Los Gatos 31/? part 1b
Pairing: David Villa/David Silva (main), Sergio Ramos/Fernando Torres, others
Characters: Iker Casillas, Jose Mourinho, David Silva, Jordi Alba, David Villa, Xavi Hernandez, Lionel Messi, Santi Cazorla (this part of the chapter)
Rating: R (?)
Warnings: AU
Disclaimer: I don't claim it has ever happened.
Chapter 31
“The billing”, Xavi stepped into the room where Iker was watching Villa making his phone call from behind a two-way glass wall.
He took the papers from the Catalan noting that there were basically two numbers ever dialled from that phone.
“Whose are they?”, he pursed his lips as the Asturian began to sum up his predicament.
“Well, this one’s actually registered under Villa’s name”, Xavi indicated the right row of digits with a troubled face. They both knew there was something they were missing, “The other one’s a prepaid whose owner lost his phone some ten months ago.”
“And he didn’t say anything?”
“Iker, relax, he did go to his local police station”, the technician put the list on a desk in front of them, “The number’s no longer under his name, I just found him in the database”, they both focused on the gangster, “Who’s he calling?”
“Bento”, and he couldn’t really get anything more from one side of the conversation.
...
Standing in front of Mourinho’s office Iker was repeating the version of events he had prepared with Xavi that wouldn’t sound too feeble or make them look too incompetent. Okay, so they had let go of Villa’s lover and a would-be murderer. But they had also got Villa to testify against him and, consequently, against himself as he hadn’t been able to logically explain why his paid-for lover had accompanied him to his mother-in-law’s funeral, nor to give a satisfying alibi for the night in Móstoles.
“Good afternoon”, he went straight up to the Chief’s office since there was no one at the secretary’s desk, “Good afternoon”, he tried again, louder, when the Portuguese ignored him in favour of observing a traffic jam through a window, “Excuse me, I-”
“You have to let him go”, Mourinho’s face looked so utterly wrecked when he finally turned to him that the words didn’t register at first.
“What”, he opened his mouth, closed, then opened it again, “Whom?”, he asked with the last shred of hope.
“Who do you think?”, the Chief snapped rubbing his eyes, “Fucking Villa.”
“But, sir, allow me to interrupt”, Iker picked up his hands, “You may have not been informed yet of the full extent of evidence-”
“I may haven’t, but what I have got are three calls from Simeone, Ancelotti and recently Pérez, all suggesting friendly that we don’t dig any deeper.”
Only when his arse hit the chair did Iker realise he was sitting down. What. Villa had just ended his talk with Bento, the other Portuguese simply couldn’t have had time to contact the Minister of Internal Affairs, the vice-President of the Comunidad de Madrid and the Bureau’s head.
“Pérez?”, the other two didn’t come as a surprise. Simeone was crooked to the tip of his polished boot and actually had an unproved criminal past and Ancelotti would accept everything as long as it didn’t involve closing his favourite designer shops.
“Better the devil you know than a new one”, Mourinho pronounced with contempt, “You want Ronaldo and the rest bathing the streets in blood? A poor alibi isn’t a reason to bring in a man like Villa. You have something on that boy? Then good, go after him”, from his tone it was pretty clear he was citing his superior.
“The boy shot me in the flat of our informant. I can’t imagine what more someone may need to see the connection here. It’s a start. Just let me lock Villa up for 72 hours and I guarantee we’ll get more proof. I just need a lever”, he came pathetically close to pleading given that he was advocating an arrest of a murderer.
“Archimedes of mine”, the Portuguese’s voice was barely above a whisper, “Do you know what will happen if Villa’s behind the bars?”
“People will sleep more soundly?”, he hissed sarcastically.
“He has no clear successor-”
“For fuck’s sake, we’re talking about a damn criminal, we do not want people following his footsteps!”, for once he was grateful that Krkić wasn’t there. No witnesses to him yelling at Mourinho, no reasons for the Chief to hate him even more.
“Do you think I’m actually okay with letting him go again?”, some fire returned to the Portuguese, “Do you think I’ll be able to look my neghbours in the eye knowing that I’ve just released the most dangerous man on this side of the Pyrenees? My hands are fucking tied!”
