by Tom Clancy
“The shooting happened as Martha and Aideen Marley were standing at a guard booth outside the Palacio de las Cortes in Madrid,” Hood went on. “The lone gunman fired several shots from the street and then escaped in a waiting car. Martha died at the scene. Aideen was not hurt. Darrell met her at the palace. They headed back to their hotel with a police escort.”
Hood stopped and swallowed hard.
“The police escort was made of handpicked operatives attached to Interpol,” Herbert continued for him, “and Interpol will continue to look over their shoulders for as long as they remain in Spain. The laxness of palace security has got us wondering if at least some of the guards weren’t in on the plot — which is why we turned to Darrell’s friends at Interpol for security, rather than relying on government-appointed police. We’ve got a lot of background data on the Interpol crew, due to the time agent María Corneja spent working with Darrell here in Washington,” Herbert added. “We’re very comfortable with how Darrell and Aideen will be looked after from this point forward.”
“Thank you, Bob,” Hood said. He looked up. His eyes were glistening. “Martha’s body is en route to the embassy. It will be flown back as soon as possible. At the moment, we have a service scheduled at the Baptist Evangelical Church in Arlington for Wednesday morning, ten A.M.”
Carol Lanning looked away and shut her eyes. Herbert’s hands were still folded on his waist and he glanced down at his thumbs. Before Herbert had attended Op-Center’s annual sensitivity training seminar, he would have thought nothing about leaning over and putting his arms around the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State. Now if he wanted to comfort her, all he was supposed to do was ask if she wanted anything.
Hood beat him to it. “Ms. Lanning,” he asked, “would you care for some water?”
The woman opened her eyes. “No, thank you. I’ll be all right. I want to get on with this.”
There was a surprising edge in her voice. Herbert snuck a glance at her. Carol’s lips were straight now, her eyes narrow. To him, it didn’t look like she wanted water. What Carol Lanning seemed to crave was blood. Herbert knew exactly how she felt. After the Beirut embassy bombing, he would have had no trouble nuking the entire city just to get the bastards who killed his wife. Grief was not a merciful emotion.
Hood looked at his watch. He sat back in his chair. “Darrell will be calling in five minutes.” He looked at Plummer. “Ron, what do we do about the mission? Is Aideen qualified to continue?”
Plummer leaned forward and Herbert looked at him. Plummer was a short man with thinning brown hair and wide eyes. He wore thick, black-framed glasses on a large hooked nose. He had on a dark gray suit badly in need of dry cleaning and scuffed black shoes. The tops of his socks were falling over his ankles. Herbert hadn’t had many dealings with the former CIA intelligence analyst for Western Europe. But Plummer had to be good. No one who dressed so carelessly could get by on anything but talent. Besides, Herbert had had a look at the psych workup Liz Gordon had done of Plummer before he was hired. Herbert and Plummer had both detested the CIA director Plummer had worked under. That was enough of a character endorsement for Herbert.
“I can’t answer for Aideen’s state of mind,” Plummer said, with a nod to Liz Gordon. “But apart from that I’d say that Aideen is very capable of continuing the mission.”
“According to her file,” Carol said, “she hasn’t had a great deal of diplomatic experience.”
“That’s very true,” Plummer said. “Ms. Marley’s methods are rather less diplomatic than Martha’s were. But you know what? That just may be what’s needed now.”
“I like the sound of that,” Herbert said. He looked at Paul. “Have you decided to continue the mission?”
“I won’t decide that until I talk to Darrell,” Hood said. “But my inclination is to keep them over there.”
“Why?” Liz Gordon asked.
Herbert couldn’t decide whether it was a question or a challenge. Liz’s manner could be intimidating.
“Because we may not have a choice,” Hood said. “If the shooting was random — and we can’t dismiss that possibility, since Aideen is alive and a Madrid postal worker was the other victim — then the killing was tragic but not directed at the discussions. If that’s the case, there’s no reason not to keep the talks on-line. But even if the shooting was directed at us we can’t afford to back down.”
“Not back down,” Liz said, “but wouldn’t it be wise to step back until we’re sure?”
“American foreign policy is determined by the Administration, not by the barrel of a gun,” Lanning said. “I agree with Mr. Hood.”
“Darrell can arrange for security with his people at Interpol,” Hood said. “This won’t happen again.”
“Paul,” Liz pressed, “the reason I mention this has nothing to do with logistics. There’s one thing you need to consider before deciding whether Aideen should be a part of this process.”
“What’s that?” asked Hood.
“Right about now she’s probably coming out of the first stage of alarm reaction, which is shock,” Liz told him. “That’s going to be followed almost immediately by countershock, a quick increase in the adrenocortical hormones — steroid hormones. She’s going to be pumped.”
“That’s good, no?” Herbert asked.
“No, it isn’t,” Liz replied. “After countershock, a resistance phase settles in. Emotional recuperation. Aideen’s going to be looking for someplace to turn that energy loose. If she was not too diplomatic before, she may become an unguided missile now. But even that’s not the worst of it.”
“How so?” Hood asked.
Liz rolled her broad shoulders forward. She leaned toward the group, her elbows on her knees. “Aideen survived a shooting in which her partner died. 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 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 American 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 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 his eyes on Lanning. “As you know, Ms. Lanning, Spain has been going through some serious upheavals over the last few months.”
“I’ve seen the daily situation reports,” Lanning 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. Ann, 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,” Ann Farris said.
“Really?” Herbert said. “How? Those ambulance chasers are even worse than the Washington press corps.”
“Frankly, they’re paid off,” Ann said. “1 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.”
“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,” Ann 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 Ann 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,” Ann Farris said quietly.
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 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 1960s through the middle 1970s, 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?” Lanning asked. “Happy enough to make that happen?”
“As in genocide?” Hood asked.
Lanning shrugged. “It doesn’t take more than a few loud men to fan suspicion and hate to those levels.”
“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.”