by Jack Treby
‘How many people would have been inside?’ I asked Dick, my mouth agape.
‘About fifty or sixty, I reckon. On an average day.’
He looked up. There were people crying out from some of the windows towards the back of the fifth floor. They were the lucky ones. In time, the fire brigade would be able to get to them.
The main problem was structural instability. There was no fire – at least not that I could see – but the entire building was smothered in a thick haze of dust. Remarkably, the Radio Libertad transmitter – one of the most familiar sights on the Toronja skyline – was still intact, thrusting up from the top of the building, almost in defiance.
Dick found a middle–aged woman who had been passing by when the bomb went off. He dragged her away from the CNN cameraman, gave her some fruit juice from a flask in his satchel, and politely asked her a few questions. The woman was grateful to speak to someone who understood Escoria rather than Spanish.
‘I’d just walked past the building,’ she babbled. ‘There was a huge wall of heat and I was thrown to the ground. It came right from the centre of the edificio. The bomb must have been right in the middle of it.’
That was evident just looking at the building. The Azulitos had managed to smuggle an explosive device into the heart of the structure. No one would have willingly allowed a member of that organisation into the main building, so an uncharacteristic element of subterfuge must have been employed. Perhaps they disguised themselves, I thought; pretended to be maintenance men or something like that. It would not be difficult to arrange. People were forever streaming in and out of the studios.
‘Not their usual style,’ Dick commented grimly. The Azulitos rarely made use of explosives. They had never needed to. If they wanted a group of people dead, they just flooded the area with men and hacked everyone to pieces with their machetes.
I nodded. ‘It doesn’t make any sense. You said they were going to hit back at the government. Not at the opposition.’
Dick stared at me for a moment. I had obviously triggered a new line of thought. ‘You know, mate, I think the Azulitos may have been more clever than we gave them credit for.’
Two hours later, there was a second explosion.
~ ~ ~
The fax machine was situated at the back of the building, in a small room little bigger than a stationery cupboard. It was this fact that may have saved the life of Antonio Fracaso. He had returned to the offices of the Freedom Party and drafted a statement condemning the attack on Radio Libertad. He printed out the document and went to the back room to send it out. If the paper had not then jammed in the machine he would almost certainly have left the room, returned to the main office and been killed in the blast. As it was, Antonio Fracaso was bent double trying to extract the paper from the ageing equipment when the explosion hit the front of the office.
A small white van was parked out on the street. It had been stationed there before and no one had taken any notice of it. People had simply assumed it belonged to the bakery three doors along. In reality, the van was registered to a “Johanne Schmidt” – an obvious alias – and was packed to the rafters with explosives.
The Azulitos hadn’t tried to penetrate the interior of the building as they had with Radio Libertad. The men in blue had simply parked the explosives outside.
~ ~ ~
The detonation could be heard for miles around.
Dick and I heard it, as we were driving back to the Intercontinental Hotel. Dick had been anxious to write up his observations of the Radio Libertad attack as quickly as possible. He would have to mention the press conference as well. Now there was a third story to cover.
The Beetle slammed to a halt and Dick put the gear stick into reverse.
This time, we were not able to get close to the scene. The street had already been cordoned off when Dick and I arrived and our press passes wouldn’t get us through the tape. ‘No journalists,’ the policeman at the line informed us bluntly.
The government, however, could not avoid publicity. Even the cameras of Canal 7 had recorded the Radio Libertad atrocity. And no one was going to believe the Junta were not responsible.
‘They’ve been bloody clever, I’ll give them that,’ Dick mumbled. Everyone in the know had expected the Azulitos to hit the government directly. By targeting the opposition, they had potentially done even greater damage.
Dick spotted some colleagues from the Intercontinental. They had arrived at the scene earlier than us. ‘Did they get Fracaso?’ The American journalist shook her head.
