‘Is this your profound moral certitude coming out again?’ asked Falcón.
‘I wish I'd never said that.’
‘The disks are evidence.’
‘Just copies, Javier. Copies.’
‘You want me to start making copies of certified evidence in a busy Jefatura?’
‘It's dead in there at lunchtime,’ said Flowers. ‘If you want me to find the boy, you've got to give me the tools.’
‘I'll see what I can do,’ said Javier, who was feeling a strong desire to get away from Flowers, something smelling very bad about his request.
It was 1.30 p.m. by the time he got to the Jefatura. Cristina Ferrera was alone in the office. He told her he'd heard from Ramírez about Carlos Puerta and asked if there'd been any developments on the various murders.
‘We picked up some further sightings of El Pulmón after he left his vehicle yesterday afternoon,’ said Ferrera. ‘He bought a bottle of water on Avenida Ramón y Cajal and was seen washing himself off in the street. He was spotted again, still stripped to the waist, running down Calle Enramadilla. The last sighting was in the bus station in the Plaza San Sebastián.’
‘That sounds as if he was getting out of town.’
‘They're still working the bus station, but at some point he must have got a T-shirt because we're not picking up any more sightings of someone stripped to the waist.’
He got her to check the arrival time of the I4IT private jet in Seville and went down to the computer room. No natural light. Banks of computers. Young faces lit by grey light coming from the screens. The Inspector Jefe told him that they'd been working on the disks since eight thirty that morning. At eleven thirty they'd brought in a couple of mathematicians from the university. By midday they were in touch with Interpol to see if they'd cracked any Russian mafia codes recently. They hadn't heard anything back.
‘How urgent is this?’ asked the IT chief.
‘There's a late afternoon meeting between a Spanish business consortium and the town hall, which we believe the Russian mafia are trying to influence,’ said Falcón. ‘We assume this because some of the participants in that meeting feature in the sex footage on the disks. We think that the two encrypted disks you're working on contain “associated material” and we'd like to know what it is before the meeting takes place.’
Back up to his office. Ferrera with news of a revised flight plan logged by the pilot of the private jet. It was now due to arrive at Seville airport at 19.00 this evening. Falcón's mobile vibrated. His brother, Paco.
‘El Pulmón,’ he said. ‘Are you still interested in finding him?’
‘You've had a tip-off?’
‘Not exactly,’ said Paco. ‘But I've managed to find out that the only guy he's kept in touch with in the bullfight business is another gypsy, a brilliant horseman, who looks after the animals on a finca in the Serranía de Ronda.’
Falcón took down the address, hung up, began to plan his afternoon.
‘Where's Ramírez?’ he asked.
‘Lunch with Serrano and Baena,’ said Ferrera.
‘Ask them to come back here as soon as they can. We might have a lead on El Pulmón.’
The mobile vibrated again; he put it to his ear without checking the screen.
‘I hope you haven't forgotten about us,’ said the voice.
‘You said you'd call. I've been waiting,’ said Falcón, going into his office, closing the door.
‘You've got the disks?’
‘No, they're in use. They're being examined. I don't have access to them.’
‘You'll never crack that code,’ said the voice. ‘We have the resources to pay for the best minds in the business. You'll be doing better than MI6 if you crack it… and they've been working on it for three years.’
‘The process is not in my hands,’ said Falcón. ‘And even if it was and I could access those disks I'd still be waiting for you to deliver on your promise.’
‘Our promise?’
‘I delivered those disks, but you haven't kept up your end of the deal.’
‘But there was no boy,’ said the voice. ‘And we saved your lives.’
‘If you wanted to get your hands on those disks you were always going to have to do that,’ said Falcón. ‘Now you have what you want and I have nothing.’
‘You're negotiating with us?’ asked the voice, perplexed.
‘You want those two remaining disks,’ said Falcón. ‘I want the Seville bombers. That means: the two men who masqueraded as building inspectors and the three electricians who planted the device. I also want to know where I can find Nikita Sokolov.’
‘You're being very demanding, Inspector Jefe.’
