A black vehicle pulled to the curb behind her, not far from the death scene. Alex recognized it. Bodyguards jumped out and opened the door for a man in the backseat. Colonel Pendraza of the National Police emerged. Her heart beat a little faster.
Pendraza’s security people stayed with him as he approached the death scene. The uniformed police present recognized him and gave way. Miguel, his lead bodyguard, seemed to be always on duty. He was standing point as the colonel moved toward the fallen body. Alex saw the flicker of recognition in Miguel’s eyes when he saw her.
Pendraza moved to the front and looked at the body. Alex gave him a few seconds, then walked toward him. One of the bodyguards intercepted her, raising a powerful arm to block her path.
“I need to see the colonel,” she said in Spanish. She spoke past the bodyguard who stopped her, and addressed Miguel.
Miguel turned to ask the colonel, who was a few feet away. The colonel glanced in Alex’s direction. He gave a nod. Alex moved past his bodyguards and into the small group that surrounded the corpse.
They too spoke Spanish. “Bad night,” she said.
Pendraza had seen his share of corpses in his career. “They’ve all been bad recently, the nights,” he said. He paused. “American, right?” the colonel asked.
“Yes.”
“I recognize him,” the colonel said. “Or what’s left of him. The pietà again?”
“That would be my guess,” Alex said.
An electric drill went on with a screech. Emergency workers started to cut away the sections of the fence that had impaled the body. It sounded like dental work on steroids. Alex looked away. The workers were disengaging the spiked rails from the corpse, and to do that, they needed to cut away a small section of Connelly’s shoulder.
“It’s been a completely rotten day,” Colonel Pendraza said. “There was a woman murdered in the Metro a day or two ago. One of our track walkers. They only found the body this afternoon.”
“Where exactly?” Alex asked.
“It was up by the Calle Maldonado,” he said. “Nice neighborhood. What’s this city coming to?”
She thought about it. Then it hit her. “That’s not too far from the US Embassy,” she said. “Isn’t it?”
“About a block away,” he said. “And there are a lot of embassies in the area. Not just yours. Don’t jump to conclusions.”
She tried to assimilate the information. “Where was the body found? In a Metro station?”
“No. In one of the underground tunnels.”
“What tunnels?”
“There’s a whole network of them,” he said. “Don’t worry. They’re old and they’re sealed. There’s no danger.”
“Can I have a look?”
His eyes narrowed. “At what?”
“The area where the body was found. The tunnels.”
“Why would you want to?”
“Because it’s near the US Embassy.”
“If you wish to,” he said. “Call my office in the morning. I’ll arrange a police permit and keys to some of the locked doors.”
“Should I clear it with the Guardia Civil?” she asked.
“If you want to waste your time, certainly,” he said.
“Thank you,” she said.
Two police technicians were removing the spikes from the corpse, working by hand. Alex fought against a feeling of sickness. She stepped back from the work that was being done. Her eyes wandered, then did a double take.
Peter Chang stood on the opposite side of the street. He was in a suit with a computer bag on his shoulder.
“Excuse me,” she said to Colonel Pendraza.
Pendraza nodded. Alex moved through the crowd and crossed the street. She found a different Peter Chang than she had ever seen before. Peter’s fine suit was torn in two places. He had a small welt across his cheek and another across his forehead. No blood, just the evidence of combat.
“Peter, what are you doing here?” she asked.
“Same as you, I suppose,” he said. “Let’s move,” he said. “I want to get away from here.”
“I’m not leaving just yet,” she said.
“Well, I’d like to get off this block before the police seal it up.”
She looked at the rips in his clothing and the gash to his temple. “What’s going on?” she asked. “You were in a fight of some sort?”
“Yeah, I was.”
“Heck of a coincidence, you should be here,” she said suspiciously, suddenly wary of him. “Every time I see you after dark, someone winds up dead.”
“Yeah. Midnight in Madrid. Not healthy. Someone always gets killed.”
“Why are you here?” she pressed. “And what happened to you?”
“I was supposed to meet him,” he said, motioning to Connelly. “I got a call.”
“From Connelly? Why would he call you? How did he even know you.”
“He didn’t. I got a call from my own people.”
“Who? Your government? Guojia Anquan Bu. Your Ministry of State Security?”
“That’s them,” Peter said, speaking rapidly. “And Mark McKinnon called them. Do I have to remind you, he works with them when it suits common purposes.”
“Peter…?”
“Come on along,” he said. “Talk to me.” He took her arm forcefully, and they moved several paces away.
She sharply pulled her arm away. “Don’t force me along. I don’t like that!”
“I need to be out of here,” he said.
“Why? What happened here?” she demanded.
“Connelly came back here with a woman about an hour ago. I asked the hotel staff. He expected to get lucky, and my guess is she let her friends in. That, or the friends were waiting. Lurking maybe. Either in the hall or in his room.”
Alex shuddered. She looked carefully at his clothing.
“I arrived at his suite and the door was unlatched,” Peter said. “I pushed it open and ran smack into them. They must have just shoved him out the window.”
She was having trouble believing him. This was John Sun speaking, suddenly.
“They charged right into me. I tried to grab them and bring them down, but there were three of them. Speaking Arabic, by the way, in case that drops you a hint of any sort. There was a scuffle. They got the first hits in, and the next thing I knew I was on the floor.”
Alex knew that Peter could take out three people easily; he could take out ten people. And he was armed. This wasn’t adding up.
“I didn’t know what happened,” he said. “I went in, saw the open window, and looked down. Then I got out of there fast,” he said. “I didn’t have time to look around. I just grabbed his laptop and his notebooks,” he said. “That’s all I could get.”
“You did what?”
He motioned to the cache he had in the computer bag. “You want the Spanish police looking at this stuff?” he asked. “Might as well have the contents published in El Mundo.”
“You could have stayed for the police,” she said. He started to move down the block and she followed, with both reluctance and persistence.
“Oh, sure! After what you told me about the Swiss? And bloody Interpol? I have to get out of this country,” he said. “My picture is all over the hotel security cameras, and they’ll be going through them tonight. Count on that.”
Peter was still moving, looking around, highly nervous, highly agitated.
“Uh oh,” he said. “Look at this. The cops are setting a ring around this place. Look. There are cops on each end of the block.”
“That’s normal,” she said.
“Not good for me, Alex,” he said. “Let’s just get out of here.”
She looked at Peter, and something clicked in having to do with his trepidation of the Spanish police. It seemed so obvious that she realized that she had been suppressing it since the first time she saw him in this place tonight.