On the way back to the hotel, Laia and I bombarded Felip with questions, but we didn’t learn much. Felip had been on his way back from Almería when Chad had called him and told him to meet us all here in the hills. Felip had arrived on the hillside after it was all over and the hole had been widened enough to allow Chad in. He didn’t know much more than we did, but he was so happy that we were okay that he didn’t seem interested in questioning anything. Even after I’d given him the outline of the story that Gorky told us and Laia had wondered out loud why Chad seemed to be so tight with the Spanish police, all he said was, “I’m sure Chad will clear up all the details over dinner.”
As soon as the elevator doors closed, I took the crumpled paper out of my pocket. “What’s that?” Laia asked.
“Chad gave it to me,” I replied, smoothing it out. The note said, You and Laia meet me in the bar at eight o’clock. Don’t tell Felip.
“I guess he wants to tell us something he doesn’t want Felip to hear,” Laia said.
“Yeah,” I agreed, “and I’m fine with that. I just want to know what’s going on.”
Laia and I went to our rooms. I sat on my bed, determined to think things through and try to make sense of it all. I failed. I set my alarm and immediately fell into a deep sleep. When I woke up it was dark, and every square inch of my body ached. It was seven forty-five. I dragged myself into the shower.
The hot water stung my cuts, but I didn’t care. My nap had refreshed me, but I still felt like my world had been turned upside down. Ever since DJ had sent the pages from Grandfather’s notebook, trying to understand what they meant had been our focus. We had been threatened and kidnapped, but we had done well. We had broken the code, worked out what the locations were and what their significance was, fitted all the bits (including the story Gorky had told us) into a coherent narrative that explained most, if not all, of what we had been given. There had been nothing about a drug deal. Now this mystery man, Chad, who kept showing up in the most unexpected places, was saying that everything we thought we understood was meaningless. I refused to believe that we’d been wrong every step of the way—but it had been a soccer ball Chad kicked to me, that I was sure of.
Another idea crossed my mind. Had Grandfather organized this as a joke? If he had, it was incredibly elaborate and expensive. Was it some kind of test? A joke or a test. Neither seemed likely, given the lengths Grandfather would have had to go to. And how could he possibly have known that his grandsons would be the ones to find the stuff in the cabin? I was so confused that any wild idea was up for grabs.
As I gently dabbed my painful cuts dry and wandered back out to my bedroom, I had an idea. Picking up the TV remote, I flipped through the channels until I found the news. The first thing I saw was a shot of the hillside, taken from a helicopter; there were figures and vehicles all around. You could see hooded men, one with his arm in a sling, being bundled into police cars; a stretcher with a body on it was being loaded into an ambulance. I had to concentrate to try to understand what the commentator was saying. There was nothing about a bomb. I grasped enough to understand that there had been a drug bust in the hills. The police chief said something about a tipoff, and then a politician talked about how Spain must clamp down on the growing problem of drugs being smuggled in through the local ports. Then the news moved on to the upcoming Real Madrid versus Barcelona soccer game. What was going on? The bomb—or the soccer ball—was being hushed up, written out of the story. I turned the TV off, and as I dressed, I promised myself that I wouldn’t stop questioning Chad until I got the whole story out of him.
As it turned out, I hardly had to ask a single question.
Just before eight I knocked on Laia’s door, and we headed down to the bar together. On the way, I only had time to tell her what I had heard and seen on the TV and confirm that she was as confused by it as I was. Chad was waiting for us in a booth. He stood up as we approached. I opened my mouth to say something, but he got the first word in. “Before you say anything,” he said, “I want to apologize. I have lied to you both and used you shamelessly. I cannot expect forgiveness, but I ask that you listen to what I have to say. I hope you will at least then understand.”
I looked at Laia; we both nodded.
“Excellent,” Chad said as we sat. “First, what would you like to drink?”
“Kas,” Laia and I said.
“Okay,” Chad said. “While I get them, you should probably read this. It was taped underneath the soccer ball.” He handed me an envelope. There was nothing written on it. Laia and I moved closer together, and I carefully lifted the flap and pulled out two sheets of paper. Both pages were covered with tight, neat writing that sent a shiver through me even before I read the first word. This was a letter from Grandfather.
I have no idea who will read this, if anyone, but if you are standing in the Spanish sunshine, wondering why you have just found a soccer ball inside a Roman mine, you deserve some kind of an explanation.
It is unlikely that you have stumbled across this; therefore, you have followed a trail of clues to reach this point. I intend to leave clues to this and to other aspects of my complex and secret life in a secure place. If that is how you have found this, then I will be long dead, and I offer you my posthumous congratulations. If your code name is that of a Russian writer, then I say—too late.
