—I do not understand anything.
—Can you see? —he showed on the computer—. At first, I thought there were more hidden accounts, as they appeared to me an endless list of numbers that had no SWIFT code or any sense, but that sounded to me in some way —he typed and left in view a long row of numbers separated by dashes—. In the first place the number according to object is written down, 700 for the tables, 300 for ceramics, as if it was a classification code for a library.
He pointed to what he was explaining on the screen.
—Then the year when the work its finished and its file number and cataloging.
—But this does not make sense— Jonás was very pale—. Why would those guys want an art collection?
—Holy Mother, you are not the smartest of the class eh! —the young man scoffed, but before Juandi's menacing look he turned his eyes to the screen—. I don’t know the others, but here is a series that is very well known, I know because I looked for it many times for my boss, and that is the one of the Fortuny Album.
—The Fortuny album?
—That’s right. It is an album of drawings of the missing Bosch i Catarineu’s collection.
Proxy quickly typed again, and on the screen appeared the image of an old album. Next to it was one of the drawings.
—An anonymous returned 24 of the drawings, but the other 105 of the collection are still missing. At this time, that album is valued at more than 25 million, but surely an auction would increase its price.
Jonás went to the screen and observed the beautiful drawing of the sheet while Rachel continued to watch the photograph of the album, in which a pretty lady smiled at the camera without paying attention to the image of the computer. Instinctively he removed the protective plastic and released the snapshot from one of its corners. Encased behind it was a beautiful drawing of a half-naked woman, which was exactly, the same that Proxy had on the computer screen.
Chapter 46
Raquel and Jonas had settled on the sofa, carefully taking the photos out of the album to reveal the beautiful prints that were hidden under each one. Meanwhile, Proxy worked on the laptop and Juandi had gone out for something to eat.
On the last page they found a small envelope hidden by a sheet of cardboard the same color as the pages of the album. Jonás discovered it only because when as he passed a fingertip he broke off one of the corners. The letter contained a small note, which Jonás immediately recognized as his grandfather's handwriting.
"At last Otto and I have managed to intercept the shipment. Otto knows that after this he will have to flee, so I have no choice but to take charge of the tedious obligation to hide and monitor the assortment.
For years I have followed the wrong path, obsessing with the idea of catching "Billy" without seeing further. I thank God for Otto, who in the end regained his reason and tried to atone for his sins. Without him, I would never have seen the true intention of these heartless ones.
I fear I do not have the strength to carry out my mission, but I cannot give up. What Otto and I have is the result of the efforts of years of contraband, scheming and robberies, and the key to begin again a legacy that never should have existed "
The note was cut there, and Jonah unfolded the second page. He noticed that the fever clouded his reasoning and it was difficult for him to focus on his grandfather's tight letter clearly.
"Otto is dead. It was something we had in mind that could happen, but at least it gave him time to put his son to a safety place and hide the keys. Me, for my part, must disappear, hide and not give them the opportunity to bend over."
There was one last note, the most extensive, but at that moment Juandi appeared with some bags of fast food and decided to leave it. He felt a knot in his stomach and he did not know if it was due to hunger or to the words of his grandfather.
****
After swallowing two hamburgers as if there were no tomorrow, Proxy returned to the computer immediately. He was absorbed in his work, and the others waited anxiously.
—This is incredible! —he exclaimed euphorically—. It seems that you have found the Holy Grail of the lost art collections.
—Explain yourself— asked Jonás.
—The Fortuny album is just a small piece of an enormous machinery called the Bosch Catarineu collection. Apparently, the story is for a movie.
—Please Proxy, leave the melodramas.