The leader of the opposition was alive. An ambulance had already taken him and the other survivors to hospital. Fracaso had suffered no injuries at all, though a number of his staff had been badly hurt. Three had been killed outright.
~ ~ ~
The US Government was quick to respond. They called a press conference, in which the attacks were strongly condemned.
That was only to be expected.
What was different this time, however, was that the US Ambassador explicitly blamed the provisional government. ‘We will not allow democracy to be subverted in this manner,’ the man announced with well–rehearsed gravitas.
Dick was at the press conference and he collared his old friend Beverley Chang as the briefing was winding down. The girl from the US Embassy was always keen to exchange a few words, off the record. Dick was ushered into a side room and a functionary brought some glasses on a silver tray. Bev only ever seemed to drink whiskey.
‘You know, Dick, the thing of it is, we know damn well those assholes in the provisional government had nothing to do with these bombs. We told them to quit funding the Escoria and they quit just like we told them to. But there isn’t a god damn soul who’s going to believe those idiots weren’t acting for the Junta.’ The government had released its own statement, claiming the Azulitos had bombed the targets in order to destabilise the government. The statement was true, but Chang was right; no one would believe them. ‘We’ve spoken to Malvado on the quiet. He’s going to send the army out and smash the Azulitos completely.’
Dick laughed. ‘I’d like to see them try.’ It was an absurd claim, even by the standards of the Junta. The Azulitos were numbered in tens of thousands. They couldn’t simply be “taken out”. And it would take a great deal to convince ordinary people that the provisional government were not just putting on a show.
‘The problem won’t go away, Dick. They’re going to have to confront these guys sooner or later.’
‘Rather them than me.’
‘But officially, we’ll be holding the government responsible. We can’t be seen to support attacks on opposition members.’
‘You’re not cutting off aid, though.’
‘Are you crazy? These assholes are the only hope we’ve got. These elections are going to go ahead if we have to arrange it all ourselves.’
‘But what if Fracaso had been killed...?’
‘I’m not going to lie to you, Dick. If he’d been killed, we’d have had to cut everything off. No alternative.’
‘That’s probably what the Azulitos wanted.’
Bev nodded. ‘They sure hit a nerve, I’ll give them that. We’re going to be keeping a close eye on everyone from now on. Including that crazy friend of yours. What’s his name? Patrick Malone?’
‘You don’t want to worry about him. He’s harmless.’
‘He’s right there in the middle, Dick. You want to watch that guy. If they can take out Radio Libertad, they can take out anyone.’
~ ~ ~
A metal truck thundered down Avenida 43 Este. It was packed full of soldiers; the third military vehicle I had seen in less than ten minutes. The barracks were now on full alert. Ahead of me, the truck pulled up and the soldiers disembarked. I stopped to watch. Behind me, two plain–clothes men also came to a halt. They were my unofficial escorts. I had just about learned to ignore them now. I was more interested in the soldiers.
Fifty yards down the street, the men ha
d kicked in a doorway. It was an innocuous looking building, but it obviously had some significance. The soldiers clumped up the stairs, leaving one man behind to guard the entrance. A lot of banging and crashing followed and then the soldiers clumped back down onto the street. One of them – a sergeant, I think – shook his head to a man in the front of the truck. The soldiers clambered back in and the vehicle drove off in search of other derelict premises to search.
It was happening all over the capital.
I straightened my tie and continued on my way.
The military activities carried on well into the next day. Every known Azulito building was searched. Every known address of an Azulito member was broken into. Some arrests were made but almost all of the official buildings had already been vacated.
Dick wasn’t at all surprised. ‘Just like the man said,’ he told me, remembering the words of Emanuel Cabrón. ‘Bide your time. Leave it a few weeks and get your men cleared out. Then hit back. Classic stuff.’
‘So where have they all gone?’ I asked.
‘Just out of the cities, I reckon. They don’t need to hide in the towns and villages. The countryside is theirs already. That’s where they’re from. I don’t think the government’s going to have much luck trying to smoke them out.’
