Supernotes (13 page)

Prey Sar Correctional Center, near Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Monday, January 5, 2009

If he were in Italy, he'd be getting ready to celebrate January 6, the feast of the Epiphany, which is also the day when the good witch known as La Befana arrives bearing gifts.

As a child, he'd lie awake, waiting for his stocking to be filled with sweets and lumps of dark candy “coal.”

The idea that the presents were brought by a little old lady flying on a broomstick encouraged his childhood dreams of becoming an airplane pilot. To fly was his greatest wish. Only the thought of flying could yank him out of his claustrophobic nightmares. He'd gladly start with a broomstick, as long as he could fly. An old sorghum broom would do just fine.

In Prey Sar, Kasper's Befana has come a day early and left him the little gifts he asked for: a pistol and a hand grenade.

This Befana had the deeply distressed features of Chou Chet.

“Now you must hide everything. Hide good.”

Kasper hasn't informed Chou Chet that he intends to use those little gifts very soon. Until then he needs a secure hiding place for the next few hours. So he's also asked Chou Chet to obtain a good supply of plastic bags and packing tape. Kasper can see only one hiding place: the communal reservoir, the large earthenware jar from which the inmates take the water they use to perform their “ablutions” and quench their thirst.

When he was a soldier, Kasper learned that weapons, if well protected, can withstand dampness for a long time. He also learned that all kinds of things end up at the bottom of water tanks, because they're not checked regularly. In some places, hygiene is never a priority. In Prey Sar, it simply doesn't exist.

The pistol is Chinese. The grenade is Russian.

A 7.62 mm TT pistol with one round in the chamber and eight in the magazine.

An F1 grenade with a fuse so short—3.5 seconds—that the explosion will be almost immediate. Six hundred grams of shrapnel.

This is his escape gear. Or at least his escape attempt gear.

But the most important element of all is the ladder. And the ladder is still there. They move it along the wall, a little at a time; the work is slow and very, very long drawn out. May God bless Cambodian indolence, which has given him enough time to get organized.

Now he's ready.

Kasper loves that ladder. He knows its every detail by heart. Its two main bamboo poles, and its widely separated bamboo rungs, lashed to the poles with raffia. The lime scale and old red paint stains here and there. It's a very heavy ladder, usually shifted by two workers. Kasper will have to shift it by himself.

He's calculated the work schedule. They're working on a section of the wall halfway between one guard tower and another. There are eight towers: one at each of the four corners of the camp, and one in the center of every side. If his estimates are correct, the day after tomorrow the ladder will be next to the central tower at the rear of the infirmary.

That will be his moment. He'll lean the ladder against the wall, and the party will begin. One more day of patience, only one.

The same evening, he hides near the slaughterhouse and uses the Nokia to call Brady and warn him to be ready.

“Are you sure you want to do it?” Brady asks.

“Are you afraid?”

“Of course I'm afraid! I'm afraid they'll blow you away while you're climbing that fucking wall!”

Kasper doesn't give him any details. All Brady has to do is to take him away from there.

It's not the wall he's going to climb up, it's the tower. Because jumping over the wall with an armed guard stationed right above his head would be the equivalent of offering himself as a target. It would be suicide.

No, his first objective is that very guard: the man in the tower.

That's what the Chinese pistol's for. To shoot him in the face when he sticks his head out to find out what's going on. Then Kasper can use the Cambodian's Kalashnikov to discourage any would-be lionhearts in the area. The magazine holds only thirty rounds, but a few brief bursts should suffice.

Bursts from an AK-47 drastically reduce the incidence of heroism.

Next, at the proper moment, he'll deploy the hand grenade.

At that point, he'll be able to make his jump over the wall and down the tower's outside ladder. He'll hit the ground running.

Out of here.

He's thought about it long and hard. He's weighed every move, analyzed every detail. It's his only real, genuine possibility.

“You'll have to approach the perimeter only when you see me jump,” he tells Brady. “Try not to get yourself shot at too soon.”

“And how am I supposed to know which side you're going over?”

“You'll know it as soon as you see it.”

“What the fuck does that mean? Don't tell me—”

“You take care of the bike,” Kasper says, cutting him off. “And make sure the tank's full.”

Marco Lanna offers him a cigarette. Kasper shakes his head. He has never smoked, and he has no intention of starting now. He says so and adds, “Health is important, especially in places like this.”

The Italian consul takes a deep drag and smiles. Kasper smiles too. He perceives that Lanna's one of those people who appreciate irony.

