Читать книгу Blinded Part III - Fran Sánchez - Страница 3

Chapter 1

The Officer

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He could not allow a single mistake. Angel prepared the equipment very carefully, checking that the battery was completely charged and well attached to the detainee’s leg. He strapped a microphone to his hairy thorax with some tape and began voice testing.

“Say something,” ordered the officer.

“Something,” said the drug addict.

“No! something longer,” he ordered again.

“Something… something longer,” he repeated with his unique stuttering; whenever he started a sentence, he would always repeat the first word.

After a chorus of laughter from his coworkers, the agent, a bit angry, said:

“Are you stupid or just fooling around?”

“If… if you say so, I’m not too smart.”

“Are you making fun of me?”

“Mister… Mister Commissioner, I swear on my dead that I’m not.”

“Please, I’ve already told you I’m not a commissioner.”

“But… but you’re the one giving orders.”

“Mister Commissioner,” said another officer mockingly, “the recording equipment is working correctly.”

“You… you see? you are the commissioner, you’re pulling my leg.”

The police officer preferred not to continue the subject and concentrated on his work. He explained the operation’s procedure once more. He would pick his lifelong friend up at the prison exit and accompany him to try and find out where the robbery loot was hidden. They would always be nearby and it was very important that his friend did not discover the microphone.

They were just about to solve a bank robbery that happened 15 years ago. Two criminals of little importance, both of them drug addicts, had robbed a bank subsidiary on a main street of Almeria. After shooting a round of shells at the director, who almost lost his life —though he ended up paraplegic—, they made off with a loot of 20 million pesetas of the era.

The quick police investigations earned a prize a few hours later, the arrest of one of them, the perpetrator of the gunshots, known as Indaletius. He never confessed where he hid the bags or who his accomplice was, however. All of the suspicions fell upon the unfortunate stutterer, nicknamed Culebra, but, without any proof, he was set free, and after following him for months, verifying his awful lifestyle, they deduced he knew nothing of the money.

The trigger-happy crook was sentenced and incarcerated in the city’s prison. Following a reduction of his sentence, he was to be set free 15 years later. The police, pressured by the insurance company that covered the damages of the robbery, wanted to recover the money. They decided to look for the stutterer and force him into collaborating with them. Angel had a particular personal interest in the case.

He found him in the surroundings of a known drug-dealing spot. He was on his last legs, excessively skinny, malnourished, disheveled, broke, and with drug withdrawal. They took him to a police station where they tightened his screws. He begged and begged for a dose, methadone at the very least, but the police were inflexible. They played the classic bad cop, good cop routine. An agent threatened with sending him to prison for a recent supermarket theft. He kept intimidating him even more, he would assign another criminal he had unfinished business with as a cellmate. The good cop, Angel, offered to leave him free, enroll him in a detoxification program, and even give him a small reward for recovering the loot.

The desperate man could not resist any longer, he gave in and accepted the terms. Angel wrote down the agreement and transferred him to the hospital after signing to ease his anxiety and rest to have the minimum requirements needed for the operation. Very early in the morning, after installing the microphone and repeating the instructions for the procedure several times, they gave him the most rundown confiscated vehicle, decorated to give it authenticity and avoid any suspicion.

Angel was driving a disguised police vehicle behind him at a prudent distance while they made their way to El Acebuche, the name of the penitentiary center of the province of Almeria. The rest of the operation’s support waited for news at the police station. Suddenly, the car in front stopped by the right shoulder. The driver opened the door and ran off through a vacant lot filled with brushwood towards a labyrinth of greenhouses.

“Fuck, that stammering son of a bitch, he’s gonna fuck the whole operation,” said the officer in civilian clothes that was with him.

They hit the brakes, stopped behind the other vehicle, and ran after him.

“Fucker’s gonna make us sweat this morning,” said his partner.

“Stop, stop! Hold it right there!” shouted Angel in a loud voice.

The criminal ignored their warnings and, fueled by the adrenaline, was reaching his objective full of hope.

“Stop or I’ll shoot!” he shouted again while grabbing his service weapon.

The officers were in a better physical shape and were gaining on him, but the drug addict still had quite an advantage. They would never catch him if he made it to the greenhouses, so Angel shot twice into the air. Both explosions rang like thunder and the terrified Culebra dropped to the ground.

“What the fuck are you doing?” asked Angel with difficulty when he reached him, gasping for air.

“Let... let me go, I can’t do this to my friend, I can’t…”

“Look here, you dimwit!” shouted Angel violently, grabbing him firmly from the shirt and pulling him close to his face full of hatred, “we have the paper you signed that says you’re a fucking Judas!”

