‘Sure. So let me get this right. You called by his place on Tuesday at what time?’
Donovan frowned, trying to recall.
‘Around nine,’ he said. ‘Real early. I was working the fence line beyond his place. That time in the morning folks have the coffee on.’
‘How do you know he wasn’t at work?’
‘His car was out front. Sol never walked.’
‘He was pleased to see you?’
‘He was sick. I think I mentioned it.’
‘How long did you stay?’
‘Ten minutes.’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe less.’
‘And did you see anyone else around?’
‘Nope.’
‘Did he mention expecting anyone else to call?’
‘Nope.’
‘Did you drive back past his place when you were done?’
‘Nope. No need. There’s a quicker way.’
‘You booked out at the gate at twenty-four minutes past three.’
‘Is that right?’
‘That’s what it says in the log.’
‘Then I guess it must be true.’
‘Normally you leave around five. So why go so early?’
The question threw Donovan. For a split second Gómez saw something close to panic in his eyes. Then he nodded at the door.
‘The little one,’ he said. ‘Maria. She’s been sick, too. Thought I might have to take her to the hospital. Turned out I was wrong.’
‘What was the matter with her?’
‘Coughing all night.’ He patted his stomach. ‘Sick, too.’ He got to his feet. He wanted this interview over. ‘You never said about the gun.’
‘Your gun?’
‘The Browning. Is that what Sol used to do it?’
‘Yes.’
He nodded, looking like he was trying to absorb the news.
‘What about Marta,’ he said at last. ‘She’s taken it hard?’
‘Very. As you’d expect.’
‘Sure. They were a sweet old couple.’
The two men looked at each other. Then Donovan checked his watch. He had a fencing job to finish across town. Guy’d be waiting for him to turn up.
‘Sure.’ Gómez nodded. ‘Do you have a typewriter, by any chance?’
‘A what?’
‘A typewriter? Or maybe access to a typewriter?’
‘No.’ That same blank look. ‘Why would I need a typewriter?’
‘Invoices, maybe? I guess you’ve got a bunch more clients than just us on the mesa.’
‘Sure. But I handwrite everything. It’s easier that way. And cheaper.’
‘How about Francisca?’ Gómez nodded at the door. ‘Maybe she types.’
‘No way, man. That woman has trouble reading.’ He forced a grin. ‘Nice thought though. Maybe I should get her one. Set her up. Teach her how to spell. Live on what she’d make us. Sure would beat shooting dogs.’
Gómez stayed impassive. No typewriter.
‘Where’s the bathroom?’ he asked.
‘Out there. Second door on the right. The flush doesn’t work too good.’
Gómez left the room. Instead of the second door on the right he tried the first door on the left. More chaos. More toys. This was where the kids must sleep. The adjoining room was tidier: big double bed, unmade, plus a noisy fan to keep the air moving. About to back out and find the lavatory, Gómez noticed the open suitcases on the carpet beneath the window. One was full of clothes, some folded, some not, and someone had made a start on the second case. He hung on a second longer, then gently shut the door.
Donovan was watching him from down the hall.
‘Second on the right,’ he said quietly. ‘I guess you must have forgotten.’
The two men gazed at each other for a long moment. Then Donovan asked how come Gómez knew his wife’s name.
‘Marta told me.’
‘What else she say?’
‘Nothing much. Except you and Sol were buddies. Shame, eh? I guess you’re gonna miss him.’
*
The new storm had been brewing all day. Stefan lay in bed, listening to the wind. He read the sky like any mariner. First the long horsetails of high cloud that rode ahead of the incoming front. Then the tell-tale halo round the sun, the temperature plunging, the light thickening, the last fragments of blue swamped by a thick grey blanket of lower cloud. Then came the prelude to the storm, diminuendo, the first stirrings of wind, wooden shutters banging along the street, the rasp of fallen leaves, the rattle of a loose tile above Stefan’s head. Now, nearly dark, the wind was howling through the village, a marauding animal, a physical presence that stirred surprise, then wonder, then fear.
