Vacation In Spain
In mid-summer of 1998, for a needed break, my wife and I took a trip to Spain. There was a conference she wanted to attend in Madrid, and I went along, as it turned out, more than, “just for the ride.”
To be away from our five children for three weeks would be a first, and the logistics for having them looked after was daunting. My young daughters, seven and nine, flew with us to Miami, and were overjoyed to be left in the care of grandma and grandpa as my wife and I flew on to Madrid.
The boys 14, 16, and 18, alone, for the first time, ever, would be left to their own devices in San Diego. Well, almost, for there were friends and neighbors looking in, to say nothing of my FBI colleagues, who respond to emergencies for a living, so we felt the boys were in good hands. It was all worth it for a getaway to a foreign land.
The conference took the first half of our time in Madrid at the Hotel Melia Castilla. That would be our home-base for the rest of the days traveling around from the centrally-located capital. There is a wonderful circumstance with the geography where tourists can drive, or take a bus, from a half-an-hour to a couple-of-hours away, to visit several different walled cities with ancient fortresses and some actual castles.
This was very special to someone like me, having assiduously read Prince Valiant in the comics every Sunday since the early 1950s. Over the years, I had been located in nine different U.S. cities and always managed to find a newspaper that carried the strip. Fortresses and “days of yore” were my thing.
We traveled to Toledo, Segovia, Avila, and Salamanca, to start with, and there is nothing like it for a student of history—treading foot on all of those stone-carved stairways. This was topped off with a visit to El Escorial, the centuries-long residence of the King of Spain in San Lorenzo, and the nearby Valley of the Fallen with massive memorials commemorating their Civil War in the late 1930s.
However, about halfway through traipsing around all this rugged terrain, I realized my pants had about worn through, and I hadn’t brought enough of them. The next morning we went to El Corte Inglés, a major department store chain in Spain, and the one nearby in Madrid had what I needed.
A few floors up we found the men’s pants department, and I picked several off the rack to try on. Understand, as an FBI agent, I was pretty athletic and healthy, but I did not have the slender form of the classic “continental” man, so I would need some time to see what fit.
There was no salesperson in the department, so I walked deliberately toward the changing rooms. I pulled back the curtain closing off the entrance, then choose the left side and a booth three down the row. As always, I had given my wallet and FBI credentials to my wife to hold in her purse, a normal preventative security measure for someone who carries a badge for a living.
I took off my trousers and placed the belted waistband over a large hook at the top of the six-foot partition separating the stalls. I tried on a pair, and then another. I was definitely not a Spanish man’s body shape!
The third one seemed to be a charm, and I exited the booth, leaving my pants still on the hook. I walked past two vacant stalls and went right, through the changing room opening, and out to seek my wife’s opinion on my fashion choice, more accurately, whether the pants looked okay.
As I left the changing area, a man passed me going in. He was tall and slender, much more the “continental” body-shape than I would ever be. He had about an inch on me in height, something fairly rare in Spain, and a darker complexion that would have been a quality suntan in Southern California. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him make a left after he passed through the changing room portal.
When I had nearly reached my wife through the carousels of hanging pants, a thought occurred to me. I spun, with a quick about-face, and darted back to the changing rooms. I entered and looked left, just in time to see the man’s hand, high in the air, and his fingers reaching into the left rear pocket of my pants. That is where I kept my wallet! Fortunately, it wasn’t there, but that did not change his intent.
In a loud voice I called out, “Hey, ladrón!” “Ladrón,” of course, means “thief” in Spanish, and that was what he was about to be, if he’d had his way. But with my outburst, he pulled back his hand, as though I might not think he was doing exactly what he was, and started shaking his head saying, “No, no, no ladrón!”
I held my ground as he left the booth and darted toward me, but not at me. He slid passed, quickly, then continued to the other end of the “T” of the changing booths aisle, entering the last stall, three down. I remained standing near the portal entrance—and there was silence.
I pivoted, stepped out to the sales area, and went directly to my wife. There was still no one else there, no salespeople or other customers. She had heard the commotion and wondered what was going on. I told her a guy had entered the changing rooms, intent on stealing my wallet. He was still in there, and we needed to call security.
She put up a bit of an argument, but I found a phone on the counter near the cash register and picked it up, clicking on the button in the cradle. A female voice came on, an operator of some sort, and I said, in high-school Spanish, that I needed security, “Rápidamente, en el departamento de pantalones, porque hay un ladrón aquí.”
