When we came to the traffic circle at Plaza de Atocha, Prit braked hard, almost knocking me to the floor.
“What the fuck! Why’d you brake?”
“Look up ahead. We can’t go that way.”
Plaza de Atocha, with its fountains, train station, and wide streets, was once the hub of Madrid. It no longer existed. One of the buildings had been blown up and its debris blocked most of the road. Added to the rubble was a wide trench, ten or twenty feet wide, full of stagnant water. Completing the scene were several overturned eighteen-wheelers that formed an impenetrable wall, splitting that hub in two.
“End of the line,” muttered the Ukrainian. “Now whadda we do?”
“Back up,” I mumbled. “Let’s retrace our path and get on the M-30. Maybe we’ll make it farther on that highway. If that doesn’t work, we can take side streets and bypass this area entirely.”
Even I didn’t believe what I was saying. On a boulevard as wide as La Castellana, the Centaur had a chance of getting through, but on the narrow back streets, filled with wrecked cars and collapsed buildings, we’d get stuck in a heartbeat. Yet what other choice did we have?
Prit circled wide and headed in the opposite direction. In that neighborhood, the Paseo de la Castellana merged with the narrow, treelined Paseo del Prado. Prit had to maneuver the Centaur between downed trees anytime a group of Undead forced him to change lanes. I couldn’t say for sure how many of those monsters surrounded us, but it was way more than a couple of thousand. If the Centaur got stuck, we were goners.
My eyes were burning as I strained to look into the periscope. A bead of sweat slid down my forehead, so I pulled away to dry it off, then pressed against the rubber again. Out the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of the sun reflecting off something shiny. I turned the periscope to the right and yelled, “Stop, Prit!”
“What’s the matter?” Ukrainian asked, alarmed.
“I saw something on that roof, over to the right.” Prit craned his neck to look where I was pointing.
We were stopped in front of the main entrance to the Prado Museum. Through the trees, I’d gotten a glimpse of the cupola on top of that enormous building. Sitting on the roof, directly in front of that cupola, something with a Plexiglas windshield glinted in the sunlight. If the clouds hadn’t parted just then, we’d have driven right past it.
“Whadda you think it is?” I asked trying to control the emotion in my voice.
“I’d bet my life it’s the cockpit of a helicopter,” the Ukrainian said, after a few seconds. “It’s small, just a bubble cockpit, but hell, who cares? It’s a helicopter.”
My heart was beating so hard I thought it would fly out of my chest. If we could get that bird in the air, we’d have a chance to escape this hellhole.
“Perched up there, she seems to be in one piece,” said Prit, peering into the lens. “But until we go up there, we won’t know if she’ll fly.”
“Let’s get in the building. We can knock the door down with the Centaur and then find the stairs to the roof.”
Prit thought it over and said, “We’ll barely fit between the columns on the portico, but I don’t see any another option. Okay. Buckle up and hold on tight to Sarge. This is gonna shake a lot!”
Prit gunned the engine, steered the Centaur up the sidewalk with a bounce, and drove toward the door of the Prado at full speed. When we were just a couple of feet away, I realized that the space between the columns was way too narrow, but it was too late to change course. The tank’s sides scraped against the columns with a horrible screech. The window on the right collapsed with an unearthly crash. When we rammed the door of the Prado Museum, chunks of granite the size of a washing machine had glanced off the shield on the turret, smashing it to bits.
For a few seconds, all you could hear was the patter of stones falling on the Centaur’s roof. I felt like someone had yanked my guts out my mouth and then crammed them back in. My safety harness had held me against the seat, but under my wetsuit, I had one helluva bruise on my left shoulder.
“You okay?” Pritchenko’s reassuringly calm voice came from down at my feet. The Ukrainian had unbuckled his safety harness and crawled toward the control panel.
“Just great. You?”
“I’m in one piece. Let’s get outta here before any Undead figure out we’re here.”
