MAMista (4 page)

They got up from the table and moved off into the crowd. Their target – the Ministry of Pensions – was a massive stone building of that classical style that governments everywhere choose as a symbol of state power. Inez went up the steps and tapped at the intimidating wooden doors. Nothing happened. Some people strolled past but, seeing a man and a girl in the shadows of the doorway, spared them no more than a glance. ‘The janitor is one of us,' she explained to Paz. Then, like a sinner at the screen of a confessional, she pressed her face close to the door, and called softly, ‘Chori! Chori!'

In response came the sound of bolts being shifted and the lock being turned. One of the doors opened just far enough to allow them inside.

Paz looked back. Along the street, through a gap between the buildings he could see the lights of the cafés in the
Plaza. He could even hear the trio playing ‘Thanks for the Memory'.

‘You said it would be open, Chori,' Inez said disapprovingly.

‘The lock sticks,' said the man who had let them in, but Paz suspected that he had waited until hearing the woman's voice. In his hand Chori held a plastic shopping bag.

‘Is there anyone else here?' Inez asked. They were in a grand hall with a marble floor. A little of the mauvish evening light filtered through an ornate glass dome four storeys above. It was enough to reveal an imposing staircase which led to a first-floor balcony that surrounded them on all sides.

‘There is no need to worry,' said the man without answering her question. He led them up the stairs.

‘Did you get the sodium chlorate?' Paz asked.

‘The booster is all ready,' Chori said. He was a big man, a kindly gorilla, thought Paz, but he'd be a dangerous one to quarrel with. ‘And here are the coveralls.' He held up the bulging plastic shopping bag. ‘First we must put them on.' He said it in the manner of a child repeating the lessons it had been taught.

He took them to a small office. Chori made sure the wooden shutters were closed tightly, then switched on the light. The fluorescent tube went ping as it ignited and then the room was illuminated with intense pink light. Two venerable typewriters had been put on the floor in a corner. A china washbowl and jug had been set out on an office desk, together with bars of soap and a pile of clean towels. On the next desk sat an enamel jug of hot water, and alongside it a can of kerosene. ‘Is it as you wanted?' Chori asked Inez. She looked at Paz: he nodded.

Paz was able to see Chori in more detail. He had a wrestler's build, a tough specimen with dark skin, a scarred face, and clumsy hands the fingers of which had all been broken and badly reset. He was wearing a blue blazer, striped shirt and white trousers: the sort of outfit suited to
a fancy yacht. He saw Paz looking at him and, interpreting his thoughts, said, ‘You don't think I'm staying on, after this thing explodes, do you?'

‘I could tie you up and gag you,' said Paz.

Chori laughed grimly and held up his fingers. ‘With this badge of articulate dissent, the cops won't come in here and sit me down with a questionnaire,' he said. ‘And anyway they know the MAMista don't go to such trouble to spare the life of a security guard. No, I'll run when you run and I won't be back.' His stylish clothes were well suited to the Plaza at this time of evening.

Paz was already getting into his coveralls and gloves. Chori did the same. Inez put on a black long-sleeved cotton garment that was the normal attire of government workers who handled dusty old documents. She would be the one to go to the door if some emergency arose.

‘You made the booster?' Paz asked.

‘Yes,' said Chori.

‘Did you …'

‘I was making bombs before you were born.'

Paz looked at him. The big fellow was no fool and there was an edge to his voice. ‘Show me the target,' said Paz.

Chori took him along the corridor to the Minister's personal office. It was a large room with a cut-glass chandelier, antique furniture and a good carpet. On the wall hung a coloured lithograph of President Benz, serene and benevolent, wearing an admiral's uniform complete with medals and yellow sash. The window shutters were closed but Chori went and checked them carefully. Then he switched on the desk light. It was an ancient brass contraption. Its glass shade made a pool of yellow light on the table while colouring their faces green. Chori returned to the steel safe and tapped on it with his battered fingers. Now it could be seen that three of his fingernails had been roughly torn out. ‘You understand,' he said, ‘this baby must go. There must be enough explosive to destroy the papers inside. If
we just loosen the door it will all be a waste of time.' Chori was bringing from a cardboard box all the things that Paz wanted: the explosive and the wires and the clocks. ‘We found a little plastic,' said Chori proudly.

