Midnight Harvest Read online

  Liebre managed to laugh this time. “He may be wise.”

  “His airplanes have excellent reputations. I don’t think he would have any reason to hesitate to fly in one,” said Zapatilla austerely. “And no one can claim he isn’t aware of the quality of his company’s products.”

  “Very true,” said Liebre quickly. “But it does seem that Saint-Germain dislikes flying. There are any number of people who do.”

  “Surprising, that he should be one of them—don’t you think?” Zapatilla asked, observing Liebre closely.

  Liebre smirked. “He probably watched dogfights during the Great War. He’s old enough. That would make anyone think twice about flying.” His face paled a bit. “Airplanes were less reliable then, of course.”

  “Of course,” Zapatilla echoed.

  “But he has also said he dislikes traveling by sea,” added Liebre.

  “When did he say that?” Zapatilla asked, thinking he had never had a report on Saint-Germain expressing such sentiments before.

  Aware that he had finally hit upon something Zapatilla wanted to hear, Liebre lost a little of his stiffness. “He was going to some kind of affair at the concert hall, a gala for some sort of occasion, and he happened to mention that some of the guests had arrived by yacht. I made some comment about his lack of one—just a joke, you know how you do—and he told me he becomes seasick far too easily for sea travel.” He smiled a little. “A man as polished as he, turning green and puking over the rail!”

  Zapatilla was not amused; he laid his hand on the files on his desk. “Still, a most interesting admission, if it’s true.”

  “Why shouldn’t it be?” Liebre asked. “It isn’t the kind of thing one says of oneself if it isn’t.”

  “Unless he intends for us to think of him as incapacitated by sea travel, and thereby misdirect our attention.” Zapatilla tasted the last of his coffee; it was cold and turning bitter.

  “But you are not misdirected,” said Liebre, making the most of his opening; he felt his confidence begin to well again.

  “No. There is no reason I should be,” said Zapatilla. He wanted to make notes but would not give Liebre the satisfaction of seeing him do it. “In fact, I will take this as an indication that I should alert the army to the possibility that Saint-Germain may have access to a ship—not necessarily at Cádiz, but there are many other harbors in Spain, and in Portugal, for that matter.” He looked down at the files again. “It is a worthy precaution, I think, watching where he doesn’t expect to be observed. He may yet betray himself.”

  “Then you anticipate trouble,” said Liebre, a bit too eagerly.

  “Always, in all things. I do not limit myself to le Comte de Saint-Germain.” He directed his best stare at Liebre. “And you would do well to do the same.”

  Liebre tried to remain comfortable. “I will. Of course I will.”

  “You are in a most opportune place to take advantage of the post you have.” He gave Liebre a long, thoughtful stare. “I think you may count yourself fortunate. If you are able to acquit yourself well, I believe you will be assigned to more rewarding work than what you currently have.”

  “I am eager to serve,” said Liebre. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

  Satisfied that he had engaged all Liebre’s attention, Zapatilla leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I have it on good authority that Saint-Germain is returning to Cádiz in a week or two. If you take the time to make a record of all the letters he receives between now and his return, I will put your name forward at the Ministerio de Guerra for advancement. I can see you’re ambitious and dedicated, both of which should serve you well in the Ministerio.”

  Liebre seemed to grow sleeker before Zapatilla’s eyes. “You are most generous, Señor Zapatilla. I am grateful to you.”

  “It’s a bit premature for that,” Zapatilla said quietly.

  Again Liebre smiled. “Still, I am grateful.” He rose. “I shall report to you in a week, or sooner if there is something of importance.”

  “I would appreciate it,” said Zapatilla at his most daunting.

  Liebre proffered his hand, then, when Zapatilla did not take it, awkwardly withdrew it. “It’s been a pleasure, Señor Zapatilla.”

  “The pleasure is mine,” Zapatilla assured him.

  Stepping back, Liebre tried to recover himself as he left. “Yes. Well.” He all but bolted for the door.