“I did a little research,” the consul says to break the ice. “I read various interesting things about Operation Sinai.”

“Good. You've verified that I didn't make anything up.”

“I'm preparing a dossier on you. The more material you give me, the better my preparation, so—”

“Forget dossiers.”

“What do you mean?”

“They're useless. Save yourself time. Dedicate yourself to your family. Or golf. Go out with your friends, work out at the gym.”

“You're not suggesting anything that hasn't occurred to me,” Lanna chuckles.

Kasper nods. Despite everything, he appreciates Lanna's good intentions. Nevertheless, he insists: “Don't waste your time.”

“I'm not wasting my time. I promised you I'd talk to somebody….”

“If he's Rambo, I don't think he needs too many pieces of paper.”

“No, he's not Rambo,” says the diplomat, smiling again. “Actually, he doesn't resemble Rambo at all.”

“In that case, he's of no use to me.”

They laugh, but the consul can't imagine how serious Kasper is. The time for diplomacy is over. Maybe it never began.

“Operation Sinai was a success,” the diplomat says, changing the subject.

Kasper studies him, frowning in his very Tuscan way, a mixture of skepticism and sarcasm. “A success, you say. What makes you think that?”

“According to the newspapers, the drugs…I mean, in the end there was a record drug seizure….”

“Sinai was a half failure,” Kasper says forcefully. “Everything went well until the night when Michael Savage informed me that the first transport would arrive by sea, and the shipment would be much smaller than planned.”

“The night in his villa on Phuket?”

“Exactly. I was forced to accept the new plan. The shipment that left Colombia for Italy was six hundred kilos of cocaine and crack. It was sent as planned, on an Israeli container ship. The container it was in was loaded with Chilean leather. We organized an appropriate welcome party. The ship was unloaded in Livorno, where a shipping agent with close ties to the Carabinieri put his warehouse at our disposal. The container was taken through various customs checks and after a few hours, we were ready to send the shipment on in a semitrailer truck. The driver was a Dutchman, the destination Belgium. And this particular drug shipment wasn't supposed to be stopped, it was supposed to get through. Because that was the only way I'd be able to track the whole process and map out Michael Savage's entire organization.”

“So the seizure was an accident?”

“Much worse than that. The truck was about to cross the border into Austria, but there was a change of plans. The magistrates who were running the operation did an about-face. They decided they couldn't let all that coke be put in circulation all over Europe. Years before, during Operation Pilot, the magistrate in charge accepted the responsibility. Operation Sinai went down differently.”

“The truck got stopped at the border.”

“In Vipiteno. The papers ran headlines about the record seizure. And that's how Sinai ended.”

“I read that Michael Savage, alias Gordon, was arrested too.”

“They arrested him later. Despite my efforts to save him.”

“Save him?” Marco Lanna recoils a little and stares at Kasper as if he's joking.

“Of course. I did everything I could to keep him out of jail. A guy like him could have helped us trace one of the biggest drug-trafficking operations in the world. What was six hundred kilos of stuff compared with the bust we could have made? And so, right after the Vipiteno seizure, I went back to Thailand.”

“Are you telling me you kept up the act with Gordon…?”

“Nothing had come out yet about my part in the bust, so I tried the umpteenth bluff. After I got to Bangkok, he and I had a pretty rough confrontation. I told him the seizure hadn't been a fucking accident. It was much more likely, I said, that one of his guys had given himself away. Now we were all at risk, I said. I asked him, I begged him to stay in Thailand, because he could be arrested in Europe. I proposed to organize a new shipment, by air this time. I figured that would allow me to familiarize myself with the Colombian part of the organization too.”

“What stopped Gordon from doing away with you?”

“He could have done that at any moment. As a matter of fact, my bosses in the ROS opposed the trip to Thailand. They thought it was a crazy idea. But I went anyway. In those days, I thought I was invulnerable. And then the fact that I was there, completely exposed and even somewhat pissed off, tipped the balance in my favor. So he trusted me, once again.”

“Like when you were on that train in Switzerland, and he set up your alcohol test.”

“Right, my allergy…” Kasper smiles. “I was pretty lucky that time. Years before, in Operation Pilot, the
narcos
had kept me in Medellín for several days. Long hours doing nothing, surrounded by drunks armed with every kind of weapon. They would have these colossal drinking bouts, and there was only one way for me to get out of joining them….”