‘What's inside the safe?'

‘They don't tell me things like that, señor.' He looked up to be quite certain that the woman was not in the room. ‘Now, your comrade Inez Cassidy, she is told things like that. But I am just a comrade, comrade.'

Paz watched him arranging the slab of explosive, and the Mickey Mouse clocks, on the Minister's polished mahogany desk.

Emboldened by Paz's silence, Chori said, ‘Inez Cassidy is a big shot. Her father was an official in the Indian Service: big house, big garden, lots of servants – vacations in Spain.' There was no need for further description. Trips to Spain put her into a social milieu remote from security guards and night-watchmen. ‘When the revolution is successful the workers will go on working: the labourers will still be digging the fields. My brother who is a bus driver will continue to get up at four in the morning to drive his bus. But your friend Inez Cassidy will be Minister of State Security.' He smiled. ‘Or maybe Minister of Pensions. Sitting right here, working out ways to prevent people like me from blowing her safe to pieces.'

Paz used the tape measure and wrote the dimensions of the safe on a piece of paper. Chori looked over his shoulder and read aloud what was written. ‘Sixteen R three, KC. What does it mean?' Chori asked.

‘R equals the breaching radius in metres, K is the strength of the material and C is the tamping factor.'

‘Holy Jesus!'

‘It's a simple way of designing the explosion we need.'

‘Designer explosions! And all this time I've just been making bangs,' said Chori.

Paz slapped the safe. ‘Make a big bang under this fat
old bastard and all we will do is shift him into the next room with a headache.' He took the polish tins and arranged the explosive in them: first the Japanese TNP, then the orange-coloured plastic and finally the grey home-made booster. Then he took a knife and started to carve the plastic, cutting a deep cone from it and arranging the charge so that none was wasted.

‘What are you doing?'

‘Relax, Daddy.'

‘Tell me.'

‘I'm going to focus the rays of the explosion. About forty-five degrees is best. I want it real narrow: like a spotlight. Here, hold this.' To demonstrate he held the tins to the sides of the safe. He moved them until the tins were exactly opposite each other. ‘The explosions will meet in the middle of the safe, like two express trains in a head-on collision. That will devastate anything inside the safe without wasting energy on the steel safe itself.'

‘Will it make a hole?'

‘Two tiny holes; and the frame will be hardly bent.'

‘I've never seen anything like that.'

Paz looked at him. ‘The man who showed me how, would have put tiny charges in a line all round, focusing them at the centre. But he was an artist. We'd be up all night trying to do that.'

‘It's great.'

‘It's not done yet,' said Paz modestly, but he glowed with pleasure. This man was a real comrade. From the desk Paz got a handful of wooden pencils and fixed them round a tin, holding them with a strong rubber band. ‘The charge has to stand-off at least the distance of the cone diameter. That gives the charge a chance to get going before it hits the metal of the safe.'

‘How would you like to write down everything you know? An instruction manual. Or make a demonstration video? We'd use it to instruct our men.'

Paz looked at him and, seeing he was serious, said, ‘How would you like one hundred grams of Semtex up your ass?'

Chori laughed grimly. ‘I'll do this one,' he said.

‘Okay. I'll wire the timers.' Paz took a Mickey Mouse clock and bent the hour-hand backwards and forwards until he tore it off. Then he jammed a brass screw into the soft metal face of the clock. Around the screw he twisted a wire. Then he moved the minute-hand as far counter-clockwise as it would go from the brass screw. He wound up the clock and listened to it ticking.

‘It's a reliable brand,' said Chori.

‘It has only to work for forty-five minutes,' said Paz. He fixed the other clock in the same way and then connected it.

‘Two clocks?'

‘In case one stops.'

‘It's a waste.' A soft patter of footsteps sounded in the corridor and Inez put her head round the door. ‘There is a police car stopped outside,' she said. ‘You're not going to use a radio?'

‘No,' said Paz.

