by Noel Hynd
She did not know how hot a target she might still be. She edged toward the door, giving the doormen a polite nod every time they looked her way. On her left knee, a few inches below the hem of a stylish blue skirt, she wore a fresh bandage from where she had hit the sidewalk the night before. Beneath a blouse and suit jacket, there was a similar bandage on her elbow.
She stepped to the doorway and looked at the city of Madrid beyond the old hotel. Past the stand of chestnut trees that insulated the hotel from the street, traffic churned around the plaza in the middle of the Paseo del Prado, with its fountain featuring Neptune on a chariot pulled by mythological sea beasts. Normal for a weekday morning.
At one point during the Civil War, the front lines had been only a few dozen streets to the west, on the street of Paseo del Pintor Rosales, which overlooked the park called the Casa del Campo. Republican defenders had ridden into action on streetcars that ran up the boulevard known as the Gran Via. The hotel itself had at one point closed its doors to guests and become a hospital.
A black unmarked Mercedes eased to a stop in front of the Ritz. It was one of those special-orders favored by police and antiterror officials around the world. Within its gleaming steel chassis, it had the most bomb and bullet-resistant armor plating that the trolls of Stuttgart could weld. The tinted windows had the world’s best bulletproof glass, and the occupants could roll through traffic on the most shred-proof tires known to humanity.
A driver stepped out, a hulking armed police officer in a suit. He had a shaved head and a cadaverous face. He stood about six-feet-five and looked as if he broke people in half for breakfast. He came around and opened a rear door. As he opened it, a black Cadillac Esplanade pulled to an abrupt halt behind the black Mercedes.
Friends? Enemies? They could have been either. But from Alex’s phone calls this same morning, she knew exactly who was arriving.
The Mercedes carried the VIP. The second vehicle was the bodyguards’ car. It was filled with four more officers from the National Police. Three were armed with automatic pistols beneath their summer-weight jackets, and one sat with an Uzi across his lap.
The two in the front surveyed their commander’s car. The two in the back watched the front portico of the Ritz. Alex left the lobby of the Ritz and moved quickly toward the Benz. The first bodyguard spotted her immediately and walked to her.
“Alejandra?” he asked in Spanish.
“ Soy yo,” she said. It’s me.
“I’m Miguel. Come with me,” he said.
Miguel stood close to her in a protective pose, his body acting as a shield, almost pressed against her, his arm around her shoulders but not touching. Miguel was so close that, from brushing against him, she knew he was wearing a bulletproof vest.
He guided her to the car door. The normally attentive Ritz doormen knew enough to stay away. Alex slid into the backseat. The driver closed the door, moved quickly around to the driver’s side, and jumped in.
In the backseat of the vehicle sat a very unhappy Colonel Carlos Pendraza of the Spanish Policia Nacional. Pendraza nodded to her. They spoke in Spanish.
“Buenos dias,” he said.
“Buenos dias,” Alex answered.
“My sincere apologies for the events of last night,” Colonel Pendraza said.
“Apologies are unnecessary,” she said. “Last night wasn’t your fault, I assume.”
“Of course not!” he said angrily. “And I’ve spent more than an hour on the phone to Washington,” he said. “I assume you have too.”
“I’ve been asked to definitely stay with this investigation,” Alex said. “I spoke to my superior at the Treasury Department. Originally, I was asked to come here as an observer in the theft of The Pieta of Malta. Now my bosses have asked me to take more of an investigatory role. With the permission of the host government,” she said.
“You have our permission, of course,” he said. “And you’ll have any measures of support that you need from the government of Spain. Aside from that, please try not to get killed in our country.”
“I’ll try not to,” she said.
“I’ve tried for thirty years myself,” he said. “I’ve been successful. So far.”
The Mercedes moved quickly out into the morning traffic on the plaza, joining the rumble of cars and trucks and the whine of motor scooters already on the plaza. The sun broke above the neighboring rooftops and blasted the streets.
Madrid in September. Already the day promised to be a scorcher. Colonel Pendraza allowed a moment to pass. Then he switched into fluent English.
“We need to talk,” Colonel Pendraza said to Alex as the car moved through the streets of Madrid. “We’re honored to have you here working with us. And my deep condolences for your personal loss in Kiev.”
“Thank you,” Alex said.
Pendraza remained in English, recalling for a few moments the time he had spent as a naval attache with NATO, where he had used his English every day and, as Alex noted, refined it to a high level of proficiency.
“This third gunman,” Pendraza finally said, “this Asian man you described when you phoned Washington and when you phoned me. You have no idea who this could be, whom he might be working for, whom he might represent?”
“No idea,” she said.
“He fits the general profile of someone in whom Interpol has a current interest,” the colonel said. “And of course, with a public shooting, every police agency in Spain now has an interest too.”
“Of course,” she said.
The Mercedes jostled a bit in traffic. From the corner of her eye she saw Miguel give a slashed-throat gesture to another driver.
“I assume also that you may have watched the morning news,” Pendraza continued. “Or seen the local newspapers. The events of last night at Calle de la Bolsa and Calle de la Paz are all over the media.”
