Fatal Sunset

by Jason Webster

  After that, the wheels in his mind had started to turn with a will and momentum of their own. An overheard phone call to the solicitor had given him all the confirmation that he needed. He, José Luis’s lover of the past eleven years, was about to be stripped bare and left to rot, like some discarded piece of meat.

  ‘It’s a pattern,’ Montesinos had said. ‘He can’t help himself.’

  Perhaps not, perhaps he could not prevent it. But he could protect himself. He could … The plan formed itself, as though Fate were forcing his hand. Enrique, that ridiculous old man! Who would have thought that the means would have come through him? Yet placing the hives there, as close as he could to the nightclub, had been the trigger, the moment when he had known what was going to happen, and more importantly, how. Supplying the necessary chemical had been easy: cheap and disgusting, the cologne that the Romanian women sold was exactly what he needed. He had heard from somewhere – perhaps a TV documentary? It didn’t matter – about the effect pheromones could have on bees. Then he had placed the bottle in the golden box with a smile, a joke present before the bigger, proper one to come later that day.

  A joke? What was he thinking? The joke had killed José.

  As it had been meant to.

  During the argument he had thrown out Andrés’s name. Yes, José Luis said. My relative, my blood. My nightclub.

  You wouldn’t leave me with nothing!

  That’s just for you to find out.

  For him to find out … Well, he had found out. The papers in the safe confirmed everything, that he was too late. It had all gone to the nephew.

  But José Luis was already dead by then. Too late to change anything.

  There was cash, at least. Plenty of it. He knew where the key to the safe was, hidden behind the hideous Dolly Parton photo. José Luis had told him. A long time ago now. When there was still trust between them.

  There’s never been anyone like you, he used to say back then.

  So he had money. And it was time to run.

  Vicenta knew. Old women were like that. They could sense things. He saw it in her eyes, saw it in the way that she shielded him from the police detective when he drove back to Sunset. She was protecting him. Because she had guessed everything. Perhaps not the details, but the bare bones of what had happened.

  Killing her had been the hardest part. Yet he liked to think that he had been considerate, given her no stress, no pain. A shot straight to the back of the head and she had fallen like a stone. The husband had been easier. Shot as he stood up at the sight of his dead wife. And another once he hit the floor, just to be sure. They would pass to the next world together. He had not been cruel. He could find redemption yet.

  Only far from here, from the mountains, from Sunset, from everything.

  Cramped against the car door, a plastic bag bumping against his head from the mass of luggage squeezed into the boot, he watched the oleander bushes at the side of the motorway whip past in a blur of white and red. Each metre they drove, each bridge they passed, every junction they left behind put more and more distance between himself and danger, brought him closer to safety, to home.

  He hadn’t been back to Morocco for seven, perhaps eight years. An uncle in Tangier would be able to put him up for a while, then he would press further south, head towards Rabat or Casablanca. It would be easier in a big city: more resources, more places to hide. Then, after a while, perhaps a few months or a year, he would slowly re-emerge. He had enough cash on him to last him a while, perhaps even build something new for himself. Eventually. When all this was past.

  Yet there was still so far to go.

  A sign to Alicante flashed by. The landscape was already changing: the pine trees he was used to back at Sunset were almost gone, the ground become drier, sandier, like a desert, with a hint of Africa, of home. Even the air, pouring in through the father’s open window, smelt different: warmer, dustier, with a promise of vast open skies. He could sense his future reaching out towards him with silvery fingers, drawing him back to long-forgotten horizons.

  Just a few more hours. The discomfort, the heat, the noise of the family chatting busily away, a baby crying in its mother’s arms as she pulled out a breast to feed him once more, was all worth it. For soon he would be free.

  His eyes began to droop as the nerves and drugs lost their grip on him.

  By the time the car got caught in the traffic jam, he was asleep.

