Revenge in Barcelona

by Kathryn Lane

  As they entered the crypt, brightly painted frescoes decorated the walls of the apses at the far end of the church. The main nave spread out in front of them with two more on each side. The central nave was the widest and its altar was set apart from the front pews by a gold-plated railing on low supports of white marble. Each nave was separated from its neighbor by large columns made of the same Montjuïc stone of the exterior, only this stone had a smoother finish.

  “Nobody’s in here,” Nikki whispered. “The calm is nice after all those noisy kids.”

  Nikki walked toward the main altar and leaned against a tall column on the right side of the central nave near the railing. Her head rested against the rock pillar. She studied the fresco painted on the hemispherical vault high above the altar.

  Then Nikki heard footsteps. She turned and saw Eduardo moving across the marble floor to join her. In her peripheral vision, a figure flashed across the opposite side of the church to the pillar at the edge of a secondary nave. Her hand went into the secret compartment of her purse. She pulled out her lipstick-case Taser.

  “Eduardo, when you moved, I saw someone dash for cover behind that column,” she said, pointing. “It reminded me of the nightmare I had a couple of weeks ago. A figure hiding behind pillars. It’s creepy. Let’s get out of here.”

  “I don’t see anything, but I’ll check.” He watched for movement as he inched closer to the pillars supporting the secondary nave Nikki had pointed out.

  Nikki held her breath and gripped the Taser. Eduardo circled the pillar where she thought she had seen a figure take cover. Yet he found no evidence of anyone hiding. Eduardo searched the nearby altar and several other thick columns. She saw him wave that all was clear, and she walked over to join him. From the altar, she surveyed the entire chapel and walked around the stone pillars Eduardo had already checked.

  As she came around the last pillar, Eduardo stopped her and moved close to embrace her. “Your nerves,” he said, “are a bit frazzled after the week we’ve had. Would you prefer to leave?”

  “It’s okay. We’ve never been to Tibidabo before and it’s legendary. Let’s take a look around.” She put the Taser away.

  For the next twenty minutes, they enjoyed the frescoes and stained-glass windows and eventually stumbled upon the access to the Perpetual Adoration chapel that had been carved directly into the mountain. The obvious reason it was called a crypt church, Nikki reasoned. She saw Eduardo’s expression change to joy when he glanced at the chapel floor. When she looked down, the light from the church filtered through the doorway behind them onto brilliantly colored mosaic. She realized they were walking on images assembled from tiny pieces of colored stone.

  “Tesserae,” Eduardo said.

  “Can you imagine cutting and assembling these miniature stones and gems for people to walk on?” she asked.

  Eduardo faced her and smiled. “Barcelona is full of surprises, like you.”

  As they stepped farther into the chapel, the lighting quickly became much dimmer and they lost the details of the mosaic. Nikki looked up and saw the central nave with a narrower one on each side culminating in sparsely illuminated apses at the far end of the chapel. Each nave, as in the church, was divided from its neighbor by heavy columns. Paintings in the vaulted ceiling reflected subdued electric lighting placed along the ribs of the vaulting. Without the artificial light, the architectural space of the windowless chapel would have been as dark as the far side of the moon. From where they stood in the central aisle, an outline of pews could be seen on either side. They walked a few more steps down the aisle.

  Eduardo took out his mobile phone and turned on the flashlight. He knelt as he beamed the light to the floor. Nikki took a seat on the edge of a wooden pew. She shifted her torso sideways and placed a hand on the pew in front of her to angle herself into the aisle. She leaned over even more to observe the patterns Eduardo pointed out. She loved listening to his enthusiastic description of the intricate labor involved in creating a tapestry in stone.

  “Such beautiful work,” she said. “Reminds me of Pompeii. Just different subject matter.”

  A low rustling sound interrupted them. Eduardo stood up. He turned the flashlight off. Nikki tensed with fear. She felt a choking sensation in her throat. Her hand trembled as she reached inside her purse, searching for the secret compartment.

  The shadowy figure of a man appeared from behind a column on the opposite side of the chapel. He slipped back into hiding.

