'He didn't see anybody else?'
'He said no cars had arrived by the time he left.'
'I think that's going to be good enough,' said Falcon and hung up.
'Ask him if he's heard any names, anything that will give us a clue as to a network operating over here,' said Pablo.
Falcon typed out the question.
'They don't use names. Their knowledge of foreign operations is vague. They are more informative about the present state of Morocco than anything abroad.'
'Any foreigners?' asked Pablo. 'Afghans, Pakistanis, Saudis…?'
Falcon tapped it out.
'One mention of some Afghans who came over earlier this year, nothing else.'
'Context?'
'I couldn't say.'
'Where does the group meet?'
'It's in a private house in the medina in Rabat, but I was brought here and I'm not sure I could find it again.'
'Look for clues in your surroundings. Documents. Books. Anything that might indicate research.'
'There's a library which I've been shown, but I haven't spent any time there.'
'Get access and tell us what books they have.'
'I have been told/warned that there will be an initiation rite, which is designed to show my allegiance to the group. Everybody has to go through this, whatever your connections to the senior members may be. They have assured me that it will not require violence.'
'Do they know about your friendship with me?' asked Falcon.
'Of course they do, and that worries me. I know how their minds work. They will make me show allegiance to them by forcing me to betray the confidence of someone close to me.'
The 'chat' was over. Falcon sat back from the computer, a little shattered by the last exchange. The CNI men looked at him to see how he'd taken this new level of involvement.
'In case you're wondering,' said Falcon, 'I didn't like the sound of that.'
'We can't expect just to receive information in this game,' said Gregorio.
'I'm a senior policeman,' said Falcon. 'I can't compromise my position by giving out confidential information.'
'We don't know what he's going to be asked to do yet,' said Pablo.
'I didn't like the look of that word "betray",' said Falcon. 'That doesn't sound like they're going to be satisfied with my favourite colour, does it?'
Pablo shook his head at Gregorio.
'Anything else?' said Pablo.
'If they know about me, what's to say they don't know about the next step we've taken?' said Falcon. 'That I came over to make Yacoub one of our spies. He employs ten or fifteen people around his house. How do you know that he's "safe", that he's not going to be turned, and that they still think that I'm just a friend?'
'We have our own people on the inside,' said Pablo.
'Working for Yacoub?'
'We didn't just think this operation up last week,' said Gregorio. 'We have people working in his home, at his factory, and we've watched him on business trips. So have the British. He's been vetted down to his toenails. The only thing we didn't have, which nobody had, was access. And that's where you came in.'
'Don't think about it too much, Javier,' said Pablo. 'It's new territory and we'll take it one step at a time. If you feel there's something you can't do…then you can't do it. Nobody's going to force you.'
'I'm less worried about force than I am by coercion.'
35
Seville-Thursday, 8th June 2006, 23.55 hrs
That's what Flowers had said: 'You don't understand the pressure on these people.' Alone, now, Falcon gripped the arms of his chair in front of the dead computer screen. He'd only had a glimpse of it, but now he understood what Flowers had meant. He sat in his comfortable house, in the heart of one of the least violent cities in Europe and, yes, he had a demanding job, but not one where he had to pretend every day or cope with 'an initiation rite' that might demand 'betrayal'. He didn't have to cohabit with the minds of clear-sighted fanatics who saw God's purpose in the murder of innocents, who, in fact, didn't see them as innocents but as 'culpable by democracy', or the product of 'decadence and godlessness', and therefore fair game. He might have to face a moral choice, but not a life-or-death situation which could result in harm done to Yacoub, his wife and children.
Yacoub knew 'how their minds worked', that they would demand betrayal, because that would sever the relationship. They weren't interested in the low-quality information of a Sevillano detective. They wanted to cut Yacoub off from a relationship that connected him to the outside world. Yacoub had been with the group for twenty-four hours and already they were setting about the imprisonment of his mind.
The mobile vibrating on the desktop made him start.
