The Hidden Assassins

by Robert Wilson

  ‘You didn’t tell me what Ricardo said to you in that final phone call,’ said Falcón.

  ‘I’m embarrassed to have to talk about it after…what we’ve said about him.’

  ‘Embarrassed?’

  ‘I didn’t realize how he felt about me,’ said Barreda. ‘But then…I’m not gay.’

  30

  Seville—Thursday, 8th June 2006, 14.05 hrs

  ‘So why weren’t all these other lines of enquiry written up in a report?’ asked Comisario Elvira, looking from del Rey back to Falcón.

  ‘As you know, I’ve been helping the CNI with one of their missions,’ said Falcón. ‘I’ve had to maintain the enquiry into this murder which happened prior to the bombing, and I’ve since acquired a suicide to investigate. However, all these enquiries, I believe, are linked and should be moved forward together. At no point have I deviated from my initial intention, which was to find out what happened in the destroyed building. You have to agree that there has been a breakdown of logic in the scenario, and it’s my job to create different lines of enquiry to find the necessary logic to resolve it. I didn’t hear what happened on television, but it has now been explained to me that it was the interviewer who interrupted Juez del Rey and said: “So you believe it was one of our own people that committed this atrocity?” It was that question which caused this public relations problem.’

  ‘Problem? Public relations catastrophe,’ said Elvira. ‘Another one, on top of this morning’s debacle.’

  ‘Did you talk to Angel Zarrías of the ABC?’ asked Falcón.

  ‘We’re a bit shy of the media right now,’ said Elvira. ‘Comisario Lobo and I are having a strategy meeting after this to see how we can repair the damage.’

  ‘Juez del Rey has done a great job bringing himself up to speed on a very complicated and sensitive investigation,’ said Falcón. ‘We can’t allow the thrust of our enquiry to be dictated by the media, who have seen an opportunity to manipulate a nervous population by playing games with us on television.’

  ‘What we’re playing with here is the truth,’ said Elvira. ‘The presentable truth and the acceptable truth. And it’s all a question—’

  ‘What about the actual truth?’ said Falcón.

  ‘And it’s all a question,’ said Elvira, nodding at his little slip, ‘of timing. Which truth is released when.’

  ‘Have the translations of the Arabic script attached to the drawings been completed?’ asked Falcón.

  ‘So you didn’t see the news before we went on,’ said Elvira. ‘And nor did we, which was why the wretched interviewer seized on what Juez del Rey was saying. Only afterwards did we find out that the evacuations of the two schools and biology faculty had been filmed, and a translation of one of the Arabic texts was aired with it.

  ‘Each text gave full instructions on how to close off each building, where to hold the hostages and where to place the explosives in order to ensure maximum loss of life, should special forces storm the building,’ said del Rey. ‘There was a final instruction in each text, which was that one hostage—starting with the youngest child in the case of the schools—was to be released every hour and, as they made their way to freedom, they were to be shot, in full view of the media. This process was to continue until the Spanish government recognized Andalucía as an Islamic state under Sharia law.’

  ‘Well, that explains why there was nearly a riot in the bar I was in,’ said Falcón. ‘How did the media get hold of the text?’

  ‘It was delivered by motorbike to Canal Sur’s reception in a brown padded envelope, addressed to the producer of current affairs,’ said del Rey.

  ‘An enquiry is underway,’ said Elvira. ‘What were you doing in this bar?’

  ‘I was interviewing the last man to speak to Ricardo Gamero before he killed himself,’ said Falcón. ‘He’s a sales manager at Informáticalidad.’

  ‘This isn’t the old guy who was seen talking to Gamero in the Archaeological Museum?’ said del Rey.

  ‘No. This was the last call Gamero made on his personal mobile,’ said Falcón. ‘I presume that all members of the CGI’s antiterrorist squad would be vetted, Comisario, including their sexuality?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Elvira. ‘Anybody with access to classified information is vetted to make sure they’re not vulnerable.’

  ‘So it would be known if Gamero was homosexual?’

