Authors: Jack Ludlow
‘He’s dead.’
‘Painfully so, but before he expired finally he express did the wish that you would as he did suffer.’
‘Something you are looking forward to carrying out.’
‘Tut, tut, Jardine. My rank allows that I watch others pain inflict, though in case yours I might an exception make, the payment for a fool making me look.’
‘You really ought to do something about your English, it’s bloody awful.’
Resnick came close and bent low, so his nose was nearly touching Jardine’s.
‘You joke now, but beg to die you will and listen I will not. If these walls could speak maybe Yiddish you would hear the voices of those before you gone, the shits who think that the Reich they can cheat and take elsewhere their stolen money.’
The laugh was more chilling than the words. ‘They all think they their loot will keep hidden – that is the word, is it not? – but they tell, maybe when they have seen raped and sodomised their wife before their eyes by criminals diseased from the Hamburg jail, then to lie on the floor forced and clean Aryan piss drink. Even then some hold out, but when their pizzle is electric fried they talk.’
How long had they known he was in Hamburg? Did they know about Lette? Was there any point in even thinking about that?
‘I have been away from Hamburg too long; anything I can tell you is long cold.’
‘I from you want nothing of information. This is for my pleasure alone. You have out of me a fool made, I will make a wreck of you and maybe see how to die long it takes you.’
‘I don’t think I’m in a position to stop you, but there are people who know I am here in Hamburg.’
‘But not in this room! First, a little bubble I puncture. You will wonder how you in Germany I know.’ He went to the table and brought back a folder. ‘When a certain fellow you approached, he was not sure if you were who you said, so he contacted German embassy.’
Resnick produce two photos, one showing blurred figures and
spots of light. ‘Hard to get right in dark, but in morning light, look at this.’
The second picture was as clear as day, not surprising given it had been taken at dawn. It showed him smiling and waving at the taxi in which MCG’s wife, Elena, was departing the Grande Bretagne Hotel.
‘Makes a whore of his wife, does he?’
‘She is not his wife, just secretary, and for extra pay, she plays a part.’
Clever little bastard,
Cal thought,
I certainly underestimated him. How the hell had he managed it so smoothly?
The door opened and the two men who came in looked like what they were: inflictors of pain, thick-necked, hairy forearms, muscles to spare and faces only a mother could love. One had a knuckleduster which he was keen Cal should see him play with, the other a long spike which he knew was soon going to be inside him and twisted.
You never know if you can stand this, all you can do is hope that somehow you keep a bit of your dignity. He had made a right chump out of Resnick in Romania and had enjoyed rubbing a little salt into his open wound. Positives? No mention or show of Lette or her children; she would have been bad enough, but if they started on Inge?
Was it better to plead for mercy quickly – appear to break early, scream and plead? Resnick was not after information but personal satisfaction. Too early and it would not work – maybe once they had his teeth out with that knuckleduster and had broken a few bones. Or was it the wires on his cock?
That the door burst open was not remarkable; that Colonel Brauschitz was standing there, looking as elegant as he had
previously, seemed extraordinary. He held up a paper with a very large eagle on it.
‘Resnick, I have an order here from the deputy Führer. This man is to be released immediately.’
‘No.’
Brauschitz shook his head and gave a wan smile. ‘You have a choice, Herr
Obersturmbannführer
. You can either obey this order, or rest assured you will yourself be tied to that chair before the day is out.’
Unable to obey, Resnick just stormed out.
‘Be thankful we tap the telephones of those we do not trust, and also that General Göring has the power to frighten a man like Resnick.’
As well as having,
Cal thought,
the certain knowledge that without me there would be no payment.
‘The railway trucks.’
‘Are at the quayside.’ Brauschitz looked at his watch. ‘Nearly unloaded by now, I should think. The telephone connection has been set up in the harbour master’s office, so you may make your call to Athens.’
‘The arrangement was when she weighs.’
‘If you wish to wait till that ship departs without you …’
The rest was left hanging in the air. Hamburg right now was not a good place to be left behind in.
