The Spanish Game

41. Sleeper

And so the cover-up moves into place, and for five days the terrible, invisible, inevitable power of the secret state envelops Spain. How many of the players in this Establishment fix know the truth about the dirty war? Aznar? The proprietors of El País and TVE? A few house-trained executives and editors? It is impossible to know. I acknowledge the brilliance of SIS – with, quite probably, an American input – yet find that I am dejected by the speed with which the press have been duped and cajoled. Sofía’s letter has much to do with my sombre mood: a sense of intense regret overcomes me as I realize that the aftermath of my sick little game was just another fix and sham. I question time and again whether it was the right thing to do. Saul’s words haunt me: What are you doing to make amends, Alec?’

As Kitson predicted, both Félix Maldonado and Javier de Francisco flee to Colombia – on the same aeroplane – where they both go to ground, despite the best efforts of the republic’s finest journalists to track them down. Three days later their wives and children follow unmolested. Carmen and three other women from the secretarial pool, as well as numerous individuals from the Interior Ministry, were taken into custody at the weekend for questioning. I have heard nothing from her, despite attempting to make contact on four separate occasions.

In Gara, the ETA-sympathetic newspaper printed in San Sebastián, Eugenio Larzabal runs a story on 12 May in which he attempts to link the kidnap and murder of Mikel Arenaza and the disappearance of Juan Egileor to de Francisco’s sudden flight to Colombia ‘in the teeth of the Interior Ministry finance scandal’. Ahotsa is more reserved – and Zulaika’s by-line nowhere to be seen – yet the paper claims to have traced the car seen at the shootings in southern France to ‘an associate of Andy Moura’. Extensive research has also been conducted into Mohammed Chakor’s background, and an editorial urges the Madrid government to investigate why a known drugs smuggler was photographed in February of this year talking to Sergio Vázquez, the disgraced CNI officer pardoned by Félix Maldonado. In El Mundo there is a similarly tantalizing but ultimately inconclusive op-ed about a possible third GAL. When I read these stories, I fear that the entire edifice of the cover-up will crumble in a matter of hours, but on Tuesday there is not a single article or letter or news story dedicated to the suggestion of a third dirty war in any outlet of the mainstream Spanish media. Again I marvel at the extent of the cover-up, yet lament its efficacy. Why, at the very least, have there not been demonstrations on the streets of Bilbao? Has the government done a deal with Batasuna, promising prisoner releases or leverage in votes against the PNV? It has all come down to tradeoffs. It has all come down to politics.

Kitson rings on the morning of the 14th. I am surprised to hear from him; a part of me was resigned to the fact that we would never meet again. And I had grown used to that. It didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would.

‘So what do you think?’ he asks.

‘What do I think about what?’

‘The press reports. The angle on the financial scandal?’

‘It looks to me like a dam that is waiting to break.’ This may sound like I’m baiting him, but it is an honest assessment of the situation now that several days have passed. ‘For the moment, Aznar seems safe. He moved quickly, he distanced himself from the culprits, he assumed a presidential air on the White House lawn. But how long can it last? This is Spain’s Watergate. You can’t bury a story of this magnitude for long, regardless of how much money or influence the Americans think they have. El País has been told to keep its mouth shut, but when smaller left-wing outlets get hold of the story they’re not going to pass up an opportunity to hammer the PP. Then it’s just a question of who gets the exclusives, who can track down the main players. Open season. They say that Maldonado and de Francisco were squirrelling away millions of euros in secret bank accounts, but nobody has heard their side of the story.’

‘Upbeat as ever, Alec,’ he replies, ‘upbeat as ever. Look, if the Aznar government falls, it falls because of bad management at the top. Better that than an illegal state-funded war against ETA.’

‘True.’ That’s what all of this boils down to.

‘Anyway, I have news.’

He sounds chirpy. I am sitting alone in Cáscaras eating my breakfast and looking out of the window. As we talk I keep thinking about what Kitson said in Starbucks: ‘Aznar is trying to drag this country, kicking and screaming, into the twenty-first century. Nothing must be allowed to get in the way of that.’ But does Spain want to be dragged? Isn’t it the beauty of this country that she is fine just the way she is?

‘What news?’

‘Lithiby is in town. He wants to see you tonight. What are you doing for dinner, Alec?’

I experience only a small pulse of excitement, nothing more. In truth I no longer care whether or not he offers me a job. How can that be? For weeks it was all that I could think of. All of the risks and hard work were justified if they moved me towards the reconciliation I craved. Yet I find that I am exhausted and strung out; I have learned nothing about myself except the clear impossibility of changing my nature. I would happily spend the rest of my days living on a beach in Goa if it would keep me out of people’s way. It turns out that all I ever wanted was approbation and, now that I have it, it proves worthless. And what of the human cost? Both Sofía and Carmen have been destroyed by my craven behaviour.

‘Nothing,’ I tell Kitson. ‘I’m not doing anything for dinner.’

I had planned to go over to Carmen’s apartment, to try to talk to her, perhaps even to explain, and I might still do that before any meeting with Lithiby.

‘Good. What about Bocaito. Do you know it?’

‘Of course I know it. I was the one who told you about it.’

‘So you did, so you did. Well, nine o’clock suit? He’ll be on British dinner time.’

‘Nine o’clock will be fine.’ So this is to be my crowning ceremony, the spy who came in from the cold. A pretty girl walks past the window and I look at her through the glass, getting nothing back. ‘What hotel is he staying at?’

Kitson hesitates and says, ‘I haven’t the slightest idea.’

‘And are you coming?’

‘Me? No. I’m going back to London.’

‘Already?’

‘On the next plane. Most of the team were called home at the weekend.’ Kitson puts on a voice, a comic affectation that I’ve not heard him try before, imitating a bureaucratic mandarin. ‘Insufficient numbers back home to exploit leads indicating active preparations for terrorist attacks on UK soil. Manning the pumps, in other words.’

‘Well, good luck. Hopefully we’ll catch up one day.’ It feels like a strange thing to say, an abrupt goodbye. Kitson doesn’t respond, just ventures an upbeat, ‘Oh, guess what?’

‘What?’

‘They found Juan Egileor an hour ago.’

‘Who did?’

‘SIS. In Thailand.’

‘What the fuck was he doing in Thailand?’

‘Good question. Resort in Koh Samui. No sign of a kidnapper, no sign of mistreatment. Just a Spanish translation of The Beach on his hotel bed beside a teenage boy from Bangkok with a sore arse and a sheepish grin on his face.’

‘Jesus. So he wasn’t abducted? He just took off of his own accord?’

‘It would appear so.’

And we leave it at that. Kitson tells me that Egileor is being questioned in the Thai capital and will be flown home within the week. The press, he says, have yet to be informed about his reappearance, but an absence of foul play ‘will certainly assist in quashing rumours of government interference’.

It’s not until later that evening, at Carmen’s apartment, that I realize quite how misguided that assumption is.

‘So take care,’ Kitson tells me. And remember. Bocaito. Nine o’clock.’

‘Nine o’clock.’