Chapter 8. 1956 - Harry's Dark Deals (pt1)

A lifetime of dark deals later, Harry Baker was where he’d rarely found himself: sitting at a table in a dark corner of a cantina on the seedy side of Barcelona, downing one shot of American whiskey after another. That was where he was in place and spirit when he saw the shady Argentinean enter the room before their eyes met.

“Señor Baker,” El Galopo (the Rogue) slid into a chair at the table, uninvited. “Have you heard Alesandro has been ‘rehabilitated’? He signed a denunciation of the CNT, and the Basque Nationalists, and he might be released this week.”

The creep reminded Harry of a sleazier version of Peter Lorre in Casablanca, but he’d try to humor him. El Galopo was sometimes a useful gofer or a good source of information, “Yeh, Galopo, I heard… I haven’t been in a cave all this time.”

He thought it was almost laughable that Franco’s cheap thugs thought they could get anyone to believe Alesandro would have signed any such document… willingly or not. One of Harry’s most reliable talents was an innate ability to sense who would break and who would be better off dispatching… saving time and effort.

“But then maybe you don’t know that Alesandro’s Chucha was arrested,” El Galopo’s eyes beamed with sordid glee at the prospect of having something of interest to the legendary Bird Dog, “Serendipity, eh? Or maybe someone made a swap, si?”

Harry shoved his shot-glass across the table and filled it, “Drink? What else can you tell me that I don’t already know?”

“No thank you, por favor,” Galopo shoved the glass back to Harry, “Oh, nothing much, his Chucha, Iniga, was embarazada… heavy you say, with child… no padre.”

“Pregnant, we say knocked up…” Harry hid his surprise, “eh?”

“Oh yes,” he lied to pique Harry’s interest, “Couldn’t be Alesandro’s bastardo, he’d been locked up for the past five years. His loss is my gain though… I already have a lock on someone who pays good cash to the nuns for the little bastardo.”

“And, of course, what is your cut?” Harry sobered up. He didn’t want to give away his hand… that he knew more and he had been most intimate with Iniga since Alesandro had been busted. The price would go up considerably if the shit-head knew Harry was interested, “Do you know where they're keeping her?”

“With the Nuns… la Ventas, maybe? It is peculiar… si?” The glint in the trader of misfortune’s eyes twinkled, “Some say, among the Anarchists, that it was the Bird Dog that betrayed her. If you know of this, Bird Dog, maybe you have lost some cachet with the Anarchists.”

Harry was astute enough about how rumors of this sort made an extended stay in Barcelona a perilous place to hang around, “Thanks, Jack, even from here in my cave I can see that.”

There was no use wallowing in doubt or self-pity for there were strings to pull, plans and bribes. His paternal instincts overcame reason and couldn’t allow this uncustomary remorse to let his child be adopted-out and lost to an upstanding, good Catholic couple of moral and political rectitude. That is what would have been done with Nicky had he been officially termed “huérfano”. Without an important American father these things were a regular atrocity for the duration of Franco’s damned near eternal reign… a policy that continued far past the Generalissimo’s death in 1975… even into the mid-nineties. And, while he wasn’t officially important, he’d enough unsavory connections, bribes, intrigues, and extortions even, to be important enough to the right people.

Iniga had made first contact with Harry. It was a cold November in Barcelona, the stronghold of anarchists at that time. The Stalinist Communists of the PCE had left guerrilla groups associated with the P.O.U.M. Anarchists to fend for themselves in the struggle against contra militias and Guardia Civil, almost everywhere else in Spain. He’d found himself caught between his affection for old allies and overriding reflexes to personal profit. And profit had called for him to take out the leadership of what was once the Maquis in Spain; i.e., the likes of Caracamada, El Quito, and eventually, Alesandro, four years ago.

It was a month before the meeting with El Galopo that Harry had been sitting at a corner table across from the door, and pretending to read the newspaper with headlines featuring the word, ‘bandeleros’.  The state run newspapers always ran something about this or that successful government action against bands of common criminals. Everyone knew that ‘common criminal’ was the euphemism within the jargon of Spanish journalism for ‘maquis’ for the benefit of government censors in Spain. These were rarely written about unless there was an arrest of a notorious maquisard and in those gloomy days the isolation of anarchist enlaces was nearly complete. He didn’t need to read the paper because he always had information, from the most reliable unreliable sources, for the real news of the day that the papers dared not touch. Though he kept an eye on the door, she’d caught him by surprise.

Her voice still stirred him, “Perro de Caza, what brings you back to this cesspool?”

