The Eldorado Network

by Derek Robinson

  He strolled up and down the room and tried to work out what had happened during the afternoon. Obviously he had been put through a series of tests, and only when he passed those tests had he been accepted into the Abwehr. The money had been a symbol of admission; the money, and the fact that Colonel Christian had shown him so much secret information. That much was clear.

  And Colonel Christian: what a character! Who said the Germans had no sense of humour? 'I am surrounded by fatheads!' Luis murmured happily.

  All right, what about fat Franz and the practical joke in the steel room? Luis unbuttoned his shirt. There was a small round mark, not serious enough to be called a bruise, an inch above his breastbone. Franz's pistol fired bullets which bounced off people. How chic! How sophisticated! Civilised warfare at last! Or was it? Would he have felt anything if it had been a real bullet? The serious suffering came before Franz pulled the trigger. Expectation was a worse death than perforation. Presumably that episode was just a test, too. Supposing Luis had been a British spy, would he have stayed silent and let Franz fire? No, probably not. In fact definitely not. Luis knew it, conceded it: he would have confessed. It was the blatant absurdity of Franz's action that had forced him to tighten his grip on the truth and refuse to cheat. If Franz was going to be a mad killer then Luis had to die a sane victim: that was the simple logic of the nightmare.

  If he had confessed, what would they have done? Probably shot him with a real bullet, immediately. And used a real silencer, too. Luis remembered that terrible little bang, the last sound he was going to hear on earth. From a silenced gun. He should have known better. But during those final seconds of horror, the brain had quit and the senses were running riot. One little bang had been enough to pop his over-inflated consciousness; one tiny prod in the chest flattened him. It was death by imagination.

  And all that other stuff, in Christian's office? Bleak analyses of the tedium of spying, and of the danger; all leading to an effort to persuade him to accept the security and prestige of a commission in the German army? Just tests. Tests of his determination and self-confidence and driving-power. Naturally they had wanted to know what sort of a man he was, whether or not he was capable of operating alone and under great pressure. Well, now they knew. Luis took out his money again, spread the notes like a deck of cards, and fanned himself. Beautiful winnings! He was eager to start work and make more.

  The chair was hard, and the Franco-censored magazines were dull.

  The door to the next room was locked.

  The view from the dusty window was unexciting. The street was empty except for a cat which sat on a wall and looked at Luis, weighing up his prospects.

  After a while it yawned and went away. Now the street was completely vacant.

  Luis began to get impatient. Colonel Christian had given no reason for leaving him here, so Luis had assumed it would be for just a few minutes. Already it was half an hour. What the hell did they think they were playing at?

  He gave Christian two minutes to return. Otherwise he was going to look for him.

  Christian ignored the ultimatum. 'Very well,' Luis said aloud, 'you leave me no choice.' He strode to the door, and it too was locked. 'Ohoh,' he added more softly. 'You really do leave me no choice.'

  For a while he paced the room trying to decide whether or not he was justified in feeling so annoyed; and failing. So he sat on the hard chair and flicked through the dull magazines. They were stifling. Stupefying. The table had a drawer. He tugged it open, and a key rattled forward.

  'Well, now,' Luis said. He tried the key in the door to the corridor and it did not work. He tried it in the door to the other room and it worked so easily that the door seemed to swing open at his touch.

  The room was larger, with two windows (unbarred) and a door (closed). It was more comfortably furnished, but not by much: the main difference was a big settee. On it, a man slept.

  Luis tiptoed over and took a good look at him. He was under thirty, cleanshaven, with fair, curly hair and a pleasantly freckled face, boyish now in the ease of sleep. He was wearing a grey polo-neck sweater with buff twill trousers, and he was barefoot.

  A smear of mud had dried across his forehead. He was sleeping heavily, with one arm trapped beneath his legs and the other flopping loose.

  Luis moved to the door. It was locked. He tried the key but it wouldn't work this lock. Worse, it got stuck, and he had to use his strength to turn it back. The door rattled noisily, and the sleeper awoke. He thrust himself upright, stiff and staring, like a knock-down fairground target swung back into action. 'Hide the sell' he said in a cracked and furious whisper. All his boyish ease had vanished; he looked thoroughly frightened.