'Just to let you know,' said Ramirez, 'Arenas, Benito and Cardenas have just left. Rivero, Zarrias and Alarcon are still there. Do we know what we're doing yet?'
'I have to call Elvira before we make a move,' said Falcon. 'What I want is for the two of us to go in there as soon as Rivero is alone and break him down so that he reveals everybody in the whole conspiracy, not just the bit players.'
'Do you know Eduardo Rivero?' asked Ramirez.
'I met him once at a party,' said Falcon. 'He's fantastically vain. Angel Zarrias has been trying to lever him out of the leadership of Fuerza Andalucia for years, but Rivero loved the status it conferred on him.'
'So how did Zarrias get him out?'
'No idea,' said Falcon. 'But Rivero is not a man to hand in his ego lightly.'
'It happened on the day of the bomb, didn't it?'
'That's when they announced it.'
'But it must have been coming for a while,' said Ramirez. 'Zarrias never mentioned anything to you about it?'
'Are you speaking with some inside knowledge, Jose Luis?'
'Some press guys I know were telling me there was talk of a sex scandal around Rivero,' said Ramirez. 'Under-age girls. They've lost interest since the bomb, but they were very suspicious of the handover to Jesus Alarcon.'
'So what's your proposed strategy, Jose Luis?' said Falcon. 'You sound as if you want to make yourself unpopular again?'
'I think I do. I've done a bit of work on Eduardo Rivero and I think that might be the way to make him feel uneasy,' said Ramirez. 'Lull him into a false sense of relief when we move away from the hint of scandal and then give him both barrels in the face with Tateb Hassani.'
'That is your style, Jose Luis.'
'He's the type who'll look down his nose at me,' said Ramirez. 'But because he knows you, and knows your sister is Zarrias's partner, he'll expect you to bring some dignity to the proceedings. He'll turn to you for help. I think he'll be devastated when you show him the shot of Tateb Hassani.'
'We hope.'
'Vain men are weak.'
Falcon called Comisario Elvira and gave him the update. He could almost smell the man's sweat trickling down the phone.
'Are you confident, Javier?' he asked, as if begging Falcon to give him some resolve.
'He's the weakest of the three, the most vulnerable,' said Falcon. 'If we can't break him, we'll struggle to break the others. We can make the evidence against him sound overwhelming.'
'Comisario Lobo thinks it's the best way.'
Falcon pocketed his mobile and a photograph of Tateb Hassani. He used his reflection in the glass doors to the patio to knot his tie. He shrugged into his jacket. He was conscious of his shoes on the marble flagstones of the patio as he made his way to his car. He drove through the night. The silent, lamp-lit streets under the dark trees were almost empty. Ramirez called to tell him that Alarcon had left. Falcon told him to send everybody home except Serrano and Baena, who would follow Zarrias once he'd left.
It was a short drive to Rivero's house and there was parking in the square. He joined Ramirez on the street corner. Serrano and Baena were in an unmarked car opposite Rivero's house.
A taxi came up the street and turned round by Rivero's oak doors. The driver got out and rang the do
orbell. Within a minute Angel Zarrias came out and got into the back of the cab, which pulled away. Serrano and Baena waited until it was nearly out of sight and then took off in pursuit. Cristina Ferrera had taken a cab back to her apartment. She was so exhausted she forgot to ask the driver for a receipt. She got her keys out and headed for the entrance to her block. A man sitting on the steps up to the door made her wary. He held up his hands to show her he meant no harm.
'It's me, Fernando,' he said. 'I lost your number, but remembered the address. I came to take you up on your offer of a bed for the night. My daughter, Lourdes, came out of intensive care this evening. She's in a room now with my parents-in-law looking after her. I needed to get out.'
'Have you been waiting long?'
'Since the bomb I don't look at the time,' he said. 'So I don't know.'
They went up to her apartment on the fourth floor.
'You're tired,' he said. 'I'm sorry, I shouldn't have come, but I've got nowhere else to go. I mean, nowhere that I'd feel comfortable.'