There was a time in 1938 when I was convinced I could never return to Spain, but now, in 1975, with Franco on his deathbed, I find I am back for the third time. I passed briefly through during the Second World War, I was here in 1966, and now I am back. Of course, I have never been back as myself. During the war I had no identity; I was a shadow passing through the landscape by night. The other two visits have been as Pedro Martinez.
For those of us who survived Spain in the 1930s, it was hard to give up the fight. Some, like Kim Philby—whom I met in 1938 outside Barcelona when he was, supposedly, a reporter and I was about to be repatriated—had already chosen sides and simply continued the secret work they were doing. Others, like my fellow survivor Bob and myself, were less certain. The world after Hitler and Mussolini were defeated was a complex place. I missed the certainty of what we had fought for in Spain, and however hard I searched, I could find no cause that promised a better world. I was approached by the Soviets, but by then I knew a little of what Stalin had done to those who disagreed with him, so I turned them down.
Several months after that, Bob came to visit me. He told me that the Soviets had approached him as well and that he had accepted their offer. He asked if I would work beside him. Again I said no.
The very next day, I was visited by an American, a rather brash young man, who suggested that I keep in loose contact with Bob, but that I work for him. We talked a long time, and he was very persuasive, presenting the work I would do not as picking one side or the other, but rather as finding and using information to maintain a balance in the world. He said it was futile to try and make the world a better place, and that the best we could hope for was to stop it from getting any worse. I thought long and hard before I accepted his suggestion, and I drew the line at becoming a full double agent, but I guess I liked the idea of being in touch with both sides. Of course, it never worked out as simply as I had expected, and every job I did had its own issues and drew me deeper and deeper into this strange secret life I find myself in now.
In any case, shortly after Christmas of 1965, I was contacted by my young friend and told that I had to go back to Spain. He had word of a plot to sabotage a plane carrying nuclear weapons. Despite my identity as Pedro Martinez, I was very nervous, but I went. I met our information source in Spain and for the first time learned of Gorky and his network. I didn’t agree with the American nuclear policy, but what Gorky was trying to do was madness. I came and based myself in Palomares in hopes that Gorky would show himself. I could think of nothing else to do.
Every day, I came into the hills to watch the B-52s refueling, and the rest of my time I spent traveling around, listening, trying to find the slightest hint of who Gorky was or where he might be. I talked with everyone I met, including the shepherds in the hills. I learned many fascinating stories, one of which led me to the ancient mine where you discovered the ball.
Unfortunately, my attempts to prevent the sabotage failed. The planes did blow up and the bombs fell—thank God they didn’t explode. Some of the bombs did, however, break apart, and the plutonium core from one landed close by. Knowing Gorky was somewhere nearby and would do anything to obtain this weapon, I hid it in the mine.
I didn’t know who I could trust. Remember, these were very paranoid times. We all thought we were on the brink of destroying the world. Children used to practice hiding under their desks for when the bombs dropped. There were books and films about an accident or a mistake triggering nuclear war. I didn’t want the bomb I had found to fall into the wrong hands.
After I hid the bomb, I left Palomares quickly. The area was crawling with police and American soldiers, and the chances of my real identity being discovered were too great. However, I did take a risk. I went to Barcelona and visited Maria. I told her what I had done. That was probably a mistake, but seeing her again after all those years was wonderful. We talked all night. She said that I should leave the bomb hidden so that it could never be used by anyone. She said that it would be a tiny piece of good I could do to make the world a better place. I agreed. I think that night, seeing Maria again, I would have agreed to turn myself in to Franco’s police if she had asked me.
I left Maria as the sun was rising, and it was the hardest thing I have ever done. But I had to get out of Spain, and I had a wife and family back in Canada. Why is it that life leaves so many loose ends? But I am wallowing in nostalgia and becoming maudlin. This will be of little interest to you, whoever you may be, so I must complete my tale.
After I crossed the Spanish border, reported to the young American and told him the whole story, omitting only that I had hidden the bomb, I returned to Canada and had as much of a normal life as I could manage in those strange days.
As the years passed, Gorky’s name cropped up from time to time. I realized that when he was not on the run from the Americans, he was hunting me. There could be only one reason: the bomb. Somehow he had discovered its existence and thought I knew its location. Now it was too dangerous to leave it in the cave. I resurrected Pedro Martinez and came back to Spain. I will replace the bomb with the soccer ball and this note, place the bomb close to Morón Air Base and phone in an anonymous tip. The Americans will no doubt dispose of the bomb quietly. There are no more nuclear-armed B-52s in the sky—we have more efficient ways of killing each other now.
I don’t know how much of this, if any, will make sense to you, but I need to set the story down. I will write other things down in other places in case the day ever comes when I have to justify any of the things I have done.
I will return home now and devote my time to my family. They, after all, are what is truly important. I will not visit Maria again.
David McLean