Falcon, Ramirez and del Rey stripped off their boiler suits in the forensic tent's anteroom and went back to the pre-school to resume their meeting.
'What do you make of that development, Inspector Jefe?' asked del Rey.
'We were asked to keep an open mind in this investigation, especially by the senior CNI man,' said Falcon. 'And yet, since we found the Peugeot Partner and its contents, almost all subsequent findings have directed us towards the belief that an Islamic terrorist campaign was being planned in this mosque.'
'Almost all subsequent findings?'
'We cannot satisfactorily explain the fake council inspectors and the electricians, and yet we are very suspicious of their involvement,' said Falcon. 'They seem to be an intrinsic part of the actual explosion. Now that we've spoken to the bomb squad officer it seems clear that a smaller device was planted, which set off the stored hexogen. We have a link between Miguel Botin and the electricians. He was seen handing over the card to the Imam. But who was he working for?'
'You don't buy the CNI line either?'
'I would if there was any proof for it, but there's none.'
'What about those keys from the Imam's apartment opening the box?' said Ramirez. 'Where does that place the Imam now?'
'As part of the plot,' said del Rey.
'Except that the keys were found in a kitchen drawer,' said Falcon. 'I find that strange when all the other keys were kept in his desk. And the two keys were identical. Would you keep them together?'
'If we are to believe that Botin was a double agent and that he was serving up the Imam to the CGI on behalf of another terrorist commander, as the CNI seem to think, then what are we to make of the drawings in the metal box?' asked del Rey.
'The Imam's keys opened the box, therefore whatever is in that box is an expendable operation,' said Falcon. 'The CNI would be forced to admit it was another part of the diversion.'
'And what do you think, Inspector Jefe?'
'I don't have enough information to think anything,' said Falcon.
'You said you were keeping an open mind, Inspector Jefe. What does that mean exactly? That you've been conducting other enquiries?'
Falcon told him about Informaticalidad, giving the background on Horizonte and I4IT. He gave their reasons for buying the property and how the sales reps used it. He also told him about Informaticalidad's recruiting procedure.
'Well, all that sounds strange, but I can't see anything in particular that's pointing to their involvement in this scenario.'
'I've never heard anything like it,' said Ramirez.
'So far, the only illegal thing I can find is that they used black money to buy the apartment,' said Falcon. 'I've been trying to find something that links them to what was going on in the mosque.'
'And you haven't found it.'
'The only connection is that one of the churches used in recruiting employees for Informaticalidad was the same one used by the CGI antiterrorist agent Ricardo Gamero-San Marcos.'
'But you have no proof that Gamero met anyone from Informaticalidad?'
'None. I spoke to the priest from San Marcos and I would describe some of his responses as extremely guarded, but that's all.'
'Are you hoping that the police artist's drawing of the man Gamero met in the museum is going to provide that link to Informaticalidad?'
'That's a tricky process: to extract a likeness from a museum security guard's view of a person he wasn't particularly interested in,' said Falcon. 'They're looking for troublemakers, not two adults having a conversation.'
'Which is why, after five hours, we still have nothing,' said Ramirez.
'We're also pushing forward with an enquiry we started the day before the bomb,' said Falcon, and described the circumstances of the mutilated corpse.
'And because of the timing, you think that there might be a link to the bombing?' asked del Rey.
'Not just that; after this particularly brutal treatment to hide the victim's identity, the body had been sewn into a shroud. That struck me as respectful and religiously motivated. The corpse also had what is known as a Berber genetic marker, which means that he was either from the Iberian peninsula or North African.'
'You said he was poisoned.'
'He ingested it,' said Falcon, 'which could imply that he didn't know he was being "executed". Then they removed his identity but treated him with respect.'
'And how will this help us to identify the fake council inspectors and the electricians?'
'I won't know that until I identify the murdered man,' said Falcon. 'I'm hoping that can be done now that an image of the victim's face and a full set of dental X-rays have been sent out to intelligence services worldwide, including Interpol and the FBI.'
Del Rey nodded, scribbled notes.
'We're not getting anywhere looking for these electricians through conventional channels,' said Ramirez.
'While the bomb squad officer was talking, it occurred to me that an explosives expert would have to know about electronics and therefore probably electrics in general,' said Falcon. 'Goma 2 Eco is a mining explosive, so perhaps we should sit our witnesses down in front of photo IDs for all licensed explosive handlers in Spain.'
'Have your witnesses been able to describe the electricians?'
'The most reliable one is a Spanish convert called Jose Duran, but he couldn't describe them very well. There didn't seem to be anything particular about them.'
'Witnesses plural, you said.'
'There's an old Moroccan guy, but he didn't even spot that the two labourers weren't Spanish.'
'Maybe we should send an artist along to see Jose Duran while he looks at the licensed explosive handlers,' said Ramirez. 'I'll get on to it.'
Falcon gave him his mobile to extract Duran's number. Ramirez left the room.