“Pretend you were allergic to alcohol.”

“That's right. If the Colombians didn't want to lose their precious pilot, they had to give me a wide berth. That ‘detail,' my allergy, turned me into a very retiring character. And a pretty dubious one, too.”

“An
hombre
rather less
macho
than their usual standard.”

“Something like that.”

“And so that ‘detail' saved you in Zurich.”

“Maybe so,” Kasper nods. “But I've always thought Michael Savage wanted to…to believe me beyond every reasonable doubt. He longed to believe. Like all romantics, Michael expected reality to be a perfect fit with his vision of things.”

“A romantic Irish drug trafficker. A truly unusual character.”

“Unusual and stubborn. He ignored my advice and did in fact go to Europe. He was arrested in Holland. I met him again sometime later, at his trial. He didn't seem very glad to see me.”

“You look sorry.”

“Yes, I was very sorry, because a criminal of his caliber shouldn't just get locked up like that. He could have given us so much. But nowadays many magistrates are like managers of large companies. They don't work for tomorrow. They work for the immediate profit, and if they leave a desert behind, so what?”

Kasper's chest swells in a long, drawn-out sigh.

“I understand how you feel,” the Italian diplomat murmurs. “Being shut up in here, in this situation…It all seems so incredible.”

“You understand?” Kasper replies. “Really? Good, I'm truly glad to hear it. And therefore you also understand that there's no point in talking about any of this. It's useful only for self-flagellation. Self-inflicted harm. Memory's a torture instrument.”

“I disagree. I think you—”

“Right, right.” Kasper nods and tightens his lips into something that might resemble a smile. Then he rises from his chair and holds out his hand to the consul. “My stories are over,” he says. “I don't think we have any more to say to each other, Mr. Consul.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“That this is the end. Thanks for what you've done or tried to do. But it's over. Good-bye, Signor Lanna.”

Carsoli, Abruzzo, 67 kilometers from Rome

January 2009

The American's a giant.

Barbara watches him talk to the restaurant owner, who's not exactly small, but next to the other man, he disappears.

Barbara's supposed to meet this man, the “professor,” shortly, but meanwhile she studies him from a distance. She's a few minutes early, so she can take her time, stay in her car, and observe the scene. Every now and then he adjusts the trousers of his brown corduroy suit and pulls them up. His open jacket offers a glimpse of red suspenders running down his spherical mass like broad meridians. Light blue shirt, reddish-purple bowtie. Thick gray hair, combed with a fan, one would say. He's smoking a Tuscan cigar and chatting with the restaurateur in the crisp, dry cold of a splendid sunny day in the little main square of this hill town between Rome and the Adriatic coast.

The professor's an international political analyst. Barbara knows him by reputation, but she would never have been able to get to him on her own. The contact was arranged by the
senatore
after listening to her most recent report. Her meeting with Marzio De Paoli had clarified some important aspects of the case.

“At this point, I believe you need a man who has certain codes,” the
senatore
told her. “The professor owes me one. Maybe he can help.”

Over the past few days, Barbara hasn't stopped wondering what level of desperation Kasper has reached. What goes through the mind of such a man after months of imprisonment? Months of physical and psychological torture. Months of abandonment.

Marco Lanna's last report had increased her level of concern. “I've got a bad feeling,” he confided to her. “Kasper had a kind of gleam in his eye. It was…unsettling, to say the least. I'm afraid I know what it meant. I hope he's not planning some, well, some final act.”

There is only one final act for such a man. Faced with the impossibility of fighting, he exits the stage. To avoid a death he considers dishonorable, the warrior chooses the extreme solution.

She can't let him end it that way.

Barbara has spent the past several days poring over her client's various files. Back and forth on Piazzale Clodio, in and out of the Palace of Justice. Every file a story. And every story linked to other stories. She's searched for corroborative information, matched dates and circumstances, uncovered connections. She's studied hard.

The documents she's looked at tell the story of a war. There's unfinished business between the ROS and some magistrates. There are officers among the Carabinieri who have spent a good part of their lives defending themselves from suspicions and accusations amplified by the media and garnished with a large helping of mud.

One of the newspaper headlines she unearthed on the Internet reads, “The Strange Methods of the ROS.” The article discusses Operation Pilot, and reading it left her flabbergasted. The extraordinary results obtained by the ROS operation eclipsed by the wild accusations made by one of the defendants, a drug trafficker who declared during his trial that the ROS had “entrapped” him by suggesting that drugs be transported by air to Italy. All the rest—for example, the modest seizure of a thousand kilograms of cocaine, or the dismantling of a large criminal organization—is treated as ordinary administrative work.

