Not With a Whimper Read online

  That stopped Domingo laughing. He got angry. “I am no woman. You expect me to cook for you. You bring a woman if you want cooking.” He spat into the fire and said, “No woman would look at a squint-eyed dog like you.” His voice crackled like his saliva on the flames.

  “Alright,” Félix snapped.

  “When did you ever have a woman,” Domingo sulked.

  “Alright.” Félix sounded mad. It was my turn to be amused.

  “I have known many fine women. When I was younger … “ He let his voice die away and he played with his memories. It was all he had left. Félix got up and walked over to the fireplace. He scraped the food remains into the fire. The dog looked sadly up at him. “If you had spent more time on fighting and less on fornicating, we might not have to be doing this today, old man.” The way he said it, he meant it, especially the ‘old man’. “We are fighting the battles your generation should have won. Later there will be time for women.” He shoved the plate hard into Domingo’s stomach so he had to clutch it doubled up. “Now take this out and wash it.”

  At the door the old man turned and said with contempt, “You will be no better than this lot.” Then he banged the door.

  He could be right. Félix looked like a fanatic and fanatics are dangerous. They have all the tolerance of a soldier ant. He poured two glasses of wine, looking satisfied after his outburst. “The old man lives in the past but his house is useful.” He took his wine like he took his food while I sipped mine. “So, tell me again.”

  I told him again and he scowled all the way through. It looked quite at home on his thin, dark face. He played with the glass and bottle and said, “Hey, they must be desperate.”

  I agreed with him and he grunted: “What is it, what is it they want to do?”

  “We have until Monday, Félix – maybe Saturday. Two days.”

  “But, what, Alan?”

  “An attack on the base?”

  He asked why and I said I didn’t know. It did nothing to take the scowl off his face.

  “We know Gunter Katz is behind it, only he must have another identity now. Keble? O’Halloran? Van Oudtschoorn?”

  “Maybe someone else.”

  “Maybe someone else,” I agreed morosely. It would narrow the field if it was one of those three but it didn’t have to be.

  “So what are we going to do?”

  “The police?”

  He lifted his lip in a sneer and said exactly the sort of thing you would expect him to say. “They are the lackeys of the landlords still.”

  I agreed with him but for different reasons. Legra could be in the conspiracy… there seemed enough of them. On balance, I thought not, but it wasn’t anything I could risk.

  “The Americans?”

  My turn to say no. “At least one high ranking officer is in on it.”

  He unpopped the cork and refilled his glass, saying, “You haven’t touched your wine.”

  I put the glass on table. “Maybe I shouldn’t.”

  “Eh?”

  Maybe it had been on my mind all the time, maybe that was why I hadn’t touched it. “I am going out to El Toro Negro, Félix . We must find out more, find out who exactly is involved. Then we shall know what to do.”

  “You are going to break into El Toro Negro?” He looked at me over the glass, doubtfully, then humphed and sounded irritable. “Where is the old fool?”

  “I’ll go and look.” I had a sudden desire to get outside, feel air on my skin and breathe the scents of the night.

  Domingo was sitting on the wall of the well, hunched and weathered like the timber of the well itself. He looked as if he had been sitting there for ever.

  I sat beside him. “A beautiful night, Domingo.”

  The old man took out a packet of cigarettes and offered me one. I showed him the cigar I was smoking. “That type are all the same.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  He lit up and we smoked in silence while I waited until it was time to go.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I climbed the gate into the wheat field. In the moonlight the buildings of El Toro Negro were a low tallow slab across the hilltop. I hunkered down in the silence, watching it for a time. No sign of a guard but there could be one by the main gate.

  I made no sound, not because I was good but because the soil was soft, fine and stone-free. Albarizas. The finest sherry-producing terrain. Some people never know when they are well off. But then some people can never have enough. Some people never get enough. Which was the sort of thought that wasn’t going to get me anywhere.