  FIFTY-SIX

  The Guardia Civil helicopter touched down in a rocky abandoned field by the side of the motorway. As Cámara got out, squinting against the clouds of dust kicked up by the spinning blades, he admired the work done so far: the tailback was stretching back several kilometres into the distance, but there, up ahead, he could make out the Guardia Civil patrol cars that had caused this traffic jam in the first place, and the green-and-white motorcycles passing up and down between the stationary cars as more officers looked for their prey. Once the satellites had locked on to the GPS signal emitted from his phone, it became quite easy to locate Abi’s whereabouts. The poor man had probably thought himself safe by switching it off, thought Cámara. He should have thrown it away, cut himself off, yet there was no way he could do that. Vicenta had known – ‘He can never be separated from it,’ she said. She knew Abi so well. Too well, perhaps: was it that knowledge which had brought about her own death?

  The sun was beginning its afternoon descent, its rays beaming down with bright heat. Each car flashed a harsh yellow, windows like mirrors, dark, distorting, only partially obscuring those sitting behind. Torres ran up as he approached the crash barriers at the side of the road.

  ‘He’s definitely here. We’ve got a very clear signal.’

  Cámara said nothing.

  ‘What do we do? Search every car?’

  He pointed towards the Guardia Civil officers. The motorcyclists had already got off their machines and were pacing past the stuck vehicles, peering in through the windows, checking the faces inside against the ID shot they had been issued of the man being sought. They would find him eventually.

  ‘Do you think he’ll run?’

  ‘He’s been running already,’ said Cámara. ‘Only without knowing we were on his tail.’

  The helicopter blades continued to spin behind them, filling the air with sand and noise.

  ‘The Guardia Civil will want to claim him,’ said Torres.

  ‘The Guardia Civil have got their own,’ said Cámara. ‘This one’s mine.’

  He climbed over the crash barriers and started moving about the cars himself: ordinary vehicles, some going home from work, perhaps; others, judging by the foreign number plates, on holiday.

  He took a few steps closer to the Peugeot: it was French, an entire family and more somehow crammed inside. The driver wound down his window when he saw Cámara approach. Cámara looked him in the eye: there was a pleading in his expression: please, don’t drag us into anything. And the man gestured behind him with his head. Cámara leaned down to look.

  Cámara stood in the way of the sun, cancelling its reflection. The mirror-like dazzle of the car windows disappeared. The view inside was clearer now. Cámara saw a sleeping head, pressed against the glass, skin white with the pressure, mouth open, a droplet of saliva perched on the edge of his lower lip.

  Abi looked so peaceful, so calm, so deeply relaxed.

  Almost, thought Cámara, as though he were asleep at home in his own bed.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  Torres sat back down at his desk in Narcotics and stared at his computer screen. The atmosphere in the department had been notably cool since his return that evening. Admittedly he had been on the fringes of an operation which had seen the Guardia Civil take all the credit for destroying a drug-dealing operation in the sierra, and he could understand if there was some annoyance that he, as a member of the Policía Nacional, had been involved in their rivals’ success. Yet he had experienced similar situations in the past and this went beyond that; there was more tha
n mere frostiness towards him from colleagues: he felt certain some were talking about him behind his back, and the expressions on their faces betrayed the uncharitable nature of their opinions.

  It was not so much the feeling that he wasn’t particularly loved. That kind of thing came and went and was nothing to worry about. No, there was something more to it: an active dislike, hostility, even. And if he felt disturbed by it, it was out of curiosity: he wanted to know why.

  Now that he was at his desk and facing his computer, the uneasy feeling he had had since walking in was dramatically, even comically, increased. For on a Post-It note, someone had written a simple message for him and placed it on the screen: JUDAS.

  Really?

  He peeled the note off, screwed it into a ball and threw it nonchalantly into the bin. And for the next half an hour he trawled through the police intranet, looking for some clue or other as to what had happened, why attitudes in the department were so hostile.

  He found nothing, however, nothing to shed light of any kind on the matter. If anything, there was more reason to be confused: according to a report he found from the Guardia Civil, Father Ricardo had been released without charge. Something about there being no evidence to link him with the drug trade. Dorin and Bogdan, and Paco from Sunset, however, were still being detained and their case passed on to the judicial authorities.

