The Fifth Column
Page 25
Attack their precious Joe Stalin! Paco’s brain told him. Make them want to make you believe in him as they do, even though they’re intending to kill you in a few minutes.
“It’s not that Spain isn’t ready for collectivization – it’s that Stalin isn’t ready for it to be ready,” he said. “Do you really think he believes in world revolution? Of course he doesn’t! He’s against collectivization here simply because he doesn’t want to offend Britain and France by seeming to support it. And why doesn’t he want to offend Britain and France? Because he knows he’ll need their help if there’s a war with Ger-many – their help to defend Russia. He doesn’t give a damn about what happens in Spain. And he doesn’t give a damn about you! You’re nothing but his puppets – and when he’s finished pulling your strings so hard that they snap, he’ll throw you away with no more thought than a child would throw away a broken toy.”
“Sam Johnson was a danger to the Party,” Cummings said woodenly.
It was almost as if Cummings hadn’t heard a single word he’d said, Paco thought. Or perhaps he had heard, but had chosen not to understand. The man had dedicated his life to the Party. Could anything ever persuade him to accept the fact that he had never been anything more than a dupe of Russian nationalism?
“So Sam Johnson was a danger,” he said aloud.
“Yes,” Cummings agreed. “If he hadn’t been a natural leader, his attitude would not have been a problem. But he was a natural leader – and the men would have followed him anywhere.”
“And he would have protected them,” Paco said. “If some ignorant time-serving bureaucrat in Moscow had issued an order which had put his men at risk, Sam would have ignored it. He would have saved lives!”
“Discipline must be maintained at all costs,” Cummings said. “It is not our place to question our orders.”
“Even if those orders are stupid? Even if they’re verging on being criminally insane?”
“The Party can never be stupid,” Cummings told him heatedly. “At all times, in all circumstances, the Party is always right.”
Paco did not dare to glance down at his watch for fear of alerting Dolores and Cummings to what he was doing, but his best estimate was that another five minutes had passed.
Not long enough! Nowhere near long enough! The time which he had managed to use up so far was like a hairline crack compared to the vast canyon he still had to fill.
“Who actually killed Samuel Johnson?” he asked.
“Why should that matter?” Dolores replied, almost pityingly. “It was the Party which eliminated him. The finger which actually pulled the trigger is of no relevance at all.”
“And no doubt it was the Party that decided that Cindy had to die,” Paco said. “But who acted as the instrument of the Party? Who tried to batter her to death in the street, and, when that didn’t work, attempted to smother her in this very room. It was Cummings, wasn’t it?”
The sandy-haired man looked at Dolores, then, when she nodded, turned to Cindy. His earlier arrogance had disappeared, and instead there was a pleading look on his face, almost as if he were begging the woman in the bed for her forgiveness.
“I had no choice,” he said. “You knew far too much about my past for us to let you live. If we hadn’t tried to silence you, you would have led Ruiz to us eventually. But please believe me, Cindy, it hurt me to do it.”
“But nowhere near as much as it hurt me, you son-of-a-bitch!” Cindy said spiritedly.
And despite the perilous situation they were in, Paco found himself smiling.
“Who forged the letter from Ted Donaldson to the Exalted Cyclops?” he asked.
“That was me,” Cummings admitted. “When it became obvious that you weren’t going to give up on the investigation, we thought at first of killing you. But then we decided that wouldn’t work – because we knew that the authorities in Madrid would only send another investigator in your place. So we had to give you what you wanted – a murderer.”
“Why Donaldson?”
“He was expendable. He would never have amounted to much more than cannon fodder, and the fact that he had once been a member of the Klan gave him a believable motive for the killing.”
“You knew he’d been in the Klan because you’d heard him talk about it to Luis Prieto when you both visited the Prieto house.”
“That’s right,” Cummings agreed. The imploring look had drained from his face when he had turned away from Cindy, and now he was once more the arrogant intellectual. “In his own fumbling, cloddish manner, Donaldson was trying to explain to the Spanish boy that the Klan was evil – and that he should know just how evil because he had once been a member of it himself. I said nothing at the time, preferring to store up that particular piece of information in case it became useful later, as indeed it did.”
The man was scum, Paco thought. And Ted Donaldson, for all the stevedore’s failings, was worth ten of him.
He could bear to look at Cummings no longer, and turned instead to Dolores.
“You pretended you thought it was a waste of time to go through Donaldson’s kit, but all the time you knew what we’d find – because you’d planted it there,” he said.
“Spot on!” Dolores agreed. “And I must be a pretty good actress to have had you so completely fooled.”
She was, Paco agreed. She had played the role of the skeptic to perfection when they had been searching the barracks.
Nor had that been her only triumph. She had played the role of loyal Party member to perfection, too, though, strictly speaking, that had not been a role at all. She was loyal – but her loyalty belonged to quite another branch of the Party than the one she openly professed to belong to.
