The Hidden Assassins

42

Seville-Saturday, 10th June 2006, 10.00 hrs

'We thought we'd lost you back there,' said Pablo.

'I thought you'd lost me,' said Falcon.

'Are you still with us?'

'I'm tired, I'm shocked that my sister's partner is so deeply involved in this; I've been disturbed by what's happened to Yacoub and, because of these two assassinations, I've lost the possibility of a resolution to my investigation,' said Falcon. 'Maybe you're used to this in your world, but in mine it feels lurid.'

'I told Juan when we first came up with the idea of using you that we were expecting too much,' said Pablo. 'Operating in two worlds, the real and the clandestine, is the quickest way to paranoia.'

'Anyway, I'm out the other side now,' said Falcon. 'I think we should go to El Saucejo.'

'I can't,' said Pablo. 'Juan's just recalled me to Madrid. There's a lot of internet "chatter" and now there's been some movement as well. He can't spare me down here to help you…'

'So what are you going to do about Hammad and Saoudi, the other quantity of hexogen, the "hardware" that didn't arrive and the "disruption to a plan which has required a lot of reorganization"?' said Falcon. 'Isn't that what you'd call intelligence? Yacoub has been frightened half to death to get this stuff for you.'

'I don't know what you're expecting to find in El Saucejo,' said Pablo. 'Hammad and Saoudi sitting on some hexogen, helping people pack it into the "hardware" and carrying on with the plan? I don't think so.'

Falcon paced the room, chewing on his thumbnail.

'This hardware…that keeps getting referred to. It doesn't sound as if it's easily available, not something you go down to the shops and buy,' said Falcon. 'For some reason it sounds to me as if it's been custom made for a certain task.'

'It could be. Keep having ideas. Keep feeding them to Yacoub and see if he can come back with something relevant. That's all we can do.'

'You said the only thing that would make you sit up and get interested in our investigation was if we found that the Imam, or Hammad and Saoudi, were not in the mosque when it exploded,' said Falcon. 'And now you don't seem to give a damn.'

'Things have moved on. I've been recalled to Madrid. I'm being asked to look at other scenarios.'

'But don't you think it's significant that the original hexogen was brought to Seville, that there's additional hexogen out there, that Hammad and Saoudi are alive and well, and we know that there's an intention to attack?' said Falcon. 'Doesn't all that add up to…something?'

'Given the level of security around all major buildings, the announcement made last night of the reinstatement of spot checks and the police presence on the streets, I think it unlikely that they'll launch anything in Seville.'

'That sounds like an official communique,' said Falcon.

'It is,' said Pablo. 'The truth is, we have no idea. On Tuesday afternoon they were checking all vehicles going in and out of Seville, by Wednesday evening they were doing spot checks because people were complaining about traffic jams, on Friday they stopped all checks because people were still complaining, now they've reinstated them and you'll see what happens. Life goes on, Javier.'

'That sounds as if you're saying that we shouldn't worry too much if the population are so unconcerned,' said Falcon. 'But they don't know what we know-that there's more hexogen, that there is an intention to attack, and there was a twenty-four-hour break in the spot checks on vehicles.'

'All that information is in Juan's hands, and he's called me back to Madrid because what is going on there is more "significant" than anything that could happen here,' said Pablo. They went to El Saucejo: Gregorio and Falcon in the front and a bomb squad officer and his dog in the back with Felipe the forensic. In Osuna they were met by the Guardia Civil, who led them up to El Saucejo in their Nissan Patrol. They stopped in the village and picked up two men and continued in the direction of Campillos. The rolling hills around El Saucejo were either given over to endless olive trees or had been ploughed up to reveal dun-coloured earth, with chalkwhite patches. The Nissan Patrol stopped outside a ruined house on the right-hand side of the road, which had a view over the shimmering verdigris of the olive trees up to some distant mountains. The entrance and a section of the verge on the opposite side of the road about twenty-five metres down towards El Saucejo had been taped off as a crime scene.

The Guardia Civil introduced the owner of the house and the man who'd spotted Hammad and Saoudi changing the rear tyre early on Monday morning. Felipe started work on the tyre tracks on the side of the road and confirmed that they matched those of the Peugeot Partner in the police compound. He then examined the tyre tracks going into and out of the courtyard to the left of the ruined house.

After half an hour Felipe was able to tell them that the Peugeot Partner had come from the direction of Campillos, which was to the east, entered the courtyard and then exited it sustaining a puncture, which was repaired twenty-five metres down the road.

Inside the courtyard the bomb squad officer released the dog, which ran around for a few minutes before sitting down under some secure roofing near the main house. The officer then made some tests on the dry, beaten earth under the roofing and confirmed that there were traces of hexogen.

