Barcelona 03 - The Sound of One Hand Killing (17 page)

I felt the pistol's cold barrel against my temple and started to shake. Borja flushed a bright red, and his eyes bulged out of their sockets as he struggled to get free of the men pinning his arms down. They were too strong for him and all his efforts were futile.

“Let me go, you shits!” cried Borja. “If you harm my brother I will kill you! Get that? I will kill you!”

“
Si
us
plau
, please…” I begged. “
Tengo mujer e hijos
… Wife. Children…” I added, trying to remember the words I knew in English.

“Bye, bye,
amigo
!” said the guy holding a pistol to my head.

“No!” shouted Borja.

The guy held the gun steady. His hand began to move and I knew he was about to shoot. I closed my eyes, realizing my pleas were to no avail, and suddenly Borja stopped shouting and the curses of my executioner faded, as if the world had suddenly hit the silent mode key. Images began to churn through my brain: the first time I held Arnau in my arms, the day the twins were born, the first kiss I gave Montse in that pumpkin-coloured 2CV, and Pep and me paddling on the beach with my father while my mother shouted and waved to us from under the sunshade to come and have lunch. My mother's face was all smiles and freckles, an eternally young thirty-something because the car accident meant she and Father would never grow old. Turning points in my life.

I felt someone trying to free my hands and the sound returning. I opened my eyes. There were shouts and shots outside, and the man aiming his pistol at me had gone.
Borja was the only person in the room and he was trying to cut the string tying my hands to the chair with a small, blunt knife.

“Are you all right, Eduard? Are you all right?” he repeated. By the time I managed to say “yes”, he added, “Almost there. We've got to scarper and fast!”

“What on earth has happened?”

“I don't know. Some men ran into the warehouse, those guys left the room and started a right shindig!”

“Are those shots?”

“Yes, they are. We should beat it quick. Follow me! I know where there's an exit!”

As soon as I got up from the chair, I felt my legs were still responding even though I'd been sitting in that same position for hours. I followed Borja and could see my prison was inside a big warehouse that was in complete darkness. There was a smell of gunpowder in the air.

“This way!” whispered Borja. “I know a place where we can get out of here!”

We saw two of our kidnappers lying in pools of blood on the ground, but didn't stop to find out whether they were dead. I could still hear shouting and shooting. The hangar we'd entered was full of strange objects, the pitch black hindered our escape operation and it was easy to stumble over. We decided to crawl over the ground, to dodge the bullets and avoid being spotted, and we reached a corner where a small door was concealed behind some boxes. It wasn't locked and Borja opened it. The sunlight was dazzling.

“What the hell!…” I exclaimed in astonishment.

The door led to a street that was very familiar. We weren't in remote China, but in Poblenou, in the small area that had been refurbished for the Olympic Games and where old hangars and warehouses had survived.

“We're in Barcelona!” I shouted, tears in my eyes and jumping for joy. “Pep. We're in Barcelona! In Barcelona!”

“We'd better clear off,” he said, looking both ways and walking on. “There are two cop cars over there and I'm sure more are on their way.”

“We're in Barcelona!” I whooped.

“Yes, lad, we're in Barcelona. And we are still alive and kicking!” he added with a smile.

It was four p.m. After all that sweat, I calculated we'd been kidnapped for just four hours. Borja and I started walking briskly through Poblenou to get away from the
mossos
and, luckily, we hit on a very busy street. My brother suggested we took a taxi and that I should shower and clean up in his flat before going home: I looked dreadful, or so he said. In fact, we were both in a bad state. We were exactly what we looked like: a couple of dirty, dishevelled and bruised fugitives. Borja told the cab driver to park in front of a Chinese restaurant and, while I waited in the taxi, he got out to buy some lunch (ironically, we both fancied fodder from the Orient) because we were hungry. I phoned Montse to make sure everything was all right at home.

“Everything is OK here. Why shouldn't it be?” she asked, disconcerted.

