The Spanish Game am-3

by Charles Cumming

  ‘Arenaza disappeared on 6 March, a little over three weeks ago.’ Without asking, I help myself to one of the dashboard cigarettes and push the lighter. ‘You didn’t read about it in the papers?’

  ‘Well, we’ve all been rather busy…’

  ‘Rosalia was Arenaza’s mistress. As far as I can tell, nobody else knows that piece of information. He was married and didn’t want his wife finding out.’

  ‘Understandable in the circumstances. So why did he tell you?’

  ‘Why does anybody tell anyone anything? Booze. Camaraderie. Mine’s bigger than yours.’ The lighter pops and I take the first delicious draw on the cigarette. ‘Mikel and I were supposed to meet for a drink when he was in Madrid visiting Rosalia. Only he never showed up. I found out where she worked, followed her to the Irish Rover and witnessed the conversation with Buscon. It looked important, so I followed him back to the hotel.’

  ‘Where you bribed Alfonso Gonzalez.’

  ‘How do you know about that?’

  ‘You’re not the only one on his books, Alec.’ Kitson clears his throat to suffocate a smile. ‘Senor Gonzalez has made enough money out of the pair of us in the past couple of weeks to buy himself a small villa in the Algarve.’

  ‘So you instructed him to make that call today? You set the whole thing up?’

  ‘What can I say? Her Majesty had more leverage. Now tell me what you know about the girl.’

  I pause briefly, absorbing the fact that Alfonso betrayed me, but it makes no sense to get annoyed. Suddenly my doubts about Arenaza’s disappearance, the long days and nights tailing Rosalia, the money spent on surveillance, all of it appears to have paid off. I am right back at the centre of things. And the feeling is electrifying.

  ‘Rosalia Dieste is thirty-four. She lives with her boyfriend in an apartment about half a mile east of the Bernabeu…’

  ‘We know that.’

  ‘She trained as an industrial engineer, specializing in nuclear energy.’

  ‘Nuclear energy?’

  ‘You weren’t aware of that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You think it might be important?’

  ‘Possibly. I’m going to need all of this on paper.’ Kitson checks his blindspot and coughs. What I’m telling him is clearly new and useful. ‘We’re going to need you to come in and write everything down. Is that all right?’

  So the conversation isn’t being recorded. ‘That’s fine.’ The M30 passes under a ruined stone bridge and we are briefly slowed in traffic. Up to the right I can see the outline of the Vicente Calderon. The night air above the stadium is floodlit; Atletico must be playing at home. ‘Rosalia left her job just a few days after Arenaza arrived in Madrid. There’s no physical evidence linking the two of them, not even a record of any phone calls, but I’m convinced she’s the girl Mikel was talking about.’

  ‘How do you know about phone records?’

  ‘Because I paid somebody to look into her background.’ As if this was an entirely natural course of action, Kitson merely nods and accelerates into a faster lane. He seems to be adjusting to the pace of Spanish roads, growing in confidence even as our own journey progresses. ‘The investigators discovered that Rosalia’s step-father was murdered by ETA in a car-bomb attack in 1983. He was a policeman, she was very fond of him. It’s obvious to me that she lured Arenaza to Madrid…’

  ‘… to avenge his death, yes.’ Kitson has made the link. ‘So what does that have to do with Buscon?’

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’

  ‘What does your instinct tell you?’

  ‘My instinct tells me not to trust my instinct.’ The man from SIS likes this remark and laughs quietly through his nose. ‘All I can assume is that she hired him to kill Arenaza.’

  ‘Very unlikely.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Not the sort of thing Luis gets up to. Far too self-important to get his hands dirty. More likely there’s a separate, unrelated link between the two of them, or she’s part of a broader conspiracy. This is all very useful, Alec. I’m very grateful to you.’

  It sounds like the brush-off. We’re going to circle back to Plaza de Espana and I’ll never see him again.

  ‘I don’t want to be left out,’ I tell him, suddenly concerned that I have spilled too much information too quickly and may have nothing left with which to bargain. ‘I want to pursue this thing, Richard. I think I can help.’

