by John Wilson
“I never expected to see Bob again, but several months later there was a knock on the door of the seedy apartment I was living in in Marseilles. It was Bob, carrying a bottle of expensive Spanish brandy. Over the bottle, he explained how he had become disillusioned with democracy and become a dedicated Communist, working for the Soviet Union. He told me there were networks of spies and sleeper agents throughout the British and American governments, and that he was a recruiter for these networks.”
“Did he mention my grandfather?” I blurted out. Ever since Gorky had mentioned meeting Grandfather, Bob and Maria in Barcelona, I had been riveted by his story, hoping that somehow it would solve the mystery of the money, passports and notebook behind the wall at the cabin.
“He did,” the old man said, “but only in the vaguest sense. He gave the impression that David McLean was involved in the network that Bob was running, but without saying specifically what his role was.
“In any case, he offered me support in creating a network of Spanish refugees who could be given new identities and sent back home to spy and carry out works of sabotage. This would have the double advantage of both undermining Franco’s Fascist regime and hurting the Americans, who at that time were the only ones supporting Spain, something they did in exchange for the use of Spanish air bases for nuclear bombers.”
Gorky’s story was long and convoluted—my shoulders ached and my hands were going numb from being tied tightly together—but what I was hearing was all beginning to fit in with what we had discovered in Grandfather’s coded notebook. Both Laia and I fidgeted from foot to foot, trying to keep our blood circulating, but our full attention was on Gorky.
“I had no difficulty recruiting men and women for the tasks Bob gave me. At first we were very amateurish, and most of those sent over the mountains in the first years were captured and executed fairly quickly, but I learned, as did those who survived their first missions, that patience was the key. Instead of sending parties of saboteurs over with equipment and orders to blow up this bridge or that railway line, what we needed to do was create networks of sleepers within Spain. Dedicated men and women who survived under their false identities, did not attract attention to themselves and waited.” Gorky looked at Laia. “Your great-grandmother Maria was one.”
I snapped my head to the side to see Laia staring, open-mouthed, at Gorky. “Maria,” she managed to gasp out eventually. “Maria was a spy? A saboteur?”
“You see,” Gorky said with a smile. “Life turns out to be more complex than you assume. A saboteur? No. Maria made it very clear when I recruited her that, however much she hated the Fascists, she would do nothing to harm another human being. She accepted my offer as a way of returning to her beloved Barcelona with her young child, and agreed to undertake things that did not conflict with her strict moral code. I respected that. After all, she had nursed me through my injury, and I owed her a great deal.
“A spy? Not in the sense that you think. She did not run around stealing state secrets and putting them in drop boxes in hollow trees, or chase down the enemy like James Bond. Her undermining of the system was much more subtle. She taught and educated young women to be teachers and nurses, to care for other human beings. It was not openly political, and yet her work was subversive. If you teach someone to care for other human beings and to respect life, they will not become Fascists.
“The other thing that Maria did was quietly collect stories. Stories of knocks on doors in the middle of the night, stolen babies, bodies discovered at dawn by cemetery walls, the locations of forgotten graves. She knew that one day Spain would change and that remembering would become important once more. I think the work that Felip does owes much to what Maria did all those years ago.
“But I am becoming distracted, and my tale nears its end. By the mid-1960s I had an extensive network of sleepers in place across Spain, and I felt the time was right to undertake a major act of sabotage—one that would shock the world. I suggested several possibilities to Bob, but he felt the time was not right and refused to give me support. Eventually, I decided to act on my own—after all, what was the point of our work if nothing came of it?
“My prize sleeper was a young man called Arturo. He was an orphan from the war, but he was also from the Basque provinces in the north. The Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, or ETA, a Basque separatist group, was just beginning its campaign of violence in support of independence for the Basque country, and this made Arturo the perfect candidate. If he was captured, the Fascists would assume he was a Basque terrorist, and attention would be diverted from my organization. Also, Arturo had managed to get himself a job inside the American air base at Morón.
“Without informing Bob, I traveled to Spain under a false name and delivered a small package of explosives to Arturo. I knew that the Americans refueled their B-52 bombers in Morón, and I conceived the idea of bringing one down and, if possible, triggering a nuclear explosion in Spanish skies. Such an event would be the perfect gesture. It would shock the world, discredit Franco’s regime and force the Americans to remove their already unpopular air bases in Europe.”
I stared at the wrinkled old man sitting across from me. He was talking in a monotone about an act that could have killed thousands of people, turned vast areas into a radioactive wasteland and quite possibly triggered a world war. Laia and I exchanged horrified looks.
“You’re insane!” I said. “You might have destroyed the world.”
The old man laughed, a dry, bitter sound. “It is not I who is insane,” he said. “It is the world that you seem to think so highly of. A world that destroyed my childhood, took my arm and left me with nothing. What do I owe this world?”
SEVENTEEN
So the explosion over Palomares had been sabotage, Arturo was the saboteur at the air base, and Gorky was his controller. It all fit, but where was Grandfather in all this?
