"I see it," Hood said as the higher views appeared. "A square building with a courtyard in the center and nothing higher around it. Infiltration during the day is going to be a problem."

"Bingo," Rodgers said. "And waiting twelve hours until dark may not be acceptable."

"What about Spanish uniforms?" Hood asked. "Can't Striker wear those to get inside?"

"In theory, maybe," Rodgers said. "The problem is it doesn't look like any of the soldiers who bring prisoners to the palace or patrol the grounds are actually going inside. That's another reason we think General Amadori's there. He's probably got an elite guard inside, patroling the halls and taking care of security. They're the only ones who'll have access."

"Are there any underground passageways?"

"We're looking into that now," Rodgers said. "Even if there are, coming up inside those big sunlit corridors is going to be risky."

Hood's eyes burned and his mind was whirling. Part of him wished he could just bomb the palace, fly up to Connecticut, and collect his family. Maybe stay there and open a fish-and-chips stand on the seashore.

"So we wait?" Hood asked.

"No one here or in Madrid's in favor of that," Rodgers said. "But Aideen just arrived at the Interpol office. She and Darrell are talking the situation over with Brett and members of the Interpol team, adapting their playbook for the palace. There's a team of Interpol spotters on the roof of the Teatro Real, the opera house, on the other side of the avenue. They're scanning the entire palace with an LDE trying to pick out Amadori's voice."

The LDE-The Long Distance Ear-was a funnellike dish that collected all the sounds from a narrow area and keyed in on those of a specific decibel range. In the case of a room inside a castle, it would automatically filter out external sounds such as cars, birds, and pedestrians. It would only "hear" very low intensity sounds inside walls. It would then compare the sounds to whatever was digitally stored in its memory-in this case, Amadori's voice.

"How long will it take them to scan the entire castle?" Hood asked.

"Until about four o'clock," Rodgers said.

Hood looked at the computer clock. "That's nearly two hours from now."

"I don't like the idea of Striker sitting around and getting stale either," Rodgers said, "but it's the best they can do."

"How far is the palace from the Interpol office?" Hood asked.

"I'm checking a map now," Rodgers said. "It looks to be about fifteen minutes by car-if there's no traffic or military checkpoints.".

"Which means that if they sit and wait for the LDE findings they're as much as two hours and fifteen minutes away," Hood said. "If Amadori decided to leave the area before we pinpoint him, we'd have a problem."