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here, Lieutenant?” Tejada shook his head, and Rosas clicked his tongue against his teeth and continued. “It’s a disaster area, worse than some of the cities that were bombed during the war. The fire last month took out the whole city center. So when a few shipments here and there didn’t arrive in bad weather, I thought they were simply delayed. I couldn’t get through to Santander right away to confirm that they had been shipped, and we were out of contact with them for a few days anyway when the fire started, so I decided to wait until spring. Then, about a month ago, two crates of dynamite disappeared from one of our construction sites. When I investigated, I found that there were other things missing from our warehouses. Pipes. Tiles. Stuff that had arrived as scheduled, but had disappeared since. We don’t have as good an inventory as I’d like, but I also strongly suspect that a pair of wire cutters and several cans of lubricant have been stolen. That was when I contacted Sergeant Márquez.”
     
    Tejada turned on his subordinate with fury. “You didn’t tell me dynamite was stolen?”
     
    “If the thefts occurred between here and Santander, they’re not really our jurisdiction.” Márquez shifted uncomfortably. “And, as I said, with the Valencians . . .”
     
    Tejada’s mind was racing. If dynamite had been in the hands of the bandits for a month already, then there wasn’t a bridge or barracks in the province that could be considered secure. He turned to Márquez. “Go back to the post and call Santander,” he ordered. “Tell them two crates of dynamite were stolen.” He glanced at Rosas. “Do you have the date?” he demanded.
     
    “I found out about it February sixteenth,” Rosas said promptly. “Make it the fourteenth as an outer limit.”
     
    “February fourteenth,” Tejada continued. “It’s presumed to be in the hands of Red guerrillas. They should take appropriate security measures. And find out if anything’s blown up since then. If not, we may still be able to stop them.”
     
    “Sir.” Márquez saluted and turned to leave.
     
    Wire cutters, Tejada thought, suddenly nervous. “Márquez!”
     
    “Sir?”
     
    “If you can’t get through, tell Ortíz and Carvallo to take the truck and bring the information to Santander personally.”
     
    “Personally, sir?” Márquez stared.
     
    “Yes,” Tejada snapped. Then, since Márquez was still goggling at him, he explained rapidly. “The Reds may have cut the phone lines. Or they could be down because of the blizzards. Or because some damn peasant’s sheep got caught in one. Who knows? But I’m not going to be responsible for the damage a missing crate of dynamite could do, so unless you have a homing pigeon to send to Santander with a message, we have to use the truck. Get moving.”
     
    Márquez left, and Tejada turned back to Señor Rosas, who was looking aghast.
     
    “I’m terribly sorry, Lieutenant,” Rosas stammered. “I’d communicated with the Policía Armada, of course, since they’re responsible for guarding the materials, and I thought that they’d talk to you. It’s just that when they finally put out the fires in Santander I got a call that I was going to have to design a whole new street grid for the city center, and lose half my workforce, and it drove everything else out of my head. I’m an architect, you see. I only thought of it as building materials.”
     
    Tejada nodded, waving away the faltering explanation with one hand. “I take it you are afraid that some of your prisoners have somehow made contact with the guerrillas, either through local people or directly?”
     
    Rosas nodded. “Exactly. That was why I thought imprisoning local people might create a security problem.”
     
    “It seems to me you already have a problem,” Tejada said frankly. He did not intend to waste breath in recriminations about the missing dynamite. Rosas should have reported his suspicions earlier, and