This is the second Alex Milius novel, this time set in Madrid, among the Basque Separatists and those loyal to the Spanish government, in particular, an illegal right wing arm of the government, nicknamed GAL. Alec is living so he thinks, surreptitiously, and the MI5, the spy group he was fired from, unaware of his presence in Madrid, now six years since his mishap and firing. He works part time for an English bank, has a lover, Sofia, the wife of his Boss. He's sent to San Sebastian, in Basque country, and ends up having dinner with a friend of his boss, a famous Basque separatist named Mikel Arenaza, who participated in many terrorism attacks in the 1980's. They hit it off, end up spending the night drinking, though Alex is always on guard, nervous and suspicious of anyone since he left MI5. They agree to meet for dinner in Madrid in a week, when Mikel comes to visit his mistress, someone he has met recently. When the weekend comes, Alex waits for this friend but he never shows up. He's never quite sure what happened but a week later, it turns out Arenaza has gone missing and a reporter for a Basque separatist newspaper ends up at Alex's door, wondering if he knows anything about Mikel's disappearance.
Alex decides to find out what happened to Arenaza, despite being warned off by what appears to be an arm of MI5 in Madrid, who have questioned Alex, and seem to want his help in finding a Portuguese terrorist who is involved in selling weapons. Alex gets in trouble for putting his nose in someone else's business, discovers that Arenaza has been murdered. Because of what he knows, he is kidnapped by Basques, tortured, and almost killed before being let go, the reason never being quite clear.
MI5 then asks him to seduce the secretary of a Spanish government official who they think is involved in GAL terrorists attacks. Against his conscience, he does so only to find out that he is being set up by the CIA, as pay back for his disloyalty to them six years ago. A bit of a stretch but everything in these books are never what they appear to be. Alex finally realizes the MI5 team is really CIA agents posing as MI5, just to play with him. Anyways, it's getting too confusing for me to even summarize, so let's leave it where it ends, with Alex being let in to the British Embassy, with info to prove that there's a faux conspiracy within the Spanish government, to get rid of Basque separatists, supposedly with the consent of the current government. I am beginning to lose patience with the twists and turns, the confusion of who is who, whether we can believe them or not. Maybe one more but not for awhile.
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