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  “It may not have been pretty, that world,” the professor admits with a slight sneer. “But if nothing else, the dividing lines were clearly marked. The IFF had a foothold in all the major cities of the world. In Rome, the foot belonged to a young pilot. A brilliant lad, and something of a daredevil.”

  “Are you telling me…?”

  “I just told you, counselor. And if you don’t lose that bewildered expression, it’ll mean you still haven’t grasped what kind of brave new planet you landed on when you began to explore this business. Our friend, an Italian secret service agent and a representative of the IFF, started to work for the South African Bureau of State Security, or BOSS. In practice, it was a kind of IFF served up in a South African sauce.”

  “So it was the CIA, once again,” Barbara observes.

  “Perfect. I see you’re following me,” says the professor. “The BOSS had some particular plans for members of the African National Congress, the opponents of the regime, which considered the ANC a terrorist party. The goal was to take out Mandela’s men working abroad. Without any fuss. To send an unequivocal message. These are matters that can’t be assessed through contemporary eyes; at the time, there was a real war going on. The South Africans, with the consent of their Western allies, asked our Kasper to organize the proper ‘treatment’ to take care of Mandela’s representatives in the various European capitals. In Rome, the ANC’s man was Benny Nato de Bruyn, and he was the first target.”

  “You’re joking,” Barbara murmurs.

  “Do I strike you as someone who would make jokes in front of a Montepulciano di Valentini?”

  The professor studies her, amused and looking like a wrinkled, disenchanted sailor with little gray eyes. He raises his glass of red wine. Barbara tries to imitate him. A toast, while the subject of the conversation is people planning to kill other people. It’s not bewilderment she feels; it’s disgust. But she does her best to hide it.

  The professor moves his mouth, assaying the wine. Then, satisfied, he goes on: “Kasper followed the instructions he’d received and planned the ‘treatment.’ Surgical elimination. Everything was ready, but then nothing was done. All of a sudden, the Company sent a stop order. The impact of such an action on international public opinion would be devastating, they decided, and it would only accelerate Botha’s decline. Therefore the project was called off. But meanwhile the South Africans had come to appreciate the young Italian, and for a brief period they employed him as a military pilot. You see, despite the embargo, they were using Italian Aermacchi planes. Kasper found himself attacking the SWAPO’s Angolan convoys. It was a war, a real, authentic war that made him a well-respected figure in the Italian intelligence community. The Americans liked him too, because he spoke, and fought, like an American. They liked him so much, he spent a lot of time in the States during the following years, still working for them.”

  “And all that with a guarantee from the Italian services,” mutters Barbara.

  “Obviously. You know, while he was in the U.S., Rome asked him to track down the Italian neo-Fascists who had fled to Paraguay. And what did they do when he found them? They stopped him. He was supposed to grab a pretty important fascista and bring him back to Italy. The CIA knew about the raid, and I believe they’d given their okay. At the last minute, Rome stopped everything. Without explanation. And Kasper went back to the United States. During this same time, he took up with a photographer from Seattle. Karie was her name, I believe. Gorgeous, athletic, could have been a professional tennis player. A fantastic girl, madly in love with Kasper and Italy. So much in love that he managed to co-opt her into the circles he moved in.”

  “He turned her into a spy?”

  “Something like that. For a time, Karie worked for the Italian government, both officially and undercover. They were a handsome couple, she and Kasper, while it lasted.”

  Barbara thinks perhaps she should show some enthusiasm, deluge him with appropriate questions, tell him it’s a tremendous, pyrotechnic story. Instead, all she really feels is a great emptiness.

  She can’t believe these people. In their world, they play at making war when there’s no war, and if there is one, it’s because they declared it themselves, and they fight it on the backs, on the hides of ordinary people. They’ve been doing it since Yalta; they’ve never stopped. And with our money to boot, the money they gouge out of us with taxes. How fucking long can a system like that last?

  “You look disconcerted,” the professor says with a smile.

  “There are some things I don’t understand,” she replies. “For example, I don’t understand why, if Kasper was so close to the CIA…”

  “…Why is he in trouble now?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “Maybe he’s in trouble for that very reason,” the professor answers seraphically. “If he’d never had anything to do with the CIA, he probably wouldn’t be a prisoner in Prey Sar right now.”

  “But the CIA—”

  “The CIA is made up of people,” he interrupts her. “It’s made up of men and women who are alive in their times. And every time brings its own new necessities.”

  “Which is to say?”

  “Which is to say that the CIA is the intelligence service of the most powerful country in the world. Then there’s the National Security Agency, the NSA, which is ironically said to stand for ‘No Such Agency,’ because up until a few years ago, few people knew of its existence. There’s also the legendary FBI, the DEA, and for the last five or six years we’ve also had the Department of Homeland Security. So if there’s a certain amount of competition in Italy between the police and the Carabinieri, you can imagine how lovely things must be in the States, with all those players. In theory, they should all cooperate; in reality, the competition is pitiless.