'It's all right,' she said. 'It's just another long day in a series of long days. I'm used to it.'
'Have you caught them yet?'
'We're close,' she said.
She put her bag on the table in the living room, took off her jacket and hung it on the back of the chair. She had a holster with a gun clipped to a belt around her waist.
'Are your kids asleep?' he asked, in a whisper.
'They sleep with my neighbour when I have to work late,' she said.
'I just wanted to see them sleeping, you know…' he said, and fluttered his hand, as if that explained his need for normality.
'They're not quite old enough to be left on their own all night,' she said, and went into the bedroom, unhooked the holster from her belt and put it in the top drawer of the chest. She pulled her blouse out of her waistband.
'Have you eaten?' she asked.
'Don't worry about me.'
'I'm putting a pizza in the microwave.'
Cristina opened some beers and laid the table. She remade the bed with clean sheets in one of the kids' rooms.
'Do your neighbours gossip?'
'Well, you're famous now, so they're bound to talk about you,' said Ferrera. 'They know I used to be a nun so they're not too concerned about my virtue.'
'You used to be a nun?'
'I told you,' she said. 'So what's it like?'
'What?'
'To be famous.'
'I don't understand it,' said Fernando. 'One moment I'm a labourer on a building site and the next I'm the voice of the people and it's nothing to do with me, but because Lourdes survived. Does that make any sense to you?'
'You've become a focus for what happened,' she said, taking the pizza out of the microwave. 'People don't want to listen to politicians, they want to listen to someone who's suffered. Tragedy gives you credibility.'
'There's no logic to it,' he said. 'I say the same things that I've always said in the bar where I go for coffee in the morning, and nobody listened to me then. Now I've got the whole of Spain hanging on my every word.'
'Well, that might change tomorrow,' said Ferrera.
'What might change?'
'Sorry, it's nothing. I can't talk about it. I shouldn't have said anything. Forget I even mentioned it. I'm too tired for this.'
Fernando's eyes narrowed over the slice of pizza halfway to his mouth.
'You're close,' said Fernando. 'That's what you said. Does that mean you know who they are, or you've actually caught them?'
'It means we're close,' she said, shrugging. 'I shouldn't have said it. It's police business. It slipped out because I was tired. I wasn't thinking properly.'
'Just tell me the name of the group,' said Fernando. 'They all have these crazy initials like MIEDO-Martires Islamicos Enfrentados a la Dominacion del Occidente.'
Islamic Martyrs facing up to Western Domination.
'You didn't listen.'
He frowned and replayed the dialogue.
'You mean they weren't terrorists?'
'They were terrorists, but not Islamic ones.'
Fernando shook his head in disbelief.
'I don't know how you can say that.'
Ferrera shrugged.
'I've read all the reports,' said Fernando. 'You found explosives in the back of their van, with the Koran and the Islamic sash and the black hood. They took the explosive into the mosque. The mosque exploded and…'
'That's all true.'
'Then I don't know what you're talking about.'
'That's why you've got to forget about it until it comes out in the news tomorrow.'
'Then why can't you tell me now?' he said. 'I'm not going anywhere.'
'Because suspects still have to be interrogated.'
'What suspects?'
'The people who are suspected of planning the bombing of the mosque.'
'You're just trying to confuse me now.'
'I'll tell you this if you promise me that that will be the end of it,' said Ferrera. 'I know it's important to you, but this is a police investigation and it's totally confidential information.'
'Tell me.'
'Promise me first.'
'I promise,' he said, waving it away with his hand.
'That sounds like a politician's promise.'
'That's what happens when you spend time with them. You learn too much, too quickly,' said Fernando.
'I promise you, Cristina.'
'There was another bomb that was planted in the mosque which, when it exploded, set off the very large quantity of hexogen which the Islamic terrorists were storing there. That's what destroyed your apartment building.'
'And you know who planted the bomb?'
'You promised me that that would be the end of it.'
'I know, but I just need to…I have to know.'
'That's what we're working on tonight.'
'You have to tell me who they are.'
