Supernotes

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Translation copyright © 2016 by John Cullen

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Ltd., Toronto. Originally published in Italy by Arnoldo Mondadori Editore S.p.A., Milan, in 2014. Copyright © 2014 by Luigi Carletti and Fiamme d'Argento Societa' Cooperativa Sociale—Onlus.

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Doubleday is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC. Nan A. Talese and the colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

Book design by Michael Collica

Cover design by Emily Mahon

Cover illustration © Koichiro Nomoto / a.collectionRF / Getty Images

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Agent Kasper.

[Supernotes. English]

Supernotes : a thriller / Agent Kasper with Luigi Carletti ; translated from the Italian by John Cullen. — First edition.

pages cm

ISBN 978-0-385-54007-0 (hardcover)—ISBN 978-0-385-54008-7 (eBook)

1. Government investigators—Fiction. I. Carletti, Luigi. II. Cullen, John, translator. III. Title.

PQ4901.G46S8613 2016

853'.914—dc23 2015012271

eBook ISBN 9780385540087

v4.1

ep

Prey Sar Correctional Center, near Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Saturday, April 4, 2009

“Italian! You come here right now!”

The prisoner obeys. But he obeys slowly. A little too slowly.

He's called Kasper. He's an Italian prisoner. Kasper has been his code name for a long time, his battle name in a life filled with battles.

Now his only battle is to stay alive.

The Kapo shouts again. He has a hoarse voice. Among his powers, barking is the least dangerous. He narrows his eyes and growls out orders that split the silence of the already sweltering early morning.

“The Kapo” is the name Kasper has given him because he acts exactly like the kapos in the Nazi concentration camps. His Cambodian name is of course different. And unpronounceable.

He's a prisoner too, the Kapo is, but of a higher category. He helps the guards manage the camp. The job offers some satisfactions. For example, he's allowed to beat lower ranking prisoners and does so regularly. With pleasure. And he can get money from them in exchange for protection and favors.

He tried that with Kasper.

One night he and some other kapos and an armed guard came to teach Kasper a lesson. They'd done this before, during his first days in the prison, by way of “welcoming” him to Prey Sar. At the time, Kasper was still in bad shape, hardly able to stand up. They used rubber-coated iron pipes, which cause great pain but no open wounds. As part of the “welcome,” they broke his nose and mauled his left ear. They looked satisfied. “Bravo, Italian,” someone said. Two more kicks. They were laughing.

Having learned how things worked in the prison, Kasper had prepared himself accordingly. When the men who had beaten him that first night came back, he was ready. The match was brief. They gathered up their injured and withdrew. But that was certainly not the end of it. The following day, they tossed him into solitary confinement, into a “tiger cage.”

A tiger cage is a ten-foot-deep hole, closed at the top with a metal grate through which they pass you shitty food and shitty water. When it rains, the hole floods, and then you must swim, along with the rats and cockroaches. Eventually you have to press your face against the grate and hope the water doesn't rise any higher. A real nightmare for any prisoner, and the worst possible nightmare for someone who suffers from claustrophobia.

They left him in there for days, but ever since they let him out, they've steered clear of him. According to Chou Chet, the guard who's been protecting him for some time, they've nicknamed Kasper “the Animal.” Chou Chet has explained that the money Kasper receives from his family in Italy will soon enable him, Chou Chet, to change his life for the better. “We're friends,” he tells Kasper, in English.

“Friends, for sure,” Kasper repeats.

Kasper doesn't want to die. He wants to walk away from Prey Sar on his own two feet and forget everything about it. Including the brute who barks at him.

The Kapo knows a few words of English, enough to communicate with the non-Cambodian prisoners, who constitute a tiny minority: a few Thais, two Chinese, a small group of Vietnamese. Among five hundred poor wretches, Kasper's the only Westerner.

“Go to entrance.” The Kapo's already pointing in the proper direction. “News for you.”

Kasper looks him straight in the eyes. Only for a moment. He doesn't want a confrontation. Not today, of all days. Today everything has to go smoothly.

They're both naked from the waist up. Both sweating, given the temperature in the 100s and the humidity that crawls under your skin. The Kapo's checkered
krama
scarf is wrapped around his head. He stares at Kasper. His mouth barely moves when he repeats, “Go, Italian.”

