The Exile (50 page)

Ochoa clutched his head. Guzmán saw blood running through his fingers. He pushed him to the door. ‘Try and get behind those rocks over there.'

Ochoa threw open the battered door, and ran towards the shelter of the boulders. On the road above, Guzmán saw the mounted rifleman looking down at him. And then the horseman jumped down from the saddle, taking shelter behind a lip of rock that gave him an excellent field of fire while making it almost impossible for Guzmán to get a decent shot at him.

Guzmán kicked open the door and slid out, firing. He crouched behind the car, waiting for the response. A moment later the driver's seat exploded in a flurry of shredded leather as the report of the rifle echoed around the barren hillside. The gunman fired again and the nearside headlight disintegrated.

Guzmán smelled oil as a bullet shuddered into the engine block. The offside headlight went next, blasted apart in such a spectacular manner Guzmán suspected the bastard was using armour-piercing bullets. He spat angrily into the soil as he reloaded the Browning and got to his feet, holding the pistol in a two-handed grip as he crept along the side of the car.

Keeping low, he pulled at the handle of the rear door, hoping to retrieve the rifle from the back seat. The battered door didn't move. Guzmán raised his head slowly, looking through the shattered window for the rifle. The seething bee-whine of a bullet fizzed past him, forcing him to take cover again. The rifle would have to stay where it was.

The rifleman fired again and the car sagged as the front offside tyre exploded. Guzmán dashed from behind the rear of the car and ran towards the rocks, scrambling behind the boulder where Ochoa was sheltering.

‘At least we're safe here,' Ochoa said.

Guzmán narrowed his eyes. ‘Unfortunately, we're also trapped, Corporal.'

The rifleman turned his attention to the car. Within minutes the remaining tyres had been shot out. Another flurry of bullets sent shards of metal and broken glass flying. A sharp hiss of steam signalled the radiator had been hit.

‘What the fuck's going on?' Guzmán said angrily. ‘The
guardia
must have heard the shooting by now. They were supposed to support us.'

As suddenly as it had begun, the confrontation ended as they heard the muffled hoofbeats as the rifleman rode away.

Guzmán retrieved the rifles from the wrecked car and forced open the boot to get at the ammunition. He pointed down the road in the direction the horseman had taken. ‘Let's find out.'

SAN SEBASTIÁN 1954, HOTEL INGLÉS

‘What the fuck do you mean, you don't know where Guzmán is?' Gutiérrez barked. ‘All week I've been telling you to get him to make contact and you say you can't reach him?'

‘I've tried everything, sir,' Viana said. ‘He's been lying low, I don't know why. The only time he showed himself was when he met with Carrero Blanco. I don't understand that.'

‘I think I do,' Gutiérrez said. ‘I thought Guzmán was loyal, but there are degrees of loyalty and his greatest loyalty has always been to himself. It's just possible Guzmán has decided to work for Carrero Blanco.'

‘Shall I take action?' Viana asked.

‘No. You'd have to find him. He may have a good reason for going to ground. I'll wait a little longer. In the meantime, I want you to keep looking for him, just tell him to get in touch. I'm arranging for a file to be sent to him. There are things he needs to know.'

‘And you're going to send the file to me to pass on to him, sir?'

‘Not at all. It will be sent by courier to one of my agents. Guzmán can collect it from them. Just in case, I'll telegraph you the address once it has been sent. You can phone to see if it has been collected. Understood?'

‘Perfectly, sir. You can rely on me.'

‘I hope so,' Gutiérrez muttered, ‘because if Guzmán doesn't complete this operation successfully it won't just be him who's fucked, it'll be me as well.' The line crackled as he hung up.

Viana sat on the bed staring at the big Bakelite phone on the night table. ‘Then you're both fucked,
mi General
.' He smiled.

OROITZ 1954, LA CARRERA VIEJA

The civil guards sat inside the truck, wet and miserable. Sitting by the doors, Diaz lifted his head, suddenly curious. ‘What the fuck is that noise?'

The men exchanged glances, uneasy as the sound grew louder. A rolling noise, like distant thunder. But this was not thunder, nor was it distant, and it was coming towards them.

‘Fuck this.' Diaz snatched up his rifle and climbed out, his boots splashing in the mud as he looked round, trying to locate the source of the noise.

