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He preferred public places to make those encounters, but for once he had to give up and obey. Not always you could get away with yours.
In spite that inside the car was hot, he couldn’t stop shacking, he had never got along well with the cold, but now with age it was harder to face it.
In front of them two headlights appeared boring the darkness mad becoming bigger and intense as they came nearer. When the car reached them, it placed next to them in parallel, and before it had stopped completely, a door open and a silhouette got out at full speed.
—Sir —he cheered when he sat beside him in the hot in the rear of the Mercedes—. What a night.
—We could have met at a restaurant —he answered with acrimony—, and not in the parking of a dirty abandoned canning.
—Excuse for the melodrama, but I’m not very sociable —he gave a grimace of displeasure—. The places where they gather more than four or five persons drives me crazy.
—This seems to the scene of a bad spy movie —he grumbled.
—And what are we, Mr. Asensio? —even at the darkness of the rear seat a white perfect denture could it been seen with clarity, and it made a half smile.
—I’m only a poor old man with bone pain —he massaged his shoulder—. To which by the way, this cold is not making well at all.
—Don’t we lengthen it more than necessary —he dropped a thick folder over the tapestry—. There it is all.
The old man checked it quickly under the car’s weak reading light and made a grin difficult to explain. Shortly after he left again the folder on the tapestry —between his listener and him—, as if it established an invisible barrier between both.
Some things are missing —he synthesized in a dry way.
—Sir, this archive is the only one that exists with the names, dates, transactions, and the complete operation —he explained—. When you have in your possession that folder you’ll be the unique person on earth that will do and undo whatever he wants regarding this topic.
—That seems very good to me —the tone had nothing to do with that one of an old man aching —, but I haven’t asked for this.
—With all my respects, I don’t know exactly whom you are, and sincerely I don’t care, there you have it —he pointed at the folder—. We are finished.
The old man tapped his mouth with a tiny hand and he choked a childish giggle.
—It is missing here a photo archive —he indicated—. We will have finished when I say.
—Complain to my superiors —he grabbed the door handle to get out of the car—. I’ve already finished.
In the vehicle veiled in darkness a silvered light shined like a ray, and suddenly the tapestry was full of a hot and viscous liquid. The man dropped the door handle and turned around so slowly that it seemed a slow-motion reproduction. He faced the old man, that was cleaning a sharp and long blade that seemed a stylet, and he put his hand on his neck, trying to stop the vital fluid that escaped between his fingers. When the man was still bracing trying to stop the hemorrhage, the old man took a last generation mobile —totally extemporaneous in his hand— and dialed a number.
—I’m Billy. I need a favor —he said briefly when they answered—. Your boy hasn’t made the complete work —he listened for an instant—. Ok, no, he has been... “fired”.
He pulsed a command and a crystal lowered. The man that was at the steering wheel turned around and raised his eyebrows. The old man pointed the body that continued to bleed over the Mercedes’ luxurious tapestry, and the chauffer agreed without opening his lips. The crystal came up again and the old man continued with the conversation. Outside two low detonations were heard simultaneously, almost one after the other one, and in a few seconds the door open and the chauffer took out the body from the rear without even stopping to look at the old man.
—What I need is the photographs’ archive —he continued saying at the phone—. I thank you for the Gladio and the operations, but what I really need is that album.
The Mercedes started to move slowly, and he turned around for an instant to see that the other vehicle continued where it had been parked, now covered with a dense smoke that it gave off some fine orange tongues the flames licked the sides of the windows and the roof, rising majestically between the dark od the gelid night. The conversation came to an end and he turned off the mobile.
****
—We should have bought lanterns too —Juandi insinuated dragging the flexible lamps as much the cables allowed him.
—We’ll have to manage with what we have. Hey colleague...
—Forget it.
Jonás had managed to apologize with his friend due his reaction and the words that he had dedicated him some minutes before they found that hidden trap, but Juandi had rejected all the explanations arguing that he too had behaved as an idiot, so they were tied.
—Well, I think we should go out and by something —Juandi stretched the cable so much that it seemed it was going to break—. And we can catch some electric extensions cords for these fucking flexible lamps.
—Perhaps it’s only an empty basement or it is full of the printing office’s rubbish —Jonás expressed, that he didn’t want to have illusions again—. And we lose again our time.
Hey buddie —Juandi seemed to be losing his patience again with his friend’s pessimism—. I don’t give a darn if down there we only find bats’ shit, but I don’t plan to leave without discovering it —he rubbed his stomach—. Besides, we haven’t eaten nothing in the whole morning, I need proteins.
Jonás thought that he had a great idea in bringing his friend, as he gave the push and the determination that he sometimes was lack of.
—All right —he acceded—. We have lunch and we go to the hardware store for our Indiana Jones’ kit.
—At last we are understanding each other.
****
After lunch —that it became an earlier dinner—. They obtained two powerful LED lanterns of the Varta commercial brand, a portable lantern of 9 W that functioned with rechargeable batteries; in the last moment they decide also to buy two shovels, a folding ladder, several struts and some helmets used in construction. They haven’t the faintest idea for what they might need all that, but they felt better when they came out with those articles perfectly packed in boxes.
—Colleague, I feel like the very same Howard Carter —Juandi exclaimed proudly—. Now I only need the mummy.
—From those you have plenty in your record —Jonás joked, that he was now in a much better mood.
—And that you say it —he answered shaking hands—. I have battled with more Orcs than Frodo!
The first to come down was Jonás, that armed with a strut in one hand, one of the lanterns in the other and the miner helmet he felt as the most ridiculous man on the earth’s surface.
Three steps about only some centimeters died abruptly in a bend of ninety degrees, that twisted sinuously and conducted other three steps equally exiguous. As they came down, humidity allied with cold and created a gelid atmosphere that numbed the joints. For their surprise, the cellar was not so deep as he had expected and was no so abandoned as in the beginning he thought that it was. On the steps he had seen glimpses of one or another insect that ran under the powerful light of the lantern, but already downstairs, all was in order. He called Juandi, so he came down with the bluff, since in the dark was so opaque that the lantern’s beam barely managed to illuminate a pair of meters in front of him. When the giant came down through the narrow opening (not without difficulties) and put the lantern in his mouth and increased the bluff’s intensity. In less than one second, the chamber was bathed with a bluish light that made all the shadows escape to the furthest corners. Jonás dropped the strut and the lantern, and his friend was about to drop the bluff. They were almost a minute without saying a word, with mouths opened and admiring what they had in front of them.
—But who the hell was your grandfather? —Juandi babbled.
—I don’t know —he answered completely amazed—. I really don’t know.