Fatal Sunset

by Jason Webster

  He could barely take another step, yet he could not stay here: he wasn’t safe. The gunmen had already shown that they were out to kill. There was every chance that they were following him still, had perhaps found the same path and were coursing their way up to him even now.

  He threw a look of defiance at the face of the moon, then turned to carry on. He had reached the top of the valley wall: from here on it would be downhill. Yet whether safety or more danger awaited him in the next valley, he could not say.

  The path soon entered a wood of what looked like oak trees, smaller and more crooked than the pines he had grown used to. He stumbled as he sped through them, allowing gravity to pull him down the slope, catching branches and pulling himself back upright where he lost his balance, caught the edge of a stone with his foot and almost fell to the ground. Adrenalin had done much to get him this far, yet he could feel its effects beginning to wane, tiredness creeping into his legs, pain crying out from his ankles and knees, and from the thousand cuts he had suffered from the prickly bushes.

  So far, this valley was proving more benign, as though drawing him down into a more friendly embrace. Yet the landscape had tricked him earlier, back at the Molino. He must keep going; keep going until he could go no further, until he could be certain that the gunmen had been lost.

  He began to flounder: the very thought of stopping brought him close to collapse. He thought he could see something ahead. Were those lights in the distance? Perhaps someone had heard the shots. Hunters? The Guardia Civil? Was he safe at last?

  He broke out into an orchard of olive trees, their tiny leaves shining with a dull, deathly glow in the moonlight. One was larger than the others, and he fell towards it, finding a hollow in its trunk and pressing hard against it, feeling its rough hands creep around him in a cold embrace.

  He could run no further. Lungs, blood, heart, brain – all called out for him to stop. Had he managed to lose his attackers? Had they followed him this far? He could barely think any more, eyes closing as exhaustion took hold of him, pulling him down into the ground with steely fingers.

  He listened, blood pumping in his ears: silence.

  Then the slow, deadened sound of footsteps coming closer.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  The train pulled into Atocha station shortly after eleven o’clock. All the cafés, kiosks and shops were closed. Alicia stepped on to the platform and without looking around her, quietly joined the thin trickle of passengers heading out past the gate, through the atrium with its tall tropical trees and out into the street. To avoid a surcharge – but also following instructions – she bypassed the taxi rank and crossed the wide boulevard opposite the station before hailing the first taxi passing her way. The driver wanted to get out and place her suitcase in the boot, but she opened the door and asked him to drive off straight away. At the roundabout he curled in with the late-night traffic before peeling off and heading north up the Paseo de la Castellana.

  ‘Plaza de España,’ Alicia said simply.

  The driver eyed her through his mirror.

  ‘Had a long journey?’ he asked jovially.

  ‘It’s been a long day,’ answered Alicia.

  He got the message; no more was said until they pulled up a few minutes later and Alicia paid the fare.

  ‘Gracias,’ he called. Her back was turned and she was already walking away.

  She made certain that he had driven off, watching from the corner of her eye before doubling back on herself and walking the other way. A pedestrian crossing took her into the centre of the square. Despite the sounds of the city, still reverberating at this relatively late hour, the wheels of her suitcase made a considerable noise. She stopped by a bench and picked it up: it wasn’t too heavy, she would be able to carry it the short distance.

  At least, if her instructions did not change before then: Marisol had already given her three sets, each one contradicting the last. Now she was told to loiter in the centre of the Plaza de España until Marisol herself appeared. Then she was to follow her without calling out or making any gesture of recognition.

  Alicia had had secret meetings in the past, but never quite like this, never one where she was asked to cross half the country at the drop of a hat and then engage in cloak-and-dagger games in order to speak with a contact. A simple meeting in a bar was usually enough, somewhere quiet and small. Somewhere like the bar that Nacho had insisted on that morning.

  She carried on walking, forbidden to stop or draw attention to herself. Meanwhile her eyes darted from side to side in the lamplight looking for any sign of Marisol. From which direction would she appear? How would she be dressed? Would she look quite different from the last time? Years had passed, after all. She might be much slimmer, or have put on weight. Would Alicia recognise her straight away?

  And then she noticed a figure walking to her right on a parallel path, a few paces ahead, a long, lightweight coat hanging below her knees – despite the time of year – and carrying a plastic shopping bag in each hand. She looked – well, she looked like someone who might be searching for a place to sleep that night, someone who did not always know where home was. Yet her shoulders were just a little too straight, her gait fractionally too confident. And despite wearing simple rubber-soled shoes, there was a swagger in her hip that spoke of power – and the struggle for power.

  Alicia checked the slight shake of her head and, feigning nonchalance, fell into the woman’s wake, keeping a distance and placing a hand in her jacket pocket. Everything was normal, this was something she did quite regularly, it said.

  She had still not seen Marisol’s face and now they walked away from the square, crossing a road and heading up a path where a park area curled round and incorporated ancient Egyptian ruins – the Temple of Debod, gifted to Franco by President Nasser in thanks for Spanish assistance with the Aswan Dam. It was a curious, incongruous place, one of Madrid’s less successful attempts at appearing like a monumental European capital. Yet it was here, just behind the squat stone building, that Marisol was clearly taking her, for as they passed it she turned to the left and crossed towards it, finding a spot less illuminated by the lamps and perching on the edge of a low wall.

