The Caper of the Golden Bulls

Chapter nine

At four o’clock in the morning Peter and Francois walked quickly through the dark streets of Pamplona. It was seventh July, the day of San Fermin, and the city was like a huge bow drawn to the breaking point; trembling and eager to release its gathered energies.

Every hotel and pension in the town was packed to the walls; every table in every restaurant in the city had been booked solid for weeks.

In two hours the bombs would sound, the bulls would break for the streets, and the fiesta would explode into life; it didn’t start or commence in any normal or predictable fashion, Peter remembered, at one second it wasn’t; the next second it was a sudden, roaring fact.

They turned into the Calle de la Estefeta and walked towards the plaza that spread in a semi-circle about the building of the Ayuntamiento.

Francois wore a dark suit. Peter was dressed in a heavy brown sweater and grey slacks. They both carried suitcases.

On their way to the plaza they passed labourers, a policeman, and a group of seemingly bewildered young Danes also carrying suitcases.

There were nods, smiles, salutes. Peter and Francois turned off the Estefeta and were alone once again, swinging on briskly through the darkness.

When they reached the plaza, Francois put down his suitcase and studied his watch. Peter went into the narrow passageway that led to the warehouse behind the bank, and knelt before the clusters of iron grille work covering the basement windows. It was quieter and darker in the passageway, with a chill bite in the damp air. He opened his suitcase and removed a transistor-powered chain-saw, which glittered dully in the gloom. It was ten inches long, and looked as if it had been designed for children, but its fine teeth were capable of gnawing through anything but processed steel plate.

The grille work inclined towards the wall of the building at a forty-five degree angle. Peter sliced it from its frame in a single piece, and smeared the shiny cuts with black grease. The grille work angled to the wall as it was, could be replaced in its frame as neatly and firmly as a lid on a pot. Peter set it aside and drew a line on the bottom of a window-pane with a glass cutter. He covered this with transparent tape, and made three more incisions on the top and sides of the glass. When he gently prodded the pane with his fingertip, it fell open like a trap door, hinged by the strip of transparent tape. Peter put a hand through the window, found the catch and released it. He then replaced the pane of glass and secured it firmly with three more strips of tape. It would have required a close examination to reveal that the window had been tampered with. The work had taken sixty-five seconds.

Boots rang in the plaza. Someone hailed Francois. Peter froze against the wall.

“Yes, yes, I do need a room,” he heard Francois say, in a much too hearty voice.

Peter crept up the passage and peered into the plaza. Francois was talking to a policeman.

“In that case, I’ll take you to my brother’s home,” the policeman said. “It’s only a cot, but you’re lucky to find anything now. And it’s not expensive.”

“But I’m waiting for friends.”

“Here? At this hour?”

“They’re driving up from Madrid.”

“Oh. Didn’t you come into the plaza with someone else? A tall man with a suitcase?”

“A tall man?” Francois laughed pointlessly. “Yes. He’s gone through. He’s got a girl in town.”

“Lucky fellow.”

The policeman went away, his boots ringing hollowly on the cobblestones. When the sound faded to a murmur, Francois wheeled and ducked into the passage alongside Peter. He was breathing hard; sweat beaded his forehead.

“Come on,” Peter said, moving off into the darkness...

The basement of the warehouse was immense. Peter stood behind the concealing bulk of a stone column and snapped on his flashlight. An irregularly pitched ceiling arched above them like the roof of a cave.

Peter’s torch formed a small pool of yellow light at his feet, and sent shadows leaping like phantoms towards the distant walls. The air was heavy and damp and motionless, like the air in a meat locker.

Peter took a compass from his pocket and turned the torch on it, and when the needle stopped flickering, he nodded to Francois, and followed the arrow through the darkness until he came to the wall that stood between him and the vaults of the bank. He checked his compass and studied the surface of the wall appraisingly. After a bit, he took out a crayon and drew on the dull-red bricks two black circles, three inches in diameter, three feet apart, and three feet above the floor.

He opened the suitcase, removed two hand-drills, gave one to Francois.

“Let’s go,” he said.

