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The Mula’s health center turned out to be a nice red building of two floors in which medical consultations were given during the day, and that had another block attached to attend the emergencies and the accidents’ first aid during the night. Three ambulances were parked in the entrance, ready for the transfers to the La Arrixaca’s hospital in Murcia for the most severe cases.
Jonah sat up on the stretcher and nausea rose up to his throat.
—Stay down please — a paramedic indicated.
—And my father?" — He babbled. His throat ached as if with each word as if they were sticking red-hot—. Where is him?
—The other patient is in the adjoining room— he said in a monotone tone— they are preparing him to move him to the hospital in Murcia.
—But, how is he? —he asked worriedly.
—His condition is good— he tried to calm down him, though his expression did not inspire the slightest hint of whether he was lying or telling the truth—. He has only suffered minor burns and respiratory poisoning, but we will take him to the hospital to be sure that he does not suffer other more serious injuries.
—I want to see him— he made the gesture of getting up, but a coughing fit knocked him down again and made him vomit.
—You're not going to move from here— he put a hand on his arm—. At least until I administer you Primperan for dizziness— he stuck a needle in his thigh without warning—. And for your sake you should go to the hospital with your father, to have at least one spirometry and chest X-rays, in case there are signs of infection in the lungs.
—I'll go where you want, but I need to see my father.
The doctor thought about it as he put away the supplies with which he had treated Jonás; he turned to leave when he finished.
—I'll be back in a few minutes— he said—. If the dizziness has passed I will accompany you to see your father.
A few minutes later, Jonás was by Antonio José's bed. The man was awake, but his eyes were shot with blood and his mouth was covered by a mask that fogged with each expiration.
—Don’t worry— said a young woman behind him—. It seems worse than it is.
He extended a hand and Jonás shook it.
—I suppose that you are his son— she guessed, composing a cordial smile—. I am Dr. Maiquez. Your father doesn’t seem to have anything serious, and although the burns of the back will be annoying for a while, they will heal well and without obvious marks, but with the lungs it is another story.
—What happened to him?
—Nothing that we know— she moved next to the stretcher and Jonás could see that despite the medical uniform, she had an enviable figure—. But, a bronchoscopy and maybe a V / Q scanner must be done to detect if he has lung problems.
—You’re scaring me.
—Not at all! —she said animated—. It's just that I like to speak in medical terms, it makes me look like House.
—Well, I don’t like it that much— Jonás conceded, although he had to admit that the woman inspired him with a natural confidence—. I'm worried.
—It’s normal, you’ve almost roast like chickens on a spit —she stood before him, and Jonás could not take his eyes off that greenish glow—. Seriously, we are administering bronchodilators to your father with a tiny concentration of steroids to help him recover a normal breathing. At first glance, no damage is seen, but we are going to send him to the hospital to do the necessary tests.
—Well, we are at your disposal.
She smiled a maleficent smile and turned around with a funny expression.
—Well, in two minutes I’ll be back and tell you what you can do for me— the roguish gesture excited Jonás, who felt intimately guilty.
****
The journey to the hospital in Murcia became especially short. Jonás had thought of getting his father out of there— for if it was not serious, they could not stop him from leaving—, but he thought that a free, quick and conditioned transport was the best for his father's condition at that moment. He was sure that the men who had tried to kill them were waiting for them there, and it would be harder for them to get their hands on them if they moved in an ambulance than on any other public transport. Once they arrived at the hospital, he would think of something.
Antonio José had woken up several times, but the sleep ended up beating him seconds later. A few kilometers before reaching the capital of Murcia he woke up with amazing energy, tried to remove the mask with clawing movements, and one of the paramedics scolded him as if it were a child.
—I want to get out of here! — he bellowed in a scratchy, cascading voice—. Take this away!
—Calm down— snapped the doctor—. In three minutes we will arrive at the hospital and there they will take care of you.
—I don’t want to go to a hospital!
Antonio Jose did not seem to have lost a bit of his bad temper with the accident, and he spent the rest of the journey complaining. Half an hour later he was lying on an emergency stretcher waiting for the results of a VP and chest x-rays.
—His father is great— a doctor told Jonás in the consulting room—. He should only go to the cures for a week every day and then continue with the treatment for burns that his doctor considers necessary.
—No internal damage?
—Nothing, this man is like a rock! — the doctor snapped—. The tests have gone very well, indeed, his father shows healthier lungs than some young people of twenty years.
