An aide walked briskly in and whispered in the Dictator’s ear.
“Good.”
Rising from the table and slipping into the jacket held by one of his personal valets, Franco concluded the discussion.
“One of the assassins is still alive. We will question him. If things are as you state, then Spain will not get involved in your war, Colonel Vaspatin. Thank you again and good day.”
Franco left the room at speed, leaving behind a worried man. A man who had not expected any survivors to interfere with the plan to take Spain out of the war.
As the Caudillo’s car swept out of the Presidential Palace, this time containing the genuine article, another car parked inconspicuously some miles away, pulling into a concealed shady spot on the Calle del Sur in Majadahonda. Two men in civilian clothing walked briskly to the railway station intent on boarding the next northwest-bound train.
Their Peugeot had been dumped, pushed into the Arroyo de Trofa River before the men had used their ‘clean’ vehicle to drive to the ten kilometres to the station. The second ‘clean’ vehicle had not followed the Peugeot into the water, despite the contingency plan, both men wishing to give any surviving comrades the best possible chance.
Nazarbayev and Horn both knew something had gone wrong, in the same way as they both now accepted that no-one else from the team was coming back.
Despite the large number of people travelling that day their compartment was empty, save for themselves. They were able to talk about events softly in Russian, and more loudly about the weather in German, on the occasions that someone strolled past the glass between them and the corridor.
Both took it in turns to have a nap as the stations rolled gently by. The pair were both wide awake by the time that Valladolid materialised out of the sunny haze.
Dismounting from the train together, they quickly oriented themselves, drawing on the briefing they had received, and, identifying the main entrance, proceeded out through the arches into the Calle del Recondo, their eyes adjusting to the strong sunlight.
Moving a few metres left to the end of the main entrance they waited in a return, where the front recessed back, indulging in cigarettes as they waited for their contact.
Both were still alert and took in their surroundings with practicised eyes, noting objects and people, ticking off possible threats as each was processed through their brain.
Neither man saw anything except that which it was intended that they should see, although perhaps they should have noted that the shoeshine spent all his time on the left foot of his customer, and that the same customer had his newspaper on his lap rather than reading it or indulging in conversation.
The man and woman with the pram stood side by side, facing the station and gazing down at their silent child, Nazarbayev was just starting to ask himself questions when he spotted a huge man holding a white suitcase starting to cross the road.
Their contact halted to let the Spanish Army truck move past and then mounted the pavement, making directly for the two agents.
“Excuse me, Señors, can you tell me the time of the next train to Madrid?”
He delivered a perfectly executed pass phrase.
“So sorry, Señor, We don’t know. We are from German Nationals from Corunna, here on business.”
Satisfied with the reply, the man placed his suitcase on the ground and stepped back. It had only taken ten seconds but a lot had happened whilst the two were distracted.
Where there had been a shoeshine and customer there were now two men holding pistols. The husband and wife had similarly transformed into armed threats, both covering the Russians with their handguns.
The Army truck disgorged a dozen men in half as many seconds.
Both Soviet agents no longer had weapons and were faced with an unpalatable decision. Nazarbayev reached into his jacket pocket for his papers, expressing his indignation in the chosen language of the mission.
Suddenly both men were on the ground, as their legs were wrecked by bullets from the four Spanish Intelligence Service officers. The soldiers quickly descended upon the stricken pair, checking them for weapons, before roughly picking them up and slinging them aboard the truck.
Shocked onlookers were being encouraged to move on, even as the two medics in the truck started to work on their charges, tasked only with keeping them alive for what was to come.
Nazarbayev and Horn lay side by side, the pain increasing as the vehicle bounced on the rough roads, picking up speed on its way to the military hospital.
Horn attempted to rise but felt a stab in his side as an eager young soldier used his bayonet to dissuade him.
He rolled his head towards the moaning Nazarbayev, who nodded his goodbyes to his comrade.
Within seconds, both men had used their tongues to free the capsules Vaspatin had given them.
Horn bit on his capsule and ingested a small dose of Potassium Cyanide. This entered his digestive tract and reacted with his stomach acid, producing fatal Hydrogen Cyanide. He jerked a few times as the poison penetrated his system and then settled, dying within ninety seconds.
Oleg Nazarbayev, twin brother of Vladimir, and youngest surviving son of Yuri and Tatiana, dropped into unconsciousness and failed in his act of self-destruction, the shoeshine boy sliding rough fingers into his mouth and hooking out the suicide pill.
Horn would take his secrets to the rough grave in which the Spanish later threw his body, whereas two of his comrades remained alive to be tortured and interrogated at painful length about the German raison d’être for the attack on Franco, as well as to answer questions on incriminating evidence found in their hotel room, from planning notes of El Pardo in German through to Maria Paloma’s personal diary graphically detailing her earthy expectations for few hours of romantic liaison with a handsome young German.
After local medical treatment, Oleg Nazarbayev was flown from Valladolid to join Prisoner Meyer in an innocuous building next a military airbase in the Cuatro Vientos ward of Madrid. Dwelling within an overt military security wall, the small building regularly entertained enemies of the state.
Three days later, a Spanish soldier distributed lunch according to the normal routine but, acting under instructions from his NKVD paymaster, also gave each man new means to end their lives.
Nazarbayev, suffering badly from his wounds, was tended by physicians, anxious to nurse him back to health.
Meyer, in a bad way, his recently fractured skull bringing as much pain as the torture, had already told all he knew. That the team spoke only spoke in German or Spanish, that four of the agents had arrived separately to his group, and a female agent had delivered their uniforms. He had screamed out the details of the ambush plan as his genitals were subjected to a crushing attack by weighty pliers.
The agent managed to wait the requested time, a delay to permit the guard to be out of immediate suspicion, consuming his deadly dose of Potassium Cyanide during the mid-afternoon siesta, before the Spanish Captain could start work on his remaining testicle.
Alarm bells rang and other men immediately ran to Nazarbayev’s sick bed, intending to stop a repeat performance. At the first sound of running feet, Oleg, weakened by a systemic infection, had instinctively known that his comrade had taken his own life and followed suit, convulsing on his bunk as keys rattled in the door.
Sat in his office, Beria read the Rezident’s report, sent ‘Eyes only’ the previous evening.
It seemed that the decision made by Stalin and himself had done all that was desired, as Spain was about to openly declare her neutrality, on the basis of the recent German-sponsored assassination attempt on the life of the Caudillo.
Rather than simply cut off the head, the reasoning had been that it could even be possible to turn Spanish views around, and make the country more sympathetic to the Communist cause, particularly in the light of the excellent assistance provided by the Russian Intelligence Services in foiling the recent plot.