The Sentinel: 1 (Vengeance of Memory)

by Mark Oldfield

  ‘Of course,’ Valverde agreed. ‘Although, there’s been a slight change of plan.’

  He turned and fired the automatic rifle from less than a metre into Positano’s chest. The blast threw Positano backwards, the immense spray of blood on the wall behind him black in the half light. Cordite smoke rose from the body and, for a moment, his shirt flickered with flame around the wound.

  ‘Yanqui bastard,’ Valverde said. ‘Telling me to hurry.’

  ‘What the fuck?’ The sarge stared at Positano and then back at the injured Guzmán.

  Clearly Peralta wasn’t going to tell him: the teniente stood motionless, shocked.

  Valverde laid the automatic rifle by Positano’s body and took out his pistol.

  ‘Teniente. Draw your weapon and keep Guzmán covered, would you?’

  Peralta reached into his coat and produced his service revolver.

  ‘What are you going to do with that, Teniente?’ Guzmán sneered.

  ‘Move and I’ll fire, Comandante. Remain still and I guarantee you’ll receive medical help and a fair trial.’ Peralta’s face showed too much doubt to take him seriously.

  ‘Are you going to shoot the Caudillo yourself, mi General? Or will you order the teniente to do it?’ Guzmán called to Valverde.

  Valverde walked across the loading yard, pistol in hand. ‘No one is going to shoot the Caudillo,’ he said. ‘Not now. I know you’ve probably tipped off Gutierrez in Military Intelligence. So we have to change things. You were going to shoot Franco, Guzmán. You were in league with this Yanqui and his Dominican accomplices. There was a fallout over the money and you killed them. The teniente and I arrived and managed to stop you carrying out your planned attack. No one will question your guilt. There’s more than enough evidence, I’ve made sure of that. And of course there’s also the matter of who the hell you are. Because I understand your so-called mother and cousin had grave doubts you were any relation of theirs.’

  ‘Call them as witnesses.’ Guzmán smiled. ‘And the private detective.’

  Valverde raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, well. A few new stars in heaven tonight, then, Guzmán? You’ve been busy. But do you know what? The witnesses you didn’t kill, Positano did. Alvarez and Posadas. That means you’re the last one.’

  ‘So this was all your idea?’ Guzmán grunted, sweat coursing down his face. He was trying not to vomit. ‘A diversion to keep me off the scent?’

  ‘All of it.’ Valverde nodded. ‘You wouldn’t understand. At heart you’re just a thug. No subtlety. But you do – lo siento – did, have Franco’s ear. Not any more. Positano helped plan it: the CIA are good at these things. We knew the Dominicans would enrage you so much you’d decide whatever else happened, you had to kill them. They would probably have seen you off anyway, given they were some of the finest of the Dominican Republic’s armed forces.’

  Guzmán spat bloody phlegm onto the sacking in front of him. ‘I’m always up for a fight, mí General. Some things don’t change.’

  ‘Of course, Guzmán, and you’re one of them. By taking my bribe, you cut yourself off from Franco, and even then, you never saw what was happening. We had you watched constantly, waiting to add to your troubles. We watched you at the comisaría, and when you visited Señora Martinez. All the time we had our eye on you.’

  ‘Señora Martinez?’ Guzmán asked, feeling his stomach sink.

  Valverde laughed. ‘Ah yes, the lovely Señora Martinez. We thought she would appeal, Guzmán. It was Positano’s idea. Hombre, for a man who’s been under surveillance for years, you behave as if you didn’t care who knew your business. We’d long known that whenever you met a woman who took your fancy in the course of a raid, you’d return and fuck them. Not that they had any choice. The French call it droit de seigneur.’

  ‘I call it admirable,’ the sarge muttered. Valverde glared at him.

  ‘When you arrested el Profesor, you also spent some time intimidating Señora Martinez,’ he gloated. ‘Once your sargento tipped off my man, we popped in and had a word with her.’

  ‘Gracias, Sargento,’ Guzmán said coldly. The sarge looked down in discomfort.

  ‘You aren’t much of a policeman, Guzmán,’ Valverde chortled. ‘Even before we put pressure on her, she’d been playing you for a fool. You thought she was a widow?’

  ‘She is,’ Guzmán muttered.