“Then say that the word’s already got out to the press!”, if he called Alba now he may still be able to stage it. Or whoever, he supposed, it didn’t need to be Alba. Who was a sports journalist, hard as it was to remember that.
“Are you that set on getting suspended?”, the Chief finally yelled back at him, red in the face and his voice breaking towards the end.
“What?”, Iker’s heart thumped against his ribcage.
“Casillas, I’m not the one taking the burn if we disregard Pérez”, Mourinho levelled him with a hard look.
“Fuck it”, it was out of his mouth before he could completely digest the threat, “Sorry, sir, or maybe in fact not, I’m not sorry. I’m actually doing this job because I want to make a difference-”
“And do you plan on making that difference from your couch?”, the Chief thumped his fist on the desk, “You think it’s a noble thing to do, sacrificing your entire career to fight for a principle?”
“Yes, I guess I do”, Iker couldn’t help but smile crookedly.
“Who the fuck will pick it up after you, hm?”, the Portuguese waved almost helplessly around the office.
Iker bit his tongue so that he wouldn’t bring up López. He couldn’t speak bad about a dead man, even if López himself wasn’t the object of his growing resentment.
“There are many capable men”, he only said coolly.
“That was not a suggestion, Casillas”, Mourinho’s face settled into a familiar expression of a blind stubbornness, all of his previous desperation gone, “They’re releasing him as we speak.”
He got up and walked out the door without as much as sparing the Chief a glance. The only thing his brain registered was a soft screech of the leather as the Portuguese must have slid back onto his chair.
...
Messi arrived with the warrant some fifty minutes later.
“I’m sorry”, he mumbled handing it to Iker.
“What for?”, he didn’t accept the paper, measuring the intern. For someone who had undergone a scrupulous interrogation with a grand finale lavished with Argentinian tears as he had confessed to having selected an empty magazine. Llorente claimed it to be the most embarrassing moment of his whole life, winning also with explaining to his mother why there’s a condom planted in a flower bed.
“The delay?”, Messi blinked in apparent confusion, “You requested it over an hour ago, Inspector”, he unwittingly took a step back under the scrutiny.
Iker shook his head to clear his thoughts. It was just an unfortunate wording, it didn’t imply that the Argentinian had been eavesdropping on him and Mourinho, the guy had been hardly sticking his nose out of the computer lab since he had become the laughing stock of the whole team. Or at least that part that hadn’t been fully briefed on the mole situation.
“Thank you”, he forced himself to give the boy a curt smile, “Have you heard from Krkić?”, he remembered when the intern started to inch away.
“No?”, the technician hazarded a guess, furrowing his eyebrows, “But I can go hurry him up if you wish”, he added in an afterthought.
“He’s on a leave”, Iker aimed for a neutrally curious tone.
“I didn’t know?”, he hated how the intern could turn everything into a question, “I haven’t been around lately”, his cheeks actually coloured a piggy shade of pink, “And we don’t really talk all that much… At all”, he shuffled with his foot at the allusion to their ongoing rivalry.
“Just making a small talk”, Iker grinned, allowing him to escape his presence.
...
The caller’s ID was an unknown number.
“Yes?”, he tried, elbowing his way into a metro train.
“There were supposed to be no photos”, a cold calm voice rang in his ear, “You fucked up.”
“What photos?”, he couldn’t recognise the owner of the low cadence.
“The ones someone has been sending Casillas. You claimed they’d been taken care of.”
“They were”, only obviously not, “I’ve deleted- Fuck, he must’ve found the photographer”, that was the sole possible scenario. But it had been so clear the photographer had wished to remain anonymous that he had postponed tracking him down… Which had been such an idiotic thing to decide.
“As they say, no shit, Sherlock. We’ve expected a bit more from our resident genius.”
He worked his jaw slowly. He had never talked to the lawyer before but it could only be Bento.
“I thought you didn’t have my number”, his identity had been to be kept secret. Letting Ronaldo in had been a necessary evil caused by Ramos’ wavering loyalty. The fact that the older Portuguese had contacted him spoke volumes about the scare Villa’s arrest must have given them.
