The Hidden Assassins

28

Seville-Thursday, 8th June 2006, 12.18 hrs

Outside the pre-school everybody was wearing masks against the stench and Falcon, Ramirez and del Rey walked with their hands clasped over their mouths and noses. There was an anteroom to the main body of the forensics' tent, where they all dressed in white hooded boiler suits and put on masks. The interior of the tent was air conditioned down to 22°C. Five forensic teams were currently working at the site. All of them had stopped for the opening of the box. Something within the human psyche making it impossible, even for forensics, to resist the mystery of a closed, secure container.

A dictaphone was tested and set in the middle of the table. The leader of the forensic team nodded to the judge and detectives as they gathered around. His hands, in latex gloves, were spread on either side of a red metal box. Next to him was a shallow cardboard evidence box, dated and with the address of the Imam's apartment on the lid. Inside were three small plastic bags containing keys. A white-suited figure nudged into Falcon. It was Gregorio.

'This could be interesting if those keys open that box,' he said. 'Two sets came from the desk and one from the kitchen of the Imam's apartment.'

'Are we ready?' asked the forensics team leader. 'Here we are on Thursday, 8th June 2006 at 12.24 hours. We have a sealed metal box, which has sustained some blast damage to the lid, although the lock still appears to be sound. We are going to attempt to open this box, using keys taken from the Imam's apartment during a search of those premises on Wednesday, 7th June 2006.'

He rejected the first sachet of keys but selected the next one and poured the two keys into his hand. He fitted one of the identical keys into the lock, turned it, and the lid sprang open.

'The box has been successfully opened by a key found in the kitchen drawer of the Imam's apartment.'

He opened the lid and lifted out three coloured plastic folders, thick with folded paper. This emptied the box, which was removed to another table. He opened up the first green folder.

'Here we have one sheet of writing in Arabic script, which has been paper-clipped to what appears to be a set of architect's drawings.'

He opened out the drawings, which proved to be a detailed plan of a secondary school in San Bernardo. The other two folders followed the same pattern. The second set of drawings featured the plan of a primary school in Triana, and the third, the biology faculty on Avenida de la Reina Mercedes.

Silence, while the men and women of the forensic teams contemplated their find. Falcon could feel the minds in the room working their way towards more and more uneasy conclusions. Each Islamic terrorist atrocity had released new viral strains of horror into the body of the West. No sooner had the West become reconciled to men as bombs, than they had to accept women as bombs, and even children as bombs. It seemed sickeningly obvious now that car bombs would transmute to boats as bombs, and then planes as bombs. Finally the atrocities would no longer remain at a distance in the Middle East, Far East or America, but come to Madrid and London. Then there was the unimaginable. The stuff that would make a horror novelist tremble at night: executions beamed around the world of men and women being beheaded with kitchen knives. And finally Beslan: children held hostage, given no food or water, explosives hung over their heads. How is an ordinary mind supposed to work under these conditions of easy contagion?

'Were they going to blow these places up?' asked a voice.

'Take hostages,' said a woman. 'Look, they're after kids from five years old up to twenty-five years old.'

'Bastards.'

'Is there nothing these people won't do? Are there no fucking boundaries?'

'I think,' said Juez del Rey, quick to put a lid on the mounting hysteria, 'that we should wait until we have translations of the Arabic script in our hands before we jump to conclusions.'

It was not the voice of reason that people wanted to hear. Not just yet, anyway. They'd been waiting a long time to get their hands on solid evidence and now they'd found something spectacular they wanted to vent some of their anger. Del Rey sensed this. He moved things along once more.

'As a precaution, these three buildings should be searched. If there was a plan to seize them it's possible that weaponry has been stored there.'

Everybody nodded, glad to see that even the man from Madrid suffered the same paranoia, the same corrupted brain circuit as themselves.

'Let's get these drawings and the Arabic texts through the forensic process as soon as possible. We need those translations fast,' he said.

'There's something else,' said the forensics team leader. 'The bomb disposal people have come across something interesting on the explosives front.'

An army officer in white overalls with a green armband pushed his way through to the table.

'So far we've only had full access to the area above the storeroom, because there's no evidence of bodies or human tissue. We still believe that the main destructive explosion was caused by a large quantity of hexogen being detonated, but we have also found trace evidence of Goma 2 Eco, which is the mining explosive that was used in the Madrid bombings.'

'Did one set off the other?'

'It's certainly possible, but we have no way of proving it.'

'Is there any reason why two types of explosive would be used?'

'Goma 2 Eco is industrial quality, whereas hexogen is military. If you have a large quantity of hexogen, which has greater brisance than Goma 2 Eco, I don't see why you'd use a lower grade explosive, unless your intention was to cause other distracting explosions, or to hold people in a state of fear.'

'You estimated the hexogen stored in the building to be in the region of 100 kilos,' said del Rey.

'Conservative estimate.'

'What sort of damage would 100 kilos do to these schools and the university faculty on these drawings?'