Kasper heads for his “news.” He believes he knows what the
news
will be.

So here we are. Maybe it's really going to happen. It
is
happening, on this Saturday morning in April, and he can scarcely believe it. He drags his Ho Chi Minh sandals and keeps a tight hold, both hands, on a precious nylon sack, hiding it as best he can. It's camouflaged, wrapped up in a T-shirt.

He tries to put on his best mask. The time has come. He's got to make it.

He'
s got
to.

He doesn't want to end up like the others. Like the ones he's seen in the past months and months. The tortured. The stomped-shattered-mangled. The drowned wretches facedown in the ricefields.

Kasper doesn't want his life to end that way; he wants to go home to Italy. Today's stakes are all or nothing.

But if he's never to leave Prey Sar, if that's his fate, then he'll meet it like a soldier.

He squeezes the camouflaged bundle in his hands. Yes indeed, he will cause some shit before they take him out. Because, on this Saturday, April 4, 2009, dying seems preferable to the hell he's been thrown into.

Whatever happens, one way or the other, Kasper's leaving by the main door. Today and forever.

Koh Kong, Cambodia-Thailand Border

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Clancy checks the outside mirror and the rearview mirror and wants to know how much farther they have to go.

“That's the third time you've asked me that,” Kasper replies. “The third in an hour.” He passes a truck and gets back in his lane.

“So we're getting closer all the time.”

“About twenty kilometers.”

Clancy takes off his sunglasses, blows on them, cleans them. “Nobody's following us anyway.”

Good. With any luck, the whole thing's bullshit, Kasper thinks. Nothing but a false alarm. Or maybe some stupid fucking April Fool's joke, a few days early. But Bun Sareun's voice on the telephone sounded serious. The Cambodian senator wasn't joking.

“Leave town now.”

Not one word more. Only those three, repeated several times, in the tone of someone giving Life Advice.

Leave town now.

When Kasper hung up and told his American friend Clancy, he called the senator back. Not many words, zero doubts. “We have to get out of here. We can try to figure out what the fuck's happening later.”

They filled two bags, grabbed two pistols, and took all the cash they kept in the safe in their house, roughly seventy thousand dollars. Now this nest egg is lying with Kasper's change of underwear at the bottom of his black bag. Clancy's bag is the same military duffel he's had ever since he was an energetic young CIA analyst. It probably reminds him of years that won't come again.

They left Phnom Penh hoping the whole thing was a crock; nevertheless, they've avoided airports, seaports, train stations, and any other potential checkpoints. They're familiar with the Cambodian military. They know how its forces work. They're especially familiar with the paramilitaries, the men in charge of the country's internal “security.”

Which is why they had turned their Mercedes over to their driver, instructing him to take it for a long drive around the city. If he was stopped, he was to say he'd dropped them off a short time before near the Manhattan Club, Victor Chao's casino-discotheque. They were careful not to pass by Sharky's, the bar and restaurant they own together, but they called one of their employees and asked him to rent, in his own name, a sport utility vehicle. This machine turned out to be a Honda CR-V. They flung their bags into the back and left.

It was six in the evening. Darkness was starting to fall.

Their goal was the Thai border, just beyond a small town named Koh Kong. A meeting place for smugglers and whores. Six hours' drive away.

Kasper called Patty, his Italian girlfriend. She'd been with him in Phnom Penh up until a few days before and had only just returned to Rome. Her leaving when she did was a piece of luck. On the phone, he stated only the essential facts of the matter. In a few words, without hesitations that could be interpreted or pauses to allow questions.

“We have to leave the city and probably the country.” His tone was unnaturally calm. “There are problems. We don't know what they are. I think we'll find out there's been a mistake, but we want to be prudent. Don't be worried. I'll call you back as soon as I can.”

She asked no questions. And even if she had, the only response would have been a dial tone.

This isn't the first time Kasper has found himself obliged to cut all ties with some place in the world. But it's the first time he's had trouble understanding why. And Clancy doesn't seem to have things figured out any better than he does.

And so they start thinking about how their security was compromised. In Cambodia, it's not hard to become a target, that goes without saying, but what could have happened?

The road to the border enters a harsh, suddenly hostile landscape that slowly wraps itself in its evening cloak. Kasper and Clancy talk over the past few weeks. Who or what could have put them in danger?

