The Lights of Alborada

‘But aren't your documents in order?’

I looked at him uncertainly. What had gone wrong with his perfect plan?

‘It's better to stay out of trouble.’

The flight from shop to shop couldn't go on for ever: the Buick stopped to check the crossroads that led to the bus stop, where two Chicanos were waiting.

The lieutenant set off in the opposite direction, but that part of the world was a papier-mâché chessboard, white, black, white, a few moves and checkmate. Reflected in the glass of the barber's shop, I saw our pursuers' car heading straight towards us. The air filled with a mechanical hubbub: a farmer's truck, fully laden with crisp bales of yellow hay. It braked in front of us, and the right door opened. The driver was the girl, H.S. Barely moving, she beckoned us in. Lying on the truck floor, we slipped by, invisible to the street. I looked up, and in the rear-view mirror I glimpsed two officers, at the wheel, a mean-looking dark-haired man with a thin moustache, beside him an uneasy-looking adolescent. Leaving a trail of yellow dust behind us, we headed into the desert light. A haggard coyote barked a warning, but didn't bother to follow us. He hobbled away, one of his legs stiffened by an ancient trap.

9

They reached the prisoner-of-war camp in Amarillo, north of Texas, at about three in the afternoon. Colonel Downing brought them into his study with a great display of energy. ‘Gentlemen, I won't waste your time. There's no point in my repeating the life story of the man you're after. I know that General Matthews has already outlined it for you. He escaped from this camp ten days ago. He changes languages the way he changes shirts. He's pleasant and stylish. Everyone here loves him. Read the report by our inside informer: I haven't yet had a chance to pass it on to the general.’

He handed them a sheet of thin paper, with holes typed in it corresponding to the letters ‘e’ and ‘o’. Out of respect for his rank, Cheever let Cafard take the sheet first, but Cafard handed it to him without so much as a glance.

‘Our agent, Dieffe, maintains that Lieutenant Commander Hans von Luck is heading for the Atlantic coast …’ Cheever was still reading, and Cafard mockingly questioned the colonel. ‘How can your agents, locked away in a camp, tail a fugitive many miles away?’

‘Don't underestimate the Nazis, Major. They have undercover radios, they use secret codes.’

‘The Italians have a radio that we haven't managed to confiscate. I'd never heard that the Germans had one, too.’

‘They can prepare any kind of fake document. Look.’

Downing, irritated by Cafard's incredulous tone, opened the box and took out half a withered potato. He handed it to Cheever by way of reply: carved into the tuber was the security stamp of the American Military Command, the precious mark that guaranteed members of the armed forces free transit across the United States.

‘You want a hunting licence? A passport? A few fresh potatoes and they can reproduce the whole fucking Washington bureaucracy, you bet they can.’

‘Can we interrogate this …’ Cafard tried to find the right phrase for a moment, feigning uncertainty, and Downing wondered, ‘Is this bastard having me on?’

‘… this agent of ours?’

Cheever, disciplined and embarrassed, handed him the perforated sheet of paper, which Cafard stuffed into his pocket.

‘Ah, no, that's out of the question. Are you kidding me?’ Downing saw himself regaining his advantage, and used it skilfully. ‘What did you have in mind? Call him into the main barracks and expose him in front of his comrades? Within a few hours the Gestapo inside the camp would have him in the blanket. I hope you know what I mean by the blanket?’

Colonel Downing smiled grimly: tough cops from the spy department, you talk and talk, and then all of a sudden you drop the psychological warfare in favour of actual violence.

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