They all sat back.
‘That’s about it,’ said Simon. ‘Jesus Christ.’
David spoke:
‘OK. We need to go. We got the answer. We have some leverage.
We’re gonna run out of light…’
Angus was clutching that last document.
‘David. You should see this.’
The dread crept through David’s soul. The moment had come.
‘Yes.
No.
Why?’
‘I found it. A name caught my eye.’ He paused. ‘Martinez…’
He offered the paper under the torchlight.
David grabbed the single sheet and read it, avidly, his hand shaking, a tightening sensation in his chest. He read it twice. He looked at Amy, and then at Angus, and then back at the list of names. He had enough German to glean the meaning; his mind swayed with the shock. His own hand was shaking now. He handed it back to Angus. And said: ‘Read it out…’
Nairn carefully took the document. And he read it out: it was the story José hadn’t told David…
couldn’t
tell him.
‘Your grandfather…
thought he was a Cagot
. But of course he wasn’t. It was a lie. It says it all here. After a year in the camp, he was seen as a troublemaker, a teenage Basque rebel. So the Germans humiliated him, and silenced him…by putting him in the Cagot section. The barracks of the hated pariahs. They convinced him he was of Cagot blood.
Yet he was Basque.
And so, David, are you. You are a Basque.
’
David looked at Amy. He felt the most intense relief, a kind of shameful joy. But her face was strained, and tense: he saw no joy there, no gladness, he saw distraction and fear.
And then his own joy vanished, replaced by an equally intense terror. Provoked by just one word.
‘
Epa!
’
Simon watched, aghast. Miguel flashed a brief smile, and a gun, at Angus and David. The terrorist was surrounded by men, carrying weapons, cans of gasoline and flat silver packages. Explosives maybe. The men set to work: in the shadows at the edge of the vault.
They had been so engrossed in their unravelling of the story, they hadn’t even heard the stealthy approach of the Wolf and his men. And now here he was.
Smiling at Amy.
‘Amy.
Esti. Muchas gracias, senorita
.’
She was gazing back at him; her voice was an eerie monotone. ‘Yes…I did…what I promised.’
‘You did.’
Miguel laughed a richly sad laugh. David felt the anger surging inside, like an oncoming storm:
‘You. Amy? You? You betrayed us?’
She didn’t turn his way. She couldn’t even bear to look at him.
Miguel strode close to David. His breath was sweet, and fragranced with red wine. It mingled with the reek of the petrol, that Miguel’s silent men were splashing over the wooden cases.
David was instantly reminded: the stench of the bonfire in Namibia. When Amy saved him. And now she had betrayed him.
Miguel nodded, almost sympathetically. ‘Yes, of course, she betrayed you. She loves
me.
She always did. What is your life to her…’
David ignored the terrorist; instead he spoke, angrily, ferociously, at Amy. She was hunched and averting her eyes, maybe crying.
‘So it was you? All along? Who told them where we were going? Namibia? You fucking bitch –’
Miguel intervened: ‘Enough!’
David swore once again at Amy, who was now deep in the shadows.
Miguel’s smile faded.
‘Do not
blame
her. She is a woman.
Arrotz herri, otso herri
. And besides, Davido, she did the correct thing, the moral choice, she is correct. Because I am the good guy. The hero. We are the good guys. Do you not understand?
We are on the side of the good.’
Miguel’s eye was faintly twitching.
‘
If the information in this cellar was ever to become known by others, then nations, races, tribes…would be forced into war. Humans who are not human? One race provably superior to another?
Imagine
. Human species fighting human species. Racial hierarchies confirmed. Nazi science vindicated. The democratic multiracial world – in ruins.’
Angus spoke up:
‘But you can’t stop science. One day a lab will repeat these results on genomic diversity, it is inevitable –’
‘Is it, Nairn?’ Miguel swivelled, turning on the scientist. ‘Is it true? We closed down the Stanford Project. We closed down GenoMap. The Cagots are all dead, so the Fischer experiments can never be repeated. We have won. We have to win, or do you want us to be like animals, like rats, fighting each
other, fighting always? Do you want that?…
Umeak! You are children!’
He glanced along the vault; his men had set the charges, the flat, sinister grey packages were tucked snug against the walls. The crates, doused in petrol, were ready to burn.
‘Good. We are nearly done.
Bai.
’
Was there any way of escape? David urgently counted the number of men: there were seven or eight of them. Armed, dressed in dark clothes, and quietly efficient. Finishing their task.
There was no escape.
And what did it matter anyway?
They were finally cornered; they had lost; and he, David Martinez, was going to die, betrayed by the woman he loved. Even as he discovered the truth. A generous and bitter irony.