I raised the hatch very carefully and stuck my head out. The front half of the tank was wedged inside the museum lobby. The back half was outside, buried under a huge pile of rubble and the toppled columns. A chunk of the portico, the size of a small car, was lying next to the Centaur. If that piece of granite had fallen on us, the tank’s armor wouldn’t have saved us. We’d have been crushed to death.
The museum was cool, dark, and, most importantly, empty. There was no sign of survivors and not a fucking Undead in sight. That didn’t mean there weren’t any wandering around inside the building, but I’d bet my last cigarette no one—human or nonhuman—was in the Prado. The palatial building, with its thick stone walls and barred doors, was like a fortress. Prit and I were probably its first visitors since the quarantine was imposed.
I was relieved to see that the debris and the Centaur’s chassis blocked the front door and would keep the Undead from getting in. I threw an arm around Sergeant Fernández’s shoulders and lifted him up.
“Come on, Sergeant, hold on just a little longer. There’s a helicopter on the roof and we’re getting out of here.”
“Save your breath,” Prit said quietly, as he opened one of the sergeant’s eyelids and looked at his pupil. “He’s dead.”
I gently settled the sergeant’s body into the driver’s seat. I remembered how he’d praised the Centaur in such glowing terms just minutes before Marcelo shot him. I had to admit that that tank was as superb as he’d said—and it had saved our lives. Now, that Centaur would be his coffin. I buttoned the collar of his blood-soaked jacket and wiped the dirt off his face. Sergeant Jonás Fernández had been very brave and he deserved a more dignified send-off.
I took one last look at the sergeant’s body, then dragged one of the heavy backpacks out of the Centaur. Holding the other pack, Prit stood in front of the tank, a few feet from deserted ticket windows and piles of dust-covered brochures and museum guides, taking stock of the building.
“It’s a shame about this place,” Prit said pensively. “One day a fire’ll burn half the city to the ground and no one’ll be around to put it out. Everything in here will turn to ashes. It’s a damn shame.”
I stood there, silent for a moment. Then, on a whim, I sprinted into the building. Prit followed on my heels, confused.
“Where’re you going? The stairs to the roof are the other way!”
“Just a second. Hand me your knife.”
“My knife? Sure. But why?”
“I’ll only be a minute, I promise.” I grabbed Prit’s knife.
My thoughts were racing. We could never save all those paintings, but at least we could take a couple. Out of that museum’s vast collection, which ones should I take?
We came to the seventeenth-century galleries. The figures in Diego Velázquez’s masterpiece, Las Meninas, looked down on us sadly from the wall as if they’d guessed that, someday soon, they’d be engulfed in flames. My heart fell when it occurred to me that those paintings were too big to carry, even if I took them out of their frames. Then, my eyes fell on a small painting in one corner.
It depicted a garden filled with cypresses. The plaque read MEDICI GARDENS IN ROME and below that, the artist’s name, Diego Velázquez. In the background was an elegant white marble bridge with an arch in the middle, which had been carelessly boarded up. In a niche to the right, the statue of a Greek god pensively looked out at the viewer. In the foreground, some well-dressed men carried on a relaxed conversation. In his genius, the painter had captured a calm, quiet moment on a hot summer afternoon. Surrounded by majestic portraits of kings and queens who died centuries ago, that little painting stood out. It ha
d more strength and life than the rest of the paintings in that room.
I grabbed the painting off the wall and laid it face down on a bench. Normally, that would’ve instantly triggered an alarm; a half-dozen armed guards would’ve surrounded me before I could draw a breath. Now, there was only silence as I used Prit’s knife to pop out the staples that held the canvas in the frame. I carefully rolled the painting into a tube about forty inches long and only as wide as my index finger and stuck it into the empty sheath strapped to my thigh. Then I handed Prit his knife.
“Why’d you do that?” Ukrainian asked.
“I had to. Those drugs in our backpacks are important, but this”—I helplessly pointed to the paintings around us—“this is just as important. It’s our heritage, our legacy, the sum of who we are. When this is gone, in a few months or years, a part of us will be lost forever. Civilization won’t shine quite as bright. We can’t take all of those paintings, Prit, but we can save one.”
