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  The ladder.

  It’s not there anymore.

  He moves a few meters away and turns in place as though in some hysterical ballet. Then he grabs Chou Chet by the shoulders. “Where are they?” he pants.

  “Who? What?”

  “The workers! Where are they?”

  Chou Chet’s scared. He looks around and tries to free himself from Kasper’s grip. “What you saying?” he asks forcefully.

  “The workers! On the wall! Where are they?” Kasper repeats.

  “Work called off. They go back to Phnom Penh. No more work. Finished!” Chou Chet barks. Now he thinks he understands, and he’s looking at Kasper like he’s a madman.

  A suicidal madman.

  A danger to himself and others.

  “The ladder…” Kasper stammers, cell phone in hand. “The ladder’s gone.”

  Chou Chet shakes his head and goes away. Kasper remains unmoving in the middle of the prison yard, then falls to his knees and bows his head like a penitent. His forehead just touches the mud.

  The foot he feels on his neck is a storm warning. Without rain this time.

  “Bravo, Italian, eat your shit!” the Kapo yells in his snarling English. He pushes Kasper’s head farther down.

  Kasper breathes deeply. He puts up no resistance, letting himself be pushed. For a moment. Then his movement is lightning quick, purely instinctive. He shifts his body sideways, the Kapo loses contact with him, and with his right hand, Kasper seizes his adversary’s ankle. His leg remains in midair. Before the Kapo can react and strike out with his big stick, Kasper’s got him on the ground, his ankle twisted behind him and his face in the mud. Kasper, now on his feet, delivers a series of heel kicks to the Kapo’s back, right in the spine, and pauses to assess what’s left to be done. A little stomping assures that the Cambodian is driven well down into the muddy earth. The Kapo struggles and gurgles something, and Kasper kicks him harder. The mud’s the best place for this worm.

  Then Kasper has the disagreeable sensation of a steel tube pressing on the nape of his neck. A Kalashnikov, an old acquaintance. Neurotic screams in Cambodian are the last sounds he hears.

  Before all his senses shut down.

  —

  “How many days did you spend in solitary?”

  Grumpy gazes at him with the disgusted expression of someone eyeing a wreck on its way to the junkyard. He turns to his blond colleague and shakes his head disconsolately. “You see this guy?” he asks, with his usual theatrics. “This is a genuine Italian asshole.”

  “Sure is,” his companion echoes him. “An almost dead Italian asshole.”

  Kasper looks at them, trying to focus. It’s not easy for him to remain seated on that chair. They haven’t even bothered to tie him to it. He’s in such bad shape that any one of them could topple him with a finger. He’s spent two weeks in the tiger cage, with periodic visits from the Kapo and his sidekicks.

  They haven’t been gentle with him.

  His face is gashed and bruised. They’ve worked over his fingers and toes with a rifle butt. His nose has been broken again; a few teeth are gone for good. And his legs have received special treatment. Particularly his right leg, the one he’d used to hop around on the Kapo’s back.

  When the Americans returned, that’s how they found him. A wreck.

  The woman didn’t come this time. Her absence is one thing that makes Kasper feel better. Because she’s the most dangerous of them. He’s sure of it.

  Grumpy and the blond guy are synchronized. They take turns talking to him. The usual douche bag duet.

  They tell him that if it weren’t for them, he’d still be in the punish pit. They may even be telling the truth, these Visitors. Too bad they always sing the same song: sign our papers, come away with us.

  “You promised you’d think about it, and what did you do instead? You kicked a Cambodian around.” Grumpy sighs before going on. “They told us you had a Nokia. What a guy. A prisoner with a cell phone. I bet you never managed that before, not even in Italian jails. Why did you need a cell phone?”

  “To call your wife,” Kasper mumbles. “She says she misses me.”

  “I understand,” Grumpy sneers. “Seeing that your girlfriend has decided to dump you.”

  Kasper nods and sneers in return. But the American’s gibe isn’t like his. It has a ring of truth.

  “But what can you say to her, poor Patty…” the other man says. “Her family doesn’t approve of you. Her parents and her brother know you lead a pretty disorderly life….And she…Patty’s such a terrific girl….”