—He is like that— Jonas mused—, he's going to bury us all.
The doctor gave a tremendous laugh that resembled to the croak of a raven.
—Nevertheless, we want to have him here tonight— he informed—. More than anything to have him under observation.
—Well, we're from Madrid and we must take a train.
—I think it's great, but tomorrow— he said cutting—. We don’t want something to be overlooked and then we’ll have to regret it.
Jonah nodded, realizing that the doctor's decision was strong; together they went out into the hall, where they told a nurse to take Antonio José upstairs to put him in a room.
****
A nurse approached to Jonás and handed him his backpack, which apart from a bit smudged with soot on one of the straps did not show a significant damage.
—This was given to me for you by the firemen — offered the boy—. They say that besides this they could not rescue much more, and that is because the backpack was hanging on your back.
—Thank you.
Jonás took it and realized that it weighed considerably. He entered the room’s bathroom where his father had been installed and checked its content. The last copy of El Caso that had spent the night printing was there, just as he had left it. There was too his grandfather's diary. He left the bathroom and went to his father's bed.
—We must get out of here— growled Antonio José as soon as he saw him—. I'm fine, and those killers can come for us at any time; besides, your mother ...
—Stop dad! —the scream caught his father by surprise, who was speechless—. Enough at once!
Jonah walked nervously around the room, while his father watched him uneasily.
—I don’t know what you propose — he said—. But forget to act as a worried father and leave me alone
—Jonás— he tried to lean on the bed—. I came here to tell you something.
—I'm not interested— he said sharply.
—I think that yes— he took some suckers from his chest and looked for his clothes—. It has to do with your grandfather.
Jonah started to say something but then thought better about it. He grabbed one of the bags that had been left on the room’s chair and handed it to his father.
—Get dressed— he ordered—. When we're out of here I don’t want to see you again.
His father took the bag and went with it to the bathroom.
****
Going out had been easy. Once they were in the hall, both dressed in their clothes, no one stopped them or looked at them strangely. Jonás expected some of those situations from the movies where a doctor recognized them and prevented them from leaving the hospital, but nobody talked to them or stopped them. Once in the street they took a taxi —of the many that waited in the emergency exit—, and they told the driver to take them to the train station. Not a word was said in the whole journey. Jonás paid for the race and the train tickets, because he had the wallet in his backpack and his father had lost his in the fire, which had burned along with his coat.
—Son— he began as they waited for the last train of the day—. I need to tell you what is happening.
Jonás did not comment anything.
—It is true that our family treated Grandpa badly, but it was for a reason— he stopped, insecure, and Jonas turned to him full of rage. His father held him back with a wave of his hand—. Your grandfather was always a respected man in his field, but suddenly changed his attitude. He distanced himself from all those he loved and started to work in that newspaper. When your grandmother died, he fell into a depression that led him to break relations with absolutely everyone, even with me, who barely knew how to walk. I hated him, I really learned to hate him, and even more when they found evidence on his floor that he planned to attack the state. All of us who had something to do with the surname Millán were harassed and disowned, and your grandfather disappeared.
Jonah was about to interrupt his father in several times, but in all of them Antonio José silenced him with his hand. The station was deserted, and an icy wind blew between the platforms.
—I knew he had been stabbed in the street and we were looking for him, but he had left Madrid— he continued—. The regime forgot about him, but suspicion forever accompanied our surname. We had news that he had left Spain. When the regime ended he returned, but he still did not contact us. We had news that he lived in Almeria, and after he had moved to Águilas, where your grandmother had been born. As time passed we forgot that he existed, and I suppose that he did the same, because I didn’t know anything until a few years ago.
—Dad, I don’t need any family history, just get to my house and forget this.
—You know as well as I do that that will not happen— he said bitterly—. As much as I tried that it didn’t happen, you are now involved.
—I don’t understand you.
—A few years ago, I was contacted by SIDE, Argentina's intelligence service— Jonás turned to his father, astonished by that revelation—. They told me a story about how your grandfather had uncovered a clandestine structure that was functioning even before the coup d'état, and that had managed to take hold during the dictatorship. I didn’t believe It, of course, but they presented irrefutable evidence and I was "recruited"
—Recruited? —Jonás could not believe it —. How is that that you were recruited?
—I went to be a SIDE informant. They had been looking for Francisco Chacón de Mena for years, alias Billy the kid, to impute him for crimes against society, but that man has powerful friends and the prosecution aborted any accusation against him.
