‘From Mérida.’
‘Did you arrive alone?’
‘No, with a lady.’ Adam’s mind became a shade easier. Evidently they could not know much about him or he would not be asked such routine questions.
‘Her name?’
‘The Señorita Chela Enriquez.’
‘While here have you talked with any of the other visitors?’
Adam swiftly decided that it would be inadvisable to mention Father Lopéz; but he and Chela had dropped into conversation with some Americans in the bar, so he was able to reply truthfully, ‘Yes, a few.’
‘Name them.’
‘Sorry; I can’t. I suppose we did exchange names, but they often don’t register when making casual acquaintances.’
‘What time did you go to bed last night?’
‘A little before midnight.’
‘And the Señorita?’
‘About the same time.’
‘Did you sleep together?’
‘No! Certainly not!’ Adam flared. ‘And what the hell has that to do with you anyway?’
The officer shrugged. ‘In Mexico, when a gentleman travels alone with a single lady, it is customary for him to sleep with her. Where is her room?’
‘Next door,’ Adam admitted grudgingly.
‘Is she there now?’
‘How should I know?’
His heavy boots smacking loudly on the floorboards, the officer marched over to the communicating door, found it unlocked, turned to grin at Adam and flung it open.
‘No, she is not there. Very well. You will now get up, dress yourself and come with us.’
The order was so ominous that it caused Adam sudden renewed alarm. Were they on to him after all? Was his rescue by Father Suaréz to prove of no avail? Endeavouring to mask his acute anxiety by an angry frown, he shouted, ‘Why? What right have you to make me leave this room?’
‘It is because your appearance tallies with the description of a man who last night masqueraded as the Man-God Quetzalcoatl; and we wish to question you further.’
The blow had fallen, but Adam burst out, ‘What nonsense! I am a British visitor to Mexico. A score of people will vouch for my bona-fides.’
‘That we shall see,’ said the officer harshly. ‘Get up.’
‘What if I refuse?’ Adam demanded truculently.
The only reply the officer made was to draw his pistol, point it and repeat, ‘Get up.’
Adam was near panic, but he knew that his only hope was to remain where he was. Feeling confident that the officer would not shoot him where he lay, he stuck out his bearded chin and cried defiantly, ‘I’m damned if I will. Go to hell.’
With a sweep of his pistol the officer signed to the two men behind him and barked, ‘Get him up.’
One of the men stepped forward, grasped the single sheet under which Adam had slept and wrenched it off. He was lying at full length, clad only in his pyjama jacket, and the sleeves were not long enough to hide the tell-tale handcuffs that proclaimed his guilt.
The officer grinned. ‘So we were right. Señor Gordon, I arrest you for subversive activities.’
14
A Living Nightmare
In utter desperation Adam decided to resist arrest. All three policemen were small men. With three blows of his great fists he could knock them out. They were so close to him that they had no room to manœuvre. Only the officer had drawn his pistol and one of his men now stood between him and Adam. The man could be smashed back on to him, with luck the gun would be knocked from his hand. The third man would receive the second blow before he had time to draw his weapon. Taken by surprise all three could be overcome in a matter of seconds.
Swinging his legs off the bed, Adam came to his full height. His fists clenched, then relaxed. Suddenly he sat down again. It could have been done and with little risk of a bullet. But what then? He was nearly naked and it would have been madness to leave by the window like that. He would have to bind and gag them all, dress and collect his money before making his escape. The fight would cause a racket; before he could gag them it was certain that one or more of them would be yelling for help. Even if their cries did not bring a crowd of other people on the scene, where could he go once he had left the hotel? He, would only get himself hopelessly lost in the jungle.
Glowering at the officer, he said, ‘All right. I’ll come with you. But first I must have a bath.’
‘No time for that,’ came the sharp reply. ‘Get dressed at once, or I will take you as you are.’