And then there's mud, mud, and more mud.

Apparently, when you go after criminals, you inevitably get spattered, partly because there's always someone ready to switch on the fan at the most opportune moment. Between the regular police, the Carabinieri, and the Guardia di Finanza, competition is strong and sometimes even bitter.

Agent Kasper can be particularly useful in these interdepartmental squabbles. For some judges, he's like a magnifying glass. He's a man who takes risks, whose exploits leave him vulnerable.

Through him, those magistrates think they can detect a plot, a plan, probably a fully functioning military intelligence machine. Kasper's not the main target. But by striking him, justice—the kind of justice with predetermined targets—can make a big score, can nail some colonel or general, some honcho in the secret services or politics. The newspaper headlines are ready to go. Television interviews follow accordingly. Careers open up.

It's an internal struggle in which justice—the real kind—plays very little part. It's a war of power and poison. Public opinion grabs up scraps of it, bits, crumbs of truth drowned in a spew of lies.

This is Italy, after all. And it didn't just start today.

“My ex-boss says you're the man with the right codes.”

For a moment, the professor looks at her over the flat-top eyeglasses he's using to peruse the menu. He smiles and goes back to weighing the possible choices.

After they order, Barbara summarizes the case for him, and he listens to her with interest. His comments are brief, reserved.

Barbara doesn't reveal her sources. She doesn't mention supernotes, but otherwise she's not stingy with details. “And so that's the situation,” she says at the end of her summary.

“I know your man well.”

And before she can ask a single question, the professor stops her with a measured movement of his hand.

“I don't mean to imply I know him personally. But in certain circles, Kasper's pretty famous.”

“If you're referring to right-wing circles in Italy—”

“Forget it,” he says, smiling. “Leave all that bullshit to lazy journalists and magistrates who launch farfetched investigations to enhance their careers. We'll talk about serious matters, you and I. But first, counselor, there's at least one thing I need to make clear.”

“Namely?”

“This Kasper, as you call him—you'll never be able to get him out of Cambodia. Not through official channels, anyway.”

“Why do you say that?”

“It's complicated, but bear with me.” In the mid-1980s, the professor explains, there was an organization known as the IFF, the International Freedom Foundation, a CIA subsidiary. The aim of the IFF was to act, usually but not exclusively by means of propaganda, against the enemies of the United States and other Western democracies. During the Cold War, all methods were considered legitimate. Traditional media carried the propaganda, but other initiatives were also employed such as discrediting people who were thought to be dangerous, coordinating scandals, and embroiling opponents and enemies in difficulties.

“It may not have been pretty, that world,” the professor admits with a slight sneer. “But if nothing else, the dividing lines were clearly marked. The IFF had a foothold in all the major cities of the world. In Rome, the foot belonged to a young pilot. A brilliant lad, and something of a daredevil.”

“Are you telling me…?”

“I just told you, counselor. And if you don't lose that bewildered expression, it'll mean you still haven't grasped what kind of brave new planet you landed on when you began to explore this business. Our friend, an Italian secret service agent and a representative of the IFF, started to work for the South African Bureau of State Security, or BOSS. In practice, it was a kind of IFF served up in a South African sauce.”

“So it was the CIA, once again,” Barbara observes.

“Perfect. I see you're following me,” says the professor. “The BOSS had some particular plans for members of the African National Congress, the opponents of the regime, which considered the ANC a terrorist party. The goal was to take out Mandela's men working abroad. Without any fuss. To send an unequivocal message. These are matters that can't be assessed through contemporary eyes; at the time, there was a real war going on. The South Africans, with the consent of their Western allies, asked our Kasper to organize the proper ‘treatment' to take care of Mandela's representatives in the various European capitals. In Rome, the ANC's man was Benny Nato de Bruyn, and he was the first target.”

“You're joking,” Barbara murmurs.

“Do I strike you as someone who would make jokes in front of a Montepulciano di Valentini?”

The professor studies her, amused and looking like a wrinkled, disenchanted sailor with little gray eyes. He raises his glass of red wine. Barbara tries to imitate him. A toast, while the subject of the conversation is people planning to kill other people. It's not bewilderment she feels; it's disgust. But she does her best to hide it.

