The Anvil

by Ken McClure

  He followed the main supply pipe with his eyes again. It ran along the back of the sterilizers about three metres above the ground. There was a branch pipe and reducing valve for two of the machines but none for the one in the middle. The machines were of the front-loading type and sunk into the rock face. It was time to talk again.

  MacLean listened to what Leavey had to say and agreed that he was on to something. ‘Maybe we should take a look inside that machine?’ he said. They discussed the best way of achieving this and agreed that they must avoid confrontation at this stage if at all possible. ‘The fire alarm!’ said Leavey, remembering the diversion he had planned for a raid on the Pharmacy.

  ‘Just the job,’ said MacLean. He remembered seeing one just to the right of the top of the stairs he had climbed earlier to the medical flat; he volunteered to go.

  The plan was that Leavey should return to the catwalk and wait there for MacLean. They would both remain until the boiler house had emptied and then take a look at the sterilizer with no steam supply.

  MacLean gave Leavey a few moments to get out on to the catwalk before leaving the boiler house and climbing stealthily up the stairs to the medical flat. He was about to step out into the main corridor when he heard the sound of female voices and stepped back to press himself against the wall. For a moment he was convinced that they were coming towards him. He was preparing to dash back downstairs again when the sound started to fade. He stayed still for another thirty seconds before putting his head round the corner. The corridor was deserted. He broke the glass on the firepoint and rushed back downstairs to the deafening sound of the alarm. He was gambling on being able to get back and out on to the catwalk before the men working there had time to reach the head of the stairs. He made it with less than ten seconds to spare.

  As the last workman left, Leavey and MacLean wriggled back to the head of the stairs and descended as fast as they could, their feet rattling off the metal treads. The final dash across the brightly-lit floor of the boiler house made them feel terribly exposed.

  Leavey hit the button to open the power-driven door of the sterilizer and cursed at the agonising slowness of the response. It finally swung open to reveal, not the steel inner chamber of a surgical dressing sterilizer, but the entrance to a tunnel running back into the rock face itself. They looked at each other and stepped inside quickly, anxious to be out of the glare of the lights. Leavey found a recessed panel in the rock and pushed the button, which he rightly assumed would close the door behind them. It hissed shut with the same agonising slowness and in doing so, completely cut off the sound of the generators.

  It was now possible to speak normally again although both men were too awe-struck to say much. It was clear that the tunnel led into the heart of the mountain. MacLean led the way for the first thirty metres until they came to a sharp bend. He paused to peer round the corner before signalling to Leavey that it was safe to continue. Another thirty metres and they were faced with a choice where the tunnel split into three: two shafts were lit, a third was in darkness.

  The sudden sound of voices sent them scurrying into the dark option where they lay down flat. The voices grew fainter and MacLean let out his breath in a sigh of relief. Leavey switched on his torch to reveal a large wooden door covered with cobwebs and dust. Dry rot had already eaten into the lower panels and was gnawing at the lower edges of the iron lock mounting. It gave way when Leavey put his foot to it; the door creaked back on its hinges. ‘After you,’ said MacLean.

  Leavey’s torch remained directed at the floor until they were both inside. Something rattled as MacLean walked into it and he recoiled, pushing whatever it was away. He was startled when it returned to hit him and he cried out involuntarily. Leavey’s torch beam flashed round to light up the skeleton of a man hanging from a rusty chain. There were seven other skeletons hanging from the ceiling.

  ‘Franco’s Opposition?’ suggested Leavey sourly.

  They returned to the lit tunnels and continued on into the mountain. Leavey stopped and touched his face. He looked startled.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ whispered MacLean.

  ‘I can feel the wind,’ he said.

  MacLean joined him on his side of the tunnel and experienced the same sensation. ‘It’s crazy,’ he murmured. ‘We must be a hundred metres into the rock.’

  They followed the source of the breeze and found themselves at the head of a flight of stone steps cut into the rock. At the top they found themselves outside in the night air.