Stefan had lived with storms all his working life. He knew their power. He understood what you had to do to survive them. In the open ocean, safe in a U-boat, it was simple. You dived. But much earlier, as a young cadet aboard a square rigger called the Horst Wessel, he’d been caught in one of the sudden squalls that blew up in the Baltic. The sheer force of the wind had taken the Kapitän by surprise, too, and he’d sent the cadets scurrying aloft with orders to haul in the heavy sails.
His feet on the tautness of the line beneath the yardarm, his body bent over the gathered armfuls of soaking canvas, Stefan had fought for his young life as the ship bucked and heaved, trying to toss him into oblivion. Twice he’d nearly fallen, a sentence of death from the topgallant, and the memory of the sudden darkness that had enveloped the square rigger – the shriek of the wind in the rigging, the groan of the huge yardarm – had never left him. At seventeen he’d thought he was immortal. Barely eight years later, in the teeth of yet another storm, he knew he was anything but. All those Kameraden, he thought. All those faces. All that laughter. Gone.
Mid-evening, at the height of the storm, the window with the broken latch smashed back against the wall, shattering the glass, and the room was suddenly full of wind. Stefan had gathered the blankets around his chin, hunkering down, waiting for this savage animal to lose interest and slink away. For once in his life he could do nothing and the feeling of helplessness, of having been taken prisoner by events, left him profoundly depressed. With the wind had come blinding stabs of lightning, neon-white, and hammer blows of thunder that seemed ready to crush the entire village, and at one moment he’d glimpsed a face at the door. It was Eva. She was looking at him. Then she was gone.
The storm passed around midnight. After a while, Stefan heard voices in the street, men and women venturing out, tallying the damage, counting the cost. He tried to visualise what they’d find – fallen tiles, broken glass, signs ripped from their mountings – and he wondered what living on a coast like this, exposed to the full violence of the ocean, would do to your soul. Did you become hardened in some way? Impervious to nature in all its moods? Or did this wild corner of Europe breed something closer to resignation? Bad things happened and with luck you survived. Until the next storm. And maybe the one after that.
Eva again. Already, as he grew used to the slow rhythms of convalescence, she was playing an ever-larger part in his thoughts but he suspected that just now something had come between them. After regular visits over the course of the morning, she hadn’t been upstairs for hours. As the wind began to rise he thought she must have left the house but then, above the gathering storm, he heard the piano.
At the time he’d thought of calling out and telling her about the window but he’d resisted the temptation. So far they hadn’t risked anything as dangerous as a conversation but on her part he sensed, if nothing else, a curiosity about this stranger who’d so suddenly appeared in her life. Agustín had mentioned that she’d spent some time in England, hence her command of the language. He also said she’d been a photographer, still took pictures. Stefan had pressed him for more details but the doctor had shaken his head. Ask her yourself, he’d said with a smile.
Really? Would that ever be possible? Or was he doomed to remain at the very edges of her life, a bad smell washed up by a war he no lon
ger wanted to fight? He didn’t blame half of Europe for hating the Germans. Not in the least. Had he been born French, or Belgian, or Polish, or Czech, or – God help him – Russian, he’d have felt exactly the same. Being despised by people you’d invaded went, all too literally, with the territory. But what had Hitler ever done to the Spanish? To Adolf’s Fascist friend General Franco? To these sturdy Galician fishermen mending their nets in the windy sunshine? He didn’t know, couldn’t fathom it, but drifting off to sleep at last he knew he’d need to summon help next morning. Would she be back again? The face in the darkness by the door? Or had she truly turned against him?
When he awoke, hours later, it was Agustín at his bedside. The doctor had come to check on his stitches. He folded back the blanket, took a hard look at his leg and pronounced himself satisfied. The wound was healing nicely. No sign of infection.
‘This thing is comfortable?’ He gestured down at the splint.
‘No.’
‘A pity, my friend. Patience, eh?’
Stefan nodded. He needed to get to his pot across the room. Agustín helped him out of bed then fetched a pair of battered espadrilles from downstairs. There were shards of glass all over the floor from the shattered window and Stefan could feel them crunching underfoot as he managed to shuffle the nine steps to the chair. Agustín left the room again while he squatted on the pot. When he came back he brought news.