  Kitson says nothing. He might be irritated that I have called him Richard.

  ‘Where are you staying?’

  ‘I’m here with a team of eight,’ he says.

  ‘Tech-op boys? Locksmiths?’

  I want to show him that I know the lingo. I want to prove my usefulness.

  ‘Something like that. We’ve rented a property in Madrid for the duration of the op, an RV point well away from the action.’ As if the thought had just occurred to him, he adds, ‘How come the Spaniards don’t know about Rosalia? If this man’s been missing for three weeks, shouldn’t you have gone to the police?’

  It is an uncomfortable question, and one designed perhaps to turn the tables. Is he going to use that as a means of guaranteeing my silence?

  ‘I only found out about the ETA connection on Thursday’ Kitson appears to accept this, despite the fact that I have completely avoided the question. ‘On Monday a Basque journalist who’s working on the disappearance is going to call me and I’m going to give him the whole story.’

  ‘I wouldn’t recommend that.’ This is said very firmly. ‘I can’t risk a hack digging around Buscon. Host governments don’t take kindly to us lot carving up the local scenery. This journalist calls back, put him off the scent, stall him. The last thing I need is blowback.’

  It is the first time that I have sensed Kitson even remotely rattled. He takes an exit signed out to Badajoz and tucks in behind a red Transit van. Here is the stress of the spy, the variables, the constant threat of exposure. To lead a team on foreign soil in such circumstances must be exhausting.

  ‘Point taken. But Zulaika is pushy, he sniffs around. Of all the newspapers in Spain, Ahotsa is the one that has kept the Arenaza story alive.’

  ‘Zulaika? That’s his name?’

  ‘Yes. Patxo Zulaika. Very young, very ambitious. Real tit.’

  Kitson smirks. ‘Then ignore him. Just give him denials. You’re clearly a resourceful bloke, Alec. You’ll think of something.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Just keep me in the picture when he calls, OK? I’ll leave you my number.’

  Thereafter the conversation turns to the affidavit. Kitson needs a written statement detailing my involvement with Arenaza, Buscon and Rosalia. He asks me to type it up overnight and says we’ll meet tomorrow for a handover at the McDonald’s in Plaza de los Cubos.

  ‘Nine o’clock too early for you? We can enjoy a hearty breakfast.’

  I say that will be fine and only as we are pulling into Plaza de Espana does he return to discussing the operation.

  ‘There was just one thing, before you vanish into the night.’

  ‘Yes?’

  I am standing outside the Citroen, leaning in through the passenger window. It is the middle of the paseo and there are seemingly hundreds of people passing through the western end of Gran Via, families walking six-wide on the pavements in order to show off their grandchildren.

  ‘Does the name Francisco Sa Carneiro mean anything to you?’

  ‘Francisco Sa Carneiro?’

  ‘We think there’s some sort of a connection with Buscon. We think he was going to meet him.’

  I can’t prevent a smirk wriggling onto my face. To have caught out Six on such a simple technicality. This answer can only work in my favour.

  ‘Buscon’s not going to meet anybody,’ I tell him.

  ‘He’s not?’

  ‘He’s going to Porto. Sa Carneiro was a Portuguese politician. He died about twenty years ago. They named the airport after him. I’ll see you tomorrow, Richard. Make mi
ne an Egg McMuffin.’

  26. Sacrifice

  As it turns out, we meet for only five minutes. Kitson shakes my hand near a lifesize cutout of Ronald McDonald, takes the brown manila envelope in which I have placed my affidavit and leaves with the excuse that he has a ‘pressing engagement’ in Huertas. It’s obvious that Five and Six have warned him off me. I’m damaged goods, after all, persona non grata on a par with Rimington, Tomlinson and Shayler. You get one chance with these guys and, if you blow it, there’s no going back. It’s club rules, the only way they know how to operate.

