In return for their services, familia members were occasionally rewarded with extra wages. Perhaps a college education for their children. Usually, however, their loyalty earned them only the thanks of their employer and guaranteed lifetime employment.

Juan Martinez considered the attack against the yacht to be uncivilized. Certainly the scope of it was unparalleled-so many familia members killed at once. Juan had never shied from violence during his years of service to Seńor Ramirez. The violence committed against the boating concern, especially in the early years, was usually directed at ships or machines or buildings. Once or twice a worker was attacked, but never the owners or senior management. What had been done tonight demanded a response in kind. Juan, a street kid from Manresa who had worked for Seńor Ramirez for twelve years, was eager to deliver it. But first he needed a target. The radio station was a good place to start looking for one.

Juan and three coworkers drove out to the small broadcast facility. It was located on a nine-hundred-foot-high hilltop, one of three hills located just north of La Concha Bay in San Sebastiín. A narrow paved road led halfway to the summit. Near the top, an enclave of expensive, gated homes had been built overlooking the bay.

How many heads of families live here? Juan wondered, sitting in the passenger's side of the car. He was carrying a backpack, which he'd packed at the factory. He had never been up this way before and the view of the coastline, spectacular and serene, made him uncomfortable. He was a man who enjoyed work and activity. He felt as out of place here as he would have in the moonlit gardens that were visible just past the gates.

A narrower dirt road, typically traveled by motorbikes and hikers, led the rest of the way. The view of the bay was blocked by a turn in the hill; the grasses were not clipped and lush but scrublike and sparse. This was Juan's kind of place again. He looked up the road toward the low-lying cinderblock building at the end. It was surrounded by a chain-link fence just over eight feet high, with barbed wire strung thickly across the top.

Radio Nacional de Público was a small, 10 kw station that reached as far south as Pamplona and as far north as Bordeaux, France. The RNP typically broadcast music, news, and local weather during the day and matters of interest to the Basque population in the evening. The owners were avowed antiseparatist Basques who had endured gun attacks and a firebombing. That was why the building was made of cinderblock and was set well back from the fortified fence. The broadcast antenna stood in the center of the roof. It was a tall, skeletal spire made of red and white girders. It stood approximately one hundred fifty feet tall and was topped by a winking red light.