The Abduction: A Novel (16 page)

THIRTY-THREE

AS SHE LEFT
the Carabinieri building, Kat hesitated. In her life, she had tackled armed men and been blown up. She cleaned sexist insults off her locker on a regular basis, and worse things too from time to time. She had no difficulty approaching a man she liked the look of and telling him she wanted to go to bed with him, or telling one who wouldn’t take no for an answer to crawl back up his mother’s vagina and fuck her instead. But she found herself reluctant to do something most Italian men did almost without thinking: to eat alone in a restaurant. It was something Italian women just didn’t do.

Screw it. I’m hungry.

There were a dozen
trattorie
within a hundred yards of Campo San Zaccaria. Most
carabinieri
went to the nearest, Da Nino on Campo San Provolo. For that very reason, she headed a little further away, to Alla Conchiglia on Fondamenta San Lorenzo. She took along a file of paperwork, so she could occupy herself while she ate.

As she stepped inside she saw Aldo Piola at the nearest table, a fork in his hand and a similar file open in front of him. He looked up, and saw her too.

Quickly, she turned to leave. But then she turned back.

“I don’t see why I should go somewhere else just because you’re here,” she told him. “And it’s going to be really strange if we sit at different tables. Besides, I want to talk to you. So I might as well sit down, and if you don’t like it you’ll just have to get up and walk out. Which would be crazy when you’ve already got your food. Are those
moleche
? I didn’t know the season had started.”

He didn’t tell her she was talking too much, or that they weren’t allowed to do this. He just gave a wry shrug and gestured to the chair opposite, which she still hadn’t quite had the courage to pull out.

“Not that I mean anything else by this, of course,” she added as she sat down. “We’ve both moved on, as they say.”

Given the havoc their affair had wreaked on both their lives, it perhaps wasn’t the most tactful way of putting it. But he didn’t point that out either, just pushed the bowl of
moleche
towards her.

“Have some.”

She speared one and took an experimental bite. The shell of crisp batter – sprinkled with salt and a squeeze of sharp lemon – exploded in her mouth, the rich, sweet crab juices bursting down her throat. For a long moment she said nothing, concentrating on the flavour that, more than any other for her, marked the end of winter.

Twice a year without fail, Kat’s grandmother Nonna Renata would head off to the market to buy a basket of live spider crabs during the all-too-brief season known as
la muta
– “the change” – during which the tiny crustaceans shed their shells in order to grow a larger one. Like most Venetians, she usually served this delicacy stuffed, with the unusual proviso that it was the crab, not the cook, which did the stuffing, the crabs having been placed in a bowl of batter mixture to gorge themselves for a few hours before being tipped into a pan of hot oil. It might be cold and dark outside, but the first
moleche
of the year were as sure a harbinger of spring as the coming of Lent or the changing of the clocks. It meant that soon the market would be full of crunchy
castrauri
, tiny artichokes nipped off the stalks to make room for their larger brethren. There would be
bruscandoli
shoots too, the first sproutings of the hop plant, and then
sparasini
, tender white asparagus, and finally the fresh peas, grown in the salty soil of Sant’Erasmo, so crucial to a Venetian summer
risotto.

Piola speared another crab himself. The restaurant owner, unbidden, came and poured Kat some wine. It was Vespaiolo, sharp and acidic; the perfect counterpoint to the rich, salty crab.

It seemed wrong to be eating and drinking like this while Mia was suffering. But it also made the food more important, somehow: a reminder of what really mattered.

“The thing is,” she said, “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m desperate to impress General Saito, but I don’t have anyone to tell me what’s important, what I should be prioritising. I can feel myself getting frustrated, and that makes me even more aimless.” She looked him in the eye. “I want you to be my boss, Aldo. Like you were before we screwed things up.”

She thought he was going to tell her to leave. But he only said, “If I’m to be your boss, you’d better start calling me ‘sir’.”

“It’s a deal. Sir.”

He poured himself more wine. “I don’t think I’ve ever been on a case that’s more horrific, or one so cleverly constructed to have us chasing our own tails. Why don’t you tell me what you’ve learned, and I’ll do the same?”

She told him everything. Just the simple act of putting it all into words – of gauging from his expression when he was intrigued, or thoughtful, or puzzled; of seeing from his quick nods when he approved of various decisions she’d made, or from his frown when he disagreed – helped her to sort and order events in her own mind. His phone buzzed several times as she spoke, but he ignored it.

