On Scope

21

Daniel Ferran Torreblanca let his mind tumble the sharp-edged questions as he sat alone in the office of his crowded home in Seville. The rest of his large family was out enjoying the riotous Feria de Abril, which was where he wanted to be. He glanced at a clock; it was five thirty, and he longed to be at the Plaza de Toros de la Maestranza, shaded about halfway up the stands, watching Pepin Liria cape a bull with nonchalant elegance, even daring to fight on his knees. He would probably be rewarded with an ear today. Instead of being in the Cathedral of Bullfighting with his friends, Torreblanca was isolated with his thoughts, hidden away and praying to Allah that the bullet-resistant glass in his windows worked.

Mercedes had been careless! She was an old hand in the sneaky world of high finance, but she carried on with her life as if a diamond necklace were a suit of armor. She had known that the Spanish proposition was a high-risk operation from the start, and that lives would most certainly be lost, but she acted as if she herself were exempt from any violence just because she always had been before. Even when schemes that were hatched in her air-conditioned offices funneled money to Muslim warlords and resulted in many deaths, she had sailed untouched above the killing fields, shielded by phony accounts, front companies, paperwork, and foreign banks. Her fingerprints were never actually on the killings. This time, she had been wrong about how distance protected her, and now his dear friend Mercedes was dead.

Bourihane had been a valuable piece of the overall strategy to bring down the government of Spain precisely because she embodied the image of a nonthreatening, progressive Muslim woman. She could walk into a boardroom anywhere in Europe, make a sales pitch, and walk out with a multimillion-dollar deal. When she put on her lawyer hat, she was fierce, but that was always tempered by the friendly personality. Mercedes simply would not let people not like her.

Anyway, Yasim Rebiane and his son, Djahid, were supposed to be protecting them all throughout the bargaining with the Madrid financiers. That was part of the original plan, and Yasim had vowed that it would be carried out efficiently and quietly. Instead, the fools had launched a preemptive attack on the Americans in Barcelona, allegedly to warn Washington to stay out of the way. In Torreblanca’s view, all that did was guarantee more U.S. involvement. This time, Washington was not waiting for permission. There was no actual proof that the Americans were carrying out reprisals, other than the cold bodies of Cristobál Jose Bello, Juan de Lara, and now Mercedes Sarra Bourihane. Sometimes you do not need proof; you just know.

Daniel Torreblanca had wanted to ride his black stallion with the silver saddle during the morning parade, but canceled. He could hear the lively music in the distance but doubted he would even go out and wander through the casetas tonight to laugh and dance with his wife, drink hard wine, eat delicious tapas, and watch the girls swirl about and dance in rhythm to wild gypsy flamenco guitars. He was scared. The Group of Six had become a kill list, and his name was on it. That had come as a total surprise to them all, and before they could react, the whole operation had been dealt a serious blow and three were dead.

It had seemed so brilliant and easy when they had first gathered at Cristobál’s resort home in Mallorca. Yanis was the strategic brain who had gathered them and would plan an extraordinary financial coup. Mercedes was the pleasant face who would work directly with top banking officials throughout Europe and Asia. Torreblanca would choreograph participation from other Islamic banks, while Cristobál would do the same for the pro-Arab banks spread around the world, enlist avaricious and apolitical pension fund managers, and gather back-door contributions from some governments that detected an opportunity to weaken European solidarity. The obese but jolly Juan de Lara was to launder the needed paper trail to show the money was clean, and to handle the media with positive stories about the alternative rescue offer to whip up popular support. All would simultaneously work to loosen the grip of the European Community.

The sixth member stood ready to swoop in like a hawk to close the deals. The inclusion of Marwan Tirad Sobhi in Abu Dhabi had added prestige and international political clout to the venture, not to mention his ability to tap into the vast oil profits around the Persian Gulf. Sobhi’s extended family linked him to the royal families in three countries and also to leaders in the tribal and religious movements. He held no official title because he did not need one. Prime ministers and presidents answered when he called.

Torreblanca came out of his reverie when there was a rap on his door and it was opened by a bodyguard. An older woman in party attire came in with a tray of tea and tapas, with slices of cheese and fruit, which she placed on his desk.

“You will not come out to the fair, Daniel? Not at all?” The face of his mother was etched with concern. Her son, so strong and handsome, had always put aside business for the April fair, and he looked so beautiful astride the big horse, like a smiling warrior prince.

“I am bound to this awful machine as if by steel cables, mother.” He pushed the computer keyboard away to make room for the tea tray. Smiling, he said, “Look at you in your pretty red dress and with ribbons in your hair. You have to tell me all about it later.”

“I am enjoying every minute of it. My four grandchildren are watching after me, and your wife is dancing in a beautiful gypsy costume. Your papa is trying to sample all of the wine. The only thing missing is you.”

Torreblanca sipped some tea. “It pains me not to be there, mama, but look at this.” He turned the computer screen so that she could see its clutter. “Urgent e-mails from China and Brazil, a Skype conversation with the always nasty Russians, new contracts for confidential agreements that are already two days past deadlines, and reports from Berlin and Cyprus that I must approve.”

“All of it, that is just business.” She sighed and waved it away with her hand. “You are neglecting your family. And why do we have all of these new bodyguards?”

