Carlos forced a grin.
‘He was the one who gave you information about me in the first place,’ said Cámara. ‘The reason why you came to me at all. You got him to check me out.’
Their eyes locked in understanding.
‘Just like Segundo Pont at the medal ceremony. Did you pass the info to Segundo Pont yourself, Carlos? Was that why he approached me? He was one of yours as well, wasn’t he? That was the real reason why I was picked for that investigation, so he could check me out as well. A stabilising influence, people said, someone who Madrid could work with. Why? Because he was a CNI agent all along, playing a double game. Was that why he was killed? Did someone find out the truth? One of his own people? No wonder they haven’t solved it yet. No one will ever let them know the truth – not you or the Catalans. It’s too embarrassing for both of you.’
Carlos snorted.
‘Been on the weed again, Cámara?’ he said. ‘Smoking some of that stash from the back of your flat? Because you’re beginning to sound like another drug-crazed, conspiracy-theory lunatic.
‘Oh, yes,’ he added. ‘We know all about—’
‘A cog in your creaky, chaotic machine,’ said Cámara. ‘You never wanted me to spy on the anarchists in Valencia. That was just a power thing, a test. You had all the information on them – and on me – already. From Terreros. But who was feeding it to him in the first place?’
They were barely inches away from each other, Cámara sensing the anger surging through Carlos’s blood. With one jerk he could bring his forehead down on Cámara’s face. Quickly and smoothly, Cámara took a step back, shaking Carlos’s hands free from his shoulders.
‘You know who,’ said Cámara. ‘You’ve known all along. The same person who murdered Fermín on Terreros’s orders.’
He looked towards the door.
‘You said Terreros was dangerous,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think you realise quite how dangerous he actually is.’
‘What are you talking about?’ said Carlos.
Inside the basilica the mass was now well under way, with the hypnotic litany of the church voices. Outside, the crowds were relatively silent as they tried to catch a glimpse of what was going on inside through the open doors. But as Cámara and Carlos stood in the anteroom, Cámara became aware of a new sound from outside: a droning, buzzing noise he had not been conscious of before. And with it, a roaring cheer from the crowd.
His ears pricked up, and every sense in his body with them. Something was not right.
‘What is it?’ asked Carlos.
‘I don’t know,’ said Cámara. ‘And I don’t like it.’
FORTY-EIGHT
HE HAD NEVER felt so awake. Every detail, every colour, every face flashing past his window was perceived in high definition and recorded indelibly in his mind. The world – his world, their world – was about to change.
They drove in towards the city centre as the first light of dawn reached out towards the streets and houses. The traffic was building, but Daniel knew his way through back streets and side alleys, and they managed to weave a complex route towards their destination.
In the back of the pickup, a tightly fastened brown tarpaulin kept their cargo from view. ‘Don’t look round, don’t draw attention to it,’ Daniel had said. ‘If you stare at it, others will to. You make things invisible by ignoring them.’
And so he sat with his eyes on the road, but within him, as he absorbed the feast of stimuli that the city offered, part of his consciousness was also turned on what sat behind him in the truck: what were they going to do with it? What was it for?
They had spent the night sleeping on a couple of mattresses thrown on the floor of a flat in an abandoned, unfinished block on the outskirts of the city. The pickup was four-wheel drive, so they had no difficulty crossing the rough ground in order to get to it: the half-built street had been blocked off by heavy concrete barriers, but they arrived from the back, over the steep cemented banks of a dry river bed. Inside, along with the primitive bedding, was some drinking water and four cans of sardines. The first thing Daniel had shown him was how to dig a hole outside in the hard dry ground with a knife in order to shit in it.
Dídac spent most of the evening in the flat making two mobile-phone detonators while Daniel busied himself with something downstairs in what he referred to as the ‘garage’ – a simple, covered space on the ground floor with bare concrete pillars that was supposed to be the entrance to the block of flats. Only when Daniel called him did he go down to see what he was doing.
It was almost dark by that point, and on a barren patch of land behind the building Daniel was standing next to what looked like a toy helicopter, except that it was much larger and sturdier.
‘This is a drone,’ Daniel said.
‘I know,’ said Dídac. ‘You stick a camera on them and take aerial shots.’
Daniel nodded. A tablet computer sat in his hands.
‘Here, come closer and watch.’
As the drone rose into the air, the moving image on the screen changed until Dídac was looking at himself far below, on the ground, staring into a tablet screen, watching the drone rise above him, which was filming him.
‘Cool,’ he said in a low voice.
Daniel passed over the tablet.
‘Now you can watch and control it at the same time.’
He pointed to the buttons, explaining what each one did, and within moments Dídac was making the drone fly even higher, above the height of the block of flats, and shifting the camera so that it gazed out towards the horizon. He could see the lights of Barcelona in the distance, winking at him as though sharing the excitement.
‘Don’t get too carried away,’ said Daniel. ‘I don’t want it to get seen, and we have to preserve the battery life.’
Gently, Dídac brought the machine back down to earth, and it landed smoothly by their feet.
‘You seem to have mastered that pretty quickly,’ said Daniel. ‘You reckon you know how to handle one now?’
