Scarface had moved forward so silently, I had heard nothing, and now he was holding a gun to my head. And smiling. I instantly broke out in a cold sweat. I couldn’t take my eyes off the round black hole in the center of the gun’s barrel. It wasn’t very large, but all I could think of was the bullet exploding out of it and tearing through the flesh and bone of my head.
“What are you doing?” There was a definite note of panic in Laia’s voice now. My breath was coming in short gasps, and my mouth felt drier than the rocks and sand around us.
“I am making a point,” Blue Eyes said conversationally. “You undoubtedly noticed how easily my colleagues and I picked you off the street. Please do not doubt that we can do that anytime we wish—here, in Seville or in Barcelona. I have many contacts around the world, even in Toronto—Mississauga, to be precise, Steve.”
Blue Eyes smiled at me, and I swallowed hard.
“I am absolutely certain, Laia, that you would wish nothing bad to happen to Steve. I, too, would deeply regret any harm that came to him. However, the unfortunate truth is that Steve is surplus to my requirements. It is you, not your Canadian friend, who can persuade Felip to terminate the deal he is discussing with the American.” He turned to Scarface. “I think Steve has seen enough of the gun.”
The big man lowered his weapon, replaced it in the holster under his jacket and stepped back. He looked almost disappointed.
“I am a generous man,” Blue Eyes continued. “I will give you forty-eight hours. By that time, the American must be gone and you and Felip must be on your way back to Seville.” Blue Eyes nodded, and Scarface and Tattoo Head drifted toward the SUV. “I have enjoyed our conversation,” he said, turning back to Laia and me, “but I am a busy man, and my affairs do not run themselves. I regret that I cannot offer you a ride back into town, but the walk is all downhill, and it will give you a chance to reflect on my proposal.” Blue Eyes smiled broadly and strolled over to the SUV. Tattoo Head opened the front passenger door for him. When the door closed, Tattoo Head looked over at us and gave a small wave. It was not a friendly gesture.
I held it together until the SUV was out of sight and then my legs gave way, and I collapsed onto my knees. Laia was crouched beside me in an instant. “Are you okay?” she asked.
I took a deep breath and let it out. “To be honest, I’ve been better,” I said with a weak smile. “I really thought he was going to shoot me.” I was almost crying with relief. Laia hugged me for a long time. When my emotions had settled down, I kissed her, and then we stood up. “What do we do now?” I asked.
“We’d better walk into town,” Laia said. I glanced at my watch and was amazed how little time had passed since the SUV had picked us up. It had seemed like a lifetime.
“We should still be on time to meet Felip,” Laia said.
“Do you think Felip will do what Blue Eyes wants?” I asked as we set off.
“Blue Eyes?”
“That’s how I think of the old guy,” I explained. “Like the singer Frank Sinatra, although I doubt our Blue Eyes has ever sung in Las Vegas.”
“Didn’t this Frank Sinatra have connections to organized crime?” Laia asked.
“Yeah,” I said, “but I don’t think anything was ever proven. Is our Blue Eyes organized crime?”
“Russian Mafia, I would guess,” Laia said. “They’re big players all up and down this coast now.”
“He doesn’t look like a mob guy.”
“They all look like businessmen these days, but his friends looked like mobsters.”
“You’re right,” I acknowledged. “Scarface and Tattoo Head.”
Laia laughed. It sounded good. “Do you give everyone nicknames?”
“Not everyone,” I said. “Just rude mobsters who don’t introduce themselves. So Blue Eyes controls the real estate around here.”
“Probably through bribes and threats,” Laia explained, “but it’s not only real estate. The Russians control most of the prostitution and drugs along the coast. It’s easy to bring girls from Eastern Europe and hashish, cocaine and heroin from Africa and Asia into any of the ports along here. Most of the drugs in Europe come in through Mediterranean ports. It’s a huge business, and people like Blue Eyes control it.”
“And he doesn’t want the Americans taking his business away.”
“Exactly. American mobs might want to muscle in on his turf, or honest businessmen might take offense at the way he does business here. The last thing he wants is the American war-on-drugs guys sniffing around his operation.”
“Do you think you’ll be able to persuade Felip to back off?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Felip hates to feel like he’s being pressured to do something he doesn’t want to. He’s very stubborn. It’ll depend how it’s presented to him.”
“How will you do that?”