The owner of the house said it hadn't been lived in for over thirty years because it was too isolated for most people and there was a problem with water. He'd rented it out to a Spaniard with a Madrileno accent for six months. There was no contract and the man had paid him 600, saying he just wanted to use it occasionally for storage. The man who'd spotted Hammad and Saoudi changing the tyre said he drove past the house every day and had never seen anybody using it. He hadn't even seen the Peugeot Partner coming out of the courtyard. It was already on the side of the road, with one of the guys changing the tyre.

'What's important,' said Falcon, 'is: did anybody see a car going into or out of this courtyard at any time since Tuesday morning?'

They shook their heads. Falcon drove back to El Saucejo. They talked to as many people as they could find in the village, but nobody had seen any vehicle using the ruined house. They left the problem with the Guardia Civil.

On the way back to Seville, Gregorio took a call from the CNI communications department, saying that they had reinstalled the old encryption software and the system was now up and running. They had made the Hammad and Saoudi file available to Yacoub, but he had not, as yet, picked it up.

By 2.30 p.m. they were back in the Jefatura, sitting in front of the computer. They saw immediately that Yacoub had now picked up the file. A prearranged signal email was sent to him and he came online.

'The men you know as Hammad and Saoudi are already back in North Africa,' wrote Yacoub. 'They have been here since Thursday morning. I only know this because there was much cheering and clapping when the satellite news announced that it was now known that the two men had not been in the mosque when it exploded.'

'We've found the place where they stored the remaining hexogen but have no idea when it was picked up or where it has gone.'

'It has not been talked about here.'

'The two men who were assassinated earlier today, Lucrecio Arenas and Cesar Benito, were the answer to your initiation test. Their killings were made to look like the work of Islamic militants.'

'A denial has already been issued to Al-Jazeera.'

'Have you heard anything more about the "hardware" that was supposed to be made available for the original consignment of hexogen?'

'It has not been discussed.'

'Since yesterday there has been an increase in internet "chatter" and also some cell movement here in Spain. Can you comment?'

'There's nothing specific. There's a sense of excitement here and there's talk of one or more cells being activated, but it's nothing definite. Nothing I am told by the group who meet here in the house in the medina can be relied on.'

'Can you spend some time thinking about what you saw when you were taken out of Rabat to be given your initiation test? You mentioned the architectural and engineering books and some car manuals.'

'I'll think about it. I have to go now.' After lunch Falcon arranged for Zarrias to be brought up to the interview room.

'I'm not going to record this,' said Falcon. 'Nothing we say to each other now will be used in a court of law.'

Zarrias said nothing, he just looked at the person who could have been his brother-in-law.

'My Inspector has already told you that Lucrecio Arenas was shot three times in the back,' said Falcon. 'The maid found him face down in the pool. Do you want the people who did that to Lucrecio to get away with it?'

'No,' said Zarrias, 'but I can't help you, Javier, because I don't know who he was involved with.'

'Why was Cesar Benito important to this?' said Falcon. 'Do you think it was something to do with his construction company?'

Zarrias looked troubled, as if this question had brought something into the frame that he hadn't considered before.

'I don't think this was about money, Javier,' said Zarrias.

'On your part,' said Falcon. 'In a discussion between Lucrecio and Jesus yesterday your old friend told him that power in a democracy does not come without a great sense of indebtedness.'

Zarrias's head snapped back, as if he'd just been kicked in the face.

'Maybe you were working at cross purposes, Angel,' said Falcon. 'While you and Jesus were in it to make this world into what you consider to be a better place, Lucrecio and Cesar just wanted pure power and the money that comes with it.'

Silence.

'It happened in the Crusades, why shouldn't it happen now?' said Falcon. 'While some were out there battling for Christendom, others just wanted to kill, pillage and conquer new territory.'

'I cannot believe that of Lucrecio.'

'Maybe I should get Jesus to come down here and he can talk you through his disappointment,' said Falcon. 'I didn't see it, but he told me he was going to resign at eleven this morning and resume his career in business. I've never seen a man's idealism so emphatically extinguished.'

Angel Zarrias shook his head in denial.

'Didn't you stop to think, Angel, about the nature of the forces you were joining?' asked Falcon. 'Was there not one moment, after you'd poisoned Tateb Hassani and you knew that Agustin Cardenas was amputating his hands, burning off his face and scalping him, that you thought: "Are these the extremes to which one must go to achieve goodness in the world?" And if it didn't happen then, what about when you saw the shattered building and the four dead children under their school pinafores? Surely then you must have thought that you had inadvertently teamed yourself with something very dark?'

