Midnight in Madrid (21 page)

OUTSIDE MADRID, SEPTEMBER 11, 1:47 P.M.

B
y noon they had come to their first destination, the austere gray palace of Escorial, built more than four centuries earlier by King Felipe II. Unlike many of the great palaces of Europe, this one had its macabre touch. The inner courtyard had been conceived as a contemplative retreat and as a mausoleum. It had served as a final resting place for the revered Carlos I of Spain, Felipe’s father, who had also been the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.

They took the official tour, which lasted less than an hour, and then spent another hour exploring the architecture by themselves. The gigantic building, with its almost three thousand windows, was situated on the slopes of the Guardarrama mountains. From its top floors, it offered a view in every direction of what had once been the Spanish Empire, from Italy to the south, to the Netherlands to the north, and to the Americas in the west.

Walking these grounds put Alex in touch with centuries of Spanish civilization. Peter, always wishing to add to his knowledge of Western culture, observed critically and with great interest, asking questions of the guides when necessary.

They paused for a late lunch at a café in the nearby town of Santa Cruz, after which Alex glanced at her watch. “We still have time for the Valley of the Fallen,” she said. “It’s more modern. I have a feeling I’ll relate to it better. Still game?”

“Still game,” he said. “What is it, this place where we’re going?”

Moments later, they stood by the roadside outside the restaurant. Alex scanned the horizon and found what she was looking for. A white stone cross stood many stories high on a peak ten miles in the distance. “See that?” she asked. “That’s where we’re going.”

They slid back into the car and she took out a map. They drove southward for another half hour on a winding highway that passed by bulls, those reared for bullfights, grazing in green fields. Then the road abruptly rose into a hot, foggy mountain. The road led into Santa Cruz del Valle de los Caídos, the Valley of the Fallen, where Franco’s most megalomaniacal monument had been built.

During the 1950s in this place, thousands of prison laborers, many of them who had been prisoners of war from the Civil War, tunneled hundreds of yards into a granite mountain ridge to build one of the world’s biggest and most sinister basilicas. The church was now part of a Spanish Civil War memorial. It stood beneath a cross nearly fifty stories high, a cross that on a clear day can be seen from scores of miles in every direction.

The site had expressed Franco’s desire for national atonement in the 1950s when Spain made her first shaky steps of returning to the world community. Franco’s rule, as Franco himself liked to see it, was not a victory of the Falange, the Spanish version of fascism, but of a traditional Catholic conservative Spain. Franco, on his crusade to save Christian civilization in his homeland, had modeled himself after monarchs like Philip II. To Alex, the site brought to mind the architecture of the Third Reich.

Alex and Peter Chang solemnly walked the grounds of the basilica and the giant cross. The day was brutally hot. In this place, the remains of murdered Republicans were unearthed from mass graves and trucked to the valley to be mixed with dead Nationalists, so it could be designated a place for all Civil War victims.

Here also was the tomb of Franco and the founder of the Falange Party, Franco’s onetime rival, José Antonio Primo de Rivera, son of the dictator of the 1920s. The site culminated at the high altar with the graves of those two men. As Alex and Peter stood before it in silence, they noticed several fresh bouquets of flowers laid on each tombstone. A young Spanish family meandered glumly through silence, gazing up at the glowering statues of soldiers and saints. On the plaza outside, there was a view toward Madrid. Above their heads, a series of dark rain clouds moved in and the top of the giant cross disappeared within the sky.

“Okay,” Alex finally said around five in the afternoon. “I’ve had enough for one day.”

“Me too,” Peter said.

A few minutes later, they were back on the road. Several kilometers into the return trip, Alex spoke again.

“Something occurred to me late this afternoon, Peter,” Alex said. She spoke over the efficient hum of the air-conditioning in the Jaguar.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“We’re looking for this
Pietà of Malta
, or looking for the reasons someone stole it. I was thinking about how we started referring to it as the ‘black bird.’ Like in the movie.”

“Yes,” he said. “So?”

“Well,” Alex continued, “it occurs to me that, in the movie, everyone’s chasing the bird all over the place. But in the end, the bird they’re looking for is a fake. It doesn’t exist. Or at least the real one never appears.”

