Celeste pulled her robe snug and took a good look through the porthole at the men on the dock pounding on the hull. Irritation turned to alarm. During her residency in the trauma ward she had seen plenty of plainclothes police, always asking questions whether her patients wanted them to or not. Had Maji hurt someone?
“One moment. If you please.” She stepped up through the open hatchway into the cockpit. That put her a foot or so taller than them, a comforting vantage point.
The man in the suit looked at Celeste, then at the photo in his hand, then at Celeste again. “You are not Maji Rios.”
“How very astute. And you would be?”
He held his credentials toward her. “José Luis Romero, Interpol Spain, Madrid bureau office.”
Celeste squinted at the pale blue card bearing the globe and sword. She did not ask who the casually dressed, heavily muscled man by Romero’s side was. “What do you want with Maji?”
“So you do know her?” the unidentified man asked in Spanish with an American accent. Could Maji be in trouble with her own government? If so, Interpol would be helping him navigate Spanish legalities.
Celeste tilted her head noncommittally. “She has loaned me her boat.”
“Do you know where we can find her?” If the non-answer displeased him, he did not show it.
Celeste shrugged. “Not on her boat.”
“For how long is this loan?” Romero asked.
Celeste decided to practice her English. “Until I am done or she wants it back.”
The American looked almost amused. “So you can get in touch with her then, ma’am?” His tone was polite, almost earnest. “A phone number would be most helpful.”
“But I don’t suppose you want to tell me why?”
Romero raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips, in that very Spanish manner.
The American shook his head. “She’s not in trouble, but we do need her help. Scout’s honor.” He held his hand in an odd sort of salute.
“Hold on,” Celeste instructed them. Below deck, she reached Maji on the first ring and found her both cheerful in general and curious about the unexpected visitors. At Maji’s request, Celeste emerged with her cell phone and handed it to the American.
He gave her a polite nod and took the phone, turning away and walking down the dock.
As Celeste watched him go, she mused aloud, “So this is what international cooperation looks like.”
“Adventure and glamor beyond imagination,” Romero replied with a dry wit that took her by surprise. “Just like on TV.”
* * *
Maji waited at an outdoor table of a café, casually dipping a churro into her cup of molten chocolate and watching the tourists pass by. Both men when they approached stood out, Romero by his conservative business suit and Dave Barnett by his buzz cut and rugby player build. Although she hadn’t seen Dave in years, he was right that she would recognize him.
Dave was a seasoned operator, the kind who worked in the field and also helped weed out the wannabes. He had played an interrogator in the realistically brutal Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape course. Maji still remembered his taunts when he caught her breaking into the makeshift prison to liberate her teammates. Right before she knocked him out. Back then, both aspects made her think twice about how well she could integrate into the coveted unit. Now she just hoped he wasn’t the type to hold a grudge.
Maji stood and grasped both of Dave’s hands in hers, touching cheeks as if he was a friend. Romero she gave a handshake and polite smile.
“Say,” Dave said, touching Romero’s elbow lightly, “why don’t you take a table over there, keep an eye out for eavesdroppers for us?”
Romero nodded, appearing unoffended. “Take your time.” He turned and headed to the far corner, scooping up the morning paper from an empty table on his way.
As Dave seated himself at her table, Maji turned to the waiter clearing the table next to them. “A cortado, please,” she said in Catalan.
The waiter nodded and replied in Catalan.
“Not for me,” Dave said. “I’ll have a macchiato.”
“Very good, sir,” the waiter replied in English. “And un cortado for the lady.”
Dave shook his head. “Why can’t they just speak Spanish here? Catalan breaks my brain.”
“They will if you do,” Maji replied, refraining from telling him they had ordered the exact same drink. “But you’ve got that American look going. Why not just roll with it?”
“People do tend to say more around you when they think you don’t understand,” he conceded.
This version of Dave Maji liked right away. Realizing she’d held on to his role-playing persona in her mind all this time, she tried to let it go and find out what kind of a teammate he really was. “So, what are you going by here?”
“Dave Brown. I’m big on the Keep It Simple, Stupid approach.”
She broke a smile, feeling the tension leave her shoulders. After Mr. Green and Mr. White, Mr. Brown was the most frequent pseudonym for operators. And a no-brainer for Barnett. “What’s Romero think you are? CIA?”
“Nah. He knows I’m like him.”