  “The security agencies have hoovered up billions of dollars of public finances. After 9/11, there was a big escalation in surveillance systems, an extremely expensive escalation. And this is exactly what Title II of the Patriot Act deals with: surveillance as a means of preventing terrorism. It gives the American government powers that would have been unthinkable until a few years ago. Which obviously entails consequences. One of many is the development of a separate industry, where all sorts of interests are flourishing. People, materiel, instruments, new entities, including governmental and para-governmental agencies. Blackwater’s an example, but I could cite several others.

  “Therefore, when you tell me your Kasper was hired by someone apparently with the CIA, whereas now he’s under the thumb of someone apparently with the FBI or Homeland Security, I say that’s not only possible but even probable. One often hears of intelligence services that are out of control. That’s not the exception. It’s the rule. Because in the end, my dear, acronyms mean nothing. It’s people who do things. Men and women. And they do them, usually, for power and money.”

  Barbara leans back against her chair and looks down at her barely tasted soup. What she sees is a swamp. Slime and quicksand.

  “Don’t let it get cold,” says the professor.

  She dips her spoon but stops at once. “Suppose I told you Kasper was investigating something very…something called ‘supernotes’?”

  The professor pauses while cutting into his saddle of rabbit. He stares at his guest, tightening his jaw muscle. “Well, you don’t say! There’s something new….”

  “So you know.”

  “It would be strange if he weren’t.” He inhales the steam rising from his plate and looks convinced. “Supernotes,” he repeats. “I can’t tell you much about that subject. The information is confusing and contradictory. They come from Asia. There are traces of them in Iran and North Korea—so-called rogue states. There may also be some in Pakistan, which is in theory a U.S. ally. If anyone were to acquire the means of printing supernotes, they’d have immense power. Government agencies with such power would have the resources to make war on one another in every possible way. And it’s unlikely that anyone who got caught in the mid
dle would live to tell the tale. Unless, at the last minute, they joined the side with the most ammunition. But Kasper doesn’t appear to have done that.”

  The professor turns back to his rabbit. He cuts a piece and puts it in his mouth, but before swallowing it, he allows himself another flinty snigger. “May I tell you something? I have a feeling your client won’t be paying your fee. He just won’t get that far.”

  23

  Visitors

  Prey Sar Correctional Center, near Phnom Penh, Cambodia

  January 2009

  They arrived unexpectedly, but they’re people who don’t need to have themselves announced. Besides, they knew they’d find him at home.

  Kasper calls them the Visitors, these Americans who want to take him out of Cambodia. Direct flight to the United States. Free ticket, one way only.

  He has no doubts they’d package him up immediately if they could. “Extraordinary rendition.” But it’s been too long since his abduction, and by this time many people, too many, know he’s in Prey Sar.

  Now he’d have to give his consent before taking that little trip. That’s why they keep pressing him for his signature. To sign papers explicitly requesting them to take him away.

  Kasper will never sign. He hasn’t considered accepting their “proposal” for even a minute. He no longer trusts anyone, especially not his American ex-friends.

  He has other plans for his immediate future.

  This time, one of the Visitors is a woman. Blonde and slender. Her presence in there is dazzling, a flash that hurts his eyes. And his stomach.

  Eau de Toilette Christian Dior.

  Kasper’s certain. The same scent that women he knew and loved wore. It’s incredible how a stupid detail can plunge us back into the anguish of loss, how it can make us feel irretrievably removed from the world of elegance and decorum. Of respect and rules.

  Her name is Rose.

  Jeans and a sky-blue jacket, a string of pearls over a white top, and barely a hint of makeup. Her gathered hair offers glimpses of subtle gold earrings. Rather more conspicuous is the diamond wedding band.

  She too says she’s from the FBI. Sometimes she gazes at Kasper and smiles at him with one corner of her mouth, if such an expression can be called a smile. But more often she scrutinizes him like someone who’d like to have him at her disposal in a different location. Certainly not in bed.

  The Americans want to know if he’s reconsidered.

  “What are you offering me?” Kasper asks.

  “You sign, and then in a few days you’re out of this shit.” It’s the dark, squat American, the one he calls “Grumpy,” who summarizes the situation so tersely.

  “So you’ve come to save me.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Like you did with my friend Clancy.”

  “You’ve heard about that? Whitebeard spent Christmas with his family.”

  Christmas wasn’t so bad in here either, he’d like to reply. But he calls himself to heel. No swaggering, no Tuscan cockiness. There’s a wall to climb over outside, a bamboo ladder waiting for him.

  Low profile, he orders himself. Close to the ground.

  “I’m very tired,” he murmurs.

  “I believe you,” says the blond guy who claims to be from Homeland Security. “You’ve been in here for months. I wonder how you manage to stay alive.”

  “You don’t know?” the woman intervenes. “The Italian has made some friends.”

  Kasper’s heart skips a beat. It’s not just the malice; it’s the feeling that these words are scalpels. And that this first cut will be followed by many more.

  The surgery has only just begun. If they know about the weapons, he’s finished.

  “How many have you bought yourself so far?” Grumpy sniggers. “There was that half-breed lieutenant, what’s his name? Darrha, I think…well, anyway, he misses you a lot. When he talks about you, you know who he reminds me of? He reminds me of my brother, telling me about his first girlfriend.”