The Azulitos had left behind several booby traps. Half a dozen soldiers had been killed, trying to gain access to safes or locked back rooms. But by sending in the soldiers, the government was certainly getting its message across. It was a more powerful statement than any verbal reassurance: the Azulitos and the government were no longer allies. Both sides had known it for several weeks. Now the public would know it too. And nobody could be sure how many people would be caught in the crossfire.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Wherever you are in San Doloroso, you are never more than ninety miles from the sea. It can often seem more like nine hundred, given the state of the country’s roads.
A landslide on the mountain path had blocked the normal route to Hermosa, a small town on the Caribbean coast. A modest pile of rocks had overwhelmed the narrow road between the vertical cliff face and the yawning chasm to our right. This was what the driver had laughably referred to as the main thoroughfare. Nobody had thought to bring a shovel and it took us nearly three hours to shift the jagged rubble out of the way.
Road travel is exhausting in San Doloroso.
The excursion had seemed like a good idea when it was first suggested, but the reasoning behind it eluded me now. My last trip out of the capital – to see the shaman in Antiguo – had left me bruised for several days after multiple bone–shaking encounters with car–sized potholes. This trip would probably leave me in hospital. But with polling day rapidly approaching, I was determined to see a little more of my mother’s homeland while I still had the chance.
Viscoso had agreed to arrange it all as part of my “election tour”. An armed guard would travel with me, to make sure nobody laid a finger on the government’s much-valued stooge. Not that political assassination was high on the agenda up in the mountains; it was more a question of banditos. Only the previous week, a tax inspector had been hurled off a cliff when he had refused to give up his gold plated teeth to a criminal gang.
Despite the many inconveniences, I could not conceal my excitement as the battered colectivo finally rattled into Hermosa on Wednesday afternoon. My mother had spoken to me of its beauty many times in her last days and to finally see the place with my own eyes was the fulfilment of a dream.
The town itself was not the most picturesque I had seen, though there was a certain charm to the faded colonial buildings and the plaza mayor had a pretty little fountain which still managed to eject a trickle of water in the blazing mid afternoon heat. But it was the coastal landscape that really caught my eye. Grass covered hills sloped gently down to a picture postcard beach and the glimmering aquamarine of the Caribbean Sea. The roar of the ocean could be heard for miles around and the salted air felt fresh on my face.
This would have been the perfect time to scatter my mother’s ashes. That had been my intention when I had arrived in San Doloroso. I would have had a couple of days free after I’d completed my interviews for the Daily Herald. But circumstances had conspired against me once again.
Alberto Viscoso had broken the news a few days earlier. ‘I’m afraid there seems to have been some sort of mix up at the forensics laboratory.’
‘What sort of mix–up?’
Viscoso sighed theatrically. ‘Your mother’s urn appears to have been misplaced.’
‘Misplaced?’ I blinked. ‘You mean... stolen?’
Viscoso frowned. ‘It’s a possibility, though nobody’s entirely sure. You know what our friends in the police force are like. Someone’s probably put flowers in it and taken it home. But rest assured, the urn will be recovered and the ashes returned to you before your departure from San Doloroso.’ He smiled his ingratiating smile. ‘It won’t be long now.’
That much at least was true. The presidential ballot was due in less than a week. All being well I would be spirited out of the country a day or two before that. In the meantime, a brief spell away from Toronja would do me the world of good. The atmosphere in the capital was unbearable. The war between the government and the Azulitos had intensified since the Radio Libertad bombing, with many deaths on both sides; and for my part, I could barely walk the streets of the capital without being recognised by somebody. Charlotte’s estate had provided seclusion and comfort, but sitting there fretting about the possibility of an early death was driving me slowly insane. Better to get away from it all for a few days. And Hermosa was as far away as it was possible to be.
My bodyguard – an overweight and rather sullen Metropolitan police constable with an antiquated rifle – followed at a discreet distance as I made my way downhill towards the beach.