  “An old-fashioned girl. Studied a lot. Now a veterinary doctor,” Grumpy declaims. “So she knows how to care for animals, but you’re an especially nasty beast. Too many lives, too many names. Too many girlfriends on your CV. And you don’t treat your girls all that well anyway. You make a bunch of promises, and then you disappear….You even got one of them killed. You remember Silvia, the lovely Colombian, don’t you?”

  They know a great deal about him. They think they know everything. It’s clear they want to wear him out. But they’re lying about Patty. They’re bluffing.

  “Your girlfriend has left you. Your mother’s going to leave you too, and soon, unfortunately,” says Grumpy, getting up from his chair. “That’s some bad luck: she’ll succumb to her terrible disease, and you won’t be there to see her. Because you’ll be here, or maybe in some fucking pit between two rice paddies. What a sad end, my dear colleague.”

  Don’t answer him, Kasper thinks. Don’t say anything. Desperation is a fuel that shouldn’t be wasted.

  “Consider our offer,” the blond guy says tersely. “You have a week. Then you’re dead to us.”

  “Last call, colleague.” And Grumpy slams the door behind him.

  —

  The pills are in the usual transparent envelope.

  Chou Chet gazes at him the way he did the first time. And, as he did the first time, he says, “Paracetamol.”

  “Don’t need it. Get me some cyanide instead.”

  “Cy-a-nide…Don’t understand.”

  “Poison. Find me some poison.”

  The Cambodian guard steps back, stiff as an icicle. “You make joke,” he says.

  “No, I’m not joking.”

  Chou Chet shakes his head and looks Kasper straight in the eyes. “I have your weapons. In safe place.”

  Kasper doesn’t answer.

  “Have your Nokia too.”

  “How did you get it back?”

  “I paid guard who hit you. Americans wanted that cell phone. But looks like it got lost.”

  “Does it work?”

  “Is full of mud. I get you another one.”

  “I can’t pay you anymore. I have no more money. My mother has sent it all.”

  “No matter. Someone pay for you.”

  This time it’s Kasper’s turn to look at the Cambodian questioningly.

  “While you in tiger cage, things happen.”

  “Things…”

  “You come. Someone want to see you.”

  —

  There he is, right in front of him. Dressed like a prisoner. Sitting like a prisoner. With the expression of a prisoner.

  Victor Chao.

  They embrace.

  “How is this possible?” Kasper asks him.

  “That doesn’t sound like you,” the Chinese boss says. “Asking such a question isn’t like you at all.”

  “What happened?”

  Victor Chao puts a hand on his shoulder. He looks at Chou Chet and gives him a little sign with his head. The guard nods and vanishes.

  “Outstanding individual. Good choice on your part,” Victor tells Kasper. “They say he’s the best guard in here.”

  “I can confirm that,” Kasper says, nodding.

  They sit in a corner of the camp, not far from the infirmary. “They’ve handled you with kid gloves,” says the ex-commander of Eagle Force. “It’s strange you’re still alive. If the rumors are tr
ue, you should have disappeared long ago.”

  “What rumors?”

  “You’re supposed to have stuck your nose into something really big. You pissed off a whole lot of people. No, ‘pissed off’ isn’t right. They say you scared the shit out of them.”

  “You know what I was doing?”

  Victor Chao nods and smiles. “It was fate, after all.”

  “Fate. What does that mean?”

  “Same-same, but different. You remember, don’t you? That night in my office at the Manhattan Club, the hundred-dollar bills…”

  “You’re talking about ten years ago.”

  “Ten years ago, yes. They go by in a flash.”

  “You were drunk, Victor. You can’t possibly remember.”

  “Fuck no, I wasn’t drunk. They asked me to show you those banknotes. They told me you’d understand right away. A guy like you couldn’t resist. You’d make a move….But instead, apparently, you didn’t understand a fucking thing. You were the one who was drunk, probably.”

  “Who asked you to show them to me?”

  Victor replies with one of his smiles.

  “Okay, then. So why me?”

