by Hylton Smith
Butragueno sympathised with this lady’s plight and had one ear tuned to whether the brothers stayed in contact. “Where exactly in Iberiana is he?”
The lady’s reply was somewhat vague. “As far as we know he is still employed by a newspaper in Uruguay. Konrad would have known but we aren’t allowed access to his personal effects as yet.” Butragueno comforted her and promised to help get a search underway for any means of direct contact with Manuel. The gesture was appreciated. They talked their way through a second drink before the grief-stricken mother said she needed to lie down, even though she wouldn’t sleep.
*
Duarte took the duo to Butragueno’s desk and Salina remarked that it housed an appreciating antique in the form of a desktop PC. “Exactly,” quipped Duarte, “as yet untouched by SACRED – it is not connected to anything other than a printer, it is truly archaic and stand-alone. We sometimes have need for isolating stored data from anyone but ourselves.” The others looked at the screen then one another, but were not surprised at the claims Konrad had made, in either the list of names or his insinuation of a wider agenda. It disappointed Duarte, as he felt sure it would have registered concern or an attempt to play it down.
It was Salina who explained. “Chief Inspector Duarte, I congratulate you on having this information completely isolated. I urge you to keep it that way. Konrad and I did not see eye to eye on most things but just over a year ago he brought this to my attention. There were only seven names with crosses against them, denoting their demise. The others have now joined them. I promised to look into his concerns and this had to be done with great care, but we uncovered nothing. Two weeks ago he called me and asked angrily what the hell the Security Division is supposed to do if they couldn’t fathom something like this. He accused me of failing him again and I will never forget his last words to me. ‘I’ll be next father; that may get you out of your reclining chair.’ I cannot come to terms with my failure to make time to come here personally after he said that.” Salina’s hands were shaking as he searched his pockets for a handkerchief. Duarte was now puzzled.
“So you knew of a possible organised or orchestrated elimination of these young people?”
The reply was guarded. “Yes and the only connection I could make confirmed what Konrad had repeatedly told me. They all shared fanatical interest in SACRED’s game simulation called ‘Futureworld’ and of course their active campaigning against the very activity they were addicted to. It didn’t make sense. I do now feel that I erred in only speaking to the various authorities involved, and avoiding their concerns about coming in heavy-handed on apparently unrelated deaths in different parts of the world. He beseeched me to talk with the families and he is now suggesting you belatedly do the same. I failed to instruct a private investigation which was unconnected to my office.” Salina seemed to age visibly in just a few minutes. Duarte sympathised but experience reminded him that moments of vulnerability should not be wasted.
“So what does your expertise tell you about possible organisations who would stand to gain by such senseless acts, if in fact we could prove unlawful killing?”
Duarte was disappointed with the response. “It’s my view that it is almost certain to be linked to whoever may have something to lose by adverse publicity, even allowing for the contradictory aspect of the protesters’ addiction. Preventing the loss of something valuable is often more fiercely protected than a potential gain, and by organisations as well as individuals. The most obvious suspects would be the owners of SACRED itself, but there is the question of motive – they are experiencing increasing demand continually, and more so since the protests began.”
Duarte nodded. “Well we have one more distasteful request of you and your wife. We’d like fingerprints and DNA to eliminate all but Konrad’s recent visitors. You should really comply too Olmeda, in case you inadvertently touched something. I will then help you to go through his personal stuff and we can agree on what we need to retain for now.”
Duarte recalled having said to Butragueno that they had to focus on the suicide only. That seemed like a long time ago. Just as they prepared to leave, Salina asked to see one particular photo again. “It’s my elder son Manuel. God knows what he will make of my intransigence. I dread seeing him at the funeral but I must somehow recover my resolve to repair the rift.” This remark registered a question in Duarte’s deceptively orderly cerebrum, but it was not for now. He had a date with Pierze, his new best friend.
Chapter 6
The news of Konrad Salina’s exit had reached his sibling. Although they had only kept in touch occasionally, this cut deep into Manuel’s already scarred memories of his youth. His last contact had been almost six months ago and it had resulted in an accusation by Konrad that, like his father, Manuel was prepared to turn a blind eye to the claims of sinister authoritarian activity. He had reasoned with him that some proof was needed other than circumstantial theoretical links paraded by protest groups. Their relationship reached an all-time low when Konrad said that their father had at least looked into the material he had gathered, even if it was a half-hearted exercise, and really structured to calm the protest activity. Manuel reacted with unaccustomed hostility, and recalled his own words. “Don’t ever compare my concern to his calculated self-preservation. As an investigative journalist I’m merely trying to tell you what you are up against with the flimsy, unsupported claims you have quoted to me. Konrad, it doesn’t matter that I believe you. This is the arena of my profession, you should respect my experience not his placebo approach. Don’t you think I would fasten on to such a story if it had any mileage? If I am really to help you we must have a starting point which can at least begin to unravel the motive for these deaths. This is how it works – you reveal part of what you know and can verify – to create a response. If this is successful you may have genesis of the snowball, which is crucial in order to proceed. At present you, or rather we, don’t have that. If you can link the deaths in some other way than the victims merely being protesters it would help, and believe me, you would have trouble keeping me out of it. I’m concerned that you are in danger and are increasing that risk by the head-on tactics you employ. Can we.....?”
