by Kathryn Lane
Olani stepped in stride with three people walking toward a young mosso d’esquadra. She was careful not to let Taiwo spot her. Looking over her shoulder, she saw a couple of pedestrians had stopped to talk with Selena.
Olani approached the mosso.
“I want to report the person responsible for this monstrous act.”
“You know who is behind this attack?” the policeman asked. He seemed surprised by her assertion.
“I do. He’s in the crowd behind me.”
First, the mosso observed Olani’s obvious Gypsy attire. Next he waved to a higher-ranking officer to join them. He prepared to record her answers on his small police tablet. When the senior officer arrived, he eyed the witness suspiciously.
“Point out the terrorist,” the young officer commanded.
“That bearded man,” she said, turning, prepared to identify Taiwo.
Olani searched the area where the Nigerian had been standing, but he had disappeared. Her eyes scanned the area. Unable to locate him, she looked toward the side streets, first to one and then the other. Taiwo had vanished.
“He was right there,” Olani said, stuttering, and pointing to the spot where she’d seen him. “He’s Nigerian with a full, thick, black beard.”
“Are you sure you know what you’re talking about?” the second officer asked.
“I do,” Olani said in a timid voice.
She remembered Selena’s advice regarding the police. To avoid getting involved if she could not deliver Taiwo. The police should not learn too much about her. Olani shook her head, looked down, and mumbled a few words.
“What is your name?”
“Olaniyi.”
“Full name?”
“Yes.”
She saw the mosso write Olani Yee into his app. “Tell me about the suspect.”
“African. Nigerian, I believe.”
“Do you know this man?”
“Yes. No. Not really.”
“Do you know this man or not?”
She stared blankly at the officer trying to avoid further questions. Olani muttered. “Sorry, I made a mistake. His beard made him look like a terrorist.”
“Give us your address.”
“I don’t have one.”
“Don’t have an address?” the young mosso asked. He was exasperated. “Everyone lives somewhere.”
“Yes, on the street. I came looking for work.”
The young one shook his head and the older one opened his hands in a helpless gesture as she turned to walk away.
Shaking with anger as she rejoined Selena, Olani continued to scan the areas cordoned off with crime scene tape. “Did you see where that evil man disappeared to?” Olani asked. She was on the verge of tears.
“Sorry, some people stopped to talk. That distracted me. I missed where he went,” Selena said. “Come now, not all is lost. We know he was here. We know he was involved.”
“I’ve lost my chance at justice,” Olani said as her shoulders slumped.
“Now, now, Morocco, it’s not over yet.” Selena put her arms around Olani and brought her in for a hug. “Your fighting spirit is only beginning.”
Selena told her the police had killed snipers on both the east and west sides of the basilica. One sniper had been killed on this side, in the green space that was now cordoned off. He had wounded two tourists scrambling out from the Nativity portico before the police killed him. Crestfallen, Olani asked Selena what they should do next.
“See what’s happening by the parishioner’s church, where the bombs went off,” Selena said.
Olani looked up. Her eyes were ablaze with fire. “He’s here. I can feel his demonic soul. His evil spirit. I must find him. It would be justice for Kenny. For my daughter. I have to locate him before he leaves.” Without hesitating, Olani walked off. She felt so angry she did not even care if Taiwo saw her. She had to catch him.
“Hey, Morocco, you need a bodyguard. Wait for me,” Selena said as she quickened her stride to catch up with her friend.
Commotion on the street caught Eduardo’s attention—a television crew climbing out of a van. Floyd was crouched down, helping one of the medics.
“TV reporters,” Eduardo said, tapping Floyd on the shoulder.
“Good time for us to leave,” Floyd said as he stood up.
“I’ve done all I can here,” Eduardo said. “Should we meet up with Interpol?”
Floyd dialed Javier to confirm they were ready to meet with him. Then he turned to Eduardo. “Let’s catch a taxi a couple of streets over. Is Nikki going with us? We’ll swing by the Majestic and drop Milena off,” Floyd said.