  I eat breakfast at Cascaras and wait all week for Zulaika’s call. When he doesn’t contact me, I begin to fear the worst. Either he has become another victim of Buscon or Kitson panicked about his interest in the operation and arranged for half a dozen Bilbao heavies to put him off the scent. As the days go by, it begins to feel as though my encounter with the secret world has come to an abrupt end, like an old love affair briefly rekindled, then all too hurriedly snuffed out. But eventually Zulaika makes contact. At 8 a.m. sharp on the morning of Monday 7 April, ten days after I left my initial message, he rings the Nokia mobile. What is it about Zulaika and early mornings? I am fast asleep in bed and reach across to retrieve the phone from my jacket pocket, straining my back in the process.

  His name appears on the screen and I buy time by letting him leave a message:

  ‘Yes, this is Patxo Zulaika for Alec Milius, returning his call. I have been away on holiday and did not take my work phone with my family. Please call me at this number as soon as possible, your information could be important.’

  The voice is just as I remembered it – flat, smug, entitled – and acts as an immediate irritant. Interesting that he took a fortnight’s holiday in the middle of the Arenaza disappearance. There have been extensive anti-war protests throughout the Basque country, which he would also have wanted to cover. Perhaps he has given up on the story, or been moved on to something new. I prepare my response, settle down on the sofa with a cup of strong black coffee and call him just after ten o’clock.

  ‘Mr Zulaika?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘This is Alec Milius.’

  ‘I was hoping you would contact me sooner. You said that you had some information.’

  That same infuriating manner, devoid of even basic decency, every sentence managing to be both critical and pushy at the same time. I feel immediately predisposed to thwart him and experience a wave of gratitude to Kitson for providing me with the opportunity to do so.

  ‘And good morning to you, too, Patxo.’

  He doesn’t understand the sarcasm.

  ‘ Que? ’

  ‘Nothing. I was just saying “Good morning”. You always seem so keen to get down to business. Always in a hurry.’

  ‘Well fine, I am busy, perhaps this explains it. So what was it that you remembered?’

  ‘Well, it may not be of any use, but let me see.’ I draw out the pause for effect, as if preparing to divulge information of overwhelming national importance. ‘At one point in the evening with Mr Arenaza he started talking about Basque cuisine. I’d been to the Arzak restaurant just outside San Sebastian for a business lunch, you see, and eaten perhaps the finest food I’d tasted…’

  ‘Yes, yes…’

  ‘Anyway, I’m fairly sure that Arenaza said he was fond of a particular Basque restaurant in Madrid where one of his friends was the head chef. Trouble is, I can’t for the life of me remember the name of the place. It may have been in Malasana, something beginning with “D” or “B”, but that’s just a hunch. I’ve walked around and looked in the Paginas Amarillas in an effort to save you time, but I just can’t seem to find it. Is that any use to you? Does that tie in with any of your enquiries?’

  There is a prolonged silence, one that I assume has been brought about by some frantic note-taking at the other end of the line. It’s going to be a pleasure to set Zulaika on a false trail. I hope he takes three weeks over it and gets fired for wasting Ahotsa’s time.

  ‘Why didn’t you mention this when we first met?’ he asks eventually. ‘It doesn’t sound like something you would forget.’

  ‘It doesn’t?’ He has always doubted my integrity, sensed that I have something to hide. ‘Well, I don’t really know how to answer that, Patxo. You see, I did forget. But I thought I might be doing you a favour by letting you know.’

  ‘Perhaps you are,’ he says quietly, ‘perhaps you are.’ He might almost be talking to himself. ‘Was there anything else?’

  ‘No, there wasn’t anything else. Have you had any luck tracking Arenaza down?’ While we’re talking I might as well try to gauge the status of his investigation. ‘The story seems to have stopped in the papers.’

  ‘The assumption is that Mikel Arenaza is dead,’ Zulaika replies bluntly. ‘I have one other area that I’m working on, but it may not come to anything.’

  ‘Oh? And what’s that?’

  He appears to weigh up the good sense of telling me before concluding that no harm can come from doing so.

  ‘There’s a SIM card that we believe belonged to Arenaza. It was discovered by police inside a pair of shoes at his home in Donostia. A number of calls had been made to an engineering company in Madrid, and to an unidentified mobile phone, but so far we have not been able to find who it was he was talking to.’

