The Hidden Assassins jf-3

by Robert Wilson

  Falcon had to resist the image of a vast dust cloud on the outskirts of Seville, thick with panicked cattle beneath.

  As he drove back across the river his mobile vibrated; Ramirez wanting to know where he was.

  'We've found somebody who's a regular at the mosque,' he said. 'He goes there every evening after work, for prayers. We'll see you in the pre-school.'

  Falcon came into the barrio of El Cerezo from the north, to avoid any traffic around the hospital. In the pre-school he photocopied the lists of personnel from Informaticalidad and gave them to Ramirez with orders for two members of the squad to start interviewing the sales reps to see if they'd noticed anything. Ramirez introduced the Moroccan man, who was called Said Harrouch. He was a cook, born in 1958 in Larache in northern Morocco.

  The demolition work was too loud for them to talk in any of the classrooms, none of which had any glass in the windows, so they moved to the man's apartment nearby. Harrouch's wife made them mint tea and they sat in a room facing away from the destroyed building.

  'You're a cook for a manufacturing company in the Poligono Industrial Calonge,' said Ramirez. 'What hours do you work?'

  'Seven in the morning until five in the afternoon,' he said. 'They let me go back home when they heard about the bomb.'

  'Do you go to the mosque at a regular time?'

  'I manage to get there some time between half past five and a quarter to six.'

  'Every day?'

  'On the weekends I go five times a day.'

  'Do you just pray, or do you spend time there?'

  'At the weekends there's tea and I'll sit around and talk.'

  The man was calm. He sat back from the table with his hands clasped across his stomach. He blinked slowly with long lashes and no wariness of either policeman.

  'How long have you lived in Seville?'

  'Nearly sixteen years,' he said. 'I came over in 1990 to work on the Expo site. I never went back.'

  'Do you like living here in this neighbourhood?'

  'I preferred living in the old city,' he said. 'It was more like home.'

  'How are the people here?'

  'You mean the Spanish people?' he asked. 'They're all right, most of them. Some of them don't like so many of us Moroccans being here.'

  'You don't have to be diplomatic,' said Ramirez. 'Tell us how it really is.'

  'After the Madrid train bombings a lot of people are very suspicious of us,' said Harrouch. 'They might have been told that not every North African is a terrorist, but it doesn't help when there are so many of us about. The Imam has done his best to explain to local people that terrorism is a problem with an extreme minority, and that he himself does not agree with their radical interpretations of Islam, and does not approve of it in his mosque. It hasn't helped. They are still suspicious. I tell them that even in Morocco you would struggle to find anyone who actively approves of what these few fanatics are doing, but they don't believe us. Of course, if you go to a teahouse in Tangier you will hear people getting angry about what the Americans and the Israelis are doing. You will see protests on the streets about the plight of the Palestinians. But that is just talk and demonstration. It doesn't mean we're all about to strap bombs to our chests and go out and kill. Our own people were killed in the suicide bombings in Casablanca in May 2003 and Muslims died on those trains in Madrid in 2004 and in London in 2005, but they don't remember that.'

  'That's the nature of terror, isn't it, Sr Harrouch?' said Falcon. 'The terrorist wants people to know that this can happen in any place, at any time, to anybody-Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist. This seems to be the state we are in now, here in Seville. People can no longer feel safe in their homes. What we want to find out, as soon as possible, is: who wants us to be terrified or, if that's too difficult, why they want us to be terrified.'

  'But, of course, everybody will assume it is us,' said Harrouch, putting his fingertips to his chest. 'As I left work this morning, I was insulted in the street by people who can only think in one way when they hear that a bomb has gone off.'

  'On 11th March the government automatically thought it was ETA,' said Ramirez.

  'We know that there are anti-Muslim groups,' said Falcon.

  'We've all heard of VOMIT, for instance,' said Harrouch. Then, registering the policemen's surprise: 'We spend a lot of time on the internet. That's how we communicate with our families back in Morocco.'

  'We only found out about it this morning,' said Falcon.