“Think of the effect had one or all of those bombs exploded.” Gorky was staring up at the empty sky, an almost wistful tone in his voice. “Each bomb was seventy times as powerful as the bomb that obliterated Hiroshima in 1945. Think if all four had exploded that morning.” Gorky was old and frail, but his eyes gleamed with an unnatural light as he thought of the devastation that might have been wrought in the skies over Palomares. “Then the world would have had to pay attention to us.”
Gorky blinked rapidly and calmed down. “I was a fool,” he went on. “In those days, I had no idea how hard it is to trigger a nuclear explosion. Without the bombs being armed, the explosives around the plutonium core will not go off at the same time. My vision was not possible, but the explosion presented me with an opportunity that I have pursued relentlessly to this very day. An opportunity that you will help me realize.”
“What do you mean?” Laia asked. She sounded angry, and that made me nervous. I didn’t think it was a good idea to annoy this guy. “What makes you think we’ll help you?”
At that moment, I thought we were going to die. Gorky stared at us, a cold look very much like what I imagine a mouse sees before a snake strikes. Then he laughed. “Plucky—I like that. Maria was the same. I could never persuade her to do anything she did not wish to do.”
“Just as I will never help you,” Laia said defiantly. I was immensely proud of her. I didn’t have the courage to stand up to Gorky, mostly because I didn’t think it would make any difference. I was beginning to suspect what Gorky wanted from us, and the stakes were so high that I doubted he would stop at anything to get what he wanted.
“Commendable,” Gorky said with what appeared to be genuine admiration, “but I have a question for Steve.” He looked at me with his cold gaze. “How much pain can you stand?”
I couldn’t think of an answer, and it was all I could do not to collapse and plead for mercy under that relentless stare.
“A difficult question,” Gorky acknowledged, his tone suddenly conversational. “A quick blow to the face, a broken nose, cracked ribs—I imagine you could handle a beating that involved
those types of injuries, but they are crude. The secret to true pain is anticipation. A sudden blow hurts, but it is soon over. There may be fear of the next blow, but that takes time to build up, and we do not have too much time.
“Anticipation increases pain tenfold. For example, do you think you could stand having a fingernail pulled off slowly with a pair of pliers? Or having a finger slowly bent until the joint dislocates and the bone breaks? Even if you can stand these things once, you know that there are nine more digits awaiting attention.”
Gorky turned to Laia. “Could you listen to Steve’s screams as one of my friends destroyed his hands?”
Laia said nothing.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“Indeed, I should finish my story. I would hate you to suffer for nothing. Arturo’s act over Palomares was dramatic, but it did not have the effect I had wished for. Instead of reacting with violent horror, the world sat enthralled for three months as the Americans searched for and then worked at recovering the lost fourth bomb. They almost became the heroes of the drama.
“Even worse, from my point of view, the Americans soon discovered Arturo’s role in the incident. It was never made public, of course, but behind the scenes, immense efforts were made to discover who had employed him. I went on the run, changing my identity many times in the subsequent years and never staying in one place very long. I managed to stay one step ahead of the Americans, but my network was dismantled. Even Bob abandoned me, but through all those years of running and loneliness, there was something that kept me going.
“After I had delivered the explosives to Arturo, I did not return to France immediately. It was a dangerous thing to do, but I missed my homeland. I took the opportunity to check up on some of my sleepers. When the B-52 exploded, I knew Arturo was responsible and that it would not be long before he was discovered. I headed for the border but could not resist a brief stop in Barcelona to see Maria. She knew nothing of Arturo’s role in the explosion or that he was one of my sleepers. I took great precautions to see that each sleeper knew as few others as possible.
“Maria was horrified at the incident and angry at the Americans for putting so many lives in danger. I was about to tell her of my role—to boast, I suppose—when Maria asked me if I remembered David McLean, the young Canadian soldier with the broken ribs. I said of course, and she told me that he had visited her only the day before. I was shocked, since I knew it was as big a risk for him to come back to Spain as it was for me. I asked Maria what David was doing here and she said he had been sent to try to find a saboteur and prevent a terrorist act. He had known the area targeted, and that planes were involved, but he’d had no idea what was going to happen until the B-52 exploded over Palomares. He had been depressed at his failure to stop the explosions, but he told Maria that he had hidden a fifth bomb.
“I encouraged Maria to talk, presenting myself as someone like her, who cared deeply for my fellow man. McLean and Maria had talked long about what he should do about the bomb. She argued that since the bomb was hidden in a place where no one would ever find it and was no threat to anyone, he should keep quiet about it. That way, it would be one less bomb that could be used to kill people. She said that he agreed not to tell anyone of the bomb’s existence.
“I was thrilled when Maria told me this. I saw, in that hidden bomb, an opportunity to make the dramatic gesture that Arturo and I had dreamed of. Imagine a nuclear device detonated beneath the United Nations in New York or outside the Kremlin in Moscow or even here in Madrid! With that bomb, I could change the world. What time I had, I spent searching the world for David McLean and the hills above Palomares for the bomb. I found neither—until now. You will lead me to the bomb.”
“What makes you think we know anything about it?” I asked. Gorky’s story made sense and linked my grandfather to Palomares, but how could this old man possibly know who I was, let alone why Laia and I were here?