Well, they were the ones to talk. They wouldn’t be the one stranded on the force should anything befall Guaje.
“You’re getting slow”, the Portuguese didn’t even grant him a snort, “Silva knows about you.”
“How-”
“He guessed. You’re slipping”, it sounded like a sentence coming from the lawyer’s lips.
“He’s sharper than he looks”, he was, and not just because he had somehow figured him out. The boy’s act was almost as flawless as his own.
“David sold him out”, shit, that was serious. Getting rid of Silva had been entertained as an end game and he wasn’t even sure if anyone was supposed to have been let onto this particular plan .
“Fuck”, he growled eloquently moving towards the end of the train, “It must’ve been someone from today-”, otherwise someone would have let something slip about a newfound evidence. There was no way they wouldn’t have stupidly babbled it out in front of him-
“Find them. I’ve had to call in a few favours today and I don’t like dealing with those little shifty shitheads that govern this pitiful excuse of a country.”
“They’ve been owing us since forever”, he snorted. Ever since they’d eaten away all of the tax money.
“And that’s the only way to keep them”, Bento snapped back, successfully reproaching him his inability to navigate the world of politics, “The moment you remind them of what a debt to us really means they start looking for a way out. Find this photographer before it becomes a mess I can’t clean up”, with that, he hang up.
Casillas had gone to the hospital and talked to Puyol. Which was the more likely one? He hadn’t been able to get his hands on the DI’s new mobile so that left the CCTV cameras from the way to and from the hospital. Or the very building itself.
...
If somebody asked him, Iker wouldn’t manage to rationally argument why it was suddenly so vitally important that Alba answered his mobile. Personally he was inclined to blame it on the fact he was his sole contact in the phone book.
“Yes?”, a muffled voice finally spoke up at the other end.
After missing six calls.
“What the hell, Alba?”, he hoped that his traitorous sigh of relief wouldn’t get detected by the journalist, “Where the fuck have you been?”, did he derive some perverted pleasure from making Iker imagine him in a white bed?
“Is everything alright?”, Alba didn’t raise his voice. Which was weird, considering it was, well, Alba.
“We’re bringing in Silva”, Iker growled despite himself bumping lightly into a pedestrian.
“And that’s bad how?”, the Catalan’s tone grew suspicious.
He should have never dialled this number, that was confidential and no matter how many times Alba had proved himself.
“Casillas, if you’ve called me just to wheeze creepily down my line-”, the journalist cut himself short to take a shallow breath, “It’s not the best moment”, he finished softly.
“What’s wrong?”, it was out before his brain could suggest he returned to the original subject.
“Nothing”, he didn’t sound it. Truthfully, he sounded awfully small and… Childish. Lost, “Iker, shit, it is nothing”, he growled with certain sincerity, “I’m just not in Madrid.”
“Where are you? What’s going on? Are you-”
“Calm down before you pop a vine, will you? You have a wannabe yakuza to catch”, Iker’s lips smiled a bit on their own, “I’m in Barcelona. It’s no pet project of mine I’m afraid, no evidence will miraculously land on your desk with tomorrow’s light-”
“Alba”, the guy - boy? - was definitely avoiding something, “I don’t give a fuck about evidence, are you alright?”, he stressed the ‘you’.
“Yes”, it had a long-suffering quality, “I just had to take a day off. My parents are getting their divorce today.”
“What?”, that was a bright answer to that, “God, I’m sorry, I didn’t-”
Know? Seriously? As if Alba had some sort of an obligation to share his private life with him? They were associates with a common goal at best, not even friends. With his current team issues that stung him particularly hard.
“It’s nothing”, Alba declared entirely too fast, “It’s not like I’m ten and will have to choose one over another or something. Everyone’s seen it coming for a long time…”, did it mean he’d had his parents’ marital crisis on mind all the while he’d been tracking criminals for him? That is, for the police?, “Now that you’ve got your Alba-Ramos clan newsflash, will you tell what’s wrong in our great capital?”
