supply was exclusive and if he didn't like the arrangement they'd install their own dealer. Four floors to a concrete pavement had been Nikita's way of trying to make him see reason. He hadn't enjoyed the adrenaline rush.
Fucking Russians. This had never been a friendly business. Dealing in death was never going to be that. But the Italians spoke his language, and he didn't know how long the Russian product was going to last. So he was going to play this tricky game until things got a little clearer, and that's why he was tooled up.
His girlfriend sighed in her sleep. He shut the bedroom door and looked around the living room. He moved the table to a more central position between the window and the wall, on which hung an oblong mirror. With a screwdriver he put a five-centimetre screw in the centre of the table. He eased the safety off the gun and positioned it so that the trigger rested against the screw and the barrel pointed to the right of the mirror. He inserted another couple of screws to maintain the line of the barrel. He placed a copy of 6 Toros magazine over the handgun. He put a chair by the table which, when he sat on it, would leave his good right arm free and his poor left arm close to the gun. He sat and checked the view he got from the mirror. It gave him angles on the two corners of the room behind him. He dropped the blinds on the window, shut out the sunlight and the view of the busy Carretera de Su Eminencia. He didn't bother with any other chairs. The supplier, with his Cuban translator, never sat down. They did smoke, even though they knew he didn't like it. He was the drug dealer with one lung who didn't smoke, didn't drink and didn't do drugs. El Pulmon breathed in slowly, the way he'd always done to control his fear. Ramirez was standing at the window in Falcon's office, looking out. Ferrera was at her computer.
'I've had the three mystery men in the Russian's disks identified,' said Falcon. 'The guy with Margarita is Juan Valverde, the boss of I4IT Europe in Madrid. The American is Charles Taggart, an ex-TV preacher, who's an I4IT consultant, reporting back to the owner, Cortland Fallenbach. The last guy is Antonio Ramos, who is an engineer and the new director of Horizonte's construction division. I want you to find out where those three men are, because I want to talk to them as soon as possible.'
Cristina Ferrera nodded. Falcon went through to join Ramirez in his office, gave him the intelligence he'd learned from Pablo about the renegade Russian gang set up by Yuri Donstov in Seville. Ramirez said he'd put detectives Serrano and Baena on a door-to-door, starting in Calle Garlopa in Seville Este, which was the address they'd found in the GPS of Vasili Lukyanov's Range Rover. They moved on to other matters.
'The blood on both those paper suits we found in the rubbish bins on Calle Feria has been confirmed as a perfect match to Marisa Moreno,' said Ramirez.
'Anything on the inside of them?' asked Falcon.
'Both the hoods contained hairs, and we've picked up some sweat patches from the suits,' said Ramirez. 'One of them even had a semen deposit.'
'Sweat patches? Semen? Was he naked underneath this suit?'
'Not if he stripped it off, walked round the corner to Calle Gerona and stuck it in the bin,' said Ramirez. 'But it was a hot night, maybe they had a car.'
'Gangsters driving around in their underpants?' said Falcon, making for the door.
'Where are you going?' asked Ramirez. 'You've only just got here.'
'To talk to Esteban Calderon.'
'The judge on the Marisa Moreno case is going to want to see us at some stage,' said Ramirez. 'It's the new guy: Anibal Parrado. He's all right. How's Consuelo holding up?'
'She's not all right,' said Falcon. 'We're not all right.'
'So you told her about Marisa and the threatening phone calls.'
'And she remembered those Russians breaking into her house four years ago, putting a red cross over a family photograph.'
'I'm sorry,' said Ramirez. 'I wasn't thinking when I told you about the semen deposit. That's not a nice thing to know… I mean, given Dario's situation.'
'I have to know,' said Falcon. 'Give me a call when you get the full forensics. Let's get the DNA on the semen deposit to Vicente Cortes and Martin Diaz. They can see if it matches DNA on the GRECO and CICO databases from any Russians they've had in custody. And get everybody in the squad to remember that this is all connected: the Seville bombing, the murder of Ines, the cutting up of Marisa and the kidnapping of Dario.'