  Alicia continued in the same direction, finally coming close and, still wordless, sitting down beside her.

  ‘Hello,’ said Marisol. Alicia looked: her face was lined, her eyes dark, as though veiled by some subtle fabric, and she grinned from ear to ear through small tobacco-stained teeth.

  ‘It’s so nice to see you.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Alicia. ‘All this …’ She glanced around the empty park, then back at Marisol. The grin was wavering, less certain.

  ‘Are you frightened?’ said Alicia.

  Marisol’s eyes dropped to the ground for a moment and she clenched her hands together. In all the years that Alicia had known her she had never seen her like this. Always so strong and confident, always radiating an energy that spoke of possibility, of nothing ever getting in her way. It became a common remark among those who knew Marisol that she had more balls than most of the men around her. She was the reason why Alicia had become a journalist in the first place, showing her and her contemporaries that young women could not only break into that world, but also excel in it and even, perhaps one day, take a lead. Yet now here she was, at the tail end of her career, and she looked almost broken. She was as slim as she always had been, with thin, lizard-like skin. Her hair was darker than Alicia remembered – a new shade of dye, perhaps. Each finger still decorated with a gold ring, nails painted what looked – in the pink-orange glow of the lanterns – like a dark purple. She was still the Marisol that Alicia had known and admired, yet the change was striking: something about her posture, her head sitting less comfortably on her shoulders.

  ‘We need to be quick,’ said Marisol.

  ‘What …?

  ‘You asked me on the phone about Cabrera,’ she continued. ‘About Clavijo.’

  ‘And you gave me the official
response,’ said Alicia.

  Marisol twisted her mouth and stared Alicia in the eye.

  ‘I’m now going to tell you what I know,’ she said. ‘What I really know.’

  Not taking her eyes off her, Alicia thrust a hand into her bag to reach for her phone.

  ‘No.’ Marisol shook her head. ‘No recordings. This is off the record. And no notes, either. I just want you to listen.’

  Alicia let her hands drop passively into her lap. For a moment she felt uncomfortable, so she changed her position, crossing her legs and propping herself up against the edge of the stone wall where they sat.

  ‘OK.’

  Marisol cast a quick glance around them, eyes darting from side to side, before turning back to Alicia.

  ‘Something’s happening on Cabrera,’ she said. ‘Something big.’

  ‘What?’

  Marisol paused.

  ‘I don’t have the whole picture,’ she said. ‘But I know it’s more than just military manoeuvres. That’s the story we’ve been ordered to put out, but there’s more to it.’

  She reached into her pocket and pulled out a packet of Fortuna cigarettes, half pulling one out and offering it to Alicia. After a pause, Alicia reluctantly, dutifully, took it out and placed it between her lips. Marisol put her own between her teeth, lit it, then passed the lighter to Alicia, who twisted it between her fingers waiting for Marisol to speak.

  ‘The order came a week ago,’ said Marisol. ‘A direct command from higher up on the story we were to tell. Not a story we should actively disseminate, you understand. Just what we were meant to say should anyone – like you – come asking questions.’

  She shrugged.

  ‘That kind of thing is fairly normal. A lot of the time I’m party to decisions and discussions within the Ministry and I get on with my job, telling the press what it needs to know. I’ve been around for long enough and I’m trusted not to make mistakes. But every now and again a story is passed down in this way without my prior knowledge or my being involved in its creation.’

  Her cigarette glowed in the night air as she pulled on it.

  ‘It happens when something sensitive is taking place. Which is fair enough for somewhere like the Ministry of Defence – I’ve learned simply to go along with them. What was different about this was the addendum to the order. We were asked to take note of who – if anyone – was making inquiries about Cabrera. That in itself, again, is not unusual. But then we were meant to send this information on through the usual channels to the Centro Nacional de Inteligencia.’

  Marisol crossed her legs and leaned away from Alicia slightly, tapping her cigarette repeatedly to flick the ash to the ground.

  ‘Now, as you probably know, the CNI is not part of the Ministry of Defence any more. Although there are links, naturally, it now reports to the Prime Minister’s office. So we were being asked effectively to work for the country’s spying agency. And that was what made me …’ She tailed off.

  Alicia nodded. She took the unlit cigarette out of her mouth and pocketed it.

  ‘So you started snooping around.’

  ‘Of course I did, darling. I am first and foremost a journalist, after all. My job may be to act as mere mouthpiece, but our training runs deep, does it not? It’s why we’re both sitting here on this wall in the dark at this very moment.’

  She snorted mirthlessly.

  ‘So,’ said Alicia, ‘what did you find?’

  ‘I already told you,’ snapped Marisol. ‘I don’t know everything.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘But …?’

  ‘But for one thing,’ she continued, ‘we were supposed to make particular note of any enquiries in which knowledge of certain key words was demonstrated.’