Ducking his head, Iker collected his take-away coffee, making his way through an American tourists group blocking the café’s entrance. As usual, the bartender had taken him for one of them simply because apparently, no Spaniard would willingly drink a coffee while walking.
He should send Andrés there one day, he’d probably snap something witty about how he had the brain capacity to do those two activities simultaneously.
The memory of Andrés made him spill his guts immediately.
“I’m getting the technicians relegated from the team”, it was so ridiculous that he was whispering that in the middle of Gran Vía as if he was planning a dirty coup d’état, “I’ve wanted to do that ever since Móstoles but the Chief was completely against it, even if he understood the danger”, Andrés and Xavi had built up their entire security system. Keeping them away from the Bureau was not a way to keep them out of the network. They’d been waiting, exposing themselves constantly, for two technicians from the Interpol to redesign their firewalls. Today he’d got a word they were ready to install the new system.
“So how do you intent to ‘relegate them’?”, he could hear Alba frown, “Fake Mourinho’s signature or what?”
“I just have a feeling that this time he’s going to grant me my request”, their circumstances still had a bitter taste for him.
“Then why do you sound so fucking sad?”, the Catalan snorted humourlessly, “Come on, Casillas, you’re not telling me something.”
“And that’s probably the way I should keep it”, he growled without thinking. There was this part of him that would always react to the infuriating journalist.
For example, it was absolutely maddening how the guy patiently waited him out.
“They’re my friends”, he sat down on a low bench the moment a yellow lorry sped past it with a loud whoosh.
“They’re policemen”, Alba countered without missing a beat, “They can’t be just your friends, not in that and if they can’t understand it-”
“I need to get going”, a lady that’d been eyeing his bench since before he’d claimed it inspected it carefully before taking his place.
But he didn’t hang up.
“Uhm, hello? You do remember you actually have to press a button to finish a call don’t you, they did teach you that at the grandparents’ school-”
“I had to release Villa, Krkić is gone I don’t know what to do anymore”, he stopped in his tracks and a fat businessman walked into him, hitting him between the ribs with a leather suitcase.
For a second, he was convinced Alba had decided he hadn’t signed up for that.
“Okay, you want to run that by me again, preferably part by part?
...
He was licking off the remainder of a pineapple yoghurt from the lid when a loud knock resonated through the whole flat. Freezing up, he put the sweet away, turning slowly to the door.
Neither Villa nor his men would knock.
He stood up after the second bang, patting his back pocket to make sure the gun was there and crept towards the corridor.
“Police, open up!”
That stopped him dead. For one, desperate second he thought it was Villa pulling his leg but then the pounding grew even louder and someone threatened that should he stall they would be breaking the door down.
That finally got him to move and his brain to function again. He didn’t know how many of them were outside but the staircase was narrow and steep and the hall even tinier, making it almost impossible for two men to stand at the door at the same time.
His eyes strayed to the kitchen. The walls were thick and if only he managed to squeeze himself next to the fridge-
“Open the door, it’s the last warning!”, that he could believe. The whole doorframe was moving along with the hard bangs.
That was also his last chance to prepare himself. He could try to shoot but it was almost a guarantee of getting shot back. On the other hand, they’d be prosecuting him for a murder attempt and since they were there it probably meant Villa had washed his hands off him for good but what if he could somehow help him later…
Without realising it, he had plastered himself to a wall. He put his hand to his heart just to check if it wasn’t its frantic pounding he was hearing and was thoroughly surprised by how short and shallow his breaths were.
How he could even think he could shoot somebody right now.
Taking a deep gulp of air, he pushed himself forward, his knee giving out instantly. He gritted his teeth and stalked to the door, ignoring the stiffness in his leg.
Closing his eyes and regretting his cowardice, he worked the lock open.
...
A/N This is, in a way, a filler chapter that's why there's more talking than taking action. Anyway, I'm sorry for abandoning the story for so long, the last few months haven't been kind to my writing time :( But, as I've been always saying, I will finish it no matter what. I hope someone's still following it :)
I hope to post a new chapter till the end of October and if not, early November. I'm away on Erasmus and things are a bit hectic ;)
Characters: Iker Casillas, Jose Mourinho, David Silva, Jordi Alba, David Villa, Xavi Hernandez, Lionel Messi, Santi Cazorla (this part of the chapter)
Rating: R (?)
