SPANISH ROCK

by Lex Lander

  Without any specific plan of resistance I got to my feet, clutching the chair. Petrov sniggered. Kirkland casually, as if he were taking out a cheque book, drew a slim automatic from inside his jacket. I prodded the chair legs at Petrov. He side-stepped easily, nimble as a ballet dancer.

  ‘Put the chair down,’ Kirkland said quietly, ‘or I’ll have to shoot you.’

  I put the chair down but not submissively as Kirkland would have it; I chucked it at him legs foremost. He corkscrewed away to avoid it. Petrov came for me but made the error of reaching for his gun whilst on the move, tying up his right arm and upsetting his balance so that when I upended the flimsy table in his path he ran right into it. His mouth opened and I saw that where had once been teeth was now only space. He reeled, clutching at the overturned table and getting tangled up in it. Down he went, with the table on top of him.

  The Russian being out of the running for as long as it would take to extricate himself, I closed in on Kirkland, judging him the lesser opponent in a roughhouse. Avoiding the thrown chair had brought him to his knees. He managed to get off a single wild shot that ripped through my sleeve before I kicked him in the ear and ended his participation. The door flung open. The two guards, alerted by the din, barged in, flourishing their machine pistols. For their efficacy such weapons rely on saturating the immediate vicinity with lead, controlled shots being near-impossible. Any sprayed gunfire would be as fatal for Petrov and Kirkland as for me. I only hoped these two were smart enough to appreciate it.

  Their IQ ratings were never put to the test. As they stood in the doorway, crouching, uncertain how to deal with the situation, a gun cracked in the corridor beyond, several rapid shots. The soldiers crumpled, clutching their legs and howling their displeasure.

  Half a face appeared tentatively around the door. Elena!

  ‘Come, André!’

  But Petrov had crawled out from under the table by now and wasn’t in a forgiving mood. He took a pot-shot at Elena, but half a face makes a poor target for an unaimed pistol. Elena bobbed back out of sight as I chopped down on his arm with the hard edge of my hand. I expected it to break his grip on the gun at the very least, so it was a surprise when the hand, with the gun still attached, came winging towards my skull. Elena saved me again with a lucky shot that definitely struck flesh and blood. Petrov grunted, and reeled against me like a drunk. I thrust him away. His legs buckled and it was all over with him, maybe terminally. I hurdled the sundry fallen forms – the still and the squirming – and stumbled to the door.

  ‘You’re a bloody marvel!’ I hugged Elena, and she, responding to my display of affection according to her instincts, clung to my neck and kissed me so hard I was sent staggering back into the room, with the muzzle of her gun jammed up behind my ear.

  ‘Not now!’ I squawked, before we went down with a crash over Petrov’s body.

  ‘Make love to me,’ she growled, biting at my neck.

  ‘What – on top of a corpse?’ I disengaged her arms. ‘You’re as mad as your brother. Come on, we’ve got to get out. Somebody must’ve hear the shooting. There’s a guy upstairs …’

  Elena’s chortle put a stop to my protests.

  ‘He’s sleeping on duty,’ she said, now chewing at my ear. ‘And this place is soundproof. It wouldn’t do for soldiers to hear prisoners being interrogated. They sometimes scream, you see …’

  But for her intervention mine might have been joining the ghosts of screamers past.

  We got up and I kicked the machine pistols away, out of reach of the two groaning guards. For good measure I gave them each a firm tap on the temple with the butt of Elena’s pistol. Peace descended.

  ‘That was an efficient bit of shooting,’ I said to Elena. ‘It must run in the family.’

  It was a thoughtless, even cruel remark. She became subdued.

  ‘I never shot anyone before. Luis is … was my twin, but I don’t share his violent streak.’ Her fingers brushed a lock of hair from my forehead. ‘I did it for you.’

  Her admission humbled me into silence.

  ‘Did my father come to see you?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And he told you … everything? That the invasion is his and his alone, that he is going to kill the King, and is working with the Russians for them to supply oil and weapons after the invasion.’

  ‘Because he expects a trade embargo against Spain?’ I said.