  Left alone, Zapatilla sat still for some little time. It was almost time for the noonday meal and the siesta, but just now neither had any appeal for him. He considered everything he had heard and tried to evaluate it. There was little doubt in his mind that Liebre was a willing tool, but one he must not abuse. Getting up, he went toward the door, then stopped, and began to pace. He had said he would do his best to advance Liebre’s career, and he would have to find some means to do it in order to keep the eager young man acting on his behalf. “Best to do this now.” He returned to his desk and sat down, lifting the receiver, then holding it while he heard the operator ask him what number he wanted. Recalling himself, he gave the exchange for Madrid and asked for Leandro de Guzman. “You have his number in your files.”

  The operator agreed that she did and rang through to the operator at the Ministerio de Guerra, requesting connection to de Guzman. There was the sound of ringing, and after six rings the telephone was answered. “Leandro de Guzman’s office.”

  “This is Mercurio Zapatilla. May I speak to Señor de Guzman?” He was very polite but firm.

  “Señor de Guzman has left for the afternoon. He should be back after siesta. I am his secretary, Pablo Robleseco. May I help you?”

  “Ah,” said Zapatilla. “I need to speak to Señor de Guzman. Is there any way we can arrange this? I would prefer not to wait until this afternoon.”

  Robleseco paused. “I believe he is lunching at El Caballero Negro. I can call him there. If you will give me your number, he’ll get back to you.”

  “You’re most accommodating. I’ll remain in my office until I hear from him,” said Zapatilla, and left his number. “On the Seville exchange.”

  “Of course, of course,” said Robleseco. “I’ll telephone him at once.”

  “Gracias. Then I’ll ring off,” said Zapatilla before Robleseco could hang up on him. But as soon as he had put the receiver down, he wondered if he had been too abrupt, for he was relying upon Robleseco to contact de Guzman for him, and that meant that he needed to maintain cordiality with the secretary. He walked the length of his office and once again looked down onto the street, noticing the bustle had increased as businesses prepared to close for luncheon and siesta; he saw four men in laborers’ clothes approaching his building, one of them holding a short pipe in his hand. They moved cautiously, threading their way along the narrow sidewalk, breasting the tide of office workers who hurried out the doors of the government offices. As Zapatilla studied them, he began to feel uneasy. What was it about these men that so unnerved him? He could not bring himself to identify any single element about them, but he was increasingly certain that they were up to no good. Then it struck him. “A bomb,” he said, and repeated it more loudly. “Esteban! They have a bomb!” he shouted as he ran toward the door and pulled it open, only to find that the outer office was empty. “Esteban! Where are you?” He lost precious seconds in looking about, then started out into the hallway when a loud noise thundered up from the floor below. Zapatilla staggered back and reached for the nearest chair to hang on to it, only to find it and himself on the carpet.

  A siren was howling somewhere in the building, and two alarm bells shrilled; there were cries and screams of dismay and pain. Zapatilla struggled to his feet, and almost fell when his ankle turned under him. He kept from falling by leaning heavily against Esteban’s desk. Where was he? Zapatilla tried to call out again and ended up coughing.

  In the next office along the corridor someone was sobbing—a woman by the sound of it—and Zapatilla decided to make his way to her. Taking care to put as lit
tle of his weight as possible on his ankle, he limped down the hallway, blinking at the dust and smoke that filled the air. “Just a moment!” he did his best to shout. “I’m coming.”

  The woman’s voice crescendoed, prayers mixed with sobs.

  A groan of wood and plaster went through the building like the death-throes of a wounded behemoth; Zapatilla listened to this ominous sound with misgiving. He very nearly turned and went toward the stairs, but the renewed keening of the woman brought him a renewed sense of purpose, and he kept on in her direction, doing his best to ignore the sounds of the building. He had almost reached the door—marked by a swath of shattered glass—when there was a loud crack, and the floor canted at a dangerous angle as, with a howling moan, the upper part of the structure began to collapse in on itself.