They got him on his feet, grabbed him by the arms, and, as they walked to the cars, Angel continued to scold him.

“We’re going to print it and put it all around your neighborhood and El Acebuche so that everyone knows the type of scum you are! You’ll last less than a cake in a fat lady’s tea party!”

“But… but, Commissioner, weren’t you the good cop?”

“Hey, we’re already late, if we lose Indaletius’s trail things will get ugly for you, very ugly,” he threatened impatiently.

“Give… give me some good stuff, for the nerves.”

“Take a pack of tobacco, if you play along you’ll get something better later,” he promised.

Before grudgingly getting him into the car, his partner checked if the recording equipment had suffered any damage while Angel answered a call on his cell phone.

“Hey,” he whispered, walking away, “yeah, I’m on it… as I promised, when I get the chance I’ll take care of them, our time has come. Don’t worry, I’ll be careful… I love you too.”

Concerned and thoughtful, he went back to the vehicles.

“Let’s continue with the operation, you’ll know what’s coming to you if you make a fool of us again,” he warned.

They carried on, this time driving closer to the car in front. When they arrived, they stopped at a strategic spot where they could oversee the operation.

With a pair of binoculars, they verified their main target was waiting for the next bus. Making himself known, the stutterer skidded around the plaza and stopped next to his friend pressing hard on the brakes. Angel listened to their conversation through his earphones, their greetings, their trivial talk. The stutterer almost gave himself away on mentioning the exact amount of the loot, which his partner was unaware of. They made their way to the prisoner’s house, next to the cemetery. The conversation was now about the present situation of their old acquaintances, they were catching up.

They had to park in the marginal neighborhood’s vicinity to keep from blowing their cover. The audio’s quality and intensity fell, but it was audible. After staying for a while in Indaletius’s old house, the criminals made their way to the cemetery on foot. Angel was excited, the prisoner had just confirmed that the loot was hidden there.

“Attention headquarters!” he called on the radio, “Tracking unit requesting backup at the cemetery. Confirmed, the money is in the cemetery.”

“Received, tracking unit! Backup units en route, we’ll set up by the door, follow them and keep us informed.”

“Received, proceeding.”

They moved closer from their position to the entrance of the cemetery. Recently opened, a lot of tranquility was felt in the air at that hour. They barely saw any visitors, which made it very easy to spot and follow the criminals at a certain distance. They went on for a while as they made their way into the great cemetery. They left the gardens and the streets of niches and entered the place known as the high class area, made up of family vaults and mausoleums, some luxurious, others in good condition, while others were a bit abandoned.

The stutterer stayed outside as the other one went down into a very old subterranean crypt, almost in ruins.

Angel hid behind a large tombstone, watching, sheltered between the feet of the angel that crowned it.

“Backup units in position,” he heard through the earphones.

The well-cared-for cemetery was very pretty that sunny morning. The color of the lawn and the tall cedars shone brightly. Suddenly, the green became increasingly brighter, as if it were dissolving along with all the other colors until they turned white, such a brilliant white that it burned the eyes, such a brilliant white that forced Angel to close and cover them with his hands. After being blinded by the inexplicable shine, and after some seconds of confusion, he opened them to a total darkness. He could not keep them open, the sticky eyelids prevented it. He told his partner to stay by his side; he was also in a similar state. He tried to contact the backup team, but nobody answered.

He was nervous, scared, very alarmed, and at the same time anxious for some answers, to know and understand what had happened and why it was happening.

They heard some voices coming from the main path of the cemetery. It was the stutterer and his friend.

“Help, we can’t see, we’ve been blinded,” shouted Angel.

“Shit… shit, they gotta be cops, they must’ve followed us,” said Culebra quickly.

The partners in crime hurried to make their escape. Angel took out his service firearm and, aiming blindly, ordered them to stop. He was tempted to open fire, but he did not want to risk shooting an innocent bystander. Since he did not get an answer, he raised his arm towards the sky and shot several times in the air, trying to scare them into hopefully making them turn themselves in. He waited a couple of seconds. Not a sound, not a sign, he gathered they must have fled. All he had left was hope.

“Backup team, we’re in trouble, they’re getting away, stop them at the exit.”

“Negative, we’re blind, we don’t know what has happened, we’re all blind, come help us,” they answered desperately.

Angel fell to his knees, helpless, and wept sorrowfully, not because of his blindness, but because he had not able to keep his promise. His tears were of rage and anger. His thoughts went back to the bank manager, forced to live the rest of his life stuck to a wheelchair. His romantic partner ever since they had met, many years ago. His long-awaited revenge for love was unresolved for the time being.

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