Chang frowned. “What are you suggesting?” he asked.

“Maybe
The Pietà of Malta
isn’t really out there,” she said.

“Oh, it’s out there,” he said.

“How do you know?”

“Three people dead in Switzerland. Another two in Madrid. And that’s just what we know about.”

“You’ve actually seen it?” she pressed.

“I know that it exists,” he said.

“But have you actually
seen
it?” she asked.

“I’m certain that it exists,” he said. “It’s out there somewhere. The black bird.
The Pietà of Malta
. Whatever you want to call it. More than likely right under our noses. That’s what happens with stolen art.”

“What happens with stolen art is that it never gets recovered,” she said.

“This case is going to be different.” For a moment he drove silently, obviously thinking. “Well, okay, there’s another theory too,” he said. “No one will ever find
The Pietà of Malta
. Or at least not in our lifetimes. You know as well as I do that sometimes stolen art disappears forever. And you know what else? Sometimes the thieves get scared. They fail to move it, and they don’t want to get caught with it. So they destroy it.”

Alex folded her arms and gave the impression, accurately, of being ill at ease with his explanations and the direction of their dialogue.

“We have no choice but to move forward,” he continued. “Even if we don’t find the pietà, it’s our task to follow the trail of money. What conspiracies were put in motion by this?
That’s
our mission, not a little chunk of plaster from eighteen centuries ago. My job is to roll up the network of people who harmed one of my peers. Your job is to protect your country in case the theft is somehow financing an operation against America. Am I correct?”

“True enough,” she said.

“And now I’ll offer you something that you
will
like,” he said. “It’s an offer, not an obligation. So you’re free to decline it.”

“I’m listening.”

“Two of my peers have arrived in Madrid from China,” he said. “I’m joining them for dinner. Will you come along and meet them?”

“Where would we be meeting?” Alex asked.

“I know a little tavern,” he said. “It’s very Spanish. A little touristy maybe, but not far from your hotel. There’s nice food and good drinks. Late in the evening they have live music.”

“Who are your peers?” she asked.

“They work with me. They’re friends as well as coworkers.”

“From China?”

“Yes. From Shanghai. I think you’ll like them.”

“What line of work exactly?” she asked.

He smiled. “Same as you and me. Dirty stuff for our respective governments.”

“Ah,” she answered. She thought about it. “All right,” she said. “I’m interested.”

“What time do you have to leave tomorrow for Geneva?” he asked.

“Evening,” she said. “Late. I’m taking an overnight train. What about you? Are you flying or driving?” she asked.

“I’m going to fly.”

“I envy you. How do you move your gun from country to country?”

“I don’t,” he said. “I stash it here and get another one in Switzerland.”

“Of course,” she said. “I might have known.”

She watched the roadside sail by. There was a light rain falling now, and Peter was doing about eighty. She might have objected but didn’t. He seemed completely in control.

“Here’s the drill in Geneva,” she finally explained. “I check in at the Grand Hotel de Roubaix. I don’t know where it is, but I’ll find it on the map. The next day I’ll go to a café on the rue Sevé. It’s called Chez Ascender. It’s run by a Hungarian who’s a friend of Federov’s. That’s where I’ll ask for Koller. You know the rest of the drill because I told you.”

“Yes. I understand it,” he said.

“My guess is that you should try to meet me in the hotel bar. Let’s say six p.m. the second day I’m there. Keep an eye open over your shoulder and I’ll do the same. We don’t want to advertise that we’re together.”

“Okay,” he said steadily. “That makes sense.”

“This dinner tonight with your friends. What time?”

“Ten p.m. The place is called Tavern de Carmencita. The staff of your hotel will know it. Or should I pick you up?”

“I’ll walk,” she said. “And I’ll be intrigued to meet your peers.”

“They’re more than peers. They’re friends.”

“I’ll meet them anyway.”

“They will have women with them,” Peter warned.

“So?”

“Hired women.”

She laughed. So did he. “
Expensively
hired?” she asked.

“Without a doubt. My government pays very well.”