“Did Donaldson really say all that stuff about an international Zionist conspiracy?” he asked.
“Hell, no,” Dolores replied. “I’m sure there’s a streak of anti-Semitism still running through Donaldson’s veins, but most of the garbage I spouted was my words, not his.”
“And he sensed that, didn’t he? Even though he couldn’t understand the words, he guessed you weren’t translating what he was saying. That’s why he tried to attack you.”
“And got cold-cocked by your fat friend for his trouble,” Dolores said. She looked Paco straight in the eye. “What’s with all these questions, anyway? Why should you be so interested now?”
“I’m a detective by nature, as well as by profession,” Paco said. “I just like to slot all the pieces of the puzzle together.”
“So you just like to slot all the pieces of the puzzle together, do you?” she asked. She shook her head. Her jet-black hair swirled sensually around her shoulders, but the hand which held the pistol remained as steady as ever. “No, I don’t buy that. There’s got to be another reason you’re so happy to stand here chewing the fat. You’re waiting for something, aren’t you?”
“What could I be waiting for?” Paco asked.
“Perhaps for the cavalry to come to the rescue? Well, let me tell you, that isn’t going to happen.”
No, Paco thought sadly, it wasn’t going to happen. Dolores and Cummings had the upper hand, and they were not about to give it away now.
“Here’s the way it’s going to play.” Dolores said. “You and me, Inspector, are going to go for a little walk.”
“And Cummings?”
“He’ll stay here to look after his long-lost love.”
His long lost love. Now there was real irony
“Let her live,” Paco pleaded. “She’ll keep quiet about all this.”
“Will you, Cindy?” Dolores asked. “If we spare you, will you just walk away and forget everything?”
“You know goddamn well that I won’t!” Cindy spat. “If you hurt Paco, you’re as good as dead yourselves. It doesn’t matter where you go. You can run back to Moscow with your tails between your legs, and I’ll still find you.”
Dolores turned back to Paco, and shrugged helplessly.
“You heard her,” she said. �
��We don’t have any choice, so let’s try and make this as quick and dignified as we possibly can, shall we?”
She was going to kill him – but not yet. Whatever story she and Cummings had concocted to explain away two more killings, it involved him dying somewhere else, and from that knowledge he drew a sliver of hope.
If he could find some way to overpower Dolores on the way to wherever it was they were going ...
If he could then get back to Asunción Muñoz’s house before Cummings had had time to dispose of Cindy...
If... if... if...
It was a sliver of hope – but no more!
“Do we at least get to say goodbye to each other?” he asked Dolores.
“Sure – as long as you can do it from where you’re standing now.”
He and Cindy had faced death together before, but never with the certainty with which they were facing it this time.
Paco looked across at his woman and marveled that, even at such a moment, her face could express more love than fear.
“We were good together,” he said.
“Wrong as usual, Ruiz,” Cindy replied. “We weren’t good – we were the best.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The air on the street seemed colder than it had earlier. But perhaps it wasn’t. Perhaps the chill he felt biting into his bones was no more than a manifestation of the huge sense of failure which had begun to sweep over him.
The moment that Cindy had told him what all Cummings’ students had known about their teacher for a long time, warning bells should have started ringing in his head. He should have been on his guard, expecting Dolores and Cummings to arrive even before they did. Instead of applying his mind to slotting the last few pieces of the puzzle into place, he should have been making plans to take Cindy somewhere safer. But he hadn’t done any of that – and now it was too late.
“Are you still watching that building right across the street to make sure it doesn’t move?” asked a voice behind him.
“Yes, I’m still watching it.”
Dolores was just in the doorway of the house, he calculated, which put her at least two meters from him. If he swung round now and tried to grab her gun, he would be dead before he even got close.
“Now here’s how it works,” Dolores said, briskly and businesslike. “When I give the word, you turn left. You do it in a single smooth movement. No hesitation, no jerkiness. One second you’re looking across the street, the next you’re looking down it. And you don’t check over your shoulder to see where I am, because that would be a big mistake. Once you’re facing in the right direction, you wait for the order and then you start walking – real slow and real steady. You keep to the dead center of the street. If you deviate by as much as an inch from the path I’m expecting you to take, I’ll shoot you where you stand. Understood?”
She was good, Paco thought – far too good to ever make any of the mistakes he’d been hoping she would.
“I asked you if you understood,” Dolores said.
“I understand.”
“Good. Turn now.”
He turned, listening for sound from within the house. But there was only silence.
He imagined the scene.
Cummings standing a few feet from Cindy, watching – even though she was as weak as a lamb – for any false moves.
Cindy herself, lying there, perhaps preparing for death, perhaps still hoping that her Spanish knight in shining armor would find some way to rescue her at the last minute.
But that wasn’t going to happen – because Dolores was being far too careful.
He wondered how Cummings would decide to kill the woman he loved. He probably wouldn’t shoot her, because that would make too much unnecessary noise. Maybe he would strangle her. Or perhaps he would use a pillow to smother her. He had already tried that method once, and failed. But this time he would succeed, because there would be no one to disturb him.
