Night Soldiers

“What does she think you want?”

“Some personal thing, not to be mentioned to a young woman. Prophylactics, perhaps.”

“And do you buy something?”

“No.”

“Isn’t that asking to be noticed?”

Cardona pondered this for a moment. “Such things go on at Spanish pharmacies, it’s not so unusual. Men, you know, and their intimate problems.”

Sascha shot an eyebrow and snorted. “Intimate crabs.”

“Certainly, and everything else. Anyhow, he gives me the time and place of the meeting.”

“His name?”

“According to the tax clerk’s office, the Farmacia Cortes is owned by Emilio Quesada.”

“El patron.”

“That’s an assumption.”

Sascha sighed. The more they knew the craft, the more they wriggled off the hook. Cardona was exactly right, but it was just such ephemera that drove intelligence people crazy in the long term. “Very well. Make a note, Khristo.” He turned back to Cardona. “I don’t suppose you’d want to ask the clerk, just once, if Senor Quesada is available?”

Cardona simply smiled.

“Umm,” Sascha said, “I rather thought not. He comes to the meetings, this patron?”

“Of course he does. But I can’t say that. We are all hooded.”

“Describe the hoods.”

“Silk pillowcases, a sort of light brown color, with slits cut for eyeholes.”

“Tan, would you call them?”

“No, not really. It’s what a Renaissance painter would’ve known as ecru, I believe.”

“Good God.” Sascha held his head and shook it. “Khristo, make them ‘light brown.’ Ecru indeed. Moscow would love that.”

“Each meeting is held at a different apartment, never the same one twice.”

“I suppose you don’t go hooded in the street.”

“No. That’s done just inside the front door, but the arrival times are staggered, and we leave one at a time.”

“Cautious.”

“Yes.”

“And the meetings?”

“Fascist mumbo-jumbo. A red candle burning in the middle of the table. A prayer to start out, a little speech-quite ferocious, really. You know how they are, Christ and blood, Christ and blood, back and forth. Then there’s news of the Falange, military victories, piles of dead miners-nothing you wouldn’t find in their newspapers.”

“What is their morale, would you say.”

Cardona paused a moment. “Well, it’s hard to tell with the hoods on, but I would say they’re pretty scared. Most of them, their political views were well known before the Azana government took over. They fear their neighbors, co-workers, tradesmen.”

“Does only the leader speak?”

“No. After he has said his piece, an unsheathed bayonet is passed from hand to hand. Each of us holds it and makes a statement.”

“For example.”

“A Republican gang marched into a monastery near Albacete. The monk in charge was tied to the altar and a crucifix was forced down his throat.”

“Others?”

“Nuns raped and murdered, priests strung up in trees.”

“Falangist propaganda, of course.” A muscle ticked briefly under Sascha’s eye and he blinked to make it stop.

“Naturally.”

“But they are conscious of the gangs.”

“Oh yes. They fear them-with the fear of children-and recite their names. Lynxes of the Republic, Red Lions, Spartacus, the Furies, Strength and Liberty. It is almost as though a constant naming of the terrors will keep them away in the night.”

” ‘The purpose of terrorism …’ ” Sascha quoted half the Lenin axiom, a shrug in his voice.

Khristo finished the phrase silently: “… is to cause terror.” These two, he realized, had something between them quite outside the agent-case officer relationship. They were not the Mitya type- blunt-headed peasants with a red catechism in their mouth and a rifle in their hands. They were intellectuals: they would say the catechism and use the rifle, but they would not delude themselves. Their status demanded knowledge-and admission, no matter how inferential-of the truth.

“Now,” Sascha said, shifting in his chair, “we come to the blue lantern.”

Cardona drew a deep breath and expelled it slowly. “I’m still piecing it together.”

“General Bloch was quite pointed in his remarks on the subject.”

“I can imagine. Well, you may tell him that I do not think it mattered that the action went awry. They accept the hand of fate, even if General Bloch does not. What matters to them, the Falange, is that I executed the plan. Its failure, I think, will not damage their trust in me.”

“But you’ve not met with them since it happened.”

“Nor was I scheduled to do so. Tomorrow I go to the pharmacy.”

“Have you any idea what went wrong?”

“Not really. I went to the roof, lit the lantern. Somehow, the lantern was removed, taken to another building, and the attack failed.”

“Another building?”

“Yes.”

“We are told there was an American involved. A woman.”

“Neighborhood gossip. I have heard it.”

“Find out for me who she is-her name, anything you can learn. There are many Americans who come to Spain now, Moscow perceives this as a critically important opportunity. Thus, if you wish your star to shine …”

“I’ll do what I can.”

“Tell me, was there no guard at the Avenida Saldana? Did they simply fill up a building with guns and ammunition and leave it there?”

“This is the Spanish war.”

They were both silent for a moment, then Cardona went on, leaning across the table. “A story, if you like. One of the cinemas on the paseo is showing Duck Soup, the Marx Brothers film. I attended last week, the theater was packed full. In the row in front of me were three artillery officers on leave. For most of the time they were silent. But then, there is a scene where Groucho Marx is playing a colonel, and he stands before a map and says, ‘A child of three could solve this problem.’ He pauses, then adds, ‘Bring me a child of three.’ At that, the officers laughed-laughed bitterly, one could say-and nudged each other.”

Khristo and Sascha both smiled.

“Humorous,” Cardona continued, “it is that. But maybe not so funny when you reflect on what it implies. To answer your question directly I will tell you that the Avenida Saldana armory was protected by the POUM, the anarchists, and in all probability the guard had something more important to do and off he went and did it. I carried the lantern up there with a knife in my hand, but there wasn’t a soul.”

Dutifully, Khristo tried to keep up with him, writing as fast as he could. Sascha sighed and sat back in his seat.

“Bloch and the others,” he said, “are getting quite fed up with the anarchists. Quite thoroughly fed up. And