SPANISH ROCK

by Lex Lander

  As Ribble filtered us into the Caleta parking lot behind a minibus I kept a lookout for the twins’ Audi. It was there all right, next to the Aston. Linda had done good. I was looking forward to our reunion more than I cared to admit, even to myself.

  ‘What’s next?’ Ribble enquired jeeringly as I dismounted. ‘A trip to the Canaries perhaps?’

  ‘You’re forgetting your place, Major,’ I said.

  He bristled.

  ‘I’ll be in touch.’ I added a farewell nod.

  He drove off in a surfeit of revs and resentment.

  Message at the desk. Would I contact a Mr Wyatt in London. No surprise there. Same old Toby, fretting at the lack of contact, anxious for feedback. The message was three days old.

  ‘Is Miss Pridham in?’ I asked Harry at the front desk.

  His gaze roved over the keys. ‘313? No, not in her room at any rate.’

  ‘Yes, funny that.’ This was from an over-made up blonde woman, one of the reception team. Past forty and dressed twenty.

  ‘What’s funny?’ Harry and I said together.

  ‘Miss Pridham didn’t spend last night in her room. In fact …’ she sucked at a pencil while she thought, ‘… I don’t believe I’ve seen her since breakfast yesterday morning.’

  Harry crooked an eyebrow my way.

  ‘I can’t understand that,’ I said. ‘Her car’s outside, the Audi. Well, it’s not her car exactly, it belongs to some friends, but she’s using it.’

  ‘Oh, she walks quite a lot,’ Blondie said brightly. ‘She said exercise was good for pregnancy.’

  My next line of enquiry was a trip upstairs to check her room for a clue to her whereabouts or a message. The keys to the twins’ Audi were on her night table. Her purse was absent. Next I searched my own room, not expecting much and finding even less. I descended to the ground floor and used the keys to search the interior of the Audi. Another blank. Back in my room I plugged my cell into the charger and called hers again, with the same non-result.

  From the hotel I transferred to the adjacent village and the beach hoping to spot her. Worry piling up like thunder clouds. One crisis over, another begins. And over the horizon more thunder clouds in the shape of Toby and his masters. Impatient for news, anxious for progress. I had news for them all right, of an impending invasion of the piece of real estate they were determined to hang on to. But it wasn’t what I had been recruited for.

  Night fell and still no Linda, and her cell remained switched off. I dined alone at the hotel. Worry killed my appetite and the waiter raised eyebrows over the amount of picked-over food I sent back to the kitchens. Usually I cleared my plate.

  Afterwards I found a niche in the main bar, cuddled a glass of Scotch and wished I were cuddling Linda instead. Hard drink and introspection go well together, I find. So I drank and introspected about eight deaths that, in part at least, could be laid at my door. Dwelling on them made me feel hollow, so I drank faster to take away the feeling. I introspected too about an invasion that might or might not be going to happen, and about my duty to contact Toby and alert him anyway; about how I was neglecting my mission here in Gibraltar. But these were peripheral fleabites compared with my introspection about Linda.

  The telephone call came virtually on the stroke of midnight, as if it had been timed. They paged me. I took it on an extension in the bar. Expecting Toby and a right royal roasting.

  Instead I got a man whose English was too punctiliously modulated to be his mother tongue.

  ‘It is good that you have returned. The young lady will be relieved.’ He mispronounced his diphthongs: relee-eved.

  ‘Who is this?’ I demanded, words slurring. Drink had made me dull.

  ‘This is someone who is taking care of your lady friend.’

  The dullness suddenly morphed into brightness. I didn’t ask him to repeat it.

  ‘Say what you’ve got to say,’ I snarled into the receiver. The barman, wiping out a beer glass, gave me a startled look. I swivelled away to present my back to him.

  ‘You will come here,’ my caller instructed, ‘alone, unarmed, and tell no one where you are going. Is that understood?’

  ‘Get on with it, you piece of shit,’ I said through my teeth.

  A tinkle of laughter, like tiny bells.

