by Lex Lander
‘Papa is generalissimo of the Southern Regional Command,’ Elena replied. ‘Although the Spanish Army has only one regular soldier to two conscripts, the ratio here is nearer fifty-fifty. Papa has some influence with the General Staff of the Army, also with the Defence Minister, as we have told you.’
‘What do you think, hey?’ Luis’ eyes on me glowed like live coals.
I set the binoculars aside, extracted the camera, careful to keep it clear of the puddle.
‘Impressive. It doesn’t prove they’re about to invade Gibraltar though. Maybe they’re on manoeuvres.’
Elena expelled a ‘Pah!’ of disgust. Luis, more tolerant, no chips on his shoulder, checked off the points on his fingers.
‘There is what we already know, the three of us between us, about my father’s secret negotiations. Secondly – army manoeuvres have never been held here before, they have always been in the Campo, far to the north. This is private land, not Government-owned. Thirdly – never so many men, never more than two brigades.’
So far I wasn’t all that impressed with the reasoning. It was too circumstantial. I extended the zoom lens, took a squint through the viewfinder. With the sun out the definition was excellent. The unit numbers on the vehicles showed up distinctly.
‘Fourthly,’ Luis chanted, ‘there is matériel down there that does not belong to Papa’s command.’
‘So what?’
‘Normally he would have one armoured brigade and one infantry. Down there is the equivalent of two of each.’
Still so what? was my internal reaction.
‘Go on,’ I said.
‘Go on? What’s to go on?’ Luis was growing excitable, the Latin in him bubbling up. ‘Papa’s command has been increased by two brigades, only they are not new brigades, but a doubling in size of the two he has already. They carry the same numbers. This has never happened, except perhaps in time of war.’
‘Maybe I’m not as bright as I thought I was, but what are you implying?’
‘That somebody wanted to strengthen his force secretly. They wouldn’t dare simply transfer two brigades from another regional command, it would be noticed by the High Command. Instead, they have reinforced existing units, probably from several different regions, so that on paper the number of brigades here is the same as always. This way they build the strength they need to invade yet contain the knowledge. Now do you see?’
‘Yes.’ And I was finally beginning to ‘see’.
Elena loosed off an ironic cheer.
‘You can’t expect him to understand the workings of the Spanish Army,’ Luis said in my defence.
‘I don’t suppose there could be some other explanation?’ I said.
Luis blew out his cheeks in exasperation. ‘Why look for other explanations? You already have the correct one.’
With the lens set at maximum zoom I sighted the camera and panned slowly left to right across the valley. Then re-setting normal vision I did a reverse sweep, from right to left.
‘Do you think you have all you need?’ Elena had borrowed the binoculars and was tracking a helicopter across the far ridge.
‘Unless you think we should count heads,’ I cracked, but she didn’t respond, intent on the helicopter.
Luis was already backing out, slithering on his stomach.
‘All clear this side,’ he announced, seconds later. I wriggled out after him; Elena brought up the rear, the glasses dangling from her neck in the water. We were all soaked down our fronts. I stowed the camera and at a crouch we headed for the ravine. It opened up before us, the cover it provided like a welcome home. As we scrambled over the lip, I lost my footing and came down hard on sharp chunk of rubble. My ‘Ouch!’ made Elena titter, the heartless bitch.
In single file we jogged down the hillside. Below and to our left the Audi came into sight. Linda was perched on the hood. I thought I saw her wave. Unease fluttered in the pit of my stomach as I saw how close we had parked to the encampment. The chopper patrolling this area must have spotted the car, must have questioned its presence in this remote spot.
‘Wait,’ Luis, last in line, called. He had halted and was staring down into the valley that ran from the tip of the lake down to the road. ‘Look – a jeep.’
No need for the binoculars: it was a jeep, sure enough, with four occupants. Fairly rocketing along the dirt track that served the encampment. It had, I judged, about a couple of kilometres to travel before it reached Linda and the Audi. It would be hidden from her until it was clear of the end of the ridge, and by then it would be too late for her to react.