'The only problem,' said Ramirez, fingers exploding up into the air, 'is evidence.' Today was delivery day, but he wasn't sure when the Russian was going to turn up. All he knew was that he had four hundred grams of Italian left, which wasn't going to satisfy those of his clients who were already coming out of their dens all twitchy and gabbling, with the first sweats and that clawing and gnawing in the blood. They'd be looking for his boys on the streets, the sign that the Russian product had arrived and that all would soon be well.
El Pulmon checked on Julia. Still asleep. Should he wake her? Get her up and out before the guys came? He shrugged; it seemed a shame. Softly, he closed the door. She could sleep all day, that one. He had to keep an eye on her, though, make sure she wasn't sampling the product. He sat down. Breathed slowly, got the fear crouched down low in his stomach. He was always scared these days, what with the money getting bigger and these Russians being so unreadable.
Maybe he should wake Julia. Keep calm, just the nerves talking. Keep the fear. He knew he needed the fear, but it had to be where he wanted it. Low in the stomach, not all up his throat and over his head. He'd seen that with novilleros facing their first full-size bull. The fear that paralysed and got you killed.
The knock came at 12.45 p.m. First man in was the Cuban translator. Behind him was the weightlifter – head shaved with just a dusting of black showing through the white skin, nose slightly flattened, one cheekbone with a red scar. He was smaller than El Pulmon, but twice his width. His arms were very hairy and were covered in indiscernible tattoos. His legs moved as if he had animals up his trousers. El Pulmon led them into the room, felt their eyes searching his back, took his seat by the table. The Cuban stood to the left of the mirror. The weightlifter kept his back to the wall, moved to the right of the mirror and had a good, long look around with his dark, deep-set eyes. El Pulmon didn't like it. He knew now that the Russian was carrying a gun in the small of his back. He wished he'd woken Julia. He had the roll of money in his shirt, but he didn't take it out. He could feel some questions backed up against the wall over there.
'He wants to know if you're still buying from the Italians?' asked the Cuban.
'No, I told you I'd stopped.'
'Take a look,' said the Cuban, giving him a twist of silver foil.
El Pulmon opened it up, saw the white powder, knew that he was in trouble. He shrugged.
'Where did you get this?' he asked.
'We bought it from one of your clients,' said the Cuban. 'Paid eighty euros for it.'
'I don't know what the problem is.'
'It's our product cut with the Italian shit you told us you'd stopped moving.'
'I still have some Italian product left. I didn't want to just throw it away.'
'You buy from the Italians,' said the weightlifter, his first words in rough, accented Spanish.
'I didn't know you spoke Spanish,' said El Pulmon, taking the opportunity for a bit of distraction.
'He knows you're still buying from them,' said the Cuban.
'How does he know that?'
'One of your clients told us.'
'Which one?' asked El Pulmon. 'They're all junkies out there. They'll do and say anything for a fix.'
'The flamenco singer.'
'Carlos Puerta is hardly reliable,' said El Pulmon. 'He's been looking to fuck me up since his girlfriend moved in with me.'
'That's why we kept an eye on your place, to see the Italians for ourselves,' said the Cuban, who'd moved to the window and was peering through the blinds.
El Pulmon looked at the Russian and kept an eye on the Cuban through the mirror.
'We tell you the last time,' said the weightlifter.
The Cuban came away from the window. He had a large hunting knife in his hand. He went to grab El Pulmon by the hair. El Pulmon leaned forward and slapped the copy of 6 Toros. The roar of the gunshot filled the room and El Pulmon's blade sprang into his hand. He kept low and swung round, driving the narrow length of steel into the Cuban's left side. He heard nothing with the gunshot ringing in his ears, but he felt the Cuban's body stiffen. As he drove the blade in, he grabbed the Cuban's right wrist with the hunting knife in it and whirled the man round so that he ended up between El Pulmon and the weightlifter, who was now on the floor, lying on his back, arm extended,