  'But it isn't directed at you, is it?' said Harrouch. 'It's designed to show that Islam is a religion of hate, which is not true. We see VOMIT as just another way that the West has devised to set out to humiliate us.'

  'But it isn't the West that has created that website,' said Ramirez. 'It's another fanatical minority within the West.'

  'The fact is, Sr Harrouch, it's going to take time for us to reach the basement where the mosque was located,' said Falcon, drawing the discussion back to business. 'We're going to have to wait days for any forensic information from the site of the actual bomb. What we have to rely on, for the moment, is witness accounts. Who was seen going in and out of that building over the last seventy-two hours. So far we have had a sighting of two vehicles: a white Peugeot Partner with two Moroccan men, who were seen delivering cardboard boxes-'

  'Of sugar,' said Harrouch, suddenly animated. 'I was there when they brought it in yesterday. It was sugar. It was clearly printed on the sides of the boxes. And they had plastic carrier bags of mint. It was for the tea.'

  'Did you know those two men?' asked Ramirez. 'Had you seen them before?'

  'No, I didn't know them,' he said. 'I'd never seen them before.'

  'So who did know them? Who did they make contact with?'

  'Imam Abdelkrim Benaboura.'

  'What did they do with this sugar and mint?'

  'They took it into the storeroom at the back of the mosque.'

  'Were these men introduced to anybody?'

  'No.'

  'Do you know where they came from?' asked Falcon.

  'Someone said they were from Madrid.'

  'How long did they stay in the mosque talking to the Imam?'

  'They were still there when I left at seven o'clock.'

  'Could they have spent the night there?'

  'It's possible. People have slept in the mosque before.'

  'Do you remember when they arrived?' asked Ramirez.

  'About ten minutes after I came in from work, so about a quarter to six.'

  'Can you tell us exactly what they did?'

  'They came in, each carrying a box with a carrier bag of mint on top. They asked for the Imam. He came out of his office and showed them the storeroom. They stowed the boxes and then went back outside and brought another two boxes in.'

  'Then what?'

  'They left.'

  'Empty-handed?'

  'I think so,' said Harrouch. 'But they came back a few minutes later. I think they went off to park their car. When they returned they went into the Imam's office and they hadn't come out again by the time I left.'

  'Did you hear anything of their conversation?'

  Harrouch shook his head. Falcon sensed the man's nausea at the endless questions about seemingly unimportant detail. Harrouch somehow felt he was compromising these two men, who he believed had just delivered sugar and nothing more. Falcon told him not to worry about the questions, they were asked only to see if they squared with other witness accounts.

  'Did you hear any talk of other outsiders who'd turned up that morning?' asked Ramirez.

  'Outsiders?'

  'Workmen, delivery people…that sort of thing.'

  'The electricians came at some stage. Something had gone wrong with the electrics on Saturday night. We were in the dark, with just candles, all Sunday and when I came in from work yesterday all the lights were back on. I don't know what happened or what work was done. You'll have to ask someone who was there in the morning.'

  Ramirez asked him f
or some names and checked them off against the list of men given to Elvira by the Spanish woman, Esperanza. The first three names Harrouch gave him were on the list and therefore probably dead in the mosque. The fourth name lived in an apartment in a nearby street.

  'How well do you know the Imam?'

  'He's been with us nearly two years. He reads a lot. I've heard his apartment is full of books. But he still gives us as much of his time as he can,' said Harrouch. 'I told you he was not a radical. He never said anything that could be construed as extreme, and he even made his position clear on suicide bombing: that in his view the Koran did not regard it as permissible. And remember, there were Spanish converts to Islam in the mosque, who would not tolerate anything extreme so…'

  'If he was preaching radical Islam to younger people,' said Ramirez, 'do you think you would know about it?'

  'In a neighbourhood like this it wouldn't be possible to keep it secret.'

  Apart from these two men who delivered the sugar and mint, have you ever seen the Imam with any other strangers? I mean people from out of town, or from abroad?'

  'I saw him with Spanish people. He was very aware of the image of Islam in the light of what has been happening in the last few years. He made efforts to communicate with Catholic priests and spoke at their meetings to reassure them that not all North Africans were terrorists.'

