They had entered a recently built visitor centre, and on the left-hand side of the main corridor they came to a small conference suite. The armed escort detail stepped aside, enabling Jack to enter the room closely followed by the man in the wheelchair. One burly bodyguard entered with them, while the other three took up positions in the corridor outside.
“Sit down, James. There’s no need for you to stand on ceremony, since I obviously cannot.” He smiled wryly at his own joke, and nudged the joystick on his chair to wheel himself up to the conference table. The bodyguard stood to one side, his back to the venetian blinds covering the large, toughened glass window that cut them off from the corridor beyond.
“You did me a kind of favour, you know,” he said softly. “If I’d still been able-bodied, I’d have remained a no-account urban guerrilla staging the occasional terrorist atrocity and making no difference to the country or the wider world whatsoever. It was dealing with my enforced sedentary lifestyle that drove me into politics, and what fertile ground that has been. Thanks to you I am twice the man I was.” His eyes glinted dangerously. “However, the pain I have endured over the decades is crying out to be shared with you. And you will have to be very cooperative if I am to do what a senior statesman such as myself should do, and allow you to go on your way in peace.”
Jack looked at him blankly. He found it difficult to believe that the man he had known would do any such thing. But for obvious reasons he wanted to keep him at the monastery as long as possible. As long as there were witnesses around he was relatively safe, and he hoped that even now help might be on the way.
It was as if the man in the wheelchair could read his thoughts. “Don’t go indulging in delaying tactics in the hope that the cavalry will arrive, my friend. The monks hate what I stand for, of course, and some of them may even have heard stories about my past. But now I am the establishment, and the police are mostly loyal to me—apart from your friend Miguel, of course, and his rebel crew. Your stunt double is dead, by the way, as Miguel himself will be as soon as he ceases to entertain me.”
Jack was shocked to hear that his stand-in was dead. He had known of the plan to send a double to the monastery, but had not been told the name of the officer who had volunteered. He felt it was time to speak, to be diplomatic, to appear to take the bait. “OK, if you’re really prepared to do a deal I appreciate it. I just can’t imagine how I can be of any assistance to you.”
“James, or perhaps I may call you Jack now, I want to know two things. First, I want to know everything you can tell me about your old friend, Antonio García López. You’ve been led to believe that he’s dead, and that I killed him. Let me tell you, killing him would have given me great pleasure. He cheated me of taking you, but worse than that he needlessly murdered three of my best men in cold blood. Yes, I know now that you weren’t responsible for that. I won’t apologise, but I will proffer that as justification for the savagery with which I hounded you.”
“If you think I’m going to listen to excuses, you’re mistaken. What’s your excuse for butchering my lovely friend in Valencia, or executing the priest in San Sebastián? He was the one friend I had at the time.”
“Jack, Jack, you must try harder to distinguish fact from fantasy. You saw me terminate Ignacio, so I can’t deny it. But he was a ruthless man in his own way: a savage abuser of young men, who made my early life hell and was grooming you with paranoid fantasies to cement your dependence on him. And yes, I saw you the day I terminated that sadistic bastard Gato. But he had it coming after what he did to me—no truth stays buried forever, Jack. And I had to shoot the boy because he popped up unexpectedly and saw me. I could just as easily have taken care of you, but you hadn’t seen me, and I fired a shot or two to chase you away. But here’s the big thing. You won’t believe me, but it makes no difference whether you do or you don’t. I had nothing to do with the girl’s death—I give you my word.”
“But you had me watched. And your goons tried to abduct me.”
“We were keeping an eye on you, because after seeing you with Gato I thought you might lead us to bigger fish in the Basque underground. But that was official CSP business, and when we realised you’d been back to Britain it was standard practice to pick you up for interrogation. Heavy-handed, but that’s how the Cuerpo worked.”
“So I should just have gone along with them?”
“Perhaps, although not everybody survived questioning by my more enthusiastic colleagues. But by the time you reached Valencia I was indeed out for your blood. I blamed you for the deaths of those three colleagues. And yet the carnage in Guadix, it turned out that it was not you, and when I finally discovered who the real culprit was I dealt with it in another way. And the carnage in Valencia, that was not me. I think someone was playing games with both of us. And with the meddling of dissident Basques and the lecherous, paranoid delusions of your late friend Ignacio, we became locked in a duel to the death. Of course, your own passive-aggressive scheming was all part of the story.”
“I want to believe what you’re telling me,” Jack answered as diplomatically as he could, aware that his life might depend on the way he spoke. “There hasn’t been a day in these forty years when I haven’t thought about that summer. I can’t count the number of nights I’ve lain awake vainly trying to make sense of it, only to relive it in my sleep. And after days going over the storyline with the police, the worst parts are more deeply etched on my mind than ever. I don’t know that I can unravel all that and build up a different story from scratch. It’s too much a part of who and what I’ve become.”
“Believe it or not, I understand some of what you have been through. Part of me still blames you for my disability. All I can do is ask is that you keep an open mind and answer my questions as fully as you can, because both our lives may depend on it. You may not have much of a stake in keeping me alive, but you should worry for yourself. However much that angry part of me would like to tear you limb from limb, I’ve been trying to move on. And I believe you have much more to fear from someone else. Do you have any idea of whom I’m speaking?”