‘And I want the person who murdered Esteban Calderón's wife in her apartment early in the morning of 8th June this year.’
‘The judge murdered her himself,’ said the voice. ‘He's confessed.’
‘I don't know where you heard that from,’ said Falcón. ‘Maybe your source in the Jefatura is not so reliable. That was the prime reason why Marisa Moreno was murdered, wasn't it?’
‘Why do you think we had anything to do with that?’
‘Nikita Sokolov,’ said Falcón, and left it at that, hoped that would be enough to persuade the voice that he knew more than he did.
‘Sokolov is not one of ours.’
‘But he was.’
‘I'll have to get back to you.’
‘And before you deliver on Sokolov, you can ask him where his two friends are, the ones he used to cut up Marisa Moreno with a chain saw.’
‘This is a lot of people,’ said the voice. ‘This is … two, five, six, seven – nine people you want in return for the two disks. I'll have to come back to you, but I can assure you that Señor Revnik will not be happy about this.’
‘There's no rush.’
‘I don't follow you.’
‘If, as you say, we'll never crack the code on those two disks, then we have all the time in the world.’
24
On the road to the Serranía de Ronda – Tuesday, 19th September 2006, 14.30 hours
They took two cars. Falcón, Ramírez and Ferrera in the lead car, Serrano and Baena behind. Only Pérez was left in Seville, still working on the murders in Las Tres Mil and Carlos Puerta's suicide. Falcón was anxious about taking all his men off their various cases, but El Pulmón was an important witness and the intelligence they'd had from the local Guardia Civil, who they were going to meet in Cuevas del Becerro, about twenty kilometres north-east of Ronda, had been promising. He needed all this manpower because the farm was in an area protected by high mountains to the north. There were a lot of horses on the farm and if the two gypsies got wind of their approach they could ride into the sierra in minutes and, once up there, they'd never find them.
Falcón had arranged to meet Yacoub in Osuna at as close to five o'clock as possible. Just as he was leaving the Jefatura he'd bumped into Inspector Jefe Tirado of GRUME, but hadn't been able to think his way round all the complications of warning him off the Russians. He'd just told him what he'd mentioned to Flowers – either or neither – and to keep an open mind. Tirado didn't think that was helpful. His investigation was stalled. He was doing a lot of work around the Nervión Plaza for nearly no return.
The heat was more brutal out in the open country, where the bleached sky and the bare, chalky brown earth seemed drained of all vascular circulation. The ridge of mountains they had to cross to get to the village where they were meeting the Guardia Civil was lost in the afternoon haze. The endless hectares of olive trees, ranked like ancient armies ready for battle on some vast uncontested plain, were the only evidence of civilization in this arid, deserted landscape.
On the way he briefed Ramírez and Ferrera on the situation with Alejandro Spinola, his involvement with the mayor's office and his relationship with Marisa Moreno and therefore, very possibly, the Russians. He also told them what had happened when he went to see Comisarios Elvira and Lobo.
&
nbsp; ‘So, what are we going to do about Spinola?’
‘When we finish this business, you two are going to the airport to see who comes out of the I4IT chartered jet and follow the car to wherever it takes them. Serrano and Baena are going to track Spinola.’
‘But they're all going to end up in that fancy hotel, La Berenjena,’ said Ferrera. ‘Why don't we just go straight there?’
‘It looks like the Russians want to influence the outcome of whatever this deal is between the mayor's office and the I4IT/Horizonte consortium,’ said Falcón. ‘We just don't know how or when they're going to do it.’
‘And we can't touch Spinola because of Lobo and Elvira,’ said Ramírez.
‘And we can't mount an official operation at La Berenjena either,’ said Falcón. ‘Who knows, it might turn out to be a completely legitimate deal, with no mafia involvement, and we can all go home and sleep easy. On the other hand, with the intelligence we've gathered, I think we have to be available in case things go wrong.’
‘Can we at least do some preparation work?’ said Ferrera. ‘Like get a list of the other guests, warn the manager that we're coming and get some idea of the security set-up at the hotel.’
‘What do you know about this place?’ asked Ramírez.
