The Galician Parallax (42 page)

For a few minutes they reminisced over old times. During the next hour Sergio and Stan told Paddy the purpose of their visit, and, without mincing any words, their plan of action.

‘All we want is for you to make contact with these guys and sew some seeds of doubt about the investigation of a murder in Vigo a few months ago.’

They then briefed him on Don Simmons and a possible drug connection.

Sergio went on. ‘They’ll know what you’re talking about. If you find out what kind of connections they may have in Madrid, great. Any info will be useful, a name, an address, anything. But… don’t push too hard; play it cool and
amigo
… if you think you’re in danger get word to us.’

‘You know your rights,’ added Stan. ‘The prison authorities are obliged to contact me for whatever reason if you request it.’

Sergio smiled. It was a contact angle he hadn’t thought of. An hour later they checked out of the prison, but before they parted company they agreed on their next move.

‘Time for me to report this back to my superior. You’ll need to work out the meeting with Paddy in the next couple of weeks. With a bit of luck he’ll have some answers.’

‘I hope so. By the way, what else have you got up your sleeve?’

Sergio shrugged his shoulders and waved as he wandered towards his motorbike in the car park. Stan’s chauffeur was waiting for him at the exit of the prison building, just another consular routine visit.

Stan managed to arrive back home in time for lunch just as Yolanda had finished feeding the children. Within minutes, the “sandman” had taken over and the kids were well into their siesta time. It was the right moment to relax and wait for the inquisition. Although Yolanda was still busy in the kitchen it wouldn’t take long before the questions started. He sensed it when he first arrived back from the prison. Whilst Stan was away, Yolanda had time to mull over what he’d told her as well as what he was up to. Her initial reactions were positive. She saw no harm in him collaborating with the law, but visiting prisoners without authority was overstepping the mark. She knew the ropes since the days when her father was consul. No sooner had she placed a bowl of cold salad on the dining table than Yolanda came straight to the point.

‘So? How did you get on?’

Stan was uncorking a bottle of red wine whilst nibbling on some olives his wife had placed on the table. ‘These are good.’

‘Stan.’ Her tone was changing. ‘Are you going to talk about it?’

He reached up into a side cupboard for a couple of goblets. ‘This deserves a decent glass.’ He poured a small sample to savour.

‘Stan. Well?’

Still ignoring her but with a sly smile on his face he poured the wine and handed her one of the goblets.

‘Cheers.’

Yolanda’s temper was taking over. Stan knew it and waited for the exact moment prior to a verbal explosion.

‘OK, take it easy.’ He took another sip. ‘Now, sit down.’

Colonel Lobeira was jotting away on a pad as Sergio ranted on about progress so far. Despite hating computers and being forced to use them as a sign of the times, he still preferred using his self-taught shorthand skills when taking notes on vital information concerning a case. As Sergio ended his account of the events with a proviso to check out Paddy Nolan at a later date, the colonel put the pad down and thought for a moment.

‘Involving the consul was a very dangerous move, Lieutenant; you should have consulted me first.’

Sergio suddenly felt a series of nervous flashes darting within his body that slowly turned into a cold creeping sweat beginning to show on his forehead. He wiped it with the back of his sleeve. He felt that once again he’d overstepped his mark. His mind was turning over a whole series of scenarios of international upheavals thanks to his impetuous approach at a criminal investigation. The colonel grinned.

‘Relax. It’ll certainly put Galicia on the map. Bloody Brits will know who we are.’

Before Sergio could react the colonel got up from his desk and walked over to the bookcase on the right-hand side of the office opposite the one facing the exterior HQ gardens. Unlike others, there were few books on the shelves.

‘Do you like reading, Lieutenant?’

Sergio said nothing; dead silence. The colonel browsed along the collection housed in the middle shelf. He paused and pulled out a book.

‘Here you are, read this. It’s old stuff but very relevant.’