  I stopped at the end of the field. No-one in sight. I listened, heard nothing. The walls were well plastered, whitewashed silky and insurmountable. I edged towards the passageway I’d come out of yesterday. I hesitated and thought about it, deciding against it. The yard had blank walls and the bull might still be there. Once was enough.

  At the corner I knelt down, my knees cracking. I shivered and licked my lips. I was feeling nervous now. I was entitled to. I nudged my head forward to peer along the front of the building. Nobody. There was no cover.

  I pulled my head back to think it over. The main gate was the way in, the only way I knew.

  The gate was locked, but then I hadn’t expected it to be open. The wood was dull and heavy, split by aridity and heat. It fitted almost flush against the top of the arch capped by four feet of wall above that. And if I did get over, there might be a guard waiting for me on the other side. The only thing to do was the most obvious and stupid thing to do, but because it was obvious and stupid, I might get away with it.

  I knocked on the gate.

  There was a guard. I hadn’t heard his footsteps but a hoarse voice whispered, “Who is there?”

  “It is urgent. Katz sent me.”

  “Who?”

  “The German.”

  “What German?”

  He hadn’t heard of Katz. That made him an ordinary farm worker. “Sh,” I said. “We must not alarm everyone. I must speak with Don Carlos.”

  “Who are you?”

  I switched to German to confuse him. “Ich bin ein Freund von Herren Katz.”

  It worked. Bolts were drawn back, a key turned and the gate opened a half metre or so, followed by a shotgun barrel poking through. A stocky man in a cloth cap held it in one hand. The other was on the gate. But even one-handed it was too steady for me to try and take him. Anyway, I was going to talk my way in.

  “I have the most urgent message for Don Carlos. Where is he?”

  “Who are you?” he whispered.

  I whispered too. “Gunter Katz sent me. There is trouble.”

  He stood with hunched shoulders and thought it over.

  “Well?”

  He wasn’t employed to make decisions so he said “Alright” and stood aside. That didn’t mean he took the shotgun off me. I walked past confidently and he told me to wait. I waited. He started to shut the gate with one hand and I turned to help him. He was breathing heavily.

  “Do you want to go and tell Don Carlos I am here or shall I go myself?”

  “You go,” he snorted. “A man like me is not supposed to go inside.”

  I enlisted myself on the side of the poor downtrodden masses. I touched him on the arm. “You and I, hey?”

  “I hope the fat fool is having bad dreams.”

  I wished him worse than that but I stuck out my left hand, forefinger up, in agreement. “I shall not be long.”

  “Stay all night. I do not care.” He settled himself down on a broken hard-backed chair against the wall. His hand rasped over his chin. He needed a shave and he had needed one for several days. “I tell you, amigo. There are enough men for a hundred guards. But no, it is always the same, send for Agustín. No matter he has spent all day on the dehesa. The grasslands, yes?”

  “It was always thus,” I said. It always was.

  “You are German, too?” I could see a white rim to his eye as he asked. I said I was. “That is eight of you now.”
He shook his head. “No-one tells Agustín what is happening.”

  “I didn’t know the others had arrived.”

  “They came this afternoon. I tell you, amigo, they have so much luggage it would fill a battleship.” He coughed and spat. “I do not like what is going on here and tomorrow I shall tell Don Carlos. Sit here all night? The days are gone when a man should have to work like that.”

  I sympathised with him. He stood the shotgun against the wall. He took out a packet of cigarettes and offered me one. I took it and lit both cigarettes.

  “Your message?” He jerked a thumb at the door to the inner patio.

  “They can wait.” I flicked the match away through the air and Agustín chuckled. “They did not tell me the others had arrived.” I faked an aggrieved voice.

  “They came by van this afternoon, Pura said.” He coughed again. A short cough, like wet sand. “Uniforms. Do you know they have the uniforms of American sailors with them? Pura saw them.”

  I didn’t but I was beginning to see a little daylight. “I am like you, Agustín. They tell me nothing.” I was still aggrieved.

