Midnight In Madrid

FIFTY-TWO

MADRID, SEPTEMBER 14, 2:16 P.M.

For Maria, Friday hadn’t been quite as bad as the previous four days of the week. Still working with the irritating José Luis, they did a morning inspection of the sprawling Metro stop at Ruben Darío. The inspection was coordinated with another team, which included agents of the Guardia Civil, to secure the ventilation system beneath the chaotic traffic roundabout over their heads.

They broke for lunch. Maria went her way, José Luis went his. Maria avoided all the American fast-food places but found a little sandwich shop not too far from the square and purchased a bocadillo, a sandwich on French-type bread. She took her sandwich to the park, sat, and relaxed. During lunch, Maria flipped open her cell phone and called her daughter who was also on her lunch hour.

The normal mother-daughter conversation the world over.

“¿Qué tal el cole hoy?”

“Regular,” her daughter answered.

So much for details.

Maria Elena rang off. Amanda could be exasperating from time to time. Most times, actually, but no more than any other teenager. And in the same way that Maria had loved her father, she loved her daughter.

Punctually at 1:00, Maria returned to the northern entrance of the Ruben Darío stop. There was no sign of her coworker, José Luis. Not surprising, she simmered. He had been late returning from lunch every day this week, so why should this day be any different? It was obvious why he had no regular partner. He was a lousy, careless worker.

He turned up again at twelve minutes past the hour, garlic and wine on his breath. She could barely conceal her contempt. Hardly speaking, they went back down into the Metro station and, following one train, jumped down onto the tracks. They set off eastward toward the stop at Nuñez de Balboa. It was a seven-block inspection, one of the trickiest on her route, and she wished anew that her regular partner was there. The seven blocks would take the entire afternoon under the best of circumstances. José Luis was slow as frozen molasses sometimes. She already knew it was going to be a crappy afternoon.

They proceeded slowly, stepping out of the way of several trains as they rumbled through the dim tunnels. There was a work crew at Paseo de la Castellana, installing new junction boxes. The men were hot and dripping with sweat but getting their assignment done. She didn’t envy their work. Her own work, while she liked it, took her away from daylight and God’s open sky more than she might have cared for.

They continued to the section of tracks beneath the intersection of Calle de Serrano and Calle de Juan Bravo. She had walked this stretch many times over the last several years. She knew it had a certain feel, same as every other section of the city had a certain feel both above and below the streets.

She slowed down.

“¿Qué pasa?” José Luis asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Something’s off here.”

In the dim light, she could see the look of dismay on his face. As usual, he wanted to shortcut everything. “Stop,” she said.

He stopped. They stood on the tracks. She cocked her head. There were all the usual noises in the distance. Her hearing was so acute that she could tell that the nearest train was in the tunnel behind them, about five blocks away on the other side of Rubén Dario.

“Something’s wrong,” she said.

“Nothing’s wrong,” he said. “Let’s keep moving.”

“I hear something I shouldn’t. Like a hammering or a digging. Or both.”

“Hammering and digging don’t sound anything alike,” he said.

“Keep quiet!” she said again.

José Luis stopped and folded his arms. He too began to look around but not to locate the source of the noise.

She cocked her head again.

“The American Embassy is only one block from here,” she said.

“Well, that explains what you hear,” he said. “The Americans are probably torturing prisoners in the basement.”

“Not funny!” she snapped again. “Would you rather be speaking Russian today?”

“Anyone can do anything they want to the Americans as far as I’m concerned,” he said. “Why should we care? They don’t care about us. And in any case I don’t hear anything.”

He paused. She walked to the northern wall of the tunnel, not far from a locked door that led to some of the old wartime passageways. She listened and could hear the offending tap-tap-tap-scrape-scrape-scrape noises better.

He launched into a tirade. “Vosotras las mujeres siempre estan imaginando las cosas! Es como con mi mujer no sé quantas veces me ha despertado porque ha oído un supuesto sonido raro!” You women are always imagining things. It’s like it is with my wife: I don’t know how many times she’s woken me up because she’s heard a ‘strange noise’!

“No soy ninguna mujer histérica. Yo-si quieres creerme o no-he de veras oído algo raro que no son los ratones que suelen espantar a tu esposa y hacerla interromper tu descanso!” I’m not a hysterical woman and-whether you want to believe me or not-I’ve really heard something other than those mice that wake up your wife and make her interrupt your sleep.

He gave her a mocking laugh.

“Oh, the devil take you!” he said. “I’ve got a weak bladder from lunch. I’m going to disappear for a minute, okay?”

He gestured to the direction in which they had come. Plenty of dark dirty walls back there. Now she understood what he was getting antsy about.

“Fine. Take your time,” she said.

She waited a moment and watched him disappear.

Then she explored along the wall until she came to the decrepit service door that led to the old tunnels and passages. She shined a light on the lock. It was a simple padlock but it was one of the newer locks that had been installed along this stretch within the last year.

She rattled it. The noises she heard stopped.

She reached to her belt and found the master key.

She unlocked the padlock, pushed the door open, and stepped through.

Maria Elena found herself in a dark, stinky place. There was little light, uneven space to walk, and the stench of rats and fetid water. She ran her light around the chamber and then nearly jumped out of her skin.

There was a man kneeling there, staring at her. He had been working on something, and she had interrupted him. He had been making the noises she had heard.

He was a slight dark man with closely cropped black hair. His skin was mocha colored, and his eyes were dark. There was a scar across his forehead, and there was little doubt in her mind that this was the man she had heard.

There was a pile of dirt near him and he had a collection of tools. Chisels. Shovels. Hammers.

For a moment, he seemed frozen in the beam of her light.

“¿Quien es usted?” she demanded. “¿Qué hace?” Who are you? What are you doing?

The man in front of her said nothing. Nor did he give her any time to react or save herself. Rising from a crouch, he pulled a pistol from under his black sweatshirt. He swung it in a smooth motion at her, and he fired. There was a flash but no noise, followed instantly by a feeling of tearing and ripping at the midpoint of her gut.

The pain radiated, and the man fired a second shot. The second bullet hit her in the chest, also, not too far from the first.

She dropped everything she was carrying.

The pain was intense, then it was gone. The next thing she knew was that the filthy ground had come up and smacked her in the face. She was on the ground, her chest torn open, her whole being in shock.

Then a blackness descended quickly, one unlike anything she had ever experienced.

Maria Elena thought of her father and her daughter again for the final time. She imagined herself safe at home again, in the warm embrace of people she loved, both living and dead.

And then she died.