SPAIN All for Africa
Not for years had Madrid’s massive War Ministry been so stirred. Down the sedate corridors and across the carpeted halls the word fluttered: Paymaster Captain Julian Rodriguez Pastrana has gone over the hill with the ministry’s payroll, $600,000 in cash. Soon everyone began recalling little things about handsome Captain Rodriguez, a colonel’s son and a smart officer. They recalled how he had separated from his wife, and had taken up with an expensively beautiful brunette named Africa Peral Redondo, who was only 28 to his 40. Out went the alarm for the arrest of both of them. But this was nothing to the alarm that broke out when it was learned that Rodriguez and Africa had escaped to Paris, where Rodriguez was claiming political asylum as an anti-Franco refugee. He was merrily giving sensational interviews to anti-Franco newspapers and making anti-Franco broadcasts. In the Ministry of War, General Agustin Muiioz Grande gave his orders: “I don’t care how, but this man must be brought back.”
In Paris, the Spanish ambassador requested Rodriguez’ arrest and extradition. France, sensing the Spaniard’s urgency, offered to trade Rodriguez for Raymond Viadieu, onetime deputy mayor of Toulouse now serving eight years in a Spanish jail for espionage. Tipped off about the deal, Rodriguez and Africa flew off to Mexico, which has neither diplomatic relations nor an extradition treaty with Spain. Mexico, however, badly wanted to get its hands on a couple of Mexican counterfeiters who were living a high life in Madrid after swamping Latin America with fake pesos. Madrid proposed a subtle solution.
One morning in Mexico City, Captain Rodriguez was awakened by a Mexican cop. “I have not broken your laws. You cannot send me back to Spain,” protested Rodriguez. “We are doing nothing of the sort,” replied the cop. “We are merely expelling you from Mexico as an undesirable and shipping you to Cuba.” In Cuba, which does have an extradition treaty with Spain, Rodriguez found himself in jail for illegal entry. He sat there while Mexico waited for its end of the bargain to be satisfied.
Last week a plane from Cuba took Captain Rodriguez, now a limp and broken man, to Madrid to face charges of grand larceny and high treason, which carries the maximum penalty of death.
Out of the plane also stepped a tall, slim girl, her red-rimmed eyes hidden by sun goggles. Africa watched the Black Maria drive off with the lover she would probably never see again. Then, through the airfield restaurant windows, she caught sight of a gaily lighted tree. “It’s Christmas week, isn’t it?” she said.
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