  ‘We can’t be!’ whispered Leavey. ‘It’s impossible!’

  Both men crouched down in the darkness giving their eyes time to adjust. MacLean was first to work out the truth. He got the clue from the fact that the wind sounded much more ferocious than it felt. They were being sheltered from it. They were being sheltered by virtue of the fact that they were surrounded by cliffs on all sides. They were standing in the middle of a hollow mountain. The hollow comprised a valley about a hundred metres long and fifty across and totally cut off from the outside world.

  EIGHTEEN

  Leavey and MacLean moved well clear of the mouth of the tunnel. As their eyes became more accustomed to the dark and, with the help of an occasional break in the clouds, they were able to make out the shapes of buildings on the valley floor.

  ‘There’s a complete village here!’ whispered Leavey.

  MacLean’s reply was cut short by a light clicking on in the building nearest them, scattering light from the window and causing them to throw themselves to the ground. The silhouette of a young woman drifted briefly across the light and they watched as the figure put on a jacket she took from a cupboard in the room. The light clicked off again and moments later a door opened.

  A torch beam appeared and started to move over the ground, illuminating the holder’s path between the building she had just come from and the one next to it. As she fumbled with the door handle the torch in her hand swung upwards and lit her face for a moment. She was in her early twenties, dark-haired and pretty. When she disappeared inside MacLean said, ‘When she comes out we’ll grab her and find out what the hell’s going on.’

  Suddenly the cry of a baby came from the building. It was long and loud and echoed up the face of the cliffs.

  MacLean shook his head in disbelief but before he could say anything, the baby’s cry was joined by another and yet another. Lights were switched on and Leavey and MacLean were forced to retreat from the position they had taken up in order to intercept the girl when she left. A torch beam appeared out of the darkness to their left. It was followed by another to their right. Both beams converged on the building where the noise was coming from. When they met, the light coming from the windows revealed their holders as two more young women. They spoke briefly in Spanish and went inside.

  ‘It’s a nursery,’ whispered Leavey.

  Peace was restored over the course of the next few minutes and the lights were turned off once more. The two girls who had arrived after the start of the disturbance were the first to leave and spent a little time in whispered conversation outside the front door before saying good-night and separating. A few minutes later, the original girl left the building and turned on her torch. She started out on her journey back but had only taken a few steps when Leavey came up silently behind her and cupped his hand over her mouth. He lowered her gently to the ground and whispered reassurances in her ear until her panic had subsided.

  MacLean asked gently, ‘Do you speak English?’ and Leavey relaxed his hand to allow her to answer. He kept it close, ready to smother any attempt at a scream.

  ‘A little,’ replied the girl.

  ‘Good. Who are you and what do you do here?’

  ‘My name is Carla Vasquez. I look after the children.’

  ‘Carla Vasquez? Maria’s friend?’

  ‘You know Maria?’ exclaimed the astonished girl.

  ‘She told us about you,’ replied MacLean. ‘She suspected you were some kind of prisoner.’

 
‘But not here,’ added Leavey, looking up at the high cliffs against the night sky.

  ‘Your mother thinks you’re in Madrid,’ explained MacLean.

  ‘We are given post-cards to write to our parents.’

  ‘You said “we”. How many are there of you?’ asked Leavey.

  ‘Twelve. We look after the children.’

  ‘What children?’ asked MacLean. ‘Where do they come from?’

  ‘I don’t know Senor. None of us knows. We get babies to look after for a few weeks, then they take them away and we don’t see them again.’

  ‘What happens then?’

  ‘We get more babies.’

  ‘Who brings you the babies?’ asked Leavey.

  ‘Dr Von Jonek.’

  MacLean savoured the moment in silence. He’d found Von Jonek and the knowledge seemed to drain him momentarily of all energy. He rolled over on to his back in the grass and looked up at the sky, thinking of just how long the road had been and how hard. Leavey put a reassuring hand on his shoulder and said, ‘We’re nearly there.’

