God's Spy (24 page)

The DVD showed nothing more than static now so Troi switched it off. Paola had turned white. Fowler clenched his teeth, furious. The three of them sat there for a few minutes without saying a word. They had to gather their wits. Paola, the one most affected by the film, was nevertheless the first to speak.

‘The photographs. Why photographs? Why not video?’ ‘Because he couldn’t.’ Fowler said. ‘Video cameras don’t work inside Saint Martha’s, remember? “Nothing more complex than a light bulb” works in there, according to Dante.’
‘And Karosky knew it.’
‘What do you think of the little game about diabolic possession?’
Once again Dicanti had the feeling that something didn’t fit. The video seemed to throw her in totally different directions. She needed a good night’s sleep in a quiet place where she could think. Karosky’s words, the clues left on the corpses – all of it had a connecting thread. When she found it, she would be able to unravel the ball. Until then, she was short on time.
Of course, my good night’s sleep has just been blown to shit, she thought to herself.
‘Karosky’s crazed histrionics about the Devil aren’t what’s bothering me,’ Troi interjected, anticipating Paola’s thoughts. ‘The most serious thing is that he’s challenging us to stop him before he finishes off another cardinal. And time is passing us by.’
‘What can we do?’ Fowler asked. ‘He didn’t show any signs of life during John Paul’s funeral. There’s more security around the cardinals than ever before. Saint Martha’s is sealed up tight, as is the Vatican.’
Dicanti bit her lip. She was tired of playing by some psychopath’s rules – because now Karosky had committed a new error: he had left a trail that they could follow.
‘Who brought this to our offices?’
‘I’ve put two boys in charge of following the trail. It arrived by messenger service – Tevere Express: a local company that operates in the Vatican. We haven’t managed to get hold of the person who’s responsible for that route, but the cameras on the exterior of the building took a picture of him driving up on his bike. The licence plate is registered under the name of Giuseppe Bastina, years old. He lives in Castro Pretorio, on Via Palestro. Number .’
‘No phone?’
‘Motor Vehicles has no number for him, and there’s no listing in the Yellow Pages.’
‘Maybe it’s under his wife’s name,’ Fowler said.
‘Maybe. But for now it’s our best piece of evidence, which means we ought to take a walk. Coming, padre?’
‘After you, dottoressa.’

Saturday, 9 April 2005, 2.02 a.m.

‘Giuseppe Bastina?’
‘Yeah, that’s me.’ Giuseppe Bastina cut a curious figure, standing
in the doorway in his underwear, a nine-month-old baby in his arms.
At that hour of the morning it wasn’t surprising that the doorbell
had woken the kid up.
‘I’m Inspector Paola Dicanti and this is Father Fowler. Don’t worry, you’re not in any trouble and nothing has happened to anyone in
your family. We just want to ask you a few urgent questions.’ They were standing in the foyer of a modest but well-kept house.
Someone had put out a doormat with a smiling frog, welcoming
visitors to the house. Paola hazarded a guess that the welcome didn’t
extend to them, and she was right: Bastina was fairly annoyed by
their presence.
‘No way this can wait till the morning? The baby has to eat and
sleep at certain times, and we’re trying to keep her to a schedule.’ Paola shook her head. ‘This will only take a moment. You
made a delivery this afternoon, didn’t you? An envelope. To Via
Lamarmora?’
‘I remember that. What do you think? I’ve an excellent memory,’
Bastina said, touching the side of his forehead with his right index
finger. His left arm was still full of baby, who had, for the moment
at least, calmed down.
‘Could you tell us where you picked up this envelope? It’s very
important; it’s related to an investigation into a series of murders.’ ‘The client called the agency, just like always. They asked me to swing by the Vatican post office, and said that I’d find some enve
lopes on the desk in the porter’s office.’
Paola was taken aback. ‘More than one envelope?’
‘Yeah, there were twelve. The client asked us to deliver the first
ten envelopes to the Vatican press room. Then one to the Corpo di
Vigilanza, and the last one to you.’
‘Nobody handed you the envelopes? You just picked them up?’
Fowler was irritated by the man.
‘At that time of day there isn’t anybody at the post office. They
leave the outside door open until nine, for anyone who wants to
drop letters in the international box.’
‘So how did they pay?’
‘They left a small envelope on top of the others. The small one
had three hundred and seventy euros in it, three-sixty for the express
service and ten euros tip.’
Paola raised her eyes to the ceiling in despair. Karosky had thought
of everthing. Another fucking dead-end street.
‘So you didn’t see anybody?’
‘Nobody.’
‘And what did you do then?’
‘What do you think I did? I made the run to the Press Room and
then delivered the envelope to the Vigilanza.’
‘Who was supposed to receive the envelopes at the Press Room?’ ‘They were addressed to different journalists. Foreigners.’ ‘And you handed them out to their recipients?’
‘What’s with all the questions? I take my job seriously. I hope all
this isn’t because I screwed up. I need the work, I really do, so please
– my kid has to eat and my wife has another bun in the oven.’ ‘Look, this has nothing to do with you but it’s no joke either. Tell
us what happened and we’re gone. If not, then I’ll see to it that every
traffic officer in Rome can recite your licence plate from memory.
OK, Mr Bastina?’
Bastina was cornered. The baby started to wail, frightened by
Paola’s tone.
‘All right. You don’t need to talk like that; you’ve scared the baby.
Don’t you have a heart?’
Dicanti was very tired and irritable. She hadn’t wanted to speak
to the man like that, in his own house, but she just couldn’t handle