The drills dug and clawed with an angry sound at the stubborn bricks and mortar. Dust and powder rose and streaked their shining faces.

Church bells rang the quarter hours above the sleeping city, and from the streets came the voice of workers, faint and indistinct, and the thud of mallets on heavy timbers.

Francois leaned against the wall. Blood gleamed brightly from one of his knuckles.

“What is that?”

“The barricades. They’re putting them up.”

“Do we have enough time?”

“Yes. Keep drilling.”

“How much longer, for God’s sake? Look at my hands.”

“Keep drilling.”

Above them the city began to stir slowly and heavily, stretching itself like a great healthy animal. Water rumbled through the sewers beneath their feet, and there were muted sounds of traffic in the street. The gloom of the basement became streaked with slivers of pale light. “Good God, do we have time?”

“Yes.”

Peter knelt beside the suitcase to prepare his charges. But first he nibbled thoughtfully on a splinter of brick, attempting to learn something of its grain and porosity. He learned very little. The shot would be mainly guesswork, he knew, as he spat dust from his mouth and removed the blasting equipment from the suitcase.

Francois sucked blood from his damaged knuckles and watched him with anxious eyes.

Peter placed the blasting machine behind a stone column thirty feet from the wall. He unreeled fusing wire, measured it into forty-foot lengths, and cut each section carefully and squarely with a pen-knife. Using a hand-crimper he attached their ends snugly to electric detonator caps. He measured the length and diameter of the caps with his eyes. Two inches by a quarter-inch... He picked up a stick of dynamite and a: dynamite punch. Holding the dynamite in his left hand, he twisted the punch into the end of it with his other, driving the wooden pin deeply into the hard brittle explosive. Francois moved back. “You know what you’re doing?”

“Yes.”

When the holes were deep enough and wide enough, he screwed electric caps into them. He selected three sticks of dynamite for each charge, bound them together with friction tape, eased them carefully into the holes he and Francois had drilled into the wall. On top of the charges, he poured handfuls of loose brick and mortar; and pounded the mixture down hard with the flat of his hand.

Early light was spreading through the basement by then. Details emerged as the shadows shortened and retreated to the walls. There were empty packing cases, heaps of canvas hampers, a row of empty kegs, all of them covered with fine grey dust. There was only one door, and it was locked as Peter had surmised it would be from the opposite side.

It looked as if nothing short of dynamite would budge it; the panels were made of heavy slabs of hard wood, with massive iron hinges covering half their surfaces. “We have fifteen minutes,” Peter said.

He knelt behind the stone column, and examined the blasting machine.

Francois watched as Peter checked the plunger mechanism, the test pilot-light.

“You think it’s going to work?”

“Yes. There’ll be a heavy blast downward, a very little surface fragmentation. But cover your face, and stay behind the column. Now listen: We won’t have time to drill for the second shot. We’ll cover the dynamite with loose rock, as deep in the excavation as possible. Then we’ll stow this gear away and clear out of here. Fast.”

Francois studied Peter with a curious smile. The light in the basement was stronger and clearer now; it caught the flare of evil humour in his eyes, trapped that strange derisive spark that animated his commonplace features.

“And you’re doing all this for nothing,” he said, in a soft, musing voice. “For nothing but some crazy notion of honour. Tell me: what is honour? What’s it like?”

“It’s a good feeling.”

“Like the feeling after a fine dinner with excellent wines? Or like the feeling you have with a new and fascinating woman, someone sensual and experimental, who drives you as wild as salt in a fresh wound?”

Francois smiled delicately. “Is it a feeling like that?”

“No.”

“Then I can’t be missing very much.”

“Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”

“You’re a fool. I’ve found only one thing in life worth being loyal to, and that’s my own flesh and blood. In this world a man can only betray himself.” Francois smiled faintly. “So whatever you think, I’m no traitor. I always take good care of myself.”

Peter glanced at his watch.

“I’m boring you, eh?” There was a touch of bitterness in Francois’s tone. “You’re the dedicated hero, and I’m the tiresome weakling. Is that what you think?”