Stop it! he ordered himself angrily – stop thinking about Cindy, and start thinking about how to overpower Dolores.
“OK, move off,” Dolores said.
Her voice told him that she was now in the street behind him. But not close enough!
Not nearly close enough!
He took one step forward, then a second.
Cummings would be moving into position for the kill now, because he wouldn’t want to stay in the house any longer than he absolutely …
Stop it! Stop it!
“You’re doing just fine, Paco,” Dolores said soothingly. “Just fine. A few more minutes, and it will all be over.”
He heard a noise – a slight shuffling sound – coming from the shadows just ahead of them.
Dolores had heard it too.
“Is somebody there?” she called. “Step out where I can see you!”
She was distracted. He would never get a better chance than this. Paco swung round, going into a crouch to make himself a smaller target.
If he could spring at her...
If he could manage to knock her to the ground...
He was still fine-tuning his plan of attack when he heard an explosion and felt something heavy – something burning – slam into his shoulder with the force of an express train. He toppled over backwards, and as he did so, his brain began screaming out its protest at the pain which was quickly spreading through his whole body.
If he were to survive this – if he were to have the slightest chance of saving Cindy – he had to get back to his feet before Dolores had a chance to fire again. But even as he struggled against the pain, he knew that he would never make it.
His confused, agonized mind registered a number of disparate sounds.
A slight plop.
The sound of a body falling hitting the street.
A man – Cummings – screaming the word ‘bitch’ in English.
Running footsteps.
He forced himself to his knees, and crawled painfully back towards the door of the house he had just left. A body blocked his passage, and because he did not have the strength left to clamber over it, he had to waste precious seconds on a detour.
He reached the door on his hands and knees – like a dog instead of a man, he thought – and looked through pain-filled eyes into the room.
He saw Cindy, propped up in the bed on one shaky elbow.
He saw Cummings, staggering around the room with his hand over his right eye and moaning,
“You’ve blinded me! You’ve blinded me!”
And he saw Mannie Lowenstein, standing between the two of them, holding a pistol.
“What do you want me to do?” Lowenstein asked softly.
“Shoot him!” Cindy screamed. “Kill the fucking fairy!”
The brigadista nodded gravely, then raised his weapon.
The explosion from the silenced pistol was no more than a loud plop. Cummings stopped moaning, and his legs collapsed from under him. As he hit the floor, a patch of red began to appear – like magic – around his heart. Lowenstein walked over to the fallen man, and put two bullets in his head.
Perhaps minutes had passed – or perhaps it was only the pain which made it seem like minutes. Lowenstein had manhandled Paco into a chair and was now leaning over him.
“Can you hear me?” the brigadista asked.
“Yes,” Paco gasped. “I can hear you.”
“We need a story to explain away this mess – and we don’t have long to produce it.”
“Cummings!” Paco croaked. “It was Cummings. He killed Johnson. He ... he was working for some rogue branch of the Party in Moscow.”
Lowenstein shook his head.
“It can’t have happened like that – even if it did,” he said. “If the brigade does not believe in the unity of the Party, it believes in nothing. If a popular brigadista like Greg Cummings could not be trusted, then who can be? Cummings died a hero’s death. All we need to decide now is who killed him.”
He was right, Paco thought. Whoever took the blame, it couldn’t be Cummings.
He started to laugh, even though it hurt to do so.
“Why ... why don’t we learn from Hitler?” he asked. “Why don’t we blame it on the Jews?”
“The Jews!” Lowenstein exploded, as if he could hardly believe what he’d just heard.
“Perhaps I should have said a Jew.”
“Me? You want me to take the blame?”
“No, not you,” Paco said, trying to sound more serious. “The Jew I have in mind is thousands of miles from here. And nothing we can do or say will hurt him.”
“As long as he lives, a man can hurt. Is the Jew that you have in mind already dead?”
“No, not yet,” Paco admitted. “But with the shadow which is hanging over him, he might as well be.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
There were four of them waiting for the midnight train to Madrid, though only three of them were planning to take it. The blonde woman still found it tiring to walk for more than a few yards, and was sitting in a wheelchair. Her novio, his shoulder in plaster and his arm in a sling, stood next to her. Beyond him were his fat assistant and the political commissar of the Lincolns based in San Antonio.
James Clay had insisted on seeing them off, though Paco suspected his motive had more to do with making sure they were really leaving than it did with courtesy. Clay had not gloated for a full fifteen minutes, but now, as he bent over Cindy’s wheelchair, it looked as if he were about to start again.
“Commissar Clay says that he knew right from the start the murderer couldn’t have been one of the brigadistas,” Cindy translated.
“Tell him he was quite right about that, and I was quite wrong,” Paco said cheerfully.
Clay frowned.
“Of course, there was one moment when I wavered in my belief,” he admitted.
“When was that?”