Ignoring the command, Adam walked over to the basin, cleaned his teeth and washed. Then he began to dress. Meanwhile the two policemen were packing his other clothes and belongings into his suitcases. As soon as he had finished dressing; one of the men snapped another pair of handcuffs over his wrists.
‘How about paying my bill?’ he asked.
‘The manacles will not prevent your signing a traveller’s cheque,’ was the reply. Ignominiously they led him along past the swimming pool and the curious stares of other guests to the office. There he asked for Chela’s bill as well as his own and paid both.
‘So you knew that the Señorita had left the hotel?’ the officer remarked.
‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘Where are you taking me?’
‘To Police Headquarters in Mérida. Do you wish to leave a message for her?’
‘No. She will not be coming back,’ Adam lied. But he had achieved his object. The desk clerk had heard the conversation and would pass it on to Chela.
The officer shrugged. ‘Whether she returns or not, we’ll soon pick her up.’
Adam’s heart sank still further on learning that Chela was to be pulled in, and he wondered whether they knew how deeply she was involved in the conspiracy. Even if her father could later arrange for her release, it looked now as though she would have to spend some time in gaol and the thought of his beautiful beloved confined, ill-fed and treated as a convict, depressed him unutterably.
Outside, a police car and chauffeur were waiting. The officer put him in the back between himself and one of his men; the other man was left at the hotel, presumably to arrest Chela if she returned there.
Twenty minutes later they passed through the village near which the ambush had taken place, but this time there was no ambush. As against that, there were no signs of anything unusual having occurred there that morning; so it looked as though the police had realised the futility of carrying out an investigation among its inhabitants. For their sakes and that of the courageous Father Suaréz, Adam prayed that might be so.
At the Police Headquarters in Mérida general particulars about him were entered in a register and he was then locked in a cell. It was reasonably clean, but starkly comfortless. In the early afternoon he was brought a meal of tortillas and chili-peppers which were so fiercely hot that he could hardly get them down, and in the evening another meal of tortillas and beans. Otherwise he was left there all day, with nothing to occupy his mind except his gloomy thoughts.
Soon after eight o’clock he was called out of his cell and, with an escort of the officer who had arrested him and another policeman, taken to the airport.
When he had arrived there with Chela five nights earlier they had been whisked away so efficiently by the porter from the Pan Americana that Adam had not realised what a miserable little place it was. Although the city of Mérida had two hundred thousand inhabitants to Oaxaca’s seventy-five thousand, the airport at the former was less than one-third the size of that at the latter. It was now packed with people, nine out of ten of whom must have been killing time by seeing off the limited number of people who could travel by the evening plane.
Adam estimated that there must be at least two hundred men, women and children jammed into the small waiting hall, and it had only three chairs. Under the electric lights it was intolerably hot, everyone was sweating freely and numerous mosquitoes were pinging and stinging about people’s faces and necks. Every time one of the little pests settled on Adam he was
unable to disturb it without displaying his handcuffs and, as he was so much taller than his neighbours, he soon became the fascinated focus of most pairs of eyes in the room. His efforts to get at the back of his neck caused great amusement and the little Indian children were held up by their elders to join in the fun. If anything could have possibly added to his misery it was an announcement, made after he had been standing pressed in the smelly crush for some twenty minutes, that the aircraft had been delayed and it would be another hour before it took off.
The natives did not appear at all concerned, but seemed to welcome the information as extended time for a social gathering. They continued to chatter away happily and laugh hilariously each time a local humorist displayed his wit at poor Adam’s expense.
At last this taste of what the Black Hole of Calcutta must have been like came to an end. Almost in a state of collapse, Adam was led out to the plane. To gasp in the clean night air was an incredible relief. But the plane had no heating and he was dressed only in tropical clothes; so, soon after it had taken off, he was shivering with cold. It struck him that he might get pneumonia, but by then he was too weary to care. With wry humour it occurred to him that if he ever got round to writing his book with a Mexican background he would be able to portray a very different side of it to such places as the luxury of the El Presidente Hotel. A few minutes later he fell asleep and did not wake until they reached Mexico City.
