Consuelo's turn to pay. Rammed the receipt in her bag. Out of the shop. Grabbed Darío's hand, down the escalator. Mobile went off again. There'd be no signal in the garage, so she went outside into the plaza in front of the football stadium. The signal was good. She talked real estate and walked up the ramp towards the ticket office of the stadium. Darío got bored. Wandered off. Consuelo paced around aimlessly, making her points, stamping her heel. A group of kids streamed past her. Darío saw the Sevilla Futbol Club shop under the stadium and went in. She lit a cigarette, sucked in the smoke, turned to find Darío. Turned again. Did a 360. No Darío. Saw the Sevilla FC shop. Knew he'd have been unable to resist. She walked over to it. Finished the call, folded away her mobile. Had a good look around. A lot of space and too many people. She went into the shop. Darío wasn't there.
Despite some reassurances from Douglas Hamilton, Falcón was still feeling the weight of Rodney's accusation when the man came back into the room with three mugs of coffee.
‘I put sugar in yours. I hope that was OK,’ said Rodney.
‘It sounds to me,’ said Falcón, still smarting, ‘that you think that we, or rather the CNI, have been set up. You reckon I'm just a channel for information that the GICM wants you to know … that, in fact, we're being disinformed by our own agent. Is that right?’
‘We have to remain open to all possibilities,’ said Rodney, staring him out over the rim of his steaming mug. ‘Pablo told us you'd lost confidence in Yacoub.’
‘I don't know whether I'd go that far,’ said Falcón, finding himself irrationally defending his friend, because he was thinking that he probably would go that far and it made him sick to his stomach.
‘All we can do is act on our uncertainties,’ said Rodney. ‘You meet him and we'll judge for ourselves.’
‘You want to listen in?’
Rodney opened his hands as if nothing could be more obvious.
‘I can't have you listening in,’ said Falcón.
‘You're on our territory,’ said Rodney firmly.
‘When I go in there I'll be talking to him as his friend, not his spymaster.’
‘So how were you talking to him when you were in Madrid yesterday?’
‘That was business,’ said Falcón. ‘He was under too much pressure to be able to talk to me openly.’
‘And that was why he lied to you,’ said Rodney. ‘Why should it be any different if you go in there as Javier, his close personal friend?’
‘In his culture, in business, a certain amount of flexibility with the truth is permissible. Combine that with the paranoia induced by the new uncertainty of his situation, after what he'd just found out about his son, and his evasiveness becomes understandable,’ said Falcón. ‘If I establish a different level of intimacy with him from the start and he still lies to me, then I know we are lost. And I can't do that if I'm wired up to you.’
‘You won't even notice it,’ said Rodney.
Falcón stared him out.
The two Englishmen looked at each other in a complex communication that left Falcón thinking that they would be doing exactly what they wanted, regardless.
Rodney nodded as if to give way. Falcón didn't like his look; the man had a sort of unearned confidence about him that was not appealing.
The ugliness of the Nervión Plaza shopping centre became more apparent the harder Consuelo looked for her son in its grey brutality. She thought it must have been designed by an East German before the Wall came down. She stood in the empty space at its heart, which was frequented by sprinting children and dazed adults. Above it there was a jazzy, modern awning which cast geometric patterned shade on the area, making it even more difficult to make out the children's faces. She could only assume that he had gone into the shop, got bored and been drawn to the animation here. There were a lot of ways in and out: the shopping mall, where they'd just been to buy his boots, the street, the stadium and the access to the cinema complex.
Consuelo walked around this area four or five times, darting down various alleyways to check for Darío, but always coming back to the centre in the hope of finding her blond boy clasping his cardboard box of football boots. As she did this, she called his brothers Ricardo and Matías, and told them they had to come to the Nervión Plaza immediately to help look for him. There was some protest, especially from Ricardo, who was already on his way to the coast.