‘The website says that it's an exclusive celebrity hangout, that royalty has stayed there, and that it's not just an ordinary country-house hotel. They have a head of security and the management is willing to consult on additional security arrangements.’
‘It's important that Elvira doesn't hear about any of this,’ said Falcón. ‘So if it can be achieved in total secrecy, then go ahead.’
‘We might need some help in identifying the players we don't know,’ said Ferrera. ‘There are four suites booked at La Berenjena, so who is this extra person on the I4IT/Horizonte team, and how do we recognize the mafia men?’
‘There are no existing shots of Leonid Revnik and only an old gulag shot of Yuri Donstov,’ said Falcón. ‘The rest should be on the CICO database.’
‘We'll have to take shots of them when they arrive and send them to Vicente Cortés and Martin Díaz for identification,’ said Ramírez.
‘I'll bring a laptop,’ said Ferrera.
‘You'd better brief Cortés and Díaz,’ said Falcón. ‘And I'll talk to the CNI.’
They crossed the main road, climbed the ridge and dropped down to where the Guardia Civil were waiting for them on the outskirts of Cuevas del Becerro. They had a large-scale map of the area and some further intelligence. El Pulmón's gypsy friend had been seen in Ronda buying clothes and shotgun shells. The owner of the farm was touring up in the north and the place was being run by a manager, who had gone down to the coast with his family. There was a stable for twenty horses and the gypsy lived in a small cottage adjoining it. His job was to look after the animals. He was well known in the area and he knew the country like the back of his hand.
‘Where do you think they're most likely to be at this time of day?’ asked Ramírez.
‘With any luck they'll be having a siesta,’ said the Guardia. ‘But they could be … that's a point – at the back of the stables there's a practice bullring for training the horses with bulls.’
‘Is that what the horses are used for?’ asked Baena.
‘Yes. He's one of the best rejoneadors in the business. Fantastic horses. He goes all over Spain and Portugal with them,’ said the Guardia.
‘They won't be out in the fields, not at this time of day in this heat,’ said the other Guardia.
‘Those horses are going to be pretty valuable,’ said Baena.
‘So,’ said Serrano, taking out his revolver, checking that it was fully loaded, ‘we'd better not shoot any of them by accident.’
‘Fuck, no,’ said the Guardia. ‘You do that and you'll have to find at least a hundred thousand euros per animal.’
‘And the rest,’ said Baena.
‘Do you know the practice ring?’ asked Falcón. ‘How many ways in or out?’
The Guardia shrugged. Falcón decided they'd go in their two unmarked cars and not risk taking the Guardia in their green-and-white Nissan Patrols with them.
‘When we get there,’ said Falcón, ‘Serrano and Baena will go into the stables and check them out. Ramírez and I will search the cottage. Ferrera will stay outside and keep watch. If there's no sign of them, we'll move to the practice bullring. The three of you will man the entry points and Ramírez and I will go into the ring.’
‘Toro!’ said one of the Guardia, and they all laughed.
The Guardia led them out into the country and pointed out the entrance to the Finca de la Luna Llena. The farm buildings were not visible from the road. There was a long two-kilometre slope up from the entrance gates and the main building could be seen at the top of the rise.
‘If they're out and about, they're going to see us coming over this rise,’ said Ramírez.
‘That's if they're looking out for us,’ said Falcón. ‘El Pulmón isn't expecting anybody to find him out here.’
‘Shotgun shells?’ said Ramírez.
‘That's the minimum he'd need to take on Nikita Sokolov,’ said Ferrera.
The two cars coasted down the track, engines idling, into the farm buildings. The stables were behind the main house and the cars came to a halt in front. Silence. No movement. Too early in the afternoon even for cicadas. They got out, guns ready. Nobody slammed the car doors. Baena trotted up to the far end of the stable block, checked round the back, held up his thumb, went into the building at the far end. Serrano took the door next to the cottage. Ferrera moved silently between the buildings, listening for voices and movement.