Maybe they stepped on somebody's toes at Sharky's. The bar's clientele includes a lot of touchy people—something could have happened there. But what? Something to do with women? Or debts? Certainly not. Some blunder? Some injury this was payback for? Unlikely. Or maybe Kasper's military expertise ruffled the sensibilities of some security boss working for Hun Sen and his government. Possible, but he would have known it already.

Theories. They're not good for much except clarifying the horizon, thinning out the possibilities. They move you closer to the truth.

For example, suppose it was Kasper's North Korean investigation—a mission he'd undertaken at the behest of the Americans—that had put them in danger. It seemed like a job well done. It seemed perfect. But maybe something had gone wrong.

Very wrong.

Kasper can feel it.

It's a doubt that's been churning around in his head from the start. Now he understands that it's much more than a doubt. It's a premonition. And it's getting stronger and stronger.

Suppose it was that job I did for Clancy's friends? he wonders under his breath. The question goes unanswered.

Kasper's positive he made all the right moves. He used maximum discretion and followed orders. No one except his only contact with “the Company” knows about his mission. And, of course, Clancy. But even Clancy knows very little about it.

Kasper did a good, clean job. He did what he'd been asked to do.

Leave town now.

The Cambodian senator knows nothing about Kasper's investigation. But the senator knows a lot about a lot of other things. It wasn't clear from his telephone call where the danger was coming from. He didn't specify whether they should be wary of “round-eyes” or “slant-eyes,” Westerners or Cambodians—or maybe even North Koreans.

Kasper decides to tell Clancy about his persistent doubt. His American friend listens to him in silence. They've known each other for twenty years, and they've been through a lot together. In Cambodia they share a house, they're business partners in Sharky's, and they collaborate in all things, each contributing his own particular set of skills.

Clancy's sixty years old and not very talkative. He's reticent and cautious. And smart. He's someone who listens, first of all, and then discusses, basing his reasoning on his background as an organizer and an analyst. As for experience, he's had a lot. He's an American who has passed—not totally unscathed—through some of the pages of recent history.

“The thing with the North Koreans,” Clancy says, stroking his white beard. He ponders a bit. “Well, it just seems strange to me. I don't know much about it, but…” He clears his throat and sighs. “But if that's what it is, we're in deep shit.”

“You know the Company people better than I do. Do you think that's what it is?”

Clancy stays quiet for a few seconds. Then he shakes his head and says, “No, not unless you fucked up in some major way.”

“I didn't fuck up. I followed their guidelines. I kept them informed about everything.”

“Everything?”

“Every fucking thing.”

“Did you do anything on your own initiative?”

“Nada.”

“Or talk to other—”

“Never.”

Clancy nods. “So no fuckups on your end,” he recaps.

“No, my friend. No fuckups.”

“Then that job has nothing to do with this. I don't think it has anything to do with this at all.”

The bridge between Cambodia and Thailand is about a hundred meters long. Shortly after midnight, Kasper and Clancy arrive within sight of the border. They decide to spend the night in Koh Kong and cross the bridge the following morning. After getting two rooms in a trashy motel that offers hourly rates for the benefit of whores and their clients, they eat something in a fast-food joint nearby. Next morning they'll leave the SUV in the motel parking lot and cross over on foot.

Separately.

That's their plan.

They have to pass through two border checkpoints, the first Cambodian and the second Thai. But only the first one presents some risk.

Some
risk? Kasper wonders. Or a
huge
risk?

That's the crucial point, the Cambodian guard post. Once they're in Thailand, all they have to do is to head for Trat, the nearest town.

Kasper would have preferred to avoid crossing the bridge altogether. He was for getting across the border at once, while it was still night, without wasting time. “Being afraid of trouble is better than seeking it out,” he said, reciting a Tuscan proverb. As a good Florentine, he'd repeated this wisdom to Clancy on several other occasions.

Kasper's proposal: to ford the little river under cover of darkness and climb up the bank on the Thai side. Had he been alone, he wouldn't have thought about it for a minute. But he was with Clancy.

Uncle Clancy.

His white beard, that pensive air.

“Are you crazy?” was the American's response. “Didn't you say the riverbank is mined?”

“There may be a mine or two, yes. You just have to pay attention. I talked to a smuggler friend of mine. He showed me where we should cross.”