“I presume the Condor Legion. They’ve been after me ever since I entered the country. But they’re your goons, so that makes nonsense of your assurances that you’re not after my blood.”
“Careful, Jack. I’ve said what I’ve said, but it’s a close call whether I let you go after this.”
“So who are you saying is the real enemy?”
I’ve told you everything you need to work it out for yourself. But your mind is rejecting the data, and it’s doing so precisely because it doesn’t wish to rewrite the story of your life. The real enemy is someone who has reason to hate me for both political reasons and personal. I’ve been beyond his reach for decades. But now he’s dangled you as bait and I’ve taken the hook because of what you and he together can do to my new career.”
“You can only be talking about Antonio. But for God’s sake, that’s ludicrous. He’s one of my oldest friends, and he saved my life, and now he’s dead.”
“He played games with you, Jack. And he’s a better chess player than any of us. Anyway, that’s enough. This is taking too long, and you’re mistaking it for a conversation of equals. You answer my questions, succinctly and accurately, or we can do it the other way.”
“OK, he’s dead, so what I say can’t hurt him. What do you want to know?”
But time had run out for questions of any sort. There were three sharp taps on the glass. In one perfectly coordinated manoeuvre Gallego hit the joystick to spin the chair towards the window while drawing a stubby pistol from under his jacket. The guard in the room went into a crouch and levelled his machine pistol. Then a flash of light filtered between the blinds.
The next moment, a section of the window caved in. One of the guards came through shoulder-first before collapsing in a quivering heap over the end of the table and sliding off onto the floor. The bodyguard who had entered the room with them peered out through the hole, then topple
d back in with blood spouting from his head. He slumped to his knees and knelt there for a moment before falling forward onto his face. The sound of automatic gunfire could now be heard clearly from outside, accompanied by the all-too-familiar reek of blood and high explosive.
Jack had no time to think. He snatched up a machine pistol dropped by one of the fallen guards, and pressed his back against the side-wall with the corridor to his right. After checking that the weapon was ready to fire and transferring it to his left hand, he braced himself to pivot round and shoot along the corridor in the direction of the incoming fire. Then he became aware of an itch between his shoulder blades and turned to see that Gallego was pointing the pistol at him.
“Hey,” yelled Jack, “aren’t we on the same side, at least for now.”
Gallego kept the gun levelled for another moment, then slowly lowered it. “We aren’t finished. But for the moment my enemy’s enemy is my… I’m sorry, Jack, I can’t bring myself to say it.”
Then Gallego darted his eyes leftwards, towards the broken section of glass. Jack had just begun to follow the glance when there was an impossibly loud noise in the confined space. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gallego’s right wrist explode into pink mist. Blood and bone fragments spattered the wall behind him, and the pistol tumbled to the ground enveloped in the remains of a hand. The muzzle of a gun was pressed painfully into the side of Jack’s neck, and a voice shouted, “Put down your weapon now!” He let the unused machine pistol hang from his hand, then bent his knees and rested it lightly on the ground by his feet.
“Put your hands behind your head and move out into the corridor,” instructed the voice. In his shock, Jack was dimly aware of a man in a monk’s habit crossing the room and applying a rough tourniquet to the politician’s ruined arm. Then he was out in the corridor and being shepherded along it at gunpoint. He was directed to stand in the open, facing a blank wall, with his hands still on his head and his legs widely spaced.
Two or three minutes later, Gallego was wheeled out and positioned beside him. The electric drive of his chair had evidently been disabled, and another member of the assault force in monk’s robes had been pushing it by the handles. “Another fine mess you’ve got me into,” said Gallego in passable American English.
“Silence,” shouted a deep voice behind them. “James, turn the chair round, then step away from it. Neither of you make any sudden movements.”
James did as instructed and surveyed the scene in the plaza. The helicopter still stood there, apparently unscathed, although its pilot was lying face down on the ground with a machine pistol trained on him by another monkish figure. There were almost a dozen bodies lying around on the ground, all still in the contorted positions in which they had fallen. The car looked functional but had bodywork damage and a broken window. Facing him were three men in a line. The two on the outside were younger men in their thirties or forties, both in monk’s garb. The centre figure, also wearing a habit, was considerably older—if anything a shade older than Jack. He also shared Jack’s stocky build and iron-grey hair. There was something familiar about him, though.
“Hello, James. Surprise, surprise.”
“Who… Oh God. Antonio?”
“Oh yes.” Replied the stranger. “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated, as they say.”
“Such a relief. I really thought…”
“Make no mistake, we’re the dead ones,” snarled Gallego from his wheelchair.
“Speak again, and I’ll shoot off your other arm,” responded Antonio in an even tone of voice. “We have so much to catch up on, James. Sadly, I don’t think we’ll have time to do it justice. Perhaps a few minutes before we say goodbye.”