The cottage was open. Ramírez took a quick look around, just three rooms. Empty. Falcón pointed to the ceiling. Went upstairs. Nothing there. Outside, Ferrera was waiting, told them she'd heard voices in the practice ring. Serrano came out of the stables and the four of them headed for the practice ring, guns out.
Falcón stood in the middle of the main entrance to the practice ring. There was a stone staircase on the outside wall of the ring where spectators could go up to watch from a roofed seating area above the main gates. Ramírez went right, Serrano left.
Two minutes. Ramírez came back at a trot.
‘Serrano's positioned at the entrance for the animals, just in case; there's a small bull in there,’ he said. ‘The only other way out would be to run up the seating in the ring and then down the stone staircase here.’
An animal snort came from inside the ring.
‘There's at least one horse in there,’ said Falcón.
‘Let's take a look,’ said Ramírez.
Ramírez went up the staircase, crawled the last five steps, came back down.
‘Two guys, both gypsy-looking, one horse. The horse is tied up. It's got padding around it. One guy, who looks like El Pulmón, has a cape. The other guy is holding a mock-up of some bull's horns.’
‘El Pulmón practising his old moves.’
‘There's a lance leaning up against the wall of the ring and there's a shotgun next to it.’
‘This is the only way out on a horse, isn't it?’ said Falcón.
‘There's no way to manoeuvre a horse in the bullock pen.’
‘All right,’ said Falcón. ‘Cristina, you go up to the seating area above and cover us. Fifteen seconds and we go in.’
Ferrera crept up the steps. Falcón nodded to Ramírez, who opened the door. They slipped in, closed the door behind them. The two men were facing away from them. The horse seemed to acknowledge their entrance with a nod of the head and a snort.
‘Roque Barba!’ shouted Falcón, gun out, pointing directly at the man with the cape. ‘Police!’
It happened at lightning speed. The gypsy dropped the practice horns and in one leap was on the back of the horse. El Pulmón threw his cape up in the air and it came spinning towards Ramírez.
‘Freeze!’ shouted Ferrera, from above.
The gypsy slapped a b
utton on the barrier and the main door to the practice ring sprung open. He slipped the rein and picked up the picador's lance. The shotgun was too low down for him. El Pulmón hesitated, thinking about reaching for it. The gypsy put the horse between El Pulmón and Falcón, dropped his head low to the horse's neck, tucked the lance under his arm. El Pulmón grabbed the padding at the side of the horse and kicked his feet up in the air. With a jab of the gypsy's heels the horse took off out of the open door. Falcón and Ramírez scrambled to one side; the steel tip of the picador's lance flashed past at face height. Ferrera let off a shot over their heads. It didn't stop them. In the space of twenty metres El Pulmón got his leg up over the rear of the horse. The gypsy chucked the lance and hauled his friend up behind the saddle. El Pulmón grabbed hold of his waist. The horse galloped the length of the stable block. Falcón and Ramírez ran out of the practice ring in time to see the horse getting into its full stride, kicking up dust and heading for the fields above the farm.
‘What a fuck-up,’ said Ramírez.
‘I didn't want to risk shooting the horse,’ said Ferrera, from above.
They were all watching the galloping horse when from the far side of the stable block came another rider on a black stallion. The gypsy's horse was badly encumbered by its protective padding, and the black stallion, which was a beautiful beast, had no difficulty in catching up.
‘Fuck me,’ said Ramírez. ‘That's Baena.’
Baena was ducked low by the horse's neck, arse up in the air, looking every bit the professional rider. He reached out and grabbed El Pulmón's fluttering shirt and yanked it hard. El Pulmón had no stirrups and came straight off the back of the horse. Baena pulled up and was on him, gun in his face, his other hand hanging on to the stallion's rein. El Pulmón had landed on his back and was badly winded, rolling around and cycling his legs in the dust, trying to get some air into his remaining lung. The gypsy reined in the padded horse, which came up on his hind legs, while its rider stood up in the stirrups and did three or four complete turns as he looked back. Ferrera ran for the car, picked up Falcón and Ramírez and they joined the gasping El Pulmón. Baena calmed the stallion, which had been alarmed by the rush of the arriving car.