The Galician Parallax (4 page)

‘Just in case, this is my personal mobile and my girlfriend Gloria’s. They’re both unlisted numbers.’ He put on his jacket, walked towards the exit. He waved back.

‘Thanks for the coffee.’

‘Today’s the day,’ said Felipe as he kissed his wife and small daughter en route to the station, with his recently authorised work permit neatly tucked in a pocket of his rucksack.

He was off to Madrid to start a new job as a cook in one of the four-star hotels in the centre of the capital. It had taken him several months to comply with all the immigration regulations and, as were many Ecuadorians with a young family to support, was eager to start a new life in Spain away from the poverty of his home country. Feeling on top of the world, he waited patiently on platform 2 with dozens of other passengers for the 07:00 train to Atocha, the main central station. As the train pulled out and was five minutes along the tracks, the platform once again filled up with commuters for the next one scheduled to leave a few minutes later.

Roberto and Isidoro, two medical students specialising in orthopaedic surgery and in their final year, were exchanging views on the mid-term exam due to start at ten sharp in the morning.

‘I spoke to Professor Sanjurjo last week and he kept harping on about the importance of osteoarthritis of the spinal cord as if hinting it could be one of today’s questions,’ said Roberto.

‘Don’t bank on it,’ replied Isidoro, ‘though I agree that the spine is hot stuff at the moment.’

The 07:10 train began to pull into the station, cutting short their argument on what to expect when they sat down at their desks.

‘See you in court,’ said Roberto jokingly as they jostled for room in the carriage.

Two more trains had arrived and left and all were now travelling en route to Madrid. Thousands of commuters of dozens of nationalities and all walks of life, seated or standing, talking or deep in thought, each immersed in a world of their own were routinely travelling towards their daily destination.

At 07:35, Habib’s group, scattered around the neighbourhood, began sending SIM messages on their mobiles as planned.

At 07:37 the first bomb exploded followed by two more at four-second intervals as the train entered the station. As another train was leaving El Pozo del Tío Raimundo station two more bombs exploded followed by yet another on the train in Santa Eugenia station. Finally four bombs exploded in different carriages on the train in Téllez Street station.

Felipe was killed outright. Roberto and Isidoro, on the second train and in one of the blown up carriages, survived the blast. They had suffered superficial cuts by flying shrapnel. Nevertheless, after recovering from the initial shock they were able to assist some of the dozens of wounded scattered around them.

Their examination had turned into a real live test of their medical knowledge.

Stan Bullock had been on morning duty for almost three hours when the first Mayday call of the week came through on one of the emergency radio channels. It was Wednesday, just past 9 a.m. and although the weather was cold and rainy, there were no signs of a storm within hundreds of miles south of the Cornish coast. ‘Mayday! Mayday! Help! Sinking!
Maruxa
!
Maruxa
… this is captain of
Maruxa
! Mayday…’ In broken English, the captain of a Spanish fishing boat was hollering frantically into his radio mike, repeating over and over again the name of his vessel and that it was sinking fast.

‘
Maruxa
, this is Falmouth Coastguard. We read you.’

As per procedures, Stan’s first reaction was to check on the originating signal’s position and type it into the rescue network system. The screen soon brought up the coordinates and the satellite map locating the stricken vessel’s exact position. Whilst maintaining conversation with the captain, registering further information on its status, he sent out rescue requests to all shipping in the area. The response was immediate. The nearest ship was the
Saint Vincent
an 80,000-ton container en route to Dublin from Miami whilst another two fishing vessels were some twenty miles further away. Stan was about to ask the container to send out a rescue craft when an unexpected answer came in from yet another ship in the vicinity.

‘Falmouth, this is Commander Sheppard from
HMS Piper. Maruxa
distress noted, please confirm.’

Stan immediately tuned in and responded on the two-way radio. ‘Affirmative
Piper
. This is supervisor Stan Bullock, Commander, have you received all info?’

