The Galician Parallax (17 page)

Over a dozen Arabs mainly from Saudi Arabia had been planning the hijack of several airplanes in the United States to be used as suicide weapons against an equal number of American targets for the past two years. They had trained as pilots, studied airport administration and worked out every detail of the methodology to be used prior to the attack. The last remaining details were the flights and the target itself. Three different airports on the East Coast, Boston, Newark and Washington DC and four commercial flights, two American Airlines and two United Airlines were chosen.

08:46 EST. American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Centre in New York. Mohamed Atta was at the controls.

Sergio was brushing his teeth in the bathroom when he heard Gloria shriek. He rushed out, still frothing at the mouth. She was standing petrified staring at the television screen in the living room of her apartment. She had switched it on at the very moment when United Airlines flight 175 crashed into the South Tower. The North Tower was belching smoke and flames. Their first ecstatic sexual encounter was soon forgotten.

Donald and Jerry were preparing the last packs of cocaine to be loaded into an awaiting van at their Penryn warehouse ready to be transported up to Manchester. The driver was outside the shed nonchalantly lighting up a fag and keeping an eye out for any curious or inquisitive passer-by. After every trip, although the unloaded drugs were initially concealed behind other yachting material, Mr Billson had instructed the yachtsmen to send them north in small batches as soon as possible.

As the van drove off Donald remarked, ‘This really calls for a celebration, Jerry. I make it three hundred thousand a piece.’

‘Don’t forget about the intake from the passengers.’

They both burst out laughing.

Donald turned serious. ‘What about Glen? We’ll have to sort him out before next year’s runs.’

When they went into the small office to close the safe and replace the files the radio, usually tuned into a pop music programme blaring out the latest top 10, was issuing a news broadcast, ‘… the South Tower has collapsed…’

The two yachtsmen at first didn’t react, as they were still too busy with the tidying up chores.

Just as Donald was about to turn off the radio to leave the premises, Jerry stopped him in his tracks. ‘Wait. There’s something on the news.’

“…
President George Bush will be making a statement shortly but it has now been confirmed that a terrorist attack has been committed in the city of New York and Washington DC
…”

Mr Billson was meeting with his “confidants” in his private office.

‘Bastards; never did trust bloody Arabs.’

He emptied the bottle of mineral water into his glass. He began to smile. ‘At least the Colombians are more civilised.’

The wine harvest was in full swing. Tractor loads of grapes were being checked in for sugar levels before being carted off and dumped onto the conveyor belts that led them onto the first stage of processing. Dozens of workers had been collecting the grapes in bucketfuls from the hillside vineyards. Each batch was numbered and details fed into a computer system that controlled the present year’s production for eventual release into the consumer market.

‘Looks like we’ll have a good harvest this year,’ said the foreman as he handed the boss a printout at the end of the day’s take.

‘The best we’ve had for a while, I reckon,’ answered Teixugo as he skimmed through the pages checking the figures. He was sitting at his desk in the main office halfway through checking his e-mails.

‘OK, Camilo, I’ll be with you in a minute.’

Once his foreman had left, Teixugo got up, went over to his cigar cabinet and pulled out a Cohiba Nº 4. After carefully nipping the tip with a cutter and rolling the cigar between his fingertips he began to light the other end. Five minutes later he was slowly inhaling the first wave of ecstasy.
So they want to treble the amount
, he thought;
that would mean more partners and a different type of craft
. He had received a coded message from Mr Billson confirming the safety of using a private yacht club as a source of drug smuggling into the south of England, but the drug barons in the UK wanted to increase the trade. Camilo came rushing back into the office.

‘Sr Castro. Switch on the television; quick.’

Stan had settled down at last. Yolanda’s idea of joining the yacht club and buying a small yacht, mixing with fellow enthusiastic members and reliving years of open-sea sailing had filled the gap.

‘Glad to have a real connoisseur of the seas,’ the president of the club had said when he signed Stan on as a new member. ‘We even get some Cornishmen passing through here, maybe you’ll recognise them.’

It all happened at the right time, coinciding with the summer season as well as the influx of foreign visitors, Brits amongst them. Thanks to many local sailing competitions and follow-on cocktail parties, the Bullocks made new and common friends. Baby Gabriel was ever present joining in the fun.

Yolanda hardly had time to breathe with dozens of package tours to sort out whilst Stan had been working since early morning sorting out the cruise ship
Franconia
. He’d taken the afternoon off to work on his boat. The universal joint on the tiller extension needed replacing. He was just checking all the moving parts when he noticed a great deal of kerfuffle going on outside the main building of the club. People were gathering at the entrance to the ground-floor restaurant. He took no notice and continued with his chore. Suddenly he saw Yolanda running down the floating jetty towards where his yacht was moored.

‘I wonder what…’

She was crying. ‘They’ve blown up the buildings… in New York.’

Stan dropped what he was doing. Within minutes they were staring at the television screen upstairs in the club lounge.

Silence prevailed over a packed audience.

‘Better dust off the old Arab dictionary, Las,’ said Corporal Stephens as he and Private Lasinski were making their way through the rubble to what was once their office on the ground floor of the building.

‘I bet we’ll be starting “Desert Storm take two” in no time,’ replied Las.

The terrorist attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York were not the only ones. At 09:37 American Airlines Flight 77 smashed into the Pentagon in Virginia killing 125 people whilst United Airlines Flight 93, heading for the Capitol in Washington was overpowered by the passengers and crashed at 10:03 into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing everyone on board.

It didn’t take long for the United States Government to react. Having identified the culprit of the attacks as the al-Qaeda movement with headquarters in Afghanistan and ascertained that Osama bin Laden, their leader, was somewhere in the hills of the country, it decided to declare an all-out war on terrorism, starting with attacks on the Taliban regime in Kabul.

