Robert Wilson - The Hidden Assassins

'We didn't just think this operation up last week,' said Gregorio. 'We have people working in his home, at his factory, and we've watched him on business trips. So have the British. He's been vetted down to his toenails. The only thing we didn't have, which nobody had, was access. And that's where you came in.'

'Don't think about it too much, Javier,' said Pablo. 'It's new territory and we'll take it one step at a time. If you feel there's something you can't do…then you can't do it. Nobody's going to force you.'

'I'm less worried about force than I am by coercion.'

Seville-Thursday, 8th June 2006, 23.55 hrs

That's what Flowers had said: 'You don't understand the pressure on these people.' Alone, now, Falcon gripped the arms of his chair in front of the dead computer screen. He'd only had a glimpse of it, but now he understood what Flowers had meant. He sat in his comfortable house, in the heart of one of the least violent cities in Europe and, yes, he had a demanding job, but not one where he had to pretend every day or cope with 'an initiation rite' that might demand 'betrayal'. He didn't have to cohabit with the minds of clear-sighted fanatics who saw God's purpose in the murder of innocents, who, in fact, didn't see them as innocents but as 'culpable by democracy', or the product of 'decadence and godlessness', and therefore fair game. He might have to face a moral choice, but not a life-or-death situation which could result in harm done to Yacoub, his wife and children.

Yacoub knew 'how their minds worked', that they would demand betrayal, because that would sever the relationship. They weren't interested in the low-quality information of a Sevillano detective. They wanted to cut Yacoub off from a relationship that connected him to the outside world. Yacoub had been with the group for twenty-four hours and already they were setting about the imprisonment of his mind.

The mobile vibrating on the desktop made him start.

'Just to let you know,' said Ramirez, 'Arenas, Benito and Cardenas have just left. Rivero, Zarrias and Alarcon are still there. Do we know what we're doing yet?'

'I have to call Elvira before we make a move,' said Falcon. 'What I want is for the two of us to go in there as soon as Rivero is alone and break him down so that he reveals everybody in the whole conspiracy, not just the bit players.'

'Do you know Eduardo Rivero?' asked Ramirez.

'I met him once at a party,' said Falcon. 'He's fantastically vain. Angel Zarrias has been trying to lever him out of the leadership of Fuerza Andalucia for years, but Rivero loved the status it conferred on him.'

'So how did Zarrias get him out?'

'No idea,' said Falcon. 'But Rivero is not a man to hand in his ego lightly.'

'It happened on the day of the bomb, didn't it?'

'That's when they announced it.'

'But it must have been coming for a while,' said Ramirez. 'Zarrias never mentioned anything to you about it?'

'Are you speaking with some inside knowledge, Jose Luis?'

'Some press guys I know were telling me there was talk of a sex scandal around Rivero,' said Ramirez. 'Under-age girls. They've lost interest since the bomb, but they were very suspicious of the handover to Jesus Alarcon.'

'So what's your proposed strategy, Jose Luis?' said Falcon. 'You sound as if you want to make yourself unpopular again?'

'I think I do. I've done a bit of work on Eduardo Rivero and I think that might be the way to make him feel uneasy,' said Ramirez. 'Lull him into a false sense of relief when we move away from the hint of scandal and then give him both barrels in the face with Tateb Hassani.'

'That is your style, Jose Luis.'

'He's the type who'll look down his nose at me,' said Ramirez. 'But because he knows you, and knows your sister is Zarrias's partner, he'll expect you to bring some dignity to the proceedings. He'll turn to you for help. I think he'll be devastated when you show him the shot of Tateb Hassani.'

'We hope.'

'Vain men are weak.'

Falcon called Comisario Elvira and gave him the update. He could almost smell the man's sweat trickling down the phone.

'Are you confident, Javier?' he asked, as if begging Falcon to give him some resolve.

'He's the weakest of the three, the most vulnerable,' said Falcon. 'If we can't break him, we'll struggle to break the others. We can make the evidence against him sound overwhelming.'

'Comisario Lobo thinks it's the best way.'

Falcon pocketed his mobile and a photograph of Tateb Hassani. He used his reflection in the glass doors to the patio to knot his tie. He shrugged into his jacket. He was conscious of his shoes on the marble flagstones of the patio as he made his way to his car. He drove through the night. The silent, lamp-lit streets under the dark trees were almost empty. Ramirez called to tell him that Alarcon had left. Falcon told him to send everybody home except Serrano and Baena, who would follow Zarrias once he'd left.

It was a short drive to Rivero's house and there was parking in the square. He joined Ramirez on the street corner. Serrano and Baena were in an unmarked car opposite Rivero's house.

A taxi came up the street and turned round by Rivero's oak doors. The driver got out and rang the doorbell. Within a minute Angel Zarrias came out and got into the back of the cab, which pulled away. Serrano and Baena waited until it was nearly out of sight and then took off in pursuit. Cristina Ferrera had taken a cab back to her apartment. She was so exhausted she forgot to ask the driver for a receipt. She got her keys out and headed for the entrance to her block. A man sitting on the steps up to the door made her wary. He held up his hands to show her he meant no harm.

'It's me, Fernando,' he said. 'I lost your number, but remembered the address. I came to take you up on your offer of a bed for the night. My daughter, Lourdes, came out of intensive care this evening. She's in a room now with my parents-in-law looking after her. I needed to get out.'

'Have you been waiting long?'

'Since the bomb I don't look at the time,' he said. 'So I don't know.'

They went up to her apartment on the fourth floor.

'You're tired,' he said. 'I'm sorry, I shouldn't have come, but I've got nowhere else to go. I mean, nowhere that I'd feel comfortable.'

'It's all right,' she said. 'It's just another long day in a series of long days. I'm used to it.'

'Have you caught them yet?'

'We're close,' she said.

She put her bag on the table in the living room, took off her jacket and hung it on the back of the chair. She had a holster with a gun clipped to a belt around her waist.

'Are your kids asleep?' he asked, in a whisper.

'They sleep with my neighbour when I have to work late,' she said.

'I just wanted to see them sleeping, you know…' he said, and fluttered his hand, as if that explained his need for normality.

'They're not quite old enough to be left on their own all night,' she said, and went into the bedroom, unhooked the holster from her belt and put it in the top drawer of the chest. She pulled her blouse out of her waistband.

'Have you eaten?' she asked.

'Don't worry about me.'

'I'm putting a pizza in the microwave.'

Cristina opened some beers and laid the table. She remade the bed with clean sheets in one of the kids' rooms.

'Do your neighbours gossip?'

'Well, you're famous now, so they're bound to talk about you,' said Ferrera. 'They know I used to be a nun so they're not too concerned about my virtue.'

'You used to be a nun?'

'I told you,' she said. 'So what's it like?'

'What?'

'To be famous.'

'I don't understand it,' said Fernando. 'One moment I'm a labourer on a building site and the next I'm the voice of the people and it's nothing to do with me, but because Lourdes survived. Does that make any sense to you?'