  ‘Her husband’s doing fifteen years in a prison camp near Pamplona,’ Valverde laughed. ‘Any idiot could have found that out without much effort. But not you, Guzmán. One sniff of her and you thought with your dick. Let me tell you, by the time you returned that night, we’d spoken to her, discussed terms and she was ready to play you like a gypsy’s fiddle.’ Valverde paused, his face florid now, triumphant. ‘But if you don’t believe me, you’d better hear it from the horse’s mouth. Adelante, señora.’

  Guzmán peered through the stinging sweat. The darkness around the warehouse entrance moved, and a figure emerged into the pale light encircling Guzmán and his tormentors. Guzmán stared, bewildered. No. Please, not this. No matter how bad things got, he could not have imagined this.

  ‘Say hello to the comandante, my dear,’ Valverde instructed Señora Martinez.

  Guzmán stared, helpless as she came forward, face pale, hands clasped in front of her. She looked hesitantly at Peralta. The teniente looked away, keeping his pistol aimed at Guzmán.

  ‘See, Guzmán?’ Valverde cackled. ‘I gave that woman five hundred US dollars to fuck your brains out. You perhaps thought it was love, Comandante?’

  ‘Not you,’ Guzmán whispered. He couldn’t think clearly. Not now the world had changed so fundamentally. It was all wrong: they had won and he had lost. He heard Valverde laughing, laughter congested with pride and hate, the laugh of someone accustomed to winning.

  ‘Was he good, señora?’ Valverde snickered. ‘Five hundred dollars gets a man a lot, I imagine. Did he take full advantage of what you had to offer? Perhaps not, since you seem to be walking normally.’

  Guzmán hung his head. Sweat dripped from him. His leg was bleeding badly. Better if it all ended now. He remembered briefly the times in the village when they would heckle him: ‘Where you going, culón? Hey, fatty. Oddball. Gordo de mierda. Culón, culón.’ The difference was that he’d had the chance to revenge himself on most of them later.

  Señora Martinez spoke. There was fear in her voice. But there was something else, a determination that made Guzmán look up, blinking the tears and sweat from his eyes. ‘The comandante behaved like a gentleman, General. He never touched me once in the way you suggest. Not once. And amongst all of you here, he was the only one who ever treated me with common decency.’ She looked viciously at Peralta and then back at Guzmán. ‘You wanted to keep me safe,’ her voice broke for an instant, ‘and I betrayed you.’ She hung her head. ‘To save my husband. That was the only reason. I’m sorry.’

  ‘How did they get into my apartment?’ Guzmán’s voice was a hoarse whisper. ‘You were safe there. No one could get in, surely?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Valverde said. ‘No one could get in. But she could get out. To warn us.’

  Guzmán coughed and tasted blood. He was finished. He just wanted it to be over.

  ‘Comandante, I had to help my husband, I couldn’t let him rot.’ Señora Martinez’s voice was strained and its anguish touched him, just as once her hand had gently touched his in one brief shared moment.

  ‘Well, you messed that up, you bitch,’ Valverde snapped. ‘We wanted Guzmán to keep himself busy between your thighs so we could do our business undisturbed. Christ, this new man at Military Intelligence, Gutierrez, has been all over the place. If he’d got wind of any of this it would have been all over for us. You were paid to be a whore but you kept your pants on because Guzmán behaved like a gentleman? Puta madre. Your husband will stay locked up in the wilds of Navarra until sometime in 1986.’

  Alicia Martinez moaned. ‘You promised.’ Her voice was sharp with recrimination. ‘You disgusting
man. All of you, you disgust me.’ She looked at Peralta. He avoided meeting her eye.

  ‘Señora. Ven aca,’ he said, his pistol still clasped in both hands and aimed at Guzmán. ‘Come over here. Stand behind me. I’ll make sure you’re safe until we can sort this out.’ Señora Martinez looked at Guzmán. He saw her pale eyes, the high cheekbones. He nodded and she moved slowly past Peralta to stand a few paces behind him, her eyes fixed all the while on Guzmán.

  The teniente looked at Valverde. ‘This is intolerable, General. A Spanish officer always keeps his word, surely?’

  Valverde flushed puce. ‘Joder, Peralta, mind your own business. I’ve sorted your arrangements out. Keep your nose out of the rest. You’re a dead man anyway.’