0 any more obstacles in the investigation. ‘I’m sorry. So please, help us here. It’s life or death at this point. Take my word for it.’

With his free hand the messenger scratched the stubble on his chin and he gently rocked the baby in his arms. Little by little the baby calmed down and stopped crying.

‘I gave the envelopes to the lady in charge of the Press Room, OK? The doors to the room were already closed and to deliver them by hand I would have had to wait another hour. Special deliveries have to be taken care of within the hour following pick-up or you don’t get paid. I’ve had a few problems on the job lately, you see? If anyone finds out I did this, I’ll lose the job.’

‘Nobody’s going to find out from us, Mr Bastina – trust me.’ Bastina looked at her and nodded. ‘I’ll try to believe it.’ ‘Do you know the name of the woman in charge?’
‘No. She was wearing an ID card with the Vatican coat of arms

and a blue band on top. It said, “Press”.’

Fowler stepped a few feet into the hallway with Paola and started whispering in her ear again. She tried to concentrate on his words and not on the way being close to him made her feel. It wasn’t easy.

‘The card this man is describing doesn’t belong to someone who works for the Vatican. It’s an ordinary press pass. The disks never reached their destinations. Do you know why?’

Paola tried to think like a journalist for a second. She pictured herself receiving an envelope while she was sitting in the middle of the press room, surrounded by all her rivals in the media.

‘They never arrived at their destinations, because if they had, their contents would already be splashed over every newspaper and television in the world. If all of those envelopes had arrived at the same time, the journalists would have had everything they needed sitting right in their laps. They’d have corralled the Vatican spokesman there and then.’

‘Definitely. Karosky tried to send a message of his own to the press but it backfired on him, thanks to the fact that this man was in such a hurry and someone obviously had no qualms about swiping the envelopes. Unless I’m wrong, this woman will have opened one of the envelopes and then taken all of them. Why should she share this great piece of luck that fell into her lap?’