Resuming jogging, I yanked my cell phone free of my jeans pocket. Pressed the button for Linda’s number. It buzzed as the call went through, but only feebly.
‘It’s no good here,’ Elena said, coming up alongside me. ‘Reception is very poor.’
She was right. My cell’s screen displayed only a single bar on the reception grid, and even that was flicking on and off. I listened in, but heard only static.
I could see Linda. She was looking up the hillside, shading her eyes. I signalled manically. Wasted energy. Even if she could see my gesticulations they wouldn’t mean anything to her.
‘Come on!’ I put on a spurt, leaping from boulder to boulder like a baboon.
‘No!’ This from Luis; he and Elena had dropped back. ‘Come back, Mr Warner! You will be caught.’
He was probably right but I wasn’t about to run out on Linda. The camera case thudded against my chest as I went blundering down the ravine. It would have to be junked before I ran into the soldiers.
‘Come back!’ Luis, fainter now, a despairing note.
No chance of my reaching or even coming within hearing range of Linda before that jeep got to her. I worked this out in my head as I continued my reckless descent. A red herring was needed and I was the only one available. Without slowing, I swerved towards the side of the ravine, scrambled up it, sliding in the loose scree, and out onto the hillside where they couldn’t miss seeing me. Still running and in full view, I took a beeline for the Audi.
I had temporarily lost sight of the jeep; now it emerged from an outcrop of rocks, and the soldiers spotted me at once. The engine note altered, revs dropping then, decision made, it swung decisively from the track and came at me, bouncing on the rugged terrain. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Linda start forward, hesitate, then back-pedal towards the car. I had bought her an escape route – I hoped she had the sense to use it.
The jeep well and truly lured in my direction, I turned from it and retraced my steps at speed towards the ravine. The Irazola twins were nowhere in view. The jeep’s engine, straining in low gear, rose in volume behind me. My only hope of avoiding capture lay in the ravine, as crossing it in a wheeled vehicle would be an impossibility. It wouldn’t be necessary either if the soldiers had orders to shoot. With that disturbing thought I started zigzagging.
The jeep’s engine was howling, the front bumper almost within bumping distance of my backside, when I tumbled into the ravine. My fall was softened by something human, with soft curves – Elena, curled up below the overhang. She gave out a sequence of yelps as we rolled down into the bed of the gully in a tangle of limbs, finishing up with her chest in my face. In other circumstances a possibly erotic posture.
We groaned in chorus. She called me something in Spanish. It didn’t sound complimentary.
Luis was there too, a little higher up the gully, pressed against the side. He didn’t look at me. Paralysed with fright, I supposed. I supposed wrong, as it turned out.
The jeep had gone quiet. Voices filtered down into the ravine. I was upright, unhurt, and brushing damp dirt from my pants when four soldiers arrived on foot at the lip of the ravine. Their leader wore sergeant’s stripes and a pistol at his belt. He was thick gutted, moustachioed, cocky. He grinned at me from above, grinned even more widely at Elena, who was still on her bottom, her T-shirt the worse for wear, exposing flesh and a white bra strap. The three troopers, sub-machine guns
slung from their shoulders, whistled appreciation. One of them worked the zipper of his fly, blatantly suggestive.
‘Ustedes vienen conmigo,’ the sergeant said, his Spanish patois not easy to decipher. I interpreted it to myself as ‘You come with me.’ He hadn’t yet spotted Luis, still crouched under the projecting lip of the ravine.
Elena told the sergeant what he could do with his order. He didn’t take amiss, merely motioned to his underlings.
‘Bring them out. Maybe we’ll have some fun with this spitfire, heh?’ He whistled appreciation. ‘Look at those tits.’
‘Tell them who you are, Elena,’ I urged her. They wouldn’t dare fool with the daughter of their commander-in-chief. If she heard me, she didn’t react.
‘Esta Señorita Irazola,’ I said, adding that she was the daughter of ‘su general’.
They roared with laughter. Either they didn’t believe it, or they weren’t impressed. The trooper with the agitated zipper lowered himself gingerly over the edge of the ravine, the other two queuing up to follow.