  For an eternity of twenty seconds Zapatilla imagined he had escaped, was free of any danger, was, in fact, delivered from harm. He began to smile just as the ceiling fell in on him and carried him down to be entombed on the ground floor amid broken beams and rubble.

  TEXT OF A LETTER FROM COLONEL JUAN ENRIQUE SENDA TO LEANDRO DE GUZMAN.

  Edificio del Puertomaestro

  Calle Atlantica

  Cádiz

  9 March, 1936

  Leandro de Guzman

  Ministerio de Guerra

  Madrid

  Señor de Guzman,

  In answer to your inquiries, no, I have received no further information from Sevilla; the attack on your building there seems to have destroyed all the records kept in the offices within. No one could be more distressed than I am at the loss of intelligence and records that are so essential to the protection of España. I am willing to set aside men for the task of reconstructing the files that the Ministerio de Guerra has prepared and has lost as a result of that treacherous explosion. To further that end, I will answer the questions in your letter of 23 February; I ask you not to hesitate if anything I and my men can do may additionally assist you.

  As regards the journalist Hector Iglesias, I have only had passing contact with the man, as he has not stayed in Cádiz for more than a week. I have it on reliable authority that he is now in Lisboa, in Portugal, and planning to go to Bilbao within the month. Whatever reports he makes will be reviewed and scrutinized for disloyal sentiments. I have already spoken to Carlos Santiago, who has assured me that no seditious material will be published in La Tarde, and I am convinced that he is sincere in his assurances. Many other newspapermen throughout España have given you similar guarantees, I have been told.

  You ask about the artist, Martin Teodorez, and I must inform you he is a bit problematic. His paintings are controversial, but they are also very abstract, and much of what has been said of them has been read into them, rather in the manner of those inkblots the Austrians use to determine madness. To be sure, Teodorez is perplexing, for he thrives on contention and actively seeks out confrontation regarding his work. I have said that this man is an exploitive and outrageous poseur, but that does not mean that he is politically subversive. For the time being, I will have my men continue to watch him and to report on those whom he sees. We may yet learn something in regard to his opinions, and should that happen, I will inform you of all I discover as promptly as possible.

  The questions regarding Silva Brancato are another matter; Brancato not only has a formidable international reputation in his field, he is Portuguese, and therefore not to be trifled with, even though his condemnations of the growing hostilities in España are embarrassing. I cannot even keep his books from being sold, not without specific authorization. I wish to remind you that if such censoring is commanded, we will be subject to the world’s denunciation for attempting to silence an author of such a distinguished career. Also, Brancato is welcome in any civilized country, and could leave España without hindrance if he decides he is the object of disapprobation here, or anywhere. I believe it would be wiser to leave him alone for the time being, and take a position that his fears of our struggles spreading across all Europe are alarmist.

  Some of our files on Ferenc Ragoczy, le Comte de Saint-Germain, were destroyed in the blast, as you have been informed. I am doing all I can to reconstruct the material that Mercurio Zapatilla assembled. This is more difficult than it might be: Saint-Germain is a foreigner and as such has certain protections that we would be ill-advised to contravene. I have spoken with him five times, and although he is not uncooperative, he is not particularly forthcoming, either, which has created certain problems between us. If I make a point of renewing my inquiries, he may very well liquidate his Spanish holdings and depart, taking his engineers and patents and his wealth with him, which could be unfortunate for us at this crucial time.

