Midnight in Madrid rt-2

by Noel Hynd

  No way to call anyone, no way anyone would know where she was.

  Stuck!

  Hello! It’s official. She would starve to death or suffocate or be blown into oblivion. Blown into heaven, she prayed.

  Oh Lord, oh Lord, oh Lord…

  She prayed like she had never prayed before.

  Minutes had the weight of hours, small eternities passing in a living hell of a grave. She was beyond panic but not beyond fear.

  She had prayed, but no answer yet.

  Her heart pounded and pounded. She almost wished it would stop, that death would claim her gently.

  Instead, she would have to wait for it, greet it with courage. Where was her faith? She summoned it as best she could. With all her heart, with everything she believed in, she prayed to God, prayed to Jesus.

  Fatigue was settling in. She was motionless. Her energy was gone. She tried in desperation to nudge forward with her shoulders. She couldn’t squeeze forward. She couldn’t squeeze back. It was so tight here that even breathing was now a problem. The stone pendant on her chest felt like an anchor.

  Stuck meant death. How many hours, she wondered, when every minute was torture?

  Alex broke a sweat. She continued to struggle against the tunnel that now held her so tightly. She hunched her upper body, careful to allow herself a final edge of wriggle room.

  His stomach, her nerves, felt as if they were turning to water. Her anger, her desperation, were turning to acceptance of death.

  Alex wriggled again and worsened her situation. In her mind she saw her parents waiting for her. Her grandmother, for whom she had lit all those beautiful luminarias and set them afloat on a country stream.

  There! When she held on to thoughts like that and felt the strength drain out of her, it didn’t seem so bad.

  Oh God, please take me to heaven…

  The silence was the same immense size as the darkness. Up ahead, a few yards from Alex’s head, there was a slight scratching. Alex, her head at an impossible angle, knew they were rats. Alex spat at them, gave a flick of her head, and screamed!

  Couldn’t she even die in peace? They’d be back to get her body after she died, wouldn’t they?

  She fought tears.

  Now her neck was cramping. Badly. She had no way to relieve the pain. She dug in with her shoes. She pushed again and felt the stone around her grow tighter and sharper. It tore at her clothes.

  She sucked in all her strength, dug in her sneakers, pushed with her arms and pushed with all the strength she had left.

  A few inches.

  Nothing else.

  The air in the tunnel was becoming thin. Then thinner.

  She summoned up what was left of her courage. A deeper darkness was starting to swallow her.

  Now she knew. She was a goner. A few moments later, locked in place, she started to lose consciousness.

  In her father’s house, she knew, there were many rooms. And deep down, she also believed, someone had gone ahead to prepare a place before her.

  It was easy, really; much like falling asleep.

  SEVENTY-ONE

  MADRID, SEPTEMBER 19, SHORTLY AFTER MIDNIGHT

  A lex’s eyes flickered open, and she thought she had her first glimpse of heaven.

  She was wrong, but every bit as pleased.

  At the end of the tunnel in front of her there was a light, then a stronger light. And all around her now was the sound of tapping.

  Tapping, tapping, tapping, growing louder.

  Then hammering. More hammering. All around her hammering!

  She yelled. “I’m here! I’m here!”

  There was the sound of machinery. She could feel vibrations behind her. A rescue team had knocked their way into the same tunnel. The next thing that happened startled her all the more.

  Her feet. Something touched her feet. Hands. Human hands. And after that, someone had pushed a hose past her and was pumping air into the narrow passageway. Breathing became easier. An air pump was part of the machinery she heard. Up ahead of her, she could feel a drill.

  A voice in English screamed. “Alex! Alex, we got you!”

  “I’m here!” she yelled again. She fought back tears, tears that none could see, but which she could feel cascading down her cheeks. Ahead of her, the light became more intense as workers had broken through the basement floor of the embassy to where the explosives had been stashed and then defused by bomb experts.

  Then part of the wall behind her broke away. Her legs were free. So was her upper body. Hands in heavy gloves worked their way up to her hips. The hands cleared debris from the wall.

  Firemen. Rescue teams from the police. Rarely had she been so happy to feel strange male hands upon her. Stuck for hours, she was being freed within minutes, once they had located her.

  A voice in English. Familiar. “Alex?”

  It was Peter.

  “Yes! Yes!” she gasped in response.

  “They’re going to pull you backward gently. Are you okay with that?”

  “I’m okay!” she yelled.

  They pulled. And she slid. It was the greatest ride of her life. Ten feet, a dozen, maybe twenty as her jeans and shirt dragged and ripped. They pulled her out into the light, into the clammy underground cavern where she had entered the tunnel.

  She turned over and trembled, trying to sit up. Peter knelt down and wrapped his arms around her, and as he embraced her for a moment, she sobbed almost uncontrollably.

  They wrapped her in a blanket. They stood her up. Her legs were unsteady, rubbery, but they supported her. The rescue workers had unlocked some doors in the old tunnels and broken through a wall.

  “How did you ever find me?” she finally asked. “How? How?”

  “Your wallet,” he said.

  “What?”

  He made a motion to where her wallet rode in her back pocket. She pulled the wallet out and handed it to him. From it, he pulled the Swiss consular ID card that he had forced upon her the day before.