  “It’s true, we had a good relationship,” Kasper replies.

  “So who are you engaged to in here?”

  “I haven’t found Mr. Right. Not yet.”

  “But you’ve got yourself a couple of little buddies,” the woman says. “We know you get lots of nice things from outside….A bit expensive, apparently, but they help keep you going.”

  Grumpy interjects, “Listen, my dear Italian colleague—I can call you that, can’t I? You’re not offended?—well, colleague: we’re offering you the opportunity to come away with us and to cooperate with the United States government. If you stay in here, sooner or later you’re going to croak.”

  “Take me back to Italy. I’ll cooperate from there.”

  “I’m afraid that’s impossible. We’ll give you a few more days to think about it. We’d really like to be going home soon. What do they say in Italy? Teniamo famiglia, right? You’ll be able to talk to your poor sick mamma. Just think, you’ll be able to call her every day. You’ll be able to call your Patty whenever you want—”

  “Bastards,” Kasper mutters.

  “Did you say something?”

  “I said I have to think about it. Give me a few days.”

  —

  The ladder’s where he figured it would be. His calculations are accurate.

  Just a few more hours. He must make sure to keep a discreet eye on the “worksite.” Then he’ll go into action. Best to wait until sunset, until after the workers take the ladder down, lay it on the ground, and leave.

  But first he must go fishing.

  He has to retrieve the pistol and the hand grenade from the bottom of the big earthenware jar, take them out of their waterproof wrapping, and hide them somewhere else for a few hours. He’s dug a little hole on the edge of the vegetable garden and camouflaged the spot with paper, soil, and grass. A hidden hole, like the ones he used to dig as a boy on the beach to make the grown-ups stumble.

  And all that’s the easy part. Then fate comes into play.

  Kasper has to hope those weapons that have cost him so much actually work. He has to hope Chou Chet hasn’t supplied him with a couple of museum pieces. Once he’s eliminated the man in the watchtower and climbed up there, the music will change. The Kalashnikov will be in his hands, and everything will become simpler.

  Escape or die.

  In Prey Sar, you can lose your life for crimes much less serious than killing a prison guard. Blowing one away and then failing to escape would mean consigning yourself to the most indecent excesses of Cambodian torture. Much better to take matters into your own hands.

  Memo to himself regarding tomorrow: save at least one round for you.

  —

  He hasn’t told Chou Chet anything.

  He can only advise Chou Chet to be careful. It’s not a given that the Americans know anything about him. The money Kasper’s mother sends from Italy goes straight to the prison director and to the collaborators Mong Kim Heng chooses to reward in the course of his systematic corruption. Chou Chet is on another line of payment, one handled entirely by Brady.

  The irreplaceable Brady. The only one he can really trust.

  His mechanic friend is ready. He needs to be in the vicinity of the prison by noon. You never know when you may have to take off early. Kasper will send him a text message when the operation begins, and Brady will respond by repeating exactly the same text. If he should write “OK” or some other type of message, that will mean there are problems, better postpone.

  It’s like being back at the controls of a jet plane. Ready on the runway. The flight controller’s voice in his headphones. His aircraft aligned with the center line below him. His eyes on the instruments, with their quivering needles, with their LEDs and warning lights going on and off.

  He’s ready to surge into the final stage of the takeoff, his engines thrusting all the way up to V1, the speed beyond which there’s no turning back.

  This will be the most difficult takeoff of Kasper’s
life.

  —

  “We weren’t supposed to see each other anymore, right?”

  “Our intentions don’t always coincide with reality.” Marco Lanna smiles. “As you ought to know.”

  Kasper sees that the honorary consul is not there to waste time. Or even to do him a favor. Someone has asked him to return to Prey Sar. Someone with very specific reasons.

  “So why this visit?”

  “I have to ask you a question. How much do you know about supernotes?”

  “Enough to wind up in here, I think.”

  “Who’s involved besides you?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  “Someone who can help you.”

  “Right…” Kasper smiles. “My next mysterious benefactor. Well, you can tell him for me that I’m finished talking about supernotes. I’ve said everything I know. I’ve described what I saw.”

  “And what did you see?”

  “Things you wouldn’t believe.”

  Lanna slowly shakes his head. He doesn’t approve. He continues to see in Kasper an inextricable tangle of obvious truths and truths destined to remain in the dark.

  “You had already come across supernotes, hadn’t you? Back in 2005. The arrest in Milan. Isn’t that right?”

  “You’ve done your homework.”

  “But a few years later, you end up in jail again. Why?”

  Kasper’s sigh is long. Long and modulated.

  “The supernotes story doesn’t start in 2005. It starts in 2000. Maybe 2001. It was around then that I first heard them talked about explicitly and clearly. And it was in 2001 that I realized that supernotes could become a direct focus of my work….” He stops and observes Lanna’s expression. Then he asks, “Do you remember what my original assignment in Cambodia was?”

  “The ROS station in Phnom Penh…”