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Back Balance of Power Save as PDF
Chapters (53)
  1. BALANCE OF POWER
  2. Acknowledgments
  3. About The Creators
  4. ONE
  5. TWO
  6. THREE
  7. FOUR
  8. FIVE
  9. SIX
  10. SEVEN
  11. EIGHT
  12. NINE
  13. TEN
  14. ELEVEN
  15. TWELVE
  16. THIRTEEN
  17. FOURTEEN
  18. FIFTEEN
  19. SIXTEEN
  20. SEVENTEEN
  21. EIGHTEEN
  22. NINETEEN
  23. TWENTY
  24. TWENTY-ONE
  25. TWENTY-TWO
  26. TWENTY-THREE
  27. TWENTY-FOUR
  28. TWENTY-FIVE
  29. TWENTY-SIX
  30. TWENTY-SEVEN
  31. TWENTY-EIGHT
  32. TWENTY-NINE
  33. THIRTY
  34. THIRTY-ONE
  35. THIRTY-TWO
  36. THIRTY-THREE
  37. THIRTY-FOUR
  38. THIRTY-FIVE
  39. THIRTY-SIX
  40. THIRTY-SEVEN
  41. THIRTY-EIGHT
  42. THIRTY-NINE
  43. FORTY
  44. FORTY-ONE
  45. FORTY-TWO
  46. FORTY-THREE
  47. FORTY-FOUR
  48. FORTY-FIVE
  49. FORTY-SIX
  50. FORTY-SEVEN
  51. FORTY-EIGHT
  52. FORTY-NINE
  53. FIFTY

There was a click. The short, muscular man stopped staring into space. He looked down at the tape recorder on the wooden table beside him. He lay his cigarette in a rusted tin ashtray and sat back down into the folding wooden chair. He pushed PLAY and listened through the earphones, just to make sure the remote had picked up the sounds. The General's technical officer from Pamplona, the man who had given him the equipment, had said the equipment was extremely precise. If properly calibrated, it would record the voices over the slosh of the ocean and the growl of the fishing boat's engine.

He was correct.

After nearly a minute of silence Adolfo Alcazar heard a mechanical-sounding but clear voice utter, "It is accomplished." The voice was followed by what sounded like crackling.

No, Adolfo realized as he listened more closely. The noise wasn't static. It was applause. The men in the yacht were clapping.

Adolfo smiled. For all their wealth, for all their planning, for all their experience at managing their bloodthirsty familias, these men were unsuspecting fools. The fisherman was pleased to see that money hadn't made them smart-only smug. He was also glad because the General had been right. The General was always right. He had been right when he tried to arm the Basques to grease the wheels of revolution. And he was right to step back when they began fighting among themselves-the separatists battling the antiseparatists. Killing themselves and drawing attention from the real revolution.

The small dish-shaped "ear" the fisherman had placed on top of his boat's cabin, right behind the navigation light, had picked up every word of the conversation of that altivo, the haughty Esteban Ramirez, and his equally arrogant compadres on board the Verídico.

Adolfo stopped the cassette and rewound it. The smile evaporated as he faced another unit directly to the right. This device was slightly smaller than the tape recorder. It was an oblong box nearly thirteen inches long by five inches wide and four inches deep. The box was made of Pittsburgh steel. In case it were ever found, there would be metallurgic evidence pointing to its country of origin. Ramirez, the traitor, had ties to the American CIA. After seizing power, the General could always point to them as having removed a collaborator who had outlived his usefulness.