• 4:03 A.M.

"La estación del tren Barcelona-Sants." Barcelona-Sants Train Station, the president said as he, Demi, and Marten climbed into the back seat of crisp yellow-and-black taxi number 6622.

"Sí." The driver put the taxi in gear and sped off just as the sound of sirens filled the air. The driver crossed a square, turned left and then slowed quickly to avoid hitting two Barcelona police cars crossing directly in front of him.

"The alarm is out," Marten said quietly. "They'll be watching the station."

"I know," the president said.

"Then-?"

"We'll see," the president sat back and pulled Demi's big floppy hat a little farther down over his forehead.

Demi looked at him, then turned to Marten. "Wherever you're going, I can't join you. It's what I had to talk to you about, why I came."

Suddenly two more police cars screamed past going in the direction of Marten's hotel. Just then they saw the line of stopped traffic.

"Mossos d'Esquadra. ¿Qué demonios pasa aqui?" Catalan state police. What the hell is going on? The cab driver looked at them in the mirror.

"¿Algo, pero, quién sabe qué?" Something, who knows? The president shrugged, then quickly looked to Marten.

"Road block," he said sotto voce. "They'll be doing a vehicle search. There'll be more and then more after that. They build these things in concentric circles. Roadblocks funneled into checkpoints and then more outside them."

"Then we'll walk," Marten said

"Yes." Immediately the president looked to the driver. "Pare, por favor." Please pull over.

"¿Aquí?" Here?

"Sí."

The driver shrugged and abruptly pulled to the curb. The three got out and the president paid the driver, giving him a large tip. "Usted nunca nos vio," he said, the big hat hiding his features. You never saw us.

"Nunca," the driver winked. Never.

Marten slammed the door and the cab drove off.

Uneasy pedestrians moved around them, increasingly concerned about what was going on.

"Terroristas." Terrorists. Some said out loud, "Terroristas," others whispered. "¿Vascos, ETA?" someone asked. "No," several voices spat fearfully at once, "al Qaeda."

Drivers backed up for the roadblock were eerily quiet. Tension and dread anticipation filled the air. At another point in history they would have been impatiently yelling and honking their horns. Not now.

"Keep moving," the president said quickly, "stay in the crowd."

Marten nodded and took Demi by the arm, positioning her between himself and the president as they went. There was no doubt now the Secret Service knew the president had been in Marten's hotel room and that every stop had been pulled out to find them. All they could do was try and blend in to what was a long line of frightened people, people, they prayed, who would not recognize the man in the floppy hat shuffling along among them and then raise the alarm out of sheer surprise if nothing else.

Marten let three young men shove past them, then looked at Demi, "Before, in the taxi, you said you couldn't go with us. Why?"

Demi hesitated, then glanced at the president and looked back to Marten. "Reverend Beck is meeting Dr. Foxx tomorrow. In the early afternoon at the Benedictine Monastery at Montserrat in the mountains northeast of here. He asked me to go with him and I agreed. I have to go back to the hotel. We're leaving from there."

Marten and the president exchanged glances, then Marten turned back to Demi.

"He asked you to go, just like that?"

"Yes. For the same reason I came to Barcelona, to continue the photo shoot for the book."

"Did he say why he canceled your Balkan trip or why he left Malta the way he did?"

"All he said was that something came up unexpectedly and he had to meet someone here in the city. He didn't say anything more. Just apologized for leaving so abruptly."

Suddenly there was a convergence of sirens ahead. People surged past them as if something was happening. More followed in their wake. They moved with them, trying to stay hidden in the crowd. Demi glanced at the president, then looked back to Marten.

"I did what you recommended and told Beck you followed me to Barcelona, and that we met and talked. I expected him to show some anger or surprise. He didn't. Instead, he said something in passing to the effect that he wished you and Dr. Foxx had left things on a more congenial note in Malta. He didn't say why or even ask why you had followed me here or what we had talked about. It seemed to be of little interest to him, as if he had other things on his mind, but it gave me the sense that if you showed up in Montserrat while we were there he might find a way for you and Foxx to meet and talk things through. You could even say it was my idea, that way it wouldn't spoil my situation with him, especially when I ask his help in finding my sister."

Marten studied her. Even now, after what they'd just been through, it was hard to know if he could trust her; if she was lying, if the whole melodrama of Foxx and Beck so abruptly leaving Malta and then having her come to Barcelona afterward was all part of whatever they were involved with. And this seemingly offhand "peace offering" to Marten, this wish by Beck that he and Merriman Foxx had left things on a "more congenial note" seemed a very convenient way to get him to come to Montserrat on his own-to an isolated monastery where they could get him alone, then demand to know whom he worked for and was reporting to and afterward get rid of him altogether. If that were the case and Demi's late night call to rendezvous with him was their idea and not hers, he needed to learn as much as he could about what was going on before she went back to her hotel.

"Is the woman in black going with you to Montserrat?"

"Who?" Demi seemed wholly surprised.

"Earlier tonight you and Beck left the hotel and went to the cathedral. A woman in black was with you, an older woman."

"How did you know?"

"How I know isn't important. I'm interested in who she is and what she has to do with Beck."

"Her name is Luciana," Demi answered matter-of-factly and without hesitation. "She's an Italian friend of the reverend. She was with him at the hotel when I arrived."

"Is she the one he had to leave Malta to come here to meet?"

"I don't know, but it was she who arranged the trip to the monastery through a priest at the cathedral." Demi glanced at the people around her, then looked back to Marten and lowered her voice. "She belongs to the coven. She has the tattoo on her thumb. And yes, she's going with us."

Marten looked at the president. He could see he was puzzled. He knew there was information being passed but he had no idea what it was. Marten was about to say something, to try and explain but was cut off by the scream of a siren as another police car shot past them, its loudspeaker blaring, ordering drivers to pull to the side. Following in its wake were two large dark blue trucks marked Mossos d'Esquadra. A hundred yards ahead the vehicles stopped dead, the trucks' rear doors flew open, and at least two dozen heavily armed police jumped out.

"Dammit," the president blurted under his breath.

All around them people stared wide-eyed. "Terroristas." "Al Qaeda." The words came more quickly this time, more numerous and more fearful.

The president looked to Marten. "They're widening their net and turning up the heat. From here on out they'll have every street, every alley, shut down tight."

"Then we turn and go back," Marten said calmly.

"To where?"

"We're considerate fellows. The young lady was trying to get to her hotel and we thoughtfully escorted her."

Demi started. "You're going to my hotel?"