Warnings: AU
Disclaimer: I don't claim it has ever happened.
Chapter 31
“The billing”, Xavi stepped into the room where Iker was watching Villa making his phone call from behind a two-way glass wall.
He took the papers from the Catalan noting that there were basically two numbers ever dialled from that phone.
“Whose are they?”, he pursed his lips as the Asturian began to sum up his predicament.
“Well, this one’s actually registered under Villa’s name”, Xavi indicated the right row of digits with a troubled face. They both knew there was something they were missing, “The other one’s a prepaid whose owner lost his phone some ten months ago.”
“And he didn’t say anything?”
“Iker, relax, he did go to his local police station”, the technician put the list on a desk in front of them, “The number’s no longer under his name, I just found him in the database”, they both focused on the gangster, “Who’s he calling?”
“Bento”, and he couldn’t really get anything more from one side of the conversation.
...
Standing in front of Mourinho’s office Iker was repeating the version of events he had prepared with Xavi that wouldn’t sound too feeble or make them look too incompetent. Okay, so they had let go of Villa’s lover and a would-be murderer. But they had also got Villa to testify against him and, consequently, against himself as he hadn’t been able to logically explain why his paid-for lover had accompanied him to his mother-in-law’s funeral, nor to give a satisfying alibi for the night in Móstoles.
“Good afternoon”, he went straight up to the Chief’s office since there was no one at the secretary’s desk, “Good afternoon”, he tried again, louder, when the Portuguese ignored him in favour of observing a traffic jam through a window, “Excuse me, I-”
“You have to let him go”, Mourinho’s face looked so utterly wrecked when he finally turned to him that the words didn’t register at first.
“What”, he opened his mouth, closed, then opened it again, “Whom?”, he asked with the last shred of hope.
“Who do you think?”, the Chief snapped rubbing his eyes, “Fucking Villa.”
“But, sir, allow me to interrupt”, Iker picked up his hands, “You may have not been informed yet of the full extent of evidence-”
“I may haven’t, but what I have got are three calls from Simeone, Ancelotti and recently Pérez, all suggesting friendly that we don’t dig any deeper.”
Only when his arse hit the chair did Iker realise he was sitting down. What. Villa had just ended his talk with Bento, the other Portuguese simply couldn’t have had time to contact the Minister of Internal Affairs, the vice-President of the Comunidad de Madrid and the Bureau’s head.
“Pérez?”, the other two didn’t come as a surprise. Simeone was crooked to the tip of his polished boot and actually had an unproved criminal past and Ancelotti would accept everything as long as it didn’t involve closing his favourite designer shops.
“Better the devil you know than a new one”, Mourinho pronounced with contempt, “You want Ronaldo and the rest bathing the streets in blood? A poor alibi isn’t a reason to bring in a man like Villa. You have something on that boy? Then good, go after him”, from his tone it was pretty clear he was citing his superior.
“The boy shot me in the flat of our informant. I can’t imagine what more someone may need to see the connection here. It’s a start. Just let me lock Villa up for 72 hours and I guarantee we’ll get more proof. I just need a lever”, he came pathetically close to pleading given that he was advocating an arrest of a murderer.
“Archimedes of mine”, the Portuguese’s voice was barely above a whisper, “Do you know what will happen if Villa’s behind the bars?”
“People will sleep more soundly?”, he hissed sarcastically.
“He has no clear successor-”
“For fuck’s sake, we’re talking about a damn criminal, we do not want people following his footsteps!”, for once he was grateful that Krkić wasn’t there. No witnesses to him yelling at Mourinho, no reasons for the Chief to hate him even more.
“Do you think I’m actually okay with letting him go again?”, some fire returned to the Portuguese, “Do you think I’ll be able to look my neghbours in the eye knowing that I’ve just released the most dangerous man on this side of the Pyrenees? My hands are fucking tied!”