  'I'm sorry,' Luis said. 'I'm afraid I disturbed you.' They spoke in English.

  The man stared at him, not breathing, grasping the edge of the settee so tightly that Luis could see the raised veins and sinews on the backs of his hands. Then he slowly relaxed, and sucked in a long, shivering lungful of air. 'Oh crikey,' he said, and put his head in his hands. 'It's not Liverpool, is it?'

  'You mean this place?' The man nodded. 'This is Madrid,' Luis said.

  'I don't care, as long as it's not Liverpool,' the man mumbled. He looked up, his hands still covering half his face. 'I remember now: I got away. Yes . . . Now I remember. My God.' Unexpectedly, he chuckled. 'So did you, eh? Bloody good show ...'

  'I don't know about that,' Luis said. 'Have you the key to this door?'

  The eyes narrowed, the voice grated. 'Who the hell are you? How did you get in here? What d'you want?'

  'I just want to get out.'

  'Why? What's your bloody game?' He was quivering with angry suspicion.

  'It's nothing to do with you, I assure you.' Luis attempted a gentle, comforting smile. 'I'm looking for Colonel Christian, that's all.'

  The name had a curious effect. The man seemed to withdraw, physically and emotionally. He shifted to the far end of the settee and sat with his feet up, hugging his knees. His face was a blank and his eyes were half-closed. He spoke in a bitter whisper. 'You'd better find him before I do, chummy,' he said, 'because I'm going to kill that bastard.' His head slowly dropped. The tangle of fair curls quivered in an occasional tremor; otherwise he might have been sleeping. Perhaps he was sleeping.

  Luis wandered across the room. There were many questions he would have liked to ask, but not at the price of disturbing this man, who seemed disturbed enough already. On the other hand, Luis himself was a lot less happy than he had been half-an-hour ago. It was pretty obvious where this fellow had been, and apparently he hadn't enjoyed it very much. Christian didn't seem to have been a lot of help, either.

  A newspaper lay on the floor beside the settee. Luis picked it up. Yesterday's edition of The Times, of London, very crumpled and stained. Someone had ringed an item in the personal column: PONGO: Never say die. See you at the theatre. Rhino. Luis looked from the newspaper to the silent figure on the settee. A bottle was poking out of a coat pocket; he leaned forward and recognised the label: Johnny Walker. Not a lot left, either.

  Time passed. Luis fetched the chair from the other room and tried to keep it from squeaking. The cat walked up the street and yawned at him again. If he held his breath he could just hear, far away, the faintest possible tapping of a typewriter. The old nervous trembling was beginning to come back under his heart.

  He glanced across the room and found the barefoot man awake again and watching him. 'Are you, by any chance, Pongo?' Luis inquired. 'Or perhaps Rhino? I only ask because I'm going to England soon, and I'd be grateful for any advice.'

  No response.

  'My guess is you left in rather a hurry,' Luis said.

  More silence.

  'Well, I suppose you know best,' Luis said.

  That did the trick. The barefoot man stood up, and slowly and methodically searched the room. He found nothing, and returned to the settee, which he prodded cautiously all over. Finally he tipped it onto its back and examined its underside. O
ne corner of the hessian covering had come loose. He seized a handful and ripped more of it away. Luis came closer and watched with interest as he thrust an arm deep into the guts of the settee and dragged out a small microphone on the end of a length of wire. He tossed it to Luis and righted the settee with a contemptuous crash.

  'My goodness,' Luis said; but the barefoot man put his finger to his lips. He opened a window and looked out, feeling around the frame and under the sill. Then he beckoned Luis over and together they leaned out.

  'There's another mike planted "somewhere," he said softly. 'Yes, I'm Pongo. Or I was until last night. God knows where they find these idiotic codenames. I suppose it's someone's idea of a joke. Their whole bloody operation is a joke.'

  'You mentioned Liverpool,' Luis said. They were leaning out, their heads close together, looking down into the basement area. 'Were you in Liverpool?'

  'Liverpool, Southampton, Sheffield, Bristol, Glasgow, you name it they sent me there, dozens of times. Always a mad rush of course. Extreme urgency. Top priority. Take the first train but don't travel first class, we can't afford it, go second class. Christ, the number of hours I've spent flattening my arse in grubby British second-class compartments, you wouldn't believe.'