I felt a little light headed as I stepped onto the sand. It was somewhere along here, thirty-five years previously, that my mother and father had first met. The setting seemed suitably romantic.
A small cave was situated to the north of the beach and it took me less than ten minutes to find it.
The cave was just as my mother had described. In centuries past, the place had been been much favoured by pirates and large quantities of treasure had allegedly been buried there. More recently, however, it had become a meeting place for young lovers. The interior was covered in graffiti; documentary evidence of several decades of illicit romance. Though the inside of the cave wasn’t quite as large as the mouth suggested, messages of love had been chiselled just about everywhere. A number of used prophylactics were scattered untidily across the floor. If my father, Edward Malone, had made his mark here – and I was reliably informed he had – I was unable to find it.
I sat on a rock and stared out to sea, thinking of my mother. If only she had been able to return here before the end. She would have laughed at the thought of me arriving with a police escort.
The constable, standing at the mouth of the cave, was already looking bored, his finger idly stroking the trigger of his semi–automatic rifle.
I sighed and slowly pulled myself up from the rock.
Back at the plaza, we heard raised voices. A pick up truck had come to rest on the opposite side of the square. The constable put a hand on my shoulder and yanked me out of sight. About a dozen Azulitos were swarming down from the rear of the vehicle. They pulled open the flap and began to unload a quantity of rolled up paper.
A woman nearby gathered up a young child and hurried away.
I watched discreetly as the Azulitos moved across the square. Some were carrying tins of what appeared to be glue. Paintbrushes were sticking out of the pots and the Azulitos started pasting the glue onto the walls. Posters were then slapped on top of them. One was even plastered onto the window of the local bank. After a few minutes of feverish activity, the Azulitos filed back into the truck and the vehicle drove off.
Tentatively I stepped out into the square. From a dis
tance, the posters looked familiar. The colouring and the pose of the figure with the clenched fist was entirely traditional, so it was hardly surprising that I recognised it; but there was more to it than that. I crossed the plaza to the bank and had a closer look at the image on the window.
The words at the bottom of the poster read: “Patrick Malone – Presidente.” My mouth dropped open.
My own image was staring back at me from the wall. And it had been put there by the Azulitos.
~ ~ ~
Lolita Corazón had become accustomed to spending her mornings snuggled up on a broken mattress with an entertaining novel. She was not a good reader and needed all the practise she could get. Most of the books had been provided by Madam Fulana, though a few had come from the late Juan Federico’s library. There were some readable works among the collection – not all of them were in Latin – and Lolita was grateful for anything she could get. If nothing else, it helped to pass the time.
The girl was less grateful, on this particular morning, for an unexpected visit from Chief Inspector Lopez. The sun only shone down onto the mattress for a couple of hours mid-morning and she would not be able to read later in the day without straining her eyes. She had no trouble guessing the purpose of the inspector’s visit. Afterwards, he buttoned up his flies and moved to the door. He knocked twice to signal the guard then turned back to Lolita.
‘Pack up your things,’ he muttered gruffly. ‘You’re being moved this afternoon.’
Lolita stared back at him. ‘Moved?’
‘We’ve received orders to pack you off to Aislado.’ Judging by his expression, the inspector was not too happy about the move. But the transfer papers had been signed by Alberto Viscoso himself. ‘Aislado’s a remand prison,’ he explained. ‘Not a pleasant place.’
The metal door swung open and Lopez moved through without another word. Lolita heard the key turn in the lock behind him. She sat for a moment and a smile suddenly erupted on her face.
Nacho Pícaro had broken into Dick’s Beetle and was sitting in the driver’s seat when the journalist returned from a meeting with Antonio Fracaso. Dick feigned a lack of surprise and climbed in next to him. He didn’t bother to ask how Nacho had known where he would be. The boy always knew things like that. The lad had a bright future ahead of him, if he played his cards right.