• BARCELONA POLICE HEADQUARTERS

SPECIAL COMMUNICATIONS ROOM. 10:45 A.M.

Hap Daniels had just come in from his twenty-minute catnap. He was pulling on his headset and looking around for Bill Strait, anxious to know if he'd reached Spanish intel in Madrid and arranged the electronic tap on Evan Byrd's phones, when a familiar voice crackled through his earpiece.

"Hap, it's Roley." It was Roland Sandoval, the Secret Service special agent in charge of Vice President Hamilton Rogers's protective detail. Daniels knew Rogers had secretly arrived in Madrid a short while ago and gone directly to the U.S. embassy to join White House Chief of Staff Tom Curran for a scheduled private meeting with the president of Spain to discuss the disappearance of President Harris.

"Yes, Roley."

"We've just cleared the vice president for a wheels down at Barcelona at thirteen-hundred. After that he has an hour tour of the area."

"Tour of the area? Why? Why the hell now?"

"That's direct from the chief of staff. Acting White House wants to show the country's concern for the terrorist situation even while POTUS is 'out of touch.' Afterward he'll come back to Madrid and spend the night at Evan Byrd's home before his meeting with the Spanish prime minister tomorrow."

Daniels bit his tongue in outrage and for the longest moment said nothing. Finally he answered with a simple. "Okay, Roley, we'll coordinate this end. Thanks for the heads-up."

There was distinct click as agent Sandoval signed off. "What the hell?" Daniels swore under his breath. The VPOTUS. Tour of the area. That meant media coverage. Sound bites and photo ops. Then as quickly Rogers would be on his way back to Madrid and to Byrd's residence. Something was going on, but he had no idea what it was.

Again he looked for Bill Strait. If Vice President Rogers was spending the night at Evan Byrd's, they had to get an electronic eavesdrop on his phones.

"Hap," Bill Strait's voice came over his headset.

"Where are you?"

"In the cafeteria. Got time for a cup of good Spanish coffee?"

"Damn right I do," Hap clicked off and was starting to remove his headset when another voice came on.

"Agent Daniels?" The voice was male and had a British accent.

"Yes."

"This is Special Agent Harrison, MI5 in Manchester, England. We've just interviewed a Mr. Ian Graff, Nicholas Marten's employment supervisor in Manchester. He says Marten contacted him via his housekeeper earlier this morning and asked him to call his cell phone with a listing of types of azaleas."

"What do you mean 'via his housekeeper'?"

"He called his home and had the housekeeper call Mr. Graff at work. Though Graff seems to think Marten would have known he was at work all the while and called there directly."

"How in hell did Marten contact him? We would have picked up his cell phone location in seconds. What was it, a pay phone?"

"No, sir, he's getting sloppy. He used the mobile phone of a Barcelona limousine service, Limousines Barcelona. The car is currently out for day hire to two gentlemen. They were picked up at the Hotel Regente Majestic just before seven this morning."

"Do we know where the car is right now?"

"No, sir. But we have its description, license number, and mobile phone number."

"You didn't tell the limo company why you called?"

"No, sir. We were just gathering information. Done via a phone company billing and records check."

"Thank you, MI5. Good work. We appreciate it very much."

"Our pleasure, sir. Anything else, let us know."

Daniels took down the limousine's numbers, then clicked off. This was the break he'd been hoping for. The question was what to do about it. Give it to anyone else-his own people, the CIA, Spanish intel, or the Barcelona police-and Jake Lowe and Dr. Marshall would know about it in seconds. Give it to no one, and before long somebody at MI5 would be wondering why no action had been taken on their information and start making noise about it. What he had to do was think. Hard to do surrounded by a roomful of police and special agents working computers and dissecting information. He decided the best thing was to join Bill Strait in the cafeteria for a cup of good Spanish coffee.

• 10:55 A.M.

Miguel Balius's concentration was on the road in front of him. The small village they were passing through led to familiar hilly countryside beyond. Soon afterward they would begin the long winding climb into the mountains toward Montserrat.

"Miguel," Cousin Harold's voice came over the intercom. "Do you have a map of Barcelona and the surrounding area?"

"Yes, sir. It's in the seat pocket in front of you."

He glanced in the mirror to make sure Cousin Harold found it, then looked back to the road. Excluding accidents or more roadblocks, it should take them no more than forty minutes to reach the monastery, unless they changed their mind and wanted to go somewhere else, and that had been the reason for the map.

"Here, here, here, and here," Marten had the map spread out on the seat between them and was using a pen to draw vertical and then crossing horizontal lines on it, making a grid that went outward from Barcelona itself and into the countryside. It was the kind of framework he was certain the Secret Service and Spanish forces would be using to find them and close them off. By now the immense expansion and regrouping of the units that had concerned them earlier would be fully under way. The number of troops looking for them would be at least double the original force, if not more, and they all would be working the grid, scouring each area foot by foot, then securing it and moving on. This time there could be no backtracking as they had done in the city the night before and was the reason Marten had taken the chance and used the limo's mobile phone to call Ian Graff in Manchester.

Marten looked to the president. "By now the NSA will have traced the call Ian Graff made back to my cell phone and some agency, the police or British intelligence, will have tracked him down in Manchester, listened to his story, then traced the call I made to his home to the mobile phone here in the car. My hope then was that we would already have been at the monastery and Miguel would have been long on his way. When the authorities caught up with him all he'd have had to say was that we asked him to drop us off at some village or other along the way and he had. He could name any of the half-dozen we passed through. No one would ever know he wasn't telling the truth. After all he said 'discreet' was the company policy."

"Well, so far, nothing's happened. So maybe your Mr. Graff was harder to find than you think," the president said. "Maybe luck is finally on our side."

"We're not at the monastery yet, either. If they call Miguel, they'll probably use his cell. We wouldn't know who placed the call-it could be his wife-until we were surrounded and it was too late."

"So far he hasn't picked up his phone," the president said.

"Maybe they don't want to tell him. Just broadcast the license number and description of the car. It might take a little longer but they'd still get us."

"What are you suggesting?"

"We either have him drop us off and soon, then try to get to Montserrat on our own or-"

"Or what?"

"Tell Miguel some of what's happening and ask for his help. Both are dangerous. The only thing we have going for us is Miguel himself and the company policy. It's the old joke; our chances of getting out of this are between slim and none and slim just left town."

President Harris glanced out at the rugged countryside, then pressed the intercom. "Miguel," he said evenly.

"Yes, sir."