  'Do you know anything about his history?'

  'He's Algerian originally. He arrived here from Tunis. He must have spent some time in Egypt, because he talked about it a lot and he's mentioned studying in Khartoum.'

  'How did he learn Spanish?' asked Falcon. 'The countries you mention have either French, or English, as the alternative to Arabic.'

  'He learnt it here. The converts taught him,' said Harrouch. 'He was a good linguist, he spoke quite a few-'

  'What other languages?' asked Ramirez.

  'German. He spoke German,' said Harrouch, who'd gone back on the defensive.

  'Does that mean he'd spent time in Germany?' asked Ramirez.

  'I suppose he did, but that doesn't have to mean anything,' said Harrouch. 'Just because the 9/11 bombers came from Hamburg, it doesn't mean that any Muslim who's been to Germany is also a radical. I hope you're not forgetting that it was the mosque that was bombed and there were more than ten people in it, and most of them were older men, with wives and children, and not young, radical, extreme bombmakers. I would say that we were the target of an attack…'

  'All right, Sr Harrouch,' said Falcon, calming him. 'You should know that we're looking at all the possibilities. You mentioned VOMIT. Are you aware of any other anti-Muslim groups who you think would go to such extremes?'

  'There were some very unpleasant demonstrations against the building of our mosque in Los Bermejales,' said Harrouch. 'Maybe you don't remember-they slaughtered a pig on the proposed site of the mosque back in May last year. There's a very vociferous protest group.'

  'We know about them,' said Ramirez. 'We'll be taking a close look at their activities.'

  'Did you ever feel that you were being watched, or under some kind of surveillance?' asked Falcon. 'Has anybody joined the mosque recently, who you didn't know or who, in your opinion, behaved strangely?'

  'People are suspicious of us, but I don't think anybody was watching us.'

  Ramirez checked the descriptions of the two men from the Peugeot Partner with the men Harrouch had seen bringing boxes into the mosque. Harrouch answered with his mind elsewhere. They got up to leave.

  'Now I remember, there was something else that happened last week,' said Harrouch. 'Someone told me that the mosque had been inspected by the council. Because we're technically a public building, we have to conform to certain rules about fire and safety, and two men came round last week, without any warning, and went through everything-drains, plumbing, electrics-the lot.'

  13

  Seville-Tuesday, 6th June 2006, 16.55 hrs

  'What did you make of him?' Falcon asked Ramirez as they made their way back to the pre-school for a meeting with Comisario Elvira and Juez Calderon.

  'The difficulty with these people is not disentangling the truth from the lies. I don't think Sr Harrouch is a liar. He's been an immigrant for sixteen years and he's developed the knack for telling you the story which will give him the least amount of trouble, and makes his people appear in the best possible light,' said Ramirez. 'He says the Imam has never preached a radical word in his life, but he faltered over the Imam's linguistic ability. Why wasn't he happy about revealing the languages the Imam could speak? Because it was German. Not only the Hamburg connection, but it also means he's moved around Europe. It's making the Imam look more suspicious.'

  'He was straight about the two young guys turning up with their cardboard boxes.'

  'Of sugar,' said Ramirez. 'He was very emphatic about that. He was reluctant to reveal anything more about them, though. He wanted to be able to say he knew them, but he couldn't. He wanted to be able to stand up for them in some way. But if they're just shifting sugar around, what's the problem? Why does he feel the need to protect them?'

  'Loyalty to other Muslims,' said Falcon.

  'Or repercussions?' said Ramirez.

  'Even if they don't know each other, there's a sense of allegiance,' said Falcon. 'Sr Harrouch is a decent, hardworking man and he'd like us to think that all his people are the same. When something like this bombing happens they feel embattled, and the instinct is to put up the defences all around, even if he ends up defending the sort of people he may abhor.'

  Elvira and Calderon had been joined by Gregorio from the CNI.

  'There have been some developments in Madrid,' said Elvira. 'Gregorio will explain.'