‘Affirmative; will advise once we’ve picked up the survivors.’ Commander Sheppard went quiet for a few seconds and then added, ‘Please advise all other shipping to restore normal routing.’

Stan acknowledged then switched the output of the phone to the centre’s loudspeaker to continue monitoring the rescue operation. As a last thought he checked on
HMS Piper
’s position. It was within five miles of the
Maruxa
. The British-registered fifteen-foot trawler, based in Vigo, Spain, supposedly operating in the Irish Box fishing area had reported an explosion in the engine room causing sufficient damage to the vessel’s hull for water to pour into the area and two of the adjoining compartments. By the time the British warship reached the area, the
Maruxa
had sunk and its crew located adrift in the vessel’s only lifeboat.

Stan smiled as he signed off yet another salvage operation. He knew that the Royal Navy had its own classified reasons for responding to the distress call from the trawler and taking over the rescue operations whilst avoiding further assistance from other ships in the area. His experience had hinted at the suspicion that there was more to the sinking of the Spanish trawler than a reported engine-room fire.
Caught again
, he thought,
these sods will never learn to stick to the rules
.

Later that evening, Stan was playing his usual game of darts with a couple of friends at the Cheshire Cat pub in one of the side streets that led straight into the entrance to the College of Arts, when a group of students turned up for the evening’s karaoke session. His fellow dart-players, Robin Baker and Jerry Spencer, worked at the town hall and were members of the Cornish RNLI that operated the Falmouth lifeboat.

‘Guess the game’s over, guys, the rockers brigade has arrived,’ said Jerry.

The pub usually held two evening sessions of amateur would-be rockers per week, one on Wednesday that lasted a couple of hours and the other on Saturday that extended till 1 a.m. in the morning. Stan completed his throws and walked over to the bar where the other two contestants were sipping their pints. The dartboard was tucked away in one of the corners of the pub but well within range of the limelight and noise of the mock-up stage.

‘Hear the navy sunk another Spanish trawler,’ said Robin smiling. ‘Spared us a call out, right Stan?’

Stan looked sternly at his friend. ‘That’s uncalled for. Illegal fishing is one thing but human lives are another.’

‘Come off it, Stan, you know bloody well the bastards were screwing us yet again.’

Jerry chipped in. ‘What was the final outcome anyway, or are we again playing the confidential bit?’

Stan explained that as far as the official records were concerned, the Mayday signal was taken care of as per normal procedures and that the vessel unfortunately sank but that the crew were all rescued and taken ashore, safe and sound.

‘End of story!’

Jerry was not convinced. ‘Stan, we’ve been playing this cat-and-mouse game for years with the Spaniards. Their own bloody government supports all the tricks their fishing fleet gets up to whilst ours sits with its finger up its bum waiting for the scrap heap. Yes or no?’

Stan knew that they were right. Yet he had a duty to perform. Whether or not he agreed, it was not up to him to comment or discuss the ongoing rift between the United Kingdom and Spain over different allotted fishing quotas and who was allowed to fish where and when. The sinking of the
Maruxa
did hit a chord that reminded Stan of his childhood and why he had decided to become a coastguard officer rather than follow in the family footsteps of a fishing career.

He was born in Falmouth on 15 November 1967 and came from a once proud and ancestral seafaring Cornish family. He was the eldest of the Bullock household with two sisters, Pam and Cynthia, four and two years younger. His father, Christopher, grandfather and two of his uncles had all been long-serving fishermen whilst his mother, Francis, ran one of the local fishmonger stores in the town centre. From an early age his parents had taught him all about the sea, from rowing and sailing boats to the different types of fish and seafood caught and sold by his family. As a child he spent hours scrambling along the rocky shores and the beach, searching for crabs, cockles or clams, studying their habitat, taking note of the seasonal changes that affected life along the coast. The tides and the behaviour of the sea during the summer calms and the winter’s menacing storms fascinated him.