  ‘Piece of shit.’ He chortled. ‘You Americans are so amusing.’ Then, the tone reverting to businesslike, ‘You will leave immediately. Here is the address …’

  * * * * *

  Exactly as ordered, I left immediately and drove hard and fast, taking the tunnel road out towards Europa Point. Wind Mill Flats, was my destination, and the barman had directed me with the aid of a foldup tourist map, which he then donated to me. Inside the car I opened the hidden compartment at the bottom of the glove compartment, and hooked out the SIG by its trigger guard. The P365 is what’s known as a carrygun, by virtue of its compact dimensions. It was still grown-up enough to hold ten rounds in the magazine plus one in breech. I rammed it down my pants waistband, in the small of my back. Uncomfortable when driving, but comfort wasn’t a priority right now.

  On the other side of the tunnel were some buildings tucked into a notch in the hillside – military married quarters was my guess. I passed them by. It was a clear moonlit night, the sea tranquil. Further on, more married quarters, climbing the hillside. Squares of light from their windows made holes in the darkness. Here, according to my directions, I had to perform a complicated manoeuvre, sharp left, down a hill, left again and yet again. I missed the initial turn, realised my error when the headlights panned across a hospital sign. I reversed in the hospital driveway and doubled back.

  No more mistakes. I passed under a bridge. A tunnel loomed, a black toothless scream in the night. As I entered it the Aston’s exhaust throbbed back at me. A bat flipped across the windshield, was tossed aside like a scrap of cloth. Just beyond the tunnel exit, on the left, was a parking lot, and beyond it a beach lit up by two feeble streetlamps. I turned off the road, parked the Aston carelessly and slid out.

  ‘Good evening, Mr Warner.’

  The voice was that of my recent caller. He was standing in a patch of shadow under a tree. His clothes were drab, merging with the background, only his disembodied face revealed. His hair was fair, his height well above average. I knew him then – the guy with the Slavic features and the roly-poly girlfriend. Not a total surprise then. The gun he was pointing at my gut wasn’t a surprise either.

  He gestured at me to raise my arms. His frisking technique was thorough. It told me I was up against a pro, and needed to respect that fact. Naturally, he found the SIG. He hefted it in his hand, but didn’t comment.

  ‘Come with me, please.’

  It was too early for gung-ho moves that might increase the risk to Linda. Wait and watch and eventually would come an opening.

  He had a penlight and flashed this on and off as we climbed up the rockface with me in the lead, to the promontory that abutted onto the beach. No words passed between us. The climb was easy, via a narrow path to the top. Once there he kept the penlight off, letting the moonlight guide us. The edge of the married quarters estate was quite near. I could actually hear music and laughter. A party was in progress. I wished I was there.

  We went across the top of the tunnel, made a U-turn and came to some steps, cut into solid rock and leading down. The penlight flashed, illuminating a door, steel like that inside the tunnel but without padlocks. I realised then that I had been given false directions, most likely as a precaution against my passing them on.

  The door opened more easily than its condition would have suggested. Within was light, weak and diffused, and more steps. My captor remained mute. I assumed we were entering one of the old galleries with which the Rock is honeycombed. Not quite. It transpired to be a natural cavern, with only the enlarged entrance bearing marks of man’s hand. Such places were often used as munitions stores during the last war.

  With each step the shimmer of light became stronger. The step
s unwound gradually, as if we were descending inside a round tower. At the bottom we made a right-angled turn. From somewhere came a continuous hiss.

  We had landed in a long, high-ceilinged vault of a cave, lit by several butane gas lamps, which explained the hissing. Crates were piled in a far corner; closer at hand, some beams, thick as railway sleepers but much longer, were loosely stacked. Black with filth, they looked as if they had been here since the cave was discovered. It was dank and chilly, how I imagined the inside of a tomb would be. Underfoot, no flooring, just compacted dirt.

  In the cave were two women. I recognised the guy’s plump partner, now dressed in workmanlike one-piece coveralls, too tight all over to be flattering. Her straight black hair was done up in an untidy knot, secured by black ribbon.

  The second woman was Linda.

  Linda naked, her back to me, the dimples in her bare buttocks emphasising her helplessness and the indignity.

  Linda, head drooping, dangling from a rusty chain bolt, fixed to a beam across the ceiling, her feet at waist level.

  Linda, suspended by her thumbs.

