Perhaps it was the gesture that Armada had been waiting for since his departure from the Zarzuela: his adversary fallen into disgrace, deprived of royal confidence and protection, for Armada’s pride and courtesan mentality it was the moment to recover and augment his place as the King’s favourite that Suárez had done all he could to steal, becoming head of his government in those times of difficulty for the Crown. This hunch encouraged him to tighten his siege of the monarch. During the Christmas holidays, Armada was with the King at least twice, once at the Zarzuela and again at La Pleta, where the Royal Family spent the first days of January. They spoke at length again, and in these conversations the former royal secretary was able to accumulate evidence that the King’s favour for which he’d been longing for almost five years was returning; not fictitious evidence: worried for the future of the monarchy, reluctant to accept the role of institutional arbiter without authentic power assigned him by the Constitution, the King sought resources with which to weather the crisis, and it’s absurd to imagine he’d refuse those offered or those he thought the man who’d helped him overcome so many obstacles in his youth might be able to offer. Although we have only Armada’s testimony about what was discussed in those conversations with the King, we can take a few things as certain or as very likely: it is certain or very likely that, as well as stressing both a gloomy opinion of Suárez and of the political moment, Armada talked of the rumours of a no-confidence motion against Suárez and of the rumours of a unity government, that he revealed himself to be in favour of it and in a more or less elliptical way proposed himself as a candidate to lead it, emphasizing that his monarchist and liberal profile corresponded to the profile of the leader designed by the media, social organizations and political parties, many of which (according to Armada again) had already given him their blessing or insinuated that they would; it’s certain or very likely that the King would have let Armada talk and wouldn’t have contradicted him and that, if he hadn’t done so before, would now have begun to consider seriously the proposal of a government of unity led by a soldier, whether or not it was Armada, as long as he could count on the approval of the Cortes and on a constitutional framework that Armada considered guaranteed; it’s certain that, while both stressed their gloomy opinion of the military moment, Armada was the more exasperated by it and would have talked of his visit to Milans, presenting himself as a brake on the Captain General of Valencia’s interventionist ardour, craftily doling out information about his projects or threats and without going into any details prejudicial to his own ends (it’s unlikely for example that he would have mentioned Tejero and his relationship with Milans); it is also certain that the King asked Armada to continue keeping him up to date on what was happening or being plotted in the barracks; also, that he promised to find him a posting in the capital. The reason for this promise must not be simple or singular: the King undoubtedly was thinking that having Armada posted far from Madrid was making his access to the most abundant and accurate news about the Army difficult; he undoubtedly thought that placing him in a central position within the military hierarchy could help to block the coup; he undoubtedly wanted to have him nearby in order to be able to turn to him in any contingency, including perhaps that of leading a coalition or caretaker or unity government. Maybe there were even more reasons. Whatever the case, the King hastened to fulfil this promise and, in spite of the drastic opposition of Suárez, who mistrusted more than ever the machinations of the former royal secretary, got the Minister of Defence to reserve for Armada the post of Deputy Chief of the Army General Staff. Supplied with this future appointment, with his many hours of proximity to the King and a concrete proposal, as soon as the Royal Family’s holidays in Lérida were over Armada went back to Valencia with his wife to see Milans again.
It happened on 10 January and was the last time the two 23 February leaders spoke face to face before the coup. What Armada said that day to Milans was that the King shared their point of view regarding the political situation and his own imminent return to Madrid as Deputy Chief of the Army General Staff was the platform devised by the monarch from which to turn him into Prime Minister of a government of unity, the formation of which could only be a question of weeks, the time it would take for a victorious motion of no-confidence against Adolfo Suárez to crystallize; therefore, concluded Armada, this was the time to halt the military operations under way, subordinating them to the political operation: it was a question of bringing all the various coup plots together under a single command and a single project, to be able to deactivate them when the political operation triumphed or, if no other option remained because the political operation failed, to be able to reactivate them in order to triumph. This proposal defined by Armada and accepted by Milans was what dominated a meeting held eight days later in the Madrid home of the Captain General of Valencia’s aide-de-camp, on Calle General Cabrera; attending it, summoned by Milans himself, were several reserve generals — among them Iniesta Cano — several active generals — among them Torres Rojas — and several lieutenant colonels — among them Tejero — whereas, faithful to a strategy of never talking about the coup in the presence of more than one person and looking for alibis for any hypothetically compromising move (therefore always talking alone with Milans and always visiting Valencia accompanied by his wife and on the pretext of settling private matters), Armada gave a last-minute excuse and did not attend the conclave. Given that it was the most well attended by those preparing the coup, and the most important from the point of view of the military operation, what was discussed at it is well known: during the 23 February trial several of those who were present gave similar versions, and years later some who were there and who eluded prosecution at the time would do so as well. It was Milans who was firmly in command of the meeting. The Captain General of Valencia assumed control of the coup projects in various stages of germination in which those present were involved and explained Armada’s plan the way Armada had explained it to him, stressing it was all being done under the auspices of the King; likewise, after Tejero set out the technical details of his operation, Milans defined the basic mechanism they’d have to deploy at the chosen moment: Tejero would take the Cortes, he would take the region of Valencia, Torres Rojas would take Madrid with the Brunete Armoured Division and Armada would accompany the King at the Zarzuela Palace while the rest of the Captains General, whose complicity would have been previously secured, would join them by taking their respective regions and thus sealing the coup; it was, furthermore — as Milans repeated over and over again — a simple project, and its realization was not going to be necessary if, as he expected, Armada set in action his purely political project within a reasonable space of time; Milans even made clear what he understood as a reasonable space of time: thirty days.