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By Root 446 0

plan to keep his own people, the Basques, from joining with the equally nationalistic Catalonians in an effort to break away from Spain. The Basque uprisings in the 1980's had been sporadic enough to fail but violent enough to be remembered. Martha and Serrador both believed that an organized revolt by two of the nation's five major ethnic groups-- especially if those groups were well armed and better prepared than in the 1980's-would not only be enormously destructive but would have a good chance of succeeding.

If this were an assassination, if Martha had been the target, it meant that there was a leak in the system somewhere. And if there were a leak then the peace process was in serious danger. It was a cruel irony that only a short time before, Martha had been insisting that nothing must be allowed to interfere with the talks.

You know what's at stake

Then, of course, Martha had been worried about Aideen's overreaction in the street.

If only that had been our worst roadblock, Aideen thought. We sweat the details and end up missing the big picture-

"Seńorita?" the inspector said.

Aideen blinked. "Yes?"

"Are you all right?"

Aideen had been looking past Comisario Fernandez, at the dark windows. But she focused on the inspector now. He was still standing a few feet away, smiling down at her.

"Yes, I'm fine," she said. "I'm very sorry, Inspector. I was thinking about my friend."

"I understand," the inspector replied quietly. "If it would not be too much for you, might I ask you a few questions?"

"Of course," she replied. She'd been slumping forward but now she sat up in the chair. "First, Inspector, would you mind telling me if the surveillance cameras told you anything?"

"Unfortunately, they did not," the inspector said. "The gunman was standing just out of range."

"He knew what that range was?"

"Apparently, he did," the inspector admitted. "Unfortunately, it will take us a while to find out everyone who had access to that information-and to interrogate them all."

"I understand," Aideen said.

The inspector drew a small, yellow notebook from his coat pocket. The smile faded as he studied some notes and slipped a pen from the spiral binder. When he was finished reading he looked at Aideen.

"Did you and your companion come to Madrid for pleasure?" the inspector asked.

"Yes. Yes, we did."

"You informed the guard at the gate that you came to the Congreso de los Diputados for a personal tour."

"That's right."

"This tour was arranged by whom?"

"I don't know," said Aideen.

"Oh?"

"My companion set it up through a friend back in the States," Aideen informed him.

"Would you be able to provide me with the name of this friend?" the inspector asked.

"I'm afraid not," Aideen replied. "I don't know who it was. My coming on this trip was rather last-minute."

"Possibly it was a coworker who arranged it," he suggested. "Or else a neighbor? A local politician?"

"I don't know," Aideen insisted. "I'm sorry. Inspector, but it wasn't something I thought I'd need to know."

The inspector stared at her for a long moment. Then he lowered his eyes slowly and wrote her answers in his notebook.

Aideen didn't think that he believed her; that was what she got from the disapproving turn of his mouth and the stern knot of flesh between his eyebrows. And she hated stonewalling the investigation. But until she heard otherwise from Darrell McCaskey or Deputy Serrador, she had no choice but to continue to play this by the cover story.

Comisario Fernandez turned slowly and thoughtfully to a fresh page of the notebook. "Did you see the man who attacked you?"

"I didn't see his face," she said. "He fired a flash picture just before he reached for his weapon."

"Did you smell any cologne? Aftershave?"

"No."

"Did you notice the camera? The make?"

"No," she said. "I wasn't close enough-and then there was the flash. I only saw his clothes."

"Aha," he said. He stepped forward eagerly. "Can you tell me what they looked like?"

Aideen took a long breath. She shut her eyes. "He was wearing a tight denim jacket and a baseball cap. A dark