The Hidden Assassins

37

Seville-Friday, 9th June 2006, 05.03 hrs

There was no gunshot. A force travelled from Alarcon's head, up the gun barrel, through Fernando's hand, arm and shoulder and into his mind. It made his upper body shudder so that the gun barrel drifted from its aim, and had to be retrained on to Alarcon's crown, not once or twice, but three times. His finger caressed the trigger with each retraining of the revolver. He blinked, took in huge gulps of air and looked down on the man, who a few moments ago had been the object of his deepest hatred. He couldn't do it. Alarcon's words had somehow drained all his resolve. It was the miracle cure for the malignancy of his revenge. He knew with absolute certainty that he had heard the truth.

At first light, with the sky turning from midnight blue to anil, Fernando dropped his arm and let it hang with the weight of the gun. Ferrera stepped forward and removed it from his slack grasp and holstered it. She moved him away from behind Alarcon, who fell forwards on to all fours.

'Take Fernando to the car,' said Falcon. 'Cuff him.'

Alarcon was dry retching and sobbing at the sudden release of tension. Falcon got him to his feet and took him to where his wife was standing, wide-eyed, features rigid, by the front door. Falcon asked for the bathroom. The request brought Monica Alarcon back to reality. She led Falcon and her husband upstairs to where the children were standing, one holding a fluffy tiger, the other a small blue blanket, uncomprehending of the adult drama. Monica got the kids back into their bedroom. She joined Falcon in the bathroom where her husband was struggling to undo the buttons on his pyjamas. Falcon told her to strip her husband's clothes off and get him into the shower. He would wait downstairs in the kitchen.

Exhaustion leaned on Falcon like a big, stupid dog. He shut the front door and sat at the kitchen table, staring into the garden, with only one thought shuttling backwards and forwards through his mind. Jesus Alarcon was not part of the conspiracy. It looked as if he was their compliant and ignorant front man.

Monica came back down to the kitchen and offered him a coffee. She was shaken, her hands trembled over the crockery. She had to ask him to work the espresso machine.

'Did he have a gun?' she asked. 'Did Fernando have a gun?'

'Your husband handled himself very well,' said Falcon, nodding.

'But Fernando and Jesus were getting on so well.'

'Fernando read something he shouldn't have done and misunderstood an observation as a fact,' said Falcon. 'Your husband's courage meant that it didn't end in tragedy.'

'We both admired Fernando so much for the way in which he was managing his terrible loss,' she said. 'I had no idea he was so unstable.'

'He thought your husband had betrayed him, that he'd made him his friend to further his political career. And Fernando is unstable. Nobody can be called stable after losing their wife and son like that.'

Jesus appeared in the doorway. He'd lost the ashen look. He was shaved and dressed in a white shirt and black trousers. Falcon made him a coffee. Monica went back upstairs to check on the children. They sat at the kitchen table.

'A lot has happened overnight,' said Falcon. 'Can you answer a few questions before we discuss that?'

Alarcon nodded, stirred sugar into his coffee.

'Can you tell me where you were on Saturday 3rd June?' asked Falcon.

'We were north of Madrid for the weekend,' said Alarcon. 'One of Monica's friends got married. The wedding party was at a finca on the way up to El Escorial. We stayed there on Sunday and came back on the AVE train early on Monday morning.'

'Did you go to the Fuerza Andalucia offices in Eduardo Rivero's house during the week before that?'

'No, I didn't,' said Alarcon. 'On the advice of Angel Zarrias I was staying clear of Eduardo. Angel was still working on him to relinquish the leadership and he reckoned that for Eduardo to see the new young blade of the party around him might be construed as humiliation. So, I didn't see any of them, except Angel, who came here a couple of times to tell me how things were going.'

'When you say you didn't see any of them, who do you include in that?'

'Eduardo Rivero and the three main sponsors of the party, who are all my supporters: Lucrecio Arenas, Cesar Benito and Agustin Cardenas.'

'When did you last see Eduardo Rivero?'

'On the Tuesday morning, when he formally handed over the leadership.'

'And before that?'

'I think we had lunch around the 20th of May. I'd have to check my diary.'

'Have you ever seen this man before?' asked Falcon, looking at Alarcon as he pushed a photo of Tateb Hassani across the table. It was clear he didn't recognize the man.

'No,' he said.

'Have you ever heard mention of the name Tateb Hassani or Jack Hansen?'

'No.'

Falcon took the photograph back and turned it over and over in his hands.

'Has that man got anything to do with what Fernando was talking about?' asked Alarcon. 'He looks North African. That first name you mentioned…'

'He's originally a Moroccan who became a US citizen,' said Falcon. 'He's dead now. Murdered. Rivero, Zarrias and Cardenas are under arrest on suspicion of his killing.'

