The Ignorance of Blood (44 page)

‘He
knows
you
,’ said Pablo. ‘But the fact is, you are not concentrating on Yacoub. Your attention has been diverted. Am I right? I think I am.’

Since London, last Saturday, the only time he'd thought about Yacoub was as he drove Consuelo back to her house early this afternoon, when it finally occurred to him what the phrase ‘you will recognize it’ might mean. In the landscape of his mind over the last seventy-two hours the foreground had changed but the background had been constant. Whenever the foreground lapsed, Darío sprang immediately to mind.

‘You're right,’ said Falcón. ‘And now it's changed. The pressure is off Yacoub.’

‘Is it?’ said Pablo, to himself again. ‘Has it changed?’

‘Abdullah is in London having a great time. Yacoub is at a fashion show in Marbella.’

‘He was calm, you said.’

‘Completely.’

‘Why do people who've been very anxious suddenly become calm?’

‘Because what was making Yacoub anxious is no longer imminent,’ said Falcón.

‘But it also happens to people when they've been decisive,’ said Pablo. ‘When they've finally made up their mind.’

Falcón's mobile vibrated on the desktop, creeping towards him with each ring tone. He took the call.

‘There were only two men on the private jet which just landed,’ said Ramírez. ‘Our old friends from the disks: Juan Valverde and Antonio Ramos. But no sign of the American consultant, Charles Taggart. We're following their Mercedes back into town now.’

‘Any movement on Alejandro Spinola?’

‘He's already arrived at the town planning office,’ said Ramírez. ‘And I presume that's where we're heading.’

‘I'll be there in ten minutes,’ said Falcón, and hung up.

Pablo had lapsed into silence and was hunched over, thinking with a frightening intensity.

‘I've got to go, Pablo,’ said Falcón, ‘but I need some help from you.’

‘What help?’

‘I might want to send some shots through of people we need to identify.’

Pablo scribbled an email address on a scrap of paper.

‘I'll call them, make sure it's OK.’

‘Thanks, I'll see you later,’ said Falcón.

‘It's not finished, Javier. I know it's not finished. You have to tell me.’

Falcón came right up to the brink and got into a struggle with his old self: the conservative, duty-bound, by-the-book Inspector Jefe. All he had to do was say the word ‘Saudi’ and it would all be over. He knew who would win. There had never been any doubt in his mind. It was just a small test he'd set himself.

‘There's nothing to tell,’ he said, and left the office.

26

Seville airport – Tuesday, 19th September 2006, 19.15 hrs

The large black Mercedes containing the men identified by Ramírez as Juan Valverde, boss of I4IT Europe, and Antonio Ramos, the Chief Engineer of Horizonte, drove directly from the airport to the Isla de la Cartuja. Lying across the river from the old city, this was where the Expo '92 had taken place. It had now been transformed into an area of prime commercial real estate. The car waited at the heliport, where it was joined by another Mercedes. The two drivers got out, smoked and chatted. Four minutes later a helicopter's faint rhythmical beating could be heard coming from the south. The clatter of blades grew louder and the drivers turned their faces as the helicopter swept in, dipped momentarily and, amid a violent thrashing and rucking up of dust, settled its runners delicately on the painted yellow H.

As the blades came to rest, an employee from the heliport trotted up and opened the door to the helicopter. Two men got out: one was a corporate Spaniard in a light grey suit, white shirt, blue tie; the other clearly American in jeans, a blue button-down shirt with a light sports jacket folded over his arm. In the thirty-metre walk to the cars,
Ramírez got four good close-ups of both men with his digital camera.

The two men got out of the Mercedes, shook hands with the new arrivals, who had an air of seniority about them. They accompanied them to the second Mercedes. The heliport employee handed over a couple of suit carriers and two small cabin cases to the driver, who had the door to the car already open. The two men got in. Juan Valverde and Antonio Ramos returned to their Mercedes. The drivers got behind their steering wheels. The cars took off.

