Chapter 8. 1956 - Harry's Dark Deals (pt. 2)

Her suspicions about Harry’s excuses and distractions were no longer atoned for between the sheets. She had been getting signs… She thought it was a stomach flu… morning sickness, hah! It lasted all day. If Harry was going to get Alesandro busted loose, mi concha wasn’t going to speed things up. She knew the capabilities of Harry’s kind and if Alesandro was still in prison… Never mind… it’s too late now. She had a scheme… a plan was forming with some of the young ones… she was going to meet them this morning and at the change in shifts… then the attack. She wished Alesandro had been involved in the tactics. She was the only one in her group with experience enough to pull it off but…

Iniga was able to reach the street corner and, honed by underground reflexes, her senses told her she was being followed. Ducking into a shop entrance, she tried the door. Of course, it was locked. Unarmed, but for a small butterfly knife, she knew she’d no choice other than to toss the knife, and to wait and watch. Waiting and watching was a talent developed in the Resistance. There was no traffic, so the tinny sound of the SEAT’s four-cylinder motor approaching came as an alarm. The sedan screeched to a halt with all but the driver’s door swinging open in the early dawning hour of the Barcelona morn.

The irony of the trade-off for the release of Alesandro was that Harry Baker’s closest confidant was his ransom and the Guardia Civil set in motion the poetry of her demise after she slipped away from his bed into the night. It was all conducted courteously at first. Her interrogator offered a cigarette across the desk-top that was gouged with a hollow protest… No pasaran!  Probably scratched in with an edge of a captive’s hand cuffs. He called her by her alias as he opened a file, “Maria Francesco?”

She knew her alias would not have such a thick file and, so far, the ruse had been courteously accepted. She did have documentation. By all appearances her identity was settled. She had people from the enlaces, unaffiliated with separatists, that could have come to retrieve her but she wasn’t about to implicate anyone else until she could determine the seriousness of her arrest. She played it like an innocent woman, Maria Francesco, caught on the streets in the predawn hour… “Si, senor,” her voice quavered.

“You were on the street alone tonight… you are puta?”

“No, no, no… no señor. I was going home but my brother couldn’t come for me.” She lifted her eyebrows and let her eyes catch his. She almost addressed him as comrade. An Anarchist for so many years, it was hard for her to address anyone as señor.

 A woman couldn’t be seen unescorted by a male family member in Franco’s Spain. To be caught was to suffer a prison term or huge fine; i.e., bribe.

“Your accent, it is Basque? … even unusual for Basque… eh?” He flicked open a Zippo lighter… the US Marine Corps emblem etched on its face flickered little diamond reflections as it click-snapped, “I rather like the Basque accents even though the language is prohibited.”

He offered a friendly smile, “Forgive me, I have forgotten my manners Señora Francesco, I am Capitan Rogelio.”

She restrained herself from a snide retort about the American source of the Zippo betraying his accent. But that would have been uncharacteristic of a Spanish woman of good standing. She stayed in character and managed to blush, casting her eyes towards her lap, “Yes, I am Basque… and, as you must know, the Euskara has many accents.”

“So, your name… Maria Francesco, it is uncharacteristic of Basque names too, eh?” He was now taking out a yellow legal tablet from the center desk drawer. “I have been honest with you as I have given you my name and rank. It is a futility of horrible consequences to try to deceive me, Huérfana Iniga?”

A chill straightened her spine. Iniga’s thoughts were clear… focused… sharp. This is where it begins. She knew what was coming. She would be told to list the enlaces (circle of supporters) in lieu of an offer… a chance that her plight might be relaxed. The Law of the Fugitives (Ley de Fugas) decreed a fugitive’s life was dirt. Any fugitive could be generously offered clemency and released. Then, as they walked away, believing to have avoided years of imprisonment, a bullet would have been dispatched to the nape of their neck; thus saving considerable bother for all involved.

But the Comandante was authentically moved to meet an adversary that had been a nemesis since he had graduated from the academy in 1948. He’d been on the scene when Alesandro was taken and he had seen the only picture of her in a WWII snapshot in a file. He held that image in his hand, the one with her trademark smatchet in front of cupid bow lips framed by a face he would have no need to double-check. He looked at it, and then her, and said, “I’ve wanted to meet you for several years now. It is a curious phenomenon, notoriety, si?”

