Human Rights & Human Wrongs: Love Energy Central 20

The series is best read in order as stories often span more than one volume and characters evolve.

Pursue some path, however narrow
and crooked, in which you can walk
with love and reverence.
Henry DavidThoreau

Teniente Alma Perez of the Guardia Civil, now pregnant, is investigating a serial killer. Mutilated bodies are found in rubbish bags outside the coastal city of Motril. Two in number, but will there be more? Both horrific and daunting, Alma and her second in command, Manolo, seek to identify the second victim in hopes of finding clues as to her death. They advertise for information and do find a possible victim, but can they confirm it is her? Difficulties abound. A suspect is eventually pinpointed, and the interrogation falls to Manolo, who feels he might be promoted beyond his abilities. How will that go?

In the middle of all this, Héctor returns from Peru and Ecuador at long last. The reunion is brief, as Héctor hopes for more, but fears he may be in deep doo-doo. What he didn’t expect was to be trailing along behind Alma as she leaves Manolo to deal with the murder investigation and dashes off to see about a bomb in the Granada Airport! Jesús is there to meet María. When Alma arrives, she finds Jesús being zipped into a body-bag and pronounced dead! Shocking, yes, but believable, no. Alma gets María as his ‘wife’ to accompany the ‘body’ to the hospital. They need to get him out of there asap, and Carmen organises a rescue. A large group forms. Then the eager Anti-Terrorism Squad flies in from Madrid. This is their first real case for eight years. At last a bomb! So they criticise everything that has and hasn’t been done, they exercise full macho misogyny on encountering Alma, and they demand an autopsy of Jesús. Alma is off again to join the rescue group. A busy day!

Then another emergency! Pepe, el capo of the Guardia Civil in the province of Granada is missing. He’s el capo of a cupboard at the moment. The search for Pepe is on, helped by a strange crew of Arabic speakers, including Héctor and Gheorghe, as it seems the Arab group behind the Airport bomb may be intending to off Pepe. The Anti-Terrorism Squad would probably shoot the hostage, so they are not informed about Pepe being missing when they turn up at the Comandancia. To demonstrate how on the ball they are they demand Gheorghe, wearing a djellaba and eating a ham sandwich, be held for questioning. If that isn’t enough, the rescue team realise that the Jesús they rescued is in fact Mohammed the suicide bomber, who wanders off looking for his 72 virgins. Body swap? Por Dios! Lisa, another Arabic speaker, who sort of cohabits with Pepe, helps with suggestions as to where he might be held. Will they find Pepe in time? Sparrow is on the job.

Change of scene. Meanwhile, Chelo searches the droguero-infested Sierra Madre of México for her estranged father. What she finds is a dear childhood friend, Ofelia, now scientifically qualified to produce drugs herself. She is wealthy enough to leave all this behind, but the need to revenge her brother’s death keeps her looking for the assassin. As fate would have it, the two friends help one another towards resolution. With Sparrow, of course.

Carmen is saving the world or at least trying to save civilian protesters from injury and arrest by helping to make a Guardia Civil video on how to police demonstrations without violence. Being an incorrigible optimist, she tries to educate the police! Even Sparrow can’t help with this one.

And where did all the sparrows come from? From LEC, of course, where Juan is discovering the importance of both truth and Truth.

Love, SC