Twenty minutes later they were all in Nervión Plaza. Consuelo's sister had brought Matías, and the family Ricardo had been with joined in the search. The father went straight to the first security guard he could find and got them to involve the local police. Announcements were made. Car parks were searched. Toilets investigated. Every shop was visited. The kids' films showing at the cinemas were all halted for ten minutes while they checked the audiences. The search was extended out into the streets and around the stadium. Local radio was contacted.
Only after everybody's reassurances had stopped working and Consuelo had retraced her steps a hundred times and she'd ransacked her mind for the final image of the last moment that she could picture Darío, standing in that area in the godforsaken heart of the Nervión Plaza with the box of football boots in his arms, did her paralysed brain think to call Javier. His mobile was switched off.
Ramírez was still in front of the computer screen when Consuelo's call came through.
‘Javier's not here …’ he started.
‘Where is he?’ she asked. ‘His mobiles are switched off, both personal and police.’
‘He's not in Seville today.’
‘But where is he, José Luis? I need to speak to him. It's urgent.’
‘We can't say any more than that, Consuelo.’
‘Can you get a message to him?’
‘Not even that at the moment.’
‘I can't believe this,’ she said. ‘What's he doing that's so … so fucking important?’
‘I can't say.’
‘Can you get a message to him as soon as he's back in touch?’
‘Of course.’
‘Tell him that my youngest son, Darío, has … has…’
‘Has what, Consuelo?’
Consuelo fought against the word in her throat, the word that she had not permitted to enter her consciousness, the word that had lurked low in some hideous dark corner of her stomach, where all mothers cordon off their worst fears, but which was now sickeningly illuminated.
‘He's disappeared.’
10
Brown's Hotel, Mayfair, London – Saturday, 16th September 2006, 15.08 hrs
The receptionist at Brown's, an exclusive hotel consisting of eleven Georgian houses joined together in the heart of Mayfair, had an appraising eye, which was discernible only to those who did not meet his exacting standards. Falcón thought him polite, but did not realize how restrained this politeness was until someone, instantly recognizable but whose name escaped, appeared behind Falcón's shoulder. That was politeness, or maybe a caricature of it. Whatever, Falcón was made to wait for no other reason than it was evident, from his lightweight suit in autumn, that he did not belong.
The call was eventually made to Yacoub's room. Falcón, who'd already given his name twice, was asked to repeat it as if he might be a purveyor of game birds to back entrances. There was a lengthy silence while the receptionist listened. Then Falcón experienced the fully-fledged form of British hotel politeness.
Yacoub embraced him in the corridor outside his room. He put a finger to his lips, beckoned him in and shut the door. From the state of the room it was clear that Abdullah was staying there as well, but was not present. Still with his finger to his lips, he indicated that Falcón should undress. He went into the bathroom, shook out a towel and laid it on the bed. Falcón stripped to his underpants. Yacoub indicated that they had to come off as well.
They went into the bathroom. Yacoub didn't turn on the light. He ran the taps, shut the door. He minutely searched Falcón's ears and scalp and then made him take a shower and wash his hair. He f
etched a packet of cigarettes from the bedroom and sat back on the bidet while Falcón dried himself off.
‘Can't be too careful these days,’ said Yacoub. ‘They have devices the size of a nail paring.’
‘Good to know you still trust me.’
‘You've no idea how careful I have to be.’
‘I don't know what's happening any more, Yacoub. One moment I'm swimming happily in the shallows, the next I'm off the continental shelf. I've got no idea who is with me or against me.’
‘Let's talk about trust first,’ said Yacoub, stone-faced. ‘You spoke to Pablo.’
‘You told me Abdullah was in a training camp back in Morocco.’
‘You spoke to Pablo,’ said Yacoub, pointing an accusing finger at Falcón's bare chest. ‘That's why you're out of your depth. We've lost control of the situation. They, now, control it. The CNI, MI5 and MI6 … probably the CIA, too. If you hadn't spoken to Pablo it would have been between us.’