‘Harbour master’s office it is.’
T
here was no feeling of relief even when the SS
Barhill
closed her hatches then cleared her berth. It was a long way to the mouth of the River Elbe and the North Sea, and even then, with the string of inshore islands that lined the coast, it took a request to the captain to get the ship directly out to sea, instead of hugging the shore, so Jardine could get out of German territorial waters. Even then he was not sure he was beyond the reach of the likes of Resnick – the Nazi state was a criminal enterprise and no respecter of anyone’s laws.
It took time for him to calm down and stop his nerves jumping; facing death was one thing, what he had faced in that barren room was likely to be a recurring nightmare, but as of now, the sea air and the motion of the boat got to him, and after the tensions of the last few weeks, he fell into a long and deep slumber. From then on the days melded into a week in which he was in limbo.
On the high seas they were safe, it was when they came inshore that the trouble would surface. The master had to get the ship through the Straits without too deep an inspection and they were patrolled by the Royal Navy, a subject he was obliged to raise with the long-time seaman who, prior to a good dinner, poured him what he called a ‘stiff one’.
‘Are you aware, sir, of my instructions?’
‘No. I was not party to the arrangements.’
‘I have a manifest that says I am carrying agricultural machinery to Greece, but we both know that is not the case. My concern is for myself and my crew, for if we are caught breaking the embargo, as my destination suggests we will, then we will be in real trouble.’
‘So?’
‘So I need you to take full responsibility, as does the owner of the ship. With that in mind, I have a false manifest, naming you as the agent and shipper, a contract of hire for the vessel as well as a bill for same, and I need you to sign these papers so that I can, in all innocence, say I have been duped if we are subjected to a search.’
The folder was passed over and Cal opened it, and even if it did not make him happy, he had to admit the way it had been arranged was classy. These were things he had grown up surrounded by, shipping for profit being his father’s business. There was headed notepaper for Jardine & Sons – oddly his old man had hoped for that at one time – several items of correspondence setting up the whole shipment, bills of lading naming the supposed cargo in detail, with quotes for prices as well as the invoice; everything, in fact, that got the ship owner, his master and crew off the hook and dumped any trouble squarely on him.
‘I think you might need another stiff one, sir.’
Cal held out his glass. ‘After what I faced in Hamburg, a jail sentence seems nothing to worry about.’
There was no attempt at dodging the Navy, trying things like taking the Straits in darkness, but Captain Roland had his own method of making this go smoothly and that was the contents of his drinks cabinet once more. Ordered to heave-to off Gibraltar for a cargo inspection, the naval officer who came aboard was taken straight to the cabin and given a pink gin and it was the Navy’s own – Plymouth, and full strength.
After four of those the visitor was finally handed the false manifest, which he waved about. ‘Damn it, old fellow, we’re all Englishmen here, what? I take it all is in order?’
‘Another gin?’
‘Don’t mind if I do.’
If an Italian submarine spotted them in the Mediterranean, as they chugged past the southern tip of the Balearics, they had no knowledge of it. Besides, there were Royal Navy destroyers about to ensure that a ship heading for Piraeus under a British flag was not interfered with in any way; the change of course, all lights doused, and the increase in speed to sail west past Minorca were done in darkness, but it was daylight when the
Barhill
berthed in Barcelona.
Indalecio Prieto came up from Valencia to inspect the now-landed cargo, which had lifted the spirits of more than just Barcelona – news had spread throughout Spain, though without his name being mentioned – given that those Italian submarines were taking a heavy toll of Soviet supply ships and severely choking off the provision of arms. He was happy to meet Cal Jardine’s request for something
from the cargo in lieu of a cash payment, as well as providing very quickly a set of internal travel papers in his own name.
That night, he went down to the docks, to where the smugglers hung out, and using his contacts there bought another forged set in a different name, as well as some morphine and a syringe. The hardest thing was not getting hold of a car – they were cheap and plentiful – but the fuel required to make use of it, and that involved a little dealing on the black market.