We reached Borja's flat without further mishap. We showered and my brother let me have a clean shirt that was big on him, but I couldn't change my trousers because all of his were too small. As soon as he was out of the shower, Borja put an ice pack on his nose, which was swollen, though not broken, and on his eye, which had started to turn purple; his jaw had also been punched hard. As his face was hurting a lot, he took a painkiller. My whole body ached, so I followed suit.

While we had lunch and waited for the paracetamol to take effect, we switched on the TV to see if they were reporting the shoot-out we'd seen with our own eyes. And, it turned out, the TV3 twenty-four-hour news service was reporting the news that the
mossos
had arrested a dangerous gang of mafiosi comprising ex-members of the disbanded security forces of the former Soviet Union that they'd been tracking for some time. The criminals had resisted and opened fire on the police, and only two mafiosi were in hospital because the other three members of the gang had died in the shoot-out. Two
mossos
had been wounded, but none killed.

“I don't get it,” Borja muttered, switching the TV off.

“You sure you've told me everything?”

“I swear I have, Eduard,” he said, sounding distressed. “You know as much as I do.”

I knew he wasn't lying and that he felt guilty he'd involved me in risky business that could have turned out badly for both of us. However, we were too tired to talk or think, and, after lunch, I suggested we ought to stretch out and have a siesta. Borja took the phone off the hook, lowered the shutters and, good brothers that we are, we shared his king-size bed. As we'd drunk cognac for dessert, I fell asleep immediately.

It was eight o'clock when we woke up. I'd slept like a log. Borja was already up and in the dining room, sitting on the sofa, silently contemplating the small statue that was wreaking such havoc in our lives. I sat next to him and took another look at it. The statue's head was twisted to one side, and the muscles on its body, which was human, stood out. Its front legs started off as arms but turned into legs, claw on claw, like a wrestler preparing for a fight. Its eyes were open and its expression was at once determined and tranquil. It was beautiful in a disturbing kind of way.

“It's got a cat's face, don't you think?” Borja asked, training his eyes on it.

“More like a lion. Or a lioness, because it doesn't have a mane. It's got the body of a wrestler. And is very small…”

“Maybe the problem is that its hind legs are missing…” speculated Borja. “I expect those guys got angry because the statue is broken. But I swear it was like that when they handed it over.”

“I don't think so. By the look on the face of the bastard who was the leader of that pack of wild animals I reckon it wasn't what they were after. Remember how he threw it to the other side of the room…”

“Perhaps it's a fake and he could see that…” surmised Borja.

“I'm not so sure,” I responded. “The guy didn't look much like an expert. And I think this item is a genuine antique.”

“The TV news said it was a dangerous gang of Russian mafiosi. They didn't say it was a gang of art thieves.”

“That's what I don't get: since when did the police engage in shoot-outs with art thieves? Maybe with drugs or arms dealers, but not with crooks who thieve or deal in stolen antiques… And I reckon the
mossos
weren't looking for us. I don't think they even knew we'd been kidnapped.”

“You're right. If they'd known, they'd have kept an eye on my flat and would have seen us come in,” argued Borja.

We sat in silence for a while, staring at the statue until finally Borja got up and said, “I don't know about you, but I need a drink.”

“And what are we going to with the statue? Leave it in your flat?”

“No, I'll take it with me. I'll think of something.”

Harry's had just opened. Borja and I sat at the back of the bar and ordered a couple of gin and tonics. The waiter,
who knew us, stared at Borja's battered face but brought our drinks without making a single comment.

“Let's suppose for a moment that the men who grabbed us weren't after the statue,” I said. “What else might they have been looking for?”

“I haven't a clue.” Borja gulped on his gin and tonic and suddenly burst out laughing, “Hey, you do get some bright ideas, don't you? So we were in China…”

“Well, I could see the Great Wall through the window…”

“That was a diorama,” he chuckled. “We were in a film studio.”