  “Because you’d tell the Americans. Your Americans. The ones who weren’t involved, I suppose. You’d do it at your own peril. Some thought you were brave and fearless. Others thought you were a conceited lunatic. In any case, the perfect guinea pig.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Right.” Victor shrugs. “Don’t believe it if that makes you feel better. At certain moments, I don’t want to believe I’m here either. Then I glance around, I look the people around me in the eye, and I make peace with reality.”

  —

  Victor Chao has lost everything.

  In just a few days, his life turned upside down. But when he talks about it, he’s cool and lucid. Now, he explains, it’s a question of figuring out how long he’ll be able to hold out. Because something’s bound to happen, sooner or later. Hun Sen will decide to make him disappear forever, or one of his Chinese friends will get him out of here. Friends are important; you just need some insight into the kinds of calculations they’re making. That’s how it works in the Triads.

  Victor’s fall from grace occurred in an instant. He clashed with Hun Sen’s brother and was accused of not having paid the prime minister’s family as much as he’d agreed to.

  Whether he paid the agreed sum or not isn’t very important. It was just a matter of time. With Hun Sen in power, you can’t be a gambling boss and a prostitution boss and the leader of the country’s main paramilitary group and think you’re going to go peacefully into retirement when your working days are through. An early retirement is arranged for you. And when people who worked for Hun Sen are laid off, they don’t usually draw a pension.

  “Whatever you want to do, I’ll help you do it,” Victor Chao tells Kasper.

  “There’s not much to do here,” Kasper says with a smile.

  “You know what I mean.”

  Of course I know, Kasper thinks. The fact is, I can’t trust you. I can’t trust anyone anymore. I can only tell people what happened to me and hope someone gets word back to Italy. To my mother. To Patty. To my Roman lawyer, whom I don’t even know. Before it’s too late.

  Too late even to remember.

  “I must write it down,” he murmurs, lost in thought.

  “Right.” Victor Chao nods. “Writing is very important. I do it all the time. I’ll let you read my stuff. And I’ll get you whatever you need. For one thing, I’ll find you somewhere better than that crowded room where you sleep. And some notebooks. You want notebooks, don’t you? Notebooks and pencils. So you can write.”

  “Why are you doing this, Victor?”

  “I don’t want you to die before me,” the Taiwanese says, laughing. “That’s all, my friend.”

  —

  “Italian! You come here right now!”

  The Kapo glares and sneers as usual, his yellow canines prominently displayed. He gestures toward the administrative offices. “You have visitor, Italian.”

  Kasper does a quick mental count. The week’s not up yet, but apparently the Americans are impatient. Their timeline cannot be extended. At his last meeting with them a few days ago, he was in such a sorry state that they must have figured they shouldn’t let too much time pass.

  Mong Kim Heng is waiting for him.

  This time the little dictator of Prey Sar isn’t smiling. He’s not playing his standard nice guy role. He shows Kasper to an office. It’s not the room where his conversations with the American agents take place. It’s an office used by the managerial staff. “He’s waiting in there,” he says.

  Kasper opens the door and goes in. Mong Kim Heng remains outside.

  “Buongiorno.” The man sitting on the far side of the table makes a gesture as though welcoming Kasper to his home. “Sit wherever you like.” He speaks good Italian, but with a distinct French accent.

  Kasper tries to place him. He’s not in his mental Rolodex. Never seen him before. Kasper’s sure of it.

  The office is cool. The air-conditioning seems like a joke to him. He drops into an armchair and puts his elbows on the meeting table.

  Who can hold meetings in such a place? Kasper ponders this question while sizing up his new acquaintance. He must be around forty, short black hair, thin mustache, dark eyes. A light suit and a sky-blue shirt without a tie.

  “My name is Louis Bastien, and I’m a French civil servant,” he begins. “Let’s use first names, if you don’t mind.”

  Kasper barely nods. He looks around the room again. Where are the microphones hidden? And the video cameras? There are no pictures or mirrors on the walls. Not even suspicious lights. But the recording devices have to be somewhere.

  “My colleague Marco Lanna and I have talked at length about you. He says hello.”