  Reaching for Nikki’s arm, Eduardo pulled her up next to him to shield her from danger. He guided her into the darker area of the chapel, the wall opposite the pillar sheltering the lurker, an area where they were less likely to be seen. Finally able to grab her Taser, she positioned it to be used if necessary.

  Wanting to flee, Nikki realized she needed to stay with Eduardo as they inched their way along the wall toward the doorway they had entered minutes earlier. But before they had made much progress, two more figures slipped through the doorway. She saw them split, one to each side, into the darkness against the chapel walls.

  Terrified, Nikki pulled on Eduardo’s hand. Together they slithered as best they could toward their only choice for cover, the stone pillars on their side of the chapel.

  “We’re trapped,” Nikki whispered as they huddled together, their backs against the cold stone of a pillar near the altar.

  “I’ll get Javier.” Eduardo let go of Nikki’s hand and turned to face the column.

  When she saw him hunch his head over his chest to create a cavity between his body and the pillar to conceal the light emanating from his phone, she angled in next to him to help mask the light. Maybe not the best time to send Javier a message for help, she thought.

  Nikki heard steps approaching them. Her heart was thumping more loudly than the oncoming footsteps. She placed her hand over her chest to settle the palpitations. Be quiet, she reprimanded her heart. Don’t alert our stalker of our hiding place.

  Eduardo took Nikki’s hand again and slowly they crept around the pillar, pressing against it as if trying to become part of the stone. He stopped abruptly, and she felt his arms spread out to protect her.

  “Go this way. Follow me,” A man’s voice whispered, thick with a foreign accent.

  It was dark. She could not see, but she felt Eduardo move. More shuffling noise brought a panicked realization that Eduardo was confronted by more than one stalker. Almost instantly she heard a struggle.

  “Get out now,” Eduardo’s anguished voice told her.

  The thud of a crushing blow came next. She reached in front of her to feel for Eduardo, but his body went limp and she knew he had lost consciousness as he crumpled to the floor. A mobile phone slammed onto the floor lighting up the area sufficiently for her to see a huge figure standing before her.

  “Leave now,” the same accented voice said.

  Nikki reacted. She zapped her Taser wildly at the bulk of a man, unsure if her shaking hand had aimed precisely until he fell to the floor near her feet. He made garbled sounds as if trying to scream or articulate words. Nikki had fired the Taser’s darts and had continued to use the stun gun backup capability, giving her from five to thirty seconds to get herself and Eduardo to safety, depending on the accuracy of the hits.

  The sound of running feet echoed in the chapel. She dropped to the floor next to Eduardo. Searching for a pulse, she detected it at the side of his neck. On the floor, the phone still lit up a small section of the tesserae giving away their exact location. She reached to turn it off, but before she could grab it, strong arms seized her shoulders and dragged her toward the altar. His hold on her was so painful, she let go of the Taser. As the powerful arms continued pulling her, she realized this was not the man she had tased, but another perpetrator.

  When her assailant stopped yanking her, he clenched her body against his. She cried out in pain.

  “Shut up,” a hoarse whisper of a man’s voice said.

  He shifted her into an awkward sitt
ing position with her head held tightly in place against his torso. She detected dim lights and did not know at first if it was an illusion in her brain caused by the pressure he put on her head, or if the illumination came from within the chapel. She pushed into his chest and twisted her head into a contorted position. Two or three figures with flashlights stood at the entrance to the chapel.

  “Don’t move,” the man’s voice said near her ear.

  She felt him let go of her head. Almost instantly, the cold steel barrel of a pistol pushed into her temple.

  “Police,” a voice shouted from the entrance. The words echoed in the chamber. “Drop your weapons.”

  Total silence reigned.

  Nikki’s assailant rose, pulling her up with him. She could feel the gun steady at the side of her head. He pressed her body tightly against his own as he moved into a standing position with her in front of him functioning as his shield.

  “Drop your weapons and surrender,” the voice from the entrance said again.