  ‘Absolutely…unless he was, you know, not practising…so to speak.’

  ‘The guy I was talking to, Marco Barreda, was at cracking point when the bar went crazy. He knows something. I think he feels that whatever it is that he or they have got involved in, it has spiralled out of control. He’s sick about Gamero’s death, for a start. That was not part of the script.’

  ‘And what script is that?’ asked Elvira, who was desperate for one.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Falcón. ‘But it’s something that explains what happened in that mosque on Tuesday. If we had the manpower, I’d have the whole of Informáticalidad down at the Jefatura and interview them until they broke down.’

  ‘So what did Marco Barreda say were Gamero’s last words?’ asked Elvira.

  ‘That Gamero was in love with him,’ said Falcón. ‘He’d been reluctant to say anything because he was embarrassed about it. I thought it was significant that he’d been to the toilet. I’m sure he called someone and was given advice about what to say. He was at cracking point and then suddenly he seemed to be back on the rails.’

  ‘So what have we got on Informáticalidad?’

  ‘Nothing, apart from the fact that the apartment was bought with black money.’

  ‘And what do you think this apartment was used for?’

  ‘Surveillance of the mosque.’

  ‘With what purpose?’

  ‘With the purpose of attacking it, or enabling others to attack it.’

  ‘For any particular reason?’

  ‘Other than that they are an organization recruited from the Catholic Church and therefore representative of the religious Right and opposed to the influence of Islam in Spain, I’m not entirely sure. There might be a political or financial angle that I don’t, as yet, know about.’

  ‘You haven’t got enough,’ said Elvira. ‘You’ve interviewed all the sales reps and you’ve tried to capitalize on Marco Barreda’s vulnerability without success. All you have is an unsubstantiated theory to go on. How could you apply any more pressure? If you brought them down here, they’d come with lawyers attached. Then there’d be the media to contend with. You’re going to need something much more solid than your instinct to break open Informáticalidad.’

  ‘I’m also concerned that that was all they did,’ said Falcón, nodding. ‘Provide surveillance information and nothing more. In which case we could interview them for days and get no further than that. I need another link. I want the old guy seen talking to Gamero in the museum.’

  ‘Did you show the drawing to Marco Barreda?’ asked del Rey.

  ‘No. I was concerned that it might not be a close enough likeness and I wanted to apply pressure to his vulnerable point, which was Ricardo Gamero.’

  ‘What’s your next move?’

  ‘I’m going to take a look at all the board directors of Informáticalidad and the other companies in their group, including the holding company, Horizonte, and see if I can find a likeness to the sketch,’ said Falcón. ‘What are the CNI and CGI doing?’

  ‘They’re concerned with the future now,’ said Elvira. ‘Juan has gone back to Madrid. The others are using the names from this investigation to try to get leads to other cells or networks.’

  ‘So we’re on our own with this investigation here?’

  ‘They’ll only come back to us if we find, from the DNA sampling, that the Imam, or Hammad and Saoudi, weren’t in the mosque at the time of the explosion,’ said Elvira. ‘As far as they’re concerned, there’s nothing more for them to extract from this situation and they’re more worried about future attacks.’
>
  Back in his office, Falcón ran an internet search for Informáticalidad and Horizonte and extracted photographs of the directors of all the individual companies, their groups and the holding company. As he scrolled through the search engine’s results for Horizonte he came across a web page dedicated to the celebration of their fortieth anniversary in 2001. As he’d hoped, the page showed a banquet with more than twenty-five shots of the great and the good at their tables.

  The memory is a strange organ. It seems to be random and yet it can be jogged into patterns by other senses. Falcón knew if he hadn’t just seen him on television he would never have picked him out from all the other faces at the Horizonte candlelit, floral dinner. He stopped, scrolled back. It was unmistakably Jesús Alarcón, with his beautiful wife sitting three places to his right. He looked at the caption, which said nothing, other than this was a table belonging to Horizonte’s bankers—Banco Omni. Well, that figured. Alarcón had been a banker in Madrid before he came to Seville. He printed out the page with all its photographs and left the Jefatura, Serrano having given him the name of the security guard at the Archaeological Museum.