'I'm confused, Inspector Jefe.'

'Don Eduardo told me a few hours ago that he paid Tateb Hassani a € 5,000 consultancy fee last week for his advice on the formulation of Fuerza Andalucia's immigration policy.'

'That's ridiculous. Our immigration policy has been in place for months. We started work on that last October when the EU opened the door to Turkey and all those African immigrants tried to jump the wire into Melilla. Fuerza Andalucia does not believe that a Muslim country, even with a secular government, can be compatible with Christian countries. Europeans have shown themselves to be consistently intolerant of other religions throughout history. We have no idea of the social consequences of introducing Turkey, whose membership will result in one fifth of the European Union population being Muslim.'

'You're not on the campaign trail now, Sr Alarcon,' said Falcon, holding up his hands against the avalanche of opinion.

'I'm sorry. It's automatic,' he said, shaking his head. 'But why are Rivero, Zarrias and Cardenas accused of murdering a man who they'd just paid to help formulate policy? Why does Fernando think that Fuerza Andalucia is in some way responsible for planting a bomb in the mosque?'

'I'm going to give you an irrefutable fact and I want you to tell me what you construe from it,' said Falcon. 'You heard on the news that a fireproof box was found in the destroyed mosque, which included architect's drawings of two schools and the university biology faculty, with notes attached in Arabic script.'

'The ones giving the horrific instructions.'

'Those were written by Tateb Hassani.'

'So, he was a terrorist?'

Falcon waited, tapping the edges of the photograph, one after the other, on the table top, while the espresso machine fumed quietly in the corner. Alarcon frowned at the back of his hands as his brain worked through the permutations. Falcon gave him the other facts that were not in the public domain, as yet: Tateb Hassani's handwriting also matched that found in the two Korans, found in the Peugeot Partner and in Miguel Botin's apartment. He also told him about Ricardo Gamero's final meeting with Angel Zarrias and the CGI agent's subsequent suicide. Alarcon turned his hands over and looked at his palms, as if his political future was trickling away through his fingers.

'I don't know what to say.'

Falcon gave him a short life history of Tateb Hassani and asked him if that sounded like the profile of a dangerous Islamic radical.

'Why did they pay Hassani to make up documents that would indicate a planned terrorist attack when, as has been made clear by the discovery of traces of hexogen in the Peugeot Partner, Islamic terrorists were positioning material to carry out a bombing campaign?' asked Alarcon. 'It doesn't make sense.'

'The executive committee of Fuerza Andalucia did not know about the hexogen,' said Falcon, which opened up the story about the surveillance by Informaticalidad, the fake council inspectors, the electricians, and the planting of the secondary Goma 2 Eco device and the fireproof box.

Alarcon was stunned. He knew all the directors of Informaticalidad, whom he described as 'part of the set-up'. Only then did he finally understand how he'd been used.

'And I was positioned as the fresh face of Fuerza Andalucia, who, in the aftermath of the atrocity, would attract the anti-immigration vote, which would give us the necessary percentage to make ourselves the natural coalition partner of the Partido Popular for next year's parliamentary campaign,' said Alarcon.

The revelations drained what little energy remained in Alarcon and he sat back with his arms limp at his sides and contemplated the catastrophe in which he'd been unwittingly involved.

'I realize that this must be hard for you…' said Falcon.

'There are enormous implications, of course,' said Alarcon, with an odd mixture of dismay and relief spreading across his features. 'But I wasn't thinking of that. I was thinking that Fernando's madness has had the inadvertent side effect of allowing me to exonerate myself in front of the investigating Inspector Jefe.'

'Our range of interrogation techniques no longer includes mock executions,' said Falcon. 'But it has saved me a lot of time.'

'It wasn't what I had in mind for the extension of police powers in the handling of terrorists, either,' said Alarcon.

'You might have to work a little harder than that to get my vote,' said Falcon. 'How would you describe your relationship to Lucrecio Arenas?'

'I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that he's been like a father to me,' said Alarcon.

'How long have you known him?'

'Eleven years,' said Alarcon. 'In fact, I met him before that, when I was working for McKinsey's in South America, but we became close when I moved to Lehman Brothers and started working with Spanish industrialists and banks. Then he head-hunted me in 1997 and since then he's been a surrogate father…he's shaped my whole career. He's the one who has given me belief in myself. He's second in my life only to God.'

It was the response Falcon had expected.

'If you think he is involved in whatever this is, then think again. You don't know the man like I do,' said Alarcon. 'This is some local intrigue, cooked up by Zarrias and Rivero.'