  “I doctored it,” he said. “Homing device. After you disappeared once in Switzerland, I wasn’t going to let it happen again.”

  She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. So instead, she did both.

  Distantly, as they evacuated her, the sound of demolition grew louder from underneath the embassy.

  SEVENTY-TWO

  MADRID, SEPTEMBER 21, AFTERNOON

  T wo days later, after a single night of hospital recovery, Alex found herself at Madrid International Airport, seeing Peter off on his return flight to China.

  They stood together at the departure gate. She saw some emotion in his eyes, but she equally saw him retreat from it, as if it would be a dangerous place for him to go.

  “I guess I better get moving,” he said.

  “Guess so,” she said.

  For a moment they stood apart. Peter took her hand, and there was something in his eyes that she still couldn’t fathom. Again, he didn’t smile, not at first, but then he did. The small gesture served to only confuse her more.

  In assessing Peter Chang, she had come to know him quite well, yet not know him at all. She didn’t know whether the man before her was large and grand or small and mean. Nor could she fathom his moral compass, though she was certain he had one somewhere.

  He had murdered savagely and vengefully, something that she couldn’t accept. Yet he had twice saved her life. There were aspects of him that reminded her of Yuri Federov and yet there were strains in him that reminded her-unless she was deluding herself-of her late Robert. Or even herself.

  After all, weren’t they all in the same line of work?

  Wasn’t everyone imperfect? Wasn’t life a daily compromise? Were there absolutes? Were all ethics at least partially situational? Weren’t we all sinners?

  He reached under his jacket and removed his firearm. He bundled it and gave it to her, concealing it. She pulled it into her purse.

  “That’s a heck of a souvenir,” she said with half a smile.

 
“I’d say put it to good use,” he said. “But don’t take that the wrong way.”

  “I won’t,” she said.

  “Are you going to be okay getting out of Spain?” she asked, eying the security controls.

  “Oh,” he laughed. “Sure. Your pal. McKinnon. Another little souvenir,” he said.

  Peter pulled out a passport from his inside jacket pocket. American. He flipped it open and showed her. He was now William Kao, a native-born American who was an IT expert from New York.

  She shook her head. “Do you ever lose sight of who you really are?” she asked.

  “Sometimes,” he said. “Same as who I’d really like to be. Sometimes it’s confusing.”

  She allowed that it was.

  He continued. “Hey,” he said, “if you’re going to the safety deposit box, you might want to stash this for me also,” he said. “Never know when I might be back. If ever.”

  “Probably sooner than you think,” she said, “but I wasn’t planning to go to the safety deposit box.”

  “Maybe you could. For me. As a final favor.”

  “All right,” she said.

  “Oh, and listen,” he said. “There’s something I’d like you to have.”

  He reached into his pocket. His strong hand came out with a small jeweler’s bag, a light blue one. She had seen it before, held it in her hand before.

  “I don’t get it,” she said.

  “Open it.”

  She did. Into her hand fell the eighteen-karat etoile bangle that had been in the jeweler’s box in the safety deposit box.

  “Put it on,” he said.

  She did.

  “There,” he said with an approving smile. “If that doesn’t make your Russian hood jealous next time he sees you, I don’t know what will.”

  “Peter, it’s gorgeous,” she said, reaching to take it off, “but you bought it for someone else.”

  His hand stopped hers. “No, I bought it for you,” he said, “the first day we met. Then I rewrapped it with paper from Switzerland. I figured ahead of time that I’d want to give you a souvenir of our ‘vacation’ in Spain. I do things impulsively and ahead of time, as you know.”

  “But you said there was a woman in China.”

  “From time to time, I lie-,” he said, “to protect everyone. And now I will be deeply insulted if you don’t keep it.”

  “All right.” She relented and admired it on her wrist. “It’s beautiful,” she said.

  “It’s exactly where it belongs.”

  He laughed. Then he did something that shocked her.

  He leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers, and she allowed him.

  He held her for several long seconds. Then she pulled back.

  He took her into his arms again, holding her tightly. This time the embrace was longer and lingered. She stepped back and stepped away.

  “Travel safe,” she said.

  “You too.”

  “I’m anxious to get home,” he said. “Ever been to China?”

  “No.”

  “You should come visit someday. There are ways to let me know if you visit. Channels.”

  “I know.”

  “I know you know.”

  A moment, and “I’m very sorry,” he said.

  “About what?”

  “I’m very sorry that I’m obliged to live half a world away from you,” he said.

  His words had the effect of knocking the legs out from under her.

  She fumbled for the words of recovery but had none.

  Peter was about to say something further, but then didn’t. It was almost as if for the first time, he was ill at ease with something-a feeling, a thought, an emotion, maybe. In any case, he gave it no voice. Instead, he turned and gave her a quick final hug. Then he turned away quickly and went to the first class check-in line for Iberia. His trip was to be a long one. Iberia to New York, then China Air to Hong Kong, and a connecting flight to Beijing. It would be twenty-seven hours before he set foot on his home soil. And who knew when or to what he would next be assigned?