“The first thing is to find out how it went with your friend Chad. If he doesn’t want to go ahead, then our problem’s solved.”
“I hope it works out,” I said, uncomfortable that my future safety might depend on Chad. “When they picked us up, I was sure it had something to do with Grandfather’s notebook and the code.”
“Me too. I guess we’ve become a bit paranoid about spies and saboteurs.” Laia stopped and pulled the GPS out of her pocket.
“We don’t need that,” I said. “We can just follow the track down the hill.”
Laia nodded and busied herself with the buttons. “I thought so,” she said. “Location number five is close, just around that hillside.” She pointed to the left.
“You still want to find out what Grandfather’s notebook means, even after what just happened to us?”
“We can’t change what happened, and we have time before we meet Felip. There’s probably nothing there, but don’t you want to find out for sure? If we don’t find anything, then it’s over. I can’t think of any other leads we can follow.”
“Okay,” I agreed. “Let’s take a quick look. I do want to know what the fifth location is.”
We left the path and worked our way around the hillside, Laia consulting the GPS. After about ten minutes, we came to a flatter area. “We’re here,” Laia announced.
“You were right,” I said, sitting on a large, flat rock. “There’s nothing here. The ground looks the same as everywhere else in these hills—rocks, sand, cactus and a few scrub bushes. We could be on the set for a cowboy movie in New Mexico or Arizona. If anything happened here in 1966, there’s no sign of it now.”
“Maybe,” Laia said. She was staring past me at the gently sloping hillside above us. “Some of the hillside has slumped down.”
I stood up and turned around. If I looked hard, I could just make out a shallow, V-shaped groove on the hillside that led down to a jumble of rocks and dirt where the ground leveled out. The scar on the hillside, and even the rocks at its base, were barely visible. Bushes and cacti grew all over. “I see it,” I said, “but this happened hundreds of years ago, maybe even when the Carthaginians or Romans were here. In any case, way before 1966.”
“It did,” Laia agreed, “but what do you call what’s at the bottom of the slump?”
Suddenly it became clear. “A rockfall!”
“Was your grandfather telling whoever decoded the notebook that something dangerous was hidden behind the rockfall here?”
“Maybe,” I said as I moved toward the rocks, “but if the slump happened long before 1966, it couldn’t be the fifth bomb. This is a dead end.” I was suddenly very tired and thirsty, and every time I let my mind wander, Scarface, Tattoo Head and Blue Eyes leaped into it. I sat down. “These rocks haven’t moved in ages.” I looked out over Palomares and the new buildings lining the coast. All owned by Blue Eyes. I had much more urgent issues than figuring out what Grandfather’s cryptic notes meant. The image of the black barrel of Scarface’s gun hovered before me. It made my stomach lurch, and a wave of nausea passed over me. I suddenly felt cold.
“There are marks on the rock here,” Laia said from behind me. She was crouched beside it, peering at something. “There’s a cross and a line and something that looks like an arrowhead.”
“So what?” I asked miserably. “We’re not going to find anything here. There’s no magic door that will open and give us the answer to everything.” I was speaking more harshly than I intended, but I was feeling sick and scared. “Can we go? I’m not feeling very well.”
Immediately, Laia was beside me, the rocks forgotten. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“I don’t know. My stomach doesn’t feel right, and I can’t get the image of Scarface holding the gun to my head out of my mind. It’s probably just the tension, but can we go and see Felip? I’ll feel much better if he tells us that Chad doesn’t want the land and is on his way back to Madrid. Maybe we can come back and look around here later.”
Laia put her hand on my forehead. “You feel clammy,” she said. “Are you okay to walk down?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll be doing something. That will help take my mind off Blue Eyes and his threats.”
“Okay,” Laia said, offering me her arm as I stood up shakily, “let’s head down. You’re probably getting dehydrated as well. Something to drink and a snack will help.”
“Don’t you feel scared?” I asked as we headed back to the path and down toward the town.
“Of course I do,” Laia said. “I’ll probably wake up in the middle of the night worrying. But while there’s something that needs to be done, I can focus on that, and right now what needs to be done is getting you down the hill.”
I smiled to myself, thinking, despite everything, how incredibly lucky I was to have met Laia. I began to feel better as we walked. Laia told me stories about Carthage and Rome and the wars they had fought. Her enthusiasm for her country’s rich history helped lift my spirits. All I needed was something to drink and good news from Felip.