The Hidden Assassins jf-3

by Robert Wilson

  'Yes, they met.'

  'I'm coming round now. Lock all the doors. Don't let anybody in.'

  On the way to El Porvenir, Falcon called Elvira and asked for armed guards to protect Alarcon and his family. The request was granted immediately.

  'There's more stuff coming out all the time,' said Elvira, 'but I can't talk about it on the phone. I'm coming in.'

  'I'm on my way to see Alarcon,' said Falcon.

  'Do we know where Alarcon was on the night of Tateb Hassani's murder?'

  'He was at a wedding in Madrid.'

  'So you think he's clean?'

  'I know he's clean,' said Falcon. 'I've got a special insight.'

  'Special insights, even your special insights, don't always look good in police reports,' said Elvira.

  The street was empty of people and Falcon parked behind the patrol car, which was already outside the metal sliding gate of Alarcon's house. Monica buzzed him in. Falcon had a good look around before he went through the front door, which he closed and triple locked. He went to the back of the house and checked all the doors and windows.

  'We're just being careful,' said Falcon. 'We don't know who we're dealing with yet and we're not sure whether Jesus is on their list. So we're putting you under armed guard until we know.'

  'He's in the kitchen,' she said, looking sick with fear.

  She went upstairs to sit with the children.

  Alarcon was sitting at the kitchen table with an untouched espresso in front of him. He had his arms stretched out on the table, fists clenched, staring into space. He only came out of his trance when Falcon broke into the frame of his vision and offered his condolences.

  'I know he was important to you,' said Falcon.

  Alarcon nodded. He didn't look as if he'd slept much. He made light knocking noises with his fists on the tabletop.

  'Did you speak to Arenas yesterday?' asked Falcon.

  Alarcon nodded.

  'How did he react to the information I gave you?'

  'Lucrecio had reached the point in his life and business career where he no longer had to bother with detail,' said Alarcon. 'He had people who did the detail. I shouldn't think he'd seen a bill for the last twenty-five years, or read a contract, or even been aware of the tonnage of paperwork involved in a modern merger or acquisition. His desk is always clean. It doesn't even have a phone on it since he discovered that the only people he wants to talk to are on his mobile. He never learnt how to use a computer.'

  'What are you telling me, Jesus?' said Falcon, impatient now. 'That the services of Tateb Hassani and his consequent murder were "details" that did not concern Lucrecio Arenas?'

  'I'm telling you that he's the sort of man who will listen to the business news, with all its astonishing up-to-the-minute detail, even a channel like Bloomberg, which is right on top of its subject, and laugh,' said Alarcon. 'Then he'll tell you what's really happening, because he is talking to the people who are actually making it happen, and you realize that the so-called news is just a bit of detail that a journalist has either picked up or been given.'

  'So what did you talk about?'

  'We talked about power.'

  'That doesn't sound as if it's going to help me.'

  'No, but it has been an enormous help to me,' said Alarcon. 'I'll be resigning from the leadership of Fuerza Andalucia and returning to my business career. My statement to the media will take place at eleven o'clock this morning. There's nothing left, Javier. Fuerza Andalucia is over.'

  'So, what did he tell you about power?'

  'That all the things that matter to me about politics, such as people, health, education, religion…all these things are details, and none of it can happen without power.'

  'I think I can grasp that.' 'There's a saying in business, that what happens in the USA takes about five years to start happening here,' said Alarcon. 'Lucrecio told me: look at the Bush administration and understand that you only achieve power in a democracy with an enormous sense of indebtedness.'

  'You owe favours to all the people who've made it possible for you to reach high office,' said Falcon.

  'You owe them so much that you begin to find that their needs are shaping your policies.'

  Three armed police arrived as Falcon left. Falcon drove back to the Jefatura, amazed at his naivety in thinking that Jesus Alarcon would be able to get anything approaching an admission from an animal like Lucrecio Arenas.

  Elvira was alone in his office, standing by the window, peering through the blinds as if he was expecting insurgents in the street. Without turning round he told Falcon that he was going to have to prepare for a major televised press conference whose time, as yet, had not been set.

  'The CNI will be here in a minute,' he said. 'Did you get anything from Alarcon?'

  'Nothing. He's resigning later this morning,' said Falcon. 'He had a very unappetizing lesson on the nature of power from his old master.'