  She nodded. ‘It seems so.’

  ‘Have you known this all along?’

  She stepped away from me, affronted. ‘Of course not. It was only two days ago that I fixed my recording machine in the room where Papa holds his meetings. As soon as I discovered the truth I tried to contact you. This is why we came to Madrid, Luis and I, to tell you.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I muttered, abashed and a little ashamed, ‘and I’m sorry about Luis.’

  Moisture filmed her eyes.

  ‘I am trying not to think about Luis or I shall cry and you will have to comfort me in that special way. We must be practical and plan our escape before the guards are relieved.’

  ‘Are there any other prisoners in here?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Perhaps ten, twelve.’

  Ten was nowhere near enough for what I had in mind. But the alternatives carried an even greater risk. I checked my watch: it was after four. Dawn was only an hour away. Our chances of escape would be higher under cover of darkness.

  ‘You have an idea?’ She bit her lower lip, excited now. She was easy to excite. ‘What is it, André?’

  ‘We’re going to stage a mass break-out,’ I replied melodramatically.

  ‘A mass break-out? With only a dozen prisoners?’

  All right, so it was a lousy idea. It was the only one I had.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The grass was damp and the air still. Above, a sky embossed with explosions of cumulus that sent shadows chasing sunlight across the swooping hills and along the valley where an insignificant little river meandered. Between the crest of the hill, where we were, and the bottom of the valley, was situated the airfield that we had happened upon by chance.

  It occupied a wide shelf of land in the hillside below us. On the runway a small piston-engined aircraft; others were lined up in echelon on the apron. I counted ten sleek combat types with twin tail fins, and a trio of smaller jets with elongated cockpit canopies, two-seat trainers probably. All of them sported red fins and noses. Inside a painted landing circle on the near side of the only hangar a large grey helicopter was parked. On top of it, a figure, crouched over the rotor mast. Of the scattered buildings the obligatory hangar was the largest. Next largest was two storeys high and shaped like a shoe box, with lots of windows. Crew quarters, was my guess.

  Elena and I sat side by side in the damp grass. She was smoking her last cigarette, while I assessed the chances of approaching the airfield unseen. Suddenly she emitted a rich chortle.

  ‘Oh, André, did you ever see anything so funny as that man trying to run with his pants round his ankles?’

  It was true that the incident had provided a few seconds of comic relief in what was otherwise a desperate venture. In the event our escape had not quite gone as intended. The prisoners refused to co-operate in staging a break-out, fearing the reprisals they would incur. Smart guys. So we had commandeered the guards’ machine pistols and forced them out at gunpoint. A couple of bursts over their heads set a stampede in motion, and they scattered far and wide across the courtyard. We had expected the guards to give chase and sure enough they spilled out of their quarters, some of them in night attire, but instead of attempting to round up the fleeing miscreants they started picking them off. Consequently, the confusion we had banked on to cover our own escape never happened.

  It wasn’t until all the reluctant escapees lay still, either dead or hugging the concrete in terror, and the guards, calling to each other, were converging on the fallen, that an opportunity presented itself.

  ‘Go!’ I had yelled to El
ena, and, bless her pluck, she darted off without the smallest hesitation. I went off after her, clutching the machine pistol, though there couldn’t have more than a few rounds left in the magazine. Darkness was our friend. At the outset too, the prison building screened us. When we had covered a half kilometre or so we risked a halt to check our rear. No movement, no suggestion of pursuit.

  ‘We’ve done it!’ Elena was ecstatic.

  ‘Getting clear is only part of it. As soon as the sun comes up we’ll stand out like flies on a white ceiling, then it’ll be game over.’

  Luck continued to favour us though. South from the base to the perimeter fence turned out to be about three kilometres. The going was easy, just gentle slopes up and down. They did come in search of us eventually of course. The judder of a helicopter advanced and receded. We saw its searchlight traversing the countryside but they never came near enough to catch us in the beam.

  Dawn came and the crimson orb of the sun rose on a bed of mauve clouds.

  ‘We must try and get back to Gibraltar,’ Elena proposed.