'A real expert, who understood the architecture of the buildings, could probably raze them to the ground,' said the army officer. 'But it would be a demolition job. They would have to drill into the reinforced skeleton of the building and wire the charges together for a simultaneous explosion.'

'And what about people?'

'If everyone was herded into one or two rooms of each building, with 30 kilos of hexogen there would be no, or only very few, survivors.'

'Is it possible for you to tell how much Goma 2 Eco exploded in the storeroom of the mosque?'

'Personally, I would say 25 kilos or less, but I wouldn't be able to stand up in court and say that, because the hexogen trace is too dominant.'

'Is hexogen manufactured in Spain?'

'No. The UK, Italy, Germany, USA and Russia,' he said. 'They probably make it in China, too, but they're not telling us if they are.'

'Why go to the trouble of importing it?'

'Its availability,' said the army officer. 'Wherever there's conflict in the world, there's ordnance, and hexogen can easily be extracted from it. You end up with low-volume high explosive which is untraceable, easy to transport, hide and disguise. Domestic gunpowder magazines are more tightly controlled since 11th March, although there have been thefts-for instance in Portugal last year. I would also say that the chances of hexogen being spotted in an open European transport system are slim. Whereas mounting a robbery of a gunpowder magazine in this country would get you lower grade explosive, and draw the immediate attention of the authorities.'

'What about the home-made variety, used in the London bombings?' asked del Rey. 'Wouldn't it be easier to mix up easily available ingredients than go to the trouble and risk of bringing in hexogen, or stealing Goma 2 Eco?'

'You're right, triaceton triperoxide can be made quite easily, but I wouldn't like to be around someone dealing with it, unless he had a chemistry post-graduate degree and we were operating in temperature-controlled laboratory conditions. It's volatile,' he said. 'Also it depends on what sort of atrocity you want to commit. TATP is fine if you're intent on killing people, but if you want a spectacular explosion, with serious destruction and loss of life, then hexogen is much more capable of doing that. Hexogen is also stable and not temperature sensitive, something that's important at this time of year in a place like Seville, where daytime temperatures can vary by as much as twenty degrees.' The work rate was increasing. Material was coming in at a constant rate from the bombsite. Bits of credit card, scraps of ID, driving licences, strips of clothing, shoes. The more macabre findings, such as body parts, were taken to the tented morgue next door. While del Rey watched the forensic work, Falcon briefed Elvira, who'd just arrived from a meeting in the town hall with the Mayor, Comisario Lobo and Magistrado Juez Decano Spinola. Elvira ordered searches of the three buildings immediately. Evacuation would be carried out by the local police and searches conducted by the bomb squad in case of booby traps. Elvira was concerned that other terrorist cells might have become active, preparing to take over the buildings. The CGI had to be alerted. Gregorio of the CNI was already in touch with Pablo, who was asking for the translations to be sent to him by secure email as soon as they were ready.

Falcon, Ramirez and del Rey stripped off their boiler suits in the forensic tent's anteroom and went back to the pre-school to resume their meeting.

'What do you make of that development, Inspector Jefe?' asked del Rey.

'We were asked to keep an open mind in this investigation, especially by the senior CNI man,' said Falcon. 'And yet, since we found the Peugeot Partner and its contents, almost all subsequent findings have directed us towards the belief that an Islamic terrorist campaign was being planned in this mosque.'

'Almost all subsequent findings?'

'We cannot satisfactorily explain the fake council inspectors and the electricians, and yet we are very suspicious of their involvement,' said Falcon. 'They seem to be an intrinsic part of the actual explosion. Now that we've spoken to the bomb squad officer it seems clear that a smaller device was planted, which set off the stored hexogen. We have a link between Miguel Botin and the electricians. He was seen handing over the card to the Imam. But who was he working for?'

'You don't buy the CNI line either?'

'I would if there was any proof for it, but there's none.'

'What about those keys from the Imam's apartment opening the box?' said Ramirez. 'Where does that place the Imam now?'

'As part of the plot,' said del Rey.

'Except that the keys were found in a kitchen drawer,' said Falcon. 'I find that strange when all the other keys were kept in his desk. And the two keys were identical. Would you keep them together?'

'If we are to believe that Botin was a double agent and that he was serving up the Imam to the CGI on behalf of another terrorist commander, as the CNI seem to think, then what are we to make of the drawings in the metal box?' asked del Rey.

'The Imam's keys opened the box, therefore whatever is in that box is an expendable operation,' said Falcon. 'The CNI would be forced to admit it was another part of the diversion.'

'And what do you think, Inspector Jefe?'

'I don't have enough information to think anything,' said Falcon.

'You said you were keeping an open mind, Inspector Jefe. What does that mean exactly? That you've been conducting other enquiries?'

Falcon told him about Informaticalidad, giving the background on Horizonte and I4IT. He gave their reasons for buying the property and how the sales reps used it. He also told him about Informaticalidad's recruiting procedure.

'Well, all that sounds strange, but I can't see anything in particular that's pointing to their involvement in this scenario.'

'I've never heard anything like it,' said Ramirez.