  A shaky but accented voice spoke from the floor. “I have no weapon. Two men are armed. Be careful. They have the woman and could hurt her.”

  Shots rang out, ricocheting off the stone column where the shaky voice had been heard. Nikki thought she heard shuffling on the floor. Her captor held her tight against him with one arm, and with his free hand, he kept the gun digging painfully into her temple. She focused on breathing.

  So who was firing at Eduardo? she wondered. For a split second, her captor moved the gun away from her head and shot at the floor where the shuffling sound had come from. Before she could react, the barrel was jabbing her again.

  “Surrender. Drop your weapons. Police are surrounding the entire mountain. You will not escape,” a police officer said. His voice, despite echoing, still came from the area near the entrance to the chapel.

  Suddenly the whole chamber was brightly lit. Nikki squinted and closed her eyes. When she reopened them, she saw El Saraway on the floor. Her heart beat faster than ever. Eduardo was next to him. The two were partially hidden behind a pillar. Had she tased El Saraway? Eduardo tried to move. She saw El Saraway stretch his arm over Eduardo’s torso to hold him down. Eduardo mumbled incoherently.

  Nikki trembled. She hoped the police would see she was held at gunpoint. She prayed silently none of them would shoot at the man holding her and hit her instead. She also prayed Eduardo had not been shot.

  “It’s my turn to give orders,” her assailant said. He spoke with a heavy South American accent. “If any of you move, I will put a bullet through this woman’s skull.”

  A Colombian accent, Nikki thought. But then she was not sure. Her brain was scrambled. Confused. Panicked. Her training had taught her to think under stress, and she willed herself to calm down, to focus on staying alive instead of panicking. Eduardo was semiconscious at best. And that’s what scared her the most. The police were not yet in control. It could be up to her to get them out of this mess. She needed a cool head.

  “If you want this woman alive, you must leave the church,” her assailant said in a very self-assured voice.

  This time, Nikki identified the Colombian accent for sure. Automatically her thoughts went back to that country. She had never heard Cristóbal Arenas speak. Her thoughts tumbled forth, spilling over like a hiker falling off a mountain. She tried to grab onto insights, anything to make sense of the situation. If this was Arenas, why did he want her dead? Was it revenge? She knew he had hired a hitman to kill her when she worked the kidnapping case in Mexico. Or maybe his business partner in the illicit drug business, Manuel del Campo, wanted revenge. Nikki considered del Campo; the man was serving a life sentence in a Colombian prison as a result of her investigation in Medellín. Maybe del Campo was the person ordering her assassination. Maybe del Campo was orchestrating her demise from his jail cell.

  Groans filtered up from a few feet away, bringing Nikki back to the present moment. She glanced at Eduardo, still lying on the floor next to El Saraway, and realized he was regaining consciousness. Thank you, God, she prayed silently.

  “All you pigs leave now before I start shooting people,” the assailant said.

  Nikki felt him move the gun away from her temple. She thrust her head forward very quickly and then back into his. The gun fired. She lunged forward, turned and kicked her assailant in the groin. He wobbled. She saw the gun drop from his hand, but before she could reach for it, El Saraway, from his position on the floor, picked it up. She heard police rushing in. Thoughts whirled in her head, fear cast its net on her, and she lost the focus she had experienced seconds before.

  Nikki’s and El Saraway’s eyes locked. He moved in closer. She saw a determined look in his face. At the same time, she sensed movement on the floor. Her assailant had recovered and was coming toward her. She screamed. Before she could react, El Saraway had landed a couple of blows to the man’s head. The Egyptian towered over the South American. For the third blow, El Saraway used the grip of the gun to send the man tumbling to the wooden planks of the altar. At that moment the police were upon the man on the floor, one officer placing handcuffs on as another informed him of his rights.

  Nikki rushed to Eduardo’s side. She hardly took notice of a man in gym shorts approaching her.

  “An ambulance has arrived,” the man said. “Paramedics are coming in to take your husband to the hospital.”

  Nikki recognized that voice. She looked up and nodded at Rafael. As she started to speak to him, the medics arrived. Eduardo reached for her hand.

