The Abduction: A Novel (23 page)

FIFTY-FIVE

ONCE AGAIN, KAT
took the infected laptop to Piola’s room at the Hilton and booted it up. Within moments, or so it seemed, Ethereal had swooped through the wi-fi and taken control, like some malevolent imp – turning on her webcam, opening her email program, flicking through her saved documents and scrolling through her browsing history.

You have a nice apartment
, he wrote, adjusting the focus on the webcam.

Thanks.

And yet, according to your IP address, you’re actually in a hotel. The Stucky, in Venice. Is that a Hilton bathrobe I can see?

She thought quickly.
I’m travelling on business. Didn’t seem worth explaining.

What’s your job?

I’m a travel agent.

Hmm.
In one corner of the screen, all her stored photographs were flickering open.

OK, Rita-Kat. Shall we RAT your ex?

Sounds like a plan
, she typed.

Want to put that bathrobe on? This may take some time. You might as well get comfortable.

You wish!
she wrote.

Indeed I do. And my wish is your command, remember? Besides, it’s a little late to be getting shy.

Suddenly, the Carnivia home page was on the screen.
I need you to log in for me.

So he couldn’t hack into Carnivia, she thought, filing the information away for future reference. She hated typing her username and password for him, but there was nothing for it. She would just have to set up a completely new account when this was over.

You’re following the Mia case
, he observed, looking through her newsfeeds.

Yes. Isn’t everyone?
If his ego was as big as Daniele said, this is where he might start to boast.
The way the kidnappers have got the world’s media jumping to their tune is incredible.

They’re idiots. They couldn’t have done it without help.

Whose help? Yours?

He didn’t answer directly.
What’s this?

On her screen, the mouse arrow had opened a file marked “Private” she hadn’t seen before. Inside was a movie clip titled
Rita.mpg
.

It had to be the file Daniele had created. Quickly she typed,
I didn’t mean for you to find that. Leave it alone, will you?

Perhaps. Perhaps not.

She watched as the mouse arrow double-clicked on the clip. A screen appeared.

Loading movie

Of course, if you were to put on that bathrobe, maybe I wouldn’t need to watch this film.

Why do I not believe you?

The progress bar inched towards 100%. She wondered when Ethereal would realise that it was taking a lot longer to load than a real movie clip.

A newsfeed updated.

LIVE MIA FILM ONLINE NOW

Immediately, Ethereal clicked on it.

Following the pattern established by the earlier films, this one began with a title:

WALL STANDING: THE INDIVIDUAL, WHO REMAINS NUDE, STANDS ABOUT FOUR TO FIVE FEET FROM A WALL, WITH HIS FEET SPREAD APPROXIMATELY TO SHOULDER WIDTH. HIS ARMS ARE STRETCHED OUT IN FRONT OF HIM, WITH HIS FINGERS SUPPORTING HIS BODY WEIGHT. THE INDIVIDUAL IS NOT PERMITTED TO MOVE OR REPOSITION HIS HANDS OR FEET.

Now Mia was revealed, in exactly that position. The shot dragged on for six or seven seconds.

WALL STANDING IS USUALLY SELF-LIMITING IN THAT TEMPORARY MUSCLE FATIGUE LEADS TO THE DETAINEE BEING UNABLE TO MAINTAIN THE POSITION AFTER A PERIOD OF TIME.

Without cuts or edits, it was agonising to watch. Mia was clearly close to the limit of her endurance. A figure stood next to her – it looked like the man in the Harlequin mask, although the camera didn’t show his face or feet.

As she fell, he struck her in the belly with the back of his hand.

WITH HIS FINGERS HELD TIGHTLY TOGETHER AND FULLY EXTENDED, AND WITH HIS PALM TOWARD THE INTERROGATOR’S OWN BODY, USING HIS ELBOW AS A FIXED PIVOT POINT, THE INTERROGATOR SLAPS THE DETAINEE IN THE DETAINEE’S ABDOMEN.

THE INTENTION IS NOT TO CAUSE SIGNIFICANT PAIN, BUT TO STARTLE AND ALARM THE DETAINEE.

The assertion that the slap would not be painful was immediately contradicted by Mia’s face, contorted in agony, as he pulled her to her feet. Then the whole exercise was repeated again, before the image finally cut.