While Ramírez drove, Ferrera sat in the back and downloaded the images from the camera on to her laptop. The men's faces meant nothing to her. When they came into the wi-fi area near the town-planning management offices she sent the shots and her mobile number to the email address that Falcón had phoned through some minutes ago. Ramírez pulled up outside the town planning office on Avenida Carlos III, just next to the heliport, picked up Falcón, who got into the passenger seat. Ferrera handed him the laptop with an image of the two men. He shook his head.

They looked out at the two Mercedes. Nobody moved until the double doors of the town planning office opened and Alejandro Spinola led three people out. The first was the mayor, who was followed by a man and a woman.

‘She's the head of Agesa, the company responsible for the Isla de la Cartuja,’ said Ferrera. ‘He's the head of town planning.’

Everybody got out of their cars. There were warm, insincere greetings all round. The unknown American smiled with perfect teeth and treasured any hand offered to him in both of his. He didn't seem to have any trouble speaking Spanish. After a few minutes they dispersed to their cars and the mayor's Mercedes joined the convoy which headed down Calle Francisco de Montesinos.

The cars pulled up at the Spanish Discoveries Pavilion
from the Expo '92 site. The group gathered in front of the building, walked around it, and then down to the river, going as far as the Puente de la Cartuja. The cars met them again outside the Monasterio de Santa María de las Cuevas, picked them all up and drove into the secure, fenced-off area of the business park. They arrived at a vacant lot in a prime location. Again the group gathered and walked around.

‘What do you think they're doing?’ asked Ferrera. ‘There's nothing to see. It's like some Papal delegation come to bless the site.’

‘More like corporate jackals come to spray their territory,’ said Ramírez.

‘I've read something about the pavilion, that they want to convert it into a museum and build apartments down by the river,’ said Falcón. ‘And my sister, who knows everything there is to know about property in Seville, told me that the site we're looking at now is the prime piece of real estate on the Isla de la Cartuja and is reserved for a bank to build a twenty-storey office building on it.’

The cars left the secure business park and crossed the Camino de los Descubrimientos and pulled up next to the Pavilion of the Future. The delegation got out and walked the full length of the pavilion, heading away from the Isla Mágica amusement park towards the Auditorium. On the way back they cut through into some parkland on the other side. At this point there was much arm-spreading and genuine excitement at the prospect of superb views of the river.

‘This is where they're going to make a lot of money,’ said Ramírez.

‘All this belongs to the Isla Mágica amusement park, but they don't use it,’ said Falcón. ‘There's been talk for years of making this into an area for offices, shops and hotels.’

‘Well, they've just given us a tour of the biggest building
project to happen in Seville in the last fifteen years,’ said Ramírez.

The sun had set by the time the delegation went back to their cars. Detective Serrano followed Spinola and the mayor. Ramírez stuck with the two Mercedes containing the members of the I4IT/Horizonte consortium. Within minutes the two Mercedes had crossed the flood plain heading out of Seville and were on the road towards Huelva. Ferrera took a call on her mobile.

‘Serrano says the mayor's delegation has split up back at the town planning office.’

‘He should stick with Spinola and he can tell Pérez to go home.’

Twenty minutes later the two Mercedes pulled up at the gate to the Hotel La Berenjena, whose emerald, sprinkler-kissed lawns stuck out in the brown, sunburnt countryside. Ramírez glided past, turned round in a petrol station a hundred metres further on.

‘Give them a quarter of an hour to settle and we'll go and introduce ourselves to the manager,’ said Falcón.

Another call for Ferrera. She listened, jotted things down, hung up.

‘That was the CNI. They've confirmed the ID of the helicopter occupants. The Spanish businessman in the grey suit is Alfredo Manzanares, the new Chief Executive Officer of the Banco Omni. The American is Cortland Fallenbach, one of the co-owners of I4IT in the USA. They also thought we'd like to know that it was announced just an hour ago that the Banco Omni have acquired a controlling stake in the Banco Mediterraneo, which has five million customers and will be transferring its headquarters to a site in Seville in 2009.’

‘Fucking hell,’ said Ramírez. ‘This really is coming together. When Lucrecio Arenas and César Benito were alive they must have promised the Russians a slice of this
construction project in return for their dirty work on the Seville bombing.’