“Then say that the word’s already got out to the press!”, if he called Alba now he may still be able to stage it. Or whoever, he supposed, it didn’t need to be Alba. Who was a sports journalist, hard as it was to remember that.
“Are you that set on getting suspended?”, the Chief finally yelled back at him, red in the face and his voice breaking towards the end.
“What?”, Iker’s heart thumped against his ribcage.
“Casillas, I’m not the one taking the burn if we disregard Pérez”, Mourinho levelled him with a hard look.
“Fuck it”, it was out of his mouth before he could completely digest the threat, “Sorry, sir, or maybe in fact not, I’m not sorry. I’m actually doing this job because I want to make a difference-”
“And do you plan on making that difference from your couch?”, the Chief thumped his fist on the desk, “You think it’s a noble thing to do, sacrificing your entire career to fight for a principle?”
“Yes, I guess I do”, Iker couldn’t help but smile crookedly.
“Who the fuck will pick it up after you, hm?”, the Portuguese waved almost helplessly around the office.
Iker bit his tongue so that he wouldn’t bring up López. He couldn’t speak bad about a dead man, even if López himself wasn’t the object of his growing resentment.
“There are many capable men”, he only said coolly.
“That was not a suggestion, Casillas”, Mourinho’s face settled into a familiar expression of a blind stubbornness, all of his previous desperation gone, “They’re releasing him as we speak.”
He got up and walked out the door without as much as sparing the Chief a glance. The only thing his brain registered was a soft screech of the leather as the Portuguese must have slid back onto his chair.
...
Messi arrived with the warrant some fifty minutes later.
“I’m sorry”, he mumbled handing it to Iker.
“What for?”, he didn’t accept the paper, measuring the intern. For someone who had undergone a scrupulous interrogation with a grand finale lavished with Argentinian tears as he had confessed to having selected an empty magazine. Llorente claimed it to be the most embarrassing moment of his whole life, winning also with explaining to his mother why there’s a condom planted in a flower bed.
“The delay?”, Messi blinked in apparent confusion, “You requested it over an hour ago, Inspector”, he unwittingly took a step back under the scrutiny.
Iker shook his head to clear his thoughts. It was just an unfortunate wording, it didn’t imply that the Argentinian had been eavesdropping on him and Mourinho, the guy had been hardly sticking his nose out of the computer lab since he had become the laughing stock of the whole team. Or at least that part that hadn’t been fully briefed on the mole situation.
“Thank you”, he forced himself to give the boy a curt smile, “Have you heard from Krkić?”, he remembered when the intern started to inch away.
“No?”, the technician hazarded a guess, furrowing his eyebrows, “But I can go hurry him up if you wish”, he added in an afterthought.
“He’s on a leave”, Iker aimed for a neutrally curious tone.
“I didn’t know?”, he hated how the intern could turn everything into a question, “I haven’t been around lately”, his cheeks actually coloured a piggy shade of pink, “And we don’t really talk all that much… At all”, he shuffled with his foot at the allusion to their ongoing rivalry.
“Just making a small talk”, Iker grinned, allowing him to escape his presence.
...
The caller’s ID was an unknown number.
“Yes?”, he tried, elbowing his way into a metro train.
“There were supposed to be no photos”, a cold calm voice rang in his ear, “You fucked up.”
“What photos?”, he couldn’t recognise the owner of the low cadence.
“The ones someone has been sending Casillas. You claimed they’d been taken care of.”
“They were”, only obviously not, “I’ve deleted- Fuck, he must’ve found the photographer”, that was the sole possible scenario. But it had been so clear the photographer had wished to remain anonymous that he had postponed tracking him down… Which had been such an idiotic thing to decide.
“As they say, no shit, Sherlock. We’ve expected a bit more from our resident genius.”
He worked his jaw slowly. He had never talked to the lawyer before but it could only be Bento.
“I thought you didn’t have my number”, his identity had been to be kept secret. Letting Ronaldo in had been a necessary evil caused by Ramos’ wavering loyalty. The fact that the older Portuguese had contacted him spoke volumes about the scare Villa’s arrest must have given them.
