The Hidden Assassins

‘Joder,’ he said, remaking his tie, ‘they’re like a pack of jackals.’

‘Ramírez just told me about the explosive.’

‘They keep asking me about that. I haven’t heard anything.’

‘The common name is RDX or hexogen.’

‘Hexogen?’ said Calderón. ‘Wasn’t that what the Chechen rebels used to blow up those apartment blocks in Moscow back in 1999?’

‘The military use it in artillery shells.’

‘I remember there was some scandal about the Chechens using recycled explosives from a government scientific research institute, which had been bought by the mafia, who then sold it to the rebels. Russian military ordnance being used to blow up their own people.’

‘Sounds like a typical Russian scenario.’

‘It’s not going to be easy for you,’ said Calderón. ‘Hexogen can come from anywhere—Russia, a Muslim Chechen terrorist group, an arms dump in Iraq, any Third World country where there’s been a conflict, where ordnance has been left behind. It might even be American, this stuff.’

Falcón’s mobile vibrated. It was Elvira, calling them into a meeting with the Centro Nacional de Inteligencia and the antiterrorist squad of the Comisaría General de Información.

There were three men from the CNI. The boss was a man in his sixties, with white hair and dark eyebrows and a handsome, ex-athlete’s face. He introduced himself only as Juan. His two juniors, Pablo and Gregorio, were younger men, who had the bland appearance of middle managers. In their dark suits they were barely distinguishable, although Pablo had a scar running from his hairline to his left eyebrow. Falcón was uncomfortably aware that Pablo had not taken his eyes off him since he’d walked into the room. He began to wonder whether they’d met before.

There was only one representative from the antiterrorism unit of the CGI. His name was Inspector Jefe Ramón Barros, a short, powerfully built man, with close-cropped grey hair and perfect teeth, which added a sinister element to his brutal and furious demeanour.

Comisario Elvira asked Falcón to give a résumé of his findings so far. He started with the immediate aftermath of the bomb and moved on quickly to the discovery of the Peugeot Partner, its contents, and the times it was seen by witnesses in the car park.

‘We’ve since discovered that the fine white powder taken from the rear of the van is a military explosive known as hexogen, which my colleague, Juez Calderón, has told me was the same type of explosive used by Chechen rebels to blow up two apartment blocks in Moscow in 1999.’

‘You can’t believe everything you read in the newspapers,’ said Juan. ‘There’s considerable doubt now that it was the Chechen rebels. We’re not great believers in conspiracy theories in our own back yard, but when it comes to Russia it seems that anything is possible. There is a natural inclination, after such a catastrophic attack as this, to make comparisons to other terrorist attacks, to look for patterns. What we’ve learnt from the mistakes we made after March 11th is that there are no patterns. It’s the government’s business to quell panic by offering some kind of order to a terrified public. It’s our job to treat every situation as unique. Carry on, Inspector Jefe.’

None of the Sevillanos liked this patronizing little speech and they looked at the CNI man in his expensive loafers, lightweight suit and stiff, heavy, silvery tie and decided that the only thing he’d said that didn’t mark him out as a typical visiting Madrileño was his admission of a mistake.

‘If it wasn’t Chechen rebels, who was it?’ asked Calderón.

‘Not relevant, Juez Calderón,’ said Juan. ‘Proceed, Inspector Jefe.’

‘It might be interesting from the point of view of sources for the hexogen,’ said Calderón, who was not a man to be brushed off easily. ‘We’ve found a van with traces of explosive and Islamic paraphernalia. The Chechens are known to have access to Russian military ordnance and have the sympathy of the Muslim world. In most people’s minds those rebels were responsible for the destruction of the Moscow apartment blocks. If any of these connections have been proven invalid by the intelligence community, then perhaps the Inspector Jefe should know about them now. The source of the explosives will be an important area of his investigation.’

‘His investigation?’ said Juan. ‘Our investigation. This is going to be a concerted effort. The Grupo de Homicidios is not going to crack this case on its own. This hexogen will have been imported. The CNI has the international connections to find out where it came from.’

‘Nevertheless,’ said Calderón, embarking on some of his own pomposity, ‘this is where the investigation begins, and if the Inspector Jefe is about to pursue an avenue of enquiry with incorrect or misleading information, then perhaps he should be told.’

Calderón was aware that this was irrelevant in terms of information for the purposes of the investigation, but he also knew that a demonstration of power was required to put Juan in his place. Calderón was the leading Juez de Instrucción and he was not going to have his authority undermined by an outsider, especially a Madrileño.

‘We cannot be certain,’ said Juan, exasperated by the posturing, ‘but a theory is being given credibility that the Russian Security Service, the FSB, were themselves responsible for the outrage, and that they successfully managed to frame the Chechens. Just prior to the explosion Putin had become director of the FSB. The country was in turmoil and there was the perfect opportunity for a power play. The FSB provoked a war in Chechnya and Dagestan. The prime minister lost his job and Putin took over at the beginning of 1999. The Moscow apartment explosions gave him the opportunity to start a patriotic campaign. He was the fearless leader who would stand up to the rebels. By the beginning of 2000, Putin was acting president of Russia. The hexogen used by the FSB was supposed to have come from a scientific research institute in Lubyanka where the FSB has its headquarters. As you can see, Juez Calderón, my explanation does not help us very much here, but it does illustrate how very quickly the world can become a dangerous and confusing place.’