  'But I thought money was no problem.' Luis said. Pongo laughed. 'Well, that was the impression I got, anyway,' Luis added.

  'You must be easily impressed. They're tight and they're cheap but you don't discover that until you're over there. I was starving at one point. Can you believe that? Starving.

  They left me flat broke for weeks on end.'

  Luis thought, while Pongo spat his disgust at the battered dustbins below, and missed. 'But. . . how did you survive?'

  'Took a job. Had to! Drove a taxi around London and nearly caught my death of cold . . . Every night I signalled Christian: send money. Fat lot he cared. Bastard.'

  'I used to drive a taxi, once,' Luis said. 'Here.'

  'Take my tip, friend. Go back to it. You'll live longer and die richer.'

  'Didn't you get sent any money at ail?' Luis asked.

  Pongo looked up at the sky. Its pure oceanic blue was beginning to fade with the passing of day. Fifty yards to their right, the traffic on Fortuny flicked past this empty backstreet. 'They sent me money,' Pongo said. 'They sent me a hundred guineas, in a leather bag. Great fat clinking golden guineas'. . .' He covered his face and rubbed his eyes, and came up blinking at the awful memory.

  'Not sovereigns?' Luis said.

  'Guineas. As inconspicuous as a-three-dollar bill. A bag full of death warrants.'

  'It does sound rather . . . ill-advised,' Luis agreed.

  Pongo gave him a sharp glance, incredulity touched with anger; hunched his shoulders; looked away. There was a pause.

  'You don't mean ..." Luis failed to find a suitable formula of words.

  'What do you think? I wasn't giving them what they asked -- hell's teeth, you can't come up with top-grade information every day -- so they wrote me off. A bag of bloody guineas . . . They should have sent me a dozen cyanide phials. Jesus Christ . . .' Pongo bunched his fists and gradually relaxed them. 'There were times when I'd have eaten the bloody things, with pleasure.' . 'Surely it couldn't have been as bad as all that.'

  'I was on the run, chum' Everyone was after me: police, army, Special Branch, Boy Scouts. Home Guard ... I never slept for ten days. You can't run and sleep. It was bad, believe me.'

  'But what about the emergency procedures?' Luis asked. 'Couldn't you find a safe house and lie low?'

  'None of that exists,' Pongo said. 'It's all in Christian's head.'

  'My God,' Luis stared down at the wet stain left by Pongo's spittle. 'I can't believe it. I mean he's so ...'

  'Friendly? Fatherly? Oh yes, he's a convincing bastard.' Pongo brooded. 'Did he tell you the joke about the German spy and the aircraft factory?'

  ' "How many people work in there?" That one?'

  Pongo nodded. 'And I expect he told you where to buy contraceptives? And that all Englishwomen are nymphos? Christ! When I think that I actually laughed at his jokes! But I'll bet he didn't give you any money. No fear. Lots of talk, and the money tomorrow. That's Christian.'

  'Actually, he gave me fifteen hundred pesetas,' Luis said.

  Pongo stared. The freckles on his white skin were as delicate as speckles on an egg. 'You've actually got it?' he breathed. 'Cash? Not a cheque?' Luis nodded modestly.

  Pongo looked down into the basement area. It was a drop of about ten feet. If you hung from the window sill it would mean a fall of only about three feet. He glanced up the empty street to the bustle of Fortuny, and then back at Luis. 'Then what the hell are you waiting for?' he breathed.

  'Nothing,' Luis said. He turned quickly, grabbed Pongo by the bare ankles, and heaved him out of the window. Luis glimpsed a flicker of outspread toes. Then there was a shout, a great crash of dustbins, a metallic clatter as a lid rolled away and fell over, and a certain amount of piteous groaning. But by that time Luis was casually pounding on the door with chair. Soon someone came and let him out.

  'You didn't have to do that,' Otto Krafft said. This time he was genuinely angry.

  'You didn't have to do it either,' Luis said. They were back in Colonel Christian's exquisite office, where now the atmosphere was much more businesslike. 'Besides, I was right. Wasn't I?'

  'A bit less Spanish arrogance, my friend,' Christian growled. 'You could have been wrong.'