As they had arrived on an internal flight, there were no formalities at the airport and Adam’s suitcases were identified and handed over to his escort without delay, whereas had he been on his own he would have had to slip the baggage man ten pesos as the only alternative to kicking his heels for a quarter of an hour. He was then taken to Police Headquarters, a drive of little more than two miles from the airport, as it lay in the Plaza de los Presidentes on the eastern outskirts of the city.
There he was duly checked in and locked in a cell. By then it was close on midnight. The previous night he had not got to bed until past three in the morning; the strain of the long, anxious day and the nightmare he had gone through at the Mérida airport had left him like a limp rag, and his hour’s sleep in the plane had done nothing to refresh him. Regardless of the brick-like pillow, he gratefully stretched himself out on the truckle bed and pulled the solitary, tattered blanket over him.
But he was not to be allowed to occupy his hard couch for long. He had been asleep for less than a quarter of an hour when the steel door of his cell was thrown open with a clang and he was ordered out. A brawny warder with the face of an ex-pugilist took him up some stairs to an office which had the appearance of being occupied by someone of importance. Behind a big desk sat a squat, bald man who, from his uniform and several rows of medal ribbons, Adam judged to be a Police Chief. With him was a younger man with a very sharp nose, dressed in plain clothes: evidently a detective.
The Police Chief told Adam to sit down opposite him and opened the proceedings by saying, ‘Señor Gordon. We know all about you, so it would be pointless to tell us any lies. If you speak the truth we will make things much easier for you. Now I want you to give us in your own words an account of everything you have done since you arrived in Mexico on January 2nd.’
Adam had known that, sooner or later, he would have to face an interrogation, but he had had ample time while sitting in the cell in Mérida to think out the line of action he would take.
‘Su Excellencia, aqui está mi declaracion,’ he began. ‘I have no wish to be obstructive. However, I am known to Señor Ramón Enriquez of your Foreign Office Security Department. If you will send for him tomorrow I will tell him everything I know.’
The Police Chief smiled. ‘I am glad, señor, to find that you are willing to co-operate. But the Señor Enriquez will pass on to me anything you tell him, so there is no point in waiting until tomorrow. And in this matter time is precious. I pray you, confide in me.’
‘I regret, Excellencia.’ Adam shook his head. ‘My mind is made up. I will discuss my situation only with the Señor Enriquez.’
For some minutes longer the Police Chief endeavoured to cajole him into talking. Then, as Adam made no reply and sat there staring at his large feet, he said testily to the detective, ‘Oh, take him away, Mejia, and give him the treatment.’
The words were ominous. Into Adam’s tired brain there flickered terrifying images of people being plunged into ice-cold baths, beaten with flexible steel rods, and other horrors perpetrated by the Nazis. Endeavouring to fight down his fears, he went with Mejia to a room on another floor. It was sparsely furnished with a table and hard chairs. An adjustable electric light with a cone-shaped shade hung from the centre of the ceiling. The detective told Adam to sit down at one end of the table and adjusted the light so that it shone into his eyes. He then spoke into an old-fashioned house telephone fixed to the wall.
After about five minutes another plain-clothes man, a fair-haired Mexican, appeared. With him was a woman carrying a notebook—obviously a stenographer. Adam was quite fascinated by the narrowness of Mejia’s pointed nose as the light shone on it, but next moment the others took places on either side of Adam, and Mejia, sitting down opposite him, said sharply:
‘I understand that you have had a long and unusually distressing day. All of us here have been on duty for many hours; so we, too, would like to go to bed. Please therefore be sensible and do not keep us up all night. Your statement, please.’
Adam employed the same tactics as he had in the Police Chief’s office. He kept his mouth tightly shut and his eyes lowered to the table. Even so, the strong light from the lamp focussed on him partially penetrated his eyelids, giving them a rosy glow.
