Tapestry of Spies

by Stephen Hunter

  “If you were, I’d get you a seat on the lead tank into Huesca. And your skinny friend in the raincoat. You’re out of uniform, Herr Leutnant,” said the officer. “Your boots are not shined.”

  “You’ll find, Herr Colonel,” Julian took up and threw back the challenge, “that the new German hasn’t time to shine his boots, he is so busy climbing the stairway of history, as our leader directs.”

  “Papers, Leutnant. Or I’ll have to call my guards to escort you off the bridge. You may watch from the guardhouse. Perhaps you’re the English dynamiters the Spaniards fear so adamantly.”

  He nodded to two noncoms, who reacted instantly and hurried toward them with machine carbines in hand.

  “Herr Colonel,” Julian began—but at that instant a roar arose in a sudden surge, and everybody looked for a cause and could see, just a the top of the slope, a column of dust.

  “The panzers are coming,” somebody yelled.

  They must have left just after we did, Florry thought. They were fast. He glanced at his watch. It was a minute till noon. The blockhouse was still almost fifty yards away. They hadn’t even reached the bridge. If Portela attacked now—

  “My papers,” said Julian, “are my blond hair, my blue eyes, my embodiment of the racial ideal. My credentials are my blood, sir.”

  “Your blood is of very little interest to the German army, Herr Leutnant.”

  “And this—”

  Julian reached into his tunic and removed a document and opened it up.

  “There,” he said, handing it over. “I think that should do the trick.”

  The German colonel looked at it intently for some seconds.

  “All right, Herr Leutnant,” he finally said. “You may of course position yourself where you want. But don’t get in the way. I’d hate to wire Berlin its representatives had been squashed into Strudel.”

  “Thank you, Herr Colonel. Your cooperation will be noted.”

  Julian smartly walked past the man, and Florry trailed along behind. In seconds they had moved beyond the last guard post and were on it, on the bridge itself.

  “What in God’s name did you show him?”

  “My party card. When I was in Germany in ’thirty-two I actually joined up one night as a drunken lark, under the name of a chap I was quite close to at the time, to see if I could get away with it. It was felt to be clever in the set I was running with at the time. I used to show it off at parties in London for laughs to prove how bloody stupid it all was. It’s a very low number, I’m told; impressive to chaps who understand how such things work.”

  They turned to look at the brown water forty feet below, which trickled under the bridge.

  “Robert, old chum, I’ve got that funny buzz again. About the next several minutes.”

  “Stop it,” said Florry.

  “I think my magic ring is fresh out of tricks. Tell my foolish old mother I loved her dearly.”

  “Don’t be an idiot, Julian.”

  “Say tally-ho to all my friends.”

  “Julian—”

  The first shot sounded, from high in the pines.

  “Shall we go, old man?” whispered Julian, removing his pistol.

  A klaxon sounded from somewhere, and the call “Partisans! Partisans!” in German arose. Yet panic did not break out among the professional German soldiers, who instead responded with crisp, economic movements. Or maybe it was that for Florry the entire universe seemed to slip into another gear: a monstrous, strange slowness somehow overcame and then overwhelmed reality. More shooting began, rising in tempo from the occasional bang of a bullet to, several seconds later, what seemed like a crescendo of fire.

  Julian ran toward the blockhouse just a few feet ahead, his automatic out. A bullet kicked up a puff of dust nearby and then another and then another. A few of the Germans were already down. From the blockhouse there came a noise that sounded like strong men ripping plywood apart, and Florry realized one of the German machine guns had begun to fire. Yet still he could make no sense of events: he could not see the guerrillas, and in fact could see nothing except some stirred dust down the road.

  “In, in,” yelled Julian, and they ducked into the dark little entrance of the blockhouse, immediately finding themselves in subterranean blackness.

  “Hold your fire, god damn it,” somebody was shouting in the closeness of the fortification. An electric light snapped on; Florry heard the snap and click of gunbolts being set and head the oily rattle of belts of ammunition being unlimbered. The officer with the half-dead face was shouting crisp orders, telling his gunner to prepare to engage targets at a range of about four hundred meters. Florry watched the gunners lift the weapons to their shoulders and move to adjust their positions against the firing slots. He recognized immediately that these weren’t heavy Maxim guns at all, but some frighteningly streamlined new weapon, supported at the muzzle by a bipod, yet with a pistol grip rather like a Luger’s and a rifle’s buttstock.