“Forget it Manolo, you always refuse to try Futureworld and that says it all for me. You say you believe me but it isn’t convincing. I will find a way to produce the unravelling point you ask for, just don’t be surprised if I don’t need your help then.”
Now Manuel knew what he had meant. He had missed the warning. His stomach churned with guilt because he hadn’t contacted Konrad again in those six months. He was now emotionally catapulted into action. His analytical mind somehow engaged despite the tide of grief it had to process. He realised that Konrad had already decided then on the suicide as a means of focussing attention on his claims, the months which had passed must therefore have been spent gathering information he didn’t have when they spoke. ‘God, he was listening to me. What the hell have I done’? He obtained compassionate leave for a month and travelled to Londonis.
*
When Pierze arrived punctually he was greeted by Duarte waving his hand, clutching a half-eaten piece of bread, to attract attention. Pierze shook his head apologetically at the waiter who was leading him to the table. “Good evening Duarte, I see you have settled in. Would you like red or white to begin?” Following an incredibly protracted belch he replied, “Another beer will do.”
Pierze nodded to the waiter and ordered a half bottle of Puligny Montrachet. If he had to endure this Neanderthal with good grace he would need compensating sophistication. He was about to speak when Duarte delivered the first barb. “Why did you state that you needed this case to look like a routine suicide and nothing more?”
Pierze tried to deflect this by stating he could not recall having made such a pronouncement. Duarte rose to his feet. “In that case, I can save you some expense – I can eat at home.”
“Well if I did convey such sentiment
it was in a very general sense, that it would be helpful to my own enquiries; that is all.”
“You’ll have to do better than that Snr. Impostor.”
“Look Duarte, we can dance around this all night but I am Ricardo Pierze, and I have the authority invested in me which is appropriate to the badge I showed you. I can’t believe you are really a Chief Inspector but I am prepared to go along with the illusion.”
Duarte had achieved his platform. “Good, but I still need an answer.” Pierze tapped his fingers nervously on the tablecloth and leaned over to whisper some prized information to his guest.
“Want some bread?” offered Duarte, “it’s homemade and I bet it is free in a stuck-up place like this.”
An exasperated plea from Pierze to keep his voice down was met with a carefree shrug of the shoulders. Pierze whispered something and it eventually produced a reaction from the Chief Inspector. Duarte exclaimed, “In order keep Salina out of any further investigation, which will almost certainly be required! Jesus man, he is Numero Uno in Central Security, he goes where he wants and does what he wants. You believe he has to back off if and when we declare his son’s death as not suspicious? I can see you being an errand boy for a while yet.”
“You really are a parochial, plodding investigator Duarte. You don’t deserve to hear what I came to tell you tonight, and I would not be prepared to proceed if I wasn’t acting on the orders of others.”
“Wait. I have one further question before you burden me with information I shouldn’t have. How did you get to the suicide scene only minutes later than I did?”
“The answer to that is implicit in what I was to tell you. Now may I proceed free of further interruption?” Affirmation indeed signalled revelations which Duarte did not want to hear. “We have another corpse which is related to your suicide and my case. I will come back to that. Your Lightbox, if it is as good as you claim, should have alerted you to our camera embedded in the apartment wall.” No reaction from Duarte. “We have been expecting events to escalate for some time, we were nearby. We were unfortunately not close enough to prevent the suicide once he had called D.I. Butragueno. We came but his body was already swinging in the breeze when we got here. We had to let her discover the body, just as we have to await your verdict on cause of death. Coming back to the most recent corpse – we had a camera there too and again were not able to prevent the hanging but this time we at least saw someone running away from the scene. It was only after the local police arrived that we knew the head was missing. We believe that was the intended routine for Salina, but Butragueno’s almost instant arrival must have scared them off. I hope you see the implication that there is something in the head that someone does not want us to see. I also request that your people do not perform a post-mortem before I get paperwork to allow our presence during any such act. It means we must responsibly delay the funeral. We do have different remits but I am not sure whether you are prepared to see the bigger picture.”
Duarte was dumbstruck. Pierze then articulated what was already mulling around in Duarte’s own head. “I really could have had you replaced. It should be obvious that your enforced exit will not now happen. The principal reason for that is the information Antonio Salina gave to you, which he was about to give to me in error. You may not wish to share that with me but you are a witness to the fact that he said it in your office.”
“What kind of camera is it and how did you get it in there?”
“I see. We are back to detailed methodology. It is new technology – called ‘spy-bubble’ – and it overcomes all kind of opaque barriers. Don’t ask me how it works, I don’t know. We installed it from the adjoining apartment over a year ago. The property was on the market and we had an accompanied viewing. We asked the agent to give us first refusal and bought it a week later. Chief Inspector, where do you stand on this now?”
“You’ve given me a lot to think about. I’d be grateful for an overnight consideration to process the complexities. Are you able to tell me more about the new corpse?”
