The Second Son

They came to a little awning, two tables and three chairs. A curtain, made of strings of bamboo beads, hung across the open door to keep out the flies. They sat, and Mila said into the curtain, “Two beers and an order of migas, please.”

A voice grunted acknowledgment. Hoffner didn’t know migas.

“Bread crumbs,” she said. “Like porridge, with bacon or chorizo or whatever they have lying around. It’ll be good for you.”

He nodded and pulled out his cigarettes.

“I wouldn’t,” she said. “Not until you get something in your stomach.”

Hoffner set the pack on the table. He kept his eyes on it as he placed his hand on hers. The knuckles were wonderfully smooth.

He said, “You don’t expect this, do you?”

He waited for her to answer. When she didn’t, he looked up. She was staring across at him. Hoffner felt his head go light again, until he saw the smile curl her lips.

She said, “And what is it you didn’t expect?”

For some reason he had no idea what he had been meaning to say. None. He shook his head quietly, and watched as her smile grew.

“It must be terrible,” she said easily, “to feel something and not have the courage to admit it, even to yourself. I’m not asking you to. I have no such cares about love. It doesn’t make me weak or sad or hopeful or carefree. I’ll leave that to the young. All I know is when it comes. And how rare it is. And that makes it even more certain.”

Hoffner felt her hand under his, and he found his voice. “Yes,” he said. “That’s right. I think … that’s right.”

The bamboo beads swayed, the plates arrived, and they ate.

Major Sanz proved to be a man of little conscience. He was cut from the same cloth as Captain Doval and kept his interviews brief.

And so, knowing that the telephone lines might reengage at any moment-and perhaps still a little lightheaded-Hoffner barreled on. He showed Sanz the Safe Conduct papers, he mentioned Alfassi and Doval, and he explained his role with the contact names in each of the cities to the west.

Naively, Sanz said he thought Georg had been a journalist. Hoffner quickly disabused him of this: Georg was a member of German Intelligence-why not? The SS had lost track of him. He had been heading into Republican territory to secure the routes and the contacts.

Major Sanz was only too happy to confirm them.

More remarkable, though, was Sanz’s request for thi

“For the rifles,” Sanz said, as if speaking to a child. “You’re getting twelve-not even that-into each one.” Hoffner’s expression prompted further details. “The wood is too thick. Use a thi

Hoffner did not, until Sanz showed him the printed packing slip that had accompanied the crate.

At the top, in an official script, was the crate’s origin: Tetuan, Morocco. Just below, in the same script, was the name of the company that had shipped it: Hispano-Marroqui de Transportes, Sociedad Limitada. Elsewhere on the slip, the company was simply referred to as Hisma.

Hoffner stared at the word. It was the final name from Georg’s wire, the name co

Hoffner said, “You have other papers from the company, Major?”

The man hesitated.

“In your files,” said Hoffner. “I need to make sure you have the proper paperwork, should anyone come asking for it.” What could be more convincing? thought Hoffner. A German asking for paperwork. He looked directly at Sanz. “You see what I’m saying?”

Again Sanz hesitated before he began to nod. “Yes-yes, of course. I have it all here.”

Sanz retrieved various sheets from the bottom drawer of his desk and handed them to Hoffner.

“I believe that’s everything.”

Hoffner quickly peeled through the stack until he came to the fourth page. It was there he read the a

That said, it was Bernhardt who had created a legitimate private company as a front for supplying weapons. Along with the shipments from Germany to the primary base in Morocco, Bernhardt and his cohorts were pla

“Thi

There is a kind of madness that lives on the plains of La Mancha. It settles on the mind in the last of the afternoon, when the sun perches between the passing sails of the windmills and seems to wink with every turn of the blade. It isn’t the billowing itself that sparks the delusion-that, they say, requires a nobler kind of madness-but the sudden and unrelenting sense that this might be the last time the sun will make such an effort. La Mancha begs for indifference, or at least a disregard from anything still clinging to life. Even the trees know it. Hobbled by their own weight and bent toward senility, they peer out across the burned earth and laugh through parched bark at anyone foolish enough to remain out under this sky. It is, if He would admit it, the only place where God gazes down and wonders if even He has something still to learn. Maybe, then, the madness is His, for what else could God possibly have to learn, especially from a strip of land ready to shred itself on the truth.

Driving through the heat, Hoffner gazed into the bleached red of the sky, the color of blood mixed with water, although here it was clouds sifting through a dying sun. He had lost track of time, more so of which Spain he was in. This far east, La Mancha gave no aid in defining lines of defense or offense. It was simply men in the distance, a signal to pull over, rifles and pistols raised, and a determined effort to produce the right papers. Neckerchiefed soldiers became uniformed ones became neckerchiefed ones again, even if the stares and faces all looked the same. A wrong turn and it might have been another platoon of young requetes-a few more hours lost to the fitful infancy of war-but at some point Mila convinced him that they had seen the last of the Nationalists. They changed their clothes. Hoffner scratched a large CNT-FAI across the car door. And Mila found a well and filled the canteens. They were back in Republican Spain, although Hoffner had a sense that there was little hope of finding Barcelona’s arrogance anywhere in here.

In those timeless stretches of road, Hoffner began to see where Georg had been leading him. Han Shen had given him Vollman. Vollman had sent him to Teruel. Teruel had given him Major Sanz and the names and the cities where Hisma would be setting up shop. Hoffner ran through those names in his head, over and over, until a single image began to form: Cuenca, Tarancon, Toledo, Coria-a straight line of some six hundred kilometers to the Portuguese border. Add Badajoz to the list and the shape took on the form of an inverted skillet, with Badajoz at the base of its handle, and Madrid perched just above at the center of the pan. Madrid. The key to Spain. Arm these hidden pockets of rebellion with rifles and ammunition and they would crackle like tinder to light the flames and swallow Madrid whole.