"No, but you're new on the European stage and to my way of doing things," Martha replied. "You like frontal assaults, which is probably why General Rodgers hired you away from Ambassador Carnegie. Our Deputy Director believes in attacking problems head on. But I warned you about that when you came to work for me. I told you to turn down the heat. What worked in Mexico is not necessarily going to work here. I told you when you accepted the position that if you work for me you have to do things my way. And I prefer end runs. Skirt the main force. Finesse the enemy rather than launch an assault. Especially when the stakes are as high as they are here."

"I understand," Aideen said. "Like I said, I may be new at this type of situation. But I'm not green. When I know the rules I can play by them."

Martha relaxed slightly. "Okay. I'll buy that." She watched as Aideen tossed the tattered towelette into a trash can. "Are you okay? Do you want to find a restroom?"

"Do I need one?"

Martha sniffed the air. "I don't think so." She scowled. "You know, I still can't believe you did what you did."

"I know you can't and I'm truly sorry," Aideen said. "What else can I possibly say?"

"Nothing," Martha said. She shook her head slowly. "Not a thing. I've seen street fighters in my day, but I have to admit I've never seen that."

Martha was still shaking her head as they turned toward the imposing Palacio de las Cortes, where they were scheduled to meet very unofficially and very quietly with Deputy Serrador. According to what the veteran politician had told Ambassador Barry Neville in a very secret meeting, tension was escalating between the impoverished Andalusians in the south and the rich and influential Castilians of northern and central Spain. The government wanted help gathering intelligence. They needed to know from which direction the tension was coming-and whether it also involved the Catalonians, Galicians, Basques, and other ethnic groups. Serrador's fear was that a concerted effort by one faction against another could rend the loosely woven quilt of Spain. Sixty years before, a civil war, which pitted the aristocracy, the military, and the Roman Catholic Church against insurgent Communists and other anarchic forces, had nearly destroyed Spain. A modern war would draw in ethnic sympathizers from France, Morocco, Andorra, Portugal, and other nearby nations. It would destabilize the southern flank of NATO and the results would be catastrophic-particularly as NATO sought to expand its sphere of influence in Eastern Europe.