He stood and stretched. At six foot three, he towered over the woman who had brought him into this world forty years ago. He wrapped her in an affectionate hug while at the same time escorting her from the office. “Those are just some improved security measures for the time being. I am involved with some very sensitive negotiations, and a thief would love to grab this hard drive in my computer and reveal my secrets to our competitors. Now you go out there and thump my kids on the head if they give you any trouble. Take some pictures for me.”

The interruption by his mama had been a small welcome break in the strain that was trying to overwhelm him, and the spicy boiled-meat tapa helped clear his head. The absence of half of the Group of Six, and the ways by which they had died, made a lot of the other investors nervous, but Daniel could argue that nothing had really changed. The numbers told their own story, which was one of the many reasons that Torreblanca loved the steady, harsh figures.

Unemployment in Spain continued around 26 percent — meaning more than one out of every four Spaniards had no job — and in the under-twenty-five age range, half could not find work. The nation’s debt still hovered at more than 90 percent of its gross national product, with a shrinking budget that was being drained partly by having to prop up the lame economies of its Euro-partners of Cyprus, Ireland, and Greece. Earlier rounds of borrowing from the European Central Bank came with demands for austerity that directed Madrid to slash social programs, health care, and education.

Those belt-tightening measures imposed by the EC were working in his favor. Trust in the government was eroding. An overhaul of labor laws sent rioters into the streets as unproductive Spanish workers tried to protect their minimum twenty-two days of vacation time, plus the fourteen government holidays, at the expense of the poor getting even poorer and more numerous. Tens of thousands of people had been fired, and the real estate crisis still raged. In his view, that was all to the good. As any veteran investor knew, the ideal time to take a gamble was when blood was in the streets.

The numbers on his spreadsheets proved that, without a doubt, the country was still caught in a downward spiral. Spain wanted to borrow more than 200 billion euros for the next year, the equivalent to 266 billion U.S. dollars. Torreblanca reasoned that this situation still presented ample opportunities for all of the participants in the global game of money that had been invented by the Group of Six. If everyone would just stand firm, the potential profits would be enormous.

No one would mention the Group’s privately held long-range goal of a new government in Madrid that would use Muslim money and force Spain to introduce Sharia law in some instances of legal and social matters. It was only a first step and would take years to implement, but it was huge. International finance was just another battle front in the war against the nonbelievers. Mercedes would be greatly missed, but even she could be replaced. In Torreblanca’s opinion, the six architects of the Spanish takeover were all expendable, just like the brave young desert martyrs fighting giant military tanks with nothing but stones and slingshots.

“So what are we going to do about this Torreblanca guy?” Kyle Swanson asked. The Trident team was gathered in the Pentagon offices. “He’s gone to ground.”

Sybelle Summers closed her eyes, lost in thought. “Couldn’t be helped,” she finally said. “It’s important to remember that we got Mercedes Bourihane, the third of the six. With half of them off the board, the rest have to be feeling the heat.”

Major General Middleton was not dismayed. The White House had not backed off of the new focus of antiterrorist attacks. “I haven’t received any orders to curtail our work. So as far as I’m concerned, the Green Light package is still a go. We could always shift the spotlight and go after the others if this one is too hard to reach.”

Swanson disagreed. “We’ve put in a ton of study and work on this guy already, and the information will go stale if we don’t keep on it. Liz? You got anything new on him?”

Commander Freedman flicked his fingers over the screen of his electronic notebook, wiping out some images and calling up others. “Apparently, he hasn’t even stuck his head out of doors during the opening events of the festival in Seville, a time when he normally is seen everywhere. It’s a big deal. He is operating out of the house for right now, his schedule has been cleared, and more security teams have arrived.”

“That was to be expected once he learned of the hit in Paris.”

“One strange thing,” said the Lizard. “Torreblanca did not hire the new guards himself. They came from a private security company based in Algeria, and the mercs showed up in Seville within hours of the news from Paris.”

“Do we know who runs it?” Middleton squinted at him.

“Onworking that, sir. It’s a false front. Somebody has to be signing those paychecks.”

Swanson exhaled loudly. Mercenaries on the scene would make things tougher. “Coastie and I will go over to Seville right away and do some on-site recon. Torreblanca may be acting like a rabbit in a hole, but he’s got to come up for air sometime.”

Beth Ledford looked over. “So you think that three deaths aren’t enough to send the signal that we’re onto their game and get them to quit?”

“There were six dead Marines in Barcelona; I need at least six scalps just to even the score, and I don’t believe in a tie.”

“Is the big fair still going on?” Her eyes were steady on him.

“Yes. It lasts all week,” the Lizard replied.

“Good. We can do the starving artist routine again, Kyle. I can spin it off of some visits to the Museum of Fine Arts there, and nobody questions a girl with big puppy eyes walking around a colorful carnival carrying a sketch pad. It will get us in close. Then Liz can download overheads and his other stuff when we’re ready to move.”

Kyle was already thinking about the needed hardware. If the other side increased its protective capability, he would also increase his methods to beat them. He had looked forward to doing in this banker with a knife, up close and personal, but now he was leaning the other way, and would put even more distance between himself and the target by delivering a precision, powerful shot over an extreme distance.