  ‘Clavijo,’ said Alicia.

  ‘Exactly. And there were others.’

  ‘Which were?’

  ‘I looked through my files, stretching back several months,’ Marisol said. ‘Certain things, in the light of the command about Cabrera, began to leap out. Various orders for materials to be sent to the Captaincy General in Mallorca. Items which you would imagine them either to have over there already, or which now seemed odd for the Balearics.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Perhaps individually they didn’t stand out, but put together …’

  She took a final drag of her cigarette and stubbed it out with her heel.

  ‘For example a large shipment of razor wire,’ she continued. ‘Taser guns, infrared imaging equipment – the very latest and very expensive. Then there were things like food rations – lots of them, enough almost for a whole division. And blindfolds.’

  ‘Blindfolds?’

  Marisol shook her head, as though trying to work it out herself.

  ‘That was just the beginning,’ she said. ‘But there was more, a second wave of material, only in the past few days. Building materials – breeze blocks, cement, rebars.’

  She looked Alicia in the eye with a studied expression of confusion.

  ‘Surely there is a vast amount of all that on Mallorca itself. Why send more out there? Unless it wasn’t destined for Mallorca at all, but somewhere else.’

  ‘Cabrera,’ said Alicia.

  Marisol pursed her lips.

  ‘I don’t know. There was nothing to say where it was destined.’

  ‘What about the money?’ asked Alicia. ‘The country’s supposed to be broke. How can they afford to pay for all this?’

  Marisol nodded and smiled.

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘I’m so glad, my dear Alicia, that it’s you sitting here by my side tonight. The very same thought occurred to me, naturally. In fact, it was one of the other proscribed words that put me on to it. Although I insist I don’t know what’s happening over there. Not entirely.’

  ‘What word?’ Alicia said. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Abravanel,’ said Marisol.

  ‘Abra … What?’

  ‘It was the one element that linked all these curious orders. Somewhere, buried in the paperwork of all of them was that word. I don’t know what it is or what it means. I don’t know if it’s a person, an operation, or what. But it was there. And it was also one of the words we were meant to look out for if anyone came asking questions about Cabrera. No explanations – just pass the information on directly to the CNI.’

  She stopped and stared into space for a moment.

  ‘I think it’s that which annoys me most about this. I work for the Ministry of Defence as head of the media office. I’m not an employee of the CNI and nor should I bloody well spy for them. If they want me to work for them, let them come and recruit me, pay me. How dare they treat me like some minion at their beck and call.’

  Her voice rose slightly as she spoke, losing her self-awareness for a second. But then immediately she composed herself again. And now, conscious that she had lost control, the fear returned to her eyes.

  ‘You did everything I said, didn’t you?’ she asked Alicia suddenly.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You weren’t followed?’

  Alicia looked at her with a compassion tinged with sorrow. What had happened to the indefatigable Marisol she had always known?

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not as far as I know.’

  Marisol got up hurriedly to leave.

  ‘I’ve told you everything I can,’ she said, stepping away.

  ‘But …’ Alicia said.

  ‘Don’t call me,’ Marisol insisted, already backing away. ‘Whatever you do, don’t call me.’

  And she disappeared into the shadows between the trees.

  Alicia got up slowly from the wall. It was the second time that day she had heard that.

  TWENTY-NINE

  The moon shone steadily on to the olive trees. Cámara opened his eyes wide at the sound of footsteps behind. With dread, he shifted his weight and turned to look up, readying himself to make a last, desperate run.

  Pale, milky light glimmered from the skin o
f a woman walking slowly across the field. Her hair was tied in a plait that curled from the back of her head and lay over one shoulder, streaks of grey visible against the black of her tresses. Across the other shoulder, digging into the flesh, was the strap of a rope bag swinging gently against her hip. Apart from the bag, she was naked, her skin exposed to the warm caress of the night air. Cámara guessed her to be in her late fifties; she had a proud air about her, with an athletic, graceful pose, almost like a panther. And her limbs were long and powerful, yet with a lithe energy about them, like one who lived ever conscious of her body, its strength and its energy. Either side of the bag strap, her breasts hung low on her chest, nipples splayed to the sides. Below, her belly was taut and firm, yet the skin sagged in small crescents beneath the navel, where the first hairs of her pubis crept up, heralds of the dark silhouetted triangle of her sex.

  Cámara watched in awe. But for her age, and the signs of motherhood, she appeared like an embodiment of Artemis, the Moon goddess herself out hunting during the hours of night. What had happened to those unfortunate enough to catch a glimpse of her? He tried to remember from childhood stories. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good.

  As he watched, the woman crouched low to the ground and picked up a handful of stones, dropping them in her bag before standing again and continuing, scouring the ground for more.

  When she was just a few metres away, to the side of the hollow trunk where Cámara was hiding, she stopped. With a start, Cámara realised that she had seen his own tracks scratched in the soil moments before as he had scrambled for the safety of the olive tree.

  She turned and peered down at him, trying to make out who was there.