‘Are we ready?’
One man turned.
‘
Bai,
Miguel.’
‘Excellent.’ The Wolf turned back to the captives. ‘I must also thank you for helping us locate the Fischer results. People, agencies –
governments –
have been searching for these for many decades.’
Miguel gazed first at Simon, then Angus, then David, as if he wanted to gain their entire attention for his following words, which he enunciated very carefully.
‘Of course, you thought it was the church, didn’t you? You realized it must be the Society of Pius the Tenth, and therefore you decided the entire church was involved, behind the scenes. The Holy Church.’ He shook his head, with a contemptuous smile. ‘Well, maybe we have a little help, some cooperation at a certain level…but do you really think Rome would have the money and the means and the will and the savagery to do all this, to take all these lives, mmm? Cardinals with guns and missiles? Really?
Bai?
Does
that really make sense? Do you want to know where our money actually came from?’
The lamplight was dim, the air was stale. Miguel continued:
‘The money came from much higher than that. Let us just say…Washington, and London, and Paris, and Jerusalem, and Beijing, and, of course, Berlin. Such a lot of money and assistance from Berlin.
There
is one government which sees it as its duty and, yes, its destiny, to make sure Nazism is never reborn in any form. They would do almost anything to rid Germany of her shame, and save the world from scientific racism. They would recruit any zealots or terrorists, for instance…They would make sure these zealots worked at a distance, in the darkness. So as to give everyone…in that succulent English phrase “plausible deniability”.’
He stepped back. ‘
Bai…
David – and you…Angus Nairn…and you, the journalist. Quinn. Obviously we cannot let anyone survive. Consequently, you will be buried in here, along with the Fischer results, forever.
Nola bizi, hala hil.
The passage will be concreted. The barroom demolished and the passage filled in.’ He held up a box, the trigger for the explosives. ‘You will be in the most impressive of tombs. Which is nice for you.’ He smiled in the torchbeams. ‘But dead, nonetheless.’
Even as his last words faded, Amy stepped out of the shadows. Her face was alive, now, alive and angry:
‘Miguel, you said you’d let them
go.’
‘
Mazeltov
. Of
course
I lied.’
‘But Miguel – you said you’d spare them, for me – you promised –’
She stared at the terrorist. He scowled.
‘You think I love you that much? My little piglet? The whore that fucked with the Amerikako? Eh?’
Amy’s face was uplit by the paraffin lamp. There was a
glow there, a pleading in her expression. She stumbled over her words.
‘But I never slept…with David.’
The statement was bizarre. Why was she saying this? Miguel dismissed her with a contemptuous wave. She repeated:
‘
I never slept with him,
Miguel. And this is important…Because…because…’
Amy faltered, her hand to her face. She was trying to say something, and failing. But David could see, in the shadows: her other hand was gently placed on her stomach. Protectively.
With a rush of anguish, David realized. ‘No.’
His word was so solitary, yet so firm, they all turned to him.
He spoke again.
‘You’re pregnant?’
Miguel stepped forward. David repeated, staring at Amy:
‘You’re pregnant. And you know it’s his. You know it’s
his
?’
This final torment was too much. Amy’s face was streaming tears. She nodded and took hold of the terrorist’s arm, then she pulled Miguel’s large dark hand to her stomach, and she placed his palm flat against her belly.
‘It’s yours, Miguel. It is yours.’
David’s resignation was now tinged with the most horrible tragedy. She had betrayed him, betrayed them all, and now this? He looked left and right, at Simon and Angus. They were both waiting, staring at Miguel, at Amy, at the trigger for the explosives.
‘So I have a son…’ Miguel’s voice was a rich whisper, hoarse and jubilant. ‘So I have a son! A child. A daughter.’ His eyes shone. ‘The Garovillos live…the name lives on…?’
He left her side, and reached to a crate, and took up his gun.
‘Amy, just for you, I will merely shoot them. A better death than being buried alive.
Hauxe de lorra!
I will kill your friends now. To save them pain. They do not want to be buried alive.’
Miguel gestured with the gun at David. The other men were now virtually done in their tasks and standing to attention behind Miguel, hands behind their backs. The charges were set. Ready and waiting.
‘Kneel!’
David shook his head. The gun insisted.
‘Kneel!’
‘Fuck you.’
Miguel went to David, and put a rough strong hand on his shoulder, and forced him to the floor. He had no choice. The gun was inches from his ear. His knees slowly buckled and he sank to the concrete, kneeling in the gloom.