He handed him a copy of
The Honorary Consul
by Graham Greene. The colonel was an avid reader of the British novelist and had most of the author’s books that had been translated into Spanish neatly housed together along the shelf.

‘It’s all about a British honorary consul in the north of Argentina that gets into trouble with assassins and other nasty people.’

Sergio took hold of the copy not knowing how to respond.

‘Just make sure Mr Bullock doesn’t end up the same way.’

The colonel didn’t tell Sergio that the one that eventually gets killed is a character trying to help the consul.

Two days had gone by since Stan and Sergio’s visit. Paddy Nolan was still brooding over what had been agreed during their brief interview. His first reaction, after meeting up with the man who saved his life, was of natural joy followed by surprise as soon as he realised that Sergio was a cop. It was not until he returned to his cell that the message sank in and he realised what had been asked of him. Nevertheless, he still felt obliged to cooperate.

Like most inmates, Paddy had formed his own little group, or “pack” as the guards called them, that would walk together during breaks or indulge in social and other prison activities provided by the authorities to keep the prisoners from going berserk. His was a mixture of locals, Europeans and a couple of Brits with medium-term sentences of varying kinds of criminal offences ranging from domestic violence to drug-related crimes. A couple of them, a Dutch youngster and a Spaniard from Cadiz, were internal cocaine peddlers and had contact with the outside world. None had any terrorist connections.
Ghazi and Marzuq, who the hell are they?
he thought.
How do I find them, let alone make contact
? He took a gamble.

On the third day during breakfast time, and after most were seated he got up from his position and approached a couple of prison waiters that were waiting to clear up after the morning meal. He knew that they catered for all the inmates during meal times. He just came out with it.

‘A couple of Algerians are inside for drugs. They were caught in Orense about six months ago, names are Ghazi and Marzuq. Need to talk to them. Can you help?’

The waiters were taken aback and their first thoughts were that Paddy was looking for a “fix”. He’d anticipated it.

‘I’ve got some important news for them from their friends in Madrid and need to pass the message on. That’s all.’ It worked.

Saturday was speech day. Every weekend somebody from one of the many humane societies that had permanent contact with the state prisons would send a volunteer lecturer to speak on a variety of subjects in line with the prison’s commitment to assist the inmates in their path to social recovery and reinsertion into society. The session normally took about an hour and usually ended with a questions and answers discussion. As luck would have it, the speaker this time round was from the Spanish Red Cross and was to talk about the activities of the organisation both national and worldwide. Paddy’s plan was to ask a question about their work so that the Algerians could identify him. He pounced on the idea and told the waiter that he would ask about their activities in Northern Ireland prisons.
Kill two birds with one stone
, he thought.

The following day was church services day. A priest from the village usually offered the service followed by confessionals for those wishing to cleanse their sins. A devout Catholic, Paddy attended the morning mass as usual. As he left the small prison chapel and made his way to the compound for the hourly imposed stroll for all prisoners, no sooner had he met up with some of his gang than two new inmates collared him on either side ushering the others to move on.

In very broken Spanish Ghazi said, ‘We got the message.’

‘They’re investigating the murder of that Englishman in Vigo.’

He waited for a reaction. It came. Marzuq, the stronger of the two Algerians, gripped Paddy’s arm.

‘How do you know?’

‘That doesn’t matter; what’s important is that your people in Madrid should watch out.’

Paddy went on to unravel a completely cooked-up story about plans for an attack on mainland England by the “Provisional” IRA despite the Peace Accords signed a few years earlier. Belfast didn’t want any mishaps from any Arab fundamentalists that could be caused if the authorities linked Don Simmons’ murder to the Muslim movement. He knew that the two Algerians were a small cog and a splinter group in Spain and were not entirely conversant with any planning by the masterminders in Madrid. Nevertheless, as Stan and Sergio had suggested, he hoped that they would get the message back to their HQ and thus spread confusion within the al-Qaeda group. This would force them to check it out and hopefully come out of their submerged refuge before they committed any future planned attack on Britain, a fact that was certainly suspected by the security services throughout Europe.