UNTIL TOMORROW.

Neat
, Ethereal wrote. He flicked over to a website reporting internet data. In a sidebar headed “Top ten sites by current traffic”, Carnivia.com was number three. Only Google and Facebook ranked higher.

She looked at the download bar. Daniele’s file was now fully transferred to Ethereal’s computer. She reached for her laptop, relieved to be able to turn it off. But as she did so, she froze.

Ethereal had paused the slide show of speeded-up photographs on a picture her parents had taken, the day she became a captain. It showed her in her Carabinieri uniform.

That doesn’t look like fancy dress to me, you bitch.

FIFTY-SIX

HE’D ARRANGED TO
meet Anna in the hotel lobby. They took an aperitif at a bar that was a little too trendy for Piola’s tastes, then walked to the restaurant, which was on a tiny island in the middle of the Tiber. It was reached by steps climbing down from the bridge, with a view of an older, crumbling bridge to the north – an oasis of calm in the middle of the city.

Much of the menu was unfamiliar to him – Rome being, if anything, even more fiercely regional in its cuisine than Venice – and he asked her advice. She guided them to
antipasti
of fried artichokes, a speciality of Rome’s Jewish ghetto, and fresh fava beans mixed with crumbs of sheep’s cheese. Then for the
primo
, it had to be meat, and specifically offal. Roman cooking had always been based on using odd cuts in interesting ways, Anna told him, a legacy of the days when there had been so many cardinals, nobles and courtiers in the city that all that was left to ordinary people was the
quinto quarto
, the fifth quarter – that is, the insides. He was intrigued to see on the menu dishes such as
milza
(stewed spleen),
cervello
(brain),
coratella
(fried heart, lung and oesophagus), and even
zinna
(cow’s udder); all hard to find elsewhere these days, but clearly still devoured by Romans with gusto.

At Anna’s suggestion – actually, it was more of a command – he ordered the
pajata
, rigatoni with boiled intestines, and then, because it was spring,
abbacchio alla romana
, suckling lamb cooked with anchovies. He tried to exert more influence over the wine, since it was apparent to him that wine from Lazio was vastly inferior to that of the Veneto, but she simply told the waiter to bring them some Cesanese, and that was that.

Actually the wine was rather good, he thought as he ate the artichoke, which had been flattened until it resembled a rosette before being fried. The grape was rustic, and had a faint whiff of the farmyard, but it went well with these strong, earthy flavours, which it had been accompanying for thousands of years.

They chatted amiably about this and that, not returning to the subject of the investigation until they’d reached the
secondo
.

“We talked earlier about P2,” he began. “Do I take it,
signora
, that you believe P2 was run by organised crime?”

She considered. “Well, it was organised, and it was criminal. But even though P2 involved the Mafia, I don’t believe the Mafia had the intelligence, let alone the resources, to instigate something so complex. So let me put my question another way. Who’s behind the Mafia?”

The question made no sense to Piola. “No one. They’re criminals.”

“As a historian, Colonel, I look for patterns. For example, from around 1900 to 1945 the Mafia was all but extinguished in Italy. Do you know who brought it back?”

He shook his head.

“The Americans, during the war. When they were planning the invasion of southern Italy they went to an imprisoned Mob boss, a man called Vito Genovese, and asked for his assistance. The deal was that the Mafia would help the Americans to oust the fascists, and in return they would get to run the liberated towns and villages. It wasn’t so very different from the CIA policy of arming the Taliban to fight against the Russians in Afghanistan, fifty years later.”

He frowned. “Even if that’s true, I don’t see how it relates to the Order of Melchizedek.”

“Well, let’s just say it’s an interesting connection. The Americans…” She picked up a glass. “Talking to the Mafia.” She put the glass down so that it was next to the wine bottle. “Now, here’s another question.
Why
did the Americans choose to invade Italy first – as opposed to France, say, or Greece?”

He recalled the answer to this from his conversation with Professor Trevisano. “In part, to deny it to Russia – to make sure the Iron Curtain came no nearer than Yugoslavia. And because otherwise the Pope might have found himself in a communist country.”