“I’ve seen it,” she said.
“Which of course will mean there will be journalists pestering us,” he said. “It was much easier in the old days when one could discourage such things.”
Pendraza raised his eyes and voice to the driver. “Miguel?” he asked.
Without taking his eyes off the traffic, Miguel reached his thick hand to the seat next to him. He picked up a package wrapped in brown paper and handed it from the front seat back to Alex. Meanwhile, the armored sedan navigated the roundabout at the Plaza de Cibeles, then shot onto the westbound Calle de Acala, traveling past, then away from, the massive Greco-Roman fountain that featured Cybele, the goddess of nature.
“If you’re going to work with us in Spain, we suggest you carry something in case you need to protect yourself,” Colonel Pendraza said. “We arranged everything with your embassy and with the proper departments here in Madrid.”
She accepted the package. By its weight and feel, she knew what was in it.
“Muchas gracias,” she said.
Alex unwrapped the package and pulled out a small nine-millimeter Browning automatic. It came with a belt holster and a permit to carry in Spain, issued two hours earlier at the Oficina Central of the National Police. There was also a box of ammunition, fifty rounds.
She hefted the pistol in her hand. It was a good fit.
“Acceptable?” Colonel Pendraza asked.
“Very acceptable,” she answered. “Thank you.”
“We received your photo and your personal information from Washington. Please note that your permit runs for one year only. Should your case conclude before that, as we hope it does, and you wish to leave Spain, we will ask for the permit to be returned.”
“I understand,” she said.
“If you wish to use one of our ranges to get the feel of the weapon please call my office,” he said. “Arrangements will be made upon your request.”
She turned the weapon over in her hand, examining it. The metal was cold, the design sleek. As Colonel Pendraza continued to speak, she loaded a magazine and fixed the holster to the right side of her skirt. Then she put away her
new sidearm and looked back to the colonel.
“How is Senor Rizzo?” she asked. “My friend Gian Antonio? He sounded okay, but it was hard for me to tell.”
Pendraza shook his head. “Much the same way I am this morning. More angry than anything. You’ll see him in a few minutes.”
“And do you know anything more about what happened last night?” she pressed.
“The uniforms and the car were stolen from the Civil Guard,” Pendraza said. “Or sold illegally. Who knows with those people? Traitors are everywhere in the Civil Guard.”
In the corner of her eye, she thought she saw Miguel, the driver, react with a snort of agreement.
“And the original phone message that sent me to La Floridita?” Alex asked. “My own phone showed that it came from Colonel Torres’ phone.”
“Someone used a signal scrambler,” Pendraza said. “It mimicked the signal from the Guardia Civil phone network. Whoever was out to lure you knew you’d look at the numbers as a rudimentary precaution.”
“So whoever was after me would have had access to Colonel Torres’ number,” she said. “Not only that, but the caller knew what I had been wearing as well as what transpired in the room.”
“As I said, traitors are everywhere in the Civil Guard. But that’s not to be repeated outside this car.”
“I understand,” she said. “But whoever the opposition is, they have a degree of technical sophistication,” she said. “To intercept and mimic a cell phone signal is not that common. Equally, if whoever the opposition is right now is the same group that stole the pieta from the museum, that further suggests that this was more than a simple grab of an art object for money. Obviously, there is something further afoot.”
“Precisely,” said Pendraza. “But what?”
There was no answer. Not yet.
Up ahead lay a large white building, modern, sixteen stories in its central tower, with slightly lower wings. Alex knew it was a medical facility, one of the best in Spain. It reminded her of Los Angeles’s iconic old City Hall, as made famous on the old Dragnet re-runs.
“I’ve been in my job for many years and have seen many things,” Pendraza said. “So I think I am entitled to some conclusions. You’ll forgive me, Senorita, if I offend you.”
“Please speak freely,” she said.
“I am not so much a Spaniard as a European,” the colonel began. “My mother was German, my father Castilian. My father was an army officer on the side of Franco, which, in my opinion was on the side of Spain against the advance of communism. But I’m not proposing to tell you about my father; I am going to speak about my mother.”
Alex watched the cityscape go by. Smart shops and chic restaurants. Then they came to another building. “See that?” Pendraza asked.
She looked. He was indicating a mosque.
“I see it,” she said.
“We are told that Islam is a religion of peace, and that the vast majority of Muslims want to live in peace. But fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. These fanatics wage several dozen shooting wars worldwide. They slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the el continente nero in an Islamic wave. The fanatics mutilate their women. They bomb, behead, murder, or ‘honor kill’ women in their families who wish for a few personal modern liberties. Los fanaticos take over mosque after mosque. Los fanaticos zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. The so-called ‘peaceful majority’ is silent and intimidated before these…these butchers and barbarians!”
Alex listened in silence. The colonel glanced at his watch and continued.