‘I'll go downstairs again. I'll set off the fire alarm if …'

‘Stay here,' said Chori. ‘We are nearly finished.'

Paz said nothing. Taking his time he went to look at the way Chori had fixed the stand-off charges to the safe. He prodded them to make sure the sticky tape would hold. Then he connected the caps and twisted the wires around the terminals of the dry batteries. Finally Paz connected the clocks to the charges. He looked up and smiled at Chori. ‘Fingers in the ears, Daddy.' He looked round. Inez was still in the doorway. He smiled at her; he'd shown her that he was a man who mattered.

Without hurrying the three of them left the minister's office. Inez returned to the darkened room to resume her watch from the window. The two men started to remove all traces of explosive. They stripped off the coveralls and
cotton gloves and stuffed them into the shopping bag. Then they methodically washed their hands and faces: first in kerosene and then in scented soap and water.

Inez returned. She looked at her watch and then at the two men. She could not hide her impatience but was determined not to rush them. When the men were dressed, the three of them went down the main staircase. They walked through the building to the back entrance, to which Chori had a key. Once outside they were in a cobbled yard. There were big bins of rubbish there and Chori took the bag containing the soiled coveralls and stuffed it deep down under some garbage. The police would find it but it would tell them nothing they didn't already know. It took only five minutes for them to get to the Plaza de Armas and be back at the café again.

‘There is plenty of time,' said Paz.

Everything looked the same: the strollers and the soldiers and the fashionably dressed people drinking wine and flirting and arguing and whispering of love. The fountains were still sprouting and splashing, to make streams where the mosaics shone underfoot. Only Angel Paz was different: his heart was beating frantically and he could hardly maintain his calm demeanour.

The café music greeted them. The table they'd had was now occupied – all the outdoor tables were crowded – but the trio found a table inside. The less fashionable interior part was more or less empty. The waiter brought them coffee, powerful black portions in tiny cups. Glasses of local brandy came too, accompanied by tiny almond cakes, shaped and coloured to resemble fruit. ‘Twenty-two minutes to go,' said Chori.

‘This one had better go back with you tonight, Chori,' said Inez, a movement of her head indicating Paz.

She leaned forward to take one of the little marzipan cakes. Paz could smell her perfume and admired her figure. He could understand that for many men she would be very
desirable. She sensed him studying her and looked up as she chewed on the sweet little cake. They all ate them greedily. It was the excitement that made the body crave sugar in that urgent way. ‘The car is late,' she said to Chori. She stood up in order to see the street. It was crowded now, and even the inside tables were being occupied by flamboyantly dressed revellers.

‘It will be all right,' he said. ‘He is caught in the traffic.'

They drank brandy and tried to look unconcerned. A group came in and sat at the next table. One of the women waved to Inez, recognizing her despite her wig and dark glasses. The waiter asked if they wanted anything more. ‘No,' said Chori. The waiter cleared their table and fussed about, to show them that he needed the table.

The curfew had actually increased business in this part of town. Many of the cars parked in the plaza bore special yellow certificates. They were signed by the police authority to give the owners immunity to curfew. Some said the curfew was intended only for Indians, blacks and the poor. Well-dressed people were unlikely to be asked for their papers by the specially chosen army squads that patrolled the town centre.

The car that collected them from the café arrived fifteen minutes late. As they went to the kerb Paz saw the four crop-headed priests who'd been with him on the ship. One of them bowed to him: he nodded.

When the three of them were inside the car they breathed a sigh of relief. The driver was a trusted co-worker. He asked no questions. He drove carefully to attract no attention, and kept to the quiet streets. They encountered no policemen except a single patrolman keeping guard in the quiet side-street where the tourist buses parked for the night.

The traffic lights at the cathedral intersection were red. They stopped. Through the great door Paz could see the chapel and the desiccated remains of the first bishop
displayed inside a fly-specked glass case. A thousand candles flickered in the dark nave.

Some worshippers were coming out of the cathedral, passing the old wooden kiosks with their polished brass fittings. From them were sold foreign newspapers and souvenirs and holy relics.