Robert Wilson - The Hidden Assassins

'Was that why you wanted me to research I4IT?'

'They're in the background…quite a long way in the background,' said Falcon, who filled him in on Horizonte and Informaticalidad.

'I4IT are not, in fact, based in Indianapolis,' said Flowers. 'The company headquarters is in Columbus, Ohio, due to its proximity to Westerville, Ohio, which was where the US temperance movement started, and from where National Prohibition took off back in the 1920s.'

'You're making this sound significant.'

'The corporation is owned and actively run by two born-again Christians, who discovered their faith through the excesses of their youth,' said Flowers. 'Cortland Fallenbach was a computer programmer who used to work for Microsoft until they "let him go" due to problems with alcohol and other substances. Morgan Havilland was a salesman for IBM, until his sex addiction got out of control and he had to be removed before the company ended up in court on the end of a sexual harassment suit.'

'Did these guys meet in therapy?'

'In Indianapolis,' said Flowers. 'And having both worked for the most powerful IT corporations in the world, they decided to set up a group to invest in hitech companies. Fallenbach was a software king and Havilland understood hardware. At first they just invested and took profit from their inside knowledge of the industry. Later they started buying companies outright, merging their strengths, and either selling them or setting them up in groups of their own. But there was, and is, one important stipulation if you want to be a part of I4IT…'

'You have to believe in God?' asked Falcon.

'You have to believe in the right god,' said Flowers. 'You have to be a Christian. That doesn't mean they don't buy companies owned by Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists or Shintoists-if that's what they're called-it just means that they don't become a part of I4IT. They either strip out what they want and, if they're still valuable, they sell them on; if they're not, they let them rot into the ground.'

'Ruthless Christians,' said Falcon.

'Crusaders might be a good word,' said Flowers. 'Very successful crusaders. I4IT has world-wide assets in excess of $12 billion. They showed a profit in the first quarter of this year of $375 million.'

'What about politics?'

'Fallenbach and Havilland are members of the Christian Right and therefore deeply Republican. Their ethos, though, is based on religion. As long as you practise the same religion they believe you can understand each other. If one is a Muslim and the other a Christian there will always be fundamental differences which will prevent perfect communication. Atheists are off the page, which means communists are unacceptable. Agnostics can still be "saved"…'

'Is this the level of discussion in board meetings before a take-over?'

'Sure. They take company culture very seriously and religion is the foundation of that culture,' said Flowers. 'Where they can get away with it, they don't employ women in the workplace, otherwise they keep to the bare legal minimum. They don't employ homosexuals. God hates fags…remember, Javier?'

'I don't remember that line from the Bible.'

'Their success and profitability is a manifestation of their righteousness.'

'How active are they outside their own corporation?'

'As far as we know, it's limited to not doing business with people whose principles they don't agree with. So they produce a lot of ultrasound equipment, for instance, and they won't sell to clinics known to perform abortions,' said Flowers. 'As far as any active anti-religious movement goes, we haven't heard of anything.'

'Do you think Informaticalidad using this apartment for brainstorming sessions is weird?'

'If you ask me what's weird, it's companies and governments spending billions of dollars and euros a year on management consultancies, who come in and give them the kind of common sense that my grandmother could have told them for free,' said Flowers. 'Informaticalidad sound like a company who haven't bought into the bullshit industry and have come up with a cheaper, and probably more productive, solution which leaves them with an asset at the end of it all. If you can place any of those Informaticalidad brainstormers in the mosque, now that's a different story…'

'Not so far,' said Falcon. 'Another thing: have you got any information on an organization called VOMIT?'

'VOMIT…yes, I've seen their website. We thought it stood for Victims of Muslim and Islamic Terror until one of our operators saw the Spanish. They can only be accused of not presenting the full picture, but that's just a matter of imbalance. It's not criminal. There's no incitement to take revenge, no bomb-making advice, weapons training or active recruitment to "a cause".'

'If it's just a few geeks with some phones and a computer, that's one thing,' said Falcon. 'If it's a multi-billion-dollar corporation with world-wide resources, wouldn't that be different?'

'First of all, I don't see that connection. Second, there'd have to be more of a perceived threat to get us to do any digging on VOMIT,' said Flowers. 'And anyway, Javier, why are you sniffing around the wacky fringes of this attack instead of getting stuck into the guts of it? I mean, VOMIT, I4IT…'

'The guts of the problem are under a few thousand tons of rubble at the moment,' said Falcon. 'Informaticalidad was an unignorable part of the scenario outside the mosque. VOMIT were introduced into the frame by the CNI. We have some suspicious occurrences in the mosque, which have not been adequately explained.'

'Like what?'

Falcon told him about the council inspectors, the blown fuse box and the electricians.

'I know what you're thinking,' said Flowers.

'No, you don't, because I haven't decided on a scenario yet myself. I'm keeping an open mind,' said Falcon. 'We know that two terror suspects-Djamel Hammad and Smail Saoudi-made deliveries to the mosque, which could be innocent or could have been bomb-making material. A deposit of hexogen-or cyclonite, as you call it-was found in the back of their van…'

'Fucking hell, Javier,' said Flowers, sitting up. 'And you don't call that damning evidence?'

'It looks bad,' said Falcon, 'but we're not talking about looks here. We've got to get beyond appearances.'

'Is there any more of this whisky? I'm getting the taste for this liquid-charcoal stuff.'

'Falcon topped him up and gave himself another jolt of manzanilla. He sat back, feeling as he always did in his conversations with Flowers-stupid and flayed.

'You know, Mark, you still haven't told me anything I couldn't have found out for myself inside half an hour on the internet, whereas I've told you…everything. I know you like to keep your account with me in the black, but I'd appreciate some real help,' said Falcon. 'Why don't you tell me something about the MILA, or Imam Abdelkrim Benaboura?'

'There's a good reason why you don't get as much information from me as I do from you,' said Flowers, who let those names flash past him without a flicker. 'I'm running a station that covers southern Spain and its relations with Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. I have no idea what is going on in Madrid, northern Spain or southern France. I only see a small corner of the whole picture. London, Paris, Rome and Berlin make their contributions, but I don't see any of it. Like you, I'm just a contributor.'

'You're making yourself sound very passive.'

'I'm getting information from all sorts of different sources, but I have to be very careful how I use it,' said Flowers. 'Spying is a game, but I never forget that it's being played with real people, who can get killed. So you only get information that doesn't endanger you or any of my other sources. If I'm in any doubt, you won't be given it. Be glad that I'm not a risk-taking station head.'