'Detail about the bomb making is what I'm after,' said Falcon. 'It might have been sewn into a jacket lining or in a wallet.'
'We've still got plenty of work to do to get into the mosque. We got to the fireproof box early, because it happened to have been blown upwards in the blast,' he said. 'We're working our way downwards now, but it's piece-by-piece work, with everything having to be documented as we go. Tomorrow morning will be the earliest that we'll get into the main body of the mosque.'
'I just wanted you to know that we're still looking for another piece in the jigsaw,' said Falcon. 'It could be in code, numbers or Arabic script.'
There were ten people working outside under the lights. It was similar to an archaeological dig, with a plan of the mosque under a reference grid on a table where each find was logged. The forensics were barely thirty centimetres below ground level. The stink of putrefaction was still heavy in the warm air. They worked in silence and low murmurs. It was hard, gruesome work. Falcon put a call through to Mark Flowers and asked for a meeting.
'Sure, where are you?'
'I'm at the bombsite now but I was thinking a good place to meet would be the apartment of Imam Abdelkrim Benaboura,' said Falcon. 'You know where that is, don't you, Mark?'
Flowers didn't respond to the sarcasm. Falcon walked to the Imam's apartment, which was in a block nearby, similar to the one that had been destroyed. There was a permanent police guard on the door. Falcon showed his ID and the guard said that he did not have the authority to allow him to enter.
'You know who I am?' said Falcon.
'Yes, Inspector Jefe, but you're not on my list.'
'Can I see your list?'
'Sorry, sir. That's classified.' The guard's mobile rang and he took the call, listening intently.
'He's already here,' he said, and hung up.
He unlocked the door and let Falcon in.
The CNI men had not been exaggerating about the quantity of books in the apartment. The living and dining rooms were lined with books, and the bedroom floors were stacked with them. They covered all areas of human knowledge and were mostly in French and English, although there was a whole room given over to Arabic texts. The back room should have been the master bedroom but was the Imam's study, with just a single bed at one end and his desk at the other. The walls were covered in books. Falcon sat at the desk in a wooden swivel chair. He looked through the drawers, which were empty. He swivelled in the chair and reached for a book on the nearest shelf. It was called Riemann's Zeta Function. He put it back without troubling to open it.
'He'd read them all,' said Flowers, standing at the door. 'Pretty amazing to think of all this knowledge in one guy's head. We had a few people in Langley with this kind of reading behind them, but not many.'
'How long had you known him?' said Falcon.
'Assuming that he's dead.'
'I'm sure he's dead,' said Flowers. 'We met in Afghanistan in 1982. He was a kid then, but he was one of the few mujahedeen who spoke English, because, although he was born in Algeria, he went to school in Egypt. We were supplying them with weapons and tactics to fight the Russians. He appreciated what we did for them; helping to keep those atheistic communists out of the land of Allah. As you know, not many of the others did. Isn't there a saying about helping people being the quickest road to resentment?'
'And you kept in touch all this time?'
'There have been breaks, as you'd expect. I lost track of him in the 1990s and then we resumed contact in 2002. I dug him out on one of my foraging trips to Tunis. He never bought into the Taliban and all that Wahhabi stuff. As you probably gathered, he was a bright guy and he couldn't find an interpretation of any line of the Koran that approved of suicide bombing. He was one of them, but he saw things very clearly.'
'And you didn't think to tell one of your new spies, who was investigating-'
'Hey, look, Javier, you had the information from day one. Juan told you he didn't have clearance for his history and that the Americans had vouched for him on his visa application. What more do you want? His CV? Don't expect to be spoon-fed in this game,' said Flowers. 'I can't have it released into the public domain that I was running an Imam as a spy in a local mosque in Seville.'
'And that's why we didn't get in here,' said Falcon, 'and why we didn't get access to his phone records?'
'I had to make sure the place was clear of anything that might implicate him in CIA work. That meant going through all these books,' said Flowers. 'And I'm not irresponsible. I made sure the CNI checked out the electrician's number.'
'All right, I accept that. I should have been a bit more…aware,' said Falcon. 'Did Benaboura tell you about Hammad and Saoudi?'
'No, he didn't.'
'That must have hurt.'
'You don't understand the pressure on these people,' said Flowers. 'He gave me plenty of useful information, names, movements, all sorts of stuff, but he didn't tell me about Hammad and Saoudi because he couldn't.'
'You mean he couldn't risk telling you about them, and you then acting on the information, with the result that all fingers would be pointing at Abdelkrim Benaboura?'
'You're learning, Javier.'
'Did he know about Miguel Botin?'
'Benaboura was an experienced guy.'
'I see,' said Falcon, thinking that through. 'So he decided that Miguel Botin was an acceptable route for the information about Hammad and Saoudi to come out, which was why he used the electricians Botin put forward.'
'He read that situation very clearly. He understood why the fake council inspectors came in, he appreciated the fuse box blowing and the 'right' electrician being put in his hand,' said Flowers. 'What he didn't expect was for the electricians to plant a bomb, as well as a microphone.'
'There was a microphone?'
'Of course, he had to find out where it was so that he could have his conversations there,' said Flowers. 'They put it in the plug socket in his office.'
'I wonder if that was in use and who was listening to it?' said Falcon. 'What did the CNI have to say about it?'
'It was supposed to be the CGI who planted it,' said Flowers. 'Botin was working for Gamero, who was with the CGI, and I never spoke to them about it because I was told that there was a security problem in their ranks.'
'What about the extra socket Benaboura had installed in the storeroom?'
'That was probably a request from Hammad and Saoudi,' said Flowers. 'He never spoke to me about it.'
'So you didn't know about the hexogen either?'
'It would have all come out when Benaboura was ready for it to come out.'
'Did he pick up on the surveillance?'
'In the apartment across the street?' said Flowers. 'He was so amazed at how unprofessional it was he'd begun to think it wasn't surveillance.'
'Did you talk to somebody about that on his behalf?'
'I asked Juan and he said it wasn't anything to do with them and he nosed around the CGI for me and said they weren't involved either. I had a look in the apartment myself one evening and it was empty. No equipment. I didn't bother with it any more after that.'
'You're uncharacteristically allowing me to ask a lot of questions.'
'It's all old news.'
'You don't seem bothered by the fact that Botin's electricians put a bomb in the mosque.'
'Oh, I'm bothered, Javier. I'm very bothered by that. I've lost one of my best agents.'
'Do you buy the CNI's story?'
'That Botin was a double?' said Flowers. 'That the Islamic terrorists he was working for knew about Benaboura and wanted to get rid of him?'
'And Hammad and Saoudi.'
'That's bullshit,' said Flowers, bitterly. 'But I'm not thinking about that now. It's your job to rummage in the