  “Go with him to the hospital. I’ll try to drop by later,” Rafael said. He turned to address one of the medics. “Take care of this woman’s injuries after you take care of her husband.”

  “Is this place secure now?” Nikki asked. She looked across the chapel and saw two men in handcuffs, her assailant and another one she had not seen before, being escorted out. El Saraway walked with another officer.

  “Absolutely, or we would not allow the ambulance crew in.”

  Rafael watched as the paramedics triaged Eduardo. Although he was able to stand, the medics insisted on putting Eduardo on the gurney so they could wheel him out to the waiting ambulance. Rafael picked up the phone and Taser still lying on the floor and handed them to Nikki. He came in very close to whisper in her ear.

  “You won’t be surprised when I tell you that Tasers of this caliber are not legal for civilians to use in Spain.”

  “It may have saved my life,” Nikki said as she put both articles into the purse still hanging around her neck.

  “I think you hit the wrong guy,” Rafael whispered. “El Saraway helped you. The other two were the dangerous ones.”

  Nikki did not respond. Instead she took Eduardo’s hand as the medics started rolling the gurney over the uneven floor of miniature tile.

  Chapter Fifty

  Barcelona—Tibidabo Crypt Church

  Thursday Afternoon

  Rafael saw Alberto crossing the chapel to join him.

  “The man who held Ms. Garcia hostage claims to be El Aremi, Palestinian,” Alberto said. “Speaks perfect Spanish with a Latin American accent. His accomplice seems to be a Saudi. Does not speak much Spanish and has not talked except to say he’s called ‘the captain.’ Handed me a card in Arabic with his name. We don’t have anyone with us that reads Arabic.”

  “Our guy Omar reads Arabic,” Rafael said. “He’ll get the captain to sing after we get him to the station. You said both suspects are ready to be transported?”

  “We’re ready.”

  “What about El Saraway?” Rafael asked.

  “Said his driver would take him to the station to answer questions,” Alberto said.

  “Let’s go outside. Ride in the same vehicle with Aremi. I’ll see you at the station. I’m stopping at the hospital to ask Ms. Garcia and her husband a few questions.”

  Rafael headed toward the vehicle Pepe had parked at the nursing home. As he got closer he spotted Pepe opening the passenger door for him.
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br />   “That was easy,” Pepe said as Rafael slipped into the front seat.

  Rafael scoffed. “Why don’t you ask Ms. Garcia how easy it was.”

  “Didn’t think about it from her angle. Guess a gun at my head might change my perspective,” Pepe said, his voice sounding apologetic.

  Rafael noticed Pepe had already changed back into regular clothes. He asked his driver to take him to the Barcelona Hospital. He would change there.

  Rafael and Alberto entered the interrogation room where El Saraway and his attorney were already sitting at the table. Rafael sat down, looked at the monitor, and requested the video begin recording. After everyone stated their names, the GEO agent asked the Egyptian to state what he knew about the suspects in custody, starting with El Aremi.

  “That was his birth name, but he migrated to Colombia and changed it to Cristóbal Arenas to fit in. Yet he never integrated into life there. Not even with other Middle Easterners, like Lebanese, who live in Medellín. Arenas is Massú’s cousin. That’s how I met him. I lived in Medellín for seven years and we became friends. At least that’s what I thought.”

  “Explain yourself,” Rafael said.

  “I needed someone to handle my chemical import business in South America and I turned to him since he was Massú’s relative. I offered him a job managing the business. He was well compensated but never happy with his earnings, so he decided to enter the most lucrative business in Colombia.”

  “Illegal drugs?” Rafael asked.

  “He wanted me to join him. I flat out refused. It was drugs and guns. We parted ways.” El Saraway shook his head. His eyes turned very somber.

  “Can you go on?” Rafael asked.

  “Things turned ugly. He tried to provoke me. I ignored him, but he would not let it go,” El Saraway said. His eyes displayed a hollow sadness. “I never understood why he was furious with me. It became an obsession for him.”