  The security guard was called to the ticket desk and Falcón showed him the photographs, which he flipped through quickly, shaking his head. He ran his finger over the fortieth anniversary banquet shots. Nothing jumped out at him.

  It was too hot even for a quick snack under the purple flowers of the jacarandas in the park, and Falcón drove back into town with too much on his mind. Pablo from the CNI called and they agreed to meet in a bar on Calle Leon XII near the destroyed apartment building.

  Falcón was there first. It was a downtrodden place. The staff hadn’t bothered to clear away the ankle-deep fag butts, sugar sachets and paper napkins after the coffee-break rush. He ordered a gazpacho, which was a little fizzy, and a piece of tuna, which had less flavour than the plate it was served on, and the chips were soggy with oil. Things were going well. Pablo arrived and ordered a coffee.

  ‘First thing,’ he said, sitting down. ‘Yacoub has made contact and we’ve given him his instructions on your behalf. He knows what to do now.’

  ‘And what is that?’

  ‘Yacoub belongs to two mosques. The first is in Rabat: the Grand Mosque Ahl-Fès, which is attended by the powerful and wealthy. It’s not known for any radical Islamic stance. But he also belongs to a mosque in Salé, near his work, which is a different kind of place altogether, and Yacoub knows it. All he has to do is step over to the other side and start getting involved. He knows the people…’

  ‘How does he know the people?’

  ‘Javier,’ said Pablo, with an admonishing look, ‘don’t ask. You don’t have to know.’

  ‘How dangerous is this going to be for him?’ asked Falcón. ‘I mean, radical Islam isn’t known for its forgiving nature, and I imagine they’re especially unforgiving when it comes to betrayal.’

  ‘As long as he maintains his role there’s no danger. He communicates with us at a distance. There’s no face to face, which is where things normally come unstuck. If he needs to see anybody then he can organize a business trip to Madrid.’

  ‘What happens if they take him over and start feeding us emails of disinformation?’

  ‘There’s a phrase he has to use in his correspondence with us. If that phrase isn’t employed then we know it isn’t him writing and we react accordingly.’

  ‘How quickly will they come to trust him?’ said Falcón. ‘You’ve always been of the opinion that this bomb was a mistake, or a diversion. Maybe you’re expecting an information return too quickly if you think that he can help you with attacks which have already been planned.’

  ‘They’ll recognize his value immediately…’

  ‘Has he been approached by the GICM before?’ asked Falcón, these things only just occurring to him.

  ‘He’s in a unique position because of his business,’ said Pablo, pointedly ignoring Falcón’s question. ‘He can travel freely and is widely known, respected and trusted by his business partners. He will arouse no suspicion from the Moroccan authorities looking for radicals, or European authorities looking for terrorists or their planners. He’s the perfect person for a terrorist organization to make use of.’

  ‘But they’ll test him first, surely?’ said Falcón. ‘I don’t know how it works, but they might give him some valuable information and see what he does with it. See, for instance, if it appears elsewhere. Just like the CNI did with the CGI here in Seville, come to think of it.’

  ‘That’s our job, Javier. We know what we can use from him and what we can’t. If we have information that could only possibly have come from him, then we know to be careful,’ said Pablo. ‘If he tells us that there’s a GICM cell operating from an address in Barcelona, we don’t just storm the building.’

  ‘What’s the other thing?’

  ‘We want you to communicate with Yacoub tonight. There’s nothing to be said, but we want him to know you’re here and in touch with him.’

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Not quite. The CIA have come back to us with the identity of your mystery man with no hands or face.’

  ‘That was quick.’

  ‘They’ve developed quite a system over there for tracing people of Arabic origin, even when they’ve become American citizens,’ said Pablo. ‘Your model man did a good job with the face, and his identity was corroborated by the hernia op, tattoos and dental X-rays.’

  ‘What were the tattoos?’