Amy was staring at David. Her eyes glistening. He cursed her with a glowering stare. He felt pure hatred for her now. Was she enjoying this? Getting off on this? Had she never loved him ever? Had it always been Miguel?
Miguel crouched down directly in front of David. He put the pistol three inches from the condemned man’s eyes. The terrorist’s final smile was a pout of appreciation, like a gourmet’s air kiss.
And then Amy shouted: ‘I’ll kill the baby. Stop. Stop it now.’
David glanced wildly across the chamber.
Amy had Simon’s knife, and the blade was poised over her belly. The steel tip of the blade was aimed at her womb, the unborn. Ready to plunge.
David looked at Angus, who was gaping in amazement.
Amy said again, louder this time:
‘Let them go, Miguel. Because I
will
kill the child. Your son. The last Cagot in the world, in my womb. I will kill him. Let them go and then blow the place, but
let them go
.’
Angry, roaring, wolflike, Miguel stood – and ran at Amy, trying to lean and grab the knife, even as she jabbed it towards her womb, to kill, to stab; and as she did this, Amy screamed at Simon:
‘The lamp!’
It was already done. The paraffin lamp had been knocked across the wooden crates, smashing against the wall beyond. Instantly the flame of the lamp ignited the paper and wood, just soaked in gasoline. The chamber virtually exploded: a rush of flames flashed across, churning smoke, searing the air, choking the life from the cellar. One man screamed: his hair was on fire. Miguel was grabbing for Amy. She was shouting – at Angus. Where was he? Then David saw. Angus was swinging a torch at Miguel’s skull. The impact was gruesomely audible: a tremendous crack.
It happened so fast in the fire and the smoke, David could not see what happened next
.
Was Miguel down? But where was Simon. The air was dusty and burning, the shouts loud, the flames were keen. Amy? And then he realized, someone was yelling: ‘Run! The explosives!’
They were all running. Bodies running in the chaos. Everyone was turning, and running up the passage; but David lingered, and swivelled, and saw: Miguel was on the ground and bleeding. But he was reaching for something on the floor, between the stinking flames of the paraffin. The terrorist was seeking the switch – the explosive trigger. David was the nearest, he tried to lean and grab it. He was too late. The switch was pressed.
‘No –’
‘David!’ Amy screamed.
Her scream was utterly drowned by a strange explosion, oddly broken, and partial. For a moment the room shook and concussed – but then came a blast wave.
It was like a sideswipe from God, hurling David into a corner, and slamming him to the concrete floor. All was smoke and blackness.
The pain was intimate and intense, somewhere deep inside him. A pain that lived in the darkness, like an eyeless animal. But then he opened his eyes, and discovered the truth: he had survived. Yet he was half-buried under rubble and stones, he could barely move, but he could breathe and see.
The chamber had collapsed. Rocks and earth had filled most of the void, entombing the boxes, and stifling the fires. A respectful silence reigned. David realized he had probably been lucky. If all the charges had detonated, he’d have been killed. Maybe the flames had destroyed the wiring, maybe just one bomb had detonated.
So the fires were dying but he was still trapped under rocks. And there was no sound of any other life, and certainly no rescue.
A noise. He looked left and right; there was light filtering from somewhere, up the tunnel. An aperture, letting in air, inhaling sad grey smoke.
The earth moved again, a few metres away. A face emerged.
Miguel, brushing soil from his face.
Miguel had survived. The indestructible killer, the
jentilak
from the forests of Irauty.
The terrorist was prone and he was bleeding copiously from a wound on the side of the head, with another vicious wound in his leg, a lavish gash, proudly glistening.
The smoke and dust of the explosion drifted, wistfully, as the light of the last gasoline flames died away.
Miguel saw David.
The terrorist frowned. He frowned and laughed and shook his bleeding head. And then he threw a plank of wood off his chest, and rolled free, and began dragging himself across the rubbled concrete floor, towards David.
David’s blood was liquid cold. There was something unspeakable in the Cagot’s slow, grisly crawl, dragging his ravaged leg. Dragging himself over to David.
Desperate to escape this human worm, this crawling, bleeding predator, David tried, again, to liberate himself, but the rocks and stones were too heavy. It was squassation. He was being crushed like a witch by the rocks. And now Miguel was on him.
And the terrorist was
salivating
. Miguel had ripped away David’s shirt and exposed the flesh. A line of dribble spooled from the wide and scarred mouth; David’s skin twitched, reflexively, at the sickly warmth of the spittle.
The Cagot flashed an exultant smile.