“She won’t leave until she knows what happened to Carmen and Paula,” Eduardo said.
Nikki yelled for Eduardo. He turned and saw her follow a gurney. He rushed to her side.
“How is she?” Eduardo asked in as calm a voice as he could muster.
“Critical. We must transport her to the hospital immediately,” the paramedic said.
“I’m going to the hospital with Carmen,” Nikki said. “She’s alive, but she’s lost a lot of blood.”
Eduardo took Nikki in a tight embrace and whispered that he and Floyd were catching up with the Interpol contact, Javier de la Mata.
“What about Milena?” Nikki asked. The paramedics were loading Carmen into an ambulance. “She can’t stay here by herself.”
“We’re taking her to the Majestic.”
“Good,” she said.
“Don’t forget, Nikki, watch for an African with a heavy beard. He set off the bomb and he might be after you as well.”
“You don’t think he’d blow a whole church because I was inside, do you?”
“We don’t know. Floyd wants to put us in a safehouse until we learn more.”
“No way. Carmen needs me.” She kissed Eduardo a quick goodbye and jumped into the back of the ambulance. An EMT climbed in and closed the door behind them.
Nikki watched the paramedic work intently, inserting an intravenous needle into her aunt’s arm. He connected it to a tube attached to a saline bag to rehydrate Carmen. He lifted her head to affix an oxygen mask. A second EMT had already secured the stretcher into the ambulance and ordered Nikki to strap herself into a seat. Opening a drawer from a built-in cupboard, he helped himself to supplies to clean a bleeding wound under Carmen’s ribcage. He locked the drawer and strapped himself into a seat. Still holding a roll of gauze, he applied pressure to the ribcage.
The second medic followed suit by strapping himself into a seat near the front, behind the driver. The two men looked at each other and nodded. The one seated at the front tapped on the driver’s window and the ambulance took off, sirens blaring.
Nikki reached out to hold her aunt’s hand. With that, Carmen opened her eyes. She looked confused. Nikki spoke softly, reassuring her everything would be fine. Thankful her aunt did not attempt to speak, Nikki could only imagine that Paula and Fadi must be dead. Such news would devastate Carmen and might impact her survival.
As the ambulance sped down interminable streets toward the hospital, Nikki wiped tears from her face. The bombing had taken lives and limbs, and she could not stop thinking about the African man who might be following her. Her mind was too muddled to analyze the few facts she had. But her gut said that Cristóbal Arenas, the man who’d hired an assassin to kill her in Mexico, had found an African to finish the job.
But why kill others in the process? she wondered.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Barcelona—Interpol Meeting
Saturday Early Afternoon
Eduardo settled into a booth in a quiet corner of the coffee shop with Floyd and the Interpol agent. Eduardo watched the man log in to his tablet. Javier de la Mata had a mousy appearance and a twitch in his eyes. In fact, Eduardo thought Javier hardly looked like an Interpol agent.
Javier cleared his throat and began to speak in accented English. It hadn’t taken long to establish that Javier’s English was better than Floyd’s
Spanish and much better than the little Catalan Floyd or Eduardo could speak. After a few pleasantries, the Interpol agent asked Eduardo to describe the attack on Sagrada Família.
Eduardo organized his thoughts and provided all he knew.
A ding on Eduardo’s phone, a message from Nikki, to tell him the ambulance had arrived at the Hospital de Barcelona. She would wait in the emergency room lobby for a doctor to inform her how they planned to treat Carmen.
While Eduardo responded to Nikki, Javier sipped his espresso and keyed a few words into his tablet, using his lightning-speed two-finger method. His jittery eyes seemed to relax as he reviewed his notes. When he commenced the interview again, the twitching returned.
“Read my notes,” Javier said when the interrogation ended, and handed his tablet to Eduardo. “See if your declaration on African you chased and how you came by his phone is accurate. And how you saw him on train to Burgos. Tell me changes you think necessary.”
