Message From Malaga

by Helen Macinnes

  He was in high spirits in spite of the sun-baked streets as he parked his car near the hospital. It was a less lonely place by day: the visitors, whole families of them, all ages, all sizes, were beginning to pile in. The hall was crowded, the waiting room already half full. He pulled on his jacket, gathered together a few Spanish phrases, and approached the busy desk. In this part of the world, a foreigner who made an effort to speak its language was given politeness in return. A pert young nurse took him in charge most willingly, parted a way for him through the turmoil of people and pointed him in the direction of Jeff’s room. It was easy to find, the fourth door along the red-tiled corridor. His heel almost slipped from him on the high polish, and he entered with a joke ready on his lips about cleanliness preceding plaster casts, and then fell silent instead.

  The place was filled with roses. Red roses, masses of them, brilliant against stark white walls. On a narrow high bed, leg suspended, swathed in plaster and bandages, was Jeff Reid, watching him with hollow eyes in a strangely drawn, startlingly bleached face. He shouldn’t be seeing me at all, thought Ferrier; he should have taken some sleep producers and be dozing out of the reach of pain. I’ll keep this short, and goodbye to any long talk with a hundred questions and all and all. “Hello, Jeff. Quite a setting you’ve got here. What do you think you are—a film star?”

  “Tavita,” Reid said, his voice strange, distant, all its usual resonance drained out of it. He gestured to the roses with his unbandaged arm. “It’s her way of saying sorry that she can’t come to see me. She hates hospitals.”

  “She’d have been here with me,” Ferrier said quickly, “except that she had to leave for Granada.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’ll tell you about that, but first things first.” Ferrier dumped the contents of the book bag on to a chair, took off his jacket, loosened his tie. The shutters were partly closed, the room’s walls were old and thick, and there was a ceiling fan gently circulating; but even so, this place seemed to be getting warmer by the minute as its cool contrast with the hot streets outside began to lessen. “There’s a message from your company’s office in Madrid. Martin is sending replacements to take charge for you. Soon. They’ll get here tonight at the latest. Anyway, you can stop worrying. All’s well.” He heard Reid’s small sigh of relief, pretended not to notice, began finding places for the radio and cassette player. “I brought some extras. Thought you’d like some Mozart, Bach, and Brahms. Okay?”

  Reid nodded. “Play the Mozart.”

  “Now?”

  Reid nodded.

  Ferrier looked at him sharply. Was Mozart for pleasure or precaution? Had Jeff some suspicion that this room could have been bugged?

  “I’ve been out cold for most of this day,” Reid said as Ferrier inserted the cassette and started the Haffner Symphony. “Didn’t know what was happening around me.”

  “Too loud?” Ferrier moved closer to the bed so that they could hear each other, even with a background of brilliant sound and their voices lowered to a minimum.

  “Just right.” Reid grinned. “Nice busy music.”

  Ferrier reached into his pocket, brought out the lighter and pencil. “Present and accounted for. Where do you want them?”

  “That’s the problem, isn’t it?” Reid hesitated, looked around the room, shook his head. “This bed is hopeless. There is forever someone changing something, taking temperatures, feeling pulses.”

  “Want me to hold on to them?” Ferrier asked slowly. It was the obvious question, even if it was an unwilling suggestion.

  “You have done all right so far. And thanks.”

  Ferrier pocketed the lighter, tried to look cheerful, said, “Perhaps you’ll need the pencil? Identification?”

  “I don’t think I need much of that—who the hell would try to impersonate me as an Egyptian mummy?”

  “Oh, that’s what you are. I thought you were giving an imitation of a Thanksgiving turkey trussed for the oven.”

  There was a small smile on Reid’s pale lips. “That’s just about as helpless as I feel right now. Okay, okay, leave the pencil. Put it with the rest of my things over on that small table. Make it look natural.”