I hung up and, in only a few moments, two men came trotting through other departments toward us. They were of good enough size so I thought this would work. I had my wife translate what they needed to know, but their faces were not sure this reached the level of attention for them to take action. Then I added something important, which I had not said earlier.
I explained the man was still in there, but had not brought any pants with him to try on. That is, his sole reason for entering the changing area was to steal my wallet. I suggested they go and see for themselves, because he seemed to be hiding, waiting for me to go away.
This piqued their interest, and I got an appreciative nod from the more senior man. The two went over and through the opening, then turned right. There, in the last booth, they found the ladrón seated, seemingly, patiently, but not really waiting for them.
After a couple of minutes, the three of them came back out to the sales area. The two security guards had the thief’s hands cuffed behind him, and each held one of his arms, two-handed, above and below the elbows. It was a good come-along hold, and I was glad they had acted on my information. As they went by, the one in charge asked us to wait, and said another security man would be there shortly.
Good to his word, a third security guy appeared walking briskly through the store. He introduced himself and asked us to follow him.
We wound our way through various departments, then to the right and through an employees-only entrance door, down a corridor, out an exit door to a metal fire-escape, and zigzagged up a couple of floors with a decent view of Madrid surrounding us. In through another door and down more corridors, he opened a door for us which belonged to the Head of Security. We were ushered past a secretary and into the top man’s office. Actually, I had begun to wonder if we were not also under suspicion for an unknown reason, but things seemed to be working out, or so I thought.
The Jefe came from around his large desk, introduced himself, and shook our hands. We all sat down and he looked at me.
This was a moment when accuracy of speech could be important, and I didn’t want to err describing anything which had occurred. He opened his palms to me, essentially, asking what had happened.
As though on a witness stand (a place I am very familiar with, and actually enjoy), I laid out our travels, briefly, the need for pants, pointed at the ones I was wearing, which had begun to look shabby, and I still had not been able to make my purchase.
I described the visit to the pants department and the man who seemed to have followed me, going in just as I was leaving, then quickly returning to witness him reaching for my wallet. No, he hadn’t gotten it because it wasn’t there. My wife had been holding it.
His eyebrows went up and he agreed that had been wise, but it also meant there was, therefore, no actual crime committed by the man.
I mentioned that he had entered the changing area with no pants to change into, which had been suspicious to me. Again, the security chief’s eyebrows went up in surprise.
I looked to my wife and asked her to explain to the chief what I was, which was actually what was really behind all of this, but had not yet been stated. She explained I was Agente Especial en el Effay-Bay-Eee, en los Estados Unidos. With that, I brought out my FBI credentials, with its small gold badge inset on the front of the black case.
The security head took them and looked them over carefully. Then his head slowly began to nod, lips puffing out. He lost all interest in pursuing my having any improper intentions, as was initially the case, because he now understood my motivation. He returned the credentials, leaned far back in his chair, and smiled.
He explained a man matching the description of the one detained today had been making himself a menace in several of their stores over the last eighteen months. His modus operandi was going into men’s changing rooms to steal wallets, while the unaware customers were out in the sales area, most looking for more pants to try on or conferring with their wives. None of them, however, he said, had “caught him in the act.” But today, the thief’s luck had run out.
I pondered whether to discuss the term “luck” with him, but my Spanish wouldn’t let me keep up my end of the conversation. He added that the man would be transferred to police custody. The thief had already made at least a partial confession to the men who had shouldered him out of the pants department, and it was clear he was their long-sought ladrón.
Knowing we had a travel schedule, the chief commented that because of the evidence they already had, I would not be asked to stay, or return for the trial, from the U.S. That made me feel good, as I had been away from work long enough, and didn’t know how the Bureau would deal with the administrative leave necessary for me to make another trip to Spain. Besides, somebody at FBIHQ would, of course, have considered it another “Barnes boondoggle,” anyway.
Either way, I was almost beside myself that I had been able to assist local law enforcement while on vacation. Then it occurred to me that was exactly the point!
A vacation, for the likes of me, is not lying back on a Mediterranean beach, or climbing through the Valley of the Fallen, and around stone staircases in half-a-dozen castles. Rather, on my own time, and on my own dime, it is catching a bad guy 7000 miles from home. It was like a vignette from Fantasy Island, but on the European continent. That was my idea of a badge-carrier’s perfect vacation!