  ‘No point,’ I said. We were resting in a hollow, lost but content for now merely to be free. ‘Your father’s troops will be on the move by now and if the frontier hasn’t been closed it certainly will be by the time we get there.’

  ‘Don’t call him my father,’ Elena said, tugging savagely at a tuft of spiky grass between her knees.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘He’s not my father. He’s my padrastro.’

  ‘Padrastro? What’s that?’

  ‘Irazola married my mother when my real father died.’

  ‘Ah. Step-father, we call it.’

  ‘Now perhaps you’ll understand,’ she said, turning those enormous brown eyes on me; eyes that embodied sadness and grief and great beauty.

  ‘Understand what? This hate campaign against your father, sorry, step-father? Well, no, Elena not quite. It can’t be just because he isn’t your real father and because he’s rejected his Basque origins, if he has any. Shit, when your mother abandoned you to run off with her lover he looked after you, didn’t he? You ought to be grateful –’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ she interrupted, stoney-faced. ‘Mama didn’t abandon us.’

  Then the story, too long withheld, came out in a garbled rush.

  Maria-Elena Irazola had left her husband not to run away with her lover, for there was no lover, not then. She left because she could no longer tolerate her husband’s cruelty, both physical and mental. Their relationship, Elena explained, was that of master and servant. Her duty by the standards of Irazola’s warped values was to indulge his whims and attend his needs day-in, day-out. The sadistic belt-lashings that arose out of her failure to meet his standards as he perceived them, were frequent occurrences. Elena and Luis too had tasted the belt, not once but many times.

  This had gone on until, one day, when their mother, defending Elena, had struck back by taking a heavy poker to Irazola’s skull and fracturing it. Afterwards she packed bags for herself and the twins and decamped for Barcelona. Irazola did not pursue them. They spent the next three years living in semi-squalor, their mother ultimately peddling her not unattractive body to keep them from starvation. Until she picked the wrong type of customer and finished up literally in the gutter with her throat gaping open and her blood mingling with the effluent of the city.

  ‘But why did the General take you back?’

  ‘There was no one else. Our real father was dead. By law Julio Irazola was our next-of-kin, our legal guardian. Also, by then he had appearances to think of.’

  ‘What appearances?’

  She brushed her fringe away from her forehead. ‘He was an ambitious officer. To abandon his step-children would be a black mark against him. He wished to appear magnanimous … forgiving.’

  It was a dismal tale. I remembered the brittle atmosphere on the night I had dined with the General, the strong impression that the banter was spurious, staged for my benefit.

  The sweat produced by our run was beginning to cool. I shivered in my inadequate and much-abused lightweight suit.

  ‘And is he really Franco’s son?’

  ‘Probably. His mother was a whore. He took her name. It is said that Franco paid her to keep quiet.’

  I drew her to me, stroked her black hair. ‘Poor Elena. You must really hate him.’

  ‘More than I can say. More even than I love you, André. He killed my mother and now my brother. Now I have no one except you and I don’t really have you, do I?’

  I couldn’t meet her gaze. I wanted to be kind, yet I owed her too much to prevaricate.

  ‘You are in love with Papa’s woman, aren’t you? With Linda.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call it love. Sure, I’m fond of her, but it goes no further than that.’ It would have been a cruelty too many to tell her that my real love was on the other side of the Atlantic. I took her chin in my hand, held her eyes with mine. ‘Let’s get out of this mess and then we’ll see. You’re a beautiful girl, and I admire and respect you. However this ends, I will always want to be your friend.’

  ‘Hah! Say no more, André.’ She got up; the seat of her jeans was dark with damp from the grass. ‘You are right, we must first save ourselves. Afterwards, let us see what the fates have in store.’ She turned up her collar. ‘What do you wish us to do now?’

  I rose, more slowly, my joints stiff. ‘Get going.’

  We didn’t have to travel for long. Barely twenty minutes more trudging up slopes and down inclines before we crested a ridge, and there below us was the airfield, and our ticket back to the Rock.

  * * * * *

  The little piston-engined aircraft was zipping down the runway. It took off, climbing in a near perpendicular ascent, banking southward. The busy vibrato of its engine dwindled to nothing.

