The Sentinel: 1 (Vengeance of Memory)
Page 61
Galindez glowered, taking the belt from her neck. ‘So you thought you’d strangle me to celebrate?’
Tali shrugged. ‘I thought you were already dead. Anyway, that stuff is all yours now. I’ll settle for something else, though.’
‘Like what?’
‘Fuck it. You keep it all and I disappear into the sunset.’
‘Why would I let you go? I could easily put you behind bars.’
Tali shrugged again. ‘Because of how you feel about me.’
‘I wouldn’t count on that.’ Galindez said. ‘Where’s the pistol? I don’t want you changing your mind again.’
‘Here.’ Tali pulled the Browning from her belt and handed it over.
Galindez removed the magazine and threw it across the room into the shadows. After checking the chamber was empty, she tossed the pistol aside.
‘There’s one thing,’ she said, picking up the big flashlight, ‘if you try any more tricks, I’ll kill you.’ Tali nodded. Galindez pointed to the opening in the flagstones. ‘Bueno, after you, Señorita Castillo. I’m not turning my back on you.’ She paused. ‘When we’ve seen what’s down there I’ll give you two hours before I call the police. You’re on your own after that.’
‘I knew you liked me.’ Tali smiled.
She lay on the flagstones and Galindez eased herself alongside her, holding the flashlight at an angle, shining the beam into the bottom of the pit below. Boxes, papers, wires, bundles wrapped in waxed paper, all testimonies of Guzmán’s presence. Fragments of evidence, the truths of his life assembled in the cold darkness, long guarded by the sullen stones of this ancient building. The things Galindez always hoped to find, now just an arm’s length away.
Reaching down, Tali tried to lift one of the files. A brittle metallic sound. A thin wire reached up towards the light, like some cave-dwelling worm, its end broken from where it had been attached to the flagstone. Galindez saw the wire, saw how it emerged from the metallic khaki object placed at the centre of the bundles and packages. She called out, though her voice was strangely muffled and distant. And now Tali was shouting, struggling to get back up, but with the two of them jammed together it was hard to move quickly. Time seemed so strangely slow, Tali’s voice distorted and unfamiliar, although suddenly it was too late for that to matter, too late for anything to matter as the sudden revelatory power of Guzmán’s secret was released.
This was Guzmán’s gift, Galindez realised. The gift he left here long ago, a gift she had never really been sure existed. She had wanted to know Guzmán and now she would experience the very essence of the man in this dusty mixture of empirical evidence and lethal technology as it sent out Guzmán’s final message to the world: you can never know me.
Galindez and Tali stared, frozen in surprise and horror, shouting warnings neither of them would ever hear as Guzmán’s terrible gift was revealed, released in all its malignant intensity from its long confinement beneath the comisaría, in a furious rage that even Guzmán’s office had never seen, nor would again. In a moment of frozen fire and flame, time itself burned, as Guzmán’s secrets were carbonised and destroyed, fragmented truths hurtling in the irresistible violence of their ascent. It was a game, this search for Guzmán. But it was always Guzmán’s game, his final card should things go wrong and he never return to collect his treasures. And the game was over: this was his reality and that reality now raged around them, before it disappeared for ever. The truth revealed through pain.
The immense volcanic fury of the blast channelled upwards from the confined space, blowing out windows, smashing doors from their hinges and bringing down plaster and fittings from the ceilings. For a moment, the ancient building trembled before the rage released by Guzmán’s handiwork. The reverberations of the explosion hammered through the narrow corridors, shaking the bars of the cells, pounding against the ancient door leading down into the forgotten depths of the comisaría where Mamacita and so many others were sacrificed to the perpetual greed of the darkness. And then, as the smoke billowed around the rubble, small flakes of plaster from the ceiling began to fall, floating in the draught from the shattered windows like snowflakes as the comisaría slowly reverted to its usual state of brooding and sullen silence.
About the Author
Mark Oldfield was born in Sheffield, and now lives in Kent. He holds a PhD in criminology.
About this Book
Comandante Leopoldo Guzmán. Infamous head of Franco’s secret police. A man who disappeared from history in 1953, but his secrets live on….
1953, Madrid: Amid the snow-bound streets of an unprecedented winter, the head of Franco’s secret police discovers that the web of lies he has spun around his past is beginning to unravel.
2009, Las Peñas: Forensic investigator Ana María Galindez unearths a mass grave in a disused mine. Her investigation will disturb forces that have lain dormant for decades.
In this journey into the dark heart of Spain, Guzmán is the link between past and present in a country still scarred by civil war, still riven by fear and hatred, and still plagued by secrets that refuse to die…
About Head of Zeus
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Contents
Welcome Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
About the Author
About this Book
About Head of Zeus
Copyright
Copyright
First published in the UK in 2012 by Head of Zeus, Ltd.
Copyright © Mark Oldfield, 2012
The moral right of Mark Oldfield to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
9 7 5 3 1 2 4 6 8
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (HB): 9781908800183
ISBN (TPB): 9781908800190
ISBN (E): 9781781850435
Printed in Germany.
Head of Zeus, Ltd
Clerkenwell House
45-47 Clerkenwell Green
London EC1R 0HT
www.headofzeus.com
Table of Contents
Welcome Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapt
er 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
About the Author
About this Book
About Head of Zeus
Copyright