On weekends, weather permitting, he would go out with his father in their dinghy and sail for hours around Falmouth harbour. During mid-school breaks, and despite his mother’s reluctance, Chris Bullock would occasionally take Stan out to the allotted crabbing zone off the Cornish coast and help him hall in the crab pots. Whenever his Uncle Bart was in town, enjoying long leaves after months aboard a trawler fishing in the Norwegian Sea, the family would set sail in his uncle’s ten-footer coasting along the English Channel all the way to the Isle of Wight and back. At school, Stan was active in sports, academically sound and popular amongst his fellow students and teachers alike. Despite his young age, he’d made up his mind to follow in the family tradition.

A peculiar transfer took place in Spain once democracy had settled down in 1975. The long-standing civil guards, the police section of the armed forces, took over the centuries-old costal surveillance from the Spanish Navy. They were equipped with helicopters and coastguard vessels. Specially trained guards in maritime law were stationed and spread along the Spanish coastline. Whereas the navy was ultimately confined to activity in support of national defence in international waters, the civil guards’ responsibility was more concerned with criminal activity within the shores of the country. Once again, the 200-mile limit came into play and formed part of the overall judiciary system of Spain. There was, however, a grey area in the civil sector involving commercial and contractual activity that overlapped national and international boundaries. The navy could issue work and other commercial permits but could not enforce the law. A diving contract with the British firm St Edmond Explorers was one of them although it tended to fall between the cracks. However, there was a clear definition of responsibilities when it came to the war on drugs. The Spanish civil guards were in full command.

Twenty-four-years old Lieutenant Sergio Quiroga was one of those guards.

After graduation as a young officer his mentors had recommended he be seconded to an intelligence unit due to his sharp brain that complemented a unique skill of computer knowledge. He was eventually based at their headquarters in the city of Santiago de Compostela, heart of the regional government of Galicia, and assigned administrative work investigating and recording all drug-dealing activities in the region.

Following the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939, Galicia had emerged as a smuggler’s haven. There were all types of prohibited contraband products such as tobacco and coffee, not forgetting the “extra” food supplies that bypassed the ration system enforced in Spain at the time. The River Miño divides Spain from Portugal in the north-western part of the Iberian Peninsula and all along its banks dozens of smugglers operated on either side of the river’s border with hardly any hindrance from the authorities who were too busy trying to control the citizens of the newborn dictatorship. After the death of Generalissimo Franco, a new constitution was drawn up and approved by a transition government lead by President Adolfo Suárez. By 1982 elections were held, heralding in a new era of freedom and liberty for all Spaniards. However, the illicit contraband continued. Hashish traders took over from the cigarette mob, and cocaine and heroine from the coffee bandits. The stakes were now at a higher level as Spain graduated into the European network of drug users, peddlers and pushers. Galicia became the gateway to the rest of the continent particularly for the cocaine barons of Colombia.

Lieutenant Quiroga became an expert on the criminal set-up on both sides of the Atlantic.

For the past three years he had built his own comprehensive database including a sophisticated cross-referencing network of all criminal activities involving drugs dating back to the early 80s that had any connection with Galicia. Apart from the names and details of the known gangs, his system recorded all uncovered transport routes, map locations, types of craft, concealment methods, dates and above all a good communications linking system with other national, international and European law enforcement drug administrations. Sergio could pull the file on any drug baron caught and convicted within the Spanish autonomy, trace and criss-cross the criminal’s roots from the actual cocaine plantation involved to the confiscated batch as well as the date of his son’s graduation.

Sergio, however, was bored. Computer games had little live action to offer and he dreamt for an opportunity to chase the criminals first hand. His superiors had considered him too valuable to be wasted on patrols or other “hands on” activities chasing bandits. He was still a bachelor and lived with his widowed mother. He was not into outdoor activities other than his pride and passion that was his 500cc Honda motorbike. He was a dedicated law enforcement agent and his main interest was always his work. Nevertheless, he kept on trying for more action within the force.