‘
Jaio zara, hilko zara…
’
Miguel wiped his mouth and bared his teeth and then he stooped his mouth to the exposed flesh and he began to bite; David was being eaten alive; he could feel the teeth of the terrorist biting into his stomach muscles and then the gnawing, gnawing sound as Miguel tried to bite through, moaning with pleasure, biting into a man’s living stomach, sucking at the pooling blood –
But a gunshot slapped Miguel away, and David gasped, and a second shot burst the terrorist’s head open, like a great bloody flower, a vile carnation of red. He was shot dead.
And Amy was standing above him, and some other men. They had climbed through the hole with the light, and David looked, in terror and panic, at Amy and Angus and others, as they pulled the rocks away, and set him free –
‘Come on,’ said Amy, dragging him to his feet.
He looked down at his stomach. He was bleeding, there was a bite mark and some blood – but he was OK –
‘Now!’ Angus shouted. He jerked his head, indicating their escape. There seemed to be soldiers up there. Or policemen, way up the passage. Bright lights. Torches. Uniforms.
‘But –’ David protested. ‘But –’
Amy squeezed his hand. Her gaze was ardent, and fierce.
‘I did a deal with the police. They wanted Miguel, David. I gave them
Miguel
, and the archives – for us, you and me. Now try and run – the police have been fighting Miguel’s men, in the bar –’
Angus yelled:
‘We have to go!’
It was another rockfall. Blocks of stone and muddy boulders were slipping and groaning; the whole passage complex had been destabilized. They clambered through the hole and into the passage and then they ran:
for their lives
, a wall of mud was chasing them – everyone was running, sprinting, fleeing, as a tidal wave of slurry came after them like a wild animal, a devouring cave monster – a mouth of grey and black rocks – chasing them, trying to eat them alive, a wolf of rock.
And then they reached the little door and the booming sounds of the rockfall began to subside, and they wrenched open the
Juden Tur
, and emerged blinking and gasping and dirty into the bright light of the Bohemian
pivnice
.
Where several German policemen were standing and waiting. And Czech policemen too. And Sarria was there. And the other policeman from Biarritz. Some other guys in
plain clothes and sunglasses. Secret police? What? There were doctors tending men on stretchers. Signs of a gunfight.
One German officer came over to Simon, brandishing a mobile phone:
‘Herr Quinn?’
‘Yes – but –’
‘A detective…in Scotland Yard. Here.’ The German officer handed over the phone. The journalist took it and stumbled outside, into damp grey October air. David watched for a second: then he saw, through the doorway, Simon buckling into tears, and crumpling, and stumbling. A hand over his eyes, hiding his shameful sobs.
No doubt Tim was dead. They had been too late for Tim.
David and Amy and Angus walked out into the rain. Large shiny police cars were lined up and down the road; several ambulances were waiting, red lights flashing, others were racing up the hill. A platoon of soldiers in fatigues stood at the end.
It was mayhem: cops were running into the beer-hall. Carrying more explosives, or so it seemed.
He looked at Amy, her face streaked and smeared with dirt and blood. But alive. Intact. Was she pregnant?
She shook her head. And spoke.
‘Listen. Let me talk. I knew he would catch us. By the time we reached Amsterdam I realized…Miguel would
never
give up. One day somewhere he would find us. We had to entice him. Entice him into a trap where
we
could kill
him
. Where the cops could get him. I couldn’t trust you to know, because…I knew you loved me too much…And…because…’ She blinked, and wiped her eyes with the back of a grimy hand. Then she said: ‘You would never let me risk it, David – especially if you knew I was pregnant. And the pregnancy was my one trump card, if we needed to buy time in the cellar. And we did – I guessed
right – we needed to buy time.’ Her gaze was calm, yet rich with emotion. ‘So, yes, I called Miguel. Betrayed us, told him where we were going. He believed me. He still loved me. He
wanted
to believe.’
‘But –’
‘But then I called the police as well, Sarria. He spoke to the German government and to the French government. He told them that they would get everything they wanted – Miguel, an end to all this, and the hiding place of the Fischer archives. So the data could be destroyed. And the Cagots all dead…’
‘You did a deal with the police?’
‘As well as Miguel. Yes, I had to, David. But it was so
difficult.
Miguel had to get here first, any sign of the police and he’d never have come. But the police have been following us for days. We’re lucky. Very lucky. They’ve agreed to let us go, and we must commit to stay silent. Forever. That’s the deal, that’s the deal that kept us alive.
All of us.’
She took his hand, and, just as she had done with Miguel, she placed his palm on her stomach.
‘So that really was true? You really are…’
‘Yes.’
He couldn’t bear to ask the terrible and obvious question. Instead he turned away and stared down the dismal street where the police lights twinkled sadly in the rain like blue stars written on an old grey map.