Red Tape

Incompetent Damage.

Madrid, September 1963

Sergei ditched the Spanish secret service fairly handily. It had been a simple matter to leave the Russian embassy in his Skoda, go to the bar where he usually had "Un café con Leche", slip out the back door, get into a different car and head off to the rendezvous point.

He travelled outside Madrid, to the countryside and pulled in at the agreed meeting point. A farm that was friendly to his motherland's cause, although occasional financial donations also contributed to the farmer's loyalty.

Sergei knew things would go badly on his first meeting with the contact, when the cream colored car rattled into view, missing a hub cap on the right front wheel, rusting from top to bottom and belching steam from the engine.

The pudgy, badly dressed man jumped out and burnt his hand on the hot metal as he tried to open the top. He waved his hand and shrilled out a stream of obscenities, which he only stopped intermittently as he sucked his fingertips, like a mustachioed baby.

"Could he call any more attention to himself?" Sergei thought as he puffed on a Fortuna, so much softer than the black tobacco back home. He threw the cigarette away and went to help the buffoon his KGB superiors had sent him.

"Need a hand?" offered Sergei.

Jose Manuel's eyes opened to the size of plates in his fat red face, his breath stank of alcohol and aniseed.

"Comrade! Good to see you!" he shouted loud enough for anyone to hear if anybody had been around.

"Quiet you idiot!" Sergei spat out the words, losing his temper, pushing Jose Manuel away as he tried to give him the customary kisses on two cheeks.

"What part of secret meeting do you not understand?"

The small round man immediately shuffled on the spot, swearing once more but this time under his breath.

"Sorry, of course. Forgive me." There was an uncomfortable pause between them as Sergei considered his actions. The operation was a direct order from his superiors. Any attempt to abandon it would be seen as sabotage on his part and might end up in him losing his position at the embassy or worse being sent to a Siberian Gulag. Despite the sunny day he shivered a little just thinking about it.

"Have you got it?" It was Jose Manuel who broke the silence.

With a resigned reluctance Sergei handed over the grenade. The Grenade that was to be used to assassinate the Spanish dictator General Franco. Jose Manuel reached out to take it with his burnt hand and winced in pain and managed to drop it.

Both men looked down and saw that the pin had fallen out. They both scrambled to the ground getting in each other's way as they searched frantically for the pin. At what must have been the last moment, Sergei found it and pushed it back in place preventing them both from an early demise. Suddenly, Sergei found himself thinking of his beloved grandmother babushka in a way he hadn't thought of her since he was a child.

Slowly, carefully he passed the grenade to Jose Manuel's other hand.

"One thing, comrade, is there any chance I could get a lift back to the city?" the Spaniard said as his jalopy of a car made a plinking sound as the metal finally started to cool down and contract. Steam still coming out of the engine, albeit at a slower pace.

So, Sergei drove the would be assassin back to Madrid accompanied by a dreadful sinking feeling.

When the fateful day came, Sergei was terrified of opening the newspaper. It sat folded on his desk, provocative in its silence. It was his colleague Dimitri who made his decision for him. "So, the operation was a bust," he said as he walked in.

"That idiot! What did he do? Was he captured?" demanded Sergei.

"No, the bomber was the only collateral damage" Dimitri confirmed in that cold way he had about him.

"Incompetent damage, more like" murmured Sergei, much to Dimitri's confusion.

What the press wouldn't tell the KGB operatives was that Jose Manuel had gone early to the diplomatic meeting between the British, American, and Spanish governments. This was a secret meeting as neither the British nor the Americans wanted the bad press of dealing with a fascist leader. Jose Manuel didn't want to miss "El Classico" the traditional soccer match between Real Madrid and Barcelona. So he went earlier, arousing suspicion with the security detail. However, the man's stupidity had convinced the guards that he wasn't a threat.

When Franco and his generals arrived, he burst into the room with the cry "Viva La Republica!" throwing the grenade into the middle of the crowd. The guards gunned him down. The grenade didn't explode. In all the excitement, Jose had forgotten to take the pin out.

What Sergei would never learn, was that a KGB mole in the British Diplomatic circles had instinctively thrown himself onto General Franco, when he saw the grenade. He wasn't supposed to be there, but Jose Manual had gone too early. This act raised him above suspicion for years to come and allowed him to pass the information on to the Soviet government for years. In the strangest of ways, the operation was considered to be a success, despite failing to achieve its objectives.

Yet for the longest time, Sergei would cast an eye over his shoulder. Always worried that he would never see the Sun or his beloved grandmother ever again.