“I am old and not up to scrambling around the hills as I once could, but I have not totally given up hope. I have a modest apartment in Almería, and two days ago, I received an anonymous phone call identifying you two and telling me that you had the key to the bomb’s location. The rest was easy—Palomares is not a large town. Lucio has been following you since you arrived.”
“The guy on the red scooter?” Laia asked.
“Indeed. In fact, he would have followed you this morning straight to the location of the bomb—that is where you went, I assume—but he had mechanical troubles with his scooter. When he caught up with you, he phoned me, and we had to resort to this unpleasantness. But it is almost over. I have told you my story and, I hope, convinced you that I will stop at nothing to get what I want. Shall we go, or do I have to ask Lucio to begin removing fingernails?”
I shuddered at the mention of fingernails, but before I could think of anything to say, Laia spoke. “I will show you where the bomb is,” she said calmly.
“You can’t,” I blurted out. “This maniac will set it off in the middle of a city somewhere. He could kill thousands of people.”
“He might,” Laia said, looking at me, “but what is certain is that I cannot sit and watch them torture you. I would tell them sooner or later, so why subject you to all that pain?” She seemed almost frighteningly calm, and what she said made logical sense. It was quite likely that I would tell Gorky where a hundred bombs were hidden after the first couple of fingernails had been ripped off. Even the simple threat of doing that to Laia would get me talking. It was wrong, but we weren’t trained spies or secret agents. We were just a couple of scared kids. How could we be expected to stand up to torture by someone who had probably been trained by the KGB?
“Excellent decision,” Gorky said, levering himself to his feet. “Let us go and get the fifth bomb.”
EIGHTEEN
The drive back was more comfortable than the drive to the ruined building. We traveled more slowly, matching the pace of Gorky’s rather old and battered Toyota—obviously, spying didn’t pay very well. This time, Laia and I weren’t blindfolded, and our feet weren’t tied, but it was still difficult to stay balanced with our hands tied behind our backs. I had a moment of hope when I rolled heavily onto my cell phone and felt it vibrate, but there was no way I could reach it with my hands tied.
“Stop here,” Laia ordered when we reached the point where the road was closest to location number five. I let Laia lead the way as we worked our way around the hillside, wondering if she had some sort of escape plan in mind. I couldn’t imagine what it might be. Our hands were still tied, and we were surrounded by four fit-looking men.
Progress was slow, with Gorky being helped along and having to take frequent breaks to catch his breath, but we eventually arrived at the rockfall. One of the Spaniards said something too fast for me to catch, and the others laughed. “What did he say?” I asked Laia.
“He said his grandfather used to say there were ghosts living here and that they used to steal sheep.”
One of the other Spaniards looked over at me and said, “Habrá fantasmas más pronto.” I understood that. He had said there would be more ghosts soon. I really hoped Laia had a plan.
“Where is it?” Gorky asked. He was visibly excited now, looking around and waving his cane.
Laia led us over to rock fourteen. “You have to move that rock,” she said.
Gorky gave orders, and two of his men hauled the rock aside. Gorky moved forward and peered into the dark hole. “Where is it?” he asked again, withdrawing his head. “I need a flashlight.”
The Spaniards looked at each other and shrugged. Laia flashed me a warning look and shook her head very slightly. I realized that I was still wearing my backpack, held in place by my arms tied behind me. Our flashlight was still in it. I kept silent.
“It’s in there,” Laia said. “About three or four meters in. Untie my hands and I’ll go get it.”
Gorky looked uncertain, but he had little choice. Laia and I were the only two who could squeeze thr
ough the tiny hole, and enlarging it would be a big job. “Okay,” he said. “I don’t think you will escape into the hillside.”
Lucio cut Laia’s hands free. For a moment, she stood and massaged her wrists. She leaned toward me to give me a kiss on the cheek and whispered, “Come in fast as soon as they cut you free.”
“Be careful,” I said out loud, as I nodded to show that I understood what she had said.
“Very touching,” Gorky said. “Now get me the bomb.”
Laia squirmed through the hole and disappeared. I slowly edged forward, wriggling my hands to try and get the feeling back in them.
“I’ve found it,” Laia shouted, her voice echoing out of the blackness. I thought Gorky was going to start dancing, he looked so strung out. All the men except Lucio had edged farther away from the hole, looking nervous. I guessed they weren’t particularly keen on transporting a thermonuclear bomb in their van.
Laia grunted loudly. “What’s wrong?” Gorky shouted.
“It’s really heavy,” Laia shouted back. “I can’t move it on my own.”
Gorky looked at his men. They knew what was coming and took a few shuffling steps back, shaking their heads. Gorky looked at Lucio. It was obvious that he would never get through the hole. “Do you have any rope in the van?” Gorky asked. Again the shuffling and head shaking. “You will go in and help your girlfriend,” the old man said, turning back to me. “Cut him free,” he ordered Lucio.
I stepped forward as Lucio drew a thin, evil-looking blade from his belt. As he sawed at my bonds, Gorky produced a small automatic pistol from his pocket. “Don’t try anything funny,” he warned.