Maji looked across the tables and studied Romero with new interest. She’d bought the Interpol cover, with no suspicion that he was really in Spain’s Grupo Especial de Operaciones, GEO. She’d love to talk with him operator-to-operator, but the US Army had yet to tell its counterparts about the women in her pilot program. “And my cover?”
“An asset. An insider planted within Erlea’s crew to act as our informant.”
“I’m not on her crew.”
“But they wanted to hire you to be her body double.”
“I said no to that and traded up to a security review.” Plus, I’m supposed to be on leave. “Erlea’s people know me as a consultant not interested in playing dress up.”
Dave didn’t even blink at that. “We’ll find a workaround. Which firm?”
“Paragon.”
To his credit, he only blinked a little. “Wow, okay. You got cleared for that, right?”
“Course.” Hannah would have cleared it with JSOC. Wouldn’t she?
“Well, good on you. If I got to go Reserves, I think I’d play golf or something with my downtime. But I guess it figures, considering.”
Don’t be that guy, Dave. “Considering what?”
“You’re a born operator,” he said as if it was obvious. “I could tell that even before you coldcocked me. When you’re not working, you’re training, right? Working out, picking up Catalan, keeping sharp.”
“Not so much recently,” she admitted. “I’m barely recertified. Sure you want me on your team?”
He scrunched up his face, an apology written in the features. “God knows you deserve the leave time. But yeah, we need you specifically. And this should be a cakewalk, compared to the ops you’re used to. Plus, you need anything, I got your back.” He handed her a token, a little plastic-encased toggle the size of a thumb drive with a window displaying a six-digit number that changed every sixty seconds. “Access to the I-24/7.”
Interpol’s web-based, encrypted communications portal held a wealth of information. But not the specifics of her role in this mission. Even the I-24/7 could be hacked, and as Hannah had reminded her, her identity was priceless. “So you going to read me in already?”
Dave grinned and motioned Romero to join them, then ordered another round of drinks and some ensaimadas. He even called them those spiral pastries with the sugar on top, as a tourist would. Working with Dave was going to be just fine.
When they were settled with food and drink, Romero began, “Ms. Rios, how much do you know about the upcoming peace talks between the ETA—Euskadi Ta Askatasuna—and the Spanish government?”
“Not a lot, I’m afraid,” Maji told him, mindful of her cover as an American security consultant. “Isn’t the ETA some kind of Basque separatist group, kind of like the IRA in Northern Ireland?”
He pursed his lips. “Yes and no. True, they have taken credit for bombings and other acts of terrorism. Some are in prison, some killed. And the group’s political party was banned.”
“Cease-fires don’t hold without real disarmament. And for that you need concessions on both sides,” Dave pitched in.
“The government is ready to do its part. Less certain is the will of the ETA.”
Maji looked at Romero. “A dissident group, pushed underground, with no single, unified agenda?”
“Precisely. They had a leader of sorts once, who renounced violence shortly before he disappeared. We believe he is alive and in contact with the factions who support a peace accord.”
“And what’s this got to do with some idiot with a paint gun yelling slogans at a pop star?” Maji asked.
Dave smiled at Romero. “Told you she was quick. The company she’s with only hires the best.”
When Romero researched Paragon, he’d understand why his American counterpart considered her an asset, Maji thought. Points to Dave. “So?”
“Someone is trying to draw Arturo Echeverra out of hiding. To help him or stop him, we do not know.”
“By targeting Beatriz Echeverra, AKA Erlea?” Maji asked.
Romero nodded somberly. “She is his only daughter.”
And he’s her only father, Maji thought with a stab of pity. “How long’s this guy been missing, presumed dead?”
“Nearly twenty years.” Romero registered Maji’s skeptical reaction. “We have good reason to believe he is alive. Which is tricky for Spain, since he could be vital to the peace accord but also is still wanted for murder.”
“Murder,” Maji echoed. “I think you left that part out. Was that before or after he renounced violence?”
“After,” Dave said. “Chances are he was set up. He had plenty of enemies back in the day. If Erlea is in touch with Daddy, she may be helping him hide.”
“No offense, Brown, but this sounds like Spain’s business. What’s the US want with him?”
“That’s on a strictly need to know basis, Ms. Rios,” he deadpanned.
Maji fingered the token he’d given her. She’d know soon.
