Four more matches were inserted between the toes of José de Galindez’ other foot and lit. This time he didn’t scream when the heads flared up. Instead, he made a strange, keening sound. It rose in volume steadily, and then trailed off. It was repeated over and over again.
“What the devil is that?” the Beast wanted to know.
“That’s what he does whenever the pain gets particularly intense, Colonel.”
“It’s eerie!" The Beast shuddered.
“Yes sir. It makes my skin crawl.”
“Some sort of Basque lament, sir,” the second soldier suggested.
“If it’s a lament, then why is he smiling?” the Beast wondered.
Then Regina realized, in a flash! Because it’s not a lament! José de Galindez was chanting his mantra! He was fighting their inhuman tortures with Transcendental Meditation! He was using his mantra to empty his mind of the pain welling up from his tormented hody, to transport himself to a sphere where the agonies of the flesh could not reach him!
Horrible as the situation was, Regina recognized that the mantra being chanted bore no resemblance to the “AHHHH LOO-OO-OO” mantra tied in—-perhaps—with the murderer of Faith Venable. She eliminated José de Galindez from the list of suspects. That left two names on the list—-plus the one suspect whose name had been torn off it.
“Go ahead and talk to him,” the Beast was telling Regina. “That is if you think you can get any coherent answers.” His tone was jeering.
“You’re right. It’s hopeless,” Regina granted. She had found out what she wanted to know, and now she just wanted to get as far away from this vile torture chamber as she could.
“He’s giving me a headache,” the Beast complained. “Shut him up.”
One of the Spanish guards brought his fist down hard on José de Galindez’ solar plexus. The mantra stopped abruptly. The prisoner fainted again.
“Let’s get out of here.” Regina was really feeling sick now.
She started for the door. The Beast reached around in front of her to open it. But before he touched it, the door was suddenly flung violently open from the outside.
It caught Regina in such a way that she was thrown behind it, flattened between its heavy metal and the cement wall. This fluke saved her life. The men who came charging through the door entered shooting. The first burst caught the Beast in the chest and sent him reeling backwards. A second spate of bullets blew off his head. Fleshpulp and blood spattered in every direction.
The Spanish soldiers had no chance to return the fire. One died with his hand still struggling to pull the gun from his holster. The second might have been about to surrender, but he never had the chance. A single pistol shot went neatly through his heart and he flopped to the floor with a look on his face that said death had taken him by surprise.
The Basque commandos quickly untied José de Galindez. One of them slung him over his shoulder. The four others led the way out with their guns held at the ready.
It all happened so fast that it took Regina a moment to realize that they hadn’t even seen her. The next thing she realized was that she had better get out of there herself-—and fast. Any number of Spanish guards had seen her coming down here with the Beast. As far as they knew, she was a prisoner. Under the circumstances, if they found her here still alive, they’d be pretty likely to shoot first and ask questions later.
She slipped into the corridor, almost tripping over the body of a dead guard slumped against the wall. Ahead of her she could make out a bunch of shadows all bunched up at the heavy steel door leading to the stone staircase. Regina guessed that the Basque commandos had liberated all of the prisoners in the jail.
By the time she reached the door, they were hurrying up the stairs ahead of her. The door was a mass of jagged steel. The air was heavy with smoke and dust. The liberators must have dynamited it. Three more Spanish corpses blocked the short passage between the door and the staircase.
Regina stepped over them and hurried up the stairs. The door at the top had also been blown away. A Spanish soldier’s corpse marked each of the open gates in the long corridor in front of her. She started to run to catch up with the group in front of her. But then she slowed down when she recognized the plump girl rebel from the bakery bringing up the rear of the group.
“You’ll never leave Bilbao alive!” That’s what the rebels Regina was arrested with had told her. She was marked “Traitor” by the Basques. She didn’t dare catch up with the fleeing rebels. They were as apt to kill her as the Spanish soldiers were!
So Regina trailed behind as they made their way down the corridor and finally out of the jail. Just as she reached the outside, a fresh band of Spanish soldiers rounded the corner of the building on the run. They spotted the Basque rebels piling into a waiting truck, spread out kneeling, and opened fire. A machinegun chattered back from the truck, trying to cover the retreat. Regina was caught in the crossfire.
She spotted another truck, off to the side, and raced for it. The Spaniards spied her, and a fusillade of bullets kicked up the dirt at her heels. Just as she reached the truck, three or four rifles poked out of the back of it and began returning the barrage.
Regina hesitated. There were Basque rebels in the truck. If she boarded it, she’d be in the hands of the underground. She might be delivering herself to her executioners! Yet behind her, the Spaniards were getting the range.
Then the decision was made for her. Hands reached out from the back of the truck, grasped her under the armpits, and pulled her aboard before she could object. She was thrown to the floor with the weight of another body pinning her. Bullets pinged oil the tailgate of the truck as it pulled away, engine roaring.
A moment later the weight shifted off Regina and she was able to sit up. She found herself surrounded by Basque faces. One of them was familiar.
“You!” Regina stared at him in confusion.
“Perhaps you were expecting Generalissimo Franco, Señorita?’ The undersized ATOMICS agent scowled at her.
“I thought you were working for the enemy,” Regina blurted out.
“I am a Basque!” He was haughty.
“Then you’re really working for the rebels?”
“My presence here speaks for itself, Señorita.”
“Then you’re a Basque rebel!”
“I suppose that you will tell that to Señor Mac-Teague back in New York and so I shall be out of work.”
“Not a word,” Regina promised.
“Then I shall help you to leave Bilbao alive, Señorita. It is a good thing that you are aboard this truck and not the other. They have marked you as a traitor, you know. Every Basque in Bilbao would consider it a privilege to put a bullet in your heart, Senorita.”
“The Spanish soldiers aren’t too chummy, either,” Regina sighed.
“I shall take you to the airport. Get on the first plane out of Bilbao if you wish to survive.”
About a half-hour later the truck pulled off a road on the outskirts of Bilbao and rolled to a stop behind some shrubbery. The ATOMICS agent helped Regina down from the van and guided her to a path to the left of the bushes. He pointed. “The lights you see in the distance, Señorita, are the airport terminal,” he told her.
Regina peered through the fog. She could barely make out the glow.
“Follow the path about a mile and you will come to a barbed wire fence. Do not try to cross it where the path is. There is a Spanish sentry there. Follow the fence for one quarter-mile and you will come to a break in the wire. Crawl through it. Then keep walking towards the lights. Only watch for the Spanish patrols. They are posted to keep us from sabotaging the airport.” Without so much as a “Good luck,’ he was gone.
A moment later Regina heard the truck roll away. She set off down the path. She’d gone about three-quarters of a mile when she heard a rustle in the bushes off to one side. She crouched down behind a tree, her heart pounding.