  'We've been working on the notes found in the margins of the copy of the Koran, from the Peugeot Partner,' said Gregorio. 'In the meantime, copies of the notes were faxed up to Madrid and they made comparisons with the handwriting of the van's owner, Mohammed Soumaya, and his nephew Trabelsi Amar. They don't match.'

  'Do the notes reveal anything?' asked Calderon. 'Are there any extremist views?'

  'Our expert on the Koran says that the owner of this book has made interesting, rather than radical, interpretations of the text,' said Gregorio.

  'Have you found Trabelsi Amar yet?' asked Ramirez.

  'He was still in Madrid,' said Gregorio, nodding. 'He was just keeping out of the way of his uncle until he got the van back, which was supposed to be this evening. When he heard about the bomb he went into hiding, which was obviously not part of the plan, because the best hiding place he could think of was a friend's house, not some prearranged safe house. The local police picked him up a couple of hours ago.'

  'Has he identified the people he lent the van to?' asked Ramirez.

  'Yes. He's very scared,' said Gregorio. 'The CGI's antiterrorist squad in Madrid say he hasn't been behaving like a terrorist at all. He's been happy to tell them the whole story.'

  'Let's start with the names,' said Ramirez.

  'The shaven-headed guy is Djamel Hammad, thirtyone years old, born in Tlemcen in Algeria. His friend is Smail Saoudi, thirty years old, born Tiaret in Algeria. Both were resident in Morocco and still should be.'

  'What sort of records have they got?'

  'Those are their original names. They've operated under a lot of pseudonyms. They were medium-to high-risk terror suspects, by which I mean they were not likely to actually carry out attacks, but they have been suspected of document forgery, recce and logistical work. They both have relatives who have been active in the GIA-the Armed Islamic Group.'

  'And how did Trabelsi Amar get to know them?'

  'They're all illegal immigrants. They came across the straits together, on the same shipment. Hammad and Saoudi made him their friend. They got him to Madrid and helped him with his documents. Then they called in the favour.'

  'Didn't he find their slickness…suspicious?' asked Calderon.

  'It was convenient for him not to,' said Gregorio. 'Trabelsi
Amar is not very bright.'

  'What's the story with the van?' asked Ramirez.

  'Amar has been working for his uncle making deliveries. He also did a few things on the side, to make himself some extra cash. He ran errands, some of them were for Hammad and Saoudi. Then they asked to borrow the van; the first time for an afternoon, the second time for a whole day. It all happened gradually, so that when they asked to borrow the van to go to Seville for three days and said they'd give him €250, Trabelsi Amar just saw the money.'

  'How did he explain that to his Uncle Mohammed?' asked Ramirez.

  'He rented the van from him for € 30 a day,' said Gregorio. 'He might not be bright, but he could still work out that he didn't have to do anything and he'd be €160 up on the deal.'

  'So presumably he knows where Hammad and Saoudi live.'

  'They're searching the apartment as we speak.'

  'When exactly did Amar go into hiding?' asked Ramirez. 'When he heard about the bomb, or once it was reported that the Peugeot Partner had been found?'

  'As soon as he heard about the bomb,' said Gregorio.

  'So he'd probably worked out already that his new friends weren't just ordinary guys.'

  'What about their relationship with the Imam Abdelkrim Benaboura,' asked Falcon, 'apart from the fact that they were all Algerians?'

  'The only connection we can see at the moment was that Benaboura was born in Tlemcen, which doesn't mean much.'

  'We've found out more about the Imam from a member of the mosque than we have from the CNI and the CGI put together,' said Falcon.

  'We still don't have the authority to access any more information,' said Gregorio. 'And that includes Juan, who, as you've probably gathered, is a very senior officer.'

  'The Imam is a player of some sort,' said Ramirez. 'I'm sure of it.'

  'What about this group, the MILA, who, according to the television news, have claimed responsibility for the blast?' asked Falcon.

  'It's not a group we've ever heard of having an active terrorist dimension,' said Gregorio. 'We've heard about their intention to "liberate" Andalucia, but we've never taken it seriously. With the current military set-up in this country it's just not possible for anyone but a major power to secure a region of Spain for themselves. The Basques haven't achieved it and they don't even have to invade.'