Cries of the Lost

by Chris Knopf

  The two of them stood still as statues.

  “What do you want?” said Angel.

  “To end this war,” I said.

  “Mr. G.,” the smartphone squawked at me.

  “Yeah.”

  “We got two more Spanish guys in a car at the main entrance. Say they’re here to see you.”

  “Let them in.”

  Everyone stood silently as we watched a silver Toyota drive up the gravel driveway to the house. It stopped a few car lengths from Joselito’s Range Rover.

  Jueventino and Rodrigo stepped out.

  They came within a dozen feet and I motioned for them to stop.

  “Hola, Timador,” said Rodrigo.

  “Hola, Rodrigo. Or is it Nicho?”

  Angel took off his sunglasses and glared at the other two men with unalloyed hatred.

  “Natsumi Fitzgerald,” I said, “meet Nicho Zarandona. Florencia’s brother.”

  “He didn’t die of a brain tumor,” said Natsumi.

  “No. He needs to die with my hands around his neck,” said Angel.

  Joselito looked at me nervously, as if to say, “Hey, I just brought the guy here.”

  “See, this is the problem,” I said. “You’ve been trying to kill each other for, I’m guessing, about eighteen years?”

  “This man murdered my parents,” said Nicho, pointing at Angel.

  “Your father killed my brother,” said Angel.

  “It’s not about fascism or Marxism, Basque nationalism or the preservation of the Spanish state,” I said. “It’s a blood feud between two families.”

  “Not true,” said Nicho, pointing a finger at Angel. “The Vengadores have slaughtered hundreds of Basques over decades, many guilty of nothing more than speaking their hearts. We have only fought his loathsome death squad.”

  “He’s got a point, Domingo,” I said. “ETA and Madrid have a hard-won truce. Your former employers are very unhappy with you for threatening that. If my timing holds,” I said, looking at the clock on my smartphone, “the FBI will be here in about an hour. They’ve got a seat warmed up for you two on a plane back to Spain, where the Guardias will be waiting to welcome you home. Sort of.”

  “You will destroy yourself, and this terrorist,” said Joselito, nodding toward Nicho.

  “Hell, no,” I said. “We’ll be long gone. Along with the snipers, who’ll melt away as soon as you’re in handcuffs.”

  Angel’s bird-like face nearly convulsed with complicated thoughts and feelings. “This cannot happen,” he said.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll send your new address to Señorita Bolaños de Sepúlveda. Though she’ll probably have to give up the château. The French share Spain’s interest in a peaceful Basque region.”

  Joselito, a man with impressive instincts, moved away from Angel a few moments before the old Guardia reached inside his vest and pulled out a stubby revolver. The muzzle barely cleared the rough canvas fabric on its way toward Nicho when Angel’s head and torso exploded in a red and grey cloud. A second later the sound of concentrated gunfire came from the nearby woods and the Spaniard crumpled to the ground.

  Joselito had dropped to his knees with his hands in the air.

  “Don’t shoot! I’m not armed!” he yelled.

  Nicho shoved Joselito’s face into the ground and used his own belt to tie his hands. I set the dead colonel’s phone next to Joselito’s mouth and told him to warn the Vengadores to retreat or face certain death. Satisfied with the results displayed by video on my phone, Natsumi and I ran in the house and grabbed our gear and belongings, packed at dawn that morning, and loaded up the SUV.

  Jueventino and Nicho helped.

  “I need to talk to you about the money,” said Nicho, heaving a hard case filled with video recorders into the SUV.

  “You can’t have it,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “I’m giving it back.”

  “You’re giving millions of dollars to insurance companies who don’t even know it’s missing? That’s crazy.”

  “It’s their money,” I said. “You get your freedom and a vastly degraded enemy. And what’s left of your safe houses. Take it and consider yourself lucky.”

  I waited until the silver Toyota was far down the driveway before calling Little Boy.

  “How’re we doing?” I asked.

  “Spanish guys all gone,” he said. “We got a tail on the Toyota in case they try doubling back. I think we’re cool.”

  “Thanks, Little Boy. I owe you.”

  “I know you do. The bill’s in the mail.”

  squatted down next to Joselito.

  “The FBI will be here momentarily. I’ll make sure you go down for Eloise Harmon’s murder. And whatever else they might put together from your computer records. While you wait you can look at Domingo and ask yourself if it was all worth it.”

  He mumbled something into the gravel, but I didn’t bother to hear it.

  CHAPTER 24

  The sun had barely broken the horizon, and it was already warm enough to sit in the cockpit of our forty-three-foot sloop in nothing but baggy cotton shorts and linen shirts. There was a breeze, of course. There was always a breeze where we sailed. Sometimes it became a serious wind, but usually the velocity fell between a soft caress and enough to sweep Natsumi’s dense black hair back from her forehead.