'Rivero is finished. He was finished before this happened. He was walking with the fly-buzz of scandal about him,' said Falcon. 'I know Angel Zarrias. He's not a leader. He makes people into leaders, but he doesn't make things happen himself. What can you tell me about Agustin Cardenas and Cesar Benito?'

'I need another coffee,' said Alarcon.

'Here's an interesting link for you to think about,' said Falcon. 'Informaticalidad to Horizonte, to Banco Omni, to…I4IT?'

The coffee machine gurgled, trickled, hissed and steamed, while Alarcon hovered around it, blinking in this new point of view, matching it to his own bank of knowledge. Doubt threaded its way across his eyebrows. Falcon knew this wasn't going to be enough, but he didn't have anything more. If Rivero, Zarrias and Cardenas didn't break down then Alarcon might be his only door into the conspiracy, but it was going to be a heavy door to open. He didn't know enough about Lucrecio Arenas to induce a sense of outrage in Alarcon at the way in which he'd been shamelessly exploited by his so-called 'father'.

'I know what you want from me,' said Alarcon, 'but I can't do it. I realize it's not fashionable to be loyal, especially in politics and business, but I can't help myself. Even suspecting these people would be like turning on my own family. I mean, they are my family. My father-in-law is one of these people…'

'That was why you were chosen,' said Falcon. 'You are an extraordinary combination. I don't agree with your politics, but I can see that, for a start, you are very courageous and that your intentions towards Fernando were completely honourable. You're an intelligent and gifted man, but your vulnerability is in your professed loyalty. Powerful people like that in a person, because you have all the qualities that they don't, and you can be manipulated towards achieving their goals.'

'It's a marvellous world in which loyalty is perceived as a vulnerability,' said Alarcon. 'You must be a man made cynical by your work, Inspector Jefe.'

'I'm not cynical, Sr Alarcon, I've just come to realize that it's the nature of virtue to be predictable,' he said. 'It's always evil that leaves one gasping at its bold and inconceivable virtuosity.'

'I'll remember that.'

'Don't make me any more coffee,' said Falcon. 'I have to sleep. Perhaps we should talk again when you've had time to think about what I've told you and I've started working on Rivero, Zarrias and Cardenas.' Alarcon walked him to the front door.

'As far as I am concerned, I have no wish to see Fernando punished for what he did to me,' he said. 'My sense of loyalty also enables me to understand the profound effects of disloyalty and betrayal. You might have charges you wish to press against him, but I don't.'

'If this gets out to the press I'll have no option but to prosecute him,' said Falcon. 'He stole a police firearm and there's a good case for attempted murder.'

'I won't talk to the press. You have my word on it.'

'You've just saved the career of one of my best junior officers,' said Falcon, stepping off the porch.

He walked to the gate and turned back to Alarcon.

'I presume, after last night's meeting, that Lucrecio Arenas and Cesar Benito are still in Seville,' he said. 'I would suggest a face-to-face meeting with one, or both, of them while the information I've just given you is still out of the public domain.'

'Cesar won't be there. He'll be at the Holiday Inn in Madrid for a conference,' said Alarcon. 'Is seventytwo hours from inception to demise of a political future some kind of Spanish record?'

'The advantage you have at the moment is that you, personally, are clean. If you can retain that, you will always have a future. It's only once you join hands with corruption that you're finished,' said Falcon. 'Your old friend Eduardo Rivero could tell you that from the bottom of the well of his experience.' Cristina Ferrera and Fernando were sitting in the back of Falcon's car. She'd cuffed his hands behind his back and he leaned forward with his head resting against the back of the front seat. Falcon thought that they'd been talking but were now exhausted. He turned to face them from the driver's seat.

'Sr Alarcon is not going to press charges and he won't talk to the newspapers about this incident,' he said. 'If I were to prosecute you I would lose one of my best officers, your daughter would lose her father and only parent and would have to be taken into care, or go to live with her grandparents. You would go to jail for at least ten years and Lourdes would never know you. Do you think that's a satisfactory outcome for a burst of uncontrollable rage, Fernando?'

Cristina Ferrera looked out of the window blinking with relief. Fernando raised his head from the back of the passenger seat.

'And had your rage got the better of you, had your hatred been so dire that no reason could have appealed to it, and you'd actually killed Jesus Alarcon, then all the above would still be true, although your prison sentence would be longer, and you'd have had the death of an innocent man on your conscience,' said Falcon. 'How does that feel, in the dawn light of a new day?'

Fernando looked straight ahead, through the windscreen, down the street growing lighter by the moment.

He said nothing. There was nothing to say.