“Okay,” sighed the Ukrainian, dragging me by the arm toward the stairs. “But if we don’t hurry, we’ll share the fate of those paintings.”
I gazed at the famous paintings one last time. Astride his rearing horse, Charles V bid us farewell with a cynical look on his face, as if he knew we were the last to walk through that room.
47
MADRID
We headed up the stairs tucked behind the guard booth. It was a narrow, very dark space; the only light filtered through a dirt-covered skylight. We eased up those stairs with Prit in the lead, knife in hand.
It took both of us to push open the bulletproof glass and steel door at the top. When we walked out onto the roof, we got a real shock. As far the eye could see, tens of thousands of Undead surrounded the museum. I took a step back, my head spinning.
“My God… look at all of ‘em!”
A chorus of groans rose when the crowd saw us head for the helicopter. We knew they couldn’t reach us up there, but that sound set our teeth on edge.
We rushed around checking out the helicopter. It was painted white with no markings except for the registration number on its tail. That told us nothing about its owner or why or when he landed there, but there was no time to investigate. If he was dead, he didn’t need it. If he was alive, well…he shouldn’t have left the keys in the ignition.
Prit gave the bird a thorough going-over. “The battery’s charged up. And it has about a quarter of a tank of fuel. That pilot was a really careful guy. Cross your fingers, amigo. If the engine starts, we’ll be out of here in a couple of minutes.”
The engine let out a yowl and the helicopter’s blades slowly came to life. Compared to the Sokol or the SuperPuma, it looked very fragile, but Prit seemed satisfied with it. As he pushed the throttle, the blades picked up speed and we rose into the air.
“You did it, Prit! You did it! We’re flying again! Where’s your damn fatalism now?”
“Gone for good, I hope,” was all the Ukrainian said, but a big smile showed under his mustache. “Gone for good. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got a helicopter to fly.”
With a gentle flick of my friend’s wrist, the helicopter lifted into the air. We were finally on our way to Cuatro Vientos Airport.
The ruined city grew smaller and smaller behind us, until it finally disappeared. And then, there was silence again.
48
MADRID
The Airbus was resting at one end of the runway, its burnished metal glowing in the setting. We flew the helicopter over the plane a couple of times, but no one stuck his head out. If it weren’t for the shiny fuselage, you’d have thought it’d been abandoned like all the other vehicles scattered across that runway.
“Look over there.” Prit banked so I could see where he was pointing.
At the end of the runway was a pile of twisted metal that was still smoldering.
“It’s one of the Buchones! Think the Froilists shot it down?” I shouted.
“Don’t think so. The pilot probably crashed as he tried to land. Those birds weren’t easy to handle, even in their heyday. Imagine all the things that could’ve failed after they’d sat in a museum for fifty years.”
“I don’t think the pilot survived,” I muttered, grimly, staring at the burning pyre.
“Me, neither. But the important thing is not who’s dead but who’s alive down there.”
With a final turn the helicopter started to descend. When we landed, Prit powered the engine down, but he didn’t turn it off. If we had to make a break for it, it’d be better if the engine were running.
I got out and walked cautiously up to the Airbus. The interior lights were on and the giant airliner engines were running, as if they might take off any moment.
The door flew open and a nervous soldier pointed a rifle at us. “Halt! Who goes there?”
“Friends!” I shouted.
“Friends!” thundered the soldier. “Whose friends?”
From the sound of the guy’s voice, I guessed he was really on edge, not a good thing when someone’s pointing a gun at you. Throughout history, thousands of people have been killed by someone with a jumpy trigger finger, so I gave my answer some careful thought. There were two options—only one was correct.
“The republic!” I shouted, betting it all. “Friends of the republic!”
I held my breath, waiting to see if my bet paid off. If the Froilists had infiltrated the team in the plane, I expected a hail of bullets and death in the middle of the Cuatro Vientos runway. If Republicans were on board, we had a chance.