'I can't. There's no discussion. It's not possible. If it came out, I'd lose my job.'
'They killed my wife and son.'
'And if they are responsible, they will face trial.'
Fernando opened up a pack of cigarettes.
'You'll have to go out on the balcony if you want to smoke.'
'Come and sit with me?'
'No more questions?'
'I promise. You're right. I can't do this to you.' Falcon and Ramirez were ringing the bell as Zarrias's taxi turned out of Calle Castelar. Eduardo Rivero opened the door, expecting it to be Angel coming back for the notebook he'd forgotten. He was surprised to find two stone-faced policemen in the frame, presenting their ID cards. His face momentarily lost all definition, as if the muscles had been deprived of their neural drive. Geniality revived them.
'What can I do for you, gentlemen?' he asked, his white moustache doubling the size and warmth of his smile.
'We'd like to talk to you,' said Falcon.
'It's very late,' said Rivero, looking at his watch.
'It can't wait,' said Ramirez.
Rivero looked away from him with faint disgust.
'Have we met?' he asked Falcon. 'You seem familiar.'
'I came to a party here once, some years ago,' said Falcon. 'My sister is Angel Zarrias's partner.'
'Ah, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes…Javier Falcon. Of course,' said Rivero. 'Can I ask what you'd like to talk to me about at this time of the morning?'
'We're homicide detectives,' said Ramirez. 'We only ever talk to people at this hour of the morning about murder.'
'And you are?' said Rivero, his distaste even more undisguised.
'Inspector Ramirez,' he said. 'We've never met before, Sr Rivero. You'd have remembered it.'
'I can't think how I can help you.'
'We just want to ask some questions,' said Falcon.
'It shouldn't take too long.' That eased the tension in the doorway. Rivero could see himself in bed within the hour. He let the door fall back and the two policemen stepped in.
<
br /> 'We'll go up to my office,' said Rivero, trying to reel in Ramirez, who'd gone straight through the arch to the internal courtyard and was brushing his large intrusive fingers over the rough head of the low hedge.
'What's this called?' he asked.
'Box hedge,' said Rivero. 'From the family Buxaceae. They use it in England to make mazes. Shall we go upstairs?'
'It looks as if it's just been clipped,' said Ramirez. 'When did that happen?'
'Probably last weekend, Inspector Ramirez,' said Rivero, holding out his arm to herd him back into the fold. 'Let's go upstairs now, shall we?'
Ramirez snapped off a twig and twiddled it between thumb and forefinger. They went up to Rivero's office where he showed them chairs, before sinking into his own on the far side of the desk. He was irritated to find Ramirez examining the photographs on the wall: shots of Rivero, in politics and at play with the hierarchy of the Partido Popular, various members of the aristocracy, some bull breeders and a few local toreros.
'Are you looking for something, Inspector?' asked Rivero.
'You used to be the leader of Fuerza Andalucia until a few days ago,' said Ramirez. 'In fact, didn't you hand over the leadership on the morning of the explosion?'
'Well, it wasn't a sudden decision. It was something I'd been thinking about for a long time, but when something like that happens it opens up a new chapter in Seville politics, and it seemed to me that a new chapter needed new strength. Jesus Alarcon is the man to take the party forward. I think my decision has proved to be a very good one. We're polling more now than in the party's history.'
'I understood that you were very attached to the leadership,' said Ramirez, 'and that moves had been made before now to persuade you to hand over, but you'd refused. So what happened to make you think again?'
'I thought I'd just explained that.'
'Two senior members of your party left at the beginning of this year.'
'They had their reasons.'
'The newspapers reported that it was because they were fed up with your leadership.'
Silence. It always amazed Falcon how much Ramirez enjoyed making himself unpopular with 'important' people.
'I seem to remember that one of them even said that it would take a bomb to get you to give up the leadership and, I quote: "That would have the satisfying side effect of removing Don Eduardo from politics as well." That doesn't sound as if you were actively thinking about giving up your position, Sr Rivero.'
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