  “They come from South America. Did you know that?” He looked up at me. The moonlight caught his face. It was a face that a lot of hard work had gone into, long hours in the open air and not too much food. The skin was thick, folded over bone and muscle and what fat there was you could have put in a lizard’s eye. The eyes were permanently narrowed from staring into the sun, wind and rain, and were as shrewd just like most people who spend their days out of doors. They do a lot of thinking.

  I muttered something.

  “Tchah. Germans everywhere. No offence.”

  Like hell he’d meant no offence.

  “I, Agustín Mingote, shall tell him tomorrow. Don Carlos, I shall say, I am not going to work for you any more. May the girls spit on me forever if I do not.” He laughed harshly, choked on it a little turning it into a cough.

  I threw the cigarette butt down, ground it in, said, “See you in a moment, Agustín.”

  I walked quickly but casually to the patio door while he went back under his cap and thought about whatever he’d been thinking about before I arrived.

  The door had to be open. It was trouble if it wasn’t. The handle was cold. I turned. It opened. I found I’d been holding my breath, so I let it out slowly and silently while closing the door behind me as quietly as my breath.

  The patio was darker than the main courtyard. I waited and gradually I was able to make out shapes, meaning I could get to the house without falling over the fountain or one of the items of garden furniture dotting the place. The fountain had been shut off.

  The house door was locked. It was a double door of heavy carved red mahogany, with a simple rim lock. A penknife blade between the bar and striker plate took care of it. The only thing it would keep out at night would be the moths. And I made no more sound than one opening it.

  I was inside. The study door was diagonally opposite and there was nothing much in the way of furniture between me and it, only a low coffee table.

  I took my time in there and plotted the furniture in the room. Glass-fronted bookcases on my left and opposite, either side of the fireplace. A desk and chair parallel to the left wall, facing into the middle of the room. Two leather armchairs, one wing, one tub, facing the fire. A bureau of some kind on my right. I left, closing the door gently, and padded cautiously to the window, drew the curtains. They moved without a sound so I clicked on the table light.

  It was the standard black wrought iron with a pleated red silk shade and gave out a warm light, bright enough to see by but not so luminous as to show through the heavy tapestry curtains.

  I started with the desk and did it professionally, beginning with the bottom drawers. The desk was stained oak with a red-tooled leather top. I went through the papers quickly and it didn’t take long on each one to see they all had to do with the estate or the house. Bureau next and nothing in it. Then the wastepaper basket. Lots of clues have been found in wastepaper baskets.

  I found the contents of several ashtrays and an envelope. It was addressed to Don Carlos and the postmark was Magaz but I had no idea where Magaz was. Some part of Spain? But what part? No. It had an airmail franking so it had to come from abroad. I turned it over. It came from Wolfgang Schiller and Magaz was in Paraguay.

  I was getting somewhere, not far, but somewhere. There are a lot of German Nazis in Paraguay.

  I wandered over to the bookcase and thought about going through all the books, but not for long. It was a three-hour job to do it properly.

  I found what I was looking for in the open. It lay on a round ceramic-tiled occasional table in front of the high-backed chair. A plain manila folder.

  The top page was a timetable and what Agustín had told me made it easier to understand.

  Asunción 13.30

  Río 18.15

  Madrid Ll.18.00

  Sal.09.20

  Málaga 10.45

  Casa Morena, Torre Verde, 11.30. Salida 09.00. Llevar 12.00 (?) (200 kms, aproximadamente).

  Asunción, capital of Paraguay. So the seven Germans had flown in from Paraguay, rested up at the Casa Morena, which was highly significant when I remembered that his Christian name was Rafael.

  I turned to the next sheet. It was a hand-drawn map of the area and headed “La Gaviota”. Nice name: the seagull. It had been drawn by someone who knew how to draw maps. The estancia was marked. The naval base and the whole of the bay from Rota to El Puerto was drawn in detail, including the officers’ quarters and the hotel, along with the development in Fuentebravia which is immediately south of the base. A house was marked and named on the edge of the development. Casa de las Habas. That was all.