I saw the soldier relax and lower his gun. I nearly collapsed in the middle of the runway from the adrenaline rush. Heads or tails—and it came up heads. Again.
“Where’s the rest of the team? Where’s the commander!” the soldier shouted.
I could see the guy better now. He was very young, little more than a teenager. “We’ve got a group of Froilist infiltrators in here!”
“We know,” I said wearily, as I picked up one of the bags Prit had dragged out of the helicopter. “We’re the only ones left. Everybody else is dead, including Tank.”
“They’re all dead?” The boy nearly choked in fear. “Tank, too?”
“That’s right,” Pritchenko added. “Three heavily armed Froilists are headed this way in a tank with a really big gun. It’s not a good idea to hang around.”
“That’s up to the pilot, I guess,” the soldier replied with a shrug.
We quickly climbed onboard. Three bodies lay on the floor, covered with bloodstained blankets. A clenched fist stuck out from under one of the blankets.
“There were three of them?” Prit asked.
“Just two.” The soldier shook his head. “The third guy’s Ensign Barrios. He got one of them before they killed him.”
A middle-aged lieutenant came out of the cockpit. Judging from his uniform, I guessed he was one of the pilots. We shook hands warmly.
“Be glad you got here when you did! An hour later and we would’ve left without you! We’ve been trying to get Tank on the radio for hours, but nobody answered. When those bastards tried to hijack the plane, I guessed the same thing had happened to the team on the ground.”
“More or less,” I said, remembering that the radio operator had plunged down the stairs. “Only in our case, the Froilists took over. They’ll be here any minute. They’re in a tank with a cannon that could blow this plane to pieces, Lieutenant.”
“What’re we waiting for?” The pilot hurried to the cockpit. “You can fill us in later. Now, let’s get outta here!”
Exhausted, I fell into a seat, while the two surviving soldiers and the pilot closed the Airbus’ door. Prit, buzzed on methamphetamines, slipped into the copilot’s seat. His predecessor was smoldering in the wreckage of the Buchon. He declared loudly enough for everyone to hear that he wasn’t going to ride back in the cabin.
A couple of minutes later, the Airbus rolled slowly down the runway. Its wing cast a brief shadow over hundreds of thousands of enraged Und
ead pressed against the other side of the fence. As the pilot made the final checks, I glanced out the windows, trying to make out the silhouette of the other Centaur coming down the road, but all I saw was an endless tide of Undead.
Discovering that the plane had left without them would probably be a death sentence for Marcelo, Pauli, and Broto. In the middle of nowhere, almost out of ammunition and provisions, their chances were slim. I felt bad for Broto, but he’d made his choice. Heads or tails. And he chose tails.
At least he has the bullet Marcelo gave him. Hope he has the guts to use it.
The Airbus’ engines roared when the pilot gave it some gas. Amid a symphony of groans and creaks, the plane accelerated down the runway, shaking like crazy, then miraculously rose into the air, clearing the fence only by about two feet.
After ten minutes, the plane leveled off at five thousand feet and began the two-hour trip back to Tenerife. Too hopped up on speed, I couldn’t sleep. I was elated to be alive and heading home. My mind wandered, thinking about the heroes’ welcome we’d get. Prit had cleared his name, we had two backpacks with enough drugs to supply a pharmacy, and I had a beautiful girl waiting for me. Life was good.
I patted the Velázquez painting I’d rescued from the Prado Museum, picturing Lucia’s astonished face when I gave her that painting to hang on our living room wall. Satisfied, I smiled and curled up in my seat. She’d be thrilled.
49
TENERIFE
“Hey! What the hell’s going on down there?” asked the pimple-faced, young soldier as our plane made its approach into Tenerife North Airport.
The flight had gone smoothly. We’d had nice, early summer weather all the way. Exhausted but smiling, Prit and I slapped each other on the back as the plane came to a stop. But then that question got our attention.
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