—What I mean is that there's a lot of cloth to be cut here. The collection was, in principle, of a textile entrepreneur named Rómul Bosch i Catarineu, who was forced to pawn it to guarantee payments from his cotton company. Mysteriously he died shortly before the civil war, and his company was closed. After the victory of the Francoists, Julio Muñoz Ramonet appeared, a businessman related to the Franco regime who took over the company, also acquiring, "without knowing" the Catarineu collection, which at that time had 2,627 works of all kinds. So far, it seems one more of the stories of Franco's Spain, but at that moment it is where everything gets complicated. The objects of the collection had been left in deposit in the Museum of Art of Cataluña through the Catalan regime, and when they were claimed by Ramonet, many of the works had been "lost".
—Well, it looks like they robbed a thief— joked Juandi.
—Which is not very normal, since Ramonet was an important man in the same regime— Proxy resumed—. According to an inventory register, only one work disappeared after the war, the Fortuny album. Some were donated by the same businessman, and the rest was taken to the magnate's palace. During the fifties and the sixties, Ramonet dedicated himself to live in a big way, organizing banquets and parties for the Falangist commanders, rubbing shoulders with the cream of the Catalan high society and creating a holding company of more than thirty companies, among them the warehouses "El Siglo". To undertake the loans, he went dynamiting the "inherited" collection of Catarineu, until harassed by debts, he exiled himself to Switzerland. At his death, the rest of the collection suffered several transfers, until in 1991 it was lost of sight forever. In the recent years this disappearance has been associated with the daughters of Ramonet, but it is something that has never been clarified.
—And was it my grandfather who stole it? —Jonás asked incredulously.
—Well, I don’t know, but in these pencils appear point by point the registration numbers of Jaime Bolch, a receiver of stolen goods of that time who took charge of the cataloging and assessment of the collection —Proxy added—. I've checked it, and then there's that.
They turned to look at the album that Proxy pointed out and that was open on the bed— now devoid of the photographs, which had been left in two separate piles—.
—But this does not make sense— Jonás argued—. Skorzeny died in 1975 and my grandfather fled somewhere in Europe much earlier, they could not have stolen that collection!
—Well, that's not all— Proxy was enjoying this like a kid—. I have checked the files of the collection’s expert. As usual, the habitual digits appear, between seven and ten, you know, paint, ceramics, plates...; after the year of creation and the identifying reference, which usually vary with the number of copies. The numerical series of the pen drives contain eleven, that's why I got confused with bank accounts, which usually have those figures plus the SWIFT or IBAN code. But in addition, there is something very strange, a pattern that is repeated in all the numerical series except in the album. The series 40.25-3.42. It has been difficult to identify it because there are many alphanumeric combinations with this quantity of numbers, but...
—It's a location— Jonás interjected—. Latitude and longitude.
Everyone turned to look at him.
—What? I’ve studied too!
—Well that, that's a location. But the strange thing is the final number: 122— Proxy changed his triumphant expression to one of consternation. The coordinates clearly indicate to me that this location refers to Madrid, but I have not been able to find any coincidence with the number 122. It could be any point of t
he capital.
Jonás turned quickly and went to the bed. He rummaged nervously in his clothes and extracted a sheet of paper. His hands trembled ostensibly, and he almost dropped the contents several times. In the end he approached the group to show them something.
—It is not a cardinal point as such— he showed them a photograph—. It is an address.
In the photograph a beautiful woman appeared, smiling at the camera with mischief and protecting her blond hair from the riotous wind with one hand. Behind her you could see a street full of people walking and several buildings crowded. One of them stood out above the others, and right next to it you could see a kind of mansion. Blurred by the passage of time, one could glimpse the number 1 in the entrance arc. A little further back, if you had enough visual acuity, a blurry 22 highlighted in large numbers of forge on the majestic entrance. While everyone carefully kept the plates, Jonás observed the other photographs. At last he understood what his grandfather had wanted to explain in the diary.
—Proxy, I need you to do something for me.
—Tell me, colleague.
—Does that gossip have a scanner?
—For God’s sake! —he snorted.
Jonás handed him a sheet with a mailing address and explained what he needed.
