Next to him, sporting a British-style suit that didn’t match his rugged looks, sat an individual with smoothed-down hair and mustache, nursing a glass of brandy. His face looked familiar. One of those usual personalities in the newspapers, a veteran of posed photographs that always included the inevitable eaglet on the flag and some predictable painting of an equestrian scene. Gil de something, she told herself. Secretary General of Fried Bread, or whatever.

Leandro looked up and smiled at her from afar. He motioned her to come closer, the way one calls a child or a puppy. Suppressing her limp at the expense of a shooting pain on her side, she crossed the dining hall slowly. As she did so, she noticed two men from the ministry at the far end, in the shadows. Armed. Stock-still, like waiting reptiles.

“Alicia, I’m so glad you were able to find a gap in your schedule to have a coffee with us. Tell me, have you had breakfast?”

Before she could reply, Leandro raised his eyebrows, and two of the waiters standing by the wall proceeded to set a place for her at the table. While they poured her a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, Alicia felt the bigwig’s gaze slowly boring into her. It wasn’t hard to see herself through his eyes. Most men, including professional observers, confused seeing with looking and almost always stopped at obvious details that deterred any reading beyond those irrelevancies. Leandro used to say that to disappear into the eyes of one’s opponent was a skill that could take one a whole lifetime to learn.

Hers was an ageless face, sharp-featured yet malleable, with only a few lines of shadow and color. Alicia changed her appearance every day according to the role she had to play in whatever fable Leandro had selected to stage his maneuvers and intrigues. She could be shade or light, landscape or figure, depending on the libretto. In days of truce she would vanish within herself and retreat into what Leandro called the transparency of her darkness. Her hair was black and her complexion pale, made for midwinter suns and indoor lounges. Her greenish eyes shone in the half-light, and she would fix them sharply on onlookers to distract them from her figure, which was fragile but not easy to avoid. When necessary she would conceal it under loose-fitting clothes so as not to draw furtive glances in the street. But close up her presence came into focus and she exuded a somber mood, which Leandro found vaguely disturbing. Her mentor had instructed her to try to keep it under wraps. “You’re a night creature, Alicia, but here we all hide in daylight.”

“Alicia, allow me to introduce you to the Right Honorable Señor Manuel Gil de Partera, director of the General Police Corps.”

“It’s an honor, Your Excellency,” declared Alicia, offering him her hand. The director didn’t take it, as if he were afraid she might bite him.

Gil de Partera observed her as if he hadn’t yet decided whether she was a schoolgirl with more than a touch of wantonness that was unnerving him, or a species he didn’t even know how to begin to classify. “The director has been good enough to ask for our help in solving a rather delicate matter that requires an extraordinary amount of discretion and diligence.”