‘Your submarine has gone,’ he said. ‘Finished. Kaput.’
‘Gone?’ For a moment Stefan thought someone might have stolen it.
‘Destroyed. Broken up by the storm. You can see what happened from the clifftop. Everywhere. In pieces. Many pieces.’
Stefan was thinking about the SS men. Four of them had got out. One hadn’t.
‘Are there more bodies?’ he asked.
‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘But lots of wreckage?’
‘Yes. For now the waves are still very high, very big. The German is back from Coruña. He has police with him, Guardia Civil. The police are on the beach. No one is allowed there.’
For a moment Stefan couldn’t imagine why. Then he remembered the torpedo compartment for’ard, and the jigsaw of wooden crates, and the second lavatory stacked high with these men’s luggage: suitcases and kitbags carefully secured. SS loot, he thought. Probably a fortune in gold and other precious metals. Maybe paintings, too, and religious icons, anything to buy them a new life in the sunshine of Argentina and Brazil.
Agustín had found a broom from somewhere and was sweeping up the glass. Then he helped Stefan back to bed. When he’d finished rearranging the blankets, Stefan asked him about Eva.
‘Is she out today?’
‘Sí. She helps with the translation again. With the German.’
‘You’ve seen her?’
‘Yes.’
He was looking down at Stefan. He was very astute.
‘She thinks you’re SS,’ he said quietly.
‘Me?’ Stefan was astonished. ‘SS?’
‘She found a wallet in your coat.’ He sounded almost apologetic. ‘She showed me the papers inside. Johann Huber? SS Brigadeführer? Is that who you really are?’
Dimly, Stefan remembered the Brigadeführer’s thick wallet. He’d pocketed it after the Engineer knocked the man briefly unconscious as the submarine drifted towards the rocks.
‘My name is Stefan,’ he said stiffly. ‘Stefan Portisch. I was Kapitän on the U-boat. You know that. I told you.’
‘And Huber?’
‘Huber was a passenger. There were five of them. He was in charge.’
‘He gave you his wallet?’
‘Not exactly.’
Agustín nodded. Then he turned to contemplate the pile of glass. Stefan wanted to know whether he believed him. Did he look SS? Did he act like a man like Huber?
Agustín said nothing for a moment. Then he turned back to the bed.
‘Me, my friend? I believe you. Eva?’ He spread his hands wide. ‘Who knows?’
*
The checkpoint that controlled access to the Hill was a mile short of the east gate in the perimeter fence. Gómez had already enquired about Donovan’s recent movements before setting off to find him in Albuquerque. Now, on his return, he wanted to know a little more.
There were two guys on duty. In charge was a middle-aged lieutenant called Alessori. He came from the Bronx, NYC, an area Gómez happened to know well, and over the past year they’d struck up something of an acquaintance.
Alessori took Gómez into the room at the back of the hut and dug in the refrigerator for a bottle of chilled Mountain Dew. The room was papered with photos of nude women torn from the pages of men’s magazines. Gómez was inspecting a blonde who reminded him faintly of Arthur Whyte’s wife when he felt a nudge in the ribs.
‘You find the guy?’ Alessori wanted to know about Donovan.
‘Sure.’ Gómez took a long pull at the bottle. He was parched.
‘And?’
‘We had a conversation. Donovan was in the Navy. Did he ever tell you about any of that?’
‘Never.’ He was frowning. ‘My recollection was he served with the 101st Airborne.’
‘Screaming Eagles? He told you that?’
‘Can’t swear he did. May have been someone else. He’s been coming here awhiles, anyway. Never gave us any trouble. Regular guy …’
It sounded like a question. Gómez wasn’t minded to answer. Instead he wanted to know about the procedure when Donovan arrived and left.
‘Normally, someone new, they get the full search. That’s after all the ID procedures. Someone like Frank …?’ He shrugged. ‘The guy’s been tooling up regular, seven, eight in the morning, that old pick-up of his, whole bunch of Tuesdays, longer than I can remember.’