  “Well, Herr Leutnant,” said the colonel, “you’re in luck and so are we. I was afraid our guests might not take the bait. But they’re right on schedule. You’ll get to see the new Model 34 in action against some Spanish guerrillas who think their horses are a match for hot steel. It should make an amusing few minutes.”

  Julian shot him in the throat.

  Florry got out his four-five-five.

  Julian shot the gunner, then he shot one of the guards. Florry shot the other guard.

  The pistol shots in the close space were painfully loud. There were six Germans left and Julian said very calmly, “Gentlemen, please drop your weapons or we shall kill all of you.”

  Florry saw something in the eyes of one of the other gunners and he shot him in the arm. He went quickly to the machine carbine one of the guards had dropped and picked it up, swinging it about on the remaining men.

  “If anybody so much as breathes heavily,” said Julian, “my nervous companion will shoot you all down. You stay absolutely still, do you hear? Absolutely still.”

  They waited, almost frozen in the dicey intensity of the moment. Outside the firing seemed to rise, and then there was a banging at the iron door to the blockhouse.

  “What’s going on, damn you? Fire, you bastards, get those machine guns spitting.”

  “Easy lads,” said Julian. “Just hold it still as little mice and maybe you’ll see tomorrow.”

  “English fucker,” said one of the Germans.

  Julian shot him.

  “Who’s next?” he said. “I’ll shoot each and every man here if I must.”

  The firing outside had ceased. The pause seemed to last forever, and then there was a hoot or yelp of sheer giddy joy, and Florry heard the thunder of hooves as the air seemed to fill with dust. A few more shots sounded, until at last someone else pounded at the door.

  “¡Inglés! Dios te ame, ven acá!”

  Julian went swiftly to the iron door and unlocked it. Portela, looking like some kind of buccaneer in a cape with crossed bandoliers on his chest and a long-barreled Mauser automatic, ducked in.

  “Get these bastard out,” yelled Julian.

  Florry backed off and let the Germans file past him. When the last man had vanished, he himself climbed out.

  “Go on, run, you bastards,” yelled Julian in English, firing a shot in the air. The Germans began to flee across the bridge.

  “God, Stink, look at them run!” yelled Julian joyfully. “Christ, old sport, we bloody pulled it off.”

  “They’ll be back,” said Florry darkly, for he knew the Germans would recognize in minutes and take the offensive. Yet even as he spoke he was astounded by the strangeness of what was happening. The bridge seemed to swarm with an astounding crew of gypsy brigands, all in leather and dappled with an assortment of bullets, bombs, daggers, strange obsolete weapons, incredibly colorful costumes, all of them stinking evilly of sweat and garlic and horses. Their leader, a hideously ugly old man swaddled in the most absurd of all the outfits, a voluminous dress
under his leather coat, immediately threw his arms about Florry and hugged him violently, and only when Florry felt breasts big as any wet nurse’s under the leather did he realize she was a woman. Her face seemed carved from ancient walnut, though her eyes were bright and cunning; she had nearly half her teeth.

  “Ingléses, me permiter a verles. Que bravos. Que cahones estos hombres tienen. Mira los héroes, cobardes,” she crooned into his ears, her breath flatulent with garlic.

  Florry had no idea what she was saying.

  “Pleased indeed,” he said.

  “Gad, what a spectacle,” said Julian. “What an extraordinary woman. Is she not a woman, Stink? She reminds me rather too much of Mother.”

  “Let’s not chat,” said Florry. “Let’s blow this bloody thing and get quit of this place.”

  “Yes, let’s go,” called Portela, already shed of jacket and preparing to monkey climb down the bridge’s new scaffolding to plant his charges.

  “Where’s the bloody dynamite?” said Florry.

  “¡La dinamita está aquí!” screamed the old lady, and one of her men came ambling over with a scabby horse laden with crates.

