She didn't know. She'd never been able to deal with coming up short. She couldn't handle it when she found her widower father crying at the kitchen table after losing his job in the Boston shoe factory where he'd worked since he was a boy. For days thereafter she tried to get him to talk, but he turned to scotch instead. She went off to college not long afterward, feeling as though she'd failed him. She couldn't handle the sense of failure when her college sweetheart, her greatest love, smiled warmly at an old girlfriend in their senior year. He left Aideen a week later and she joined the army after graduation. She hadn't even attended the graduation ceremony; it would have killed her to see him.

Now she'd failed Martha. Her shoulders heaved out the tears and the tears became sobs.

A young, mustachioed sergeant of the palace security guard raised her gently by the shoulders. He helped her stand.

"Are you all right?" he asked in English.

She nodded and tried to stop crying. "I think I'm okay."

"Do you want a doctor?"

She shook her head.

"Are you sure, seńiorita?"

Aideen took a long, deep breath. This was not the time and place to lose it. She would have to talk to Op-Center's FBI liaison, Darrell McCaskey. He had remained at the hotel to await a visit from a colleague with Interpol. And she still wanted to see Deputy Serrador. If this shooting had been designed to prevent the meeting, she'd be damned if she was going to let that happen.

"I'll be fine," Aideen said. "Do you-do you have the person who did this? Do you have any idea who it was?"

"No, seńorita," he replied. "We'll have to take a look and see what the surveillance cameras may have recorded. In the meantime, are you well enough to talk to us about this?"

"Yes, of course," she said uncertainly. There was still the mission, the reason she'd come. She didn't know how much she should tell the police about that. "But-por favor?"

"Si?"

"We were to be met by someone inside. I would still like to see him as soon as possible."

"I will make the necessary inquiries-"

"I also need to contact someone at the Princesa Plaza," Aideen said.

"I will see to those things," he said. "But Comisario Fernandez will be arriving presently. He is the one who will be conducting the investigation. The longer we wait, the more difficult the pursuit."

"Of course," she said. "I understand. I'll talk to him and meet with our guide after. Is there a telephone I can use?"

"I will arrange for the telephone," the sergeant said. "Then I will personally go and see who was to meet you."

Aideen thanked him and rose under her own power. She faltered. The sergeant grabbed one of her arms.