  Leavey said to Carla, ‘We’ll help you escape Carla but we are going to need your help. It’ll be light in three hours and we have no place to hide.’

  ‘Come with me,’ said Carla. ‘I share a hut with Fernanda Murillo. You can hide there.’

  Carla lit up the way with her torch beam and Leavey and MacLean crawled along in the grass behind her. They had almost reached the front door of the hut when they realised that something was wrong. There were voices coming from inside. They were raised in argument and one of them was male. He sounded drunk.

  Leavey looked to Carla for an explanation. Carla was distraught. ‘It’s one of the guards!’ she whispered. ‘Sometimes they get drunk and try to bother us. We keep the door locked but I must have left it unlocked when I left!’

  The sound of crying came from inside and MacLean made to move but Leavey stopped him. ‘I’ll go,’ he said and started towards the hut.

  Leavey turned the handle of the door slowly and steadily until the lock was silently released. He moved the door just an inch, to make sure that it would swing easily, and then in one swift movement he opened it, slipped inside and closed it again behind him. The sound of a girl protesting angrily came from the room to his left. The sound was interspersed with coarse sounds of male assurance. He moved slowly along the wall and pushed the room door very slightly ajar. He saw a man with a large beer gut holding the girl’s hands to prevent her fending him off. In her frustration she spat in his face forcing him to let one of her hands go. The girl immediately brought her fingernails down the right side of the man’s face. He let out a bellow of pain and raised his fist to strike her. The blow never landed. Leavey dropped him with a hard blow to the back of his neck. ‘Not tonight,’ he murmured.

  The girl was on the bed with her knees drawn up to her chin and her hands over her mouth. Her eyes were wide with fear and shock and she was shaking. Leavey put his finger to his lips and made a reassuring gesture with his hands before opening the door for MacLean and Carla. Carla rushed to her friend to comfort her and apologise for what she saw as her fault.

  MacLean looked down at the man on the floor and said, ‘We’ll have to do something with him before daybreak. How about the tunnel?’

  They conferred briefly and decided that, at that late hour, their chances of getting the unconscious man up the tunnel to the disused shaft where they had found the skeletons were good. They put the lights off, and moved the man’s body out of the front door.

  It took them fully ten minutes to drag him up the shaft because of his weight but they encountered no problems and left him bound and gagged in one of the old cells. Carla made coffee and sandwiches on their return and they learned what they could from the girls.

  By the time the first streaks of dawn were in the sky, MacLean and Leavey had built up a picture of life in the hidden valley. There were six separate wooden chalets where the girls lived; each housed two girls. The babies, usually about thirty at any given time, were kept together in a single nursery building and looked after by ten of the girls during the daytime and by three at night. If the babies should start crying at night however, the other girls were under orders to lend a hand in quietening them because Dr Von Jonek got very angry about the noise. ‘There is an echo off the cliffs,’ said Carla. ‘Sometimes people can hear the sound on the other side.’

  ‘The “lost souls” of the Hacienda Yunque,’ said MacLean.

  ‘How many guards?’ asked Leavey.

  ‘Fifteen in all, although they are not just guards; they have other duties. They are split into three groups of five. One group works in the boiler house, one does the maintenance work in the Hacienda and the third group works here.’

  ‘Any other people?’ asked MacLean.

  ‘Dr Von Jonek and two other scientists,’ said Carla.

  ‘And Hartmut,’ added Fernanda, exchanging glances with Carla.

  ‘Hartmut?’ asked Leavey.

  Carla grimaced and said, ‘Dr Von Jonek keeps a strange man with him. He is not normal… not right.’

  Leavey asked where Von Jonek and the others worked.

  ‘Somewhere inside the rock,’ replied Carla. ‘But none of the girls ever get to go there.’

  Carla and Fernanda were both on duty in the nursery at seven thirty in the morning so it was agreed that Leavey and MacLean would lie low in their chalet. They would spend the day resting and regaining their strength, waiting for nightfall when they would attempt to find Von Jonek’s laboratory and the Cytogerm they had come for. In the event, neither of them slept much but the rest did them good and by mid-afternoon they felt ready for the final part of their mission.