  The gun was still covering me. Oblivious of it, I started forward, driven by a blind intent to help Linda, to release her.

  ‘Stay where you are!’ the guy commanded. The woman moved to block my path. She produced an automatic, toylike but sure to be loaded with real bullets.

  I may have faltered but I was still going forward when the woman re-directed her pistol downwards.

  ‘Come further and I will shoot you in the foot,’ she said in impeccable English, and her tone was calm and measured. It was a douche of cold water on the heat of my madness. It was effective in stopping me.

  ‘Tell me what you want,’ I said hoarsely, ‘and let her down.’

  ‘That is precisely it,’ the man said. I was still facing Linda. Behind me came the snap of a cigarette lighter. ‘You have grasped the point very quickly, Mr Warner. You tell me what I want, and we will let her down.’

  ‘Linda,’ I called out. ‘Linda – speak to me.’

  No reply, only the hiss of the gas lamps. Then ever so slightly her head lifted once, twice. She was alive, however tenuous the thread.

  ‘How long has she been up there, fuck-face?’ I demanded of the guy.

  ‘Please do not insult me,’ he said, so cheerfully that again came the urge to rush at him and wrap my fingers about his thin neck and squeeze until my ears popped from the pressure … ‘My name is Petrov.’

  ‘How long … fuck-face?’ I said. Considering that he was armed, and had Linda at his mercy, it might have been smarter not to taunt him. Rage was making me incautious.

  ‘How long?’ Lips were pursed, as if in genuine contemplation. ‘An hour or two. Or maybe three. Not long by our standards.’

  ‘State your terms, for Christ’s sake.’

  He was in no hurry though. Making me sweat was part of the thrill. The longer he dragged it out the readier I would be to do his bidding.

  His teeth glinted. ‘You may take your time.’

  ‘Take your time,’ the plump woman echoed.

  She had acquired a broom handle and was rubbing it up and down between Linda’s thighs. Linda didn’t respond. She hung there, slack and unmoving, like a carcass on a hook. Her skin was pale with a pearl-like translucent sheen; an even paler bikini pants-shaped band linked hip to hip.

  I turned to face Petrov, forcing detachment into my voice as I said, ‘You won’t make me more cooperative by prolonging it. Tell me what you’re after and let’s be done with it.’

  Behind me came a gasp, more of surprise than pain. I spun round. The woman had the broom handle hard up into Linda’s crotch, impaling her. As I watched she moved it up and down inside her. A slanted smile on her face to go with her warped mind. Her free hand still held the gun.

  Blood was pounding inside my head. I was about to go for Petrov, gun and all, when he rapped out a single word of command to the woman. Looking sulky, her fun spoiled, she lowered the pole.

  ‘Stop right now,’ I grated, ‘or you’re a dead man. ‘

  ‘Ho, ho, brave talk,’ he said, cigarette between lips. ‘It is I who hold the gun, my friend, not you. I could kill you now and it would disturb me no more than if I had trodden on a slug. I would be happy to kill you. I would sing with joy –’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ I grunted. ‘You’ve made your point.

  ‘If you will permit me to finish. I was about to say that I have no orders to kill you other than in self-defence. How I interpret self-defence is, however, my decision alone. In any case, there are some injuries that can be inflicted to which death would be preferable. In my country, we are experts in death by excruciating, unimaginable pain.’

  ‘In Russia you mean?’

  ‘It is of no consequence to you which country I represent. You do not, as you British spies say, need to know.’

  In the subfusc light his features were gaunt, almost skeletal. He looked the part of the degenerate creep he was.

  Petrov’s female satellite had retreated to some dingy recess. Now she returned, carrying a tubular steel chair that she set down before me, a metre or so from where Linda dangled.

  ‘Sit,’ the woman ordered. Petrov ratified the order with a twitch of gun barrel.

  A roll of duct tape was produced. This was my last chance of fighting back before they immobilised me. But these were old pros. Petrov stood well out of reach, toting both his and the woman’s weapons.

  ‘Resist and your woman will suffer,’ he warned,

  Dead or disabled, I would be no use to Linda. In some trepidation I sat in the steel chair. While the man kept me covered the woman taped my wrists to the chair arms and my ankles and calves to the front legs, and my torso to the chair back. She was thorough; she got through the entire roll. When she had finished I could just about move from the neck upwards but that was my limit.