The tension was becoming unbearable and Ortega quickly followed. Suddenly, no one wanted to stay in the truck and the others hurried after their comrades, jostling out into the open.

‘Form a line,' the lance corporal shouted, realising he was in charge now. The men glanced at one another, grim-faced as they formed an irregular line by the rear of the vehicle, rifles lifted as they peered into the mist, trying to gauge where the noise was coming from.

‘What the fuck is it?' yelled Quintana, his eyes flitting over the dark bushes across the road as the ground trembled beneath his feet. He saw vague movement in the trees and stepped forward, raising the rifle to his shoulder, trying to identify a target. The noise stopped.

Quintana lowered the rifle, puzzled.

A hoarse voice screamed a single word: ‘Çubiry.' A chill colder than any winter as dozens of voices joined the chorus, howling the name again and again as the pounding of hooves swelled like an oncoming storm.

The rider exploded from the bushes, his long cavalry sabre sparkling like white fire in the autumn mist. Quintana screamed as the blade entered his back, and his rifle clattered to the ground as he clutched at the bloody point sticking from his chest.

Horsemen erupted from the trees on all sides, their great swords swinging in glittering arcs as they cut down those troopers who attempted to flee, splattering the churned snow with their blood. A few
guardia
tried to make a stand and the snow-swept escarpment echoed to the sound of gunfire as the Çubiry opened up with their automatic pistols.

‘Kill them all.' Baron Çubiry's voice rose above the sound of fighting as he rode among his enemies, a thin smile on his face, a broomhandle Mauser in his hand. Private Ruiz was propped against the side of the truck, clutching a sabre wound in his side. As the Baron's horse wheeled in front of him, Ruiz pulled his bayonet from his belt and got to his feet. The Baron reined in his horse, aiming as Ruiz staggered towards him. As the shot echoed around the trees, Private Ruiz crumpled into the mud, leaving only a spatter of bloody tissue on the side of the truck to mark the one act of bravery in his short and unremarkable career.

That was enough for those who still lived. They fled, trying to dodge the massive horses as the Çubiry plunged after them into the undergrowth, charging down the fleeing men, hacking with sabres and cutlasses, cackling as they fell. For a time, the trees echoed to the sound of drumming hooves and screams of terror, punctuated by the crackle of small-arms fire. Finally, a chill silence fell, broken only by the whinny of a horse or a sudden scream as the Çubiry discovered a wounded trooper hiding in the bushes and dragged him out to face execution in front of the baying riders.

‘
C'est fini
,' Baron Çubiry bellowed. ‘God favours the Çubiry.
Our rage blazes forth like fire, and the mountains crumble to dust in our presence.'

Around him, the riders roared their defiance to the Spanish, to the police and to God himself, as they dragged the sacks of banknotes from the truck and tied them to their saddles. Once the vehicle was empty, they rode away in line, leaving the bodies of the Oroitz garrison strewn over the bloody snow amid a clutter of discarded weapons and equipment.

OROITZ 1954, CARRERA VIEJA

Guzmán and Ochoa made their way along the road, alert for any sign of the rifleman returning. Guzmán was having difficulty speaking, so great was his anger.

‘Was it El Lobo, boss?' Ochoa asked, hoping Guzmán had cooled down.

Guzmán stared as if he didn't understand. ‘Yes, it fucking was. Didn't you see him?'

Ochoa shook his head. ‘I was behind the rocks, remember?'

Guzmán had nothing more to say and they pressed on through the fading afternoon in silence until his anger resurfaced. ‘Twelve armed
guardia
should be a match for a bandit,' he said. ‘All I expected was for them to pin him down.'

‘Maybe that's what happened,' Ochoa said. ‘Perhaps the lads drove him off.'

‘You're right. They could be sitting in that truck right now, on top of five million pesetas, bellyaching about what a hard life they have.'

‘Could be,
jefe
.'

‘They'd better be, Corporal,' Guzmán said, ‘because if anything happens to that money, it will be the end of my career.' He spat into the snow. ‘It might be the end of me, come to that.'

As the snow died away, the details of the surrounding countryside began to emerge with increasing clarity. Ahead, the road sloped down to a glade of skeletal trees. Guzmán swore as he saw the angular shape of the truck protruding from the verge into the road, its wheels mired deep in the soft mud, the words on the side clearly visible:
Banco de Bilbao
.