The professor moves his mouth, assaying the wine. Then, satisfied, he goes on: “Kasper followed the instructions he'd received and planned the ‘treatment.' Surgical elimination. Everything was ready, but then nothing was done. All of a sudden, the Company sent a stop order. The impact of such an action on international public opinion would be devastating, they decided, and it would only accelerate Botha's decline. Therefore the project was called off. But meanwhile the South Africans had come to appreciate the young Italian, and for a brief period they employed him as a military pilot. You see, despite the embargo, they were using Italian Aermacchi planes. Kasper found himself attacking the SWAPO's Angolan convoys. It was a war, a real, authentic war that made him a well-respected figure in the Italian intelligence community. The Americans liked him too, because he spoke, and fought, like an American. They liked him so much, he spent a lot of time in the States during the following years, still working for them.”

“And all that with a guarantee from the Italian services,” mutters Barbara.

“Obviously. You know, while he was in the U.S., Rome asked him to track down the Italian neo-Fascists who had fled to Paraguay. And what did they do when he found them? They stopped him. He was supposed to grab a pretty important
fascista
and bring him back to Italy. The CIA knew about the raid, and I believe they'd given their okay. At the last minute, Rome stopped everything. Without explanation. And Kasper went back to the United States. During this same time, he took up with a photographer from Seattle. Karie was her name, I believe. Gorgeous, athletic, could have been a professional tennis player. A fantastic girl, madly in love with Kasper and Italy. So much in love that he managed to co-opt her into the circles he moved in.”

“He turned her into a spy?”

“Something like that. For a time, Karie worked for the Italian government, both officially and undercover. They were a handsome couple, she and Kasper, while it lasted.”

Barbara thinks perhaps she should show some enthusiasm, deluge him with appropriate questions, tell him it's a tremendous, pyrotechnic story. Instead, all she really feels is a great emptiness.

She can't believe these people. In their world, they play at making war when there's no war, and if there is one, it's because they declared it themselves, and they fight it on the backs, on the hides of ordinary people. They've been doing it since Yalta; they've never stopped. And with our money to boot, the money they gouge out of us with taxes. How fucking long can a system like that last?

“You look disconcerted,” the professor says with a smile.

“There are some things I don't understand,” she replies. “For example, I don't understand why, if Kasper was so close to the CIA…”

“…Why is he in trouble now?”

“Yes, why?”

“Maybe he's in trouble for that very reason,” the professor answers seraphically. “If he'd never had anything to do with the CIA, he probably wouldn't be a prisoner in Prey Sar right now.”

“But the CIA—”

“The CIA is made up of people,” he interrupts her. “It's made up of men and women who are alive in their times. And every time brings its own new necessities.”

“Which is to say?”

“Which is to say that the CIA is the intelligence service of the most powerful country in the world. Then there's the National Security Agency, the NSA, which is ironically said to stand for ‘No Such Agency,' because up until a few years ago, few people knew of its existence. There's also the legendary FBI, the DEA, and for the last five or six years we've also had the Department of Homeland Security. So if there's a certain amount of competition in Italy between the police and the Carabinieri, you can imagine how lovely things must be in the States, with all those players. In theory, they should all cooperate; in reality, the competition is pitiless.

“The security agencies have hoovered up billions of dollars of public finances. After 9/11, there was a big escalation in surveillance systems, an extremely expensive escalation. And this is exactly what Title II of the Patriot Act deals with: surveillance as a means of preventing terrorism. It gives the American government powers that would have been unthinkable until a few years ago. Which obviously entails consequences. One of many is the development of a separate industry, where all sorts of interests are flourishing. People, materiel, instruments, new entities, including governmental and para-governmental agencies. Blackwater's an example, but I could cite several others.

“Therefore, when you tell me your Kasper was hired by someone apparently with the CIA, whereas now he's under the thumb of someone apparently with the FBI or Homeland Security, I say that's not only possible but even probable. One often hears of intelligence services that are out of control. That's not the exception. It's the rule. Because in the end, my dear, acronyms mean nothing. It's people who do things. Men and women. And they do them, usually, for power and money.”

Barbara leans back against her chair and looks down at her barely tasted soup. What she sees is a swamp. Slime and quicksand.

“Don't let it get cold,” says the professor.

She dips her spoon but stops at once. “Suppose I told you Kasper was investigating something very…something called ‘supernotes'?”

The professor pauses while cutting into his saddle of rabbit. He stares at his guest, tightening his jaw muscle. “Well, you don't say! There's something new….”