Refusing to list her collaborators assured that she would be tortured, raped and, most likely, murdered instead. She held one trump card up her sleeve that could reprieve her from further torture… if the Comandante found it to his advantage. “I am embarazada.”

The Comandante paused, shook his head and, at almost a whisper, said, “So, you want to visit the nuns at la Ventas? I can assure you that your stay will be most comfortable for your first, what, nine months?” Perhaps he saw her as a young woman that could have been his own wife or daughter and dreaded the thought of the torture and rape that he was sure would be in store for her if she weren’t pregnant. Though she was known to have committed several acts of sobotage and assassination, her eyes possessed a talent in a glance, and in that glance, she was able to convince any man she was his lover, or his daughter.

“Zortzi eta erdiak… um… eight and a half,” She hadn’t decided whether or not to abort the child and her lips quivered as the decision seemed to be made for her by father fate.

The Comandante was a practicing Catholic and, as a practicing Christian, he’d embraced a compassion unfamiliar to those whose ambition pre-empted their devotion to Catholicism.

“We are ready for whatever you can dish out, Comandante.” She stiffened her resolve and considered that she would indeed be more comfortable than she was to be afterwards, rotting in prison.

“I’m sure you can endure more of it than me, Now, is it Señorita… or should I say, Señora?”

“It is Señora. I am married to the Basque cause… if you were one of us you could call me comrade.” She knew that these words were an empty proclamation but had always wanted to say something along those lines if captured again because she knew that the next time she would most likely be executed. She’d been captured when she was young; so young that the oblivion of death couldn’t be imagined because of the immortality of youth. It was little more than a romantic fantasy before the gears of experience dispelled that delusion.

The Comandante stood to leave the room and stopped by the door, “You say you are married to the Basque cause, Señora, but the Basque cause has abandoned you. You will find your revolutionary fervor a luxury you can ill-afford from now on.”

La Ventas prison, that she was destined to, was from the dark decades of the Generalissimo's Spain. Iniga had the misfortune to finally end up where people like her perished. This imprisonment of the wives and lovers of radicals went on well into the sixties and, for some, into the nineties. Harry often tried to salve his guilt by reminding himself that the odds were that she’d eventually end up in one of Franco’s jails or be shot by the Civil Guard, with or without, his collaboration; that is, until word got back to him that she was pregnant.

It is hard for any but the most adept observer to determine whether Harry harbored any feelings beyond the task he needed to perform. He might have, indeed, loved Iniga in his own way; but, it couldn’t be said he felt that love in the form of an emotion. So many years of working within the context of spy-craft didn’t allow emotions to determine how operations were executed. He now had to find a way to get Iniga out of prison if he was to have any chance of getting his seed away from being adopted by one of Franco's wealthy minions.

He considered what would become his Salamander; after all, it would be raised in luxury and live a life of cushy privilege if he did nothing. What would be so bad about that? Alesandro was free and Fournier’s money was well spent. But, he feared the Franco grip on power was about to slip, or eventually be overturned, and he couldn’t predict how things would turn out for the ruling class in Spain. He’d been witness to what happened to collaborators in France when Hitler’s SS boys skedaddled after Normandy. He also thought that, if he worked it right, his salamander could have American citizenship and get the hell out of Spain along with Iniga. This would take nothing more than obtaining a forged marriage certificate and bribing a few corrupt prison administrators. Finding the right corrupt prison official wasn’t all that difficult as they were as common as fleas on a cur around Madrid. However, a high profile Basque separatist such as Iniga posed a problem because she would be slated for a summery execution as soon as she gave birth.

Alesandro had endured four years of solitary confinement and deprivations that can hardly be described. Harry observed the Civil War anarchist, veteran of Barcelona and the Battle of Madrid… Los Oscuros (the Dark Ones) with the infamous Galvan, who never surrendered, the Maquis of the Basque struggle, and the Resistance in France and Spain… The list was long and, it was hard to explain but he had only respect for the man… Alesandro was unattached to all the politics… independent of committees and handlers… were it not for Alesandro’s embarrassing passion, the two of them were more alike than not.