“It would mean little to you, but it is in Africana. He was a protestor too.”
“Ok, I guess it’s better that I leave the identity out of my deliberations. I think I’ll have the lobster.”
*
Butragueno had a dilemma. The list of names itself presented so many diverse locations around the Republic, but when overlaid with the reported cause of death in local police files, no pattern emerged. The first three by date went back almost five years to 2017 – the same period when SACRED was rolled out. Number one was Alessandro Brunatti, born in Iberian Lombardy but domiciled in Barcelona at the time of his demise. His charred body was of little use in helping to investigate the declared arson. The fire service was adamant that an accelerator had been used. It was a dead end, and the files had been closed. The next was only two months later and death occurred in Toledo. Juanita Mendes was the same age – 22, and was living with relatives when she was killed in an ‘accident’ while cycling to a friend’s home. Hit and run was not uncommon in the area. The body was badly mutilated, suggesting a high speed collision with the vehicle which hit her. There had been a witness who had ultimately been deemed unreliable because of inconsistencies in his account. Third on the list was Lars Johansson, native of Nordic Iberia but living in the protectorate of Balkan Iberia, specifically Sofia. He was 23 when a gas explosion took out three apartments in the block in early 2018. This was not suspicious as the fault was traced to the one directly below. He was the only fatality, but there were five others injured, two seriously. There was then a gap of 20 months to the next death. As she entered the succeeding individuals into the analytical database two things stood out. The majority of funerals were cremation rather than burial, which seemed strange, as all but two had Catholic faith ascribed to their case file. The second and more intriguing point was that not one of them was officially employed. She stood back from the detail and tried to cherry-pick ones which were relatively close to Londonis and had been buried, so that exhumation was still a possibility. She had to start somewhere. She chose Brunatti and added Fermin Cardozo, simply because he had been born, lived and died in Sevilla. His demise was categorised as aggravated mugging by a group of youths. There were several witnesses to the savage attack. She floated her logic to her boss who surprisingly approved the trip, knowing that this would raise questions of jurisdiction and the concern from the high-ranking guests already camped on the precinct doorstep.
*
Having not really slept that night, Duarte was grappling with how to respond to Pierze. He also had to weigh up what Salina and Olmeda had passed on to him, especially as his elder son had made contact with the precinct to let them know he was on his way, and strangely not informed his parents. One thing he was sure of, Pierze was going to lobby everyone to gain input into opening up Konrad Salina’s head. This wasn’t going to be well received by any of the family. What was most confusing was Pierze’s strenuous requirement for a plain suicide verdict, whereas his own experience suggested that any suspicion of another cause of death would question such a plea, so it seemed strange that he didn’t just let the video do the talking. He needed to extract more from Senor Impostor. Fleeting self-doubt kicked in. His robust initial defence of local duty was being supplanted by his own current planned detour into murky politics, and this was a first for Maxi Duarte.
He contacted Pierze and agreed to meet for a stroll in Plaza Ingles. He wanted to clear up the actual raison d’etre of the two central departments. “As you have commented, I’m but a simple policeman, so humour me with a layman’s explanation of the difference in the purpose of Central Security and The International Communications Corruption Bureau. I ask because your organisation’s name reeks of woolly, statistics driven theory, dedicated to minor areas of crime. I’m hoping that you’re going to provide me with a Eureka moment.” Pierze sidestepped the sarcasm and as they wandered by the noisy fountains he beckoned Duarte to sit where they wouldn’t be
overheard.
“That is the whole point; it does not fertilise suspicion. It does indeed sound rather harmless. Society has however deteriorated dramatically in the last few years from explosions of internet fraud, identity theft etc. They were bad, and although facilitated by increased communication media such as social networking, they were monitored in a largely haphazard way. The internet collapse gave temporary respite, but when SACRED was embraced as some kind of messianic wonder, there was a cost, or a price – whichever way you look at it. The absolute security offered was to be achieved via a monopolistic lockout. Institutional and individual subscribers alike had to be vetted before they became authorised users. The problem arises when we ask – who will act as watchdog? The owners would not countenance some government body having an on-going system inspection role. It would defeat the objective of offering total security, by importing porosity. They offered a challenge to the government by inviting them to attempt infiltration of the system, and stating that membership came with a guarantee of privacy with lucrative compensation of any proven compromise. In the words of Sorin Gretz – ‘You either want to avoid a repeat of previous naivety or you don’t. We are not flexible on this point, despite the mind-boggling investment we have expended. Decide on that basis –we are going ahead. If you cannot decide, the populous will’. This brinkmanship spawned a new question. How can we best monitor the result of this closed communication loop from the outside? So, in the same way as vice squads target bringing down drug dealing organisations, and the regular police concentrate on bringing individual criminals to justice, as prescribed by the crime, we research and act upon trends. The Central Security department has to deal with the here and now of espionage, terrorism and the like. I would suggest Chief Inspector that you ask Salina and Olmeda the same question. If they thought we were some sort of fluffy bunny they would not be so anxious about our presence.”