How long the session lasted he had no idea. Every few minutes one of the detectives shot a question at him. At times he fell asleep and slumped forward on to the table. Each time he did so the fair-haired young man stood up and shook him into wakefulness. They used no brutality, but the glare of the light was in itself a torture. At last he could stand it no more. Woken for the tenth time, he lurched to his feet, grasped the edge of the table in his great hands, lifted and heaved it right over. Mejia was sent flying backward and temporarily pinned to the floor. The other two went to his rescue, while shouting abuse at Adam over their shoulders. But he did not hear it. Utterly exhausted, he, too, had slumped to the floor and lay there unconscious.
He woke next morning in his cell. His bleak surroundings brought the events of the previous day and night flooding back to him. Turning over on the truckle bed, he groaned aloud. Grimly, he realised that had it not been for Chela he would never have landed himself in this ghastly mess. Almost he was inclined to curse her. But he loved her. She had given him greater happiness than he had ever believed it possible for a woman to give a man. But why, oh why, had the fates imbued her with this damnable fanaticism? She was sweet and gentle, but another side of her was completely ruthless. Under the influence of the sinister Don Alberuque it seemed that she would stick at nothing to further their cause. That she loved him in her fashion he had no doubt, but she had not had the least scruple about using him. And now that the conspiracy had been nipped in the bud by his arrest, what could the future hold for either of them? For him, unless Ramón could get him out, years of imprisonment. For her, since she was so deeply religious, her bitter disappointment at the failure of her plans might well lead her to take the veil and bury herself for life in a convent.
In due course he was brought tortillas with a mess of onions, and later more tortillas with tomatoes. All day he hoped that he would be sent for to be interviewed by Ramón and, alternatively, dreaded that he would be summoned to undergo another grilling. But no-one came to fetch him and for hour after hour he lay on the bed, a prey to black despair.
That night he slept fitfully, being more conscious of the much colder climate now that he was again at an altitude of seven thousand five hundred feet. In the morning he washed as best he could in the bucket provided, then again lay down with his anxieties revo
lving in his mind like a squirrel in a cage.
It was about eleven o’olock when the warder who looked like an ex-pugilist came for him. He was taken to another bleak room. Ramón was standing there, and the warder left them alone together.
He greeted Ramón with a pale smile. Ramón did not return it. Instead he regarded Adam with an angry stare and exclaimed, ‘So you ratted on me! You bloody fool!’
‘No!’ Adam protested. ‘I didn’t. I swear I didn’t.’
‘Oh yes, you did. It was clear as crystal that you had fallen for Chela. She twisted you round her little finger and persuaded you to play the part of Quetzalcoatl. Well, you’ve asked for it and you’ll get it. Ten years in gaol.’
Adam quailed at the thought of such an awful prospect; but temper came to his aid and he burst out angrily, ‘If that happens, it will be you who have let me in for it. It was you who persuaded me to act as your cat’s-paw and go spy the land for you during my motor trip. Damn it, owing to you I was nearly murdered by that mob at San Luis. And on my return I reported everything I had found out. You can’t deny that.’
‘No,’ Ramón admitted, his expression still hard. ‘I don’t. But since that you’ve played the turncoat. Chela was with you at Uxmal and you posed for her as Quetzalcoatl. Explain that if you can.’
‘I can. I was working on the line I promised you I would: playing along with her to find out for you what I could. But the trouble was that I couldn’t get in touch with you to let you know what was being planned.’
‘What! Do you mean to tell me that a whole fortnight went by and you were so busy that you couldn’t find a moment to ring me up. I don’t believe you.’
‘It’s true, though.’ Adam felt that he could not give away the fact that he had spent most of that time honeymooning with Chela, so he went on rather unconvincingly, ‘For eight days I was held … well … incommunicado. Then I was taken down to Uxmal. You must know how difficult it is to get a call through from there to Mexico City. Before I had a chance this thing was sprung upon me. I was faced with the choice of either playing along or throwing in my hand. What would you have done?’
Unholy Crusade Page 26