‘I don't have the experience in this game to let something like Abdullah's recruitment go without getting advice from Pablo,’ said Falcón. ‘I knew when I met you in Madrid that, at best, you were being economical with the truth. I thought that was a breach of trust. So I spoke to Pablo and he confirmed that you'd lied to me, Yacoub.’
‘He's my son,’ said Yacoub, lighting a cigarette. ‘You will never understand that.’
‘You gave me information, not so that we could control the situation, but so that you could,’ said Falcón. ‘I would always be in the dark because blood is thicker than water. You told me that from the beginning.’
‘My only motivation is to protect him.’
‘Well, he's unprotected now, isn't he?’ said Falcón, leaning back against the cistern. ‘You knew that it would eventually get back to me that you'd met up with Abdullah in London and that I would then know that you'd lied to me in Madrid. I spoke to Pablo and found out a bit earlier, that's all. What we have to do now is re-establish the trust. I can understand why you were in a state in Madrid. I can understand your wariness and your paranoia.’
‘Can you?’ said Yacoub, derisively. ‘Before I got into this I thought I could imagine it, but I had no idea it would be like this. So you've got there without even experiencing it. Impressive, Javier.’
‘We're talking now,’ said Falcón, nodding at him. ‘I'm happy. I can feel the old Yacoub.’
‘The old Yacoub is long gone,’ he said, and smoked.
‘I don't think so,’ said Falcón. ‘But I've got to give the CNI some answers now. You knew it would come to this in the end. You can't lose MI5 five times over the last three months and not expect questions to be asked. You can't tell me that your son has been recruited to the GICM without giving any idea of his involvement. The intelligence agencies are looking at you and asking themselves: Who is Yacoub Diouri? What is his connection to that Turkish businessman from Denizli he met at the trade fair in Berlin? Has he been making contact with an active GICM cell in London that they've learnt about from the French? Who is the stranger living at his home in Rabat? And none of these questions has come about because I spoke to Pablo. It's happened because you've been behaving like a … maverick.’
‘That is a perfect description of my situation,’ said Yacoub. ‘I'm in the goldfish bowl. Everybody is looking at me. I have nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. I am as suspicious to my “friends” at the CNI as I am to my “enemies” at the GICM. Are you surprised that I start to act alone, that I am not as transparent as you'd like?’
‘You might be in the goldfish bowl, but you've still managed to hide,’ said Falcón. ‘Now I have to explain how an “untrained” agent of mine can lose the professionals of MI5 five times over the last three months on their own turf – the first time barely a month after your recruitment. They know you've been trained. And I know it wasn't done by the CNI. So who did it? If we're going to get help for Abdullah, we have to rely on these people. It's the military wing of the GICM who are going to arrange a mission on which your son might well be killed, not MI5 or the CNI.’
The water rushed out of the taps. Yacoub's head rocked back against the wall. He smoked and stared at the sky beyond the high window for some time.
‘Look at me,’ he said. ‘Look at what I have become.’
‘What do you want me to say, Yacoub?’ said Falcón. ‘I'm sorry? I'm sorry that we went into this not knowing…’
‘Nobody knows,’ said Yacoub viciously. ‘Do you think these professional recruiters tell their “victims” what it's like? How many new agents do you think they'd get if they told them they'd be … vivisected, masterfully kept alive while all their structures are dismantled around them, until all that's left is a mind with blood running through it; seeing things, hearing things, remembering things, photographing things, reporting things.’
‘I want to help you, Yacoub, but I can't if I don't know anything, if what you're telling me is only the partial truth.’
‘And if I tell you, who will you tell? Who will they tell? There's no knowing where it will end. We'll become chess pieces in a three-dimensional game where the players are incapable of calculating the ramifications of each move until it's too late.’
