"We'll be there soon, my friend," he said gently.

He was unable to get the terrible scene at Pamplona out of his mind. Thirty minutes later they approached the little village of Torre, and skirted it to drive to an isolated house in the mountains above the village. Jaime helped the two men out of the back of the red truck.

"You'll be picked up at midnight," the driver said.

"Have them bring a doctor," Jaime replied.

"And get rid of the truck."

The three of them entered the house. It was a farmhouse, simple and comfortable, with a fireplace in the living room and a beamed ceiling. There was a note on the table. Jaime Miró read it and smiled at the welcoming phrase: "Mi casa es su casa." On the bar were bottles of wine. Jaime poured drinks.

Ricardo Mellado said, "There are no words to thank you, my friend. Here's to you."

Jaime raised his glass.

"Here's to freedom."

There was the sudden chirp of a canary in a cage. Jaime walked over to it and watched its wild fluttering for a moment. Then he opened the cage, gently lifted the bird out, and carried it to an open window.

"Fly away, pajarito," he said softly. "All living creatures should be free."

Madrid.

Prime Minister Leopoldo Martinez was in a rage. He was a small, bespectacled man, and his whole body shook as he talked.

"Jaime Miró must be stopped," he cried.

His voice was high and shrill.

"Do you understand me?"

He glared at the half dozen men gathered in the room.

"We're looking for one terrorist, and the whole army and police force are unable to find him."

The meeting was taking place at Moncloa Palace, where the prime minister lived and worked, five kilometers from the center of Madrid, on the Carretera de Galicia, a highway with no identifying signs. The building itself was green brick, with wrought-iron balconies, green window shades, and guard towers at each corner.

It was a hot, dry day, and through the windows, as far as the eye could see, columns of heat waves rose like battalions of ghostly soldiers.

"Yesterday Miró turned Pamplona into a battleground."

Martinez slammed a fist down on his desk.

"He murdered two prison guards and smuggled two of his terrorists out of prison. Many innocent people were killed by the bulls he let loose."

For a moment no one said anything. When the prime minister had taken office, he had declared smugly, "My first act will be to put a stop to these separatist groups. Madrid is the great unifier. It transforms Andalusians, Basques, Catalans, and Galicians into Spaniards."

He had been unduly optimistic. The fiercely independent Basques had other ideas, and the wave of bombings, bank robberies, and demonstrations by terrorists of ETA, Euzkadita Azkatasuna, had continued unabated.

The man at Martinez's right said quietly, "I'll find him."

The speaker was Colonel Ramón Acoña, head of the GOE, the Grupo de Operaciones Especiales, formed to pursue Basque terrorists. Acoña was in his middle sixties, a giant with a scarred face and cold, obsidian eyes. He had been a young officer under Francisco Franco during the Civil War, and he was still fanatically devoted to Franco's philosophy: "We are responsible only to God and to history."

Acoña was a brilliant officer, and he had been one of Franco's most trusted aides. The colonel missed the iron-fisted discipline, the swift punishment of those who questioned or disobeyed the law. He had experienced the turmoil of the Civil War, with its Nationalist alliance of Monarchists, rebel generals, landowners, Church hierarchy, and fascist Falangists on one side, and the Republican government forces, including Socialists, Communists, liberals, and Basque and Catalan separatists, on the other. It had been a terrible time of destruction and killing, a madness that had pulled in men and war material from a dozen countries and left a horrifying death toll. And now the Basques were fighting and killing again. Colonel Acoña headed an efficient, ruthless cadre of antiterrorists. His men worked underground, wore disguises, and were neither publicized nor photographed for fear of retaliation.

If anyone can stop Jaime Miró, Colonel Acoña can, the prime minister thought. But there was a catch: Who's going to be the one to stop Colonel Acoña?

Putting the colonel in charge had not been the prime minister's idea. He had received a phone call in the middle of the night on his private line. He had recognized the voice immediately.

"We are greatly disturbed by the activities of Jaime Miró and his terrorists. We suggest that you put Colonel Ramón Acoña in charge of the GOE. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir. It will be taken care of immediately."

The line went dead.

The voice belonged to a member of the OPUS MUNDO. The organization was a secret cabal that included bankers, lawyers, heads of powerful corporations, and government ministers. It was rumored to have enormous funds at its disposal, but where the money came from and how it was used and manipulated was a mystery. It was not considered healthy to ask too many questions about it.

The prime minister had placed Colonel Acoña in charge, as he had been instructed, but the giant had turned out to be an uncontrollable fanatic. His GOE had created a reign of terror. The prime minister thought of the Basque rebels Acoña's men had caught near Pamplona. They had been convicted and sentenced to hang. It was Colonel Acoña who had insisted that they be executed by the barbaric garrote, the iron collar fitted with a spike that gradually tightened, eventually cracking the vertebrae and severing the victim's spinal cord.

Jaime Miró had become an obsession with Colonel Acoña.

"I want his head," Acoña said. "Cut off his head and the Basque movement dies."

An exaggeration, the prime minister thought, although he had to admit that there was a core of truth in it. Jaime Miró was a charismatic leader, fanatical about his cause, and therefore dangerous. But in his own way, the prime minister thought, Colonel Acoña is just as dangerous.

Primo Casado, the director general of security, was speaking.

"Your Excellency, no one could have foreseen what happened in Pamplona. Jaime Miró is—"

"I know what he is," the prime minister snapped.

"I want to know where he is." He turned to Colonel Acoña.

"I'm on his trail," the colonel said. His voice chilled the room.

"I would like to remind Your Excellency that we are not fighting just one man. We are fighting the Basque people. They give Jaime Miró and his terrorists food and weapons and shelter. The man is a hero to them. But do not worry. Soon he will be a hanging hero. After I give him a fair trial, of course."

Not we. I. The prime minister wondered whether the others had noticed. Yes, he thought nervously, something will have to be done about the colonel soon.

The prime minister got to his feet.

"That will be all for now, gentlemen."

The men rose to leave. All except Colonel Acoña.

Leopoldo Martinez began to pace. "Damn the Basques. Why can't they be satisfied just to be Spaniards? What more do they want?"

"They're greedy for power," Acoña said. "They want autonomy, their own language and their flag—"

"No. Not as long as I hold this office. I'm not going to permit them to tear pieces out of Spain. The government will tell them what they can have and what they can't have. They're nothing but rabble who…"

An aide came into the room.

"Excuse me, Your Excellency," he said apologetically. "Bishop Ibañez has arrived."

"Send him in."

The colonel's eyes narrowed. "You can be sure the Church is behind all this. It's time we taught them a lesson."

The Church is one of the great ironies of our history, Colonel Acoña thought bitterly.