Dídac nodded.
‘Seems simple enough,’ he said, glowing in his father’s praise.
‘Good, because I’ve got two and we’re going to be using them tomorrow morning. You up for it?’
Which was when the feeling of being alive like never before had first entered his bloodstream.
‘Yes,’ he said breathlessly. ‘Yes.’
‘You should go back up, then,’ Daniel said. ‘I’ve got some more things to prepare here. I’ll be up soon enough. You should get some rest.’
Dídac turned to head back up the stairs, but paused.
‘Dad,’ he said. It felt strange – he could not remember ever calling him anything but Daniel, but the word slipped out unbidden. Daniel gave him an odd look, one he found difficult to read.
‘I was just wondering,’ Dídac continued. ‘I thought I might give Mum a ring. I haven’t spoken to her for a while. They allow evening calls sometimes at the prison.’
He wanted to talk to someone, a friend, to share his feelings in some way. This was turning into the best day of his life. But the expression in Daniel’s eyes darkened.
‘The lines aren’t safe,’ he said. ‘You should know that by now. I can’t allow it.’
And he lifted the drone and started walking towards the pickup.
‘Now go back upstairs.’
One black cloud, momentarily blocking out the sun. But it passed soon enough. When Daniel finally came up, Dídac’s eyes were closed, but sleep felt like a distant, impossible shore.
Now, as they drove into the city centre, he could sense the presence of the drones in the back of the pickup. Finally, at long last, they were about to act: it felt as though he had been waiting for it for years.
After zigzagging their way across the city, they came to an ordinary-looking street with shops and a few office blocks and people rushing backwards and forwards as they went about their business. Daniel pulled into an open-air car park on the right-hand side, and there, a
t the far end where two spaces were free, he brought the pickup to a halt, crossing the line into the final space to prevent anyone else from parking there.
Switching off the engine, he got out and went round to the back of the vehicle. Dídac took his cue and followed suit. After untying the fastenings of the tarpaulin, Daniel carefully rolled it back, exposing the two drones, each sitting inside a wooden crate. Dídac saw immediately that they had been modified; they did not look the same as the one he had briefly played with the night before.
‘Detonators,’ Daniel said simply. It was an order. Dídac skipped back to the cabin, pulled out a rucksack from the footwell and handed it to Daniel, who opened it, checked the contents and then placed it next to the drones in the back of the truck.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Pull out your phone and programme this number.’
Dídac did as he was told, registering the mobile-phone digits that Daniel repeated from memory.
Daniel checked his watch, pausing for a second.
‘We need to get going,’ he said.
He pulled out the first drone, lifted it out of its crate and placed it down on the ground in the empty parking space next to them. The pickup partially shielded them from view, but they were surrounded by taller buildings in what felt almost like a canyon. One of them, a square white block, looked institutional, like a prison. Anyone staring out of a window would have a fairly clear view of what they were doing.
But would anyone really object to them flying drones? Only if they saw Daniel’s adjustments to the machines. Beneath each one, attached to the main undercarriage next to the camera, was a metal canister and a package wrapped in brown paper.
Daniel picked up the rucksack and placed it on the ground next to the drone. He pulled out one of the detonators that Dídac had made the previous evening and carefully but firmly pressed the blast cap through the brown paper into the soft insides of the package. Then he attached the body of the mobile phone to the other side the drone, strapping it in with duct tape.
He stood up and stepped past Dídac without looking him in the eye, reaching into the cabin of the truck for another bag, which he brought back to the drone. There, he fished out a tablet computer and switched everything on, checking that all was in working order. The screen showed a clear steady image of the ground beneath the still stationary drone, then flicked up and around as the camera was swivelled in its pod until finally resting on an insect’s view of their feet.
After a few minutes, Daniel had gone through the same procedure with the second drone, setting it up and switching everything on, before handing the tablet to Dídac.
Then he checked his watch again.
‘Remember,’ he said, ‘have your mobile phone ready, and when I say, you call that number I just gave you. Got it?’
A powerful cocktail of emotional energy surged through him: excitement, pride and cold, cold panic. He could not speak.
Daniel took a step closer and placed his hand on Dídac’s shoulder.
‘Everything’s all right,’ he said. ‘I promise you, everything will be all right.’
‘I …’
‘Yesterday you told me that when the time came you’d be with me. And I know you meant it, that it came from the heart.’
His hand moved from Dídac’s shoulder and up to stroke the side of his head.
‘This is it,’ he said. ‘This is the moment. I need you to be with me.’
And almost as though it had a will of its own, Dídac’s head began to nod.
‘I’m with you.’ The words spilled from his mouth, dribbling down his front as they fell.
Daniel patted his cheek, then pulling his hand slowly away, he bent his arm and brought his straightened fingers up to touch his own temple in a military salute.
And mirroring him, Dídac did the same. Two men like soldiers at a parade.
‘It’s time to go to work,’ said Daniel.
He checked his watch for a final time.
‘We need these things in the air in five – four – three …’
‘What’s the target?’ said Dídac, staring at the screen in his hand.
‘Get it up in the air and above these buildings,’ said Daniel. ‘Then head east. But be quick. With that extra weight we’ve only got ten minutes’ flying time.’