  She brought coffee, fresh-baked scones and strawberries up from the galley. The boat was at anchor in a well-protected, palm-lined cove. There were two other boats nearby, a catamaran full of noisy young women and a small monohull crewed by a pair of neighborly gay men who brought us cookies and painkillers the first night we dropped the hook, and toasted us with coffee cups every morning.

  When Natsumi was settled, we repeated the ritual. The guys hoisted their cups and gave us a thumbs-up.

  “So, I haven’t asked you,” said Natsumi. “What was it like to see Florencia’s brother.”

  “I knew he was her brother when I saw the photo of their father in the Marxist newspaper. Dead ringer. Even before that, something about his face got to me. Turned out to be the ghost of Florencia. To nail it down, I called Monsieur Lheureux at the Egretta Garzetta in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. I asked him to give me the names of the people staying there at the same time as the Zarandonas. Rodrigo Mariñelarena, by birth Nicho Zarandona, and by now a twenty-eight-year-old man, was in the room next to theirs.”

  “So the brain tumor was a cover.”

  “Sure. When they fled Chile they left the boy with friends tied to the Pinochet opposition. Best way to keep him safe was to declare him dead. I know this strategy well.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “Costa Rica. Relatively safe and benign place. They start new lives as simple housecleaners and landscapers, raising Florencia, and keeping their heads down. Meanwhile, Nicho is growing up in Chile and becoming more and more radicalized.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Pinochet gets his ass thrown out of power. Rejoicing sweeps the anti-Pinochet expats and they flood back into the country. The smart thing for the Zarandonas would have been to keep a low profile, but Miguel has some pent-up stories, which he foolishly tells the local media. Domingo Angel caught wind.”

  “Where’s Florencia in all this?” Natsumi asked.

  “In the U.S. going to college and grad school. Meeting and saving a math geek from romantic ignominy.”

  “That math geek being less ignominious than he thinks,” said Natsumi.

  “The Vengadores assassinate the Zarandonas, and Nicho—already a committed left-wing revolutionary—mounts a mission of revenge. Moves to Spain, changes his name and founds United Aquitania. Aquitania being the ancient Roman name for the Basque region. In a few years, the new gang has killed enough Vengadores to earn a spot on America’s list of terrorist organizations. Along the way, Nicho needs funds, so he taps his rich sister in America, who can’t possibly afford his demands, and even if she could, would be in violation of a
nti-terrorism laws. So she cooks up her embezzlement scheme that not only throws off a lot of money, but operates well below regulatory radar. Would have lasted forever if it weren’t for some unfortunate luck having nothing to do with the feuding Spaniards.”

  “You gave back all that insurance money,” she said.

  “I did. It wasn’t ours and we don’t need it. With the sale of Florencia’s agency, we’re up around eight million free and clear.”

  “If only we were free and clear.”

  “I’m working on that. Meanwhile, how bad is this?” I asked, looking around the cove.

  “Not that bad.”

  We finished the first course and Natsumi went below to assemble the main event. Halfway through, she presented the puppy at the companionway, and I took him out to the bow to pee on a scrap of Astroturf. He was a mutt of such complicated ancestry that the pound refused to even speculate. So we named him Omni.

  “We’re going back to the U.S., aren’t we?” Natsumi asked when I got back to the cockpit.

  “Soon as I figure out how.”

  She burrowed into me and sighed, and we watched the day go all the way green, white and blue.

  MORE FROM CHRIS KNOPF

  The first book in Chris Knopf’s new Arthur Cathcart series earned starred reviews from all four major pre-publication journals.

  “Knopf reaches a new imaginative peak with market researcher Arthur Cathcart in this outstanding revenge novel.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  An absorbing update of the classic film, D.O.A., that finds its author so completely in the zone that not a word is wasted, and the story seems to unfold itself without human assistance.”

  —Kirkus

  Knopf’s tale is suspenseful from the get-go, with an intellectual, yet visceral, vigilantism coursing through the pages.”

  —Library Journal

  The novel generates enormous tension, and the mild-mannered number-cruncher is definitely an appealing hero . . . we’d very much like to see more of the engaging Cathcart.”

  —Booklist

  “Admirers of double-dealing high finance novels will love Knopf’s Machiavellian plot . . . Dead Anyway is an economics lesson deftly disguised as a superb crime novel.”—Mystery Scene

  “Ingenious plotting, breathless pacing.”

  —10 Best Crime Books of 2012,

  HALLIE EPHRON, Boston Globe

  Visit www.thepermanentpress.com

  Available wherever books are sold, or call 631/725-1101