Midnight In Madrid

NINE

BARCELONA, SEPTEMBER 6, LATE EVENING

In the hours after picking up their cargo from Habib, Jean-Claude and his two assistants had driven northward past Naples, then the next day continued past Rome. Driving and sleeping in shifts, they eventually had driven past Pisa and Florence until they arrived at the massive shipyards of Genoa.

There they had waited until the proper ship was ready for them. The ship was a freighter named El Fuguero, a Portuguese merchant vessel that flew a Liberian flag. Their secret cargo remained in twenty separate packets, each weighing about five kilos, or ten pounds. For good measure, Jean-Claude had repacked them in fresh luggage purchased at an Italian department store along the route to Genoa. Jean-Claude’s henchmen then left the ship, but Jean-Claude, using his French passport, bought passage in one of the steamer’s inexpensive staterooms.

The next morning, El Fuguero hoisted anchor and sailed westward from Genoa. It was the twenty-ninth of August. It made a stop in Corsica and then another in Marseilles, where it docked for two days. There the crew enjoyed the run of the sunny old port, the bars, the cafés, the gambling parlors, and, in particular, the international brothels.

Jean-Claude had struck up friendships with a few of the crew members along the way and accompanied them on their lusty evening exploits while in port, particularly the fleshier locations. He boldly informed his new friends that he was a professional teacher with a job waiting for him to teach language in October in Brooklyn, New York. But he also cited his affection for the fresh sea breezes of the Mediterranean and wanted to enjoy a brief holiday before flying to America.

Then, after two evenings in Marseilles, the ship hoisted anchor again and sailed southward through a stretch of the western Mediterranean that was busy with cruise ships, merchant vessels, and private yachts chartered by wealthy men and the women who, for a price, loved them.

El Fuguero was never far from the coast of mainland Europe. It passed the distant mountains of the Pyrenees, the border between France and Spain, and ultimately entered Spanish territorial waters. It easily navigated the tricky currents off Cap de Creus on the Spanish coast and came within fifteen knots of Barcelona. There it stopped and dropped anchor in a peaceful but ever-changing sea, swept by sun and wind.

It was the evening of September 4. El Fuguero waited. So did its clandestine cargo, and so did Jean-Claude, a much appreciated passenger, who was gracious to all and raised the suspicions of none.

On the evening of September 6, a berth opened unexpectedly in the commercial shipyard in Barcelona. El Fuguero sailed into the harbor with the late evening high tide and docked. An hour later, Jean-Claude disembarked like any other tourist or citizen of the European Union. He had both duffel bags slung over his left shoulder and held his passport in his right hand.

As he walked past Spanish customs, he nodded amiably to inspection officers who nodded back to him.

“You care to check my bags, Señores?” he asked in Spanish.

“¿Ciudadano español?” asked one of the officers. Spanish citizen?

“Ciudadano francés,” he said in return. He indicated his French passport if they wished to check it.

The officers shook their heads, waving him on. Two minutes later, Jean-Claude spotted a driver who was there at the docks to meet him.

The driver was a young man named Mahoud who was a Spanish citizen, and whom Jean-Claude had recruited earlier in the year into a tiny little cell of self-styled terrorists in Madrid. Mahoud was an auto mechanic by trade. He had a sixth grade education.

Jean-Claude greeted Mahoud with an embrace. Then he shoved his two duffels into the backseat of Mahoud’s car and slid in after them. He eased back and lit a cigarette as the car began to move.