Robert Wilson - The Hidden Assassins

'I think that's a bold and brilliant decision,' said Angel, shaking them both by the hand and embracing them. 'And one you've been keeping very quiet.'

'The committee voted on it last night before we met for dinner,' said Rivero. 'I didn't want to break the news until I had asked Jesus and he'd accepted. Something was going to have to happen before the 2007 campaign and, with this morning's explosion, that campaign will be starting today-and what better way to kick it off than with a new leader?'

Alarcon's expression was a mask of seriousness that bore all the weight and lines of the gravity that the situation demanded, but it could not hide what came shining out from within. His grey suit, dark tie and white shirt could not contain his sense of achievement. He was the schoolboy at the prize-giving, who'd already been told that he had won the top award.

Angel Zarrias had known Jesus Alarcon since the year 2000, when he'd been introduced to him by his old friend, Lucrecio Arenas the Chief Executive Officer of the Banco Omni in Madrid. In the last six years Angel had drawn Jesus into Eduardo Rivero's orbit and gradually eased him into positions of greater importance within the party. Angel had never had any doubt about Alarcon's brains, his political commitment or astuteness, but, as an old PR man, he had been worried by his lack of charisma. But the final wresting of the leadership from Rivero's trembling clutches had wrought an extraordinary change in the younger man. Physically he was the same, but his confidence had become dazzlingly palpable. Angel couldn't help himself. He embraced Jesus once again as the new leader of Fuerza Andalucia.

'As you know,' said Rivero, 'in the last three elections there has been steady growth in our share of the vote, but it has only grown to a maximum of 4.2 per cent and that is not enough for us to be the chosen partner of the Partido Popular. We need a new kind of energy at the top.'

'I have the business experience,' said Alarcon, breaking in with his new-found confidence, 'to raise our funding to unprecedented levels, but this is of limited significance in a torpid political atmosphere. What this morning's event has given us is a unique opportunity to focus voters' minds on the real and perceivable threat of radical Islam. It gives our immigration policy new bite where before, even after 11th March, it was dismissed as extreme and out of step with the ways in which contemporary societies were developing. If we spend the next eight months getting that message across to the population of Andalucia then we stand a chance of a substantial increase in our share of the vote, come 2007. So we have the right ideology for the time, and I can raise the money to make it heard across the region.'

'We don't think that it's a coincidence that the first call after the explosion in El Cerezo this morning should be from you, Angel,' said Rivero. 'You, more than anybody else, know what would make an enormous impression on the population of Andalucia tomorrow morning.'

Angel sat back in his chair, ran his fingers through his hair and hissed air out from between his clenched teeth. He knew what Rivero wanted and it was a tall order under the circumstances.

'Just think of the impact it would have,' said Rivero, nodding at Jesus, 'his face, his profile and his ideas in the pages of ABC Sevilla on the day after such a catastrophe as this. We would tread Izquierda Unida into the dust and make the Partido Andalucista writhe in their beds at night.'

'Are you ready for what I can do for you?' asked Angel.

'I'm more prepared for it than at any time in my life,' said Alarcon, and handed him his CV.

Angel had sat in the back of the cab on the way to the ABC offices, leafing through Alarcon's CV. Jesus Alarcon was born in Cordoba in 1965. He'd been accepted at Madrid University at the age of seventeen to study philosophy, political history and economics. As a staunch Catholic he despised the atheistic creed of communism and believed that the best way to break one's enemy was to know them. He went to Berlin University to study Russian and Russian political history. He was there-and a photograph existed to support this-when the Wall came down in 1989. It wasn't supposed to have happened like that and the crucial event had left him bereft of a cause. At the same time his father's business collapsed and he died soon after. His mother followed her husband into the grave six months later and Jesus applied to INSEAD in Paris to do an MBA. By Christmas 1991 he was working for McKinsey's in Boston, and in the following four years became one of their analysts and consultants in Central and South America. In 1995 he moved to Lehman Brothers, to join their mergers and acquisitions team. There he changed his sphere of operations to the European Union and built up a powerful list of investors looking to buy into the booming Spanish economy. In 1997 his life changed again when he met a beautiful Sevillana called Monica Abellon, whose father had been one of Jesus's leading clients. Monica's father effected an introduction to Lucrecio Arenas, who headhunted him for the secretive Banco Omni and he moved to Madrid, where Monica was working as a model.

It was in the year 2000 that Angel, totally fed up with the Partido Popular, had taken on some PR work for Banco Omni clients. Lucrecio Arenas, convinced that he'd discovered a future leader of Spain in Jesus Alarcon, was eager for his new find to cut his teeth in regional politics, and had enlisted Angel's help. As soon as Angel introduced Alarcon to Eduardo Rivero and the other Fuerza Andalucia committee members, they welcomed him into the fold, recognizing one of their own. Jesus Alarcon was a traditionalist, a practising Catholic, a man who loathed communism and socialism, a believer in the power of business to do good in society and also a lover of the bulls. He was twenty years younger than any of them. He was good looking, if a little on the dull side, but he made up for it by having the beautiful Monica Abellon as his wife, and two gorgeous children.

In the ABC offices Angel went to work on the dossier and archives. In an hour he'd put together a page, the editor was never going to look at more than that. The headline: THIS MAN HAS ANSWERS. The main shot was part of a photograph he'd found of Jesus in a business magazine about Spain's future. Jesus was supposedly looking up to a sun, which was probably a photographer's lighting umbrella, and his face was shining with hope and belief in the future. He also had shots of Jesus with the stunning Monica, and the couple with their children. There was a sub headline, which said: The New Leader of Fuerza Andalucia Believes in Our Future. The writing was in note form and described not just the radical immigration policy of Fuerza Andalucia, but also vital economic and agrarian reforms that were necessary to make Andalucia a force in the future. It included Jesus's employment profile, which showed that he was economically 'sensible', internationally connected and had the contacts in industry to make his ideas work.

There was a lull in activity just before lunch at around two o'clock. The traffic into the editor's office had calmed. Angel made his move.

'We're probably going to have to cut your column for at least the next few days,' said the editor when he saw Angel crossing his threshold.

'Of course,' said Angel. 'Nobody wants political gossip at a time like this.'

'What do you want with me, then?' said the editor, interested now he knew that Angel hadn't come for a fight.

'Most of the stuff in tomorrow's newspaper is going to be hard news and a lot of it will be heart-rending, with reports on the destruction of the pre-school and the dead children. The only positive stories will be about the excellence of the emergency services, and I've heard that there's a survivor. You'll be writing a leader that captures the mood of the city, that reacts to the receipt of Abdullah Azzam's text, and that declares that we might not have moved so far forward since 11th March as everybody would like to think.'