  So Ferrier placed the pencil along the edge of the small engagement pad, angled the dictaphone beside it, laid the razor and toothbrushes on top. In the general clutter, the pencil was unnoticeable. He came back to the bed, lowered his voice even more. “Talking of impersonations,” he said easily, “a fellow called Gene Lucas came to see me around noon. He said Martin had sent him. But he didn’t have any pencil on him. There was a girl with him who did—Amanda Ames. She gave me the message for you. She also told me that Lucas was working for the KGB. Know either of them?”

  “Not the girl. Lucas—Lucas? There was a Lucas who turned up at one of Medina’s parties. I didn’t meet him, though. Only saw him across the room.”

  “About thirty? Six foot, dark-haired, blue-eyed, handsome profile. But what was he doing at one of Medina’s parties? Medina’s your doctor, isn’t he? Or at least he goes around saying he is your doctor. Oh, I know—he only assists his uncle, and it’s old Medina who is your doctor, but Junior forces the pace, doesn’t he? Why?”

  “Don’t worry about Medina. He collects a lot of strange birds at his parties. He likes to think of himself as an independent thinker—an original. You know the type.”

  “Yes,” Ferrier said sourly, “just the type to be gulled by people like Lucas. That man’s a smart operator. What was he doing at Medina’s party?”

  “Probably what I was doing—studying the strange birds.”

  “I wonder,” Ferrier said with a touch of exasperation that was partly directed against himself. Why the hell was he talking about Medina when there were so many other things to tell Jeff?

  “How did you handle Lucas?” Reid asked, going straight to his own particular worry.

  “Gingerly. He made several feints, threw a couple of unexpected punches. He claimed he was a buddy of yours, said you both worked for the CIA.”

  Reid was quite silent.

  “He not only knew about my telephone call to Martin, but he knew the meaning of that message. Highest emergency, greatest importance, rally around.” Ferrier paused. “I don’t like that, Jeff. It looks as if your Martin has more than a tapped phone to worry about. It looks as if—” He broke off, thinking of Amanda. That’s what I wanted to warn her about, and couldn’t remember it in time: not just a telephone call intercepted, but an informer—someone who had penetrated Martin’s group—supplying the meaning of Jeff’s cryptic message.

  “As if we’ve been infiltrated?” Reid asked slowly. “Could be. Or Lucas might have been trying to panic you into telling him anything you knew. Emergency is a useful word. Properly applied, it gets quick reaction.” He half smiled, as if he knew that old dodge well. “I’ll pass on the warning to Martin. He will deal with it.”

  “You play it cool,” Ferrier said worriedly. Or perhaps this was for his benefit: Jeff was trying to calm him down.

  “Why not? All Lucas knows is that there is an emergency. That’s all my message said. No specifics.”

  “He may not need them. He seems to have some information about a man called Tomás Fuentes.”

  Reid’s eyes lost all expression. His face was carved out of wood, ridged and furrowed.

  “Lucas has the idea that Fuentes may be in Málaga. He also thinks it is possible that Fuentes got in touch with you.”

  There was a short silence. Then Reid said hoarsely, “Let’s hope to God that Martin gets someone here.” He began cursing his helplessness.

  “Take it easy, Jeff. Easy. I don’t believe Fuentes is any longer in Málaga. He’s in Granada.”

  Reid looked at the red roses.

  Ferrier nodded. “Someone called Tomás was smuggled up into your attic, early this morning. Today, around eleven, he was smuggled out again—dressed as a chauffeur.”

  Reid looked at him, astounded and horrified. “She’s taken him
to—”

  “Yes. And she wants your instructions. I’ll deliver them to her as soon as I can leave Málaga.”

  “The little idiot—”

  “She didn’t do too badly,” Ferrier said. “There was a considerable crisis at El Fenicio last night. Captain Rodriguez had the place searched. He found nothing.”

  “Tavita, Tavita...” Reid’s voice was almost a whisper. He shook his head, half-admiringly, half-sadly. “She doesn’t know what she has got hold of,” he said with sudden anger. “That man is capable of killing her, once her usefulness is over. He’d do anything, anything, to cover his trail. He has already murdered for it—in Mexico.”