Wayne A. Barnes
December 17, 2015
Plantation, FL
To be away from our five children for three weeks would be a first, and the logistics for having them looked after was daunting. My young daughters, seven and nine, flew with us to Miami, and were overjoyed to be left in the care of grandma and grandpa as my wife and I flew on to Madrid.
The boys 14, 16, and 18, alone, for the first time, ever, would be left to their own devices in San Diego. Well, almost, for there were friends and neighbors looking in, to say nothing of my FBI colleagues, who respond to emergencies for a living, so we felt the boys were in good hands. It was all worth it for a getaway to a foreign land.
The conference took the first half of our time in Madrid at the Hotel Melia Castilla. That would be our home-base for the rest of the days traveling around from the centrally-located capital. There is a wonderful circumstance with the geography where tourists can drive, or take a bus, from a half-an-hour to a couple-of-hours away, to visit several different walled cities with ancient fortresses and some actual castles.
This was very special to someone like me, having assiduously read Prince Valiant in the comics every Sunday since the early 1950s. Over the years, I had been located in nine different U.S. cities and always managed to find a newspaper that carried the strip. Fortresses and “days of yore” were my thing.
We traveled to Toledo, Segovia, Avila, and Salamanca, to start with, and there is nothing like it for a student of history—treading foot on all of those stone-carved stairways. This was topped off with a visit to El Escorial, the centuries-long residence of the King of Spain in San Lorenzo, and the nearby Valley of the Fallen with massive memorials commemorating their Civil War in the late 1930s.
However, about halfway through traipsing around all this rugged terrain, I realized my pants had about worn through, and I hadn’t brought enough of them. The next morning we went to El Corte Inglés, a major department store chain in Spain, and the one nearby in Madrid had what I needed.
A few floors up we found the men’s pants department, and I picked several off the rack to try on. Understand, as an FBI agent, I was pretty athletic and healthy, but I did not have the slender form of the classic “continental” man, so I would need some time to see what fit.
There was no salesperson in the department, so I walked deliberately toward the changing rooms. I pulled back the curtain closing off the entrance, then choose the left side and a booth three down the row. As always, I had given my wallet and FBI credentials to my wife to hold in her purse, a normal preventative security measure for someone who carries a badge for a living.
I took off my trousers and placed the belted waistband over a large hook at the top of the six-foot partition separating the stalls. I tried on a pair, and then another. I was definitely not a Spanish man’s body shape!
The third one seemed to be a charm, and I exited the booth, leaving my pants still on the hook. I walked past two vacant stalls and went right, through the changing room opening, and out to seek my wife’s opinion on my fashion choice, more accurately, whether the pants looked okay.
As I left the changing area, a man passed me going in. He was tall and slender, much more the “continental” body-shape than I would ever be. He had about an inch on me in height, something fairly rare in Spain, and a darker complexion that would have been a quality suntan in Southern California. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him make a left after he passed through the changing room portal.
When I had nearly reached my wife through the carousels of hanging pants, a thought occurred to me. I spun, with a quick about-face, and darted back to the changing rooms. I entered and looked left, just in time to see the man’s hand, high in the air, and his fingers reaching into the left rear pocket of my pants. That is where I kept my wallet! Fortunately, it wasn’t there, but that did not change his intent.
In a loud voice I called out, “Hey, ladrón!” “Ladrón,” of course, means “thief” in Spanish, and that was what he was about to be, if he’d had his way. But with my outburst, he pulled back his hand, as though I might not think he was doing exactly what he was, and started shaking his head saying, “No, no, no ladrón!”
I held my ground as he left the booth and darted toward me, but not at me. He slid passed, quickly, then continued to the other end of the “T” of the changing booths aisle, entering the last stall, three down. I remained standing near the portal entrance—and there was silence.
I pivoted, stepped out to the sales area, and went directly to my wife. There was still no one else there, no salespeople or other customers. She had heard the commotion and wondered what was going on. I told her a guy had entered the changing rooms, intent on stealing my wallet. He was still in there, and we needed to call security.
She put up a bit of an argument, but I found a phone on the counter near the cash register and picked it up, clicking on the button in the cradle. A female voice came on, an operator of some sort, and I said, in high-school Spanish, that I needed security, “Rápidamente, en el departamento de pantalones, porque hay un ladrón aquí.”
