âWHAT DO YOU HAVE THERE?â BROGNOLA ASKED
âA wild card out of left field,â Tokaido responded. âYou arenât going to believe it.â
âAt this point, Iâd believe just about anything,â Kurtzman said.
âItâs from Striker,â Tokaido stated. âHe and the CIA ops he was working with just cracked that terrorist cell they were tracking in Jordan.â
âThatâs good news,â Brognola said. âBut how does that fit in with the situation in Spain?â
âThey got a guy into interrogation,â Tokaido reported, âand get thisâhe says the Iraqis had an agent fly into northern Spain earlier this week to meet with the BLM. Theyâre trying to get their hands on some nukes and maybe even the supertank.â
âThatâs out of left field, all right,â Kurtzman muttered.
âI donât like the sounds of new players,â Brognola said. âIt puts everything in a whole new light.â
Nacional Parc Guell, outskirts of Barcelona, Spain
With a faint snap, the thick limb of a towering beech tree tumbled down from the forest canopy and crashed at Angelica Rigoâs feet. More than a dozen other branches, all festooned with dark green leaves, lay in a growing mound at the base of the tree. Rigo, a thirty-year-old, ruddy-skinned woman wearing khaki shorts and a matching sleeveless top, wiped the sweat from her brow and checked her watch, then looked up at the handful of men trimming the other branches in the tree above her. She barked at them in Euskara, native tongue of the Basques.
âCanât you work any faster?â
One of the men glanced down from his perch and waved his small, curved handsaw. âLet us use chain saws instead of these toys, and weâll have this tree down three times as fast.â
âAnd youâd be ten times as loud doing it,â Rigo countered, fighting back an urge to shout. âHow many times do I have to tell you we need to do this quietly?â
âYou keep telling us that,â the other man called down, âbut what is the point? Weâre miles from anywhere. Whoâs going to hear us except the birds and squirrels?â
A few of the other men in the tree laughed lightly and murmured among themselves. Staring up at them, Rigo fumed. What had happened to the days when those who joined the movement could be counted on to work with dedication and without complaint? Why was it that she always found herself saddled with slackers and malcontents?
âJust keep working!â she told the men. She hesitated a moment, then grudgingly added, âHave this tree down by sunset and there will be wine with rations tonight!â
As expected, the promise of drink motivated the men, and they began to lay into their work with increased vigor. Rigo lit a cigarette as she watched them. They still needed to clear away another three beeches over the next two days to make the site ready. They would be cutting it close.
Another limb soon tumbled to the ground. Rigo sidestepped it and moved away from the tree, her boots treading softly on the wild grass and trailing vines that carpeted the forest floor. They were in a remote corner of Nacional Parc Guell, a densely treed nature preserve ten miles northeast of Barcelona. The nearest hiking trails were half a dayâs walk away, so there was little chance that anyone would stumble upon the group illegally falling the beeches. And because the trees were being taken down with minimal disturbance of the overhead canopy, it was just as unlikely that anyone flying overhead would be able to spot the small clearing being carved out of the woods. That would be important come Friday, when the plan was to be carried out.