The Sands of Time Read Online Free PDF Page B

watching you, Colonel. We are pleased with what we see.”
    “Thank you, sir.”
    “From time to time we have certain assignments that are—shall we say—very confidential. And very dangerous.”
    “I understand, sir.”
    “We have many enemies. People who don’t understand the importance of the work we’re doing.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Sometimes they interfere with us. We can’t permit that to happen.”
    “No, sir.”
    “I believe we could use a man like you, Colonel. I think we understand each other.”
    “Yes, sir. I’d be honored to be of service.”
    “We would like you to remain in the army. That will be valuable to us. But from time to time, we will have you assigned to these special projects.”
    “Thank you, sir.”
    “You are never to speak of this.”
    “No, sir.”
    The man behind the desk had made Acoca nervous. There was something overpoweringly frightening about him.
    In time, Colonel Acoca was called upon to handle half a dozen assignments for the OPUS MUNDO. As he had been told, they were all dangerous. And very confidential.
    On one of the missions Acoca had met a lovely young girl from a fine family. Until then, all of his women had been whores or camp followers, and Acoca had treated them with savage contempt. Some of them had genuinely fallen in love with him, attracted by his strength, and he had reserved the worst treatment for them.
    But Susana Cerredilla had belonged to a different world. Her father was a professor at Madrid University, and her mother was a lawyer. When Susana was seventeen years old, she had the body of a woman and the angelic face of a Madonna. Ramón Acoca had never met anyone like this woman-child. Her gentle vulnerability inspired in him a tenderness of which he had not known he was capable. He fell madly in love with her, and, for reasons which neither her parents nor Acoca understood, she fell in love with him.
    On their honeymoon, it was as though Acoca had never known another woman. He had known lust, but the combination of love and passion was something he had never previously experienced.
    Three months after they were married, Susana informed him that she was pregnant. Acoca was wildly excited. To add to their joy, he was assigned to the beautiful little village of Castilblanco, in Basque country. It was in the fall of 1936, when the fighting between the Republicans and Nationalists was at its fiercest.
    On a peaceful Sunday morning, Ramón Acoca and his bride were having coffee in the village plaza when the square suddenly filled with Basque demonstrators.
    “I want you to go home,” Acoca said. “There’s going to be trouble.”
    “But you—?”
    “Please. I’ll be all right.”
    The demonstrators were beginning to get out of hand.
    With relief, Ramón Acoca watched his bride walk away from the crowd toward a convent at the far end of the square. But as she reached it, the door suddenly swung open and armed Basques who had been hiding inside swarmed out with blazing guns. Acoca watched helplessly as his wife went down in a hail of bullets. It was on that day that he had sworn vengeance on the Basques and the Church.
    And now he was in Ávila, outside another convent. This time they’ll die.
    Inside the convent, in the dark before dawn, Sister Teresa held the Discipline tightly in her right hand and whipped it hard across her body, feeling the knotted tails slashing into her as she silently recited the miserere. She almost screamed aloud, but noise was not permitted, so she kept the screams inside her. Forgive me, Jesus, for my sins. Bear witness that I punish myself, as You were punished, and I inflict wounds upon myself, as wounds were inflicted upon You. Let me suffer, as You suffered.
    She was nearly fainting from the pain. Three more times she flagellated herself, and then sank, agonized, upon her cot. She had not drawn blood. That was forbidden. Wincing against the agony that each movement brought, Sister Teresa returned the whip to its