‘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 we’ve got a chance of building up our information quickly.’
‘They know that,’ said Elvira, ‘and they’ve told me that they should be letting people back in within the next few hours, as long as they don’t find anything else. In the meantime a contact number’s been issued to the press, TV and radio for people to call in with information.’
‘Except that they don’t know of the Peugeot Partner’s importance yet,’ said Falcón. ‘We’re not going to get anywhere until people get back into their apartments.’
The Mayor, who’d been stuck in traffic as the city had ground to a halt, finally arrived in the car park. He was joined by ministers of the Andalucían Parliament, who had just come from the hospital where they’d been filmed talking to some of the victims. A gaggle of journalists had been allowed through the police cordon and they gathered around the officials, while camera crews set up their equipment, with the destruction providing the devastating backdrop. Elvira went across to the Mayor to give his situation report and was intercepted by his own assistant. They talked. Elvira pointed him across to Falcón.
‘Only three of the twelve names given to us on that list appear on the terror suspect database,’ said the assistant, ‘and they’re all in the lowest risk category. Five of the twelve were over sixty-five. Morning prayers isn’t such a popular time with the young, as most people have to get to work.’
‘Not exactly the classic profile of a terrorist cell,’ said Falcón. ‘But then we don’t know who else was in there yet.’
‘How many under the age of thirty-five?’ asked Calderón.
‘Four,’ said the assistant, ‘and of those, two are brothers, one of whom is severely disabled in a wheelchair, and another is a Spanish convert called Miguel Botín.’
‘And the remaining three?’
‘Four, including the Imam, who isn’t on the list the woman gave us. He’s fifty-five and the other three are in their forties. Two of them are claiming disability benefit from the state after suffering industrial accidents, and the third is another Spanish convert.’
‘Well, they don’t sound like a special forces unit, do they?’ said Calderón.
‘There is one interesting point. The Imam is on the terror suspect database. He’s been in Spain since September 2004, arriving from Tunis.’
‘And before that?’
‘That’s the point. I don’t have the clearance for that level of information. Maybe the Comisario does,’ he said, and went to rejoin the media scrum around the Mayor.
‘How can somebody be in a low-risk category and yet have a higher level of clearance for his history?’ asked