“Then I wouldn’t want to miss it.”

MADRID, SEPTEMBER 11, 10:00 P.M.

B
y 10:00, Alex was sitting down to dinner at Carmencita’s on the Calle de Liberdad. The menu was more Basque than Spanish, but old bullfighting posters, photographs, and memorabilia adorned the walls, presumably to keep the tourists happy.

Peter had offered her an arm as they went through the door. She hesitated at first, then took it and liked the feel of it. His arm was like iron under his suit jacket.

Peter’s two peers were there already when Alex arrived. The first was introduced as David Wong. The given name of the other, a slightly taller and stockier man, was Charles Ming. They were both in their early thirties, handsome, endlessly masculine, and very fit. They stood, shook Alex’s hand when introduced, and gave her a polite bow. Each was accompanied by a drop-dead gorgeous girl. David had a sultry blonde with an easy smile. Her name was Sabrina, and she looked as if she were Russian or Polish.

Ming had with him a leggy brunette in a minidress. She was French, even though she gave her name as Holly. Everyone smoked except Alex. In Madrid, smokers had not yet been exiled to the streets. Ming and Wong and their companions were already into a second round of drinks when Peter and Alex settled into their table.

Alex did a quick scan. She couldn’t tell if either of the men were carrying weapons, but she assumed they were. Both of the girls gave Alex a welcoming smile. Then it came out that Charles and David worked
for
Peter. He was their boss, even though he was only a few years older.

From that, Alex made a deduction: they were all there on the same assignment, having to do with
The Pietà of Malta
. And from there she deduced that this must have been a case of some significance to the Chinese to have assigned so many people to it from such a distance.

The group spoke English, occasionally lapsing into Spanish. The two girls mostly kept quiet, sipped drinks, and smoked. Sabrina, the blonde, was seated right next to Alex. At one point she turned and spoke in a low voice.

“Are you working?” Sabrina asked.

“What?”

“You’re working tonight?” she asked again, giving a nod toward Peter who was telling the rest of the table about the trip that afternoon.

“Yes, I am,” Alex answered, going along with it. After all, she was being paid to be there.

Sabrina smiled, nodded, and gave Alex a wink. At first Alex was uncomfortable with the insinuation, then, after a glass of wine, almost found it amusing. By coincidence, Peter’s arm found its way around Alex’s shoulders at about the same instant.

All right, she decided, no harm, no foul. She would play along, keep her ears open, and listen. The less any outsiders knew about her real job, the better.

A waiter appeared, took another round of drink orders in Spanish from Peter and Alex, who ordered red wine, and left dinner menus at the table. The talk around the table progressed. And quickly, Alex realized that she was looking at the face of the new China.

Peter, at forty-one, was maybe five years older than the other two men. But right before her eyes, China’s first generation of only-children were waving good-bye to the old line Communist Party and saying hello to Moët, Prada, and Rolex. To listen to Peter and his two friends, laughing more heartily as the evening went on, was to believe that Shanghai was becoming the biggest boom town in history since Las Vegas. Around the table, they began swapping one-upsmanship stories of the prosperity of their new nation.

“Hey, my sister was in Chinese
Vogue
last month,” Peter said. Quickly and proudly, he reached in his wallet and pulled out a clipping, cut neatly from a magazine. He produced a picture of an Asian gazelle who had his face and his features. Everyone leaned forward to check out the picture of Peter’s sister.

Her name was Jennifer, Peter said, and she worked for IBM in Shanghai. Like all young Chinese on the cutting edge of fashion and trends, she had adopted an English-language first name, as American-like as possible.

The picture, in color, showed a world-class babe in her early twenties, done up in a white cashmere sweater, a raspberry leather miniskirt, and designer leather boots.

“Jennifer
loves
Chanel,” Peter said with brotherly pride. “Ten years ago in China no one knew what Chanel was. Now my sister is addicted. She shops forever.”

“She’s
very
pretty,” Alex said.

“Look at her,” Peter said. “Immaculate hair. Perfect teeth. Manicured nails. Fluent in English, Japanese, and Cantonese, and she is feminine as feminine can be. She is the new Chinese woman in miniature,” he laughed. “The economic miracle made flesh.”