  ‘When we get the stuff we’ll still have a problem,’ said Leavey.

  ‘You mean, how do we get out of here?’ replied MacLean.

  Leavey nodded.

  When they had entered the tunnel through the fake sterilizer door they had found a button to close the door behind them but both had noticed that there was no obvious way of opening the door from the inside. ‘There must be a way,’ said MacLean. ‘I don’t fancy the climb.’ He looked up at the cliffs.

  ‘Not easy,’ conceded Leavey.

  ‘Even if we made it to the top, we can’t get down the other side because of the overhang.’

  ‘Then we’ll have to ask someone the way out,’ said Leavey with characteristic understatement.

  ‘And we’ll have to do it tonight,’ said MacLean. ‘They’re going to start taking the absence of one of their guards seriously pretty soon.’

  Leavey agreed. They had been counting on a ‘honeymoon’ period when, although the guard was seen to be missing, innocent explanations would prevail for a while. This, they hoped, would be especially true in the case of the Hacienda Yunque, which to all intents and purposes was impregnable. The man had been hopelessly drunk when he ‘disappeared’ so it would be assumed for a while that he had not appeared for duty because of this. When a whole day had passed however, without anyone seeing him, they would start searching for him in earnest.

  When the girls returned just after dark MacLean told them of the plan and asked them to prepare themselves to leave at a moment’s notice. They were not however, to have bags packed and waiting by the door because of any search that might be mounted for the missing guard. As a precaution, the four of them searched the chalet for anything that might have belonged to him, no matter how small. They found nothing.

  The two men slipped out of the chalet into the darkness and crossed the open ground quickly. They made it to the shelter of the rocks and settled down to wait. The night, a complete contrast to the previous evening, was warm and balmy, pleasant to be out in but with the disadvantage of a clear, starry sky above them and the prospect of moonlight to contend with when the moon cleared the rim of the cliffs.

  When they were satisfied that most of the to-ing and fro-ing was over for the day they moved nearer the tunnel that led to the Hacienda. They
had already decided that Von Jonek’s laboratories must lie down the shaft in the tunnel that they had not explored. They crept up to the entrance, hugging the contours of the rock to avoid silhouetting themselves, and had a look. Everything seemed quiet so they sprinted quickly and quietly up to where the tunnel split into three. Once more the sound of voices sent them scurrying for cover in the dark, disused shaft.

  From the shadows they watched five men pass by. They were arguing amongst themselves and as the sound of their voices faded Leavey said that they were probably the relief guards being summoned to assist in a search for the missing man. The two men crossed the junction and moved into new territory. There was a light coming from under the first door they came across and MacLean put his ear to it. He heard muted voices from within and signalled to Leavey that they move on. They came to another junction in the tunnel and found another door. On it in large red letters was the word, PRIVADO.

  ‘Do you think that applies to us?’ whispered Leavey.

  MacLean smiled despite the feelings in his stomach. He watched their backs, gun raised with the barrel resting against his cheek, while Leavey dealt with the lock and let them inside. They were in a small laboratory equipped with basic glassware and general lab items but nothing to excite MacLean. He looked through drawers and cupboards in a methodical, clockwise search but still found nothing interesting. Finally, he opened a large refrigerator, letting yellow light spill out into the room. He hoped to find supplies of Cytogerm but it contained nothing but racks of small plastic tubes. He asked for Leavey’s torch and removed one of the racks to examine it more closely.

  Each tube had a nametag on it. MacLean repeated the names under his breath as he went through the rack, removing each in turn. Halfway through, the names started to sound familiar. He went back to the beginning and filled in the blanks. Karman, Nobel prize winner in physics… Normark… prize winner in medicine… Ericson the finest mathematician of his generation. The list began to sound like a roll call of outstanding achievement in the twentieth century.