‘Right now, somewhere in Rome, that woman is typing out the story of the century.’
‘And we’ve got to find out who she is. As soon as possible.’
Paola took the urgency in Fowler’s words to heart. They turned around and walked back to Bastina, who was still standing in the doorway.
‘Mr Bastina, tell us about the person who took the envelopes.’
‘Sure. She was a pretty girl with blonde hair down to her shoulders, twenty-something. Blue eyes. A light-coloured jacket, beige trousers.’
‘I can see you’ve got a good memory.’
‘For the good-looking girls.’ Bastina was a child of the streets and he was slightly offended, as if they’d questioned his worth. ‘I’m from Milan originally, ispettore. It’s a good thing my wife is in bed right now. If she heard me talking like this . . . There’s a just a month to go before the next baby is born, and the doctor says she’s got to take it easy.’
‘Do you remember anything else that could help us to identify the young girl?’
‘Yeah. She was Spanish, I’m certain of it. My sister’s husband is Spanish, and you can always pick them out, trying to imitate the Italian accent. You get the picture.’
Paola got the picture. She also knew it was time to take off.
‘We’re sorry we bothered you.’
‘Don’t worry about it. The only thing I don’t like is answering the same questions twice.’
Paola spun around. She went on red alert, and had to restrain herself from yelling at the man. ‘Somebody’s already asked you these questions? Who? What did they look like?’
The baby was crying again.
‘Get lost, both of you! You’re upsetting my kid!’
‘Tell us and we’ll leave,’ said Fowler, trying to calm everyone down.
‘It was one of your colleagues. He flashed the Corpo di Vigilanza badge at me. At least he had some identification. A short guy, thick shoulders. Leather jacket. Left here an hour ago, OK? Now get out and don’t come back.’
Dicanti and Fowler looked at each other nervously. They sped towards the lift, trying to make sense of this new revelation. ‘You thinking what I’m thinking?’
‘Exactly. Dante disappeared about eight o’clock this evening, with some lame excuse.’
‘After getting a call.’
‘Because over at Vigilanza they’d already opened the package. And what they saw disturbed them. Why didn’t we put two and two together before? Fuck, the Vatican takes a record of every vehicle that goes in and out of the city. Standard procedure. And if Tevere Express works with them on a regular basis, it’s clear that they’d be able to pinpoint all of the employees, including Bastina, by his licence plate.’
‘They followed the trail of the envelopes.’
‘If the journalists had opened their packages at the same time, in the Press Room, a few of them would have slipped the disk into their laptops and the place would have exploded. There’d have been no way for anybody to contain it. Ten well-known journalists . . .’
‘But this way just one journalist gets the scoop.’
‘Exactly.’
‘One is a manageable number.’
Stories flashed through Paola’s mind – a whole raft of them, the kind that officers on the street passed quietly among themselves, usually when they were hitting the third round at a bar: dark tales of disappearances and accidents.
‘You think it’s possible they . . .’
‘I don’t know. Anything’s possible. It would depend on the journalist’s flexibility.’
‘Padre, do you have to keep dancing around the subject? What you’re saying to me is: they’ll pay her off if she hands over the disk.’
Fowler didn’t say a word. His silence was eloquent.
‘Well, then, we’d better get there first, for her own good.’ Paola gestured to him to get in the car. ‘We’ve got to get back to the UACV as soon as possible. Let’s start by looking in the hotels, check the airline companies.’
‘No, dottoressa, there’s somewhere else we need to go.’ And he handed her an address.
‘That’s on the other side of town. What’s—’
‘A friend. He can help us out.’

Saturday, 9 April 2005, 2.48 a.m.

Paola drove towards the address Fowler had given her without knowing exactly where she was headed. It was a long row of apartments and they waited outside while Fowler’s finger pressed insistently on the buzzer.

