—The first one of us who receives a call from the outside, that will be the traitor, so it is good to have our eyes wide open, —Natasha had whispered to Lucia, hours before.
Twenty-five tons of cocaine was too much drug to be seized by the police. In that case would cause great damages for the number of addicts, including some members of the National Police Corps to which the merchandise was destined. Although the landing by the dock of the port of Corunna never figured out Lucia’s plans. This option, which previously planned would seem a suicide, due to the circumstances it was proved a success. Lucia once again showed herself to be a brilliant strategist acting with the skill of a general, demonstrating a surprising manoeuvrability being able to provide sufficient mobility to her troops. Making the right decisions on the go, adapting to the ground and acting on it with enough sagacity not to afford the luxury and insecurity that give blind faith in a previously preconceived plan. Lorena's death did not figure in her plans. That was the boss's business. Although it seemed to her as absurd as it was unnecessary, she was also aware that each one had his own destiny and that of Lorena had been written for years, since the murder of her husband Julio. It was a matter of time before the Corcuera family could quench their thirst for revenge.
Antonio Corcuera, the older brother of Julio, requested with all respect Mr. Green a small personal favour if the operation "Nécora IV" was carried out with success. Needless to say what the favour was. Mr. Green chose a professional for this task. They should not leave fingerprints. They were not butchers, despite what the arrogant Galician thought. Who better for that operation than an ex-agent of the KGB, trapped by the misfortunes of the life, in the same prison with the future victim, to the recluse Natasha came into the ring. In exchange for eliminating Lorraine, Mr. Green transferred to Natasha thirty thousand euros to an account in her name in Switzerland.
Natasha only had two months left for the conditional, so she could use the money. She had murdered much more during the years she worked for Comrade Stalin in the service of The Old Motherland, from the deserted fields of the Siberian steppe, to the depths of the Caspian Sea. No one knew for sure the true identity of Mr. Green, not even The Queen, but everything pointed to the highest spheres of society. He could be anyone. An oil tycoon, a fruitful businessman in the textile sector, a president of a football club, any position, whose cover would be perfect, to manoeuvre outside the law with total impunity, and to make some succulent profits, on account of the traffic of drugs, without raising suspicions. Little by little Mr. Green would be involved in charitable works and gaining the respect and admiration of the whole society and eventually some street will carry a plaque with his name. They will even carve statues that will decorate squares and fountains with their image, since Mr. Green will always be considered a model citizen and an example to follow for the rest of civilization.
Sergeant Nicholas's dreaded call came. Mr. Green got on the phone and one of his gorillas approached him.
—Good morning, tell me, —came a hoarse, mafia leader voice, with a Russian accent, on the other end of the line.
—Good morning Mr. Green? —Nicholas answered in an authoritative voice.
—The same.
—I am Sergeant Nicholas. I want you to know that even if you think otherwise, I have enough evidence to lock up your girls a good season.
—Do you have proof? —Asked Mr. Green in surprise.
—Enough, —said the sergeant.
—I doubt it. My protégé is a professional. She has never left a fingerprint on the corpse of her victims.
—You'd be surprised what we have. We know she was not alone, —added Nicholas.
—The other was just an assistant. Do you want to lock up an innocent?
— Innocent! You believe? —I said. This time, his tone of voice sounded menacing.
—It's okay! Tell me what you have and the price of your silence.
—I have a witness who is willing to declare that she has seen everything. In addition, in a small bag I keep remnants of hair extracted by the coroner from the victim's neck. If I order a DNA test, I'll have the killer in my hands.
— Very good! I congratulate you sergeant how much money does your silence and the freedom of my girl cost?
—I do not want a dime from your fucking money. My conditions are as follows. I want you not to take any kind of revenge and respect the life of my witness.
—There would be no more! Any other conditions? —Asked Mr. Green.
—I know they have rigged the new trial of Lucía Márquez and that soon she will be released.
—That's what you want, isn’t it? —Inquired Mr. Green, diminishing the tone of his voice, with the temperance of a Cossack.
—Not only that. I want you to leave her alone, forget her, never have her working for you again, or for any similar organization. I want her to be released. Talk to the families. Give your word that if I leave it your team will not retaliate against it. In return I promise you that you will keep my mouth shut. Think I do them a favour. As soon as La Reina puts her foot out of jail, the newspapers and magazines of the heart will make a mark so strong that it will no longer be useful.
—I give you my word as a Bolshevik who is free to leave. If someone puts a hand on her I'll kill him myself. Families will not act. I'll talk to all the bosses. I'll set up a meeting tomorrow. The Queen has done enough for us. If someone in this country deserves an early retirement that's her. Just out of curiosity what do you plan to do when you're finally back together?
—To disappear forever.
FOURTH PART. AUTUMN 2004.
1—The face of the girl.
