Authors: Chris Knopf

Tags: #Mystery

Cries of the Lost (37 page)

Not that I couldn’t arrive at a workable solution to a problem, a repeatable answer to a question, but I was never free of that queasy element of doubt, that persistent itch of uncertainty.

This frequently drove me back to the roots of the inquiry, where it all began. In this case, it had to be the Basque region of Spain, circa 1960. I opened Google España and started the search with the University of Bilbao. Not surprisingly, the university seethed with political turmoil during this period. Though Basque nationalism was certainly an ingredient, most of the commentary involved the fundamental divide between the fascistic central government and the Marxist underpinnings of the separatists that had persisted since the civil war.

I’d already made the connection between the Zarandonas and the leftist movements at the university. That was public record in the form of speeches and essays in academic journals. Though somewhat bland by the standards of left-wing demagoguery, it was still brave stuff for the times. I was able to add to my records, but nothing new emerged.

I remembered the two professors arrived in Chile in 1968, but realized I’d never linked back to their departure. I dumped all the material I had on their time at Bilbao into a single document, then searched for dates. The spread was 1951 to 1962, but nothing after that. There was a six-year gap.

I went back to my Chilean database. The core reference was an article in the student newspaper of the University of Chile, heralding the arrival of the two distinguished professors. During my original research, I’d picked up the highlights, then zoomed on. This time I read the whole article, and as frequently happens, the most important fact lived in the last paragraph.

“Last May, professors Sylvia and Miguel Zarandona were greeted at the airport by President Allende, Mrs. Zarandona’s third cousin. They were then honored with a week’s stay as the president’s guests, which they were grateful for after the long flight in from Paris.”

“Paris?” I said out loud.

Once Google has managed to capture all the information on earth, you will theoretically be able to capture it all as well. Assuming you know every language.

I switched to Google France and started anew. Switching between languages and constantly adjusting for the dialects made me dizzy. And my French fluency was not nearly as strong as my Spanish. Luckily, Natsumi was back at the house, and helped fill in the gaps. After a few hours, we hit it.

The first recorded assembly of ETA was in the French Basque city of Bayonne, in 1962. One of the featured speakers was Miguel Zarandona. A local Marxist newspaper, covering the event, had a photograph of the young Zarandona, his wife and two-year-old son. According to the story, Zarandona had exhorted the gathering, demanding they use all necessary means to overthrow the fascist yoke of Madrid, including armed resistance.

“Not just the mild-mannered professor,” said Natsumi.

The militant rhetoric inflamed commentators throughout ETA, until then a strictly political and cultural organization. Whether regarded as a hero or provocateur, all were certain Zarandona could never return to Spain.

So the next task was the ugly slog through census data to find out where they actually ended up. It wasn’t until the next day, after a brief sleep, when we saw through reddened eyes the names Miguel and Sylvia Zarandona listed as apartment dwellers living with their son, identified only as “male, age five,” in the resort town of Biarritz in 1965.

Then the trail was lost again, and after another day of effort, I put that channel of inquiry on hold.

“Where are you going now?” asked Natsumi.

“To bed.”

Which I did, sleeping nearly twelve hours, during which I dreamt of men in dark, baggy clothes and berets, shaking their fists and painting huge, heroic murals of men with rifles and slogans of the revolution. Through all the swirling images and phantasms, my dreaming mind kept coming back to the family portrait of the Zarandonas, their unsmiling, determined pose contrasting oddly with their physical beauty.

Moments before waking the answer was there, until the dream state resolved into full consciousness, and it floated away into the random mist of probabilities.

“H
OW
ABOUT
some fresh air,” Natsumi asked me, two days later. Two days spent nonstop in front of the computer.

“Are you suggesting the air in here isn’t fresh?”

“I am. And neither are the residents.”

“Okay.”

I needed to get a finer sense of the layout of the property anyway, so it made for a long and pleasant walk.

“Can you tell me what you’ve been up to?” she asked.

“Going back to the roots of the matter. I was annoyed at myself for missing that period the Zarandonas spent in France. I feel it means more than it seems, but I can’t figure out why. The Basque people were used to moving back and forth between the French and Spanish sides with relative ease, even back then. So it probably didn’t feel that much like an exile. But that changed for Zarandona who fouled his nest in Spain by addressing the ETA conference the way he did. ”

“Then why bolt to Chile?”

Some very wise people I’ve known insist that purging one’s mind of the problem one is facing is the surest route to a solution. So I actually tried to stop thinking about it while we walked, instead trying to focus on the abundant pastoral beauty surrounding us. While it’s nearly impossible for me to do this, I often tried anyway.