  ‘It wasn’t just for business?’ My heart has started to race. The SIM card will link Arenaza to Rosalia within a matter of days. I remember Bonilla’s words: In my experience people use a secret mobile telephone that their partner knows nothing about. ‘You think there’s a more personal connection?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ In the silence that follows I worry that Zulaika may have picked up on this phrase and interpreted it correctly. It was careless of me to use the word ‘personal’, an inference that might easily suggest a relationship with another woman. ‘Did Mikel say anything about that?’ Zulaika asks. ‘Did he ask anything about a company called Plettix?’

  I play dumb. I have no choice. ‘No.’

  ‘What about Txema Otamendi?’

  Last Tuesday, Otamendi, a former ETA commander, was shot dead at his home in southern France by an unidentified assailant. It is not known whether he was murdered as the result of an internal feud within ETA, or was simply the victim of a burglary that went wrong. I do not want to appear to have become overly interested in Basque affairs, and ask Zulaika to repeat the name.

  ‘I’m sorry, who?’

  ‘Txema Otamendi was once a member of Euskadi ta Askatasuna,’ he replies. This is a pompous way of giving ETA its formal title. ‘He was killed last week. You did not know about this? Everybody knows about it.’

  ‘I don’t really watch the news.’

  ‘Well, I am trying to establish a connection with Arenaza which goes beyond their formal political links. So if you have another of your delayed memories, Alec, perhaps you would think to call me again.’

  I cannot fathom why Zulaika would treat me with such condescension. Does he think I’m stupid? The lie about the Basque restaurant has clearly failed to ignite his interest and he must imagine that I am wasting his time. Let it be so. I say, ‘Of course, of course,’ and wish him ‘all the luck in the world’, adding that it has been a pleasure to talk to him again.

  ‘You too,’ he says, hanging up.

  But now there’s a problem. Do I tell Kitson about our conversation? This is certainly an opportunity to revive the SIS relationship, but the context is wrong. Never tell people bad news that they don’t need to hear. Zulaika’s interest in Arenaza won’t affect Kitson’s search for the weapons and will only harden his resolve not to involve me in any future dealings. There is no point, at this stage, in further weakening my standing with Six; I need to wait until I have something positive to give them, something that makes my involvement irreversible. Besides, they have displayed no interest in re-establishing contact since the handover of the affidavit. Why should I be loyal to an organization that has shown no l
oyalty to me?

  27. Shallow Grave

  The body of Mikel Arenaza is discovered six days later lying in a shallow grave about 130 kilometres north-east of Madrid. Julian calls me at home and asks if I am watching the news.

  ‘They’ve found him,’ he says. His voice sounds cracked and shocked. I think that I can hear Sofia crying in the background.

  Spanish television holds nothing back. Shots broadcast live just after 11 a.m. show what would appear to be Arenaza’s arm, covered in clods of earth, protruding from waste ground at the foot of a low hill. His body is limp and very heavy, the skin so ghostly pale as it is pulled from the wet earth that I feel a dryness in my throat like a stain of guilt. Police are busy about the naked corpse with their black sacks and their stretches of tape, local villagers standing back to observe the scene, some sobbing, others merely curious. The broadcaster says that the body was found at dawn by a secretary on her morning jog. Though it was covered in quicklime, it was identified as that of missing Herri Batasuna councillor Mikel Arenaza, and the family informed in San Sebastian. Then the channel switches back to the everyday dross of daytime TV, to a chat show host and a bearded chef making couscous with roasted vegetables. Life goes on.

  The name of the nearest village was given as Valdelcubo and I go immediately to the car and drive north on the N1, reaching the outskirts sometime around two o’clock. En route I dial Kitson’s mobile to tell him the bad news.

  ‘Alec. I was just thinking about you. Was going to call later this afternoon.’

  This sounds like a lie and I ignore it. ‘Have you heard?’

  ‘Heard what?’

  ‘They’ve found Arenaza. They’ve found his body.’

  ‘Oh Christ. Where?’

  I give him what details I learned from the TV and explain that I am on my way to the scene.

  ‘You’re going there yourself? Is that the right idea?’

  I don’t really understand the nature of the question and ask what he means.