“Why worry about it? You say loyalty and heroism are accidents. You equate honour with a good meal and a roll in the hay. That’s a cosy philosophy. Cuddle up to it and make yourself comfortable.”

Francois rubbed his hands together as if they had suddenly become cold.

A tic pulled rhythmically at the corner of his mouth. “I wouldn’t worry if everyone believed as I do. But my enemies believe in honour. Like you, they’re fools.”

“Francois, understand me.” Peter’s voice was deceptively mild, but something in his eyes sent an unpleasant chill down Francois’s back.

“I’m doing this job for my friends. To keep them free and alive. If I don’t bring it off, they go down the drain. And so do I. But I promise you this: Before that happens, I’ll break your back with my own two hands.”

“Well, we want the same thing.” Francois managed a shrug, a smile.

“There’s no need for threats. You can count on me.”

The walkie-talkie Peter took from his pocket was no larger than a deck of cards. He looped it about his neck and put a hand on the plunger of the blasting machine. Then he glanced at his watch.

“We’ll see,” he said.

Grace held a walkie-talkie to her lips. She spoke into it sharply:

“Peter? Two minutes!”

She stood at the windows of a third-floor hotel room looking down at the bull pens. In the small square facing the corral, men ranged about in excited groups, glancing from their watches to the bulls. The river curved around the scene like a silver arm, smooth and glistening in the grey morning light.

The animals milled about restlessly. Faint but clear, the brass bells of the oxen sounded on the air.

“Peter?” There was no answer; she began to pray.

“I’m reading you fine.” The voice was Peter’s in miniature, tiny and metallic in her ears. “How do I sound?”

“Perfect.” She tightened her grip on the walkie-talkie to keep her fingers from trembling. “Did everything go all right?”

“No trouble so far.”

“They’re clearing the square now. The police are sending everybody out. One man is going over to the gates of the corral. He’s taking the bar down.”

“I’ve got one minute. Are we synchronised?”

“Yes. Fifty-five seconds now.”

Grace pulled the curtains back and moved closer to the window. On a low platform behind the corral, a Spaniard in uniform knelt beside a plunger attached to a blasting machine. The wires trailing from it ran across the ground to the river bank, and disappeared under a metal shell which was surrounded by a fence of thick wooden posts.

“Thirty seconds,” Grace said.

“What?”

“Thirty seconds.” She made herself speak clearly and firmly. “Thirty seconds, darling.”

“I’m ready.”

“Oh, be careful.”

“None of that now.”

“Yes, I’ll try. They’re opening the gate now. The bulls are moving towards it. I love you, Peter.”

“Ten seconds?”

“Yes. Peter, the bulls are starting to run! They’re ready to blast.”

“Five seconds?”

“Four... three... He’s holding the plunger! Now, Peter. Now!”

The old Basque town rocked with the explosion. Smoke shot out from under the huge metal shell, and rose in erratic puffs above the river.

The bulls were loose!

Grace put a hand tightly against her trembling lips and stared at the creeping second hand on her watch. In the square below the bulls charged the barricades, their neck muscles cresting with excitement and fury. The noise mounted in waves. The oxen circled the raging bulls, their huge brass bells ringing in mournful counterpoint to the joyous roars of the crowd.

The Spaniard on the platform watched the animals alertly, his hand resting on the plunger of the blasting machine.

Grace said a prayer. Then she whispered: “Peter?”

“Yes, I’m okay.” He was panting so hard that Grace could barely make out the words. “It was a good shot. Three feet or more. The second’s all set. What’s happening?”

“The bulls are calming down. Some of them are standing with the oxen. Now the others are coming over to them. There’s only one loose. A big grey and white one. He’s still butting the corral gate. Peter, get ready! He’s turning. He’s trotting across to the other bulls.”

The seven bulls formed a group flanked on all sides by lumbering oxen.

A man in grey twill overalls came out from behind the barricades and cracked a whip. He turned and waved to the Spaniards on the platform.

“They’re running, Peter. Running fast, Now, Peter. Now!” The second blast rocked the city. The bulls were free and on their way, and the daredevils in the barricaded streets ahead of them spat in their hands for luck and took to their heels.