Was he doing well to agree with Mr. Green to save Lucia's skin? That was the least. As long as the chemistry of love continued to act on his brain Nicholas would do anything to be near her. Not even a cyclone of gigantic dimensions would be able to remove him from her proximities. He was gone with the SUV to the Ferrería, he didn’t know how but he had to finally break up with Mireia. It was something she was already waiting for. It wouldn’t be ethical to get in bed with her when both his heart and his mind were elsewhere. He didn’t tell her anything about the possible release of The Queen. He didn’t want Mireia to suspect that an allegedly upright agent like him was involved in a covert operation with the Mafia, whose mission was to free Lucía Marquez, with an unsolved murder in between. For a moment he felt disgust for himself. How he could have fallen so low after all the time he had in the Body. At least he should preserve a bit of dignity and try to clean the memorie of the deceased, Lorena Vázquez. She died trying to help him, to catch The Queen and to locate an important stash of drugs. She was an unjust victim of the drug-trafficking business.
What sense did he have to keep on wearing his uniform if he allowed such ruthless murders to remain unsolved? What kind of relationship could he begin with Lucia whose pillars were stained with the blood of an innocent? That horrible idea forced him to take refuge in the table wine, which Mireia served him that night. The day of Lucia's trial was approaching. What if she didn’t deserve to be released? Maybe he should tell the central brigade, tell them everything, and get rid of that dirty affair. But he wouldn’t. It was possible that he would be suspended from service, and Mr. Green would not hesitate to send him a pair of ex-combatants from the Balkan war to liquidate him.
That night he felt so guilty and ashamed of the agreement with Mr. Green that he decided to postpone his break up with Mireia for the moment. A couple more wine glasses and would make love on the old sofa by the fireplace, a little sex would help loosen the demons we all carry inside. After all, no one could save this corrupted world from its self-destruction. What a murder more or less, if with climate change and once a superpower like China began to produce in chain, the human race would soon be extinct even earlier than two hundred years. What more did a hammer give more or less when on the African continent thousands of human beings die each day of hunger. For this he had become a policeman?, he thought, to be tr
ash like the others. He flopped down on the couch with the wine floating in the concave glass vessel as he stared at the dry logs set neatly on the mantelpiece waiting for the cold winter to come. Mireia stood over him with her legs spread, propped on her knees. She took the glass of wine from his hand, staring straight into his eyes, playing blindly with the buttons of his pants on his crotch. She sought it and found it there, the phallic shame, always ready for battle. She rode it gently and let herself rock with pleasure. He did not seem to mind it at all. His mind was elsewhere. He could barely concentrate on the orgasm.
There was a corpse and an unresolved case. While Mireia possessed him, he seemed to see Lorena's face turning, furious, staring straight into his eyes; She called him in the dark by his name. He closed his eyes trying to erase it, but this one, it appeared again in his imagination with a row of worms coming out of her mouth and nose, repeating again and again in a cadaverous voice: "Nicholas, Nicholas ...". He had to try to calm down and stop drinking or he would end up going crazy; That was when the climax came. For a moment his brain went blank. "Zumm." Then she continued to move her hips in an attempt to prolong her orgasm but he was no longer operative. He had become a greedy, selfish lover. Normally he did not let this happen, he used to be complacent with his partner. But now he was far beyond reality. What was least interesting at the time was the kind of love-play he had with him; That writer of the devil.
But it was not right to be rude to a lover. They had had good times together. Why not continue that friendship for now. What future awaited him in relation to a drug trafficker. On the verge of leaving the tape through a legal process rigged and partly responsible for the social disruption of many human lives.
Nicholás felt himself in a dead end, with no one to rely on to get out of that mess. Maybe he'd gone too far in the passion that that light colour-eyed blonde had woken up in him. It was true that Lucia was the first girl with whom she had made love in his life but it was true that they barely knew each other. It seemed to be that the heart sometimes does not obey reason, otherwise it would not be in such a mess. Nicholás said good-bye to Mireia with a long, wet kiss. Then he returned home. He could have stayed with her frolicking naked all night but he needed to be alone to put his thoughts in order. He knew there was only one man he could trust, with whom he had shared the most horrifying murder case of his entire career as a policeman. He was the man with whom he had worked for two years in the headquarters of Montederramo, now a member of the narcotics brigade and newly promoted to sergeant, unlike him, on his own merits.
That man was Sergeant Guillermo Troutía. He still remembered with amazement the unsolved case of the dead girl Maria Guzman. Something inside refused to accept that the reason for her death was a simple settlement of accounts between traffickers. There must be something else. Who was hurt by a few year-old girl who trafficked with drugs to earn a bonus with which to pay her vices? Blood tests had confirmed that she was not addicted to any of the substances she was dealing with.
Why had Maria Guzman been murdered? Who supplied the drug? Possibly Lucía Márquez. Who else? Maybe she did not do it directly but through some of her suppliers. Perhaps they provided it, some men of the band of "the Swede" or perhaps Uncle Sam and his bikers. Whatever it was, it seemed clear that the girl had crossed the line; Maybe he knew too much, stuffed his nose where he should not, and decided to remove it from the middle to avoid risk. But what did Maria Guzman know to deserve death? Perhaps something so important as to endanger an entire band or organization? Would her death have something to do with the subsequent murder of Lorena Vázquez?