“But I keep wondering,” she concluded, “if this whole thing isn’t just too
slick
. Hackers, films, fires, masks… It just seems incredible that a bunch of amateurs could execute something as complex as this without making a single mistake. Am I being crazy, or is something more going on here?”

He looked at her. “I’ve been asking myself the exact same thing,” he said quietly. “The link between Azione Dal Molin and the kidnappers, for example: if I hadn’t been called to that investigation over the skeleton, I’d probably never have questioned it. But the more I think about it, the more suspicious I become. Was the break-in a simple publicity stunt, ahead of Mia’s kidnap? Or a sleight of hand to make us think we know exactly who’s behind this, when the reality is rather more complex?”

“But if it isn’t the protestors, then who?”

He shrugged. “Terrorists? I doubt it – they wouldn’t hide behind some local protest group; they’d want to claim it for themselves. The Mafia? Hardly – they’d be after a ransom, not a referendum. But who else is there?”

She said slowly, “The Americans themselves?”

He shot her a glance. “Are you serious?”

“I don’t know,” she confessed. “But there was a woman at the club who
might
have been one of the kidnappers, who had what
might
be an American military tattoo on her arm. And it seems to me there must have been more than one team tailing Mia, too.”

“Military precision,” he said, almost to himself. “And who’s better at that than the military?”

“But if it
is
them, I don’t see why they’d kidnap one of their own children, let alone subject her to what most people would call torture.” She looked at him. “Should we take this line of enquiry to Saito? Ask him if we can investigate further?”

“No,” he decided. “Saito’s a political animal: I saw how nervous he got about upsetting the Americans over that skeleton investigation. If we go to him now, he’ll simply order us not to pursue it.”

She nodded, remembering how quickly Saito had offered her own services to the Civilian Liaison Office as a favour, and how he’d caved in to a request by Major Elston to have her reinstated.

“Better to follow up these leads ourselves, then go to him as soon as we find anything concrete,” he added. “
If
we find anything concrete, that is. They’ve given us precious little to work with so far.”

She hesitated. “What about Holly Boland?”

“Your American friend? How could she help?”

“I don’t know,” Kat said truthfully. “She’s certainly no maverick. But she wants to get to the bottom of this just as much as we do.”

They discussed the case late into the night. The carafe of wine was emptied and replaced by one of grappa; and that was almost finished, too, before they were done.

THIRTY-FOUR

SHE WOULD NEVER
have believed that standing still could be so painful.

It had been bearable for the first forty minutes or so. Then her muscles had started to cramp. To relieve the pressure in her legs, she sagged as far as the rope would allow. But that only put more pressure on her arms. After just a few seconds, the pain in her shoulders felt like white-hot blades. So she raised herself up onto tiptoe to ease that pain, which made her legs cramp all over again.

She tried to devise a programme of stretches, kicking out with first one leg, then the other, and jumping, so far as she was able, up and down on the spot. It worked for about twenty minutes. Then the pain returned, worse than ever.

The room was in darkness now, apart from the pool of light from one portable arc lamp. Sometimes she thought she glimpsed Bauta in the shadows, filming her, the red light of the camera a tiny dot in the blackness.

After two hours she was exhausted. She wanted more than anything to sleep. But if she relaxed her position even slightly, her weight pulled on her arms and the pain flashed through her shoulders and neck again, waking her up.

Hearing a sound, she opened her eyes. Harlequin was standing there, watching her, his masked face in shadow.

“Let me go,” she begged him.

For a moment he didn’t reply. Then he said, so quietly she could barely hear, “Your country believes that it is acceptable to do this to someone for seven days without letting them sleep.”

“But I don’t do those things,” she wailed. “I’m not America. Why take it out on me?”

“You are not America,” he agreed. “But you
are
American. You are what your country calls ‘collateral damage’ and everybody else ‘an innocent civilian’. According to the United Nations, over twenty thousand people like you – twenty thousand! – have been murdered by your countrymen in Afghanistan alone.” He took a step forward, and she could see the light of zealotry in his eyes. “Some were killed by drones sent from bases here in Italy. If your suffering saves a dozen such lives, will it have been worth it? What about a thousand? Ten thousand?”

“I’m sixteen. Doesn’t that make a difference?”

“Oh, yes. Sixteen. In America, that almost makes you a child, doesn’t it? Too young to drink, to vote. But not too young to imprison. Over two thousand children younger than you have been detained without trial during this so-called war on terror. There have been children in Guantanamo, did you know that? There were even two little boys captured by the CIA specifically to be used as levers against their father. Their names were Yousef and Abed and they were aged nine and seven. Or do you think you’re unique because you’re a woman? Then you can’t have read the report by Antonio Taguba, the former US general, saying that in Abu Ghraib prison US guards filmed themselves raping female detainees. That was after they’d photographed their breasts and used their buttocks as paintball targets.” He paused. “Think yourself lucky that we only do the official treatments. The ones that were authorised by your President.”