'I'm concerned that the CNI are either not seeing things straight, or they're not telling us everything we should know,' said del Rey. 'I don't know why they haven't let you into the Imam's apartment yet.'
'They're not concerned about what happened here any more,' said Falcon. 'This explosion was either a mistake or a decoy, and either way there's no point in expending energy to find out very little when there's possibly another, more devastating attack being planned elsewhere.'
'But you don't agree with the CNI's point of view?'
'I think there are two forces at play here,' said Falcon. 'One force is an Islamic terrorist group, who appeared to be planning an attack using hexogen, brought here in the Peugeot Partner and stored in the mosque…'
'An attack on those schools and the biology faculty?'
'Let's see what forensic information we get, if any, from the drawings and the texts,' said Falcon. 'And also the content of the translations.'
'And the other force?'
'I don't know.'
'But how does this force manifest itself?'
'By a breakdown of logic in the scenario,' said Falcon. 'We can't fit the council inspectors and the electricians into our scenario, nor can we explain the Goma 2 Eco.'
'But who do you think this force is?'
'What are these Islamic terrorist groups fighting for, or who do you think they're fighting against?' asked Falcon.
'It's difficult to say. There doesn't seem to be any coherent agenda or strategy. They just seem to be meting out a series of punishments. London and Madrid were supposedly because of Iraq. Nairobi, the USS Cole and the Twin Towers because they believe that America is an evil empire. Bali because of Australian action in East Timor against the Islamic nation of Indonesia. Casablanca was supposedly against Spanish and Jewish targets. Karachi…I don't know; it was the Sheraton, wasn't it?'
'And that's our problem here,' said Falcon. 'We have no idea who their enemy is. Perhaps this other force is just a group of people who've had enough and decided they don't want to be passively terrorized any more. They want to fight back. They want to preserve their way of life-whether it's considered decadent or not. They could be the people behind the
VOMIT website. They could be an unknown local Andalucian group who've heard about the MILA and perceived it as a threat to them and their families. Maybe it's a religious group who want to maintain the sanctity of the Catholic faith in Spain and drive Islam back into North Africa. Or perhaps we are even more decadent than we know and this is pure power play. Somebody has seen the political or economic potential in terrifying the population. When those planes hit the Twin Towers everything changed. People see things differently now-both good and bad people. Once a new chapter in the human history of horror has been opened, all sorts of people start applying their creative powers to the writing of its next paragraphs.'
29
Seville-Thursday, 8th June 2006, 13.10 hrs
'Did you manage to talk to your ex-mentor, Marco Barreda, at Informaticalidad?' asked Falcon.
'I did better than that,' said David Curado. 'I went to see him.'
'How did that go?'
'Well, I called him and started to tell him what you and I talked about, and he stopped me, said it was a pity we hadn't seen each other since I'd left the company and why didn't we meet for a beer and a tapa?'
'Has that happened before?'
'No way, we've only ever talked on the phone,' said Curado. 'I was surprised; you're not even supposed to talk to ex-employees, let alone meet them for a beer.'
'Was it just the two of you?'
'Yes, and it was odd,' said Curado. 'He'd been all enthusiastic on the phone, but when we met it was almost as if he'd changed his mind about the whole thing. He seemed distracted, but I could tell it was an act.'
'How?'
'I told him about our conversation and he barely took any notice,' said Curado. 'But then I asked the question about Ricardo Gamero and he was stunned. I asked him who this Ricardo Gamero was, and he said he was a member of his church who'd committed suicide that afternoon. As you know, I used to go to San Marcos myself and I'd never come across Ricardo Gamero, so I asked him if he'd killed himself because the cops were after him and Marco said that the guy was a cop.'
'How do you think he'd taken the news of Ricardo Gamero's suicide?'
'He was sick about it, I could tell. Very upset, he was.'
'Were they friends?'
'I assume so, but he didn't say.'
Falcon knew he had to speak to Marco Barreda directly. Curado gave him his number. They hung up. Falcon sat back in his car, tapping the steering wheel with his mobile. Had Gamero's suicide made Marco Barreda vulnerable? And if that was a weakness and Falcon could get some leverage, would it reveal enough, would it, in fact, reveal anything?
He had no idea what he was getting into. He had spoken to Juez del Rey about these two forces-Islamic terrorism and another, as yet unknown-both of whom had demonstrated a ruthlessness in their operations, but he knew nothing about their structures, nor their aims, other than a preparedness to kill. Had the one movement learnt from the other: declare no coherent agenda, operate a loose command structure, create selfcontained, unconnected cells who, having been remotely activated, carry out their destructive mission?
Talking this through to himself produced a moment of clarity. That was one cultural difference between Islam and the West: whenever an Islamic attack occurred, the West always looked for the 'mastermind'. There had to be an evil genius at the core, because that was the order that the Western mind demanded: a hierarchy, a plan with an achievable goal. What was the chain?