“
You
cross through the mines. I'm strolling over the bridge tomorrow morning. It'll be like taking a walk. Then we can swim in the sea off Phuket Island instead of this stinking gutter.”

They arise at dawn. From a public telephone, they call their employee and explain where he can pick up the CR-V. They tell him how to get rid of the guns they've hidden in it. Then they have breakfast, exchange a few words. Just the indispensable ones. They say their good-byes.

“Until we meet on the other side,” says Kasper.

“See you soon,” says Clancy with a nod.

Looked at from the Cambodian riverbank, the bridge seemed like a joke. See how perspective alters things, Kasper thinks. A few meters, and everything's totally changed.

His passport passes from hand to hand. Four or five times. Back and forth, like a game. Then the first border guard points his pistol at Kasper's face. Behind him, other guards have their weapons leveled.

They bring him to an office with a table, three chairs, and a poster displaying medical and health information.

Kasper tries hard not to assign blame, but without success. Swimming in the sea off Phuket Island. Fuck you, Clancy, he thinks, while the Cambodian soldiers search him and take everything he has. They lead him to another room in the guard post. This one's empty except for a couple of plastic chairs. The soldiers tell him, “You wait here.”

After less than an hour, the door opens again and in he comes, the optimistic American. They detained him the same way: passport, two pissy questions, and a pistol aimed at his face.

Clancy sits down on a chair next to Kasper and plays the role of the red, white, and blue veteran. He says, “Maybe it's better this way. We'll clear up everything and go back to Phnom Penh.”

“Is that a hope or a prediction?” Kasper asks.

“It's a prediction. You'll see.”

“A prediction. Right.”

Kasper knows that the “predictions” Americans make sometimes get into ugly collisions with reality. The optimistic approach is endearing; unfortunately, however, it doesn't pay. But that's how the Americans are. They take on enemies they consider undersized weaklings who turn out to be rather more difficult than they figured.

Kasper knows Americans well. His father's a half-American Tuscan born in Memphis, Tennessee. Half of Kasper's family lives in St. Louis; most of his military and pilot training took place in the States. He loves everything about America, or almost everything. Therefore his old friend Clancy's optimism really pisses him off.

Suppose they're in real trouble—the worst kind of trouble, the definitive kind?

They sit for a few hours in the stifling little room with its barred windows and its reek of smoke and frontier. It's a hole, this post on the Thai border. The Cambodian guards keeping an eye on them chat among themselves. And wait.

Three in the afternoon. The door of the room swings open and five men in civilian clothes come in. They're Cambodians, and they're armed. They know perfectly well who they're dealing with. Kasper's immobilized at once. No martial arts or any of the rest of his repertoire. With Clancy, things are easier.

They sit Kasper and Clancy down and bind them. Chains around ankles and arms, wrists tied tightly behind their backs.

These five are professionals.

Kasper recognizes a couple of them from the Marksmen Club, the Phnom Penh shooting range where he habitually spends a lot of his time. Now he realizes that he and Clancy are not in deep shit.

It's worse than that.

The five men are from the Combat Intelligence Division, or CID, a very special task force that takes on some very special assignments. These are people who don't waste time. Five sons of bitches ready for anything. There are probably five more of them outside this room.

The unit's veterans are all former Khmer Rouge. The younger guys live on myths of the past, of a ferocious competence that's earned the CID a pretty grim reputation over the years. In many cases, they operate in close collaboration with the American embassy, which is to say the CIA's Indochinese field office.

Leave town now.

Too late, dear Senator Bun Sareun.

There are ten of them altogether. Kasper called it right.

Dark suits, dark glasses: they look like the Blues Brothers, Cambodian version. Their weapons are Smith & Wessons, Colt .45s, AK-74s, and AK-47s. Their vehicles are two black SUVs, already loaded with the prisoners' “personal effects.” The bags have been overturned, their contents scattered about, the $70,000 removed without trace. In this situation, that's just a detail.

The
detail
that will save his life.

“You're under arrest for tax crimes,” the unit commander announces. He's Lieutenant Darrha, a thirtyish mixed-race Cambodian whose aspect is both martial and diabolical. Tall, sturdy, dark-featured, with something European about him, and those eyes: like deep wells, full of threatening promises.