'So far, the only illegal thing I can find is that they used black money to buy the apartment,' said Falcon. 'I've been trying to find something that links them to what was going on in the mosque.'

'And you haven't found it.'

'The only connection is that one of the churches used in recruiting employees for Informaticalidad was the same one used by the CGI antiterrorist agent Ricardo Gamero-San Marcos.'

'But you have no proof that Gamero met anyone from Informaticalidad?'

'None. I spoke to the priest from San Marcos and I would describe some of his responses as extremely guarded, but that's all.'

'Are you hoping that the police artist's drawing of the man Gamero met in the museum is going to provide that link to Informaticalidad?'

'That's a tricky process: to extract a likeness from a museum security guard's view of a person he wasn't particularly interested in,' said Falcon. 'They're looking for troublemakers, not two adults having a conversation.'

'Which is why, after five hours, we still have nothing,' said Ramirez.

'We're also pushing forward with an enquiry we started the day before the bomb,' said Falcon, and described the circumstances of the mutilated corpse.

'And because of the timing, you think that there might be a link to the bombing?' asked del Rey.

'Not just that; after this particularly brutal treatment to hide the victim's identity, the body had been sewn into a shroud. That struck me as respectful and religiously motivated. The corpse also had what is known as a Berber genetic marker, which means that he was either from the Iberian peninsula or North African.'

'You said he was poisoned.'

'He ingested it,' said Falcon, 'which could imply that he didn't know he was being "executed". Then they removed his identity but treated him with respect.'

'And how will this help us to identify the fake council inspectors and the electricians?'

'I won't know that until I identify the murdered man,' said Falcon. 'I'm hoping that can be done now that an image of the victim's face and a full set of dental X-rays have been sent out to intelligence services worldwide, including Interpol and the FBI.'

Del Rey nodded, scribbled notes.

'We're not getting anywhere looking for these electricians through conventional channels,' said Ramirez.

'While the bomb squad officer was talking, it occurred to me that an explosives expert would have to know about electronics and therefore probably electrics in general,' said Falcon. 'Goma 2 Eco is a mining explosive, so perhaps we should sit our witnesses down in front of photo IDs for all licensed explosive handlers in Spain.'

'Have your witnesses been able to describe the electricians?'

'The most reliable one is a Spanish convert called Jose Duran, but he couldn't describe them very well. There didn't seem to be anything particular about them.'

'Witnesses plural, you said.'

'There's an old Moroccan guy, but he didn't even spot that the two labourers weren't Spanish.'

'Maybe we should send an artist along to see Jose Duran while he looks at the licensed explosive handlers,' said Ramirez. 'I'll get on to it.'

Falcon gave him his mobile to extract Duran's number. Ramirez left the room.

'I'm concerned that the CNI are either not seeing things straight, or they're not telling us everything we should know,' said del Rey. 'I don't know why they haven't let you into the Imam's apartment yet.'

'They're not concerned about what happened here any more,' said Falcon. 'This explosion was either a mistake or a decoy, and either way there's no point in expending energy to find out very little when there's possibly another, more devastating attack being planned elsewhere.'

'But you don't agree with the CNI's point of view?'

'I think there are two forces at play here,' said Falcon. 'One force is an Islamic terrorist group, who appeared to be planning an attack using hexogen, brought here in the Peugeot Partner and stored in the mosque…'

'An attack on those schools and the biology faculty?'

'Let's see what forensic information we get, if any, from the drawings and the texts,' said Falcon. 'And also the content of the translations.'

'And the other force?'

'I don't know.'

'But how does this force manifest itself?'

'By a breakdown of logic in the scenario,' said Falcon. 'We can't fit the council inspectors and the electricians into our scenario, nor can we explain the Goma 2 Eco.'

'But who do you think this force is?'

'What are these Islamic terrorist groups fighting for, or who do you think they're fighting against?' asked Falcon.

'It's difficult to say. There doesn't seem to be any coherent agenda or strategy. They just seem to be meting out a series of punishments. London and Madrid were supposedly because of Iraq. Nairobi, the USS Cole and the Twin Towers because they believe that America is an evil empire. Bali because of Australian action in East Timor against the Islamic nation of Indonesia. Casablanca was supposedly against Spanish and Jewish targets. Karachi…I don't know; it was the Sheraton, wasn't it?'

'And that's our problem here,' said Falcon. 'We have no idea who their enemy is. Perhaps this other force is just a group of people who've had enough and decided they don't want to be passively terrorized any more. They want to fight back. They want to preserve their way of life-whether it's considered decadent or not. They could be the people behind the VOMIT website. They could be an unknown local Andalucian group who've heard about the MILA and perceived it as a threat to them and their families. Maybe it's a religious group who want to maintain the sanctity of the Catholic faith in Spain and drive Islam back into North Africa. Or perhaps we are even more decadent than we know and this is pure power play. Somebody has seen the political or economic potential in terrifying the population. When those planes hit the Twin Towers everything changed. People see things differently now-both good and bad people. Once a new chapter in the human history of horror has been opened, all sorts of people start applying their creative powers to the writing of its next paragraphs.'