'You're very calm,' he said, suddenly. 'I don't know how…'
'Because in making me their agent they've given me power,' said Consuelo. 'I know nothing will happen to Dario while I can still do things for them.'
'A further complication,' said Falcon, ideas occurring to him all the time. 'The reason we need proof that whoever we're talking to is holding Dario, is that they could both say that they're holding him.'
'So far I've only been contacted by one group,' said Consuelo. 'And they used an email address that is strictly for friends and family.'
'You think only Dario could have given them that address?' asked Falcon. 'Do you have any protection on that computer? It's a family PC. You probably don't even need a password to use it. Anybody could have found that out.'
'All right,' said Consuelo, thinking desperately. 'There's been no media coverage yet, so only the group that's performed the abduction will know about it.'
'That's in the perfect world,' said Falcon, 'but these mafia groups have connections everywhere. The corruption is deep. They've penetrated the Guardia Civil and it wouldn't surprise me if they had someone in the Jefatura.'
'So they would know if you called on other resources, too,' said Consuelo, alarmed.
Falcon nodded, feeling the box they were in getting tighter and darker.
'What… what about their demands?' said Consuelo, the earlier calm beginning to dissipate now that she could sense their isolation.
'The first obstacle is the money,' said Falcon. 'We can't get our hands on the cash. It's already in the Banco de Bilbao and I have no authority over it. That lies with Comisario Elvira, and we don't want him involved in any of this.'
'The Russians probably know that, or have guessed it,' said Consuelo hopefully. 'They probably felt they had to ask for the money, especially that amount of money, or they'd have made the disks look too important. They'll be understanding about the money.'
'They'll have to be,' said Falcon. 'It's not a possibility.'
'If the Russians have their people in the Jefatura, why don't they just lift the disks themselves?'
'No, that's true, we're not exactly a high-security institution,' said Falcon, 'the disks are in a safe in the evidence room, which during office hours is heavily used and manned, especially as the money was kept there until it was moved this afternoon. Only two people have the key and the combination of that safe: Elvira and myself.'
'And there are only the originals in existence?'
'No, there are copies of parts of the disks on the Homicide squad's computer and to access it you'd need not only the passwords to the system, but also the encryption software to unscramble the shots.'
They fell silent again. Falcon focused on the problem. If, as Consuelo's business brain had intuited, I4IT/Horizonte were excluding the Russians from whatever this new deal was, then it could be crucial for the Russians to know that Juan Valverde, Antonio Ramos and Charles Taggart were going to be in Seville tomorrow evening and night.
'You've gone quiet on me again, Javier.'
Falcon reached for his mobile, called Ramirez.
'How did you know that the money from the Lukyanov accident had left the Jefatura?' he asked him.
'Because you'd signed the money into the Jefatura it was technically Homicide squad evidence, so I had to accompany Comisario Elvira to the evidence room and sign it over to him, so that he could sign it over to Prosegur for delivery to the bank,' said Ramirez.
'Was the money in the safe?'
'As much as they could fit in,' said Ramirez. 'There was still one block in the Prosegur box.'
'Did you see inside the safe when Elvira opened it?'
'Sure. We took the money out together.'
'What was left in there?'
'The disks from the car accident.'
'Did you see the safe locked afterwards?'
'Elvira locked it.'
'No other copies of those disks were made?'
'The guy from the Jefatura's IT department came to our office. He took one, sometimes two, images from each piece of footage, which best showed the faces of the participants, and that's all we have on the Homicide computer.'
'What about the images you sent to me which I emailed to the CNI?'
'They were cropped faces only. No visible fucking. If somebody could access your computer, those shots wouldn't be much use to them,' said Ramirez. 'What's bothering you?'
'Just making sure,' said Falcon. 'How did you and Perez get on with El Pulmon's car?'
'His bloody fingerprints were all over it and there was a bloody T-shirt on the back seat. All blood samples in the car correspond to the Cuban, Miguel Estevez,' said Ramirez. 'That was as far as we got on site. The vehicle's been taken down to the Jefatura so that the forensics can go over it tomorrow.'
Consuelo's mobile, the one she'd used to call the Russians, rang. Falcon glanced at her. She looked at the screen.
'The restaurant,' she said, and took the call.
'Did anybody see El Pulmon leaving the vehicle?' asked Falcon.
'Not leaving the vehicle, but we've found an old guy who saw a man stripped to the waist, with a red stain over his chest and a dark stain on the front of his trousers, running down Calle Heroes de Toledo towards the centre of town.'
'Work on it, Jose Luis,' said Falcon. 'We need El Pulmon.'
'I've got Serrano and Baena on it. They were getting nowhere with the Narcs. I think this is a better bet. They'll be at it tomorrow morning, first thing.'
Falcon hung up. Consuelo finished her call.
'That's not the mobile that Inspector Jefe Tirado is supposed to be recording?'
'It's the one I used to call the Russians.'
'Was that them?'
'I gave the number to my restaurant manager before I came out.'
'Haven't you got your regular mobile with you?'
'The Russians aren't going to call me on that one. I left it at home.'
'Who knows you're here?'
'Nobody.'
'What about the people in your house?'
'They think I'm in bed,' said Consuelo. 'I went into my neighbour's garden, out through the front and took a cab here.'
'You don't trust the good guys any more?'
'I can't,' she said, looking desperate.
'All right,' said Falcon, holding his hands up to keep her calm. 'What did your restaurant manager want?'
'Somebody came in off the street a few minutes ago, gave one of the waiters an envelope and said he was to make sure that it was given to me tonight.'
20
Consuelo Jimenez's restaurant, La Macarena, Seville – Monday, 18th September 2006, 23.25 hrs
The envelope lay on Consuelo's desk. She locked the door to her office and booted up the computer while Falcon put on latex gloves. The envelope was a jiffy bag with SRA JIMENEZ written on it in black felt-tip pen. Inside was a white envelope with the flap folded in, not stuck down. On a piece of white card was written: TO SPEAK TO DARiO CALL 655926109. He held it up to Consuelo, who had now accessed her home email account and opened the