“Very nice looking flesh,” Ming chipped in.

“Is she married?” one of the other girls asked.

Peter laughed. “Married? No, no! She’s having too much fun. She has five boyfriends at the same time, and they all spoil her mercilessly!”

“Five?” Alex said. “
Five!
I don’t think I’ve had five in my life!”

Alex’s remark set off laughter around the table.

“Peter is just showing off because he
has
a sister,” Wong said. “Peter was privileged. Hong Kong born. The rest of us are from one-child families.”

“Because he’s from Hong Kong he thinks he’s better than the rest of us,” Ming added.

“I
know
I am,” Peter said, halfway through his second drink, an oversized gin and tonic.

“Peter already owns seven cars,” Ming volunteered to Alex, as more drinks went around. “Did he tell you that?”

“No, he didn’t,” Alex said. “Are you kidding me? Is that true? Seven?”

“It’s true,” Peter acknowledged with a grin.

“What do you own?” she asked.

“Not much,” he answered. “A few old wreckers.”

Around the table, the lie didn’t fly.

“Ha!” Ming said.

“Peter owns a Porsche 911, a Mercedes, a BMW X5, a Mitsubishi Evolution, and a Toyota Yaris,” said Wong, lighting a cigarette. “And that doesn’t include the company Jaguar that’s at his disposal in Europe.”

Peter shook his head with a grin and tried to dismiss the subject. But he confirmed it was true about all the cars.

“That’s only five that you named,” Alex said to Charles Ming. She turned to Peter. “What else do you have back in the ‘worker’s paradise’?”

“Okay, okay,” Peter said. “I also have a Peugeot, which I bought a year ago when I was in France, and I have an American ‘collectible.’ My favorite.”

“What’s that? Some hot Corvette or Mustang?”

“No, it’s a 1970 Ford Colony Park station wagon.”

“You drive around Shanghai in a Colony Park station wagon?” she asked.

“When I can,” Peter said.

“He’s never home to drive them, but he owns them,” Ming taunted. “So his six-dozen girlfriends borrow them.”

Wong added that Peter had inherited wealth. “His father owned five merchant ships, five hotels, and two hundred apartments. Some Communist!”

Again Peter brushed things off. “You know what they say about communism,” Peter said. “It’s the longest and most difficult route between capitalism and capitalism.”

“You’re going to get into trouble for giving away state secrets,” Wong warned.

Again, the table laughed although Holly and Sabrina seemed a little left out. “Peter needs to be ‘reeducated’,” Ming taunted in good humor.

Peter, meanwhile, was making a hand signal to the waiter, who gave a quick nod of understanding.

“China today is crazy,” Peter said, turning back to Alex, and explaining. “The money. The poverty. The urbanization. The exhaustion of our natural resources. The opportunities in China are beyond anything that anybody in Europe or America has ever seen. It’s insane, but everyone goes along with it.”

“My family was happy if we had food,” Ming added, but less jokingly. “You in Hong Kong were already wealthy. Many of us in China were still struggling.”

Ming continued. “My cousin is nine years older than me. She grew up during the Cultural Revolution. I grew up after it. She works in a factory that builds coffeemakers and sells them to the West. I cannot even imagine how hard her life has been. And she is
my
cousin. Peter’s sister is what’s known as a ‘Shanghai princess,’ a girl who has been raised in wealth and privilege.”

Ming, it turned out through further conversation, was moving up in the world. He had just moved in Shanghai from a scrappy little neighborhood to a place named New California Estates. It was a private Western-style compound with huge villas made of fake adobe and a whole miniarmy of private guards. He showed Alex a picture of his home. Ming’s minivilla had a manicured lawn, a deck overlooking a man-made lake, a barbecue pit, an ornamental well, and a perfectly groomed Labrador retriever.

“My dog’s name is Clinton,” Ming said.

“Named after the American president,” Wong chided.