“I can tell you’re sincere,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “But you’ve already made your point, with the films. Wouldn’t it be even better if you let me go? You’ll have proved you’re different to America; more merciful, more humane.”

He laughed – an incredulous bark. “And? You think your President will say, ‘Oh, they let her go. I’d better close an air base or two.’ Being merciful won’t change anything.”

The intensity in his voice frightened her, but she kept going. “Neither will keeping me here. America doesn’t negotiate with terrorists. Everyone knows that.”

“Yes? Then why are you pulling out of Afghanistan?” He shook his head. “They’ll listen – they’ll have to. But more importantly, so will others. You Americans are only in our country because every government we’ve ever had has been too scared and too corrupt to tell them to leave. But the Italian people aren’t so cowardly.”

“Or maybe the Italian people will be so ashamed of what you’re doing that they’ll go the other way,” she said.

The sudden, searing anger in him erupted then. “Shame? Don’t speak to me of shame! It’s America that should be ashamed! And they will be!”

“What do you mean?” she said fearfully. “Ashamed of what? What are you going to do to me?”

He reached down to a package at his feet and pulled something from it. When he held it up she saw that it was a diaper, one large enough for an adult.

“From now on, you will wear this. It makes it more convenient for the guards, you see? Not to have to unshackle the prisoners during the night. And if it humiliates the prisoners too – well, that was never the intention. Oh, no. Just a coincidence.” He gestured at her. “Sometimes they leave it on for days. Until the prisoner gets sores and broken skin from standing in their own shit.”

She took a deep breath. “Wait. All you care about is what it looks like on film, right? So let me go back to my cell for now, then tie me back up in the morning. It’ll look like I’ve been here all night.”

“Why should I?” he demanded.

“Because you’re not a bad man,” she whispered.

He took another pace forward. She wasn’t sure if he was going to hit her or release her.

For a long moment he did neither. She could see, behind the mask, the black depths of his own eyes; his long lashes.

Reaching up, he untied the rope.

“Thank you,” she gabbled, rubbing her wrists. “I promise you won’t regret it.”

“Don’t speak,” he commanded gruffly. “Go to your cell. If you say another word, I’ll tie you back up.”

THIRTY-FIVE

HOLLY BOLAND TOOK
from her closet a little-used Stefanel dress of clinging grey cashmere. Coupled with a bra from La Perla in Vicenza, the stretchy wool somehow gave even her sinewy body a suggestion of curves.

It had been weeks since she’d worn anything but fatigues; months since she’d used make-up or left her blonde hair unpinned. After her big Belleville boots, the kitten heels she also pulled from the closet felt like gossamer. Gossamer that, bizarrely, hurt like hell, whereas her Bellevilles were as comfortable and familiar as slippers.

She swapped the heels for some Timberland deck shoes, and told herself it was unconventional.

She got to Ca’ Barbo around eight. It took four pulls at the bell, and several minutes, before Daniele appeared, dressed in his usual attire of sweatshirt and sneakers. She’d never seen an Italian man dress as casually as he did; but then, Daniele wasn’t like most men, let alone most Italians.

He gave so little sign of recognising her that she actually felt the need to remind him who she was. “Daniele? It’s me – Holly?”

“Of course. Come in.” He didn’t kiss her on both cheeks, as most Venetians would. She wondered if that was because of his deformities; if he liked to keep people at a distance from the missing ears and truncated nose that were the legacy of his own kidnap.

He led the way up to the first floor. Ca’ Barbo wasn’t big – indeed, it was probably no wider than a New York brown-stone – but it was beautiful. Huge oak rafters supported a painted ceiling, and the floor was a geometric pattern of tiles that put her in mind of Escher. There were also some remarkable artworks dotted around, mostly from the twentieth century. Daniele’s father had sold off the family’s Old Masters to invest in modern artists, before bequeathing his entire collection, and the palace itself, to the art foundation that now bore his name. For his part, Daniele had sold the furniture – the only part of Ca’ Barbo he actually owned – to fund the creation of Carnivia, filling the palace with cheap, functional pieces from IKEA instead. It made for a strange combination.