'If I did,' said Angel quietly, 'it was too late by then.' The press conference took place at 18.00 in the Andalucian Parliament building. Falcon had prepared a statement on his investigation, which had been incorporated into the official press release, to be delivered by Comisario Elvira. Falcon and Juez del Rey were attending the conference, but only to answer any questions on which Elvira didn't have the specific information. They were told to keep their replies to an absolute minimum.

The conference lasted about an hour and was a subdued affair. Elvira had just reached the point where he was looking to wrap up the event when a journalist at the back stood up.

'A final question for Inspector Jefe Falcon,' he said. 'Are you satisfied with this result?'

A brief silence. A cautionary look from Elvira. A woman leaned forward in the front row to get a good look at him.

'Experience tells me I might have to be,' said Falcon. 'It is the nature of all murder investigations that, the more time passes, the less chance there is that fresh discoveries will be made. However, I would like to tell the people of Seville that I, personally, am not satisfied with this outcome. With each act, terrorism reaches new depths of iniquity. Humanity now has to live in a world where people have been prepared to abuse a population's vulnerability to terrorism in order to gain power. I would have liked to have provided the ultimate resolution to this crime, which would have been to bring everyone, from the planners to the man who planted the device, to justice. We have only been partially successful, but, for me, the battle does not end with this press conference, and I want to assure all Sevillanos that I, and my squad, will do everything in our power to find all the perpetrators, wherever they may be, even if it takes me the rest of my career.' From the end of the press conference until 10.30 p.m. Falcon was in the Jefatura, catching up on the monumental load of paperwork that had accumulated in the five days of investigation. He went home, took a shower and changed, and was ready for the evening transmission to Yacoub when Gregorio came round at 11 p.m.

Gregorio was nervous and excited.

'It's been confirmed, from several different sources, that three separate cells are on the move. A group left Valencia last night by car, a married couple left from Madrid, in a transit van, early this morning and another group left from Barcelona, some together, some alone, at various times between Friday lunchtime and early this morning. They all seem to be heading for Paris.'

'Let's see what Yacoub makes of it,' said Falcon.

They made contact and exchanged introductions.

'I have no time,' wrote Yacoub. 'I have to leave for Paris on the 11.30 flight and it will take me more than an hour to get to the airport.'

'Any reason?'

'None. They told me to book my usual hotel in the Marais and that I would receive my instructions once I arrived.'

Falcon asked about the three cells activated in Spain since Friday, all heading for Paris.

'I've heard nothing. I have no idea if my trip is connected.'

'What about the "hardware"?'

'Still nothing. Any more questions? I have to leave now.'

Gregorio shook his head.

'When you were taken to the GICM camp for your initiation, you wrote about a wall of books-the car manuals. Have you remembered anything about them? It seems a curious thing to have.'

'They were all four-wheel-drive vehicles. I remember a VW insignia and a Mercedes. The third book was for Range Rover and the last I had to check my memory of the insignia on the internet. It was Porsche. That's it. I will try to make contact from Paris.'

Gregorio got up to leave, as if he'd just wasted his time.

'Any thoughts on that?' asked Falcon.

'I'll talk to Juan and Pablo, see what they think.'

Gregorio let himself out. Falcon sat back in his chair. He didn't like this intelligence work. Suddenly everything was moving around him at an alarming pace, with great urgency, but in reaction to electronic nods and winks. He could see how people could go mad in this world, where reality came in the form of "information" from "sources", and agents were told to go to hotels and wait for "instructions". It was all too disembodied for his liking. He never thought he'd hear himself say it, but he preferred his world, where there was a corpse, pathology, forensics, evidence and face-to-face dialogue. It seemed to him that intelligence work demanded the same leap of faith as religious belief and, in that respect, he'd always found himself in a twilight world, where his belief in a form of spirituality couldn't quite extend itself to the recognition of an ultimate being.

The three notebooks he'd filled during the course of the investigation sat on his desk, next to a pile of paperwork he'd brought home with him. He took a sheet of paper from the printer and opened up the first notebook. The date was 5th June, the day he'd been called to view Tateb Hassani's corpse on the rubbish tip outside Seville. He saw that he'd semiconsciously written El Rocio next to the date. Perhaps there'd been something on the radio. It was always reported when the Virgen del Rocio had been successfully brought out of the church and paraded on Pentecost Monday. As he doodled out the shape of one of the painted wagons that was so typical of the pilgrimage, he realized how El Rocio had become almost as important an event to tourists as Semana Santa and the Feria. It had always drawn thousands from all over Andalucia, and they had now been joined by hundreds of tourists, looking for another Sevillano experience. His brother, Paco, had even started providing horses and accommodation on his bull-breeding farm for an agency specializing in more luxurious forms of the pilgrimage, with magnificent tents, champagne dinners and flamenco every night. There were luxury versions of everything these days. There was probably a caviar version of the walk to Santiago de Compostela. Decadence had even got into the pilgrimage trade. Below the drawing of the wagon he wrote: El Rocio. Tourists. Seville.