‘Where are we sending them?’ Dídac asked, his voice shrill above the buzzing of the propellers as they whizzed violently in tight circles.
‘Follow mine,’ said Daniel. ‘And keep going for seven blocks.’
His drone lifted into the air, rising vertically above them.
‘We’re going to blow up the Sagrada Familia.’
FORTY-NINE
CÁMARA RAN TO the doorway of the anteroom and looked out towards the street. Through the open doors he spotted the crowds on the other side of the road: they were looking up at something in the sky and cheering.
Inside the basilica, the ceremony continued, the congregation seemingly oblivious to the growing commotion outside, but the jefe de operaciones of the Mossos team had noticed the change as well and was speeding across from his temporary headquarters to find out what was going on, pressing his finger against the radio in his ear.
Cámara stepped out into the covered entrance and took a couple of steps down in order to see what the crowds were looking at. He heard the buzzing sound and then saw coloured smoke hanging in the air just a few metres above their heads. Two streams, one yellow, one red – the colours on the Catalan flag.
Another cheer went up as the buzzing became louder and he cupped his hand over his eyes to shield them from the sun. Then he saw what was causing it: a drone helicopter, no more than a metre across, was passing backwards and forwards along the Carrer de Sardenya with the smoke blowing out of a couple of canisters attached to its undercarriage. And each time it went past, the people squeezed into the square opposite applauded it with nationalistic glee.
Cámara quickly stepped back up towards the basilica to head inside again. The emotional pitch was beginning to rise; the mere sight of two colours – which happened to be the same as the ones on the Spanish national flag, although no one was pointing that out – was sending the crowds into ecstasy. There were more things to be said to Carlos, and he wanted to be on his guard.
It was the expression on the jefe de operaciones’s face that made him wonder, however, as he walked back into the cooler shade of the building: he looked worried.
‘Shoot them down!’ the man started shouting into his radio, looking up towards his marksmen on a nearby roof. ‘They’re not authorised. Repeat, the drones are not authorised. Shoot them down!’
And Cámara turned to look back at the flying machine coming closer towards them: there was something else attached to its undercarriage. Not just the gas canisters, but he could not quite make out what it was.
Dídac’s hands sweated as he held the tablet; his drone was lagging behind. Daniel had activated the smoke canisters as soon as both drones had begun their approach to the Sagrada Familia. Waiting for Dídac’s drone to catch up, he had flown his own over the street a couple of times, trailing smoke in its wake. Through the camera lens Dídac became aware of the crowds outside the basilica cheering and waving with each pass as his drone approached the target.
‘I’m going in,’ Daniel said. ‘Come in after me. Head for the door.’
Dídac glanced back at his father, his eyes breaking away from the screen for the first time since they had launched the drones.
And behind him, from the far end of the car park, he could see a figure approaching: a man dressed in uniform, a blue cap on his head and a gun hanging from a black leather holster on his belt.
‘Police,’ he hissed, staring hard at Daniel.
‘Focus,’ spat Daniel. ‘Follow me.’
The noise of the cheering crowds was starting to bother Father Josep. The sound system inside the Sagrada Familia was good, and Cardinal Forner’s voice could clearly be heard by everyone, but he was concerned that th
e volume was getting too loud in the street, that the solemnity of the occasion was being lost by the more festive atmosphere outside.
Quietly and quickly, without wanting to disturb anyone – or more importantly, be seen by anyone – he got up from his seat and slipped around the back of the congregation towards the Door of the Passion where the hullabaloo seemed to be coming from. The cardinal had insisted that the doors be left open. And he was not about to disobey his orders. But at least one of the doors could be closed. That, at least, might lower the disturbance a sufficient amount to allow the mass to carry on with only a modicum of interference.
He reached the door as the policeman who had questioned him a few moments before the start of the ceremony appeared: the big man with the Manchego accent. He looked disturbed and in a rush, darting past him and into the anteroom at the side, as though looking for someone and not finding him.
Frowning a little, Father Josep reached down to the floor to unhook the lock holding the glass door open, and then gently closed it, holding the metal handle firmly, careful not to make any more noise than was necessary.
But outside the situation now appeared chaotic and confused. Some members of the crowd were still cheering, but others were standing still in what looked like bewilderment or even fear.
He stepped out of the door, trying to see what was going on.
Which was when the first shots began to ring out.
Dídac’s hand trembled as he tried to concentrate on the tablet, blotting out the fact that a policeman now appeared to have spotted them and was walking towards them. For a moment he lost control of his drone and wrestled with the tablet, spinning his camera around until it focused, and then pushed the controls on the remote to make it fly straight again.
On the screen, the image of the Sagrada Familia grew larger and larger as the drone flew closer. Daniel’s machine was ahead of his and heading down towards the doorway.
But a second before it reached its target, there was a movement: a figure dressed in black appeared at the side, then there was a flash of light. The blackened opening was about to swallow the drone, Daniel was about to get inside, but suddenly the image on Daniel’s tablet scrambled, light and dark spinning in a confused staccato.
A Body in Barcelona: Max Cámara 5 Page 25