“And how was I supposed to know? Remember they put us to sleep for the journey, and, to begin with, you thought we were in China too,” I growled, feeling upset. “By the way, how did you know there was a door that led to that back street and that the
mossos
weren't lying in wait on the other side?”

“I didn't know the police weren't there,” he replied, shrugging his shoulders. “But I knew about that door because I once worked as a film extra for a spell in that studio.”

“You worked as an extra? Do tell me more!” I asked, surprised.

“It was a horror film called
Perfume
and starring Dustin Hoffman. If you remember, they filmed it in Barcelona. I was in the orgy scene at the end.”

“It's news to me… How come you never told me?”

“Well, it's a long story. The truth is we spent hours and hours there and I made friends with one of the production assistants. She showed me that door that was so hidden away that few of the people on the shoot knew about it. We sometimes skived off there for a cigarette.”

“I reckon it saved our bacon!”

“I'm sure it did. But I'd like to know what the hell that was all about.”

The two gin and tonics soon disappeared, and Borja ordered another round.

“And I still don't understand why that woman gave us that mobile phone,” Borja declared after a while.

“Fuck, Borja! Suppose they were after the mobile and not the statue?” I'd had a sudden brainwave.

Borja put his hand in his pocket and took out the mobile and a keyring with the one key.

“Did you change your keyring?” I asked.

“No, it's the one Brian gave me.”

“It's only got one key.”

“Obviously, it's the key to his flat. I've already got the key to the front door.”

“The mobile is switched off,” I said, taking the telephone.

“Yes, it needs recharging,” he sighed. “I'll have to find the charger, but if it's got a PIN number, God knows how we'll ever switch it on…”

I put the mobile on the table and stared back at that solitary key.

“Perhaps they were after this key, and not the statue or the phone,” I suggested.

“The key to Brian's flat?” responded Borja incredulously.

“Remember how we didn't understand what they were saying and the Inspector insinuated that Brian was working for the CIA. And I'd remind you that those men were Russian and former members of the KGB. It all fits.”

“But the Cold War finished years ago and the Russians and Americans are friends nowadays,” Borja retorted. “Even though…” he left his sentence hanging in mid-air. “But organizing all those shenanigans for a key hardly makes any sense. They could simply have bust the door open like they did ours.”

“Unless this key opens another door,” I said, taking the keyring and scrutinizing the small key.

It looked like an ordinary key. It didn't even open mortice locks.

“It's a nice keyring,” said Borja. “I think I'll keep it.”

It was elegant, chrome metal and oval shaped. But too big for a single key.

“Hey, what have we here? It looks like a small spring…”

I asked the waiter for a ballpoint pen and tried to force the mechanism. The keyring half opened. There was a pen drive inside.

“Shit!” I shouted.

“What the fuck is that?” asked Borja, frowning.

“It's one of these things you put in your computer to store information. A pen drive. The twins have got one.”

“You mean it's a kind of chip like the ones spies used for hiding info?”

“I suppose so, the modern version. Now I understand!” I said suddenly. “This is what they were after, that's why they got so angry when you gave them the statue. That must have put them out no end.”

“What kind of info do you think it's carrying?” asked Borja.

“I have no idea.”

“Well, we'll have to find out.”

Borja suggested we went to his place and stuck it in the twins' computer to see what came up. We rapidly downed our gin and tonics and went out into the street for a taxi. A quarter of an hour later we were in front of Laia's computer.

“It must be a code, because it makes no sense at all,” I said as I saw what came up on the screen. “It's just letters and figures.”

“Perhaps one of the twins will be able to decipher it,” rejoined Borja.

“Do you think so?”

“It's worth a try.”

“Laia! Aina! Come here for a minute,” I shouted.

“What do you want, Dad?” grumbled Laia. Aina pushed me out of the chair and sat down.

“We don't have the right program to read this document,” she concluded after a while. “And Windows hasn't been able to identify what program it is either. If you want to read it, you'll have to take it to a programmer, or better still, to a hacker.”