Something about his old friend’s choice of words gave Jack the chills. Something about the eye contact was equally disturbing. “This isn’t quite the reunion I envisaged,” he said with an attempt at a smile. “I was looking forward to travelling south with you.”
“Let’s go for a walk now,” answered Antonio. “We’ll take a little tour of these charming grounds. James, I’m sure you won’t mind pushing our mutual friend.”
“He needs a hospital,” urged Jack. “Look, you can see he’s going into shock.”
“I think our friend knows he won’t be needing a hospital,” answered Antonio. “And there isn’t time to make him a nice hot drink. Walk.”
Jack took the handles of the wheelchair, easing it across the cobbles and past the corner of the main building. The ground sloped downwards as they went, and Jack was glad that the chair had a manual brake lever on one handle; it took the strain out of holding the chair back. They walked a few dozen metres down the path, past where Jack had parked a 2CV so many years before, and parallel with the parapet over which he had once jumped with Adolfo’s gun in his hand.
“Here’s a nice place to sit,” announced Antonio, pointing to a wooden bench beside the path. “For me, that is. Our disabled friend can sit where he is. And you, James, you can stand facing me with your hands on the wheelchair where I can see them.” He sat down on the bench, and smiled without warmth. “Well, what a strange situation, James. You are in the company of two men who want to kill both you and one another. Of course, I’d have been perfectly happy to let Txema here do the dirty work, but…”
“Txema?” queried Jack. “I heard him called that once before. I thought José was his real name.”
“Txema is short for José María in these parts,” answered Gallego tiredly, without looking up. “It’s how friends know me. I do have friends, you know. And it’s what the meddlesome priest insisted on calling me long after I went by another name.”
“As I was saying, James,” continued Antonio with impatience in his voice, “I’d have been quite happy to let Txema have his fun with you. I’ve been playing you like a trout from the moment I found you on Facebook, and the real satisfaction has been in using you to draw him out of his fortress. I expect you’re a bit old and flabby for his tastes, but I’m sure he’d have thought of something apt. Sadly, though, he has a bigger investment in my demise than in yours, and I can’t afford to let either of you live.
“Txema, you destroyed my life and everything I cared about. James, you are the most annoying person in the world and you know too much. But in the final analysis you’ve both dishonoured me, and if I fail to take satisfaction I dishonour myself and my family.”
“I’m really confused,” said Jack. “All those years we were friends.”
Antonio smiled again, but still not with any warmth. “And so we were, if a gentleman can befriend a precocious, arrogant schoolchild. And so we might have remained, until you turned up on my doorstep out of the blue and triggered the chain of events that destroyed my life.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
“How could you understand, coming from a degenerate culture like yours? Do you know anything about the ancient honour and hospitality codes? You certainly never acted as though you did.”
“The honour code? Vendettas and blood feuds? That’s ancient history.”
“You gain nothing by throwing a caricature of nobility in my face. My family is old, James. My late wife’s family is older still, and ridiculously wealthy. They may have looked down on me, but I haven’t forgotten the old values any more than they have. I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
“I understand the hospitality code. It goes back to biblical times. As a traveller eating at your table I came under your protection, but I incurred a matching obligation to defend your family and your property. Anyone who breaks the code is a worthless dog devoid of any honour. But I don’t see how I breached it. Are you still mad at me forty years on because in a panic I took your air weapon.”
“Don’t add insult to injury, James. You simply dishonour me further. Let me explain it to you in simple steps that you can understand before you die. In a rash moment five years earlier I invited you to my home. You accepted my hospitality in a time of need, and that imposed
on me the obligation to protect you. You may recall that I did that.”
“You were sensational. I’ve never forgotten. But I was worried about exposing your family to danger. That’s why I didn’t stay any longer than I did.”
“Just coming to my door was enough to expose my family to danger, because you put me under obligation and you brought Gallego and his men in your wake. What happened then, James? You didn’t accept my offer of a bed, did you? I could see you were sick, and if you’d accepted you could you could have vanished off the map for a few days. But you insisted on going back to the hostel, and it signalled to the Legion that you were still in the city.”
“I’m sorry,” said Jack. “I know it’s too late to say it now, but I wish I’d trusted you. Can’t we…”
“Even then you didn’t leave, did you? You stayed on in the city. And just when I thought you’d finally gone, I got a call from those two British maricones and was obliged to make fresh contact with you. One of the men in the Merc in Guadix was an old army buddy and he recognised me. It cost them their lives. And it cost me…”
“Your car. I’m so sorry, Antonio.”
“Will you ever stop cheapening everything, you fool? What the two of you cost me between you was my family. I can’t talk about it. Gallego knows, and he knows why he’s dying: for his nauseating crimes, for his self-serving politics, and most of all for my family. That will have to do for confession time.”
Antonio raised the arm holding the gun, and moved his aim back and forth between Jack and Gallego. “Who first, I wonder. Jack, I enjoyed your company for a time, and you deserve to see Gallego die for all he did to you. But one quick bullet is too good for him. I need to remove you from the picture so I can give him the attention he deserves. Goodbye, James.”
THE ENGLISH WITNESS Page 23