Well, they were the ones to talk. They wouldn’t be the one stranded on the force should anything befall Guaje.
“You’re getting slow”, the Portuguese didn’t even grant him a snort, “Silva knows about you.”
“How-”
“He guessed. You’re slipping”, it sounded like a sentence coming from the lawyer’s lips.
“He’s sharper than he looks”, he was, and not just because he had somehow figured him out. The boy’s act was almost as flawless as his own.
“David sold him out”, shit, that was serious. Getting rid of Silva had been entertained as an end game and he wasn’t even sure if anyone was supposed to have been let onto this particular plan .
“Fuck”, he growled eloquently moving towards the end of the train, “It must’ve been someone from today-”, otherwise someone would have let something slip about a newfound evidence. There was no way they wouldn’t have stupidly babbled it out in front of him-
“Find them. I’ve had to call in a few favours today and I don’t like dealing with those little shifty shitheads that govern this pitiful excuse of a country.”
“They’ve been owing us since forever”, he snorted. Ever since they’d eaten away all of the tax money.
“And that’s the only way to keep them”, Bento snapped back, successfully reproaching him his inability to navigate the world of politics, “The moment you remind them of what a debt to us really means they start looking for a way out. Find this photographer before it becomes a mess I can’t clean up”, with that, he hang up.
Casillas had gone to the hospital and talked to Puyol. Which was the more likely one? He hadn’t been able to get his hands on the DI’s new mobile so that left the CCTV cameras from the way to and from the hospital. Or the very building itself.
...
If somebody asked him, Iker wouldn’t manage to rationally argument why it was suddenly so vitally important that Alba answered his mobile. Personally he was inclined to blame it on the fact he was his sole contact in the phone book.
“Yes?”, a muffled voice finally spoke up at the other end.
After missing six calls.
“What the hell, Alba?”, he hoped that his traitorous sigh of relief wouldn’t get detected by the journalist, “Where the fuck have you been?”, did he derive some perverted pleasure from making Iker imagine him in a white bed?
“Is everything alright?”, Alba didn’t raise his voice. Which was weird, considering it was, well, Alba.
“We’re bringing in Silva”, Iker growled despite himself bumping lightly into a pedestrian.
“And that’s bad how?”, the Catalan’s tone grew suspicious.
He should have never dialled this number, that was confidential and no matter how many times Alba had proved himself.
“Casillas, if you’ve called me just to wheeze creepily down my line-”, the journalist cut himself short to take a shallow breath, “It’s not the best moment”, he finished softly.
“What’s wrong?”, it was out before his brain could suggest he returned to the original subject.
“Nothing”, he didn’t sound it. Truthfully, he sounded awfully small and… Childish. Lost, “Iker, shit, it is nothing”, he growled with certain sincerity, “I’m just not in Madrid.”
“Where are you? What’s going on? Are you-”
“Calm down before you pop a vine, will you? You have a wannabe yakuza to catch”, Iker’s lips smiled a bit on their own, “I’m in Barcelona. It’s no pet project of mine I’m afraid, no evidence will miraculously land on your desk with tomorrow’s light-”
“Alba”, the guy - boy? - was definitely avoiding something, “I don’t give a fuck about evidence, are you alright?”, he stressed the ‘you’.
“Yes”, it had a long-suffering quality, “I just had to take a day off. My parents are getting their divorce today.”
“What?”, that was a bright answer to that, “God, I’m sorry, I didn’t-”
Know? Seriously? As if Alba had some sort of an obligation to share his private life with him? They were associates with a common goal at best, not even friends. With his current team issues that stung him particularly hard.
“It’s nothing”, Alba declared entirely too fast, “It’s not like I’m ten and will have to choose one over another or something. Everyone’s seen it coming for a long time…”, did it mean he’d had his parents’ marital crisis on mind all the while he’d been tracking criminals for him? That is, for the police?, “Now that you’ve got your Alba-Ramos clan newsflash, will you tell what’s wrong in our great capital?”