He took her into the old music room. It was warmer than the rest of the
palazzo
, heated not by a stove or radiators but by the four NovaScale servers ranged along one wall, their lights flickering in complex combinations. Cheap roller blinds hung between the marble barley-twist columns of the windows. A bottle of
prosecco
and two glasses appeared to be the only concession to the fact that this was meant to be a date.

“I brought you a gift.” She handed him an A4-sized frame. Inside it was an equation.

K := { (i, x)

“The Turing Paradox,” he said, nodding. “That’s a great one. Thank you.”

“I looked it up on the net. Turing invented the computer, didn’t he? And this was one of the equations that made it all possible.”

Holly was one of the few people who knew, from her previous work with him, that Daniele Barbo’s equivalent of his father’s priceless art collection was to decorate the walls of Ca’ Barbo with his favourite equations – which to him were just as beautiful, and just as profound, as any painting.

“I just got another message,” he said, changing the subject with his customary abruptness. “That makes two in the last hour.”

“Can I see them?”

He pointed to one of the screens. She went and read the email that was open there.

From: Mia Elston

Subject: Torture?

“Any fixed position which is maintained over a long period of time ultimately produces excruciating pain. After 18 to 24 hours of continuous standing, there is an accumulation of fluid in the tissues of the legs. This dependent edema is produced by the extravasation of fluid from the blood vessels. The prisoner’s ankles and feet swell up to twice their normal circumference. The edema may rise up the legs as high as the middle of the thighs. The skin becomes tense and extremely painful. Large blisters develop, which break and exude water serum…

“The accumulation of body fluid in the legs produces impairment of the circulation. The heart rate increases, and fainting may occur. Eventually there is renal shutdown, and urine production ceases. The subjects develop a delirious state, characterized by disorientation, fear, delusions, and visual hallucinations. As urea and other metabolites accumulate in the blood, the prisoner experiences agonizing thirst.”

“Jesus,” she said when she’d finished.

“I did a search – it’s from a Defense Department research paper, written back in the Cold War,” he said. “Ironically, it seems it was the communists who developed most of these techniques. At the same time as Stalin was ordering that men confess to plotting against him, he was also insisting that communism meant respect for the working man, and thus no torture. His secret police had to find ways of torturing people that didn’t look like torture… The CIA studied what they did, and turned the results into a training programme on how to
resist
those techniques.”

“SERE,” she said. “Search-Evade-Resist-Escape. I did the basic level myself – all officer cadets do.”

He nodded. “When President Bush demanded harsh interrogations after 9/11, it was the SERE psychologists he turned to. So the techniques that were developed during the paranoia about communism are now being used in the paranoia about terrorism. The wheel goes full circle.”

“And the other message?”

He clicked on the screen.

From: Mia Elston

Subject: Torture?

So, Daniele, I take it you’ve found my little Easter egg. Now you have a decision to make, don’t you? Close Carnivia down, and stop the show. Or sit back and watch, like the voyeur you are. What’s it to be? I think I know which you’ll choose. The trouble is, people aren’t going to like it, are they? Maybe they’ll decide it shouldn’t be up to you any more. Maybe this is goodbye Carnivia.

“What does he mean by ‘Easter egg’?” she asked.

“It’s a gaming term – a hidden surprise that can only be unlocked by highly skilled players.” He gestured at the screen. “He’s referring to that last film of Mia. Inadvertently, I was the one who unlocked it.”

He looked so pained that she asked, “Are you all right?”

“I feel like I’m torturing her myself,” he said quietly. “Like I’m helping them, somehow.” He looked directly at her. “What should I do?”

“You mean, should you close Carnivia? You’d really do that?”

“I believe in the freedom of the internet,” he said. “But that shouldn’t mean the freedom to do this. Perhaps it’s time to admit that people will always use liberty for evil, not good.”

“Wait – let’s just think this through. It’s like there are two different voices in these messages, isn’t it? There’s the kidnappers themselves – they want Carnivia to stay open; it’s the only way they can achieve their objectives. But then there’s this other voice that seems to be taunting you, almost as if he
wants
you to shut it down. For him, it’s like the main objective isn’t Mia at all. It’s to draw Carnivia, and you personally, into what’s going on.”

“Yes. The
tone
is different.” He said it hesitantly, as if tone were a concept he had only recently discovered. Then he nodded. “Of course. They must have recruited a freelance.”

“A freelance? Is that possible?”

“Oh, yes. In Carnivia today, you can hire a hacker as easily as my ancestors could find a killer on the Rio Terrà Assassini. But you have to be careful. The hacker may well think himself cleverer than you – in fact, he undoubtedly
is
cleverer than you. He’ll certainly have no hesitation in using whatever you’ve employed him for to pursue his own agenda.”

