"I don't know what you needed to prove," Martha went on. She was still bent close to Aideen. There was anger in her clipped tone. "But I never want you doing it again. Not when you're touring with me.

Do you understand?"

"Yes," Aideen said contritely. God, she thought, enough already. Aideen had a flashback to a brainwashing seminar she'd once attended at the U.S. embassy in Mexico City. The prisoners were always dunned by their captors when they were at their weakest emotionally. Guilt was an especially effective doorway. She wondered if Martha had studied the technique or came by it naturally.

And almost at once, Aideen wondered if she were being fair to her boss. After all, this was their first mission together for Op-Center. And it was an important one.

Martha finally looked away-but only for a moment. "It's unbelievable," she said, turning back. Her voice was just loud enough to be heard over the powerful engine. "Tell me something. Did it ever occur to you that we might have been detained by the police? How would we have explained that to our Uncle Miguel?"

Uncle Miguel was the code name for the man they were here to see. Deputy Isidro Serrador. Until the women arrived for their meeting at the Congreso de los Diputados, the Congress of Deputies, that was how they were supposed to refer to him.

"Detained by the police for what?" Aideen asked. "Frankly, no. That did not occur to me. We were simply protecting ourselves."

"Protecting ourselves?" Martha asked.

Aideen looked at her. "Yes."

"From whom?"

"What do you mean?" Aideen asked. "Those men-"

"Those Spanish men," Martha said, still bent close to Aideen. "It would have been our word against theirs. Two American women crying harassment to policemen who probably do their own share of harassing. The policía would have laughed at us."

Aideen shook her head. "I can't believe it would have gone that far."

"I see," Martha said. "You know that for sure. You can guarantee it wouldn't have."

"No, I can't," Aideen admitted. "But even so, at least the situation would have been-"

"What?" Martha asked. "Ended? What would you have done if we'd been arrested?"

Aideen looked out the window as the stores and hotels of Madrid's commercial center passed by. She'd recently partaken in one of Op-Center's computerized WaSP's-WAR Simulation Projects-a mandatory exercise for members of the diplomatic staff. It gave them a feeling for what their colleagues had to endure if diplomacy failed. Casualties greater than the mind could process. That exercise was easier than this one.

"If we'd been arrested," Aideen said, "I would have apologized. What else could I have done?"

"Not a thing," Martha said, "which is exactly my point-though it's a little late to be thinking about it."