He worked back from the electrician who'd planted the bomb. He'd been brought in by a call from the Imam, who in turn had been given the electrician's card by Miguel Botin. The card was the connection between the mission and the hierarchy who'd ordered it. Neither the electricians, nor the council inspectors for that matter, had been in the building at the time of the explosion, and both sets of people were as much a part of the plan as the card. This would not be how an Islamic terrorist cell would operate. That would mean, logically, that the only other person who could have activated Miguel Botin was Ricardo Gamero. Why had Gamero committed suicide? Because, in activating Miguel Botin with the electrician's card, Gamero did not realize that he was making him the agent of destruction of the building and all the people inside.
That would be reason enough to take your own life.
On the day of the bombing, the CGI antiterrorist squad couldn't move because of the possibility of a mole in their ranks. Only on day two could Ricardo Gamero have got out and demanded to see someone senior-the older man in the Archaeological Museum-from whom he demanded an explanation. That explanation had not been good enough to prevent his suicide. Falcon called Ramirez.
'Has that police artist come up with a sketch of the man Gamero met in the museum yet?'
'We've just scanned it and sent it to the CNI and CGI.'
'Send a copy to the computer in the pre-school,' said Falcon.
'The witness Jose Duran is due here any moment. We'll show him the shots of the licensed explosive handlers, but I'm not holding out much hope,' said Ramirez. 'The bomb could have been made up by somebody else and left in the mosque, or he could have been an assistant to an explosives expert and learnt everything necessary.'
'Keep at it, Jose Luis,' said Falcon. 'If you want a really impossible task, try looking for the fake council inspectors.'
'I'll add that to the list of two and a half million hernia ops I've still got to go through,' said Ramirez.
'Another thought,' said Falcon. 'Contact all the Hermandades associated with the three churches: San Marcos, Santa Maria La Blanca and La Magdalena.'
'How's that going to help?'
'Whatever's happening here has some religious motivation. Informaticalidad recruits from church congregations. Ricardo Gamero was a devout Catholic attending San Marcos. The Abdullah Azzam text was sent to the ABC, the main Catholic newspaper, and it included a direct threat to the Catholic faith in Andalucia.'
'And what do you think the Brotherhoods in these churches could have to do with it?'
'Maybe nothing. You'd be too exposed as a known Brotherhood but, you never know, they may have heard of a secret one, or seen strange things going on in the churches that might give us some leverage with the priests. We have to try everything.'
'This could get ugly,' said Ramirez.
'Even uglier than it is already?'
'The media are all over us again. I've just heard that Comisario Lobo and the Magistrado Juez Decano de Sevilla are going to give another press conference to explain the situation following Juez Calderon's dismissal,' said Ramirez. 'I heard the one at the Parliament building earlier today was a disaster. And now the television and the radio are full of arseholes telling us that since Calderon's arrest on suspicion of murder and wife abuse, our investigation has completely lost credibility.'
'How has all this got out?'
'The journalists have been all over the Palacio de Justicia, talking to Ines's friends and colleagues. Now they're not just talking about the evident physical violence, but also a prolonged campaign of mental torture and public humiliation.'
'This is just what Elvira was frightened of.'
'A lot of people have been waiting a long time to get Esteban Calderon down on the ground and, now they've got him there, they're going to kick him to death, even if it means our investigation is effectively destroyed.'
'And what do Lobo and Spinola hope to achieve in this press conference?' asked Falcon. 'They can't talk about a murder investigation that's in progress.'
'Damage control,' said Ramirez. 'And they're going to talk up del Rey. He's due to come on afterwards, with Comisario Elvira, to give a recap of the case so far.'
'No wonder he was so word perfect with us,' said Falcon. 'Maybe it wouldn't be such a good idea for him to talk about what we're working on now.'
'You're right about that,' said Ramirez. 'You'd better call him.' Del Rey had switched his mobile off. Maybe he was already in the studio. Falcon called Elvira and asked him to give a rather cryptic message to del Rey. There was no time to explai
n the detail. Falcon picked up the sketch from the computer operator in the preschool. At least it looked like a drawing of a real person. A man in his sixties, possibly early seventies, in a suit and tie, some hair on top with a side parting, no beard or moustache. The artist had included the man's height and weight as given by the security guard, he was on the small side at 1.65m and 75 kilos. But did it look like the man they wanted to find?
Back in the car he took a look at the lists given to him by Diego Torres, the Human Resources Director at Informaticalidad. Marco Barreda was not one of the employees who'd spent time in the apartment on Calle Los Romeros. Maybe he was too senior for that. He called the mobile number David Curado had given him and introduced himself with his full title.
'I think we should talk face to face,' said Falcon.
'I'm busy.'
'It'll take fifteen minutes of your time.'
'I'm still busy.'
'I'm investigating an act of terrorism, multiple murder and a suicide,' said Falcon. 'You have to make time for me.'
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