  ‘No one but a fool would trust you, General.’ Guzmán’s voice was thick with pain. He looked at Alicia Martinez. ‘Unless they were desperate.’

  ‘Quite. But it’s an ill wind, Guzmán,’ Valverde said. ‘In a few minutes Peralta will make a call to the guardia civil for help. They’ll find the teniente and me here, surrounded by carnage. And the story of how we stopped the plot to assassinate the Caudillo will increase my influence enormously with Franco and with the people. And in time, that influence will shape Spain’s future direction. Particularly as our American trade partners will soon make it clear they would rather deal with me than the Caudillo. Although obviously, Teniente, you’ll only be able to enjoy any of this success for a very short time.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Peralta said, glumly.

  ‘As for you, sargento,’ Valverde smiled, ‘you don’t figure in any of my plans now. I’d be grateful if you would go over and stand with Comandante Guzmán. I think you’d be more comfortable with him. And in any case, it will be easier to kill you.’ The general raised his pistol. ‘Now.’

  ‘Bad choice, Sarge,’ Guzmán said, as the sarge shuffled towards the sacks.

  ‘Always bad at making choices, sir.’ The sarge smiled at Guzmán, his disastrous teeth foul in the half-light. ‘Sorry I let you down, jefe. You’ve been good to me. Well, sometimes.’

  ‘Yes,’ Guzmán agreed, ‘I got you out of the fucking asylum, for one thing.’

  ‘You did,’ the sarge said. ‘And I owe you.’ He grinned and Guzmán saw his coat fall open, saw the pistol in his belt.

  ‘Even with me gone, Military Intelligence still suspect you, mi General,’ Guzmán said.

  ‘You think so? There’s no one who’d believe your version of events – even if you lived. And you won’t. Nor this halfwit sargento of yours.’

  ‘I resent that, mi General,’ the sarge said. ‘Con su permiso.’

  ‘Protest noted,’ Valverde scoffed.

  ‘I made another call after I called you tonight, mí General,’ the sarge said quietly, still with his back to Valverde, his hand moving slowly inside his coat.

  ‘Good for you,’ Valverde mocked. ‘Was it to your dentist?’

  ‘I called Coronel Gutierrez,’ the sarge said, winking at Guzmán as he spun round, pulling the pistol from his waistband. As he turned, Valverde shot him. The sarge staggered drunkenly, struggling to keep the pistol raised. He fired and Valverde fell sideways, steadying himself against a crate. Valverde fired again and the sargento clutched the wound in his chest in surprise as he fell to his knees and pitched forward, face down into the sacking. Valverde dropped his gun, grasping with both hands at the bloody hole in his side. He slid down the crate, cursing.

  ‘Mierda. Shoot Guzmán,’ he gasped, a thin stream of blood coming from his mouth.

  Guzmán hurled himself forward, stretching for the pistol nestled in the burlap sacking. He fell heavily and searing pain jarred his battered body. He reached out a hand but the pistol was still centimetres from his grasp.

  ‘Stop or I’ll fire,’ Peralta shouted. Behind him Valverde was clinging to the packing case, trying to stand. Guzmán was losing yet more blood; he felt it pumping from the wound in his leg.

  ‘Shoot him, Teniente. Kill the bastard. That’s an order,’ Valverde shouted.

  ‘Leave the gun, Comandante. There’ll be a trial. I guarantee it.’ Peralta aimed his revolver at Guzmán, holding the weapon twohanded as if on the firing range.

  Guzmán tensed. There were always choices to be made. Always had been. He reached for his pistol, fingers scrabbling on the burlap, gripping the big Browning, the pistol he loved. Around him, the noise of combat: Peralta shouting a warning, aiming his revolver, Valverde raging in pain and anger, Señora Martinez’s sudden cry as she threw herself towards Peralta, clutching at his arm. All his life had been combat, Guzmán thought. His finger fumbled for the trigger, his hand shaking and unsure.

  Peralta fired first.

  MADRID 1953, CÁRCEL DE CARABANCHEL

  On arriving at the prison, the commandant asked him to make his will and assured him in due course it would be taken to a person of his choosing. Naturally, he named her: the woman he had always planned to leave it all to. They gave him a pencil and paper. When he had written the will and the commandant had witnessed it, it was sealed in an envelope. The commandant again promised him it would be delivered shortly. Afterwards, of course.