Tank full and with a spare container in the boot, he loaded everything else he owned into it, leaving Barcelona for the last time and taking the road to Madrid.
The city was now very much a place under siege and was even more tightly controlled with checkpoints than he recalled. He was asked for his papers and passport time after time, though any search of his car was perfunctory. Inside the city perimeter, Madrid was subject to the intermittent barrage of artillery shells from the Nationalist front lines just over the river, which, when one came close, forced him to pull over. While he was stopped he could hear the rattle of machine guns to the north, in the still-contested University district, as well as what he thought might be a trench mortar.
Yet still people lived here, going about their daily lives, a lot of their clothing more rags than anything that could be called clothing, the faces pinched from lack of food, faces as grey as the stones in the piles of rubble which lay in every street and square, beside the deep craters which pitted the surfaces of both roads and pavements, ignoring the big signs which admonished them to get out of Madrid. Asked, they would no doubt have enquired where they were to go.
The Hotel Florida seemed to be very close to the front line now, but it made no difference; those shells from the bigger cannon could reach right to the eastern suburbs, so nowhere was safe. Many of the buildings close by were seriously damaged, yet once through the doors there was the concierge to greet him, who seemed not at all fazed by the thick coating of dust which covered everything and filled the air, catching the back of Cal’s throat ever time he took a breath.
Welcomed as what he was, a returning customer, once his luggage was carried in he was shown up to a room at the back of the hotel, safer, as was explained, from shellfire, though he passed some rooms with just a sheet of wood where there had once been a door; the place had suffered.
An enquiry at the desk had informed him that the majority of the war correspondents still staying as guests were fully occupied trying to cover a Republican offensive at a place fifteen miles north of Madrid called Brunete. It was unlikely they would come back to their base overnight.
The shelling started while he was washing and shaving, which had him holding his razor away from his face and listening to the whining of their flight, as well as the crump as they landed. It went on for about ten minutes and stopped, so he went back to his ablutions, now that he would not suddenly cut himself in reacting to a nearby explosion.
The restaurant was still functioning, albeit with a severely diminished menu, but the food was wholesome if plain, and he sat there, sipping a beer, ignoring the occasional shelling, as darkness fell outside. Then he went upstairs and changed into the dark clothing he had bought before leaving Barcelona.
If they wondered at the desk why he wanted more food sent up to his room, they did not ask; guests were always odd, it did not need a war on your doorstep to make them act strangely.
Driving to his destination he was stopped twice and required to use the set of forged papers he had bought, which went with the press pass Peter Lanchester had provided him with; that was something he had learnt from his previous visit: no one moved around with greater ease than a foreign reporter – the Republicans saw anyone prepared to face their travails with them as friends.
He had parked and walked to where he now stood on a street corner just off the Calle de Atocha, a long avenue that bisected the city, in shadow, watching the arched, ecclesiastical doorway of a building as dark as every other in a city that feared to be bombed. Had this church been a place of torment during the Inquisition? It was possible, given its age. If so, it had been given a new lease of life to inflict misery for a different faith.
It was odd to think that a place where supposed enemies of the state were incarcerated, and very likely subjected to torture, had fixed hours of work, yet it just went to show how banal parts of what was happening in Spain could be. Guards worked in shifts and then went home, to wherever that was – in the case of the person he sought, an apartment he had taken over from a victim of one of his own purges, a short walk from the church.
He observed the new shift drifting in one by one, with a resigned gait; those going off for the night were more of a crowd –
black-uniformed
men who had turned the arrest, beating and starving of prisoners into a set of norms. No doubt it was sometimes thrown into turmoil by a sudden burst of suspicion, but on a day-to-day
basis it was like clocking on and off in an office or factory.
The only person not doing that still had a fixed routine, and thanks to the rooting around of Tyler Alverson, Cal Jardine knew what that was. Somehow, being a creature of habit went with his personality, and right on cue, as the dial on Cal’s luminous watch slipped past eight, he emerged onto the steps of the church, taking a cigarette case from his pocket, extracting one, tapping it on the metal, then slipping it between his two middle fingers, before lighting up.
