"I'll take this one, Darrell," Hood said. He fixed his eyes on Lanning. "As you know, Ms. Lanning, Spain has been going through some serious upheavals over the last few months."

"I've seen the daily situation reports," Lanning replied. "But it's mostly separatist Basques attacking antiseparatist Basques."

"Those are the very public disputes," Hood confirmed. "What you may not know is how concerned some of Spain's leaders are about other recent events involving violent attacks on members of the country's largest ethnic groups. The government has conspired to keep these very, very quiet. Ann, you've got some intel on this."

The slender, attractive, brown-haired press liaison nodded professionally but her rust-colored eyes smiled at Hood. Herbert noticed; he wondered if "Pope" Paul did.

"The Spanish government has been working very hard with journalists to keep the news out of the press and off the air," Ann Farris said.

"Really?" Herbert said. "How? Those ambulance chasers are even worse than the Washington press corps."

"Frankly, they're paid off," Ann said. "I know of three incidents in particular that were hushed. A Catalonian book publisher's office was burned after distributing a new novel that seriously bashed the Castilians. An Andalusian wedding party was attacked leaving a church in Segovia in Castile. And a Basque antiseparatist-a leading activist-was killed by Basque separatists while he was a patient in the hospital."

"Sounds like a lot of brushfires," Plummer said.

"They are," Hood agreed. "But if those fires should ever join up they could consume Spain."

"Which is why local reporters have been bribed to bury these stories," Ann went on, "while foreign reporters have been kept away from crime scenes altogether. UPI, ABC, the New York Times, and the Washington Post have all filed complaints with the government but to no effect. That's been going on for a little over a month now."

"Our own hands-on involvement in Spain began just about three weeks ago," Hood continued. "Deputy Serrador met secretly with Ambassador Neville in Madrid. It was a very quiet backdoor get-together at the U.S. Embassy. Serrador told the ambassador that a committee had been formed, with himself as the chair, to investigate this growing tension between Spain's five major ethnic groups. He said that during the previous four months, in addition to the crimes Ann mentioned, over a dozen ethnic leaders had been murdered or kidnapped. Serrador wanted help obtaining intelligence on several of the groups. Neville contacted Av Lincoln, who brought the matter to us, and to Martha."

Hood's eyes lowered slowly.

"And if you remember correctly," Herbert said quickly, "as soon as Deputy Serrador had a look at our diplomatic roster he asked for Martha specifically. And she couldn't wait to get her arms around this situation and make it hers. So don't even think about second-guessing what you did."

"Hear, hear," Ann Farris said quietly.