  Getting up from his desk, Torres decided to step out into the corridor and get some coffee from the machine. As he did so, one of his colleagues – one of only two who had at least greeted him the previous day – caught his eye then looked away. Torres shrugged and headed out the door.

  The man appeared at his side just as Torres was pulling his cup out from the machine.

  ‘Hello,’ said Torres, as amiably as he could – a feat that was never particularly easy for him, still less so today.

  ‘I’m amazed you even showed up,’ said the man.

  ‘Bit of an overreaction, don’t you think?’ Torres said. ‘Am I really a traitor just because the Guardia Civil took the prize?’

  The other officer smiled and shook his head.

  ‘What?’ said Torres. ‘This happens. To all of us every now and again. But I don’t remember ever getting quite so cut up about it.’

  The man looked at him, a question in his eyes.

  ‘You don’t get it, do you?’ he said. ‘Don’t know.’

  Torres leaned in. With his bulky weight and large black beard, he could do imposing when he wanted to. Friendly, not so much. But imposing, yes.

  ‘Don’t get what?’ he said.

  ‘That outfit you just helped to break up,’ said the officer. ‘There was much more to it, much more than the surface appearance. And now you and your pals have gone in like a bunch of kids and wrecked everything.’

  Torres raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Wrecked everything?’

  ‘You just don’t know anything,’ said the man, breathing hard and clearly uncomfortable with Torres leaning over him, but refusing to back off, nonetheless.

  ‘I know what I know,’ said Torres. ‘And I know a crook when I see one. And I’m beginning to get the sense that not all of them are out there.’

  He pointed a thick finger towards the window and the street beyond.

  ‘This department has a reputation. There’s just too much temptation for some. Perhaps you’re happy to be thought of as bent, but that’s one thing no one’s ever going to be able to throw at me and make stick.’

  The officer snorted, his face reddening.

  ‘You’re not going to last a fucking week. Trust me, anyone who interrupts the bigger picture gets given short shrift. And you’ve caused big ructions, believe me. In fact, if I were you I’d be watching my back. You’re up to it well beyond your eyeballs, Torres. When it comes to Abravanel, there’s no mercy. And don’t think your track record or your friends elsewhere are going to be able to help you with this one. You’re dead meat. I’d get out of here now, while you’ve still got legs to walk on.’

  He thrust out an arm and pushed Torres in the centre of the chest. Torres didn’t resist, stumbling for a moment as he got his balance. When he looked up again the other man had gone, the doors back into the department swinging behind him.

  Torres stood in silence as connections and links furiously criss-crossed his brain.

  Abravanel. He suddenly remembered where he had heard that name before.

  And a sense of clear, mortal danger appeared before him.

  He turned and ran as fast as he could down the corridor. There was someone he had to find very quickly and very urgently.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  The papers covered almost the entire floor of the living room. And they included only the most important ones: a whole pile on her desk detailed finer points of the web-like structure which had spun itself as each page brought more details, deeper complexity to this great, secret government enterprise.

  Yet a secret for not much longer, for she had already written the first draft of her article and was about to read it for a second time, to edit and polish it, before sending it off to Quico Romero. It would be the first of many articles, probably stretching out over several days and weeks, even longer if its exposure brought more revelations, as she expected it might. There was so much here that it was impossible to detail in only one piece, yet she had the outline, the basic story, and even now, as she read her own words, she felt a shiver run through her blood at the sinister magnitude of it.

  It had been risky, getting back to Valencia. And she still did not know if she had done the right thing. She felt like a bull of the meek and docile kind in the bullring, pulling back, in the face of so many wounds, to its querencia, its perceived place of sanctuary, somewhere it might feel safe. Yet was she really safe here? Almost certainly not. But she had information, and that information might just save her. As long as she got it out as quickly as possible. Once others were party to it, there would be no point in the security services shutting her down.