At first there seemed to be no connection between the two deaths. Too much blood, too many unresolved cases. He needed the help of the most effective man he knew, and that man was Guillermo Troutía. When he got home he prepared a well-loaded coffee. He needed to think. If in fact Natasha and Milla had been assigned to Lorena Vázquez by order of Mr. Green; He should find out if any of the two inmates were on leave when Maria Guzman's murder occurred. If they had once murdered in cold blood they might have done the same thing on other occasions. Little or nothing had been made clear about the death of Maria Guzman. A corpse of a nearly naked fourteen-year-old girl lying on the road with signs of a possible rape that did not really exist. The traces of the two assassins were not on the police files, which in principle dismissed Natasha and Milla as possible killers. Of course the computer could have failed. Perhaps they should compare the traces found on the body of the victim with those of the two Russians, something that at the moment no one had bothered to do.
The whole shed, the girl with her thighs apart, the knife wounds found on the buttocks and vaginal lips simulating a possible rape seemed a little sloppy. It was not the style of Mr. Green, too meticulous with the details to leave footprints on the corpse. It did not seem like the style of Natasha and Milla who had used latex gloves during the murder of Lorena Vázquez. So who murdered Maria Guzman? It did not seem to matter to anyone too much. A crime too brutal to be forgotten so abruptly. When dealing with narcotics, the police used to turn a blind eye to it. But this time it was only a girl, a young and sweet teenager whose only crime was to distribute small quantities of drugs in the Montederramo institute. Why were they murdered then? Nicholás poured himself a glass of whiskey, before going to bed. He was too exhausted, despite the sweat, to shower. He would leave it for tomorrow, he should overcome his vagrancy and take care of his personal hygiene. The drink was also not a good outlet for his problem. Is it for some?
At least he brushed his teeth. Then he got into bed. He was exhausted. The next morning a hard job was waiting for him. The cold shower water helped him clear in the morning, the bodies of Lorena Vázquez and María Guzmán seemed to shower at their side as they freed themselves from the blood that slid through their bodies. He kept talking to the victims. Then while shaving tried to apologize to them for the delays in the investigation, he served cold coffee and some toast. The kitchen had never looked so shabby. Lately he did not have the time or the energy. He spent more time in Mireia's house than in his own, it was a beautiful place, especially in the autumn. The fallen leaves of the oak trees flowed freely along the banks of the Návea River, dancing among the shrubs driven by the timid gusts of the west wind. He liked to walk there in the morning, accompanied by Tarzan, a German shepherd whom he had bought at the pet store to give to Mireia. Walking over fallen leaves like those half-covered by Mary's corpse, when they found her dead on the side of the road; He tried to put his ideas in order before beginning his daily labours.
In autumn the dead leaves moved along the whole mountain range, in some places of much grove they even covered the road giving a more intimate aspect, similar to the old Roman roads. Before putting the contact of the car in motion, Nicholas imagined the girl's face with a laurel leaf protruding from her fleshy lips, dressed in black, trapped in a thick spider's web as in "Lullaby", the video Of "The Cure," was trying to break through the cloth, lying on a bed of mauve sheets; Surrounded by wreaths, with the names of her loved ones engraved with gold letters on ribbons of various colours! At last !, he seemed to have been able to remove from his mind the angelic face of Lucia Marquez and returned to concentrate on his work. I'd lock all those bastards in the gates. That's why they paid him.
He arrived at Orense about nine o'clock in the morning, and went to the Command. There he had stayed with his ex-companion Guillermo Troutía. He had obtained permission from his superiors to collaborate with Nicholás in investigating the murders of Maria Guzman and Lorena Vázquez. After a strong handshake they chatted amicably while they ate breakfast in the cafeteria of the police station.
—Now the National Police is working more and more with us, —Nicholás said.
—Competition is a stupid way of wasting my time, my friend, when it comes to defending the rights of our fellow citizens.
Nicholás explained to Guillermo the true reasons why he was so obsessed with the death of Maria Guzman. He spoke of c
hildhood, of the ill-treatment suffered, the impotence and indignation that led him to make difficult and tortuous relations with the opposite sex. As he overcame it with the help of shock therapy proposed by Dr. Chopper. He then told him about his relationship with Lucía Márquez without omitting any details except those that were of no importance to the investigation, and finally he told him about Mr. Green. The telephone conversation he had with him only a few hours ago.
Guillermo listened in astonishment to the story of his soul work mate, pondering a possible departure from the mess in which his colleague had gone into. They had the executors of the murder of Lorena Vázquez in hands. But they both knew that they were just simple pawns on the board. The only important and decent thing would be to find the real brain of the operation, the dark devil hiding like a wolf behind the shadow, a wolf in sheep's clothing, a sheep driven astray from the global flock with a prophet's air in a rotten world, probably Surrounded by amenities acquired with money obtained from threats, bribes and crimes committed without any prejudice. Although Mr. Green was the brain, his collaborators were just as guilty as he. Both Mr. Red and Mr. Blue, should also end up behind bars.
—Do you have any plans? —Asked Guillermo Troutía. Nicholás Gallardo knew that it would be a crazy thing to go directly to Mr. Green exposing their lives.
—The only way to catch Mr. Green is to put us on his side, to make him think we'll be part of his team. In order to gain their trust, —replied Nicholas.
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