“Which is…?”

“In this case, perhaps, to prove that he’s cleverer than Daniele Barbo.” He glanced at the servers. “It isn’t just governments who object to Carnivia’s independence. There are hackers who would love to take it down.”

“Why?”

“Kudos. In that world, the prestige that would come from being the first to hack a website like Carnivia would be enormous. And this hacker is good – very good. Already he’s sniffed out weaknesses that even I didn’t know existed.”

“So who is he? Is there a way to flush him out?”

He went to the long table and, pulling up a chair, began to type.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m crowdsourcing your question.”

She leaned over his shoulder. On the screen was the familiar Carnivia home page – a smiling mask and the words “Enter Carnivia”. But now there was also some text.

Fellow Carnivians,

A Carnivia user in Italy has been taken – kidnapped from her family in protest at the construction of a US Army base.

The kidnappers appear to have recruited an accomplice on Carnivia. Some of you may know who that person is. If so, I need you to tell me.

Daniele Barbo

“You should add a link to the messages he sent you. Perhaps here?” She pointed. “And maybe mention the films, and the webcast.”

He typed some more. “There. That’s done.”

Reading the revised text over his shoulder, she felt him tense. Looking down, she saw that a strand of her hair was brushing his neck, just below the severed stump of his ear.

He glanced up at her. His gaze immediately slid away – he rarely held eye contact for long in any situation – but she sensed, in the suddenly charged atmosphere, that this was different.

She straightened, and the moment passed.

Daniele turned back to the screen. “I’ve never intervened before,” he said quietly. “It feels like crossing a line.”

“Maybe there’s a middle way.”

“What do you mean?”

“If there was some way of giving the authorities what they need,” she said slowly. “That is, some information about the kidnappers – but without letting it be generally known. And it wouldn’t just be to save Mia. They might be able to get this hacker off your back, too.”

He shook his head. “A principle isn’t a principle if you’re prepared to drop it the moment circumstances change. Those who care about the freedom of the internet will see that message and try to help.”

A pulse of blue light strafed the room.

“What’s that?” she said, suddenly fearful. Crossing to the window, she saw three blue-and-white “Polizia” motorboats chugging rapidly towards Ca’ Barbo’s landing stage. “Daniele, there are police launches coming this way. What will you do?”

“I don’t know. Stall them, if I can.” He turned back to his computer and typed some more.

The sound of splintering wood from downstairs suggested that stalling was unlikely to be an option for long. Within moments, it seemed, the room had filled with men wearing full riot gear. But it was a woman in plain clothes who stepped forward, brandishing a piece of paper.

“Inspector Pettinelli, CNAIPIC,” she said. Daniele raised his eyebrows. Amongst hackers, Holly knew, the National Computer Crime Centre for Critical Infrastructure Protection was generally considered something of a joke. “I’m authorised to take Carnivia offline.” She glanced at the NovaScales. “Those are the servers, I take it?”

“If you don’t know what those machines are, Inspector,” Daniele said calmly, “I’m certainly not going to help you.”

“I may not have your coding expertise. But I know how to pull out a plug,” she assured him. She went around the back of the servers, searching for the power supply.

Holly’s heart was in her mouth.
She’s only shutting down a computer
, she told herself; but a part of her felt that it was much more than that. All those millions of users whose avatars would be extinguished – it felt, strangely, like a kind of murder.

Inspector Pettinelli flicked a switch. On the screen in front of Daniele, the image of the grinning mask went blank.

Then, seconds later, faded back up.

Like everyone else in the room, Holly turned towards the NovaScales. They were still without power.

Only Daniele and Inspector Pettinelli appeared to understand what was happening. “So you have a mirror site,” she said.

“Sites,” he corrected her. “More than one.”

“But not many. I’ve seen your bank transactions. You can’t afford multiple hostings.” She was watching him closely. “And I can’t see you entrusting a Carnivia mirror to some random regime on the other side of the world. You’ll want them close at hand. Somewhere you think is safe.”

Daniele didn’t answer.

“Well, wherever they are, I will trace them. And I will take them offline.”

“I’ll see you in court, Ispettore,” he said.

Pettinelli shook her head. “You’re going to see a great deal of me, but it won’t be in court. Under anti-terrorism legislation I am authorised to take you into preventative detention. You are not under arrest and you will not be charged, but you will remain in custody until we are satisfied that your liberty no longer poses a threat to this country’s security. Daniele Barbo, you’re coming with me.”