‘Look at that,' he said. ‘The clumsy bastards ran it off the road. What did I tell you? I bet they're taking a nap in the back.'

As they got closer, he realised he was wrong. Angrily, he raised his rifle, looking for a target. ‘I don't fucking believe it,' he said finally, lowering the rifle. There was no one to shoot. No one alive, that was.

Guzmán stared at the sprawled bodies, the equipment and weapons strewn around them on the wet snow. All dead. Even the wounded had been executed. Their bodies lay face down in the mud with a bullet in the back of the head. He saw Ortega, his face a frozen mask of surprise. And no wonder, Guzmán thought, seeing the sword sticking from his chest.

The truck was empty, the back doors open, just a few damp banknotes stuck to the floor. It was worse than he could have imagined. Far worse. Five million pesetas. Gone.

Ochoa called out to him. Guzmán turned and saw the line of horsemen on the distant ridge, silhouetted against the autumn sky, sacks of money hanging from their saddles, their bizarre headgear stark against the light as they headed back along the smugglers' trail to France.

It took León a moment to realise he was not dead. Lying dazed in the narrow ditch, hidden by soaking gorse, he listened to the slaughter taking place two hundred metres away. Warily, he got to his feet and made his way along the side of the escarpment. His thoughts echoed with bitter hindsight. Who but a fool would trust the Çubiry? Their fluctuating loyalty was legendary. Only a man driven by greed would involve himself in a scheme like this.

León was a big man and was soon out of breath as the escarpment grew steeper. As he climbed, the sodden ground crumbled under his boots and he was gasping by the time he reached the steep gradient near the top. Clutching at the wet turf, he dragged himself over the brow of the hill onto the flat track at the top of the ridge and lay motionless, gulping air like a drowning man.

As his breathing slowed, he realised he was not alone. He got to his knees, his eyes fixed on the tallow-haired youth standing a couple of metres away.

The lad smiled. ‘
Kaixo
, Sargento León.'

‘Who the fuck are you?' León wiped sweat from his eyes with a muddy hand.

‘Patxi Gabilondo, your worship.'

‘And you know who I am?'

‘Yes, sir, you're the
sargento
from the
cuartel
at Oroitz.'

‘And where are you going?' León asked in a low voice.

‘I'm going home, your worship.'

‘No, you're not,' León said, reaching for his pistol. ‘You're a witness.'

24

COLMENAR VIEJO, JULY 2010, FUENTES RESIDENCE

Galíndez left her overnight bag in the spare room and wandered downstairs onto the veranda. Along the hall, she heard the girls' excited chatter as they trailed after their mother, ignoring her harassed requests to leave her in peace.

She heard their voices like someone listening to rain. Even the subtle colours of the garden were lost on her as she stared across the lawn, brooding on the hand grenade Rosario Calderón had tossed into her lap the day before.

Calderón knew exactly what she was doing, Galíndez realised. She'd gone to a lot of trouble to get that adoption certificate, knowing the effect it would have if Galíndez refused to close down her investigation. Knowing it would fuck her up. And she'd been right, it had. The evidence was clear-cut. The certificate showed Ramiro and Teresa had adopted a stolen child. Worse, the adoption had been authorised by Guzmán, the man Galíndez had turned into front page-news. The media would have a field day reporting that ironic detail.

As well as Calderón's scheming, there was also the question of why Uncle Ramiro had never told her he knew Guzmán when she'd started her investigation. Hadn't it occurred to him she might unearth the details of the adoption? She lifted a hand to her mouth, chewing her knuckle in frustration, torn between anger at Ramiro and sympathy for his tragic loss.

Calderón's action had thrown her ethical principles into turmoil. If this had involved any other high-profile figure, her sense of justice would have overridden all arguments, Christ, there would have been no argument. Galíndez would have made it public as a matter of course. But this was different. Ramiro was family.

Driving up the motorway earlier, she'd wondered if perhaps Ramiro might welcome a chance to talk about what had happened. After all, his adopted child had been dead for twenty-eight years, maybe talking about it might give him a sense of closure? It would never happen. What would he do, appear on
Oprah
? He didn't do emotion, much less discuss it. And when Ramiro didn't want to do something, it didn't get done.