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.
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