She left the block and retreated to a quiet doorway. She pulled out her cell phone and called Mark McKinnon. She reached him and reported what she had seen, what she knew. An attack on the US Embassy in Madrid was perhaps imminent.
Quietly, McKinnon took the information from her. He promised to alert embassy security immediately. But beyond that, he offered nothing in return and rang off.
From talking to McKinnon, she had the same sense as talking to a wall.
She pondered not returning to the Ritz that night. She felt vulnerable. So she found a late bar, stayed there for a few drinks, and pondered checking into a different hotel. Then she decided not to.
Instead, she returned to the Ritz and entered her room with her pistol drawn. She searched it thoroughly, found no intruder or evidence of an intrusion, and threw all the bolts on the door.
Then, riding the worst wave of paranoia in her life, she eventually dummied up pillows from the closet to resemble her body and put them under the blankets in the bedroom.
She turned around the living room sofa and slept there, facing the door and the locked balcony. She kept the pistol at arm’s length.
Sleep, what there would be of it, did not come easily.
SIXTY-THREE
MADRID, SEPTEMBER 18
The next morning, Alex obtained her necessary permits and keys from the Policia Nacional as well as the City Police. She also placed a second call to Mark McKinnon and demanded an urgent meeting with him late that afternoon. He resisted at first, then relented. He asked that she find her way to a bench in a busy downtown area on the Calle de Bailén, across the street from the Palacio Real, the royal palace where the king no longer lived but where state functions were held. The meeting time was set for the window between 4:00 p.m. and 4:15.
Alex traveled there by buses, three of them, a roundabout route. She got off the first bus quickly, reversed her path down a busy street, then caught the second and the third. Each time, she jumped off abruptly just before the vehicle was to pull out of a stop, each time watching to see if anyone followed. The only other American at the meeting involving the pieta’s theft had gone out a tenth-floor window, probably not voluntarily. One could never be too careful.
She found the designated bench in the shadow of the Grand Palacio. Across the street was the Cathedral of the Virgin of Almudena, patroness of Madrid. Alex’s eyes swept the block for danger. She saw none, but her insides were as jittery as a half-dozen frightened cats. She didn’t see McKinnon, either.
The security code with McKinnon: if she felt she had been followed, she would be reading a newspaper. If she was sure she was clean, no newspaper open. She felt secure. She sat down on the bench at a bus stop with a copy of El Mundo folded neatly across her lap. She picked up on the activities of passers-by. She noted footwear. She was wary of anyone with concealed hands. She carried her pistol in a holster on her hip.
She asked herself: How fast could she have her gun out and ready?
One second? Two?
She drew a breath, then let it go. It was 4:00 p.m. Then six minutes past four. Where was McKinnon?
A homeless man approached her. He engaged her in a pointless conversation and eventually asked for money. She gave him two euros, and he went about his way, replaced immediately by a twenty-something couple holding hands, smooching, and not saying a thing as they seemed to wait for a bus.
Then the man took out a cell phone, made a call, and the two of them turned to walk away. There needed to be nothing to it, but linked to the homeless man, the events were consecutive, overlapping by seconds, as if the three of them were one of McKinnon’s pavement mini-teams, the first man pegging the prey, the couple keeping watch while Mark approached from somewhere. And, thinking back, the homeless man hadn’t had a homeless stench.
Or was she imagining things, she asked herself. She glanced at her watch.
Ten after. The heck with the pavement teams, maybe Mark was blowing her off with a no-show. She held her seat on the bench across from the palace. She watched the guards. The palace was magnificent, built to impress, just like Versailles, just like Buckingham Palace, just like Donald Trump’s home in Florida.
She tried to settle herself.
She turned her attention to the cathedral. The history gene within her reminded her of the Roman Catholic Church’s centuries of influence in Spain, from the pilgrims in the first ten centuries after Christ, through the Inquisition, through the Franco regime, and more subtly, into the present day. Her eyes drifted thoughtfully over the architecture, a gray neoclassic façade that echoed the architecture of the Palacio Real across the street. The pairing of the two buildings, the similarity in their feel and appearance, had been intended to emphasize the Church’s relationship with the Crown.
Four fifteen. She glanced at her cell phone. No calls. No alert involving Jean-Claude. Typical in this line of work. One never knew what was going on. Never.
She grew restless. Her back started to cramp. She stood up and strolled the block. A raging paranoia was rolling in on her, a sense that something big had been missed.
She came back to the bench. She felt eyes on her. She kept looking over her shoulder as she walked. The smooching young couple reappeared, hand in hand. The lovebirds stayed a constant half-block away from her.
Yeah, she had made them, all right. Now, with their reappearance, she knew Mark was imminent. So she remained seated. Four twenty. He was late. But sometimes late had no significance other than late.
The heat and humidity assaulted her. Rain clouds had formed. A few sprinkles came and went. Then, bingo. She saw a car stop quickly on the palace side of the street. Mark McKinnon jumped out. McKinnon was in a suit, a white shirt, and tie. She slid her gaze to her left and saw that the lovebirds turned tail immediately and departed. She noted the time. Four twenty-six.
She watched Mark and knew the drill with the vehicle. His car would circle the block while they met, and somewhere another car had probably put one or two bodyguards on the street.
She scanned the block nearby, more carefully than ever. There was an ill-dressed man looking through a souvenir stall, but not really looking. A man in a small truck with Madrid plates had pulled to the curb right behind her, stopping in contravention of all traffic rules, and was talking on his cell phone.
She doubted that McKinnon had more than two guns backing him up, but it barely mattered. Mark had already told her so much. This was one high-testosterone operation in progress today if Mark had this sort of entourage.
That, or she had imagined everything. But she didn’t think she had. This venue was like a fuse to a cherry bomb.
McKinnon jaywalked lazily toward her, stepping between angry drivers. Then he quickly jogged the rest of the way across the street and came to the bench where she sat.
“Hello, LaDuca,” he said. “What’s got your panties in a twist today?”
“I need to know a few things,” she said.
“We all do,” he answered. “What’s on your list? Then I’ll tell you what’s on mine.”
He sat. She stood. “Let’s walk,” she said.
“I’d prefer not to.”
“Let’s do it anyway.”
With a sigh, he acceded. He was up on his feet.
“Did you contact Peter yesterday and ask him to go see Floyd Connelly?” she asked as they moved.
“Distrustful, aren’t you? You’re checking up on Peter Chang.”
“That’s right. I am.”
“Peter’s your partner. What am I to think?”
“I’m being thorough. Could you answer my question?”
“Yes, I asked Peter to go over to see Connelly,” he said.
“Why?” she asked.
“Why? Why not? That’s how I often do things if they’re important,” McKinnon snapped. “If I ask two people to do something, maybe one of them will get it done. You okay with that?-because I don’t care if you are or not.”