‘So this friend of yours . . . How exactly do you know him?’ ‘Let’s just say it was the last mission I did for my old employer. The kid was fourteen years old back then, a real rebel. Since then I’ve been something of a – how shall I say? – spiritual guide to him. We’ve never fallen out of touch.’
‘And now, does he work for your business, padre?’
‘Dottoressa, if you stop asking me tricky questions, I can stop telling you plausible lies.’
Five minutes later Fowler’s young friend finally got up to let them in. He turned out to be another priest, and a young one at that. He led them into a small studio apartment full of cheap furniture. It was very clean. There were two windows, both with the blinds lowered all the way down. On one side of the room was a table some six feet long, with five hard drives and five flat screens sitting on top. Under the table, dozens of lights flickered manically, like an out-ofcontrol forest of Christmas trees. On the other side of the room was an unmade bed. It was clear that its occupant had only got up a few minutes before.
‘Albert, I want to introduce you to Doctor Paola Dicanti. We’re working on something together.’
‘Father Albert,’ said Paola.
‘Please, just Albert.’ The young curate’s smile was pleasant, very nearly a grin. ‘Sorry about the mess. Anthony, what the hell are you doing here at this hour of the morning? I don’t feel like playing chess right now. And you could have told me you were coming to Rome. I heard you were back in action last week, but I would have preferred to hear it from you.’
‘Albert was ordained last year,’ Fowler told Dicanti. ‘He’s an impulsive kid, but he’s also a wizard with computers. And I’m sure he’ll do us a favour.’
‘What kind of mess have you got into this time, you old lunatic?’
‘Albert, please. Try to show a little respect. There are ladies present,’ Fowler said, pretending to be offended. ‘We want you to supply us with a list.’
‘What sort of list?’
‘The list of every accredited reporter working at the Vatican.’
Albert looked serious. ‘Not so easy to do.’
‘Come on, Albert. You’re in and out of the Pentagon’s computers the way some guys go to the bathroom.’
‘Baseless rumours,’ Albert said, but his smile betrayed him. ‘Even if it were true, you can’t compare the two. The Vatican’s information system is like Mordor – it’s impregnable.’
‘Then let’s get going, Frodo26. I’m sure you’ve already been there before.’
‘Ssssh. Don’t say my handle out loud, ever.’
‘Sorry.’
The young priest became serious. He scratched his chin, then turned around to face Fowler. ‘Is it really vital? You know I’m not authorised to do this, Anthony. It goes against all the rules.’
Paola resisted the temptation to ask who exactly gave permission for something like this.
‘Someone’s life is in danger, Albert. And we’ve never exactly been men who play by the rules.’ Fowler shot Paola a look that said, Help me out here.
‘Could you give us a hand, Albert? You’ve managed to get in before?’
‘Yes, Dottoressa Dicanti, I’ve been there before – once; but I didn’t get very far. And I swear I’ve never been so scared shitless in my whole life. Excuse the language.’
‘Relax. I’ve heard the phrase before. What happened?’
‘They caught me trespassing, which automatically activated a program that sent two guard dogs nipping at my heels.’
‘What do you mean? Remember, you’re talking to someone who doesn’t have a clue about computers.’
Albert lit up. He loved talking about his job. ‘There are two hidden servers which are just waiting for someone to slip past their defences. The moment I entered, they sent the cavalry out to find me. One of the servers went all out to locate my home base, while the other started to put clips on me.’
‘Clips?’
‘Imagine you’re on a trail that crosses a gully. Your route is a series of rocks that surface above the water. What the computer does is to delete the rock I’m about to put my foot on and put spurious information in its place.’
The young man pulled over a chair and a small side table for his guests to sit on. Clearly he didn’t have visitors very often. He then took a seat in front of the computer.
‘Like a virus?’
‘A very powerful one. If I had taken just one more step, its lines of code would have erased my hard drive and I would have been completely in his hands. It’s the only time I’ve ever used the panic button.’ The young priest pointed to a harmless-looking red button that sat to one side of the largest monitor. The button had a cable that descended into the thickets of wire below.
‘What is it?’
‘It cuts the electricity to the whole floor of this building. Ten minutes later, the power comes back on.’
Paola asked him why he had to cut the power for everyone on his floor, and not just unplug the computer from the socket. But Albert wasn’t listening: his gaze was directed at the monitor, while his fingers flew over the keyboard.
Fowler answered for him. ‘Information is transmitted in seconds. The time Albert loses in getting to his knees and unplugging the machine could be crucial.’
Paola half understood what the men were talking about, but she wasn’t that interested. What did matter to her at that moment was finding the young Spanish journalist, and if this was how they did it, then so much the better. The two priests had obviously been in situations like this before.
‘What’s he going to do now?’
‘He’ll pull up a screen. I don’t know exactly how he does it but he routes his computer through hundreds of others, in a sequence that eventually ends up in the Vatican network. The more complex and more widely spread the camouflage, the longer it will take them to find him, but there is a buffer zone that should never be crossed. Each computer only knows the name of the computer before it, the one that asked permission to connect. And it only knows that name while the connection lasts. In that way, if the connection is interrupted before they get to him, they won’t be able to find him.’
The rhythmic clicking of the keyboard went on for about a quarter of an hour. Every minute or so a small red dot appeared on a map of the world that filled one of the monitors. There were hundreds of dots, covering the greater part of Europe, the north of Africa, the USA, Canada and Japan. Paola noticed that there was a greater density of red dots in the wealthier countries, and only one or two in Africa, with a dozen or so in Latin America.
‘Each one of the points you see on that monitor corresponds to a computer Albert is going to connect to, in sequence, in order to penetrate the Vatican’s system. It could be the computer of a young man working at a university; it could be one in a bank or law firm. It could be in Beijing, Austria or Manhattan. The more extensive the geographical nexus, the more efficient the sequence.’
‘How does he know that one of those computers won’t accidentally be turned off, interrupting the entire process?’
‘I keep records on each computer.’ Albert’s voice was distant and he didn’t stop typing. ‘I try to use computers that usually aren’t turned off. These days, with all the programs for file-sharing, many people leave their computers on day and night, downloading music or porn. That type of computer system is ideal for use as a link in the chain. One of my favourites is —— He mentioned a well-known figure in European politics. ‘The old fart likes pictures of young girls with horses. Every once in a while I substitute them with a photo of some golfers. The Lord forbids that kind of perversion.’
‘Aren’t you afraid you’re merely substituting one kind of sin for another?’
The young man laughed at Fowler’s joke without taking his eyes off the instructions and commands his hands were bringing to life on the monitor. Finally, he took a breather.
‘We’re almost there. But let me warn you: we can’t copy anything. I’m using a system in which one of the computers is doing the work for me, but it erases the information copied to this computer as soon as a certain number of kilobytes have been used up. So you’d better have good memories. From the moment they detect us, we have sixty seconds.’
Fowler and Dicanti nodded.
‘There it is. We’re in.’
‘Go to the Press Office, Albert,’ said Fowler.
‘We’re there.’
‘Hunt around for a list of accredited journalists.’