She inclined her head. “So now we have another possible connection, this time between the Americans and the Church.” She picked up the pepper pot and placed it next to the glass and the bottle. “What’s next? Oh, the army.” She picked up a knife. “The Allied Supreme Command was giving our armed forces orders long before the end of the war. Afterwards, the Allies became NATO, and the connection continued.” She placed the knife next to the others and picked up a fork. “Politicians. Well, that wasn’t quite so straightforward, was it? All those communist partisans, and the tens of thousands of little towns and villages that regarded them as heroes, particularly in the north… In the aftermath of the war, certainly by the 1948 election, it looked as if Italy might simply
vote
itself communist.”

“And?”

“And the Americans simply couldn’t have that. Their entire plan for post-war Europe would have been undone – and, to add insult to injury, at the ballot box of all places.” She looked at him levelly. “Here’s an interesting fact, Colonel. The first four directives from America’s newly formed National Security Council to the CIA were all concerned, in one way or another, with Italy. Directive Number 4, for example, stated that the CIA was to disrupt the electoral success of the Italian communists by any means possible. In other words, to undermine the democratic process of an apparently sovereign nation in any way it could, legal or not.”

He looked at her. She was telling him all these extraordinary things quite coolly, as if they were accepted facts. “How did the CIA go about it?”

“A variety of methods. But one of the most effective was to create a new centre-left grouping as an alternative to the communists, allying the socialists and the Church.” She rearranged the pepper pot so that it was next to the fork. “The Christian Democrats.”

“The Christian Democrats were a creation of the CIA?” he said, astonished.

She nodded calmly. “It cost them millions of dollars in project funds. Which, I imagine, is where their other friends came in.” She indicated the wine bottle and the knife.

“And there’s proof of all this?” he asked, suddenly a little sceptical.

“The CIA always intended it to be a clandestine operation. There
is
evidence, but it doesn’t show the full extent to which our country was corrupted during those years. I’ve been trying to amass more.”

He appreciated now why Anna Manfrin was being careful about her own security, if this was the kind of thing she researched. “And Professor Trevisano? He was going to put all this in his book?”

She nodded. “There’s an informal group of academics and researchers who collaborate on this. We call ourselves the Resistance. It’s only half a joke.”

“You were going to tell me how the Order of Melchizedek fits in.”

She leaned forward. “If you look at the ownership of the Order’s assets – that nice
palazzo
of theirs, for example – you find that before 1947 some of them belonged to a completely different organisation. Its name was the American–Italian Cultural Exchange.”

“Another front?”

“I’d bet my life on it.”

“In other words,” he said, trying to get his head around this, “you believe that P2 wasn’t the only CIA-backed network in Italy. You think there were others, and that the Order of Melchizedek was one of them.”

“That’s my working hypothesis, yes. Although when we say ‘CIA’, we should be a little careful. I’d imagine the bosses back in Langley never knew the exact details. Having passed the directive down the line, they’d have let those on the ground take care of the rest.”

“And that ancient reliquary of theirs? The tongue of John the Baptist? Are you saying that’s all a fake?”

She shrugged. “Define ‘fake’, Colonel. After all, there are at least four heads of John the Baptist scattered around Italy. I should imagine the Order got that tongue from some mouldering Vatican store, to lend itself a little authenticity. Oh, and to justify having a very secure strong room. All those project funds had to be stashed somewhere.”

“I spoke to Marco Conterno. His passion for the Order seemed genuine.”

“I’m sure it is. People love these exclusive societies, don’t they? The secrecy, the ranks and levels, all that dressing up and mixing with Princes of the Church. It’s a curious thing I’ve noticed about some men: the more power they have, the more they’re attracted to the idea that there’s some kind of exclusive club of the even more powerful.”

“Very well,” he said. “Let’s assume you’re right. How does it relate to my missing partisan?”

She took a mouthful of wine before replying. They’d almost finished the bottle, he saw.

“As I said, the focus of my research at the moment is how the CIA subverted the post-war elections. Getting proof of that has always been hard, not least because the Vatican officially doesn’t release documents from the archives until after seventy-five years. But recently, it’s been making more and more exceptions. When the new man, Santini, took over at the Vatican Information Service, he let it be known that he was going to start releasing documents early. It really looked as if, for the first time, we were going to get our hands on some cast-iron primary sources.”