—And what does that have to do with you? —snapped Jonás—. And with grandpa?
—Your grandfather had been following Chacón for most of his life —Antonio José confirmed—. It was a personal matter. Chacón was the one who stabbed him in the street and gave him for dead after your grandfather found several brutal murders of that murderer committed "in favor of the regime", but with another very different interest.
—Son of a bitch— Jonas hissed.
—And not only that. He returned to finish the job, but thanks to Suarez, the editor of El Caso who was related to the regime and Franco's secret friend, your grandfather was able to flee before they reached him. Suarez sent him abroad and, when he returned to the country, he kept investigating for the newspaper in the region of Almeria and southern Andalusia until El Caso went bankrupt and was bought by an Almeria investor on the advice of your grandfather. During all those years, he continued to investigate in the shadows, getting files, meeting with people who had seen Chacón go too far and his bloody fidelity for the regime; he found evidence that could once and for all dismantle the organization, but he made a mistake.
—A mistake?
—Yes, he underestimated the depth of what he had discovered— Antonio José seemed exhausted—. Your grandfather began a personal crusade against Chacon, a ruthless torturer who licked as he mistreated students and sympathizers of communism in a savage manner. He thought he was going to engage in a hand-to-hand fight against a sadistic beast, but Chacon was only the stylet, the visible armed arm.
—Gladio— whispered Jonás to himself.
—Among others— confirmed Antonio José, who seemed ten years older since they had sat on that bench at the Carmen train station—. Your grandfather was pulling a thread that became a braided rope, with several tough and dangerous ends.
—That doesn’t explain why you have continued to repudiate him until the day of his death— Jonas replied with hate—. If you knew his story, why not grant him forgiveness?
Antonio José lowered his head in sorrow and began to cry. Jonás had never seen his father cry, or even express anything different to haughtiness. When he calmed down a bit, he raised a disheveled face towards his son.
—He couldn’t— he wiped the tears with the back of his hand—. Your grandfather was an exceptional man in some facets of his life, but he was never a father. He left me in charge of my uncles and never cared how I was doing in my life. I came to harbor such resentment against him, against the newspaper and his surname, that even when I learned the truth it was impossible for me to forgive him.
Jonás half-understood what his father meant, but he did not think to delve into the wound. Although Antonio José Ulloa, (or rather, Antonio José Millán), had never exercised like a father, he had never abandoned him. He approached and embraced him in a hug, realizing how much he had lost weight under his traditional suit.
—When he got sick I wanted to do it, tell him I knew it, forgive him, but then the SIDE was dissolved by the Argentine president and the current AFI was formed, a federal agency that decided to "file" certain cases for the sake of international relations— he recomposed himself a little—. Some of the old members then pressed me the nuts to continue in a free form.
—What did they want you to do, Dad? —Jonás asked.
—They knew about the files and documents that your grandfather— it gave him hiccups, and he had to make a huge effort not to collapse again. And, because of his illness, they thought that all this material would come to me in one way or another.
—On other words, that you would wait until he died to take it— Jonas separated from his father again—. Why not ask it to him dad, why not collaborate with him?
—Jonás, more than three years ago I started business with an organization that we knew Chacón directed— he explained—. They have been following me closely for a long time. Talking to your grandfather about it could have complicated the operation.
—And was it better to let him die and then steal the material he had been collecting for over thirty years? —he accused.
Antonio José buried his head again between his knees.
—Jonás, this is not just about crimes of the dictatorship or a murderer, who on the other hand, is already almost seventy years old— he raised his head and the tears shone with the reflection of the spotlight—, not even the massive murders of the wealthy members of the republic, this goes much further.
—I know what it’s about— he answered defiantly—. I have read grandpa’s files, I know that there was an organization that was dedicated to extort and save the dictatorship’ riches.
Antonio Jose made a smile without grace, almost as if his lips did not own the strength to maintain it.
—My son, I wish it was only that— he grabbed Jonás by the shoulders —. It is not about New Force, or Free Times, or any fascist grouping with outdated ideas of forty years ago, what your grandfather had ...
-—Stand up, both of you!
The voice echoed between the empty and open platforms of the station, like a crow fluttering strongly among the iron beams. Both turned like a spring, but the figure was already less than two meters from them, with the barrel of a huge pistol pointing at them. Standing there and smiling at them with a malevolent expression of satisfaction was Cristóbal Asensio, or rather Francisco Chacón, alias Billy the kid.