  'All right.' Luis got up and wandered over to the creamy baby grand. 'Suppose I had been wrong. He was going to kill you, so he said. Isn't that a good enough reason to defenestrate him?' He sat on the piano stool and squinted at the music. 'Jesus: four flats,' he muttered.

  'De-what?' Christian said irritably.

  'Defenestrate. From the Latin, fenestra, window, de, chuck out of, ate, after lunch.' Luis began picking out the Funeral March with one finger.

  'That's awful. That's bloody dreadful,' Christian complained. 'Shut it up, for God's sake. I can see why there aren't any good Spanish composers.' Luis stopped.

  The telephone made a single, cautious buzz. Otto answered it, listened, grimaced, muttered his thanks and hungup. 'Broken wrist and ankle, and cracked collarbone,' he said. 'Plus a few lumps on the head.'

  'You might have killed him,' Christian told Luis.

  'Well, so might you have killed me downstairs with your dummy bullet. Suppose I had a weak heart?' He was feeling lightheaded and a little reckless; this whole day had become so bizarre that there seemed no more point in behaving thoughtfully; instinct ruled. 'Actually I have got a weak heart,' he said. 'Look.' His outstretched fingers trembled hideously.

  'You've got a weak head,' Christian said. 'He didn't mean what he said. It was a figure of speech: "I'll kill that fellow one day ..." If you can't tell the difference between barking and biting, you're no damn use to me.'

  'Oh, I know he didn't mean it.' Luis replied. 'He didn't mean any of it. He made it all up. The whole stunt was an act, a fairy tale. Pongo's never been to England in his life.'

  Otto sniffed. "What you don't know is he's one of the few decent bridge-players in the embassy and you've gone and bust his arm.'

  'I know about bridge.' Luis said. 'Five hearts, two no spades, doubled in diamonds.'

  'You don't need me any more,, do you?' Otto asked. Christian raised a hand without looking at him. Otto went out. 'Astonish me,' Christian told Luis. He began prowling around the room.

  Luis watched him prowl. Oh Christ, he thought, I can't stand that again. He set off around the room in the other direction, keeping in step with Christian.

  'In no particular order,'he said. 'Pongo couldn't have got a job driving a taxi in London. It takes too long to pass the test. Months, years. I read a book about it once.'

  'He was a hire-car chauffeur,' Christian announced.

  'He said taxi-driver.'

  'He meant -- '

  'Listen, colonel,' Luis said forcefully. 'D'you want a debate, or d'you want to be
astonished?'

  They stopped at opposite sides of the room. Christian jutted his jaw and chewed on one side of his moustache. 'Look here, you arrogant young Spanish buck,' he said. 'D'you really want to work for me or d'you just want to indulge yourself?'

  'I didn't get into your office by saying yes-sir-no-sir, did I?' Luis demanded. 'If all you need is someone to agree with you, then talk to yourself.'

  Luis stared and Christian glared. Luis put his hands behind his back to hide the trembling. Christian moodily kicked the furniture. 'Get on with it,' he grunted. They resumed their walks.

  'Pongo was never a taxi-driver, and he didn't travel second-class on a British train, because British trains have only first-class and third-class. You didn't pay him in guineas, because there is no such thing as a guinea.'

  Christian stopped again. This time they were only a few feet apart. He raised his arm and displayed his wristwatch. 'Fifty guineas in Piccadilly,' he stated. 'And worth every guinea.'

  'But you didn't pay in guineas,' Luis insisted. 'That coin has been obsolete for years.' They had another little duel of the eyeballs. Luis felt his vision losing its focus. 'Also your watch is three minutes slow,' he lied.

  Christian dropped his arm, straightened the sleeve with an impatient shake, and prowled on. Luis watched him and picked up the step again.

  'What's more, I don't think microphones work very well in the middle of settees,' he said, 'especially when they're not connected to .anything.'

  Christian changed step, with a stately little shuffle. 'Anything else?' he asked.

  Luis thought back. 'No, that's all.'

  'Don't you think he had a very white complexion for a man who's been on the run for ten days?'

  'Yes, perhaps.'

  'And his feet are remarkably clean and unmarked?'

  'That is true.'

  'Of course it is. Why do you think we took his shoes and socks off?'

  'I assumed it was to make him seem more innocent. Barefoot people always look rather innocent, don't they?'