The Spanish Gambit aka Tapestry of Spies

381 Pages·2016·1.46 MB·English

by  Hunter Stephen

ASSASSINATION
Portela led them down the slope and out into no-man’s-land. A mist
had risen, and the three men seemed to wade through it. Oddly, up
above, the stars were clear and sharp, shreds and flecks of remote light.
Florry was last in the file. He had the Webley in his hand, and a four-
five-five in each chamber. He was just behind Julian.
Wait till you get beyond the lines. Then lift and fire. Clean. Into the
back of the head. It’ll be much easier….
Florry gripped his Webley so tight he thought he’d smash it: what an
opportunity for Julian, and so early on! A single noise, a cough, the
smallest twitch, and the bloody thing was over….
Also by Stephen Hunter
FICTION
Pale Horse Coming
Hot Springs
The Second Saladin
Time to Hunt
Black Light
Dirty White Boys
Point of Impact
The Day Before Midnight
The Master Sniper
NONFICTION
Violent Screen: A Critic’s 13 Years on the Front Lines of Movie Mayhem

Contents
Other Books by this Author
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Part I - Robert
Chapter 1 - London, Late Fall of 1936
Chapter 2 - The Lux
Chapter 3 - Barcelona, Late 1936
Chapter 4 - Mr. Sterne and Mr. Webley
Chapter 5 - Barcelona
Chapter 6 - The Akim
Chapter 7 - MI-6, London
Chapter 8 - The Water
Chapter 9 - The Interrogation
Chapter 10 - On the Ramblas
Chapter 11 - Igenko
Chapter 12 - The Parade
Chapter 13 - The Major
Part II - Julian
Chapter 14 - Huesca
Chapter 15 - The Grand Oriente
Chapter 16 - The Attack
Chapter 17 - Comrade Major Bolodin
Chapter 18 - News from the Front
Chapter 19 - The Club
Chapter 20 - Tarragona
Chapter 21 - The Hospital
Chapter 22 - The Mission
Chapter 23 - ¡Viva La AnarquÍa!
Chapter 24 - Tristram Shandy
Chapter 25 - Behind the Lines
Chapter 26 - The Club Chicago
Chapter 27 - Pamplona
Chapter 28 - Midnight
Chapter 29 - The Oberleutnant
Chapter 30 - The English Dynamiters
Chapter 31 - The Suppression
Chapter 32 - The Bridge
Part III - Sylvia
Chapter 33 - Arrested
Chapter 34 - Bad News
Chapter 35 - The Trial
Chapter 36 - Tibidabo
Chapter 37 - Papers
Chapter 38 - Ugarte
Chapter 39 - Detectives
Chapter 40 - Pavel
Chapter 41 - Night Train to Paris
Chapter 42 - The Green
Chapter 43 - The Hangar
Chapter 44 - A Walk in the Park
About the Author
Copyright
This one, as promised,
is for Amy
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author would like to thank those who gave so generously of their
time and their imaginations. First, thanks to Ernie Erber, who actually
spent part of 1936 in Barcelona. Thanks to Mike Hill and Joe Fanzone
for valuable early consultations; they see their ideas reflected on every
page of the book. Thanks to Fred Rasmussen, of The Sun library, for
digging out the Spanish Civil War photos that were of so much help;
Antero Pietila of The Sun’s Moscow bureau, for unearthing the location,
size, and architecture of the Hotel Lux; to another colleague, Matt
Sieden, for his kind words and good suggestions. Thanks to my old
college roommate, Lenne Miller, for his enthusiasms for the book.
Thanks to my mother, Virginia Hunter, and my brother, Tim Hunter, for
their comments and patience; and to my brother-in-law, medical
consultant, and good friend, John D. Bullock, M.D. Thanks to David
Petzal for his reading. Thanks to the night-shift concierge at the Hotel
Colón in Barcelona for numerous courtesies and unfailing good humor.
Thanks to Jeff Bass, for suggesting the epigram from the Mason book.
And to Susan Carnochan and Zita Dabars, for assistance with my
Spanish. Thanks especially to my courageous and stubborn agent,
Victoria Gould Pryor, who believed in this book from the very start and
fought for it as if it were her own; and to my brilliant editor, Barbara
Grossman, of Crown, for her quotient of belief and her refusal to accept
anything less than my best. And thanks—special thanks—to my wife,
Lucy Hageman Hunter, for her glamourless, thankless, and yet heroic
efforts on behalf of this book. Needless to say, errors are entirely my
own.
The Ruy-Lopez is more popular than any other king pawn opening….
The Gambit is astonishingly complicated, embodying as it does a
perpetual intertwining of grandiose strategical planning with an
alarming maze of difficult tactical finesses and combinative motifs. It is
no exaggeration to affirm that mastery of the Spanish Gambit is a
requisite for anyone aspiring to become a strong chess player.
Adapted from James Mason, The Art
of Chess, London, April 1898
PROLOGUE
T
at Moulmein, lower Burma,
HE TRIAL OF THE ASSASSIN BENNY LAL IN THE OLD COURTHOUSE
in February of 1931, caused a bit of a stir in its own day, but its memory
has not lingered. It was a forgotten moment in the history of a vanished
empire.
Yet a case could be made that it changed the political history of our
century, however secretly, however subtly. Still, in the mind of one man,
the event was important for exactly what it was, and not for what it
eventually made possible. He was, on the last day of the trial, the
Crown’s chief witness, a tall, not unpleasant-looking young officer in the
service khaki of the India Imperial Police. It was his duty to put the
noose around the neck of Benny Lal.
The blades of the overhead fan moved through the air in a stately
whirl, yet without palpable effect. Robert Florry stared at the motion, its
easy, hypnotic blur fascinating him.
“Assistant superintendent?”
The magistrate’s voice. Florry swallowed awkwardly and, blinking,
embarrassed, redirected his vision toward the bench. He hoped his
discomfort did not show, knowing of course that it did. He swallowed
again. It had taken such a long time for this moment to arrive, but now
it rushed at him with the power of the undeniable future.
“Assistant superintendent?”
Florry attempted a wretched smile. The courtroom, jammed with
other Imperial Policemen and natives, was as still as a photograph. He
could feel their scrutiny: it had the weight of accusation.
“Yessir,” he said. His own voice always bothered him. It was a reedy,
thin instrument and tended to disappear in key moments such as this
one.