* * *
Maji cleared the resort blueprints from her hotel room desk. Her review wasn’t complete yet. And Erlea really had gotten threats. But were they about her or drawing out her father? In some ways, it didn’t matter. The security review focused on vulnerabilities that might facilitate a kidnapping or murder. Doors without locks, staff with no photo IDs displayed, power and telecomm panels too easy to physically hack.
Her rundown of the property would go into the report to Nigel, and now Dave and Romero would make sure the Gran Balearico’s management implemented the list of infrastructure recommendations. Whether they cleared Erlea of suspicion or not, no whacked-out fan was getting to her on their watch.
Maji pulled the RFID token from her pocket, slotted it into the laptop, and logged in. The I-24/7’s criminal records databases, red notices, and other resources available to law enforcement of partner countries appeared onscreen. Useful, but not at the moment. She found the nondescript-looking icon, clicked through the back alley JSOC maintained for its operators, and with three security questions answered correctly was rewarded with a single folder labeled Blue Beret.
Maji nodded in recognition at the shots of Basque separatists wearing the iconic headgear and studied the ones of Arturo Echeverra. Not that he’d look like himself anymore, if he was resourceful enough to still be alive. The brief biography focused on his involvement in the ETA, the acronym translated from Euskara here to Basque Country and Freedom. The backgrounder on ETA provided a nutshell about Basque regional culture and language, oppression under Franco, and political recognition in the restored democracy. She could empathize with the drive to maintain a unique identity and resist being erased. The rest of it—decades of political assassinations and bombings with innocent collaterals, the dirty war waged in response by the national government, the paramilitary death squads, and Spain’s secret service, and the terrible tangle of communities and families with opposing positions on the creation of an official Basque homeland living together throughout generations of conflict—that sounded all too familiar. It sounded like the stories that refugees from Central America’s civil wars told Maji’s father at their kitchen table, while she played nearby with the kids.
Echeverra spent his childhood on a farm in the mountains near the French border during Franco’s reign, a bleak period for Spain. At college in Barcelona he had promoted cultural recovery after the ban on speaking the Basque language was lifted. After marrying, he got involved in Batasuna, the movement’s political arm, publicly advocating for regional autonomy over secession. With the resurgence of violence, he spoke against the killings and distanced himself from the militarized branch of ETA.
By the time Erlea was born, Echeverra was a recognized figure in the Batasuna’s local politics and helped broker one of the first cease-fires. But then the National Police implicated him in a bombing in Barcelona, and he disappeared before they could arrest him. Given the number of ETA who died suspiciously in police custody, who could blame him?
All that history, tragic as it was, belonged to Romero and his GEO team, who handled counterterrorism for the National Police. Neither Delta nor any US counterterrorism agency would wade in without a legit interest of its own. Maji opened the Homeland intel summaries. And there was the Nuvoletta, a branch of the Italian mafia she’d run into on an op in Ciudad del Este, the notorious hub of organized crime in Paraguay. It figured that they were the link to the guns, drugs, and money flowing between Central America and Spain.
The Nuvoletta had helped Echeverra get a new face and identity. A penniless activist, intel suggested he traded services as a logistics man, moving drugs and laundering money. Not as bad as blowing up civilians, but not a guy with clean hands either. Even if he was innocent of the bombing, earning blood money always changed people. Would he even want to make amends by informing on the Nuvoletta?
The file listed out a number of Nuvoletta leaders Echeverra had dealt with. Did they know who they had helped, years ago, and what he looked like now? If they did, the National Police wouldn’t be the only threat. Spain might let him broker peace talks before prosecuting him, but the Nuvoletta didn’t care about Basque autonomy or peace. They’d kill him the minute they suspected he might turn on them.
Maji read to the end and logged out. Erlea probably had no idea what her father did or didn’t do when she was eight. Or what he’d done since abandoning her. If she had memorialized him as a great guy, then the truth would hurt. And she might help him anyway, might even use a public appearance to send him a message. But not with a paintball gun pointed at her. What had the file said? Not traced to ETA. Not traced to Beatriz Echeverra. Not ruled out as an attempt to draw Arturo Echeverra out of hiding. In other words, the intel analysts had no idea.
Maji wondered if the analysts had thought to rule out stupid music mogul publicity stunts. She made a note to tell Dave every detail of her observations and interactions with Nigel. That man could become a hazard to the mission if they didn’t keep him contained.