Manfred Decker never went anywhere without two armed guards – was it necessary, or an affectation? Cal did not know, but judging by their lack of attention it seemed the latter. Most of those in Madrid who could be suspected of being class enemies had either already been shot, imprisoned, had fled, or were very circumspect when it came to dealing with authority. Thus, many months after the insurrection of the generals, life had settled for these non-combatants into monotony.
Cal moved as Drecker moved, glad there was enough starlight to keep him in view without coming too close. If the Calle de Atocha was not busy, neither was it empty. The early hours of darkness tended to be less dangerous; even the Nationalist artillerymen stopped feeding their guns to feed themselves, so people were scurrying along, head bent into their shoulders in a way that had no doubt become habitual.
There was arrogance in the communist’s gait; he saw no need to hunch, instead he cast his eyes imperiously at those who passed him, in the imagination of the man following seeking to look into their souls for a hint of treachery. As people observed him getting close and took note of his garb – black leather coat, the pistol at the hip and that cap with the red star on his head – never mind the
pair behind with slung rifles, they swayed away to avoid coming too close.
The door of the apartment block was deeply recessed, creating an area of Stygian darkness. Drecker had his lighter out, snapping it on to locate the keyhole, his two escorts waiting for the door to open. The flame went out, the key turned, and as Drecker stepped inside the darkened hallway, they followed. It was their job to shut the door, and it was as one turned to carry out his duty that the shadowy figure stepped forward and put a bullet from his Walther PP right in the centre of his forehead.
The phut of the silenced weapon barely registered; it was the
door-closer
being thrown backwards against his companion that made the second escort turn, what Cal could see of his face, really a pale blur, wondering what was going on. It was doubtful he had time to register it in his smashed brain.
That was when Drecker, switching the hall light on, heard the door slam and turned to see his two guards slumped on the hall floor and the assassin standing, feet apart with the pistol, the long barrel of the silencer too, pointing at his own head.
‘On your knees, hands behind your head.’
The overhead light obscured Cal’s face but Drecker’s eyes registered he had recognised the German-speaking voice. A hand went automatically to the flap of his holster, but the third bullet hit his forearm and broke it, driving his hand well away from the gun as the instruction was repeated. A shocked Drecker sank to his knees as Cal darted forward and took his pistol, before resuming his shooting stance.
‘I have come to make you pay for Florencia Gardiola.’ Drecker, who had been holding his wounded arm with his head bowed, looked
up, trying to compose his face for an automatic denial. ‘As well as Juan Luis Laporta and, no doubt, hundreds of other innocents. You nearly had me killed too.’
‘I did not kill them – they died, and you were wounded, by an accidental discharge.’
‘No, you did not, but you gave the order, Drecker, to whoever fired that gun. Your mistake was to stay around in the shadows to ensure it was carried out. The first night after I met you, I saw you smoking a cigarette in the village square, and as you drew on it, the glow of the tip, because of the stupid way you hold it, lit up your cap badge. The night I was shot, I saw the same red star illuminated by a lit cigarette.’
‘You are wrong.’
‘No, Drecker, I am not. You waited to kill Laporta, and me too, marching up every night to keep his stupid attacks going and waiting till his own supporters were sick of it. Florencia was just a bystander, but what do you care?’
‘A victim – how many victims have there been on this front?’
‘Of their own side? You would know better than me. Now get on your feet.’
‘If I am going to die, I prefer to die here.’
‘You’re going to stand trial first, Drecker, I want the world to know you are guilty.’
In pain as he undoubtedly was, Cal could see the flicker in the pale-blue eyes: hope, the prayer that his potential assassin might be stupid enough to seek judicial revenge in a city where it would not be him who would be the victim. Cal Jardine was holding his breath; he would kill him here if he had to, but give a man a chance of life and he should take it, even if it sounded crazy.