‘He gets the search?’
‘No.’
‘You wave him through?’
‘Yep.’
‘The guy’s carrying weapons, right?’
‘Yep. Every one of them authorised. Never an issue. Not once. We saw the paperwork way back. After that he turns up, shoots them dogs, does whatever else he’s paid for and drives off back home. Like I say, part of the scenery. You don’t much like coyotes? You want them off the reservation? That’s Frank you’ve got to thank. Guy renders a service as far as we’re concerned. Just hope he gets well paid for it.’
Gómez wanted to be sure about last Tuesday.
‘He left earlier than usual, right?’
‘Sure.’ He nodded towards the front desk where the log book was kept. ‘You asked that same question this morning. Guy lit out for home around three, three thirty.’
‘You talk to him at all?’
‘Sure. Briefly. He barely even stopped.’
‘Did he seem normal? Did he seem OK?’
‘Sure.’
‘Not flustered at all? A little nervous, maybe?’
‘Not at all.’
‘So what did you say?’
‘I asked him how come the early out.’
‘And?’
‘He had to pick up a new tyre for the truck.’
‘He said that?’
‘For sure.’ He laughed. ‘You’re telling me you’re surprised? The state of that wreck he drives?’
The summons was awaiting Gómez the minute he got back in the office. It was late afternoon. Merricks was busy at his desk, bent over a report.
‘Don’t know what you’ve done, man.’ He didn’t look up.
‘So tell me.’
‘I’ve had Tightass in here all day. On the hour, every hour. Where is he? Where’s he gone? When’s he back?’
Tightass was Arthur Whyte. Merricks treated the colonel with a pleasing mix of derision and contempt.
‘So what did you say?’
‘I told him you’d left to make enquiries.’
‘Just that?’
‘Just that.’
‘You mention Fiedler at all?’
‘Nope.’
‘So
how come all the attention?’
‘Could be any of these babies. Take your pick.’ Merrick gestured at the slew of paperwork across his desk. Then he picked up the phone and dialled a number from memory. ‘Groves is in town and so is Oppie. Tightass has probably died of excitement by now.’ He held out the phone for Gómez. ‘Good luck, man.’
The summons took Gómez across the bridge to the Tech Area. He showed his ID to the sentry at the gate. Oppenheimer had an office on the top floor of one of the wooden lab buildings that fronted Trinity Drive. Oppenheimer’s secretary met Gómez in the corridor and showed him into an adjoining office that had once been a classroom. There was a conference table with chairs, a blackboard, and a desk in the corner piled high with books. Two narrow windows offered a view of Ashley Pond and even now, turning back from the window, Gómez fancied he could still smell chalk in the air.
After a while a door opened next door and three men appeared. One of them was Oppenheimer. Another was Arthur Whyte. The third, instantly recognisable from the photos Gómez had seen, was the guy who’d trashed the Washington bureaucracy, steered this crazy project through two difficult years and still had 125,000 people by the throat.
Gómez had never met General Leslie Groves. Since the President hit the ‘Go’ button, the man had become a legend, partly because of his talent for self-publicity and partly because he was a genuine phenomenon. Anyone who could hold together a program as complex and potentially explosive as this one had Gómez’s undiluted respect. The man was a monster – abusive, short-tempered, unforgiving – but this came with the territory. Without him, the Manhattan Project would have died on its feet.
In the flesh he was a big, pale, bulky man. The AC was broken and the temperature in the room had to be in the high seventies, but there wasn’t a hint of sweat on his huge face, and his uniform looked box-fresh. He sat at the head of the table with Oppenheimer on one side and Arthur Whyte on the other. Gómez snapped a salute which Groves didn’t bother to acknowledge.
‘Sit down, soldier.’
Gómez did what he was told. Trouble, he thought.
Groves steepled his thick fingers. Rumour on the Hill suggested that his memory for times, dates, places – all the stuff you needed to mount a decent ambush – was near-perfect. Not a sheet of paperwork in sight.
Finisterre Page 10
