The Hidden Assassins. Robert Thomas Wilson
Around the front of the building, on Calle Los Romeros, a change of clothes had arrived from the Jefatura for Falcón. The rest of the homicide squad were busy working with the local police, identifying vehicles and their owners. Comisario Elvira had turned up in full uniform and was being given a tour of the site by the Fire Chief. As he moved around, his assistant called all the team leaders involved in the operation to a meeting in one of the classrooms in the pre-school. As the entourage headed for the pre-school a woman approached Elvira and gave him a list with twelve names on it.
‘And who are these people?’ asked Elvira.
‘They are the names of all the men in the mosque at the time of the explosion not including the Imam, Abdelkrim Benaboura,’ she said. ‘My name is Esperanza. I’m Spanish. My partner, who is also Spanish, was in the mosque. I represent the wives, mothers and girlfriends of these men. We are in hiding. The women, especially the Moroccan women, are scared that people may think that their husbands and sons were in some way responsible for what has happened. There’s a mobile number on the back of the list. We would ask you to call us when you have some news of their…of anything.’
She moved away, and the pressure of time and lack of personnel meant that Elvira let her go unfollowed. Calderón made his way through the crowd to Falcón.
‘I didn’t realize it was you, Javier,’ he said, shaking him by the hand. ‘How did you get into that state?’
‘I had to stop someone from throwing himself into the wreckage to rescue his wife and daughter.’
‘So, this is the big one,’ said Calderón, not bothering to engage with what Falcón had said. ‘It’s finally happened to us.’
They continued to the school, where the police, judges, fire brigade, bomb squad, rescue services, trauma units, medical services and demolition gangs were all represented. Elvira made it clear that nobody was allowed to say a word until he had delivered the plan of action. To focus their attention he asked the leader of the bomb squad to give a brief report on the initial analyses of fragments from the blast. They showed that the apartment block had been devastated by a bomb of extraordinary power, most probably situated in the basement of that section of the building, and whose explosive was probably of military, rather than commercial, quality. This expert opinion silenced the assembled company completely and Elvira was able to hammer out a coordinated plan in about forty minutes.
At the end of the meeting Ramírez headed Falcón off as he was making for the latrines to change his clothes.
‘We’ve got something,’ he said.
‘Talk me through it while I change.’
As soon as he was dressed, Falcón found Comisario Elvira and Juez Calderón, and asked Ramírez to repeat what he’d just told him.
‘In the immediate vicinity of the building, excluding vehicles buried in the rubble, we’ve found three stolen cars plus this van,’ said Ramírez. ‘It’s parked right outside the pre-school here. It’s a Peugeot Partner, registered in Madrid. There’s a copy of the Koran on the front seat. We can’t see in the back because it’s a closed van and the rear windows have been shattered, but the owner of the vehicle is a man called Mohammed Soumaya.’
Seville—Tuesday, 6th June 2006, 11.35 hrs
The car park was directly behind the destroyed building and next to the pre-school. There were some trees, which provided a canopy to a sitting area near Calle Blanca Paloma on one side and a five-storey apartment block on the other. There was only one access road to the car park. While Calderón, Elvira, Falcón and Ramírez made for the Peugeot Partner, Elvira’s assistant logged on to the police terror suspects list and entered Mohammed Soumaya’s details. He was in the lowest risk category, which meant that he had no known connections to any body, organization or persons with either terror or radical Islamic background. The only reason he was on the list was that he fitted the most basic terrorist profile: under forty years of age, a devout Muslim and single. Elvira’s assistant entered the names from the list of all the men in the mosque at the time of the explosion, which had been given by the Spanish woman, Esperanza. There was no Mohammed Soumaya among them. He patched the names through to the CNI—the Spanish intelligence agency.
Two breakdown vehicles were working in the car park to remove cars whose owners had been identified and screened. Most of these cars had windows smashed and bodywork damage from flying debris. The Peugeot Partner’s two rear windows were opaque with shattered glass and the rear doors were dented. The side windows were clear and the windscreen, which had been facing away from the explosion, was intact. The copy of the Koran, a new Spanish edition, was visible on the front passenger seat. Two forensics in white hooded boiler suits and latex gloves were standing by. There was a discussion about booby traps and a bomb squad team was called over, along with a dog handler. The dog found nothing interesting around the car. The underside and engine compartment were inspected and found clear. The bomb squad man picked the glass out of one of the smashed rear windows and inspected inside. The rear doors were opened and shots taken of the empty interior and its carpeted floor. A fine, crystalline, white powder, which covered an area of about 30 cm by 20 cm, had been spilled on the floor. The excited sniffer dog leapt in and immediately sat down by the powder. One of the forensics took a hand-held vacuum cleaner with a clear plastic flask attached and hoovered up the powder. The flask was removed from the vacuum cleaner, capped and given an evidence number.
The forensics moved round to the front of the car and bagged the new copy of the Koran, whose spine was unbroken. In the glove compartment they found another copy of the Koran. This was a heavily used Spanish translation, with copious notes in the margins; it proved to be exactly the same edition as the one found on the front seat. This was bagged, as were the vehicle documents. Falcón took a note of the ISBN and bar codes of both books. Under the passenger seat was an empty mineral water bottle and a black cotton sack, which contained a carefully folded green-and-white sash whose length was covered in Arabic writing. There was also a black hood with eye and mouth holes.
‘Let’s not get too excited until we’ve had an analysis of that powder in the back,’ said Calderón. ‘His occupation is “shop owner”, it could just as easily be sugar.’
‘Not if my dog sat down next to it,’ said the bomb squad man. ‘He’s never wrong.’
‘We’d better get in touch with Madrid and have someone visit Mohammed Soumaya’s home and business premises,’ said Falcón, and Ramírez moved off to make the call. ‘We want detail about his movements over the last forty-eight hours, as well.’
‘You’re going to have a job on your hands just to find all these people who had a view of this car park, and the front and rear of the destroyed building,’ said Calderón. ‘As the bomb squad guy said, it was a big bomb, which means a lot of explosive arrived here, possibly in small lots and maybe from a number of different suppliers, and at different times.’
‘We’re going to need to know whether the mosque, or any of the people in the mosque, were the subject of surveillance by the CGI’s antiterrorist squad or the CNI’s intelligence agents and, if they were, we’d like that information,’ said Falcón. ‘And, by the way, where are they? I didn’t see anybody from the CGI in that meeting.’
‘The CNI are on their way down here now,’ said Elvira.
‘And the CGI?’ asked Calderón.
‘They’re in lockdown,’ said Elvira, quietly.
‘What does that mean?’ said Calderón.
‘It will be explained to us when the CNI get here,’ said Elvira.
‘How much longer will it be before the fire brigade and the bomb squad can declare all these apartment blocks surrounding the destroyed building safe?’ asked Falcón. ‘At least if people can come back to their homes