ritual. Falcon wiped his hand down his face, asked himself: Was anyone completely innocent killed last night? Isabel Sanchez. He shook his head, levered himself up on an elbow, grabbed a phone and clamped it to his ear.
'Diga.'
'Finally,' said Pablo. 'Don't bother to pick up the other one, it's me as well.'
'I had a late night last night, with four murders and two arrests in the space of about one hour. And that doesn't include the suicide on the Huelva road. So I hope you're not going to ask anything complicated of me,' said Falcon. 'I've got a lot on my plate today, probably starting with a very ugly interview with Comisario Elvira.'
'There's no easy way to break this to you, Javier,' said Pablo, 'so I'll tell it to you straight. Yacoub Diouri drove a power boat packed with high explosives into the side of a Saudi royal family vessel called the Princess Bouchra at around eight forty this morning.'
Silence. Falcon blinked.
'The captain and crew abandoned ship and were picked up by a passing dry cargo vessel. The Princess Bouchra went straight to the bottom. We're not sure who was left on board.'
'Are you sure it was Yacoub?'
'We're absolutely positive,' said Pablo.
'How do you know?' asked Falcon. 'This happened less than an hour ago. How can you be so positive?'
'Listen to the news. I just wanted to warn you before you saw it. It's the only story on all channels,' said Pablo. 'We'll talk later when you're in the office.'
Falcon threw off the sheet, sprinted downstairs in his underpants, turned on the television, sat back in his chair.
'The captain and crew have been taken by helicopter to Algeciras where they have been admitted to hospital uninjured, but suffering from shock. The Princess Bouchra sank immediately. It is believed that four members of the Saudi royal family were on board, two with government portfolios and two provincial governors. We are still awaiting confirmation of their names.'
Zap.
'The suicide bomber, who has been named as Yousef Daoudi, is believed to have set off from the coastal town of Mertil, about ten kilometres from the northern Moroccan town of Tetouan.'
Zap.
'The explosion was first reported by the captain of a gas tanker called the Inigo Tapias at eight forty-two. The position was confirmed later by the coastguard just out of the Straits of Gibraltar, about forty-three kilometres due east of La Linea. It is believed that there were no survivors.'
Encarnacion, his housekeeper, appeared at the door of his study.
'What's going on, Javier?'
'Just trying to get some news.'
'The ship that blew up off the Costa del Sol?' said Encarnacion, crossing herself. 'They said on Ondacero that it was al-Qaeda.'
That gave him the idea to try the Al Jazeera channel. Encarnacion handed him the post she'd picked up by the front door.
'A crew member of the dry cargo vessel, which picked up the survivors of the Princess Bouchra, said that he saw the power boat take aim at the luxury cruiser and hit her amidships. There was an explosion, a massive ball of flame and the Princess Bouchra broke in two and sank immediately. We are still trying to get confirmation who was aboard the vessel. It is believed that there were six members of the Saudi royal family, who were travelling from Tangier to Marbella. A Moroccan-based terrorist organization called the GICM – the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group – have claimed responsibility. They have named the assassin as Yacoub Diouri, who we understand is owner and director of a clothes manufacturing company based in Sale, near Rabat in Morocco. And here to talk to us about these developments is -'
Falcon turned off the television, let the remote drop to the floor. The mail Encarnacion had given him scattered across the tiles. He leaned forward, elbows on knees, head viced in his hands, trying to force some logic into his stunned brain cells. If last night had gone badly, this was disaster on an epic scale. He felt hollow, black and hideously cold inside.
Grief and the horrific repercussions of Yacoub's act fought for supremacy in his mind as he stared into the clay tiles and noticed a hotel envelope on the floor: the Vista del Mar in Marbella, with his address in Yacoub's handwriting. He picked it up, it was stamped with yesterday's date. Marbella 19 September 2006 Dear Javier, By the time you open this you will already have been told about what happened last night in the Straits of Gibraltar, or you will at least have seen it on the news. (Al Jazeera is my recommendation for this kind of thing.) Although, because it took place out at sea, there will inevitably be some confusion. The confusion is deliberate and an important part of the plan. But rather than starting with confusion, let me begin at the beginning and hopefully make everything clear for you.
First of all, I am sorry, Javier, that I have lied to you. Abdullah has not been, and now never will be, recruited by the GICM. You will remember what I told you in Madrid about their ruthlessness; I learned about it the hardest way – through practical experience. I also told you that they were nervous of my non-Moroccan half. That was q uite true. They did not completely trust me, not from the very first moment But they wanted access to Faisal. So the first thing that happened was that they declared their intention to recruit Abdullah to the cause. They said he would be proud to join his father in the jihad and they would train him up to be a great mujahideen fighter.
I was not acting when you saw me in Madrid. I was completely horrified at this prospect. It would, of course, have been impossible for me to prevent this from happening without revealing myself as an enemy to their cause. They, having proposed this idea, then did nothing about it, but rather started talking to me about Faisal. They approached the subject as if they already knew Faisal and that he was, if not an active supporter of their cause, then at least an ideological supporter. And to a certain extent that is true, except that Faisal has a much broader mind. Over the weeks this attitude gradually changed and they drew my attention to some of Faisal 's less likeable traits as far as they were concerned. They also started to grill me about his security arrangements when he was travelling.
The threat of Abdullah's conversion was meticulously maintained by a person whose capability to successfully recruit him I did not doubt. The worst of it all was that they infected my mind. From the moment they first mentioned his recruitment I started watching Abdullah, looking for changes, checking his computer, his friends, where he went They made me spy on my own son.
I had already told them that Faisal's security arrangements were impregnable. Nobody was allowed to see him without being searched. This was not q uite true. I was never searched, but his security detail watched me, checked my movements, made sure I was clean even before I got to see him. But I didn't want the GICM to think that they had any chance of getting someone close to Faisal. That would be an unpredictable situation. This was when the marine navigation training started. They were clever. They trained three of us at the same time. None of us was given any clue of the mission.
I was getting increasingly nervous. The pressure on me has been enormous. I told Faisal everything. Sorry, Javier, but he was the target, after all, and, as you so rightly said, you had no experience in these matters. He could have saved himself a lot of trouble by just getting rid of me, but he feared for my safety and, of course, Abdullah's future. He was that sort of man. Our only resort was to counteract the GICM plan by hatching our own.
I told the GICM of Faisal's travel arrangements, which included his annual trip from Tangier to Marbella. They already knew about this, which was the reason for the marine navigation training. Then I struck the deal with my closest contact in the GICM. I volunteered to ram the Princess Bouchra and in return he would guarantee that Abdullah would never be recruited to the cause. I explained that it was not a life I wanted for him. It was q uickly apparent that this had been their aim all along.
I won't bore you with all the details about how we planned to get Faisal and his fellow royals on to the boat and then off it again in Tangier. Suffice to say that the idea was to create a big confusion with lots of people and in the end the Princess Bouchra would set sail with the captain and a slightly larger crew of highly trained marines on board. The ship, by the way, was fifteen years old and in need of a complete refit. They were going to trade her in for a new one, but now the insurance will take care of that. The Saudis will delay their press release about those on board for at least twenty-four hours. You'll understand why later.
In the original plan I was going to jump from the boat before the fatal collision, but only James Bond can get away with that sort of thing and anyway I would have been condemned to a life without my family, living in secret