“I sense a ‘but’ coming.”

“In the last few weeks, there’s been a U-turn – almost, you might say, a panic. The seventy-five-year rule is being rigorously enforced; researchers with access to the Archivio Segreto have had their passes revoked; new security procedures are being put in place. But it’s more than that. There’s been frenzied activity – monks have been drafted in to go through the uncatalogued material, and they’re taking boxes of documents to a meeting room for Santini to inspect personally.” She hesitated. “Yesterday I saw a guard carrying out the packaging for a document shredder.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Do you have any sense of what caused this?”

“No. But whatever it was, it was part of the ongoing cataloguing process, and that’s being done in chronological order. So it must concern my period.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Though it may be something entirely unconnected to what we’ve just been discussing.”

“Of course. But anyway, it’s unfortunate. I’d hoped to be able to track the missing partisan back through the archive.”

“To do that,
signora
, I imagine you’d need a name.”

“I know his name,” she said quietly. “I recognised him as soon as Cristian emailed me the photographs. It’s Sandro La Sala.”

The name was familiar, although Piola couldn’t immediately place it.

“One of the earliest members of the Christian Democrats,” she added. “The deputy for the Veneto. He held a number of government positions over the years.”

Piola remembered him now. A grey, slightly insignificant-looking politician who had always played a secondary role to more flamboyant figures like prime ministers Giulio Andreotti – eventually convicted for having longstanding links with the Mafia – and Giovanni Goria, whose resignation over corruption charges brought to an end the unbroken line of Christian Democrat leaders which had governed Italy for almost forty years. It was hard to connect the portly, balding figure Piola recalled from his own childhood with the grinning, whippet-thin fighter in the photograph.

He sat back, thinking. “So La Sala was a communist partisan, but moved towards the political centre after the war? And took advantage of those CIA project funds, presumably?”

“Possibly. But perhaps in his case it was the other way round. Perhaps high office, and membership of the Order of Melchizedek, were the rewards for his silence over the death of his comrade, Max Ghimenti.”

He considered. “It’s plausible, I suppose. But how would you ever prove it?”

“The same way any historian does. By looking for evidence in whatever sources are left to us.” She looked suddenly sad. “That’s why the idea that the Vatican could be shredding documents is so upsetting. To a historian, those few primary sources that remain are like a dwindling rainforest or an endangered species. To destroy even a single one is a crime against history.”

“They may not have gone that far yet.”

“Perhaps. But whatever this is about, it was serious enough for Ester and Cristian to be killed over.”

“Tell me,” he said curiously. “Like you, I have a suspicion your friends were murdered to order. But do you have any specific reason to doubt the official account – that he killed her in a moment of passion, then turned the gun on himself?”

She shrugged. “That simply wasn’t the kind of relationship they had. They were old friends – we were all part of the same group at university – who ended up sleeping together occasionally. But out of affection and friendship, not passion. A civilised arrangement. The idea that he would murder her because she broke it off is just ludicrous.”

He nodded. The waiter, unbidden, brought them two small glasses of grappa.

“Thank you for this evening,
signora
,” he said. “It’s been enjoyable as well as informative.”

“Please, I’d much rather you called me Anna.” She hesitated. “And actually, it’s
signorina
.” She waved away his apologies. “It’s all right. Once you reach thirty, people just assume. It’s fine.”

“Anna, then. And please, call me Aldo.”

She picked up her glass and swirled the colourless liquid around thoughtfully. Her next remark was addressed to the drink. “Are we going to sleep together, Aldo?”

He hadn’t seen it coming. That is, he knew he found her attractive, but their conversation had been much too serious for flirting, and he didn’t think he had allowed his feelings to become obvious. Certainly it hadn’t occurred to him that they might be reciprocated.

“I’d welcome the company, to be honest,” she added.

“A civilised arrangement?”

“Exactly.”

He hesitated, and she saw it.

“Please, forget I asked,” she said quickly. She tried to make a joke of it. “Mrs Piola’s a lucky woman.”

“She doesn’t think so,” he said.

Some hint of his own pain must have crossed his eyes, because she said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude.”