****
For Tony Fumo acting in that way meant mistrust. He was a professional, and for that he needed to have the clarity to handle the situation. Routines, places, enemies, everything. He liked to intervene when the situation was favorable for him, and to have that advantage you could not proceed as an insane. However, on that occasion he was leaving aside all his rules, all those things that had led him to be one of the most valuable hired assassins in Europe.
He received the call while he was still waiting at the door of the building, camouflaged under a sheet metal roof that freed the vehicles from the sun. It had been more than an hour since that tall guy had returned with bags of food. He was sure they were fucking, and that turned his stomach. He could not understand how a woman like Raquel could escape to a nest of cockroaches like that, with a useless mindless to wallow like animals. He felt disgust and a twinge of something that he could not identify.
After the telephone conversation, they ordered him to stay there until help arrived, but Tony had never worked with "reinforcements"; Besides, that had become personal. He grabbed the Beretta and went out onto the warm asphalt. As he went, he could not stop thinking about the desire that woman would feel towards him when she realized who was the one who lead there. He was sure, Raquel would like to make love to him when he scattered that Neanderthal's brains through the wall of that hovel. In one way or another, something was undeniable. He was ready to turn the tables.
Chapter 47
The Beechcraft King Air took them to Madrid in less than an hour, and before the lunch hour arrived, Chacón and Hermenegildo had already held at least four meetings with key commissioners for those votes. The general elections of a country are much more than what televisions or newspapers show, and of course, much more intricate than what the voters know. The government of a country is basically chosen around hidden interests but is led to believe that it is the voters themselves who choose their leaders. Pacts, blackmail, extortion and, ultimately, forgery are the strengths of any designation. In this characteristic masquerade, political opinions are the least important, as a staunch communist can embrace nationalism in a matter of hours if the incentive is attractive enough. People like Hermenegildo Gutiérrez oversaw make it happen, entangling, tempting and blackmailing.
Chacón and he had made a list with the names of certain people and the actions they should follow with them based on the disc they had given to the old man in that meeting. Most of them were already aware that they would appear sooner or later and accepted the orders with resignation, but a few others reacted angrily, denying the major until they showed them the irrefutable. It is amazing how you can change the sufficiency and pedantry of a person with the right persuasion.
When the call came, the two men had already completed their visits that morning and were preparing to eat in the Txistu, a restaurant in which Hermenegildo always had a table —no matter how crowded the place was, or the endless the list was—. As soon as he hung up, Gutiérrez gave the driver new orders and left behind the door of the establishment.
—I’ve told you, friend— he said smiling and giving Chacon a pat on the knee—. This is going on!
As soon as he said it, he opened his cell phone again and recited an address. It was the only thing he said before hanging up again.
****
The haze that blinded his eyes like a cotton-silk curtain forced him not to consider the obvious risks. He moved along the cracked concrete surface of the parking lot, the pistol at his thigh but not doing too much to hide it. Normally he would not have accessed the top floor by the staircase full of junk, but at that moment his mind did not allow him to choose options. He had marked as a finish line to find the house where the woman and that guy were, and he seemed to have lost the field of view of everything else.
A quick glance at his watch confirmed that reinforcements would take at least ten more minutes to arrive, so he had plenty of time to do what he should. He heard behind each door of the dirty portal —the ones that still had doors— and recognized the giant's voice after a third-floor one. He inspected the thin corrugated board of the door and concluded that it would be easy to knock it down. He applied his ear carefully and noticed even a few laughs. Were they laughing at him, at the poor, unfortunate Tony they had left to die in that filthy cabin? He felt the fury that was growing inside him, feeding on suspicion and growing as a supernatural being.
At any other time, to the usual Tony Fumo would had not been unnoticed that in that room were more people, and he should had stopped to assess the consequences, but a horrid images of Raquel with that giant, naked in bed and laughing, looking at him and guffawing as they pointed their finger at him, made burst the boiler of his tempered character, normally cold in those situations.