On 1 October, American and British troops under the auspices of NATO invaded Afghanistan. Operation “Enduring Freedom” had started. The United Nations Security Council was still debating.

After his return from an emergency meeting at the Foreign Office back in London, Her Majesty’s British Ambassador had called a similar meeting of all “Heads of Missions” and deputies to review the effects of the latest terrorist attacks in the Western World.

‘You’ve all been reading the papers and watching the television so I don’t need to go over the details of the whole dramatic affair back in the United States or the unfolding of what is possibly a new war in the Middle East. I’ll therefore come straight to the point. The foreign secretary’s main concern is now focused on the security of our own country and its overseas responsibilities which include all diplomatic missions as well as British citizens abroad.’

The ambassador was not mincing any words nor was he using any props, crib sheets or computer information assistance. He had a single sheet of paper in his hands.

‘To start with, I want a complete review on how we stand at the moment regarding access to the buildings… how does the public enter and leave… camera recorders…’ he paused for a moment. ‘I know that we’ve got some standard practices already in place but this is a new international order and we need to start from scratch.’

For the next hour he went through a checklist of related topics and instructed all responsible heads to prepare their own and come back to him within a week.

Before he wrapped up the session he said, ‘And this applies to all honorary consuls.’

The town of Caldas de Reis is famous for its natural hot springs, hence its name
Caldas
in the Galician language. All ailments from rheumatism to muscle fatigue are meant to be cured by the miraculous waters that had been discovered as far back as the twelfth century. The pilgrims heading towards Santiago to pay homage to St James used it as one of the main stops as far back as the eighteenth century. Today’s visitors range from local tourists escaping the rowdy atmosphere of the cities and relaxing in the caressing pools harnessing the springs, to groups of genuinely sick geriatrics. Cheap hostels to luxury mini hotels added to dozens of good restaurants thrive the whole year round as a never-ending flow of humanity visits the town. Sergio and Gloria had only recently discovered this paradisiacal location.

Soon after their bout at the magistrate a few months back, Sergio had managed to persuade Gloria to at least share a coffee with him at the office canteen. He wanted to calm down their working relationship that had erupted into an unnecessary confrontation every time they dealt with each other. His first attempt was strictly professional without any strings attached, but after a while, coffee sessions turned into evening drinks and finally a full-blown dinner date. Workload discussions lead to anecdotes followed by more intimate personal experiences and feelings. Sergio was a strange mixture of an introverted extrovert with few friends and had rarely spoken to anyone about his short and tumultuous life, especially in the civil guards.

Yet he found comfort in opening up part of his soul to this hard core civil servant. Gloria on the other hand was not of any particular beauty; in fact she had had very little contact with the opposite sex. She was always the loner at school and college because of her ambitious nature to succeed in life. She was also extremely bright. Sergio was three years younger than Gloria, but it didn’t matter; a strange mutual attraction soon grew as they found much common ground that didn’t take long to settle in and cement their relationship.

Sergio slowly spread Gloria’s back with skin cream then gently rubbed her neck muscles and those down each side of her spine until he reached the centre of her buttocks. She was lying on a couch next to one of the hot-water pools at the spa. Her eyes were closed. With a slight smile on her face and breathing softly, the familiar sounds of ecstatic relaxation flowed from her lungs. Sergio began working on her arms and legs. Moments later he slapped her bottom.

‘Your time’s up. That’ll be a hundred Euros.’

It was near noon and apart from two or three other couples, they were on their own. The schoolchildren groups had finished their hollering and screaming session and the physically handicapped were not due for another hour.

Still lying on the couch, Gloria asked, ‘Did you ever follow up on that Arab prayer rug connection?’

‘No. You know that, anyway.’ Not allowing her to retaliate he added, ‘There’s a link all right, especially after this attack, but then… who am I to interfere with the higher-ups. Let someone else do the chasing.’

Since the case of the supposed ETA murdered suspects had been taken out of his department’s hands, he had lost interest; that is until the attacks in New York. Subconsciously part of his mind was again focused on the bungalow in Ordes. He had been working on routine cases of domestic violence that was on the increase in Galicia.

‘I’m too busy with your feminist groups chasing knife-waving husbands.’

He immediately saw the look on Gloria’s face and smilingly backtracked. ‘I know, they’re all bastards and I agree.’

Gloria got up and went for her robe. After securing it round her body she went up to Sergio, kissed him gently on his cheek and wandered off to the changing room.

That evening, roasting chestnuts over a roaring fireplace at the tiny rustic inn where they were staying, with Sergio’s earlier comments on the ETA fiasco still mulling in her mind, Gloria whispered into her lover’s ear, ‘I don’t believe you, lover boy.’

Sr Bermudez, Mr Billson and Teixugo were having their yearly meeting in Europe. This time round their venue was in a slightly warmer climate. Except for Mr Billson the other two were enjoying the Greek selection of small dishes coupled with a bottle of Vrettos red as they mulled over the past year’s facts and figures. The restaurant was packed, catering for hundreds of tourists in brief stops before making their way to and from the dozens of ferries docked at their respective wharfs ready for departure to the islands. They were oblivious to the three drug magnates mulling over the details of their lucrative business.

‘Bloody attack, had to change my flight plans with so much security back in the US,’ said Sr Bermudez. ‘I couldn’t afford the risk, anyway, never know how tight the sons of bitches at immigration may have now become. It’s to our advantage, though. The US will now be hell-bent in going for the supposed al-Qaeda training camps and presume they will be stamping out the poppy fields.’

Increase in drug consumption continued in Europe although the US led invasion in Afghanistan had placed a question mark on the heroine trade. Mr Billson agreed although Teixugo was not too sure.