Two men met María and Aideen at the front door of the factory. The women parked the car nose in and emerged with their arms extended downward, their hands held palms forward. María stood by the river's side, Aideen by the passenger's door, as the men walked over. They stopped a few yards away. While one man watched, the other-a big, powerfully built fellow-took the women's guns and telephone and tossed the items in the car. Then he checked them for wires. His check was thorough but completely professional. When he was finished, the two men walked in silence to a large van parked nearby. The women followed. The four of them climbed into the back and sat on the floor amid cans of paint, ladders, and drop cloths. The men sat beside the door.

"I am Juan and this is Ferdinand," said the man who had watched the frisking. "Your full names, please."

"María Corneja and Aideen Sánchez," María said.

Aideen picked up on the "change" in her own nationality. It was an inspired move on María's part. These two might not trust fellow Spaniards right now but they'd trust foreigners even less. Internal warfare was a perfect environment for foreign powers to spread weapons, money-and influence. Roots like that were often difficult to dislodge.

Aideen looked from one to the other of the men. Juan was the older of the two. He looked tired. The skin was deeply wrinkled around his nervous eyes and his slender shoulders were bent. The other man was a colossus whose eyes were deep-set under a heavy brow. His flesh was smooth and tight like the face on a coin and his broad shoulders were straight.

"Why are you here, María Corneja?" Juan asked.

"I want to talk to you about an army General named Rafael Amadori," María said.

Juan looked at her for a moment. "Go ahead."

María pulled the cigarettes from her jacket. She took one and offered the pack around. Juan accepted one.

Now that they were here, it bothered Aideen that they were collaborating with killers. But as Martha had said, different countries had different rules. Aideen could only trust that María knew what she was doing.

María lit Juan's cigarette and then she did her own. The way she lit his smoke-cupping the match under Juan's cigarette, inviting him to take her hands and move them toward the tip-made the action very intimate. Aideen admired how she used that to establish a rapport with the man.

"Seńor Ramirez and the heads of other business groups and familias were slain yesterday by a man working for Amadori," María said. "I believe you've met him. Adolfo Alcazar."

Juan said nothing.

María's voice was softer than Aideen had ever heard it. She was wooing Juan.