He secured his left foot and grasped the Beretta with both hands so that it would not fall with the impact. Taking impulse, he kicked the rusty wooden surface with no hesitation, but it did not work out as expected. The door was hollow, and so deteriorated that the bolt resisted the onslaught but the plank broke. The door did not open, but Tony went through it with a huge hole in the center. For several seconds he was trapped at the calf muscle level. Those moments in which he was hanging with one leg through the wood his brain seemed to cross a line. He was the Tony of before, the calculating Fumo who had killed more than a hundred people. Time seemed to slow down, and he realized that he must have hit closer to the bolt, not in the center of the door where the wooden board was thinner. He also became aware of the voices that shouted inside, and he made sure that there were several people besides Raquel and the giant. He grabbed the Beretta and fired a single shot, which barely sounded like a sigh due to the muffler. The lock jumped through the air and the door opened, allowing Tony to take out his leg with a clean impulse. His brain had once again been the cold machine that it had always been. Suddenly everything was clarity. Entrance, two, three clean shots, and one to the big man's knees. From there, it would be left to the flying imagination. Suddenly, everything returned to acquire a devilish speed.
****
It happened so suddenly that they barely had time to protect themselves. While they were reviewing the new clues that Proxy had found and trying to clarify the relationship of all that with the guys that were looking for them, the door of the room exploded in a rain of splinters that reverberated throughout the room. At that moment, everything rushed into a chaotic dance of cries and run over runs.
Proxy hid under the table, and with the experience of having lived as a child in hostile environments, he curled up and curled up behind a threadbare tablecloth. Jonás only thought about hiding the material they had discovered, but one blow knocked him out of play and he only had time to hid
e the photograph of the woman under one of the sofa’s cushions. The only one who reacted in time was Rachel, who rammed the man who had just entered the door without stopping to think about the gun that was pointing. Tony dodged her with a graceful feint and hit her in the neck. Without stopping, he advanced towards Jonás and lifted the Beretta. At that moment appeared Juandi like a steamroller, who had been out of the guy's angle of vision and gave him a brutal knee in the back —at the level of the kidneys— which, caused that the Italian fell on the carpet. The gun slipped from his hands and went to a few meters away from him, at the foot of the table. Juandi attacked again, but Tony had remade very quickly. He held Juandi's fist —which looked like a mace compared to the criminal's one— and managed to turn it around with a movement behind his back.
—We see each other again, big man— Tony whispered in Juandi's ear—. Only this time I will not let myself to be surprised.
—I'm going to kill you— he growled, contorted in pain.
—Oh no, you will not— he increased the pressure a little more and something cracked in Juandi's broad shoulder—. What you have heard is the articulation.
With a dry impulse he raised his forearm, and the crunch this time was shocking, like the knot of a trunk that burns in the fire. Juandi's roar was very similar to that of a bull.
—And that's your shoulder dislocating— he released him and turned him over to face him—. I want you to know that you're going to die here, but I also want you to keep in mind that I'm not going to kill your girlfriend; I'll take her with me.
Juandi roared like a beast trapped in a trap and tried to hit the Italian again. He resumed his limp arm and twisted it again. The pain made Juandi almost faint.
Jonás had reacted after the initial shock, and when he saw that guy beating his friend, he jumped over him. The first punch hit him in the temple, and the second —blindly thrown— into his chin. After that, the man dropped Juandi and faced him. He was not very big, but it was clear that he was in very good shape, and above all that he knew how to fight. He connected two direct ones to the chin of Jonás, and without giving him respite, a couple more in the stomach. The guy must have sensed Jonás’ pain because he showed no mercy where he had been shot a few days before. One after another, the assassin's fists connected in the belly while hammering, like a hydraulic hammer, and Jonás could, literally, feel escaping the points that Mr. Harrison so subtly sewn him. When he thought that he would die at the hands of that psychopath, the pain stopped. Slowly he opened his eyes and discovered a situation he would never have imagined. At the door, was Chacon smiling as two friends who meet again. Next to him, a tall and gawky guy watched the scene with scorn. The stranger approached while Chacon pointed with the huge revolver, an old Jonás’ acquaintance.
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