That was when Luis, still tucked away beneath the lip, made his move.
He sprang away from the side of the ravine, agile as a cat, and screamed something short, sharp, that might have been ‘frezas de putas!’ approximately translatable as whores’ shit. The troopers didn’t take offence. Maybe the fat automatic Luis had lined up on them accounted for this. He held it as if he was born to it, two-fisted, straight-armed. Not a muscle trembled.
To a man the troopers looked towards the sergeant. He had paled but some of the discipline held fast. He clapped a hand to his holster and that was his last act on earth.
You could see from the chubby grip of Luis’ automatic that it held a sufficiency of rounds. He used three on the sergeant – more than adequate: the heavy slugs picked the man up and tossed him away down the hillside. His men made vain efforts to unsling their sub-machine guns but they were a maladroit lot; the zipper operator dropped his and his screech of grief singled him out as Luis’ next victim.
I didn’t count the gunshots but fifteen was about right. Luis fired them all. He fired until the slide locked open and his gun was empty. By then he didn’t need it any more. Quiet was restored but for the echoes of the gunshots racketing along the ravine.
Throughout the brief slaughter I didn’t move. I was at forty-five-plus degrees to Luis’ line of fire and therefore safe from all but the most errant of shots. And none of Luis’ shots had been errant. As far as I could tell every single round struck flesh. The three troopers lay in the bed of the ravine, motionless, a dishevelled heap of uniforms. Death had seemed to shrink them. Luis, dispassionate, expressionless, was wreathed in gunsmoke. It clung to him in tendrils, though the whiff of cordite, initially strong, soon dispersed.
‘Well,’ I said, to break the thrall that bound us. ‘That was a pretty thorough job you did there, Luis.’
He let out a breathless giggle. His eyes were sparkling, bright as agate chips. He didn’t speak, just worked the action of the automatic to return the slide.
Elena, also outwardly unmoved by the slaughter, said, ‘We must get away from here. They will have heard those shots.’
‘I don’t think so,’ I said, surprised at my own calmness, the ability to think rationally still intact. Maybe I was too inured to violent death, most of it at my own hands. ‘The ridge is between us and the camp, and there’s the noise from the choppers.’
But reinforcements had been summoned before the shootings. As we clambered from the ravine a second jeep with a truckful of troopers in tow was bouncing along the dirt road, following the same route as the first.
‘Come on, quick!’ I rapped, and scrambled out of the ravine and into the jeep, whose engine was obligingly ticking over, all ready to roll. I spared a glance for the road and the Audi: it was still there. It wasn’t enough to have saved Linda once, I was going to have to do it all over again.
Elena swung in beside me while Luis piled in the back. I heard the unmistakable clunk of a magazine rammed home. The vicious little hoodlum had come prepared for a major campaign. And to think I had crossed the frontier in the same car as that armoury! The moral impact of the multiple murder hadn’t hit me yet. I was still just relieved to have been spared a repeat interview with Julio Irazola.
‘Down the hill to the road,’ Elena commanded. In any case we had no alternative. Twice I crunched the unfamiliar gearbox, then we took off. In the mirror I saw our pursuers alter course and come lurching after us.
The hillside was not built for motor vehicles and jeeps sure don’t go in for soft springing. Every rock, every irregularity in the terrain came up through the chassis to the top of your skull. My backside spent more time in the air than on the unpadded seat. At least I had the steering wheel to cling to. Elena gripped the top of the windshield with both hands but was nevertheless thrown about plenty. Luis in the back had the worst of it, the expletives coming in an endless stream.
At intervals during this blundering descent I darted a sideways glance towards the Audi. It hadn’t moved. For God’s sake, Linda, get out of there! Leave the heroics to me. I resolved to head deeper inland as soon as we hit the road, in the hope of drawing the pursuit away from her. But Elena saw it differently.
‘The other way!’ she bawled in my ear as we smacked onto the tarmac, wheels skittering on the still wet surface.
‘Stuff you!’ I roared back, and crushed the accelerator to the floor. The shadow of a mountain on our left closed over us. Elena, accepting the inevitable, sank back in her seat.