More flipping through the random notes and jottings. When he did this he couldn't help but think of artists and writers with their notebooks. He loved it, in the great retrospective of an artist, when the museum showed the notebook sketches, which eventually became the great, and much recognized, painting.

A single line he'd written on the reverse side of a sheet of paper caught his eye: drain the resources of the West through increased security measures, threaten economic stability by attacking tourist resorts in southern Europe and financial centres in the north: London, Paris, Frankfurt, Milan. Who had said that? Was it Juan? Or perhaps it was something Yacoub had written?

There was a map of Spain on the wall next to his desk and he crabbed across to it on his chair. Was Seville the obvious place to bring explosives together to launch attacks on the tourist infrastructure of Andalucia? Granada was more central. The Costa del Sol was more accessible from Malaga. Then he remembered the 'hardware'. To create panic in a tourist resort needed nothing more than a pipe bomb packed with nuts, bolts and nails, so why go to the trouble of special hardware and procuring hexogen? Back to the desk. Another note: hexogen-high brisance = explosive power, shattering effect. Exactly. Hexogen had been chosen for its power. A small quantity did a lot of damage. And with that thought his mind slipped back to the important buildings of Andalucia: the regional parliament in Seville, the cathedrals in Seville and Cordoba, the Alhambra and Generalife in Granada. Pablo was right, it would be impossible to get a bomb anywhere near those places with the whole region on terrorist alert.

His computer told him it was midnight. He hadn't eaten. He wanted to be out and amongst people. Normally he would have relied on Laura to fill his Saturday night, but that was over now. He'd allowed himself that morbid thought and it led him back to Ines's funeral. Her parents, lost as children, in the sea of people. He snapped out of it and was walking aimlessly from his study to the patio when he remembered Consuelo's call. He hadn't expected her to be so thoughtful. She'd been the only person to call him about Ines. Not even Manuela had done that. He dug out his mobile. Was this a good time? He retrieved her number, punched the call button, let it ring twice and cut it off. It was Saturday night. She'd be in the restaurant, or with her children. Two or three images of their sexual encounters shot through his mind. They'd been so intense and satisfying. He had a rush of physical and chemical desire. He punched the call button again and before it even started ringing he could hear himself trying to smother his desire with inept small talk. He cut the line again. This was all too much for one week: he'd split up with a girlfriend, his ex-wife had been murdered and now he wanted to rekindle a love affair which had burnt out after a matter of days nearly four years ago. Consuelo had called him about Ines as a friend would. It was nothing more than that.

It was warm outside and there was life in the streets. Human beings were resilient creatures. He walked to El Arenal and found the Galician bar, which did wonderful octopus and served wine in white porcelain dishes. As he ate, he saw himself appear on the news, answering that last question put to him by the journalist at the press conference. They showed his answer in its entirety. The waiter recognized him and wouldn't take money for the food and instead sloshed more wine into his white porcelain dish.

Out in the street he was suddenly exhausted. The hours of adrenaline-filled work had caught up. He bought a pringa-a spicy, meat-filled roll-and ate it on the way home. He fell into bed and dreamed of Francisco Falcon, back in this house, knocking down a wall to reveal a secret chamber. It woke him in the intense dark of his bedroom, with his heart pounding in his ears. He knew that he would not sleep for at least two hours after that.

Downstairs he flicked through the endless satellite channels, looking for a movie, anything that would quieten down his brain activity. He knew why he was awake: he'd heard himself on the news making that promise to the people of Seville. He still had Hammad and Saoudi on his mind. The hexogen they'd stored in the ruined house outside El Saucejo. The great deal of 'reorganization' that 'the disruption' of the bomb had caused to the GICM's plan.

The TV screen was filled with the face-off between two colossal armies in some recent swords-and-sandals epic. He'd seen it before and it had made no lasting impression on him apart from the designer's vision of what the wooden horse would have looked like if the Greeks had built it, as he supposed they had, out of broken-up triremes. He had to wait for more than an hour for the horse to be given its roll-on part and, as he lay on the sofa, drifting along with the plot, he wondered at the power of myth. How an idea, even one with faulty wiring in the logic, could worm its way into the psyche of the Western world. Why did the Trojans drag the damn thing inside their city walls? Why, after all they'd been through, weren't they in the least bit suspicious?

Just as he'd reached the point of wondering whether there would ever be a generation of kids that didn't know about the wooden horse, the beast hove into view on the screen. The sight of it triggered something in his brain and all the random thoughts, notes and jottings of the past five days came together, jolting him off the sofa and into his study.