  Which was why she had to work as quickly as possible. She had tried to read some of the material the previous night on the late bus from Madrid, but the adrenalin from chasing around the city, meeting up with Marisol, had left her drained, and she had fallen asleep. Waking up with a start as they pulled into Valencia, she had seen with relief that the file was still where she had left it, as a pillow for her head against the window.

  A quick walk – no more taxis – to the flat, a shower, breakfast, litres of coffee, and she had started work. It had taken her time just to organise the material, put it into some kind of shape, make sense of the many layers and the terminology, decipher the euphemisms that state officials – and particularly the military – tended to use.

  The process had taken several hours and she had had to read and re-read the material, making certain that she had correctly understood, that the story was, indeed, what she was about to tell the country it was.

  ‘It’s big,’ she wrote in a simple email to Quico. ‘Have everything. Expect something from me later this afternoon.’

  ‘OK,’ came the simple reply. She would have preferred something stronger, something to indicate greater commitment, give a sense that she was not alone with this.

  At least Max would be back soon, communications between them having finally been restored. He had sent her an email – was on his way now. There was so much to tell him. He could be her second pair of eyes before she sent it through to Madrid. She wondered how he was going to react when she told him.

  She glanced at the screen, scrolled up to the top of the article, and began to read once more.

  The government is building a secret Guantánamo-style facility on the Balearic island of Cabrera to detain thousands of suspected Islamic militants in the event of a new terrorist attack and collapse of public confidence. The scheme, funded by money from illicit drug dealing, is jointly run by the Ministry of Defence and the Centro Nacional de Inteligencia (CNI) and has been given the code name Operación Navas de Tolosa
. Ministry of Defence documents obtained by this newspaper show that Operación Navas, and a complex web of sub-operations, has now commenced following a two-year preparation period. The first steps to build the detention centre on Cabrera – a process code-named Operación Clavijo – began within the last week under the guise of military manoeuvres in the waters south of Mallorca.

  Officially, no public money has been spent on any part of Operación Navas. All financing has come through Operación Abravanel, a covert government-sponsored drug cartel designed to raise funds for the project. This newspaper understands that among the drugs sold as part of the scheme are mephedrone, methamphetamine and GHB, narcotics used in the cocktails common to the ‘chemsex’ trend that has taken hold in certain communities and which has been linked to a recent increase in HIV infections. The drugs have been produced in various laboratories and factories around the country and distributed by European immigrant drug gangs. They in turn have been aided – at least in part – by an organisation known as the Brothers of Cáceres, a classified group of Church priests and officials working directly for the CNI and a key element in the working of Abravanel.

  The security operation for Navas – code-named Operación Santiago – is headed by the CNI. A key element of Santiago has been Operación Covadonga – the closing down of units at the Policía Nacional and Guardia Civil investigating Islamic militants and the concentration of these investigations at the CNI. Policía Nacional sources have confirmed that such a step has been taken in the past three days.

  Other elements of Navas – a large and highly complex project – involve Operación Lerma, a plan to forcibly expel Muslims to Morocco. Plans envisaged under this scheme involve the revoking of Spanish nationality from people holding joint citizenship with an Islamic country. Current estimates suggest that as many as a million people could be affected by such a move.

  Controversially, all the project’s operational code names are linked to key events or personalities involved in the Reconquista, the mediaeval campaign to expel Muslims from the Peninsula. ‘Covadonga’ is the name of the first battle of the Reconquista, in the mountains of Asturias in 722. ‘Clavijo’ was the name of the first – and fictitious – battle against the Moors in 844 at which the Apostle Santiago is supposed to have miraculously appeared and set the enemy to flight. ‘Navas de Tolosa’ refers to the most famous battle in Spanish history, the great victory over the Moors in 1212. ‘Abravanel’ was the name of a Jewish moneylender who gave their Catholic Majesties the money for the War of Granada, culminating in the conquest of the last Moorish-held city in 1492. The Duke of Lerma was the man behind the final expulsion of the Moriscos in 1609. The ‘Brothers of Cáceres’ was the original name of the Knights of Santiago, the military order based on the Templars whose purpose was to rid Spain of the Moors.