Luis’ head bobbed up in the mirror.
‘It’s okay, Mr Warner,’ he said, slapping my shoulder. ‘I agree we must think of Miss Pridham.’
‘You’re a stand-up guy, Luis,’ I said and meant it. The little punk might be gun happy, he might even be plumb crazy, but his heart was in the right place.
The road took us first west, then north, away from the valley and through a narrow defile. Our pursuers, less reckless perhaps, fell back and lost visual contact. The helicopters worried me though. It could only be a matter of minutes before they came to hunt us down, like hounds after a coursing hare. Sure enough, after we had covered perhaps ten kilometres, Luis let out a warning cry.
‘Here they come.’
Two of them, in echelon. They were weaving over the open countryside, one on each side of the road, while we were still under the shelter of the mountains and would be hard to spot in our grey-green livery.
‘There!’ Elena indicated a track, no more than parallel ruts veering off to the left, passing a coppice of trees, just big and thick enough to hide us. I wrenched at the wheel and in less than a minute we were ploughing into the coppice.
‘Do you think they can see us?’ Elena wondered, as we sat under the trees’ canopy while the slender machines buzzed low overhead without break in their flight path.
‘No,’ I said, ‘but if they’ve any savvy at all they’ll realise these trees are the only hiding place within miles.’
Luis shook his head. ‘Not so, my friend. There are some olive plantations across the valley. Plenty of places to hide there.’
‘I hope you’re right,’ I said, to the dying stammer of the two choppers. ‘Because if you’re not, they’ll be back.’
It was reasonable to assume the jeep and truck would be waiting for feedback from the choppers. When none came, hopefully they’d give up and go home.
We stayed under the trees for some hours. The choppers came back after an hour or so but passed a safe distance from our refuge. I made attempts to call Linda on all our cell phones but reception was still too weak.
With the onset of evening the rain resumed, bringing an early nightfall. Now we were safe until daylight. We erected the jeep’s canvas top and, Elena driving, quit the trees and carried on up the valley. Where we were going wasn’t even discussed, and I for one didn’t care. Simply keeping out of the clutches of the Spanish Army was ambition enough for now. So I just sat there, clinging on to th
e windshield, thinking about Linda, hoping she wasn’t passing the night in the vengeful custody of her former lover.
Chapter Nineteen
Aesthetically the house was a wreck: extensions sprouted from every angle and the whole dump was coated in several different shades of crepi. A wistful palm tree flanked the front door, no doubt wishing it was somewhere more congenial. From a sagging clothes line hung a pair of singlets and a towel.
It was also a lonely spot. A good five kilometres from the nearest village, no neighbours, no view of the sea, awful roads. It was perfect.
‘Foreigners,’ Luis observed, reflecting aloud my own thoughts. ‘Only foreigners would have a home in such a place. The price must have been very low.’
‘A house is a house,’ Elena said, ever the practical twin. ‘And it has a garage. We must get under cover. They will still be looking for us.’
The sun was still down behind the hills to the east but already its rays were bathing the sky. We had not travelled far under the protection of darkness. A blow-out, a flat spare and no means to inflate it had spoiled our plan for a dash east and then south to Algeciras before dawn, there to lose the jeep and ourselves in the vortex of a big city.
‘It’s occupied.’ I pointed out. A decrepit Citroën 2CV was drawn up alongside the garage.
Luis did that breathless giggle thing and patted the gun at his belt. ‘It does not matter. They will do as we say.’
I had forgotten about the gun. Yesterday was remote, it had happened to somebody else. Even today was surreal. This was some other guy, tired and mud-plastered, crouching in a roadside ditch, accessory to four murders, now contemplating forcibly entering someone’s home.
I was hungry though, and the house represented shelter and food. If nothing else, we could eat. And we did need to get under cover. The four bodies would have been discovered. The hunt would be on in earnest.
Being a fugitive was not a new experience. I had been a fugitive before. What got to me was the irony of it. All the years of killing and getting away with it, to end up on the run for someone else’s killings.