“It was the fanatics who bombed our trains and transportation system a few years ago,” he continued bitterly. “My niece, a beautiful university-educated girl of twenty-two whom I had known since she was an hour old, died in that cowardly attack. She was an art student, Alex, and if you do not mind my saying so, she looked a bit like you. Her husband had his arm blown off. And for what?” he asked angrily. “So that the Muslim people in Spain could feel better about themselves?”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Why do they come here if they do not want to adhere to the conventions of Western society?” he asked. “Why do they abuse our Christian sense of decency and citizenship? But to ask these questions in public is to invite a firestorm of protests. So we speak here in the car, you and I, and Miguel who understands English perfectly and understands my heart and conscience just as well. And I share this with you so that you know how I think, so that there will be no surprises.”
His look went faraway for a moment and then returned as Alex kept silent.
“The Soviet Union was comprised of millions of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of twenty million people. China’s huge population was peaceful, but Chinese Communists killed seventy to eighty million people. The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a sadistic warmonger who wished to fight China and America. Yet Japan slaughtered its way across Southeast Asia with the systematic murder of ten million Chinese civilians. Most were killed by swords, shovels, and bayonets. And in our recent lifetime, Alejandra, Rwanda. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were ‘peace loving’?”
“The case could be made,” she said.
“We miss the obvious lessons of history,” the colonel said. “The sane majority rarely speaks until it is too late. For us who are entrusted with the safety of the public, we must pay attention to the fanatics.”
“So you think the museum robbery and the events of last night tie into terrorist activity in Spain,” she said. “Is that what you’re saying?”
Pendraza laughed softly. “I have a gut feeling, Senorita. I also have files on more than one hundred current investigations of terrorist activity in Spain.”
“May I see them?” she asked. “Those files?”
He turned on her, with surprise. “ All of them?”
“If you don’t mind.”
He looked away. “No. I don’t mind at all,” he said. “I’ll have them sent to you later today by secure correo electronico. You also might be interested in some information at the medical examiner’s office. That’s one of the places we’re going today. All right?”
“Excellent,” she said.
“You’ll hear a lot of things in Spain today,” Pendraza said. “A lot of revisions of history. But mark me well on this. General Franco saved this country from the Bolshevik hordes. We would have turned into Poland or Cuba if the opposition had had their way. And today, it’s no different. There are alien hordes. Enemies among us. I will fight them until they die. Or till I die.”
The vehicle eased to a halt in front of the hospital. Colonel Pendraza held a hand aloft to indicate that everyone should remain until their car doors were opened for them. Miguel was out in a flash and so were the Spanish police officers from the following car. They were beside their commander’s vehicle so quickly that Alex guessed they had jumped out before it stopped moving.
Alex watched silently as a protective barrier of armed police surrounded the colonel and his passenger, including from within the building. Two policemen brandished Uzi-style automatics in full view.
There was a strange silence, and Alex could see some tension on the colonel’s face. Obviously, Pendraza was on guard, perhaps even more than usual because of the events of the previous night. The doors to the Mercedes opened.
“Come along, Senorita,” he said, switching back to Spanish. “ Vamos al trabajo. Now that you know how I feel and who I suspect, let’s go to work.”
THIRTY-THREE
MADRID, SEPTEMBER 10, NOON
I don’t know how I let them get the bloody drop on me,” Gian Antonio Rizzo grumbled. He was in an understandably sour mood as he sat on the edge of his hospital bed.
Two women attended him. Normally Rizzo might have been pleased with such a development, but not today and not these women. Acc
ording to their hospital name tags, which they wore on their lab coats, one was a female nurse named Eliza and the other was a doctor named Jenny Morin.
They stood before him, carefully examining the repair work that had been done on him from the night before. But at the moment, Rizzo was talking past them in English, to Colonel Pendraza and Alex, who stood respectfully to the side and allowed the medical people to work.
“I’m getting careless in my old age,” he said, obviously giving no credence to what he was saying. “Well, there’ll be repercussions for those two mutts who mugged me in that bar. I’ll promise you that much!”
“I only found out what happened to you this morning,” Alex said.
“I got my fingernails into one of them, you know,” Rizzo said with satisfaction. “Fingernails!” The Rizzo of the hospital room-seething, aggrieved, injured-was not a happy man.
As the doctor and nurse examined Rizzo’s scalp, he flexed his right hand for the colonel and for Alex. “Took a little of the skin off one of their faces,” he said. “I wonder how he’s enjoying shaving this morning.”
On the right side of Rizzo’s skull, above the ear and visible as Dr. Morin removed a bandage, was a red lump that had the size, shape, and texture of a purple plum. It was still red and angry, wet from a combination of antibiotic cream and blood that continued to seep, and it looked to Alex as if Rizzo had taken a few stitches to close the gash.
Rizzo continued his vent with a torrent of profanity until Dr. Morin, in English, told him in so many words to clean up his vocabulary.
“Sorry,” Rizzo muttered. “Hey. But tell my visitors what happened, how they knocked me out.”
Dr. Morin was a dark-haired lady of around forty with a formidable, intelligent face.
“They put a needle in his left buttock to knock him out,” Dr. Morin said. “If his mouth was as foul last night as it has been since they brought him in, it’s no wonder,” she said. “I would have wanted to knock him out too.”