Iniga: Ley de Fuges

   Iniga was able to reach the street corner and, honed by years underground, her instincts told her she was being followed. Ducking into a shop entrance, she tried the door. Of course, it was locked. Unarmed but for a small butterfly knife, she knew there was no choice other than to toss the knife where she might find it afterward, if there was an afterwards, and to wait and watch. Waiting and watching was a talent developed over years as a guidari in the resistance. There was no traffic, so the tinny sound of the SEAT’s four-cylinder motor approaching came as an alarm. The sedan screeched to a halt with all but the driver’s door swinging open in the early dawning hour of the Barcelona morn.
   
   The irony of the trade-off for the release of Alesander was that Iniga, Harry Baker's closest confidant was his ransom, and, the Guardia Civil set in motion the poetry of doom after Iniga slipped away from his bed into the night. 

   She was politely interrogated at first. Her interrogator offered her a cigarette across the desk-top that was gouged with a hollow protest… “No pasaran!”:  probably scratched in with an edge of a captive’s hand cuffs. He called her by her alias as he opened a file, “Maria Francesco?”

   She knew that her alias would not have such a thick file and at first the ruse was courteously accepted. She had documentation. By all appearances her identity was settled. She had people from the enlaces, unaffiliated with guidari, that could have come to retrieve her but she was not about to implicate anyone else until she could determine the seriousness of her arrest. She played it like an innocent woman, Maria Francesco, caught on the streets in the predawn hour… “Si, senor,” her voice quavered.

   “You were on the street alone tonight… You are puta? No, you don’t look...”

   “No, no, no… no señor. I was going home but my brother couldn’t come for me.” She lifted her eyebrows and let her steel-gray eyes catch his. A woman couldn't be seen unescorted by a male family member in Franco's Spain. To be caught was to suffer a prison term or huge fine; i.e., bribe.

    “You’re eyes and accent, they are Basque? … even unusual for Basque, eh?” He flicked open a Zippo lighter… the US Marine Corps emblem etched on its face flickered little diamond reflections as it click-snapped, “I am Comandante Rojelio.”

   She restrained herself from a snide retort about the American source of the Zippo that would have been uncharacteristic of a woman of good standing. She stayed in character and managed to blush, casting her eyes towards her lap, “Yes, I am Basque.”

   “So, your name… Maria Francesco, it is uncharacteristic of Basque names too, eh?” he was now taking out a yellow legal tablet from the center desk drawer. “I have been honest with you as I have given you my name and rank. It is a futility of horrible consequences to try to deceive me, Iniga?”

   A chill straightened her spine. Her thoughts were clear… focused… sharp. This is where it begins. She knew what was coming. She would be told to list her enlaces (circle of supporters) in lieu of an offer… a chance that her plight might be relaxed. The Law of the Fugitives (Ley de Fugas) decreed a fugitive’s life was dirt. Any fugitive could be generously offered clemency and released. Then, as she walked away, believing to have avoided years of imprisonment, a bullet would be dispatched to the back of her head; thus saving considerable bother for all involved.

Her Trademark Smatchet

   “I’ve wanted to meet you for several years now. It is a curious phenomenon, notoriety, si?” the commandant was authentically moved to meet an adversary that had been a nemesis since he had graduated from the academy in 1948. He’d been on the scene when Alesander was taken and he had seen the only picture of her from a WWII snapshot in a file. She held, in that image, her trademark smatchet in front of her cupid bow lips framed by a face he would have no need to double-check.

   Refusing to list her collaborators assured her that she would be tortured, raped and, most likely, murdered instead. She knew, from morning sickness, that she held one trump card up her sleeve that could reprieve her from further torture… if the Commandant found it to his advantage. “I am embarazada.”

   “So, you want lodging with the nuns at la Ventas? I can assure you that your stay will be most comfortable for your first, what, nine months?” He saw her as a young woman that could have been his own wife or daughter and dreaded the torture and rape that he was sure she would be in store for her otherwise if she weren't pregnant..

   “More like seven or eight,” she thought back to when she first decided not to abort the child and her lips quivered for the first time.

   The Commandant was a practicing Catholic and, as a practicing Catholic, he’d embraced a compassion unfamiliar to those whose ambition pre-empted their devotion to Catholicism.

   “We are ready for whatever you can dish out, Commandant.” She stiffened her resolve and considered that she would indeed be more comfortable than she was sure to be afterwards, rotting in prison.

   “I’m sure you can endure more of it than me, Senorita… or should I say Senora?”

   “It is Senora. I am married to the Basque cause.” She knew that these words were an empty proclamation but had always wanted to say something along those lines if captured again because she was sure that the next time she would most likely be executed. She'd been captured before when she was young: so young that the oblivion of death couldn't be imagined because of the immortality of youth. It was little more than a romantic fantasy before the gears of experience dispelled that delusion.

   The Commandant stood to leave the room and stopped by the door, “You say you are married to the Basque cause, Senora, but the Basque cause has abandoned you. You will find your revolutionary fervor a luxury you can hardly afford from now on.”

   It would be hard for any but the most proficient observer to determine whether Harry harbored any feelings beyond the task he needed to perform. He did, indeed, love Iniga in his own way; but, could it be said he felt that love in the form of an emotion for her? So many years of working within the context of spy-craft didn’t allow his emotions to determine how his operations were executed. He now had to find a way to get Iniga out of prison if he was to have any chance of getting his seed away from being adopted by a wealthy minion of Franco.

   Harry considered what would become Nick; after all, little Nicky would be raised in luxury and live a life of cushy privilege if Harry didn’t act. What would be so bad about that? But, he feared the Franco grip on power was about to slip, or eventually be overturned, and he couldn’t predict how things would turn out for the ruling class in Spain.He had been witness to what happened to collaborators in France when Hitler's SS boys skedaddled during and after Normandy. He also thought that, if he worked it right, Nicky could have American citizenship and get the hell out of Spain along with Iniga. This would take nothing more than obtaining a forged marriage certificate and bribing a few corrupt prison administrators. Finding the right corrupt prison official wasn’t all that difficult as they were as common as fleas on a cur around Madrid. However, a high-profile Basque separatist such as Iniga posed a problem because she would be slated for a summery execution as soon as she gave birth.