  On the other hand, I have two days since conferred with Cornelio Liebre, who is employed at the Hotel della Luna Nueva; he was the last to meet with Zapatilla and he has told me that he will do his utmost to fulfill those instructions Zapatilla gave him, and do it for our benefit. He is well-placed to surveil Saint-Germain without bringing attention to his activities. I am going to order the army watchers to make a point of withdrawing from their posts. This, I trust, will ease Saint-Germain’s mind, which may, in turn, cause him to be less careful in his dealings, and that we may turn to our advantage. I have also had some success in questioning Señor Hernando Echevarria, the manager of the Hotel della Luna Nueva, who has been willing to tell me as much as he can without violating what he perceives as a trust he has with his patrons. The rest of the staff is less informative, although the meat chef, Gustavo Perez, has told me that Saint-Germain has his meals prepared by his manservant, who procures fresh meat for his use, and occasionally goes so far as to bring live chickens into the Hotel della Luna Nueva; there is a small kitchen in the manservant’s suite, and it is there that the meals are made, according to Perez. Señor Echevarria has confirmed this, and we may assume that he will not deviate from this practice.

  I will need to have the use of two or three more operatives here in Cádiz if I am to maintain a reasonable level of usefulness for those we must watch. I know it is difficult just now, with all the demands of the increasing conflict arising in so many parts of our country, but I am sure that with a few more well-placed intelligence officers, we can gather the information that is crucial to our work, and to our ultimate conquest of those who stand against us. This may be seen as an imposition, but I promise you, it is not. We must keep our minds on achieving victory, and prepare to do whatever we must to attain our goals. If we do wrongs now, we can right them once we have triumphed. It is essential that we maintain our resolve, for in the face of the adamant opposition of the rebels, we must be prepared to do everything and anything our cause necessitates.

  You may wish to extend your attention to Servetus Valencia: he is currently at Salamanca and his publisher is in Barcelona. He purports to be a scientist, and has written three books on his theories about social evolution. He has lately been challenging the whole conduct of our hostilities, saying that it is a sign of social regression, a step backward that is likely to push España back into the patterns of the last century instead of embracing the growing internationalism of the present You cannot overestimate the damage some of his writings can do, for they stir up the educated who are inclined to accept his notions without any consideration of the ramifications of what he espouses. You may dismiss my apprehension as futile—and you may be right-but at this time we need the support of the intelligentsia to make our positions acceptable not only in España, but throughout Europe. We need our professors and theorists to endorse our goals, not undermine them. I cannot be comfortable with the possible outcome of his activities, especially now, when we have seen such an escalation of fighting all over the country, and the attention of Europe turned on our squabbles.

  I look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.

  Most respectfully,

  Juan Enrique Senda, Colonel

  JES/mll

  chapter four

  “I think
the soldiers are no longer in the building across the street,” Rogerio observed as he came into the room in the second suite of the four Saint-Germain occupied in the Hotel della Luna Nueva that had been relegated for use as his study. It was nearing the end of siesta and Cádiz was unusually silent as most of the inhabitants took advantage of the hour to stay indoors, not to avoid the heat of the day, which was still moderate, but to escape the attention of the army; squads of soldiers were everywhere, patrolling the streets, demanding food and drink from cafés and private houses, stopping persons at random and taking money and other valuables from them, supposedly to pay for their ordnance and materiel.

  “Oh?” Saint-Germain looked up from the Dutch newspaper; he had been reading an article on recent events in Germany that the Dutch reports viewed with mixed admiration and uneasiness, sentiments Saint-Germain thought were insufficiently alarmed. “Perhaps they are observing siesta.”

  “The windows are shuttered and I’m told no soldier has been in the building since midnight,” Rogerio said; the Latinate language he spoke had not been used in España for more than sixteen hundred years, before the Moors had come, or the Visigoths. “Neither Cornelio, the auto attendant, nor Gustavo, the meat chef, has seen a soldier go into that house today, or come out. I made it a point to ask both of them if they had noticed anyone, and both said they had not.”

  “Is it a holiday of some sort? Could they have been posted to another location, one that hasn’t been detected yet? Are there military maneuvers or a parade that require their attendance? Has fighting broken out in the countryside?” Saint-Germain asked in the same tongue, skeptical of this news.

  “There is no fighting I have heard of, and no parade. It is not a holiday, not so soon after Easter,” said Rogerio.

  “I know there are concerns for the first of May,” said Saint-Germain, folding the newspaper and setting it aside.