Eduardo finished reading the description, nodded, and returned the tablet to its owner. “That’s about it.”
“Now let’s talk about your trip to Burgos,” Javier said. “How you think African knew where you were going? How he also got on same train?”
“I’ve wondered that myself,” Eduardo said. “Floyd drove us to the station, so perhaps the African followed us in a taxi and purchased his ticket when he saw us stand in line waiting for the platform to Burgos to open. We already had our tickets.”
“When platform opens, it usually deals with two trains. Each one will travel in opposite direction,” Javier said.
“In fact,” Eduardo said, “part of the reason I dismissed the incident on the train was based on the improbability someone could follow us so precisely. Plus the man wore a uniform, like food service personnel.”
Floyd asked if the man could have purchased tickets for both directions and followed them to the one they had boarded.
“Unlikely,” Javier said, shaking his head. “Too easy for mix ups. How you purchase tickets?”
When Eduardo explained Nikki had asked the concierge to get them, he saw a glint of insight register in Javier’s eyes.
“The concierge must be a snitch,” Floyd said.
“My thought exactly,” Javier said. “You have concierge name?”
“No, but I will find out and let you know,” Eduardo said. He took a sip of cappuccino.
Javier continued, asking if Eduardo and Nikki had encountered the African anywhere else in Burgos or in Barcelona.
Eduardo thought before explaining he had not seen him in Burgos, but perhaps they had at Parc Güell. A man with a nylon stocking over his head had burst out of a cubicle in the women’s restroom, startling Nikki.
Javier sipped his espresso as he leaned forward awaiting further explanation.
“The man ran,” Eduardo said. “And left the park. We followed him, but he jumped in a taxi.”
“Did you get license plate?” Javier asked as two fingers tapped the keyboard on his tablet, recording the information.
“He was too far ahead of us,” Eduardo said. “We never saw the license plate or the taxi number before it disappeared.”
“When did this happen?” Floyd asked.
“Several days before the trip to Burgos,” Eduardo responded.
“Could it be same man?” Javier asked.
“Until today, I never considered it. We did not see his face. In fact, I only saw his back. It was Nikki who saw him up close and described a stocking over his head.”
“Did she mention beard under stocking?” Javier asked. “I know police began to search for culprit on closed-circuit TV. I make sure they also look at Parc Güell circuits.”
“I don’t know,” Eduardo said. “We can ask her if she noticed one.”
A tone buzzed on Eduardo’s phone. “From Nikki,” he said. He shook his head and slammed his fist into the top of the table. “Her cousin Paula is confirmed dead. So is Fadi Massú. Carmen is in surgery right now.”
As Eduardo typed a response to Nikki, Floyd explained the family relationships and mentioned the late bridegroom’s name. He turned to Eduardo and inquired if they had encountered any other suspicious incidents since they had arrived in Spain.
“Looking back, yes,” Eduardo said. “I would not have connected any of this before today. A man wearing a skullcap may have followed us on Passeig de Gràcia the day we arrived. Again, it was Nikki who saw him. She thought he may have taken photos of us as we sat on a bench.”
Floyd turned to face Javier. “Add skullcap on Passeig de Gràcia to your CCTV search. I don’t like any of this. Less than a month ago in Mexico, Nikki was working on a kidnapping case. An attempt was made on her life. She narrowly escaped. Cristóbal Arenas, a Colombian national, hired someone to run her down with a car.”
“You suspect connection between Arenas and this threat?” Javier asked. “You think Arenas behind Sagrada Família bombing?”
“Thinking of all the angles is all,” Floyd said. “Arenas was related to a job Nikki and I both worked in Colombia. He is presumed to live in Mexico, where he placed a contract on her during the kidnapping case.”
“Arenas is reason you originally asked me to meet you in Barcelona. At least the official request you established. Correct?” Javier asked.
“That’s right. He’s the reason I got Nikki and Eduardo out of Mexico and sent them here. For their own protection,” Floyd said. “But when I researched the Interpol database for Arenas, I saw he’s a much bigger operator than I originally estimated. He’s a big-time smuggler of firearms in Europe. I thought you might share intel with me.”