  'Who seems to have met his nemesis,' said Elvira. 'A card was found on the diving board of his swimming pool. An identical card was found on Cesar Benito's body in his hotel room. Arabic script. A quote from the Koran about the enemies of God.'

  Elvira finally turned round when he sensed something thunderous developing behind him.

  'Are you all right, Javier?'

  'No,' he said, gritting his teeth. 'I'm not all right.'

  'You're angry?' said Elvira, surprised. 'It's very dismaying, but…'

  'I've been betrayed,' he said. 'Those bastards from the CNI have betrayed me, and it's cost us the possibility of a resolution to this entire investigation.'

  A knock on the open door. Pablo and Gregorio came in. Falcon wouldn't shake their hands, got up and went over to the window.

  'So, what's going on here?' asked Elvira.

  Pablo shrugged.

  'I recruited a Moroccan friend of mine…' started Falcon, and Gregorio tried to interrupt by saying this was all top-secret CNI business and not for public consumption. Pablo told him to sit down and shut up.

  'My Moroccan friend has infiltrated the group which positioned Hammad and Saoudi with the hexogen in Seville. The group demanded that he show his loyalty by passing an initiation rite. This required him to ask me who was behind the Fuerza Andalucia conspiracy. I refused to do this. At which point there was a very timely breakdown in communication-"a problem with new encryption software". Since then, I have not been able to contact my friend. I do not think that the deaths of Cesar Benito and Lucrecio Arenas are unconnected with what happened. I believe that my refusal to help was intercepted and replaced with the information my friend required. The fact that these two men were found dead with quotations from the Koran on, or near, their bodies seems to indicate that revenge has successfully been taken.'

  Elvira looked at the CNI men.

  'Not true,' said Pablo. 'It proves nothing, but we can show you the transcripts. It's true that your refusal to help did not go through before the system failed, but we did not replace it with anything else. The encryption software problem has still not been solved and we are now thinking of going back to the original software so that we can at least make contact with your friend. On the subject of the deaths of Arenas and Benito: the detectives and forensics on the ground in Marbella and Madrid have independently told us that they believe this to be the work of professional hitmen. They say that, whilst they have no record of any individual "hits" being taken out by Islamic jihadists, they do have records of professional hitmen using these methods.'

  'Agustin Cardenas had just given me Cesar Benito,' said Falcon slowly.

  'We know,' said Pablo. 'We spoke to Madrid. They've picked up the recording he mentioned in his interview with you.'

  'You nailed him,' said Gregorio.

  'For the murder of Tateb Hassani,' said Falcon. 'Don't you think the families of the people who died in El Cerezo deserve a bit more than that?'

  'They might get it in court,' said Elvira.

  'You said it yourself on Tuesday night,' said
Pablo. 'Terrorist attacks are complicated things. You only have a chance at a resolution. At least in this one the perpetrators have all suffered.'

  'Apart from the electrician who planted the Goma 2 Eco,' said Falcon. 'And, of course, the people who are so contemptuous of law and order that they will assassinate anybody who might make them vulnerable.'

  'You have to be satisfied with what you've achieved,' said Pablo. 'You've prevented a dangerous group of Catholic fanatics from developing a power base in Andalucian politics. And in the process, through the actions of Hammad and Saoudi, we have uncovered an Islamic jihadist plot. Juan doesn't think that that is such a terrible outcome.'

  'Which brings us back to the business in hand,' said Elvira. 'Hammad and Saoudi. Their faces have been all over the news and there's been a terrific response. Unfortunately, there have been sightings from all over Spain. They've been seen on the same day, at the same time, in La Coruna, Almeria, Barcelona and Cadiz.'

  Elvira took a call on his mobile.

  'Chasing Hammad and Saoudi is a waste of time,' said Pablo. 'It's been four days. They'll have done whatever needed to be done and got out. The only thing that will help us now is intelligence.'

  Elvira came back into the conversation.

  'That was the Guardia Civil. They've had a confirmed sighting of Hammad and Saoudi, early on Monday morning 5th June, on a stretch of country road near a village called El Saucejo, about twenty-five kilometres south of Osuna.'

  'And how do we know this is a bona fide sighting?' asked Pablo.

  'They were changing the back tyre, driver's side, on a white Peugeot Partner,' said Elvira.

  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 th
e 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.