“Do you ever feel you already know something you’re trying to figure out?” I asked Natsumi.

“Of course. Much of what amounts to thought happens at the subconscious level, and the subconscious is often the smartest part of the brain. I like to say the conscious part talks and the subconscious feels. But it’s all thought.”

“So I need to get in touch with my feelings.”

“And what are you feeling?”

“Like a screw-up.”

“Besides the time in France, what other things do you feel you’ve screwed up?”

“The dates. I keep missing time-based correlations, even though they should be the most basic.”

“I know why,” she said. “You’re lightning brain tends to skip over the obvious, with the intention of going back later for more careful deliberation. But you never go back, you just race around from pretty flower to pretty flower like a honey bee on speed. And I mean that nicely, because you’re my friend.”

We were about three-quarters of the way through our walk when I turned us around and headed back to the house.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“1968,” I said.

Back at the keyboard, I looked up the first violent exchange between ETA and the Guardia Civil. It was a few miles inside the Spanish border with France, just beyond the city of Irun. A car carrying two ETA leaders was pulled over by two Guardia Civil, based on a tip, it was later suspected, from a Guardia agent inside ETA’s inner circle. The two ETA leaders refused to leave their car, causing the Guardias to pull their weapons and demand they do so. From somewhere inside the car a shot was fired that killed the Guardia at the driver’s side window. The Guardia on the passenger’s side managed to get the door open and drag the passenger out of the car. The Guardia pinned the ETA man to the ground, wrenched his gun from his hand, and began firing at the man driving the car, forcing him to race away, leaving the two adversaries in a wrestling match by the side of the road.

The ETA man managed to overpower the Guardia and get away on foot. The Guardia called in reinforcements, and a few hours later they trapped the ETA man in a barn and summarily executed him.

The Guardia killed that day was Eugenio Angel. The ETA man suspected to be at the wheel of the car was Miguel Zarandona, Florencia’s father.

I took my hands off the keyboard and placed a call to Professor Preciado-Cotto.

T
HE
NEXT
few days were consumed with installing security cameras at strategic locations around the property and inside the house. I eventually had two dozen cameras feeding a program that let me monitor any and all, in whatever combination I wanted, either on the laptop or smartphone. Each camera was also paired with a motion detector, which would set off alarms on the phone and computer.

Anything that moved would be captured on video recorders, and as a backup measure, saved to a data storage service in the cloud.

I kept the Dodge, but rented a Jeep Wrangler equipped with enhanced off-road capabilities and parked it in the woods on an old logging trail that led out to the street from the rear of the property. When I got back to the house, Natsumi was naturally curious.

“Do we have a plan?” she asked.

“No, but we have a few precautions, and the start of a plan.”

“What’s the end look like?”

“A good Buddhist would allow the future to be whatever the future wants it to be.”

“In other words, you don’t know.”

“I don’t.”

Back in the computer room, I sat and stared at the main monitor, assessing the balance between security and the need to communicate. I’d always used proxy servers to put up at least a basic layer of anonymity. There were hundreds of these services with accompanying software available on the web. If my purpose had been to hide my web-browsing habits, most would be fine. Hiding from the FBI, and potentially from the NSA, was another story.

But there was another equation to consider—the time it would take for even those high-powered surveillance operations to follow the trail back to me, especially if I daisy-chained multiple proxies, all offshore and fiercely resistant to law enforcement inquiry. I decided that time would be far longer than I needed.

A few hours later, after freshening my knowledge of the proxy landscape, I felt secure enough to send my first email.

Sr. Gorrotxategi:

I am ready to discuss arrangements for meeting with Sr. Domingo Angel. I have chosen a location. We merely need to set a date and time. Obviously, we need to do this first. Please respond within 24 hours, or the offer is withdrawn.

El Timador

I hardly had to wait twenty-four hours. In less than ten minutes I had a reply:

El Timador:

I want to accept your offer, though you may well imagine that securing a visit with Sr. Angel in the U.S. is a tall order. Is there another way this transaction can be achieved?

Joselito

Joselito:

No. I have the means for contacting him directly. If you force me to do so, I will share with him your correspondence with Eloise and Mariñelarena.

El Timador

El Timador:

I understand. Please stand by while I discuss with Domingo.

Joselito

Joselito:

I will make this much easier for you. The information I have will provide the means for the total destruction of United Aquitania. This will achieve his lifelong mission and free me of a mortal threat.

El Timador

El Timador:

And free up their money for your own purposes.

Joselito

Joselito:

Yup.

El Timador

C
HAPTER
23

I
called Little Boy.

“Hey, Mr. G., what up?”

“Kresimir’s an impressive guy.”

“Impressive is our specialty.”