Ducking his head, Iker collected his take-away coffee, making his way through an American tourists group blocking the café’s entrance. As usual, the bartender had taken him for one of them simply because apparently, no Spaniard would willingly drink a coffee while walking.
He should send Andrés there one day, he’d probably snap something witty about how he had the brain capacity to do those two activities simultaneously.
The memory of Andrés made him spill his guts immediately.
“I’m getting the technicians relegated from the team”, it was so ridiculous that he was whispering that in the middle of Gran Vía as if he was planning a dirty coup d’état, “I’ve wanted to do that ever since Móstoles but the Chief was completely against it, even if he understood the danger”, Andrés and Xavi had built up their entire security system. Keeping them away from the Bureau was not a way to keep them out of the network. They’d been waiting, exposing themselves constantly, for two technicians from the Interpol to redesign their firewalls. Today he’d got a word they were ready to install the new system.
“So how do you intent to ‘relegate them’?”, he could hear Alba frown, “Fake Mourinho’s signature or what?”
“I just have a feeling that this time he’s going to grant me my request”, their circumstances still had a bitter taste for him.
“Then why do you sound so fucking sad?”, the Catalan snorted humourlessly, “Come on, Casillas, you’re not telling me something.”
“And that’s probably the way I should keep it”, he growled without thinking. There was this part of him that would always react to the infuriating journalist.
For example, it was absolutely maddening how the guy patiently waited him out.
“They’re my friends”, he sat down on a low bench the moment a yellow lorry sped past it with a loud whoosh.
“They’re policemen”, Alba countered without missing a beat, “They can’t be just your friends, not in that and if they can’t understand it-”
“I need to get going”, a lady that’d been eyeing his bench since before he’d claimed it inspected it carefully before taking his place.
But he didn’t hang up.
“Uhm, hello? You do remember you actually have to press a button to finish a call don’t you, they did teach you that at the grandparents’ school-”
“I had to release Villa, Krkić is gone I don’t know what to do anymore”, he stopped in his tracks and a fat businessman walked into him, hitting him between the ribs with a leather suitcase.
For a second, he was convinced Alba had decided he hadn’t signed up for that.
“Okay, you want to run that by me again, preferably part by part?
...
He was licking off the remainder of a pineapple yoghurt from the lid when a loud knock resonated through the whole flat. Freezing up, he put the sweet away, turning slowly to the door.
Neither Villa nor his men would knock.
He stood up after the second bang, patting his back pocket to make sure the gun was there and crept towards the corridor.
“Police, open up!”
That stopped him dead. For one, desperate second he thought it was Villa pulling his leg but then the pounding grew even louder and someone threatened that should he stall they would be breaking the door down.
That finally got him to move and his brain to function again. He didn’t know how many of them were outside but the staircase was narrow and steep and the hall even tinier, making it almost impossible for two men to stand at the door at the same time.
His eyes strayed to the kitchen. The walls were thick and if only he managed to squeeze himself next to the fridge-
“Open the door, it’s the last warning!”, that he could believe. The whole doorframe was moving along with the hard bangs.
That was also his last chance to prepare himself. He could try to shoot but it was almost a guarantee of getting shot back. On the other hand, they’d be prosecuting him for a murder attempt and since they were there it probably meant Villa had washed his hands off him for good but what if he could somehow help him later…
Without realising it, he had plastered himself to a wall. He put his hand to his heart just to check if it wasn’t its frantic pounding he was hearing and was thoroughly surprised by how short and shallow his breaths were.
How he could even think he could shoot somebody right now.
Taking a deep gulp of air, he pushed himself forward, his knee giving out instantly. He gritted his teeth and stalked to the door, ignoring the stiffness in his leg.
Closing his eyes and regretting his cowardice, he worked the lock open.
...
A/N This is, in a way, a filler chapter that's why there's more talking than taking action. Anyway, I'm sorry for abandoning the story for so long, the last few months haven't been kind to my writing time :( But, as I've been always saying, I will finish it no matter what. I hope someone's still following it :)
I hope to post a new chapter till the end of October and if not, early November. I'm away on Erasmus and things are a bit hectic ;)