  ‘On the webbing between thumb and forefinger he had four dots configured in a square on his right hand, and five dots on his left hand.’

  ‘Any reason?’

  ‘It helped him count,’ said Pablo.

  ‘Up to nine?’

  ‘Apparently women never failed to comment on them.’

  ‘That is on his file?’ said Falcón, amazed.

  ‘You’ll see why when I tell you he was a professor in Arabic Studies at Columbia University until March last year, when he was fired after being found in bed with one of his students,’ said Pablo. ‘And you know how they found out? He was shopped by one of his other students who he was bedding at the same time.

  ‘You don’t do that sort of thing at an American university and get caught. The police were brought in. The girls’ parents threatened to sue the university and then him personally. It was the end of his career—and it cost him, too. He managed to settle out of court on advice from his lawyers, who knew he would lose and that they wouldn’t get paid. He had to sell his midtown apartment, which had been left to him by his parents. The only job he could get after the case blew over was teaching maths privately in Columbus, Ohio. He lasted three months of a Mid West winter and then flew to Madrid in April last year.

  ‘After that, our information gets a little sparse. We’ve a record of him taking a trip to Morocco for three weeks at the end of April. He took the ferry from Algeciras to Tangier on 24th April and he came back on 12th May. That’s it.’

  ‘Does he have a name?’

  ‘His real name is Tateb Hassani,’ said Pablo. ‘When he became an American citizen in 1984—which was also the year both his parents died, one in a car crash and the other of cancer—he changed his name to Jack Hansen. It’s not so unusual for immigrants to anglicize their names. He was born in Fès in 1961 and his parents left Morocco in 1972. His father was a businessman who went back and forth frequently. Tateb only went back to Morocco twice in thirty years. He didn’t like it. His parents forced him to maintain an Arabic education and his mother spoke to him only in French. He wrote and spoke Arabic fluently. He graduated in mathematics, but couldn’t get a place as a post-graduate, so he switched to Arabic Studies and wrote a thesis on Arab mathematicians. He came out of Princeton with a doctorate in 1986. He spent time in the universities of Madison, Minnesota and San Francisco before ending up in New York. He had a good life: a university salary, with the rent from his parents’ apartment coming in. Then, when he landed the professorship at C
olumbia, he took over the apartment and had the perfect existence, until he started sleeping with his students.’

  ‘What about his religion?’

  ‘He’s down as a Muslim, but, as you might have gathered from his history, he’d let that lapse.’

  ‘Was he known for any opinions about radical Islam?’

  ‘You can read the file sent over by the CIA,’ said Pablo, taking it out of his briefcase, laying it on the table. It looked to be about ten pages long.

  ‘Are there any samples of his handwriting in here?’ asked Falcón.

  ‘Not that I’ve seen.’

  ‘Can the CIA send some across to us?’ asked Falcón, flicking through the pages. ‘In both Arabic script and English.’

  ‘I’ll get them on to it.’

  ‘Any other languages, apart from French, English and Arabic?’

  ‘He spoke and wrote Spanish, too,’ said Pablo. ‘He used to give a maths course every summer over here at Granada University.’

  ‘Comisario Elvira told me that you’re not much interested in our investigation any more and that Juan has gone back to Madrid,’ said Falcón. ‘Does that mean you’ve cracked the code in the annotated versions of the Koran?’

  ‘Juan’s been called back to Madrid because there have been reports of other cells, not connected with Hammad and Saoudi, which are now on the move,’ said Pablo. ‘We’re still interested in your investigation, but not in the way you are. And, no, we haven’t cracked the code.’

  ‘How’s the diversion theory going?’

  ‘Madrid have hit dead ends with the Hammad and Saoudi connections,’ said Pablo. ‘Arrests have been made, but it’s the usual thing. They only knew what they were doing. They received encrypted emails and did what they were told to do. So far we’ve only picked up a few “associates” of Hammad and Saoudi, which hardly constitutes unravelling the whole network—if there was one to unravel. We’re hoping Yacoub can help us there.’