "What do you mean?"'"
The guard jerked a thumb to the right. " "I mean the
campground's on the top of that next hill over
there, the one with the-was
There was a dull series of
phup-phup-phups
behind Juan as the other
familia
members fired at the guards.
176 OP-CENTER
The men dropped silently with red, raw holes in
their foreheads.
As the
familia
members moved forward, Juan set the bicycle
down, pulled off his backpack, and went to work.
The easiest way to get in was to announce yourself on the
intercom and wait for the gate to be buzzed open. But
that wasn't an option nor was it the only way in.
Juan removed a cloth from the backpack as well
as a crowbar. His undershirt was heavy with sweat and the
cool air chilled him as he climbed halfway up
the fence to the left of the gate.
He flung the crowbar over the top while holding the
free sleeve of his shirt. The shirt landed on top
of the barbed wire. Juan reached his index and middle
fingers through the nearest link, grabbed the crowbar, and
pulled it back through. Then he removed the iron bar
and tied the shirt sleeves together. When he was
finished, he took the shirt belonging to Ferdinand, the
muscular night watchman. He repeated the
procedure so that there were two layers of fabric over
the barbs. When he was finished, the men climbed over
the safe zone they'd created on top of the fence. They
dropped quietly inside the perimeter and
Clancy, Tom - Ballance of Power Page 17