I hung up and, in only a few moments, two men came trotting through other departments toward us. They were of good enough size so I thought this would work. I had my wife translate what they needed to know, but their faces were not sure this reached the level of attention for them to take action. Then I added something important, which I had not said earlier.
I explained the man was still in there, but had not brought any pants with him to try on. That is, his sole reason for entering the changing area was to steal my wallet. I suggested they go and see for themselves, because he seemed to be hiding, waiting for me to go away.
This piqued their interest, and I got an appreciative nod from the more senior man. The two went over and through the opening, then turned right. There, in the last booth, they found the ladrón seated, seemingly, patiently, but not really waiting for them.
After a couple of minutes, the three of them came back out to the sales area. The two security guards had the thief’s hands cuffed behind him, and each held one of his arms, two-handed, above and below the elbows. It was a good come-along hold, and I was glad they had acted on my information. As they went by, the one in charge asked us to wait, and said another security man would be there shortly.
Good to his word, a third security guy appeared walking briskly through the store. He introduced himself and asked us to follow him.
We wound our way through various departments, then to the right and through an employees-only entrance door, down a corridor, out an exit door to a metal fire-escape, and zigzagged up a couple of floors with a decent view of Madrid surrounding us. In through another door and down more corridors, he opened a door for us which belonged to the Head of Security. We were ushered past a secretary and into the top man’s office. Actually, I had begun to wonder if we were not also under suspicion for an unknown reason, but things seemed to be working out, or so I thought.
The Jefe came from around his large desk, introduced himself, and shook our hands. We all sat down and he looked at me.
This was a moment when accuracy of speech could be important, and I didn’t want to err describing anything which had occurred. He opened his palms to me, essentially, asking what had happened.
As though on a witness stand (a place I am very familiar with, and actually enjoy), I laid out our travels, briefly, the need for pants, pointed at the ones I was wearing, which had begun to look shabby, and I still had not been able to make my purchase.
I described the visit to the pants department and the man who seemed to have followed me, going in just as I was leaving, then quickly returning to witness him reaching for my wallet. No, he hadn’t gotten it because it wasn’t there. My wife had been holding it.
His eyebrows went up and he agreed that had been wise, but it also meant there was, therefore, no actual crime committed by the man.
I mentioned that he had entered the changing area with no pants to change into, which had been suspicious to me. Again, the security chief’s eyebrows went up in surprise.
I looked to my wife and asked her to explain to the chief what I was, which was actually what was really behind all of this, but had not yet been stated. She explained I was Agente Especial en el Effay-Bay-Eee, en los Estados Unidos. With that, I brought out my FBI credentials, with its small gold badge inset on the front of the black case.
The security head took them and looked them over carefully. Then his head slowly began to nod, lips puffing out. He lost all interest in pursuing my having any improper intentions, as was initially the case, because he now understood my motivation. He returned the credentials, leaned far back in his chair, and smiled.
He explained a man matching the description of the one detained today had been making himself a menace in several of their stores over the last eighteen months. His modus operandi was going into men’s changing rooms to steal wallets, while the unaware customers were out in the sales area, most looking for more pants to try on or conferring with their wives. None of them, however, he said, had “caught him in the act.” But today, the thief’s luck had run out.
I pondered whether to discuss the term “luck” with him, but my Spanish wouldn’t let me keep up my end of the conversation. He added that the man would be transferred to police custody. The thief had already made at least a partial confession to the men who had shouldered him out of the pants department, and it was clear he was their long-sought ladrón.
Knowing we had a travel schedule, the chief commented that because of the evidence they already had, I would not be asked to stay, or return for the trial, from the U.S. That made me feel good, as I had been away from work long enough, and didn’t know how the Bureau would deal with the administrative leave necessary for me to make another trip to Spain. Besides, somebody at FBIHQ would, of course, have considered it another “Barnes boondoggle,” anyway.
Either way, I was almost beside myself that I had been able to assist local law enforcement while on vacation. Then it occurred to me that was exactly the point!
A vacation, for the likes of me, is not lying back on a Mediterranean beach, or climbing through the Valley of the Fallen, and around stone staircases in half-a-dozen castles. Rather, on my own time, and on my own dime, it is catching a bad guy 7000 miles from home. It was like a vignette from Fantasy Island, but on the European continent. That was my idea of a badge-carrier’s perfect vacation!
Wayne A. Barnes
December 17, 2015
Plantation, FL