Harry’s negotiations, i.e., bribes, all the rest at higher levels were resisted until trades were made; a labyrinth of confused orders and writs passed from one low-level functionary to another… attaché cases packed with dollars… it was harder than usual for the Maquis Alesandro. He wasn’t released until it was that one charity greased by favors and for one guard at the sally-port to look the other way when passed the paper work for the Ley de Fugas. It was a moonless midnight that Harry, dressed as a high ranking Policia Armada Officer, escorted the bandito Alesandro “Gotson” out to freedom and finally managed the Maquis’ escape. They were past Roncesvalles before dawn.

They crossed the border into France at Pekotxeta/Arneguy and travelled down the winding road to St-Martin-d'Arrossa. Harry made the final arrangements for the rest of the trip at breakfast in the café of the Hotel Eskualduna. It was a place most familiar to both the betrayer with the betrayed, “We part again, Alesandro.” The hotel was one of the central hubs of covert activity for the Résistance during the Occupation. The tables spoke nothing of the intrigue whispered in Euskara there. Intrigue that still could have filled several volumes in Franco’s, and Interpol's, files for Basque Separatists... insurgents who sipped coffee discretely at some of these same tables before slipping back across the borders.

“It is difficult to say why,” Alesandro answered, “but I was glad to see you again, Bird Dog.” His frail frame sank into the chair on the other side of the small café table.

Harry watched, fascinated by the reed of an arm barely able to hold up the demitasse of coffee Alesandro seemed to relish. “Didn’t they try to put some meat on your bones before your release?”

Alesandro answered quietly, “I’d been put back in solitary. Must have been as soon as the negotiations for my release began. It was bread and water and darkness for over a month.”

“Yes,” Harry seemed to lament, “It was a callous ploy to extort more money. They would have fattened you up had they known...” He stopped himself.  Harry tried to be distracted by pilgrims passing outside the window on El Camino Santiago. He had to add to the ransom more than American dollars....

Alesandro put a kind right hand across the table onto Harry’s shoulder, “You made an offer too tantalizing for Generales and Comandantes to refuse; el asesina rogue, Iniga, for me?”

Harry didn’t marvel at Alesandro’s lack of bitterness. He wouldn’t feel any sense of entitlement or resentment over the betrayal either. Even Alesandro’s four years of isolation, sense deprivation, physical and psychological torture, didn't destroy the quality that preserved him through twenty years of post-Civil War concentration camps in France, guerrilla warfare and, now, Carabanchel. He never expressed hatred for his enemy. Even the Stalinists back in Madrid, or later, when their purges of non-communist leadership summarily judged and shot resistance fighters after the failed assault on the Aran Valley in ‘44; or when the Central Committee  suspended support for the Spanish guerillas, in’48: Harry had never heard a sour word spoken by Alesandro equally against the Stalinists, Nazis, the Civil Guard, the paramilitary Somaten, or the horrors committed by Franco’s Moroccan division. To Alesandro, a soldier was a soldier and soldiers do as soldiers must. The horrors of war hardened him against its cruelty and it didn’t matter how inhumane the atrocities were; even for the mad and vicious crimes against humanity by mercenaries like Harry Baker. Alesandro didn’t forgive or forget… he just understood.

“But by then, I expected the usual treatment,” Alesandro tapping to the nape of his neck, said, “You know, a bullet there… the usual treatment… killed while escaping.”

Harry stood when a car parked in front and its young driver came towards their table, “This is where we part.”

“You will get Iniga released,” Alesandro stood. The tenderness he’s shown left his face. He was once again a warrior as he commanded, “Or die trying.”

“Or die trying,” Harry answered firmly. He had committed himself to the task already but endured Alesandro’s order obediently.

The car wound alongside le Nive d’Arneguy Riviére through the cherry orchards blossoming draped like lace lingerie over voluptuous hills and valleys in the hill country. Arriving at Itxassou, Alesandro was finally home, safe on the Fournier estate.