  “You’d help a man like that?” Ferrier was incredulous.

  “Personally? No. I’d like to see him dead and buried.”

  “What is he?”

  “A part-way defector.”

  “You mean he is using us?”

  Reid nodded. That’s his idea. He needs our help to get to safety.”

  “And then?”

  “He expects to be vindicated, reinstated. He didn’t say so, of course. He’s playing us along. He will need us if his private plans don’t gel. That’s my estimate. I think it’s accurate.”

  “Reinstated as what?”

  Reid didn’t answer. His face was set and grim, lined with pain.

  “As what?” Ferrier challenged quietly. “I won’t be much use to you unless I know the basic facts. I don’t work well when I’m blindfolded.”

  Reid looked at him, then nodded his agreement. “He is KGB. High-placed, long-standing. He has been directing the Cuban branch of their Department Thirteen. Know it?” Ferrier shook his head.

  “It is one of their most important and most secret departments. Specialises in assassination and terror. It exists, Ian. Believe me, it exists.”

  Ferrier stared at the tense white face. He nodded, watched it relax.

  “It has existed for a long time,” Reid went on, his voice steadying. “It has had different names. In the last ten years or so, we’ve known it as Department Thirteen. At present it is concentrating heavily on the Disunited States. Why not? It’s their big opportunity. And they’ll make the most of it. It is training selected Americans, very willing Americans. The big push is toward 1976.”

  “Revolution?”

  “You’ve heard the word recently, haven’t you? Or are you one of those who don’t listen to the radicals and militants?” Reid asked wearily. “The activists, Ian. That’s the group I’m talking about. Not the disenchanted young, not the ordinary dropouts or politicals or protesters. The real hardcore activists.”

  “The ones with the ruthless ideals?”

  Reid nodded, relaxed. “You’ve been reading the signals, all right. And haven’t you noticed that, every now and again—when they are particularly cocky—their mask of innocent protest slips and out they come with their truth? Revolution. They’ve even named the date.”

  “They really mean it?”

  “They mean it.” As Hitler meant what he said. But who listened?”

  “Even when they listened, they couldn’t believe it.” Ferrier remembered his father and his friends discussing this same point. He used to think his father’s generation had been stupid or lazy, unwilling to make the effort to face unpleasant facts. “Then, as now,” he said softly. “That’s our handicap, too. We listen, and we can’t quite believe. And there are so few of those militants, a small minority—that’s the real stumbling block when we try to assess them. That and their wild rhetoric. Where does their put-on end and their truth begin?”

  “With training. And money. And supplies. And a major propaganda effort to keep the rest of us confused. They’ve done well in that department, so far, and they’ll do better once the Big Lie machine really gets behind them. Forged documents, false letters, the whole bit. Our smart Madison Avenue image polishers look like a kindergarten effort compared to the brains that are backing those guys. They are having fine fun with us. And we go on our bumbling way, thinking there must be some rational explanation for all our troubles, something we can cope with by fair debate. Fair? If they can’t find an issue, they create one. And we swallow it, hook, line, and sinker. They now think we are the easiest catch. Why else have they become so sure of themselves, so arrogant? They—” Reid’s voice had hoarsened to a painful whisper. Ferrier poured him a glass of water, steadied his head as he sipped it. Then Reid leaned back against the pillow, closed his eyes. “So few of them, you said. Yes. But how many honest men have believed their stories? How many have supported—”

  “Take it easy, take it easy,” Ferrier said. The leg is hurting him badly. “I’ll call a nurse. You’d better—”

  “Not yet, not yet. I’ll have a long sleep once you leave.” Reid opened his eyes, made a big effort at a small grin. “Pain,” he admitted, “brings out all the worries. Sorry.”

  Ferrier went straight to the point. “What do I tell Tavita?”