  In the cell he passed the time smoking and listening to the sounds of prison, sounds charged with the rhythms of life and death. The noise of the officials and soldiers who passed up and down the corridors chatting, shouting, giving and obeying orders, who laughed, as men laughed outside, about women and drink, about the radio shows they listened to. Their boots clattered on the hard stone, echoing sharply, blending with the slower, more reluctant tread of those who were being accompanied to the cells or to interrogation or just death. From time to time he heard muffled shots but they were too faint to convey further information. There was a slight commotion when they took away a body and once more the shouted orders, the clatter of obedient boots and the walk of captor and prisoner. The metal bolt of a door sliding open and then closing again. Gunfire.

  He lit a cigarette. His hand was shaking, though he was not afraid. Even so badly wounded, he would not show emotion. This was a game and there were always winners and losers. True, he had entertained for a while the notion that he might find some way out of this, that someone, somehow, might intervene or might discover erroneous evidence which would render his guilt questionable. But it would not happen now. Life did not contain such episodes, and besides, there was little time left. The judgement had been made almost at the same time as his arrest.

  His wound pained him greatly and he wondered with only slight interest whether he might bleed to death in the cell. But they brought a doctor. They offered that quack Liebermann. As if he would be treated by that Nazi charlatan. He demanded a Spanish doctor, one who would speak with him in a Christian tongue and finally, they found one. The man put iodine on his wounds and dressed them. There was little else he could do, the usual doctor’s admonitions to take care, to come back for a change of dressing: those things were oriented towards the future and the future was no longer relevant to him.

  It was afternoon now. He asked the commandant if he might have clean clothing in which to die. His request was refused. There was little time left and the commandant did not want the trouble or the expense of trying to find clothing that would then be ruined.

  They came for him shortly after dark. Not because this was an act that must be done at night but because the shift changed then. They helped him from the cell carefully, not out of respect but out of a fear he might produce some hidden weapon – unlikely though it was, since they had searched him thoroughly. He growled that he would walk unassisted and they stood back, allowing him to stagger, occasionally resting a hand on the wall while he caught his breath. At the door to the courtyard, a civil guard saluted as he stepped through the ancient doorway. He almost spat. Military regulations and formalities now were a thing of his past, no longer of importance to him. He was to die and that was an end to it. Fuck them.

  The courtyard was dark and the high walls were topped with spirals of barbed
wire. At the far end, against the chapel, they had built a wall of sandbags. He saw the patterns of bullet holes in the hessian sacks, sand spilling from the holes onto the cobbles of the courtyard. They had thrown more sand down to soak up the blood.

  In the War he had watched as the African troops shot hundreds of prisoners in the bullring at Badajoz. He had watched dispassionately, as if they were exterminating vermin. There were no such witnesses now, only one man with a camera, no doubt to assure the veracity of the execution. Even as the guards turned him to face the courtyard, his back to the sandbags, the firing squad was forming a hurried line. There was no time to lose, it seemed. And yet, time was such a little thing to lose, he thought, as the officer shouted commands to his men. The priest approached and blessed him. He muttered back, the words suddenly thick in his throat. The priest hastened away, seemingly worried the firing squad might open fire before he withdrew.

  Twelve men in tricorne hats. How foolish those hats looked, how bulky their capes. How white those faces peering down the rifle barrels. These were the sort of men he had commanded. He was a better soldier than any of them. How dare they pass such summary judgement on him? He should never have trusted Franco, should never have faithfully supported him as he had. After all his years of faithful service, to be dragged out to be shot like a dog. At least he had seen combat, had known it and embraced its violent arts. He had killed and was glad of it. That thought consoled him and, as he pondered on what would be a fitting final curse to bark at those quavering faces behind their rifles, the officer gave the order to fire.

  From that distance, it was hard for a man with a rifle to miss and the twelve shots hit him simultaneously, tearing apart his chest and blowing a vast hole in his back. He toppled against the sandbags, his feet slipping forward as he slid into a sitting position, his back pressed against the crimson hessian sacks. The officer stepped forward, aimed his pistol and fired one shot into his temple. It was over.