Javier looked pensive and his eyes twitched like crazy. “You think Arenas tied to bombing at Sagrada Família?”
“Don’t know about that,” Eduardo said. “The coincidence would be too great. As a Christian basilica, it’s a target for terrorism. Let’s consider connections to the wedding. Was someone trying to bomb the wedding party? After all, the bride was marrying a Muslim. If Nikki is the target, why blow up the whole basilica?”
“What about the Massú connection?” Floyd asked.
Javier told them what he knew about the Massú family, who were well-known in Catalonia, especially Mr. Massú. He advocated for tolerance and understanding between Muslims and Christians and provided financial support to schools in the Middle East promoting education for girls.
“In supporting those schools, he may have powerful enemies who feel he is betraying jihad,” Floyd said. “We cannot overlook that angle.”
“Massú was late for the wedding. Nikki was outside looking for him,” Eduardo said. “The reason she wasn’t hurt.”
“If Nikki was outside, why bearded man inside the church?” Javier asked.
“She had gone to look for Massú, but she also needed a bathroom,” Eduardo said. “Nikki was probably in a restroom when he went searching for her inside the church.”
“What about a safehouse for my personnel?” Floyd asked.
“Why don’t they return to Miami?” Javier asked in return. “Wouldn’t they be safer there?”
“I’m not putting them on a plane. Whoever planted the bombs at Sagrada Família could easily bring a plane down,” Floyd said.
“Wait, Floyd,” Eduardo said, changing the subject. “Going back to the bombing. After the first responders, a canine unit came into the church. Remember? The dog found undetonated explosives in the flower arrangements. At least in one flower pot. A Muslim florist took care of the decorations. That should be investigated. They could have radicalized employees.”
“Many florists in Barcelona. More than one could have Muslim employees. Do you know which shop?” Javier asked.
“I’d recommend elevating this bombing to an international incident,” Floyd said.
“Already done. Government considers terrorist attacks international incidents. Sagrada Família is very beloved Catalan monument with international prestige,” Javier said, his accent evident as he stressed sy
llables in a very different way.
“What comes next?” Floyd asked.
Javier informed them the police chief had sent the African’s phone to a special forensic lab to verify it had been the detonator. Rapid DNA profiling could identify the perpetrator through touch DNA. Tests for fingerprints could also help.
“That’s my handkerchief it’s wrapped in,” Eduardo said, alarmed. “If you’re doing touch DNA testing, you’re likely to find mine. Will that mess up the test?”
“Not unless you blew your nose on it,” Floyd said. “Plus, they’ll take your DNA sample and subtract it out. Wait and see what the tests show.”
“On florist, you know name of shop?” Javier asked for a second time.
Eduardo texted Nikki to get the name of the florist, the one Nikki had described as quiet and creepy.
Javier typed on his tablet and Floyd, impatient and restless, went to order another round for everyone. He also asked for a large bottle of water and three glasses along with biscotti to munch as they waited.
“Nikki’s texted back,” Eduardo said once Floyd returned to the table. “The guy’s name is Hassan. No last name. Not aware of the shop’s name. Carmen is still in surgery.”
“I want to return to the possible involvement of Cristóbal Arenas in this plot,” Floyd said. “Interpol should work with the national police to determine his connection to the basilica bombing. Could he be the mastermind? Or was he simply the supplier of explosives and automatic weapons?”
“I could see him as mastermind. Maybe,” Javier said. “Bad as attack was, first police report showed minor explosives used.”
“It could be ideological,” Floyd said. “So he’d have no need to make a ton of money from explosives.”
“Unless Nikki was his target and he was trying to make it appear as if she were an innocent bystander,” Eduardo said. “Besides, not all the explosives detonated.”
“I will escalate idea Arenas is involved,” Javier said. “Means police might interview Nikki. She could spend months in Spain.”