  She watched him all the way through the passport check, the ticketing, the checking of two sizeable bags. She had the wistful notion that someone she liked very much was stepping out of her life. She would miss him.

  A quick reality check reminded her that he was a hired agent and assassin of a state that wasn’t always on the best terms with her own. And then a third instinct clicked in, that Peter Chang was a man who had done what he had to do, done it with honor, and done it in a way that she could respect.

  In that way, he had been a soldier. A soldier and a very good one, one in which she had also fought with in the trenches. She respected soldiers.

  As for his country, his employer, she didn’t care much for their system and their shortcomings, and vastly preferred her own. But his system worked for him, much the way hers worked for her. So who was she, she wondered, to pass judgment? At this stage of her life, he had been exactly what she had needed, in ways large and small.

  She had more than the notion of liking him. She did like him, and it would take some time to adapt to the new reality of daily life without him.

  She stood near the exit gate, not wanting to pull herself away. Her eyes were on him. There were police all over the place. She wondered, Were the police looking for Peter?

  Suddenly, he turned. He scanned the terminal and found her. He said something to the security people. They nodded. He turned and jogged briskly in her direction.

  Now what? Passport trouble? Was he going to make a run for it? He came to her.

  “Sorry, I meant to mention something,” he said. “I left the box for your bracelet at the bank. In the safety deposit box in the vault. I like to keep things tidy. Can you deal with that for me when you stash the pistol?”

  “Of course.”

  “You can dip into some of the money too, if you want. I did. No one will care. Expenses, you know. Don’t be greedy, but I know you won’t.”

  He jogged back to the line, nodded with a smile to the security people and proceeded. Her eyes were still on him when he took his suitcases to be X-rayed, and put them through the giant scanners. The security people nodded and waved him along.

  He turned toward the place where Alex stood from a distance of maybe a hundred feet. Somehow he knew she hadn’t left, and somehow his eyes found hers immediately, even across the crowded entrance lobby of the bustling airport. Across many travelers, a multitude of cultures, across more languages than anyone in the room could count. This was how they had met and how they would separate.

  He gave her that big smile again, raised a hand and waved.

  She raised hers in response but without much enthusiasm. Then he turned and was gone through the security gates where they examined his shoes, his belt, and made him stand for an electronic, and then a manual, frisk. An absurd and amusing notion struck her. If these security people only know who they were frisking, she thought to herself. Well, it happened all the time.

  She caught one more glimpse of him. Then he was gone.

  Completely.

  She walked out of the gates to the departures lounge and onto the sidewalk, lost in many thoughts…

  She went back to the car and sat for several minutes. The degree to which she was rattled surprised even her. Time spiraled a little. So much had happened in so short a time. It seemed as if it had been only a few seconds ago that she had been emerging from the warm surf in Barcelona and answering the phone. Then she had been in Madrid, then Switzerland being undressed and re-dressed by Federov, then Rome, then back to the Spanish capital where she felt as if she had lost five years of her life pinned in a filthy tunnel under the streets-where she might have lost her life completely if Peter and his hit team hadn’t found her.

  She shuddered. What kind of bizarre angel had been her guardian this time? If she believed in God at all, in what ways did He work? Would human beings, would she, ever understand anything?

  She searched the geo
metry of events. In Kiev, she had lost a man who loved her, and lost a piece of jewelry. Here she had gained a piece of jewelry and found-

  She examined the gold bangle on her wrist.

  And then a realization hit her. It more than hit her. It jolted her.

  She glanced at her watch. It was past 2:00 p.m. She turned the key in her ignition and jerked the car into reverse. She had to hurry. There was still some wrapping up to do, and she just had time today.

  SEVENTY-THREE

  MADRID, SEPTEMBER 21, AFTERNOON

  S he drove faster than she should have getting back into Madrid. The traffic was thick but allowed her to move around quickly. Her first stop was the rental car company. Quickly scanning the car to check for any of her own property, she found the black box in the trunk-the stealth box that would beat bank security-that Peter had mentioned.

  She placed it in a black tote bag and took it with her. She dropped off the paperwork and the car keys, without going to the desk. So much the better, she mused. She had never been listed as an insured driver, so just as soon skip the desk. Nothing good could happen there.

  She was in the old city. She knew the neighborhood well enough to know that the branch of El Banco de Santander where Peter kept his stash was a pleasant ten-minute walk away. She had on a good pair of walking shoes and a comfortable skirt. She pushed her sunglasses in place and hoofed the few blocks to the bank.

  Twenty minutes later, she sat in the small private room that she had visited once in her life. A bank security man wearing white gloves delivered the safety deposit box to her. This was her first trip to the box alone, but obviously Peter, as he had casually said a few days earlier, had returned on the afternoon of the Connelly murder.

  He had returned and made some adjustments.

  “ Muchas gracias,” she said to the bank guard.

  “ Da nada, Senorita,” he said with a slight bow. Spanish bank employees tended to elevate courtesy to an art form.

  When the clerk was gone, Alex opened the safety deposit box. Everything was exactly as she had last seen it, with the exception of the cash, which Peter had drawn on. Well, those Madrid evenings, she noted with a wry smile, didn’t come cheap.