'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 Falcon. '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. Falcon's mobile vibrated. His brother, Paco.
'El Pulmon,' 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 Serrania de Ronda.'
Falcon took down the address, hung up, began to plan his afternoon.
'Where's Ramirez?' 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 Pulmon.'
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 Falcon, 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 Falcon. '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 Falcon. '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 Falcon. '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 Calderon'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 Falcon. '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 Falcon, 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 Senor 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 Serrania de Ronda – Tuesday, 19th September 2006, 14.30 hours
They took two cars. Falcon, Ramirez and Ferrera in the lead car, Serrano and Baena behind. Only Perez was left in Seville, still working on the murders in Las Tres Mil and Carlos Puerta's suicide. Falcon was anxious about taking all his men off their various cases, but El Pulmon 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.
Falcon 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 Nervion 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 Ramirez 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.
'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 Falcon. '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 Ramirez.
'And we can't mount an official operation at La Berenjena either,' said Falcon. '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 Ramirez.
'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 Falcon. '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