  “Marco Lanna, but of course,” Kasper says, smiling ironically. “Are you a part-time diplomat too? What’s your real line of work? Marriage counseling? Plumbing? Selling insurance?”

  Louis Bastien nods but doesn’t seem too amused. He strokes the ends of his mustache and shakes his head a little. “I play guitar.”

  “Just what we need, a musician.”

  “A musician, yes, and a pretty good one too. Unfortunately, however, it’s only a hobby. I’m a diplomat by profession. Some coffee? Tea? Coca-Cola, perhaps…”

  Kasper stares at him as though he’s mad. Bastien gets up, opens the door, sticks his head out, calls the guard, and gives him the order, in English. Then he closes the door and hands Kasper his cell phone. “Call your loved ones. It’s on France.”

  —

  The conversation is brief.

  Kasper calls la mamma at home in Florence. Manuela Sanchez answers the phone.

  “She’s resting,” Manuela tells him.

  “Don’t wake her up.” Kasper asks her if she’s heard from Patty in the past few days.

  Manuela stammers a mostly incomprehensible answer. Strange, Kasper thinks. She’s the unhesitating, direct type.

  “Tell me what’s going on,” Kasper urges her.

  “I don’t know if—”

  “Manuela, you’ve got to tell me!” he exclaims, almost begging. “Please. The whole truth.”

  “Patty gave me a letter for you. I promised I’d get it to you somehow, maybe through the honorary consul—”

  “Open it.”

  “Listen, I—”

  “Open it. I don’t have much time.”

  She reads it to him. Just a few lines.

  Patty couldn’t take it anymore. She’s left him.

  After all, it’s only fair. I had a feeling it might happen, he tells himself.

  But it’s not true. He never once thought she could possibly leave him. And it’s not fucking fair. Looks like he should have believed the Americans when they threw it in his face.

  “Read it to me again. Slowly,” he asks Manuela. She does so without objection.

>   Patty asks his forgiveness, but explains that she no longer knows who he is. Maybe her family’s right, she says. After all, they’ve read on the Internet what everybody else has. And then there’s the fact that he never talks about what he does, and there are those long, unexplained trips. What is he hiding? Maybe he has a wife and children in some other part of the world….

  “Forgive me, but this is all too big for me. Too big, too strange, and too difficult.”

  Kasper listens to her last words again. Now he’s well and truly alone. Alone in the never-ending storm that’s steadily getting worse.

  He tells Manuela good-bye, closes the telephone, and hands it back to Louis Bastien.

  “Thanks.” Kasper rises to his feet. “I’m going back,” he says.

  “Wait a minute. I came all this way because I’d like to talk to you.”

  There’s a knock at the door. The guard enters, bearing a tray. He puts the drinks on the table and leaves. The smell of hot coffee is overpowering, but Kasper takes it the way he’s taken everything else.

  How long has it been since the last time he drank coffee? It doesn’t seem important now.

  “Please sit down,” the Frenchman says.

  “I don’t have time, Monsieur Bastien.”

  “Are you saying you don’t have hope? L’espoir fait vivre.”

  “Oh, right, the French and their proverbs. I know some too. Chacun est l’artisan de sa fortune is the right one for me. Thanks for the visit. Thanks for the telephone call. But I’m not your problem.”

  Soon I won’t be anyone’s problem anymore, he thinks.

  He bids the diplomat good-bye and has himself escorted back to the camp.

  Now he knows what he has to do. And he even knows how to do it.

  27

  The Right Thing

  Mondello Beach, Palermo

  February 2009

  “Another month and we’ll be able to go swimming here.”

  Giulia spreads her arms and spins around. “Know what I think? This weather’s so incredible, I could just about jump in right now.”

  Barbara smiles and watches her friend, in a T-shirt and jeans rolled up to her knees, play with the moving film of water at the edge of the beach. It’s a February that already has the fragrance of spring. The sun’s speaking Sicilian, which puts them both in excellent humor. They’ve been hanging out, chattering like free-spirited, happy-go-lucky, lighthearted teenagers, having fun the way they did when they were little girls, inseparable friends who shared secrets and dreams.