  “It’s very old,” said Portela, “from the mines. But when she goes, she’ll go with a bang that’ll be heard in Madrid!”

  “Yes,” said Florry, unnerved by the old stuff, when he’d been expecting gear somehow more professional and more military, “well, let’s get bloody cracking.”

  “Stink, old man, I’ve found a wonderful toy,” said Julian. Florry looked to him to see that he’d just climbed from the blockhouse with one of the German light machine guns. He’d chucked his Condor Legion tunic and wrapped himself with belts. “Light as a feather. Bloody German genius for engineering. I’d say the perforations along the barrel housing keep it cool from the air.”

  “Perhaps you’d best take some chaps down the bridge and watch for Jerry,” said Florry. “I think I’ll help with the poppers.”

  “Good show, old man,” said Julian, who dashed down the bridge, the oily belts clinking and jingling as he ran.

  “¡La dinamita!” yelled the old lady.

  “Yes, splendid,” said Florry, and he grabbed the reins of the horse and tugged him to the bridge. “Here, Portela?”

  “It will do,” said the officer.

  Florry shot the horse in the head; it bucked once, then sank on its knees, its great skull forward. Florry pried a case from its harness with some difficulty, then beat it open with the butt of his Webley grip. The dynamite lay nestled inside, waxen and pale pink, looking like a batch of fat, oily candles. It smelled peculiar.

  “God, it looks ancient,” he said to no one in particular.

  “This is a detonator,” said Portela, producing something similar to a cartridge from the pouch at his belt. “You press it into the end of one of those sticks. Then you wire up the leads and run it back to the box. Then you prime the box and push the lever and send the spark over the wire. Then you get your big bang.”

  “And who’s to lash the stuff to the bridge? This fat old lady?”

  “I’ll rig the one side,” said Portela. “Perhaps Comrade Florry could help on the other. We must have two charges for the great destruction.”

  Somehow this was a detail that Steinbach had neglected to mention. “And I suppose those guerilla boys wouldn’t be able to wire it up?”

  “Alas, no.”

  “Bloody hell. Well, then, let’s get going, eh?”

  At that moment, the first sniper’s bullet struck near the bridge, followed by two more.

  “Christ,” said Florry, as the old lady rose, selected a weapon from her bewildering assortment—a broom-handle Mauser—and fired off across the bridge into rocks near the treeline. Shots opened up from all around. Florry heard Julian’s machine gun begin with that absurd, fast, ripping yelp.

  He lugged the box to the railing and slung himself over it. For just a second, he thought he’d gone too far; he almost lost his grip and could see himself hurtling down, screaming for Sylvia as he fell, until he was smashed to pulp on the stones below. But then he had himself and hung for just a minute, gathering his breath. The old lady, her eyes dark with love, touched him on the hand.

  “Bien hecho, inglés,” she said, and laughed, showing her black stumps.

  Christ, you beauty, was all Florry could think, would you be my last vision? But he lowered himself onto the abutting structure of steel, reaching foot by foot, finding a grip and then lowering himself again and again by the same laborious, experimental process, trying all the while not to look down or believe those actually were bullets whanging against the metal or kicking into the old stone of the bridge with a bang and a puff of dust, until at last he found himself perched like some grubby ape in a monkey house on a gym apparatus, surrounded only by bars and space. He clung tightly to the girders with his legs, hoping the sweat—he had begun to perspire wretchedly—would not run into his eyes. He was now in a forest of German iron and the word KRUPP darted before his eyes. A shot banged off the metal. Up top he could hear heavy firing. He tried not to look down.

  “Dynamite!” he screamed.

  “¿Eh, inglés?”

  “Dynamite, damn you!” he screamed, and in his urgency forgot his vow not to look down. Far below the stream seemed like a green, scummy ribbon of tin foil breaking over pebbles strewn by a child. He felt the vertigo buzz through him. He clung more tightly than ever. A bullet ricocheted nearby with a metallic clang.

  “Aquí están los cachivaches.”