Silence, while the Sevillanos considered the reverberations of the explosion in their own city to places like Chechnya and Moscow. Falcón continued his briefing about the Peugeot Partner, the two men seen unloading goods for the mosque, the men believed to have been in the mosque at the time of the explosion, and the latest revelations about the owner of the vehicle and his nephew, Trabelsi Amar, who had borrowed it.

‘Anything else?’ asked Juan, while Elvira’s assistant entered the name of Trabelsi Amar into the terrorist suspects database.

‘Just one thing to clear up before I continue with the investigation,’ said Falcón. ‘Did the CNI or the CGI have the mosque under surveillance?’

‘What makes you think that we might have done?’ asked Juan.

Falcón briefed them on the mysterious, well-dressed young men from Informáticalidad, who had frequented the nearby apartment over the past three months.

‘That is not the way we would run a surveillance operation and I’ve never heard of Informáticalidad.’

‘What about the antiterrorism unit, Inspector Jefe Barros?’ asked Elvira.

‘We did not have the mosque under active surveillance,’ said Barros, who seemed to be restraining great anger under preternatural calm. ‘I’ve heard of Informáticalidad. They’re the biggest suppliers of computer software and consumables in Seville. They even supply us.’

‘One final question about the Imam,’ said Falcón. ‘We’re told he arrived here from Tunis in September 2004 and that he is in the lowest risk category for terrorist suspects, but his history required a higher authority for clearance.’

‘His file is incomplete,’ said Juan.

‘What does that mean?’

‘As far as we know, he’s clean,’ said Juan. ‘He has been heard to speak out against the cold-blooded, indiscriminate nature of the Madrid bombings. We understand from his visa application that part of the reason he came to Seville was to attempt a healing of the wounds between the Catholic and Muslim communities. He saw that as his duty. We were only concerned about gaps in his history that we could not fill. These gaps occurred in the 1980s, when a lot of Muslims went to Afghanistan to fight with the mujahedeen against the Russians. Some returned radicalized to their homes in the 1990s and others later became the Taliban. The Imam would have been in his thirties at the time and therefore a prime candidate. In the end, the Americans vouched for him and we allowed him a visa.’

‘So this bomb has killed a potential sympathizer, five men over the age of sixty-five, a man under thirty-five who was in a wheelchair, two Spanish converts and two men in their forties collecting disability benefits, which leaves only two under the age of thirty-five, able-bodied and of North African origin,’ said Elvira. ‘Can the CNI offer a theory as to why this strangely mixed group of people who, we have just been told, were not under active surveillance, should be storing high-quality military explosive and why it should have been detonated?’

Silence. The grinding gears of the machinery outside reached them. The thunder of rubble dropping into empty tippers, the hiss and scream of hydraulics, the low roar of the crane’s unwinding cable, all punctuated by the pneumatic drills’ staccato stabbing, reminded these men of the purpose of their meeting and the disaster that had befallen this city.

‘Trabelsi Amar is not on any terrorist suspect database and he’s an illegal alien,’ said Elvira’s assistant, breaking the silence.

‘Do you believe that explosives could have been stored in the mosque without the knowledge of the Imam?’ asked Calderón.

‘There’s an outside chance that he didn’t recognize what it was,’ said Juan. ‘As you know, hexogen looks like sugar. The trace left on the floor indicates that the packaging wasn’t exactly hermetically sealed. It’s possible that the explosive was in those cardboard boxes, which the Inspector Jefe has told us were seen being unloaded yesterday.’

‘But for the hexogen to actually explode would require a detonator,’ said Falcón. ‘From the way in which they were moving it around it must be a stable product.’

‘It is,’ said Juan.

‘Then that means they must have been working on making bombs and accidentally detonated it,’ said Falcón. ‘I doubt they could be doing that in secret in a mosque of that size, with thirteen other people in it. I haven’t seen the plans, but it can’t be more than ten by twenty metres.’

‘So the Imam is complicit in that scenario,’ said Juan. ‘We’ll have to talk to the Americans about Abdelkrim Benaboura and we’ll find a photo ID and a history for Trabelsi Amar.’

‘If Soumaya is identifying Amar as his nephew, then that doesn’t sound to me like deep terrorist cover. He’s probably got photographs,’ said Falcón. ‘We have to consider the possibility that this van was not being driven by him. It could have been stolen or, for whatever reason, given to another party to transport goods to Seville. Trabelsi Amar’s function could have been simply to provide a van, which would not be reported stolen.’

‘We’ll make sure the CGI in Canillas communicate with the local police in Madrid, who are interviewing Mohammed Soumaya,’ said Juan, which sounded like he was undermining Inspector Jefe Barros, who was still boiling in silence. ‘It’s one of the complications of these terrorist operations that the people we know about are active only in so far as they use up our time and resources. As was the case with March 11th, where none of the operatives were known terrorists or had any links to known radical Islamic organizations. They came out of nowhere to perform their tasks.’

‘But you’re in a better position now than you were then,’ said Elvira.

‘Since 9/11 and the evidence of connections made by Islamic terrorist cell members in Spain…’

‘You mean al-Qaeda members?’ said Elvira.

‘We don’t like to use the name al-Qaeda because it implies an organization with a hierarchy along Western lines. This is not the case,’ said Juan. ‘It’s useful for the media to have this name to hang on Islamic terrorism, but we don’t use it in the service. We have to remind ourselves not to be complacent. As I was saying: since 9/11 and the evidence of connections made by Islamic terrorist cell members in Spain with the perpetrators of the Twin Towers and Washington DC attacks, there has been considerable stepping up of activities.’