He flashed a grin. Only a few knew his old code-name, Perro de Caza or Bird Dog.

“Iniga, sit down, por favor, I have some business here.” His use of the word, business, carried some weight with Iniga.

Her eyes scanned the room… “Even here in Barcelona, one must watch one’s back, eh?” She pulled out a rickety chair from across the table and sat down.

“Be careful too that you don’t miss what is in front of you,” guilt about what he needed to do directed this quip. They sat quietly, with eyes fixed on each other, not in longing… it was checking…, checking as they had so many years ago in the Pyrenees.

“You are here on business. Aren’t we well aware of what your business is today?” Iniga was never one to hedge; “Bird Dog is on business for the Americanos, we no longer have the same alliances, do we?”

“I have been away from official business since the war ended,” he said. She was as aware as he was that this was a prevarication. Iniga would let it pass however, as they had more important business to take care of. He taunted, “You were never all that good at diplomacy, were you, dear girl?”

“And you are still too good at lying,” she took one of the cigarettes he offered, “So, you had nothing to do with Alesandro’s capture?”

“You still blame me for what happened four years ago but you won’t give me any credit for his impending release, eh?” He could see by the way her eyes lit up that this was news, very good news, to her.

“Are you sure? We had these hopes built up before.” She was hard pressed to restrain herself from throwing herself at Harry.

“It was Fournier in France… he put the money up. I just passed it on to the right people.”

“Still, I’ll give you all the credit, Bird Dog. Where is he now?”

“Slow down, Iniga, he isn’t out yet,” He lit another cigarette. Instinct told him that Iniga wanted to reward him personally, “He’s still in Carabanchel but any day now…” and he could rot there so long as Harry could have Iniga to himself.

“Please, Harry… money wouldn’t be enough, he was scheduled to be executed.” Her voice was a monotone that hardly revealed the emotion deeply buried… moving with great force like an underground river.

“We traded some Guardia Civil captured from some po-dunk town near Valencia. They were held by one of the enlaces you might be familiar with.” He reached across the table and placed a hand palm up in an offering. Iniga was the price he had to pay to get Alesandro cut loose but he was going to make the best of it as long as he could. That night the salamander that would be dubbed Nicholas was planted in Iniga’s womb.

Harry’s maneuvers were not based on political beliefs; he had none. Nor were there but very few personal alliances that bound him. He was strictly on business and going to this dingy room to bed Iniga was extra-curricular to his business. His present commission in Spain was to get Alesandro released and that was all, at first.

There was no hurry, as Alesandro had languished in Carabanchel for four years… since 1953… he wasn’t likely to die while Harry closed the deal. The fact that he had made up the bit about the enlaces (undercover cells) near Valencia was of little weight on his conscience either. This was all a part of the crafts he’d learned in the British SOE and then the American OSS … way back when… A clear conscience was an extravagance afforded only to those who had never been at a strategy table.

After a couple of months, she would nudge him as he’d just began to fall asleep and ask… “So, what is happening with Alesandro?” They would argue… he’d insist that he was powerless over the when and where of it all. It was after such a night, New Year’s Eve that they argued during their own private cotillones de no Chevyeja. The cotillones is a Spanish ritual to commemorate the New Year when the clock struck twelve, twelve grapes are shared, and a toast is offered for the New Year. He had seen the signs of morning sickness and sensed that Iniga would abort it if it was his child. She had been in his bed long enough to soften his heart... just enough to win it. However, his was a Judas kiss that would haunt him and the time had been arranged to make the trade that he’d been paid for regardless.

He feigned passing out about an hour before dawn, when Iniga arose from the bed as stealthily as she could. It wasn’t safe for a woman to be on the streets unescorted, as much for the obvious dangers of a machismo culture as for the patrols of the Guardia Civil. But Iniga thought of herself as strong willed and able to take care of herself against anything. As soon as she shut the door, Harry was up and tugged on the window shade… up and then down.

Throughout Franco’s oppression, women were the victims of an archaic machismo that filtered far past the demise of the Generalissimo. Spain went medieval where the rest of the Western world tested the warm waters of modernity that had begun before the advent of the past two wars. In the Spain of Franco women weren’t allowed to leave an abusive husband lest they be charged with ‘abandonment’. Submission to the males in her family was written into the law. Brothers and fathers managed her finances, and she would have to be escorted on the streets by a male family member any time of the day and certainly after dark. It was the Spanish Catholic version of Islamic Sharia Law. However, Iniga felt safe, as prying eyes would be closed in slumber by the time she stepped out onto the street before dawn.