  ‘So, then, Mr Warner, we come to the moment of truth … of your truth.’ He was leaning against the wall now, the little automatic lined up with my belly button. He tossed the other gun back to the woman. ‘You will explain what you are doing here in Gibraltar. I want your brief, the identity of your controller in London, your contacts here, your contacts with GIBESTÁ. I want to know about the bombing and the source of your materials. I want to know where you have been since 21st April. I want to know the nature of your relationship with the Irazola son and daughter.’

  ‘That all?’ I said sourly.

  ‘To begin with. And the faster you tell, the sooner Miss Pridham’s … er … discomfort will be relieved.’ He wagged the automatic. ‘Let me warn you in case you attempt to deceive me, I already have much information about you and your network. If you tell one single lie which I know is a lie, I shall have to assume all that you say is lies … are lies.’ His stumble over the syntax gave me a childish spurt of pleasure. It didn’t last. ‘In this case, Miss Pridham will be punished on your behalf.’

  I took his threats seriously. Pros seldom bluff, except at poker.

  So I gave him information. I interwove truth with lies, half-lies, and inventions. I took a chance that his knowledge would not conflict with my fabrications.

  He listened with seeming absorption, nodding at intervals. When I finally ran dry I had spun a convoluted web of political machination and deceit that was by no means all fantasy but was just misleading enough to confuse him.

  ‘So … let us go through it again.’ He started to walk in small circles. While he walked, he talked. He re-capped my fiction near word for word, displaying an enviable faculty for recall.

  ‘Is that correct?’ he queried at the end of his recitation, coming to stand in front of me, screening Linda’s lower limbs. ‘Have I understood the situation correctly?’

  I assured him he had.

  He smiled then. It was a threatening smile, devoid of humour.

  ‘Liar.’ He slapped me lightly, left cheek, right cheek. It wasn’t meant to be painful, just mocking. ‘Think again, my friend. For
a start, you are not a civil servant but a private citizen, employed by the British Government in an undercover capacity. Your controller is a man called Tobias Wyatt, an English spymaster, not Richard Kirkland, who is your Prime Minister’s personal aide. We also know that you carry a Canadian passport. There are other discrepancies in your story but those will do for a start. Ana!’ This to the woman, who, with unabashed glee, began to do things with the broom handle. Petrov stayed between me and Linda, blocking my view. This time Linda’s gasp was of real pain, and the gasp became a short, sharp cry. Her body writhed, dragging at the chains.

  ‘Stop!’ I shouted, sweat springing to my face as if it were I, not Linda, who was suffering. I wrenched ineffectually at the tapes around my wrists. The chair slid backwards but I remained firmly attached to it. ‘If you know so much, why this farce? What do you expect to gain by hurting her, you fucking pervert?’

  Petrov tut-tutted me. ‘So much foul language. You Anglo-Saxons are so limited in your forms of expression’ He signalled to the woman. Linda’s squeals tapered off in an undulating moan.

  ‘Regrettably there are gaps in our knowledge,’ Petrov said, ‘and neither of you will leave here until you have joined them up. And whether you leave at all will depend upon how co-operative you have been.’

  ‘I’ve told you all that matters,’ I said, desperate to save Linda from further agonies, yet manacled to the “rules of the game” as surely as I was taped to this chair. ‘All right, so I changed a name or two. I’ve told you the truth about my brief, about GIBESTÁ.’

  The lamps hissed on. Linda whimpered. After so long suspended it was incredible that she remained conscious. The strain on her thumbs and her arms, what with the added weight of her unborn child, must have been unbearable. Petrov considered me, the thin smile still pulling his mouth out of shape. He had put the gun away and was trimming his fingernails with a pocket clipper.

  ‘I would like so much to believe you, my friend. Really, I would. But if I report back what you have told me and it is shown to be false in so much as a single comma, I will be discredited. My masters, like computers, are not forgiving of errors. Now, come along, Warner – one more little effort, just for Miss Pridham. You don’t want to see her hurt, do you? Badly hurt, I mean.’