‘It's not just symbolic that I'm sitting here naked in your bathroom,’ said Falcón. ‘They wanted to wire me up. I told them it wouldn't be possible for me to talk to you if I knew they were listening in. With your precautions, we know they're not. This is between you and me. And I know I'm back with you. This is different to what it was like in Madrid. So let's talk. Let's get it out in the open and then decide who should be told what.’
Yacoub looked across at him. The dull light from the big grey outside turned one side of his head to pewter. His eyes shifted and glinted in the dark. Their scintillas of light were like needles into Falcón's mind. Are you the right stuff? they asked.
‘The reason why the GICM accepted me so readily when I crossed to their side of the mosque was that they'd wanted to recruit me for the past nine months,’ said Yacoub slowly. ‘Despite my family history and connections to various “movements” in the past, they had not made any approaches, because there was nothing in my behaviour to indicate that I was of their mentality. As I said before, they were nervous of that half that wasn't Moroccan, and still are. But the reason that I was taken in and elevated so rapidly that, for instance, I met their military high command within days of crossing the line, was that they'd been watching me for a long time. I had something that they wanted.’
‘But you had no idea what they wanted or that they knew that you had something they desired?’
‘No. I was naïve. I thought it was my game,’ said Yacoub, tapping his chest, then grunting a laugh. ‘It was like going to meet your prospective wife in an arranged marriage, expecting the demure virgin and discovering someone terrifyingly experienced.’
‘And when did you find this out?’ asked Falcón.
‘When I came back from Paris that time.’
‘In June?’
‘They were vetting me. We all thought it was to do with our mission and the four-wheel drives filled with explosives going to London, but it was nothing of the sort. They were making sure I was clean, that I didn't contact anybody and that nobody came anywhere near me.’
‘So what did they ask you when you came back to Rabat?’
‘Are you ready for this, Javier?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Once you know it, you're a part of it, you can't unlearn it,’ said Yacoub. ‘You'll find yourself not just with knowledge, but holding things in your power, precious things, like people's lives. My life. Abdullah's life.’
‘The reason I'm here is so that you don't have to go through this alone,’ said Falcón. ‘We went into this together, naïve as we were, and I'm not going to desert you now. So tell me.’
‘If I tell you, you'll be in my boat, and that means you won't be able to tell anybody; not your own people and certainly not the British or the Americans.’
&nbs
p; ‘Let's hear what it is before we decide anything.’
‘There's no “we'll see” about it, Javier,’ said Yacoub. ‘I'm as good as dead if anything I tell you goes out of this room. You'll just have to live with the knowledge. And they'll interrogate you, pump you for everything you've got.’
‘Spit it out,’ said Falcón.
Yacoub ran his hands over his head, prepared himself.
‘A short introduction,’ he said. ‘As you know, the primary design of the GICM was not international operations but to bring about a change in the Moroccan government.’
‘They want Islamic rule with Sharia law,’ said Falcón.
‘Exactly. And the situation in Morocco is no less complicated than that other country which butts up against Europe's eastern border: Turkey. There is a complex battle between the religious and secular in both countries and terrorism is used on both sides. The situation is a little different in Morocco, because we have a monarchy of the Alawite dynasty, which can trace its ancestry back to the Prophet's son-in-law. We also had a king, Mohammed V, who identified himself with the nationalist struggle for independence back in the 1950s and was exiled for it. So the king had both religious lineage and political credibility, which meant that after independence he wasn't pushed to institute parliamentary government.
‘He died early and his son, Hassan II, the hard man, took over in 1961. He didn't believe in democracy. Leaders of political parties were exiled. A whole apparatus of secret police, informers and terror was installed. His was a despotic regime, but it did maintain a secular order. Mohammed VI took over in 1999 and there has been a general relaxation: human rights, power and freedom for women, political pluralism. The fundamentalists don't like these reforms, but with the security system more or less dismantled, they saw opportunities.’
The Ignorance of Blood Page 12