  Somehow we had to make it to Gib before nightfall. To warn anyone who cared to heed us of the imminence of invasion. I voiced the thought to Elena.

  ‘This was what I imagined you would say. It makes me love you all the more.’ She came to me and laid her cheek against mine. ‘You are so brave and unselfish.’

  Yeah, a million pounds worth of unselfish. Just being brave was enough for me.

  While I was basking in her eulogies a solution hit me.

  ‘We’ll fly there.’

  ‘Oh, yes? Scheduled or charter?’

  ‘I mean it. We’ll steal that helicopter.’

  She didn’t take me seriously. ‘Will we? And an obliging pilot to go with it, presumably.’

  ‘We’ve got guns.’ I shook her by the shoulders. ‘Down there will be pilots.’

  ‘Of course. Why not?’ She did a little caper. ‘You are very smart, André. Kiss me.’

  Kissing her was the easy part. The hard part was to come. We were intending to hijack a military helicopter in daylight without resources and the most meagre of armouries: two nearly-empty machine pistols plus Elena’s revolver which had but a single cartridge to its name.

  ‘You realise we’re not equipped for a long campaign,’ I said as I swept the terrain yet again in search of cover. It was as bare as the open sea.

  ‘Don’t be defeatist. Those are air force men down there, not soldiers. You will only have to wave a gun at them and they will fly you around the world.’

  The man on top of the helicopter had descended to the tarmac and appeared to be wiping his hands. If he was just a mechanic, he was probably no use to us, so we would have to go hunting for our flyboy.

  I was still worrying about how to cross that patch of bare hillside without being spotted when the sun abruptly went in and the far end of the runway seemed to blur over and then to dissolve.

  ‘Look,’ Elena said excitedly. ‘It’s getting misty.’

  On all sides the landscape was fading, losing colour as the curtain of mist rolled in and over us, stilling the chatter of birds, isolating us as effectively as if we were marooned in space. God was still batting for us, it seemed.

  ‘We mu
st go immediately,’ Elena said, and was almost out of sight before I started after her.

  ‘Do you think we can fly in this?’ I asked her as we jogged side by side down the slope.

  ‘Oh, yes. It’s only a sea mist. It will soon clear.’

  As we went lower the mist thickened and we almost ran into a fence, a man-high, heavy-duty mesh affair. I punted Elena over the top, hand cupped under her butt, then scrambled over myself, hoping it wasn’t wired up to an alarm system.

  Elena reassured me. ‘They use guard dogs.’

  ‘What!’ I gripped the sub-machine gun and glanced to the left and right, expecting some Baskervillian hound to materialise out of the curtain of grey.

  ‘At night only,’ she added with a playful grin.

  ‘Why are you so goddamn cool and collected?’

  The question was rhetorical and without waiting for a response I carried on down, the gradient flattening out as we neared the runway apron and the mist now thickening to real fog.

  A building loomed on our left. Elena tugged me away and the murk sucked it back in. Then instead of grass there was tarmac underfoot and our running feet were audible. Too audible. We stopped in perfect coordination, a few metres short of the helicopter. Voices, deceptively close or deceptively far away. Mist plays tricks on the auditory senses. I lined up the machine pistol, doubtful I would actually use it, even in self-defence. Whatever taste I had ever had for shedding blood had been sated years ago.

  ‘Raul, es bien?’ came a disembodied cry.

  Raul shouted back that he had just about cracked the problem and threw in a grumble about it being wasted effort as nobody would fly in this muck.

  We crept forward, took cover behind the chopper. A blurred silhouette in the fog morphed into the red fin of an aircraft with a fat, slab-sided fuselage. Under the nearer wing was Raul, obviously a mechanic. He was on one knee, tinkering with the starboard wheel, an open cantilever tool box to hand. His colleague was nowhere in sight, presumably hidden by the bulk of the aircraft.

  ‘The charger unit is plugged in,’ the other mechanic called.

  ‘They won’t be flying in this, I tell you,’ Raul insisted, grunting as he tightened some nut with a spanner.