'Tell Leonid -' he started, and stopped when he sensed something flashing towards him, a strange agitation in the air. 'What the fuck…?'
The steel rods, their tail ends quivering with expectation, entered the cone of light, as if attracted to him at its apex.
They hit with explosive force.
Tyres smeared their rubber on to the dark road, thumped against an unseen obstruction and the Range Rover took off into the abysmal black of the fields beyond. There was a momentary silence.
'Vasya?'
1
Falcon's house, Calle Bailen, Seville – Friday, 15th September 2006, 03.00 hrs
The phone trembled under the warm breath of the brutal night.
'Diga,' said Falcon, who was sitting up in bed with a file from one of the hundreds concerning the 6th June Seville bombing resting on his knees.
'You're awake, Javier,' said his boss, Comisario Elvira.
'I do my best thinking at this time in the morning,' said Falcon.
'I thought most people our age just worried about debt and death.'
'I have no debts… not financial ones anyway.'
'Somebody has just woken me up to talk about death… about a death,' said Elvira.
'And why were you called, rather than me?'
'At some time before eleven thirty-five, which was when it was reported, there was a car accident at kilometre thirty-eight on the northbound motorway from Jerez to Seville. In fact, on both sides of the motorway, but the deaths have occurred on the northbound side. I'm told it's very nasty and I need you to go out there.'
'Something that the Guardia Civil can't handle?' said Falcon, glancing at his clock. 'They've taken their time.'
'It's complicated. They originally thought there was just one vehicle, a truck, which had crashed into the central reservation barriers and shed its load. It took them a while to realize there was another vehicle, beyond some pine trees down a bank on the other side of the motorway.'