‘That was probably just part of it,’ said Falcón. ‘Yuri Donstov was gearing up: Lukyanov was being brought in to run the girls, another guy to run casinos, while Donstov himself already controlled the drugs. And Sokolov would be running the protection rackets for the shops and restaurants. They were preparing to claim the Russians' reward for providing the violence in the Seville bombing which was a large slice of the income from tourists' “recreational activity”. And if the right political party had taken power, it probably wouldn't just be Seville but the whole of Andalucía. Can you imagine how much money would be involved in running gambling, prostitution, drugs and protection throughout the whole of the Andalucían tourist industry?’

‘So the Russians are very disappointed that their partners are
not
in control of the Andalucían state parliament,’ said Ramírez. ‘But what are they hoping to get out of this situation here? Lucrecio Arenas and César Benito, the people they had agreements with, are dead, and we reckon the Russians themselves were their executioners. Now we've seen the projects that the Banco Omni and Horizonte have got on the Isla de la Cartuja, we know they're legitimate. They have to be. The press will be all over them. After the public relations disaster that Lucrecio Arenas dragged them through, Banco Omni are going to make sure everything is whiter than white. Horizonte might have had to pay some backhanders to get the work, but that's no different to anywhere in the world. How are these Russians hoping to fit themselves in?’

‘Blackmail. I think that's a fairly standard mafia ploy,’ said Falcón. ‘Here we are, a few hours before the signing ceremony, and some big guys pay you a visit in your hotel room, show you a DVD of yourself having sex and taking drugs,
and say: “This is the subcontracting agreement you're going to sign or we'll spoil your show, maybe worse.”’

‘How do you think Alejandro Spinola is involved?’ asked Ferrera.

‘I know he introduced Marisa Moreno to Esteban Calderón and that connection was an important element in the Seville bombing conspiracy,’ said Falcón. ‘I'm sure he was put up to that by the Russians. As far as this building project goes, he's in a unique position, working for the mayor, to be able to give the Russians or Horizonte valuable inside information.’

‘We don't have any proof that Spinola was a friend of Arenas and Benito,’ said Ramírez, ‘but he clearly knows Juan Valverde and Antonio Ramos.’

‘Hopefully tonight we'll prove that he's the link between the Russians and the I4IT/Horizonte consortium,’ said Falcón. ‘But you'll notice that there are two important people missing from all this dodgy dealing.’

‘Alfredo Manzanares from Banco Omni and Cortland Fallenbach, the owner of I4IT,’ said Ferrera.

‘And one of the projects in the contract is the construction of Banco Omni's high-rise – presumably with Banco Omni's money,’ said Ramírez.

‘Manzanares will want everything above board,’ said Falcón. ‘Which is where it will probably all go wrong for Spinola, and therefore the Russians, which could result in violence.’

‘Or spoiling the show,’ said Ferrera.

‘I don't want to repeat myself,’ said Ramírez, worried, ‘but we could really use some back-up for this operation.’

‘Let's look at the security arrangements when we get there,’ said Falcón. ‘And we have to remember, José Luis, it's quite possible that nothing will happen at all.’

They checked their watches. Ramírez pulled out of the petrol station and drove back to the hotel entrance. Falcón phoned
ahead. The gates opened as they arrived and they drove up to a large señorial house. A bell boy told them where they could park the car out of sight. They got out, stretched their legs. Expensive cooking smells wafted out of the kitchens. The bell boy took them through the kitchens and into the manager's office behind the reception area.

The hotel manager was with his head of security. They laid out a plan of the hotel. The main building had a large patio in its centre around which was the reception area, a restaurant with three private dining rooms, a set of toilets, a conference room, a cinema with another set of toilets, two shops, one for perfume, the other for jewellery, an art gallery with a further set of toilets and the main security office. In the grounds were the nine suites and the presidential suite. Each suite was a flat-roofed bungalow with a large bedroom and bathroom, a living room with dining facilities, a sauna and mini-gym. Outside each suite was a car port, a private terrace and a small swimming pool. There was another larger swimming pool in the
palmerie
, which was the centrepiece of the garden. On the other side of that was the presidential suite, which was a two-bedroomed house with bathrooms, dining room, living room, kitchen and full staff. Outside it had its own gym, sauna, hot tub, swimming pool, terrace and bar.