  Reid hesitated. “She must keep Fuentes in cold storage for twenty-four hours. He will be taken off her hands. Definitely. And she mustn’t panic him, give him any cause for alarm. He might decide to move on his own.”

  “Disappear?”

  “We’d have little chance of finding him again.”

  “Who else is after him? The KGB, of course. And the Spanish government too?” Why else Tavita’s nervousness about Captain Rodriguez?

  “Yes; old history. Then, of course, Castro’s agents want him silenced. And the Maoists would be interested in recruiting him—or in extracting information from him if he refused. And there isn’t an intelligence service in the free world that doesn’t want to know more about Department Thirteen’s latest developments.”

  “I’d hate to be as popular as that,” Ferrier said with unconcealed contempt. “And we are supposed to save his bloody neck.”

  “Meanwhile.” Reid was equally sour.

  “But what can we really expect from him—if he is planning to get back into power? You think he is actually hoping for that?”

  “Yes. He might just manage it, too, if his ideas are vindicated and he is proved right and his friends get enough courage to see he is re-established.”

  “Then he won’t tell us one thing of real value. It will be just another put-on.”

  “We’ll get more out of him than he means to give. And even if he tells us little, it could be useful. You know from your own work—”

  “I know.” The smallest things, the scraps of information, could be valuable—whether they verified a supposition, or opened up a new possibility, or helped analysis, reinterpretation, better evaluation. “But can you trust what he tells you? Will there be any real truth you can dig out from a flow of words?”

  Reid gave a strange small laugh, brief, ending in a grimace of pain. “His information is credible. I’ve found that out.” He pointed to his grotesque leg. “Laner.” He took a long breath, made an effort, said slowly, “That’s the long-haired guy.” He gave up, as if all the stretch of explanation he saw lying before him was just too much.

  “I know,” Ferrier cut in again, trying to spare Jeff unnecessary effort. Thank God he had got around to mentioning Laner; that was something Ferrier had wanted to hear from the beginning of this talk, but he had thought it wiser not to force the pace. And there had been other priorities. “He attacked you. How?”

  “Spray gun.” And then, as Ferrier frowned over that, Reid added, “Cyanide spray. Heart-failure effect.”

  “Was he after Tomás Fuentes?”

  “At first, I thought he was. But—” Reid hesitated.

  “He didn’t go upstairs to search,” Ferrier tried.

  “Just came over—had a look at me—then left.”

  “He thought you were dead?”

  Reid nodded. “And I just wasn’t worth that risk. I wasn’t so important. Why me?” He drew a slow breath, made an effort. “It only makes sense if Fuentes was telling the truth. About his recent trainees. Some of them are difficult
to control: too confident, too eager for action, too intent on showing what smart boys they are. And that type always knows best. No matter how they’ve been disciplined or trained, they always think they know best. Dangerous element. Unpredictable.”

  “I admire your restraint. They are more than a bunch of super inflated egos. They are fanatics, totally ruthless, blinded with hate, dedicated to violence.” And even if Fuentes and his crowd called them young idealists, nobly committed, true revolutionaries, they still knew what they had recruited, what material they had to work on. “Don’t tell me,” Ferrier said sarcastically, “that Fuentes had a touch of remorse about what he was unloading on an unsuspecting world. Or would it be he was scared of having his operation blown by someone like Laner? Well—he can stop worrying about him. Someone else decided that Laner wasn’t worth the cost of his training. He has been disciplined. Permanently.”

  Reid stared at Ferrier.

  “His body was found near the harbour this morning. Knifed. Apparently—as Captain Rodriguez described it—in a waterfront brawl.”

  “Rodriguez?” Reid was suddenly wary.

  “One of my visitors today.”

  “What did he want?”

  “He talked about Laner.” And about Adam Reid, but that was definitely one topic not to bring up right now. “No mention of Fuentes. Which doesn’t mean much, I agree. He may have heard the same rumour that Lucas was tracking down.”