  Something swung blurrily before his eyes: it was a peasant’s basket on a cord. Weakly, with one hand, he plucked at it, pulled it close, and pinned it to his body with an awkward elbow. He reached in to find two bundles of six waxy sticks of the explosive. He pulled one out and wedged it into the nearest joint in the girders he could find. He jammed the other bunch in atop it and wrapped it tight into a ligature with some long strands of electrician’s tape somebody had thoughtfully included in the basket. It looked dreadfully sloppy, the tape wrapped in a messy sprawl about the uneven nest of sticks.

  “Hurry!” someone else under the bridge called. He looked over to see the fat Portela similarly astride a girder on the other side, working just as desperately as he was.

  What the devil does he think I’m doing? he wondered, bewildered and flooded with bitterness.

  Florry was halfway through the next load when the bullets sent his way seemed to increase dramatically. One pinged off the girder inches from his face and he felt the sharp spray of fragments, winced, and almost fell. Evidently a Moorish party had worked its way down the gorge, descended it, and had begun to move along the creek bed toward him. Another bullet exploded dangerously close to his head.

  He twisted to see them two hundred meters away, shooting quite calmly, three gray-uniformed, lanky figures who seemed to be potting pigeons.

  “THE LEFT!” he shouted. “THEY’RE ON THE BLOODY LEFT!” Another bullet whizzed by. “Damn you, there, there on the left!” he screamed again, feeling the panic squeak through his limbs. Oh Christ, Christ, Christchristchristchrist!

  Above him the machine gun spoke rapidly, raining spent shells over the railing, and the three Moors collapsed in a lazy string of bullet spurts that kicked up clouds of dust and slate at their feet.

  “Do hurry, old man,” yelled Julian. “Jerry’s getting ready for a push.”

  Florry now had only the detonator to insert. He plucked it from his pockets and awkwardly plunged it into the exposed end of one of the sticks, felt it crumble into the chalky stuff.

  There! Ah! Now for the bloody wire. If only … ah! He unspooled the blasting wire and with his fingers tried to locate the posts on the detonator. It was tricky business. Florry kept thinking there should be an easier way. Twice he … almost had it … blast, the loop coiled off. The damned raincoat felt heavy and constricting; he wished he’d chucked the bloody thing. He could hear the chatter of Julian’s weapon and some others and suddenly an awesome WHOMP
as an artillery shell detonated hard by. Florry shivered, shrank, and almost lost his grip on the metal. Shrapnel sang in the air and the odor of smoke hung heavily. He had trouble breathing.

  “Stink, damn it, hurry,” Julian called. Florry looked and saw that Portela had vanished, either killed or done. Damn him. He didn’t think he could find the strength. Finally, with a great lurch, he managed to get the wire twisted about one of the posts and proceeded to desperately knead it tight. He found the other one and duplicated the process, all the while experiencing the terrible sensation of doing sloppy work, but at that second the whole river gorge seemed to break out afresh with fire, as new troops apparently reached it. He hoped he’d done it right, but there simply was no time to check.

  He scrambled up the framework, the bullets popping nearby, and he knew that at any moment he’d catch one in the spine or skull, but the Moors shot no better than the Spaniards and he managed his destination and with a last push swung himself over.

  “Thank God,” said Julian, crouched near him, the hot gun in his grip.

  “Your hand, Christ,” said Florry. Julian’s hand was pink and scalded where he’d been holding the barrel.

  “Nothing, old man,” said Julian, and Florry looked down the bridge to see at least fifty Moorish bodies on the road.

  “Get going, sport,” said Julian. He pushed at Florry and Florry was off, sprawling toward a ditch beyond the bridge. As he ran, he payed out the wire from the spool. He reached the ditch and skidded into it, the coat flapping around him as he went. He looked back.

  Julian was alone now, the fool, the machine gun tucked against his hip. He fired a long burst at the hidden troops across the way and they returned his fire, their bullets cracking at the dry soil and the gravel around him. His hair blew free and his face and shirt were smeared with grime.

  “¡Venga, inglés, corra como el diablo!” someone yelled. A man took the spool of wire from Florry and was twisting it to the contacts on the exploder box, an ominously crude-appearing wooden machine with a plunger thrusting out of it.

  “Come on, Julian!” Florry screamed over the edge of the gully.