“Don’t ask us why, sir,” the ranking cop pressed. “Do you have your card or not?”
Jean-Claude went to his rear pocket where there was a small billfold. He thought of the gun in his other pocket and processed quickly the scenario of shooting his way out of this. The only ID he had was his real one, the French one. But to not produce an ID would be to invite further questions, further searches.
He produced the ID and handed it to the lead cop.
Without asking, the second cop picked up Jean-Claude’s backpack and looked into it. Luckily, it was empty, other than tools. But the cop wasn’t satisfied. He picked up a chisel and turned it over and over, examining it with growing suspicion.
The lead cop continued to eye the small ID card issued by the French government. He raised his glasses for a good look. His gaze jumped back and forth between Jean-Claude and the card.
“¿Frances?” the lead cop asked.
“Si. Oui.” Jean-Claude answered. He knew if he were asked to stand up, things would get worse.
“What are you doing with these things?” the second cop asked of the tools. “Breaking into cars? Homes?”
“I’m a workman. A carpenter,” Jean-Claude said. Then he added, with a smile, “Like Jesus.”
The two cops didn’t think that was funny. Not at all and particularly not coming from a French Arab. They only glared. Jean-Claude knew he had miscalculated with that remark.
“Se levanta, por favor,” the lead cop said. Stand up!
Jean-Claude’s insides nearly exploded. He would have bolted, but the second cop had blocked his exit, not by coincidence. The second cop’s meaty hand was on his sidearm also. Not by coincidence either.
The first cop pulled out a handheld tracking computer and ran Jean-Claude’s ID through it like a credit card. He waited. Cop number two engaged the suspect in small talk.
“Where is your job? As a ‘carpenter,’” the policeman asked with obvious cynicism. “What exactly do you do?”
Jean-Claude talked his way through a pack of lies and half truths. The cop did not take notes.
“Why are you in Spain? Where do you live?” the cop asked next. Cop number one was eyeing his computer. The gun in Jean-Claude’s pocket felt as if it weighed a hundred pounds.
There was silence. Everyone else in the café was now staring. Even the proprietor had moved into a position to watch but knew better than to interfere with the police.
Jean-Claude told more lies but told the truth about his home address, which he now knew might not be safe to go back to. He was registered with the local authorities, as required by law. A lie here would have raised even more suspicion. The sweat continued to roll off him. Then the first cop stepped back a pace and did something that Jean-Claude liked even less. He pulled out a small digital camera and took Jean-Claude’s picture, so fast that Jean-Claude couldn’t object, not that it would have mattered.
The cop checked the image he had taken, then put the camera away.
Jean-Claude glanced at his watch. There was a quiet moment.
“Late for something?” the second cop asked.
“Just wondering about the time,” Jean-Claude explained.
“Why would it matter?” the cop asked.
“It doesn’t,” said Jean-Claude.
“Then why did you look?”
“I just looked. That’s all.”
“Maldito moro,” muttered the cop. Damned Arab. “Why do you people come here?”
Jean-Claude held his tongue. Then he felt the detonation. He was certain! He had felt a small shock wave, a small rumble, from the point of impact about a hundred feet away. It was much like the feeling of a truck rumbling by on a city street, or the sensation New Yorkers feel when a subway train rumbles under a building. Then it was gone, the rumbling, vanishing as abruptly as it had arrived.
He had heard it. Or thought he had. He glanced around in every direction, the second cop still fixing him in his gaze. Much as Jean-Claude was thrilled by the explosion, he felt as if he had guilt written all over him. He half expected to see some kind of commotion on the street, people asking questions, people wondering. Like New York after September 11, like London after the horrible attacks on the transportation system in September of 2005, Madrid had remained a city on edge, a city jittery at the sound of any strange, loud noise.
But there was absolutely no notice being taken here on the streets.
None. The pipe bomb had contained itself, at least for now.
Then the lead cop put the computer away. “Esta bien,” he said.
He returned the ID card. The second cop tossed the knapsack back to the ground, still open, the tools rattling, the cop still glaring.
The first cop looked him up and down. “You don’t belong here. People here wash. This isn’t a bar for workmen or riffraff.”
“Árabes,” the second cop muttered.
Jean-Claude held them in his gaze and suppressed everything he might have wanted to say. “I can drink here like anyone else,” he said.
“Then drink,” said the cop.
It was only then that Jean-Claude realized he had never touched his coffee.
“I will,” he said softly. And he did, as the cops departed and the café settled down again.
Jean-Claude drew a long breath and exhaled. Not far away, just up the block, loomed the United States Embassy and all the security that surrounded it. Jean-Claude glared at all the Americans around him, glanced away, then fully understood why he had been questioned and why he would have to be much more careful in the coming days.
And that photo! Where was that going to show up?
He knew the whole equation for him in Spain had now changed. He knew the explosion he had set off that day would have kicked up massive amounts of dust and smoke. And there still could be a collapse on the streets or a fire. But there could be no question of moving forward, as rapidly as possible.
That photograph. Time was limited!
FORTY-FOUR
OUTSIDE MADRID, SEPTEMBER 11, 1:47 P.M.
By noon they had come to their first destination, the austere gray palace of Escorial, built more than four centuries earlier by King Felipe II. Unlike many of the great palaces of Europe, this one had its macabre touch. The inner courtyard had been conceived as a contemplative retreat and as a mausoleum. It had served as a final resting place for the revered Carlos I of Spain, Felipe’s father, who had also been the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.
They took the official tour, which lasted less than an hour, and then spent another hour exploring the architecture by themselves. The gigantic building, with its almost three thousand windows, was situated on the slopes of the Guardarrama mountains. From its top floors, it offered a view in every direction of what had once been the Spanish Empire, from Italy to the south, to the Netherlands to the north, and to the Americas in the west.
Walking these grounds put Alex in touch with centuries of Spanish civilization. Peter, always wishing to add to his knowledge of Western culture, observed critically and with great interest, asking questions of the guides when necessary.
They paused for a late lunch at a café in the nearby town of Santa Cruz, after which Alex glanced at her watch. “We still have time for the Valley of the Fallen,” she said. “It’s more modern. I have a feeling I’ll relate to it better. Still game?”
“Still game,” he said. “What is it, this place where we’re going?”
Moments later, they stood by the roadside outside the restaurant. Alex scanned the horizon and found what she was looking for. A white stone cross stood many stories high on a peak ten miles in the distance. “See that?” she asked. “That’s where we’re going.”
They slid back into the car and she took out a map. They drove southward for another half hour on a winding highway that passed by bulls, those reared for bullfights, grazing in green fields. Then the road abruptly rose into a hot, foggy mountain. The road led into Santa Cruz del Valle de los Caídos, the Valley of the Fallen, where Franco’s most megalomaniacal monument had been built.