Two years from retirement at the age of fifty-eight, he had been one of those who stepped ashore on the sand of Fuengirola with Francisco Franco many years ago when El Caudillo of modern Spain had been a rebel and outcast, returning against orders to launch war against the Republican government in Madrid. They had been few then, and condemned to death by Madrid, and they had nearly died.
Sergeant Almela was a good soldier. He carried out his orders, whatever they were, went to mass between the battles and the executions, and believed, deeply, in God, the Virgin, Spain, and Franco.
In another army at another time, he would have retired as a sergeant major. He emerged from the civil war a full captain, one of the ultras, the inner circle. His background was solid peasant, his education next to nil. But he had made full colonel, and he was grateful. He was also trusted with one of the jobs that in Spain is unmentionable and top secret. No Spaniard ever, under any circumstances, learns that Spain exports arms in large quantities to almost all comers. Publicly, Spain regrets the international arms trade as unethical and conducive to further warfare in a world already torn by war. Privately, she makes a lot of money out of it. Antonio Almela could be trusted to check the paperwork, decide whether to grant or refuse permission for export licenses, and keep his mouth shut.
The dossier in front of him had been in his hands for four weeks. Individual papers from the dossier had been checked out by the Defense Ministry, which had confirmed, without knowing why the question was being asked, that 9mm. bullets were not on the secret list; by the Foreign Ministry, which had confirmed, without knowing why, that the possession by the Republic of Iraq of 9mm. ammunition was not contrary to established foreign policy; and by the Finance Ministry, which had confirmed simply that a sum of money in dollars, paid into a certain account in the Banco Popular, had been received and cleared.
The top paper on the file was an application for a movement order to shift a quantity of crates from Madrid to Valencia and export them on a vessel called the MV Toscana. Beneath this sheet was the export license, granted by his own signature.
He glanced up at the civil servant in front of him. “Why the change?” he asked.
“Colonel, it is simply that there is no berth available in Valencia port for two weeks. The place is crowded to capacity.”
Colonel Almela grunted. The explanation was plausible. In the summer months Valencia was always crowded, with millions of oranges from the nearby Gandia area being exported. But he did not like changes. He liked to play things by the book. Nor did he like this order. It was small, too small for an entire national police force. Target practice alone for a thousand policemen would use it up in an hour. Nor did he trust Schlinker, whom he knew well and who had slipped the order through his Ministry with a batch of other orders, including more than ten thousand artillery shells for Syria.
He glanced through the papers again. Outside, a church bell struck the hour of one, the hour of lunch. There was still nothing wrong with the papers, including the End User Certificate. Everything bore the right stamp. If only he could find one discrepancy, in the certificate, in the carrying ship of the company that owned it. But everything was clean. Making a final decision, he scrawled his signature across the bottom of the movement order and handed the file back to the civil servant.
“All right,” he growled. “Castellón.”
“We’ve had to change the port of embarkation from Valencia to Castellón,” said Johann Schlinker two nights later. “There was no choice if the loading date of the twentieth was to be adhered to. Valencia was full for weeks.”
Cat Shannon was sitting on the bed in the German arms dealer’s room in the Mindanao Hotel. “Where’s Castellón?” he asked.
“Forty miles up the coast. It’s a smaller port, and quieter. Probably better than Valencia for you. The turnaround of your ship is likely to be quicker. The cargo agent in Valencia has been informed and will personally go north to Castellón to supervise the loading. As soon as the Toscana checks in with Valencia harbor authorities by radio, she will be advised of the change of port. She will only have a couple of hours’ extra steaming if she diverts at once.”
“What about my going aboard?”
“Well, that’s your business,” said Schlinker. “However, I have informed the agent that a seaman from the Toscana who was left behind ten days ago in Brindisi is due to rejoin, and given him the name of Keith Brown. How are your papers?”
“Fine,” said Shannon. “They’re in order, passport and merchant seaman’s card.”
“You’ll find the agent at the customs office in Castellón as soon as it opens on the morning of the twentieth,” Schlinker told him. “His name is Señor Moscar.”
“What about the Madrid end of things?”
“The movement order provides for the truck to be loaded under army supervision between eight and midnight on the nineteenth, tomorrow. It will set off with escort at midnight, timing its arrival at Castellón harbor gates for six a.m., the hour they open. If the Toscana is on time, she should have docked during the night. The truck carrying the crates is a civilian one, from the same freight firm I always employ. They’re very good and very experienced. I have given the transport manager instructions to see the convoy depart from the warehouse and to phone me here immediately.”
Shannon nodded. There was nothing he could think of that might go wrong. “I’ll be here,” he said, and left.
That afternoon he hired a powerful Mercedes from one of the internationally known car agencies that have offices in Madrid.
At half past ten the following evening he was back in the Mindanao with Schlinker while they waited for the telephone call. Both men were nervous, as men must be when a carefully laid plan rests for its success or catastrophic failure in the hands of others. Schlinker was as concerned as Shannon but for different reasons. He knew that, if anything went badly wrong, a complete investigation into the End User Certificate he had supplied could be ordered, and that certificate would not stand up to a complete investigation, which must include a check with the Interior Ministry in Baghdad. If he were exposed on that one, other, and for him far more lucrative, deals with Madrid would be forfeit. Not for the first time he wished he had not taken the order in the first place, but, like most arms dealers, he was a man so greedy that no offer of money could be turned down. It would almost be physical pain to do it.
Midnight came, and still there was no call. Then half past midnight. Shannon paced the room, snarling his anger and frustration at the fat German, who sat drinking whisky. At twelve-forty the phone rang. Schlinker leaped at it. He spoke several words in Spanish and waited.
“What is it?” snapped Shannon.
“Moment,” replied Schlinker and waved his hand for silence. Then someone else came on the phone and there was more Spanish, which Shannon could not understand. Finally Schlinker grinned and said, “Gracias,” into the phone several times.
“It’s on its way,” he said when he put the phone down. “The convoy left the depot fifteen minutes ago under escort for Castellón.”
But Shannon was gone.
The Mercedes was more than a match for the convoy, even though on the long motorway from Madrid to Valencia the convoy could keep up a steady 60 miles per hour. It took Shannon forty minutes to find his way out of the sprawling suburbs of Madrid, and he supposed the convoy would know the way much better. But on the motorway he could take the Mercedes to 100 mph. He kept a careful eye open as he sped past hundreds of trucks roaring through the night toward the coast, and found what he was looking for just past the town of Requena, forty miles west of Valencia.
His lights picked up the army jeep keeping station to a covered 8-ton truck, and as he swept past he noted the name on the truck’s side. It was the name of the trucking company Schlinker had given him. Driving ahead of the truck was another army vehicle, a four-door sedan, evidently with an officer sitting alone in the back. Shannon touched the accelerator, and the Mercedes sped past toward the coast.
At Valencia he took the ring road around the sleeping city, following the signs to the E26 highway to Barcelona. The motorway ran out just north of Valencia, and he was back to crawling behind orange trucks and early farm vehicles, past the miraculous Roman fortress of Sagunto, hacked by the legionaries out of the living rock and later converted by the Moors into a citadel of Islam. He drove into Castellón just after four and followed the signs labelled PUERTO.