‘Who’s behind all this investigation?’ asked Ghazi.

‘A secret group of the civil guards back here. Don’t ask me whom, except that I know it’s undercover.’

‘How do we know you’re telling the truth?’

Paddy showed him his scarred face. ‘What do you think this is?’

Ghazi turned and addressed Marzuq, ‘This is serious. We’d better advise Badi right away that the guards could be onto us thanks to that yachtsman.’

Paddy got the confirmation he was looking for.

With Stan’s version handed out to Jerry Fulton at the yacht club and Paddy’s with Algerians, Sergio’s plan had entered a new phase.

When word came through from the prison about a possible IRA attack within the next six months in Britain, all the blasphemous vocabulary in the Muslim dictionary was not enough for Badi to express his anger which had now turned into utter wrath. The only other human component in the room was his faithful “brother”, Habib, who was taking it all in, not saying a word, waiting for the extreme leader to calm down. Like all information that is handed down through word of mouth, Badi’s “confidant” within the Spanish security system had overplayed the original news that was coming from Galicia. He’d hashed together a “flash” verbal report based on two separate events that collided into a confused mishmash of information. Badi eventually calmed down setting in motion a review of al-Qaeda’s plans, including a further check on the Galician situation.

‘Habib, Ghazi’s information won’t alter much except that we must be extra cautious during the “transfer”. Once on board there should be no change of plan.’ He started to laugh. ‘It’ll be too late.’ He rubbed his beard. ‘With regards to the other problem we must check it out even if it means another infidel has to be abolished. This is now urgent.’

Since Juan Jose’s retirement a great deal of the workload, especially in the commercial sector of the agency, had to be reorganised. Stan had been able to take care of it over the past twelve months whilst one of the junior administrators in the office, Justino Padilla, was brought up to speed to handle some of the major paperwork and contacts down at the docks. Sr Jimenez had been promoted to general manager thus alleviating part of the office administration whilst Stan and Yolanda were reconfirmed “legally” as full-time co-directors of the company. The cruise ship season was nearly over with only one visit in November,
Ocean Princess
, due in a couple of weeks’ time. This had worked in Stan’s favour on the consular side as he was able to dedicate extra time in pursuit of Sergio’s plan. When he had returned from the A Lama prison Yolanda had pressured him to expand on what he was up to. He had no other alternative than to lay the cards out that put her squarely in the picture.

‘Just hope you know what you’re doing,
amor
. By the way, I suppose you still remember that
HMS Piper
is visiting us next month?’

‘I haven’t forgotten.’

Ever since the Madrid attacks the European secret service organisations had been burning midnight oil gathering as much information as possible on all unconventional Islamic activities throughout the continent. Special agents, particularly from Britain, had been dispatched to Spain to work side by side with their counterparts in the National Intelligence Centre to dissect the barrage of information emanating from the aftermath of the atrocity, cross-checking the evidence as well as names of possible suspects, their movements and any correlated activity with all other known terrorist groups including ETA. Despite the freedom of press the whole process was kept under strict censorship from the media, all political parties as well as the police and other law enforcement agents including the Spanish civil guards. The CIA and the Pentagon had provided their own special agents to collaborate with the Europeans.

Sporadic working parties had met over the past few months. It was now time for a major meeting to reassess the overall situation in Europe anticipating the possibility of yet another attack on the continent.

Once again it was “Spike” Saunders, head of the terrorism department who opened the session. Apart from Francis Pastroni and Aaron Ikesman from the CIA, General Francisco Pelegrino of the Spanish civil guards and Spike’s own team, Simon Grundy and Joe Fitzsimmons, all the others were newcomers from the last major meeting held two years earlier and before the attack in Spain. Major General Bart Sorensen from the Pentagon, Lieutenant Sven Jacobs from the FBI and since the change in the Spanish Government, Sr Patricio Suarez del Monte as the new director of the National Intelligence Centre in Spain were all present and accounted for.