  I replaced it exactly as I had found it. I could remember it. It didn’t tell me much but I could guess. A special squad from Paraguay. American uniforms to infiltrate the base. A SALIK 2, for example, can be stripped and carried in a couple of holdalls – along with warheads. I still couldn’t guess why, though.

  I had enough.

  I switched the light off, opened the curtains and took the usual time letting my eyes readjust to the darkness. I began to get nervous. I could feel the cold while I shivered and waited. It seemed too damn quiet. I crept to the door, feeling edgy and brittle. I listened, still quiet. Across the lounge. Listened again. Nothing. So I opened the door.

  Nothing. That same deadening silence. I was getting away with it.

  The door shut but I couldn’t stop it clicking. However it attracted no more attention than a leaf falling.

  I crossed the patio briskly and opened the door onto the outer courtyard. Agustín looked at me sideways from his chair, the white of his eye a cold milky spot in the dark frame of his face.

  “It’s always the one who brings the news that gets the grief,” I grumbled my way across to him. “You would think it was my fault. I did not want to come –” I looked at my watch, “ – at four in the morning.”

  He let his chair fall forward from the wall and stood up all in one movement. “At least you are going home to bed. I must stay here all night.” He spat and laid his shotgun against the wall. We walked to the gate together, grumbling about the injustice of it all. I waited while he unbolted the gate. A light came on in a room at the far end of the courtyard. Agustín turned to look at it. He held the bolt out of its socket but the gate closed.

  “What a pity,” he said with sarcasm. “We have woken them up.” He spoke louder so his voice would carry to the lit room. “Have a safe journey, mi amigo.” He winked at me and grinned. I grinned back at him. A guilty schoolboy grin but I played along with him. Only a yard separated me from the outside of the cortejo. I clapped him on the shoulder and raised my voice, too.

  “It is a pity that we cannot all sleep at night. Some of us must work.” It was meant to reassure the man who had put the light on.

  Agustín chuckled and opened the door.

  A silhouetted figure appeared against the li
ght of an open door.

  “Good luck,” I said. “Adios.” One of the hardest things to do is to stand when you want to run – and I wanted to run. My luck was running out.

  “Where is your car?” Agustín hadn’t finished with me.

  The figure was coming towards us.

  “Eh?”

  “Your car.”

  I stared down the empty avenue leading to the gate. “I left it on the road,” I heard myself saying. “Katz said I was not to wake everyone up.”

  “That’s right,” he muttered. “I did not hear a car. So you had to walk.”

  I edged out of the gate. I couldn’t run now. He was peering, head cocked, holding his trousers by one hand. I knew what he held in the other.

  I edged another couple of steps. “And you tell Don Carlos, eh?”

  “On my sister’s grave.” He began to close the gate. “Adios.”

  “Adios.”

  I started to walk down the avenue and my back was to them. It was the most exposed back in the western world, big as a bus and full of nerves, every one raw.

  Agustín carried on closing the gate and the man said something in clumsy Spanish. Agustín didn’t answer. The bolt hammered home.

  My luck had held. I turned and ran. Back up to the house. I could hear Agustín speaking loudly and clearly like you do to foreigners. I was a messenger from Señor Katz. The man said something about teléfono.

  Along the house, past the vines, to the wheat field. I kept on running. The soft white soil wasn’t a bad running track. The main thing was to get to the car. If they opened the gate they would see I wasn’t on the avenue. But if they opened the gate, they would already know I wasn’t a messenger from Katz. They couldn’t catch me on foot now – I had too big a start. The vines and wheat made waist-high cover.

  It was a lot farther running back than coming up. My stomach began to hurt and my chest worked hard to get the oxygen I needed.

  I slowed down. I could reach the car safely before they opened the gate, realised I wasn’t there, went back, got a car and came after me.

  I wasn’t much more than halfway down the field, not going much faster than walking pace, when I heard the gate open and a car start. The bastards hadn’t waited to check. They were coming after me. That meant they would get to the main road before me.