“The dog is a female. It’s named after the ex-president’s wife,” Ming said. Ten years earlier, Ming said, his family had nothing; now not only did he have this house but he also bought an apartment for his parents. The economic thaw had started during the Clinton years in America, and so many young Chinese felt gratitude. Naming a pedigreed dog after the ex-first lady, to Ming’s way of thinking, was the very least he could do. Alex thought of several smart remarks but didn’t make any of them.

The waiter, responding to Peter’s hand signal, appeared suddenly with a bottle of champagne and six glasses. He opened the bottle and poured drinks all around. Alex watched as Peter slipped the waiter an American hundred dollar bill and declined change. A tip. The waiter, his evening an instant success, gave Peter a low bow.

Wong’s background was closer to Ming’s than to Peter’s. He had been brought up in Xinjiang, in the far northwest near the old Soviet border. His parents had been forcibly relocated there in the seventies. The Cultural Revolution had been the greatest disaster of their lives. Before the Civil War, he explained in a side conversation to Alex, his grandparents had been landlords, so they were considered capitalists. The Red Guard had come around one day with a vengeance and ordered them to the remote countryside.

“They didn’t want to go work in the fields,” he said, “but they were taken there and then left in the middle of the countryside. They had to build their own house. We were miles from anywhere. The government wanted to keep us apart from the local people. The nearest village was a two-hour cycle ride away, and it had nothing, only a little market.”

Alex’s curiosity was piqued. “That must have been terrible beyond belief,” she said.

Her comment allowed Wong to open up even more.

“My parents were at the Shuanghe Labor Reeducation Camp,” Wong said. “It was a prison farm near the Russian border. The other inmates were mainly young pickpockets, burglars, and brawlers. In the camp, guards and prisoners used the word ‘reeducation’ to mean you’d be locked up in a small cell and struck with electric prods or beaten. Afterward, you’d have to write a self-criticism. Then there was another form of daily torture. During the hours between breakfast and the second and final meal in the late afternoon, no one was allowed to use the toilet. My parents told me little more than that about the camp. I never wanted to know more. How could I?”

“I’m sorry,” Alex said. She was.

“The same government apparatus that tortured my parents today makes me rich,” he said. “Some days I find it confusing. Most days, I don’t think about it.”

He shrugged. Then he buried the thought with a long gulp of Moët and Chandon.

A wave of culture shock flowed through Alex. In almost everything she had read on China, sooner or later the phrase
human rights
turned up, coupled with the terms
policeman
, linked with words such as
torture
or
brutality
. And yet here was David Wong in Versace with a Polish babe in a slashed-to-the-thigh Liz Hurley. Next to him, Ming was a David Beckham look-alike-wannabe with pouffy hair, hanging all over his knockout French bimbo. These days, the iconic image of a lone figure standing up to a tank in Tiananmen Square was a relic of the past.

More champagne went around the table.

“So,” Alex said, “does anyone ever criticize the government?”

“Of course,” Peter answered. “It’s common knowledge that the government is corrupt and is hiding scandals. And that they don’t tell the truth. Everyone knows.”

“What about democracy?” Alex asked.

“We can vote for representatives,” Wong said quickly. “But in China there are too many people. True democracy is not possible.”

“Why would anyone want nine hundred million unwashed, uneducated peasants from the countryside telling the government what it should do?” Peter added with dismay. “That would be absurd! The decisions of state are best left to the educated elite.”

“Fine for you since you’re part of it,” Alex said.

“Of course. But look at the economic miracle of the last two decades. We are obviously doing a lot that is right. Our system might not be like yours, but for China it has worked.”

“What about human rights?” Alex said. “Like detaining prisoners without trial? Like torture.”

“Like Guantanamo?” laughed Ming. “One cannot always control the excesses of our government.”

“So,” Alex finally said, “is this really what Deng Xiaoping meant when he talked about ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ almost thirty years ago?”

“It might not be what Chairman Deng meant,” Peter answered quickly, “but it’s what it has become, for better or worse. A lot of business success is through the traditional virtue of
guanxi
, through elaborate social relationships.” Well educated, male, and born in Hong Kong, he had been in a perfect position to profit.

“Okay then,” Alex finally said. “You have all these luxuries and material successes,” she said. “What about spiritual stuff?”