Supernotes (15 page)

Villa Ada, Rome

January 2009

The general's climbing up to the Belvedere.

He's almost sixty but he runs like he's on drugs, Barbara thinks. And maybe he is. She stays on his trail, or at least tries to. She wills herself on. She doesn't want to lose sight of him. Mario De Paoli told her about this regular route—“The comandante is a creature of habit.” This is her only chance to reach him. A risky “blitz” as Mario called it.

They descend toward the Villa Reale, skirt the riding school, and take the well-appointed course that runs down through the woods. Then to the little lake, a quick lap around it, and back they go.

How many kilometers does this guy want to cover? Barbara wonders. He's got to stop sooner or later. But meanwhile, it's the longest forty-five minutes of her life. He reenters the woods. She's behind him.

They run around the ancient archeological site, the Roman ruins. The general accelerates.

I can't believe this, thinks Barbara.

Now he's sprinting. She wants to accelerate too, but her legs don't respond. A sharp curve to the right, another climb. Jesus, send me a zip line.

She trips and falls.

Headfirst. Luckily, instinct makes her put her hands out. With a shout, she hits the grassy slope and starts rolling down. After several meters, she stops, eyes on the sky and arms outspread. Unconditional surrender.

I am indeed nuts, she thinks. What a fall.

“Are you hurt, ma'am?” a voice above her asks.

The young man, wearing a sky-blue tracksuit, is completely bald. He's making an effort to put on the face of a concerned rescuer, but the amusement in his eyes wins out over courtesy. Barbara can see it very well, that little fucking glint, the unbearable superiority complex of the typical Italian male. On the other hand, her fall must have been fairly comical.

“I'm fine, thank you.”

“Nothing broken?”

“Just my dignity.”

The young man bursts out laughing. She nods and smiles. He offers her his hand; she takes it and tries to stand up. And that's when she sees him. The general. Standing on top of the little hill. Like an Apache chief waiting for a signal. Which young Bald Eagle duly gives him, raising his right thumb. As if to say, everything's okay, we can go now.

So that's what was happening. She was following the general, someone was following her.

He says, “Lucky you didn't hurt yourself.”

“Can you tell your commander I need to speak to him?”

The glint in the young man's eyes goes out at once, replaced by martial severity. “Excuse me?”

“Please,” she says imploringly. “Tell the general I must speak to him. Otherwise I'm going to keep on running after him. I swear. All the way to his office.”

Her close-fitting tracksuit is ripped at both knees. She must have a bruise the size of a porkchop on her butt. Barbara stretches out her legs, one at a time, and leans back on the bench with a sigh.

The general remains on his feet, observing her. Typical military, Barbara thinks. Now he'll ask how I am and what the hell I want from him. She gets ready.

“You used to play basketball, didn't you?”

Barbara gazes at him in surprise. “How do you know that?”

“It shows in the way you run.”

“And you look like you're training for a marathon,” she replies.

“I've run a few, in fact,” the general says with a smile. And, still smiling, he asks, “What is it you want, counselor?”

“You know who I am, apparently.”

“It would be a bad thing if I didn't.”

Barbara waits for two cyclists to pass and then says, with emphasis, “Kasper.”

“Right.” He nods. “Kasper.”

“You know where he is.”

“Yes, I know.” He pauses and adds, “He wrote me a letter from Prey Sar. Just a few lines. Clear and succinct. Showed composure—”

“Oh, right, composure!” Barbara interrupts him. “You people in the ROS, that's all you care about. One of your men is being tortured to death, and nobody in Italy wants to talk about it, but the really important thing is for him to croak with composure.”

The general observes her without moving a muscle. Then he makes a sign to his man, who's standing about ten meters away. Bald Eagle raises one hand and withdraws.

“Counselor Belli, there's a famous barracks joke that explains pretty well why, in certain situations, the less agitated you get, the better off you are.”

“I know that joke. It gets told a lot in courtrooms too.”

“There you go. Kasper's been in some very critical situations before this, and he's always come out all right. He knows he's in our hearts—”

“Because you ROS men have such big hearts.”

“I'll say we do. But at the moment, there's not much we can do for him.”

“So how will you reply to his letter?”

“I won't.”

“Excellent,” she sneers. “Don't strain yourself.”

“Counselor Belli, maybe things still aren't clear to you. Kasper's involved in something so complicated, so incredible, that our only hope of getting him out of there is to maintain an extremely low profile and trust that someone or something operates in his favor.”

“Help me get this straight. This is your strategy? We don't lift a finger and we pray for a miracle?”

“Sorry, but I don't have a strategy,” the general says with a smile. “As you've probably heard, I've got some problems at the moment. A most unpleasant business, but I have faith in the justice system. Sooner or later, things will get cleared up, but in the meantime I must defend myself.”

The
senatore
had told her the general was under investigation. Charges of crimes and abuses in his fight against drug traffickers. Typical Roman politics.

“As for Kasper, someone will take care of him. It's inevitable.”

“Inevitable.”

“Listen to me. When they took him into custody, he was in serious danger of dying. Fortunately, it didn't happen. And whoever wanted to make him disappear then will have many more problems getting rid of him now. The matter he was investigating doesn't concern us. Italy's got no claim on it; it's entirely an American affair—”

“I wouldn't say that at all,” Barbara interrupts him. “If I'm not mistaken, he was arrested in 2005 in Milan for the same reason: supernotes. Don't tell me the ROS had nothing to do with it.”

“I
will
tell you that, because we didn't,” the general retorts. “An American gave Kasper the assignment. He had full autonomy. But what's most interesting is that the same man who asked him to meet Bischoff in Milan in 2005 contacted him again in 2007 and asked him to conduct an investigation in Phnom Penh.”

“Supernotes again.”

“Exactly.”

“Who is this man?”

“I don't know. All I can tell you is he made contact with Kasper in Bangkok, and Kasper's partner set up the meeting.”

“Clancy.”

“As you know, Bush is on his way out, the Republicans don't stand a chance, and a Democrat moves into the White House in a few days. These are delicate moments in the intelligence community. The CIA—and not only the CIA—has certain little games going on that they won't be able to play so casually anymore. There's a great deal of housecleaning to be done. And you know how it is, in such a rush something can easily go missing.”

“Are you alluding to supernotes?”

“Counselor, I never allude. I reflect, and sometimes I talk. Now, however, if you'll allow me, I'd like to finish my hour of jogging.”

“One more thing, General.”

He takes a couple of steps and pauses.

“If you were in my place, what would you do to get Kasper out of that hellhole?”

“I'd talk to the Americans. The right ones.”

“The problem is figuring out which Americans are the right ones,” Barbara objects.

“That's a problem for us all, believe me. Always has been.”

Prey Sar Correctional Center, near Phnom Penh, Cambodia

January 2009

Kasper hasn't slept. He hasn't even closed his eyes.

And so he heard it coming. Shut up in the big room, packed in there amid dozens of other bodies, he listened to the sound of the storm, which suddenly sprang up in the middle of the night and shattered the silence of the curfew.

The din is so loud it covers everything.

The rain's been coming down for hours. It's a water bomb that submerges Prey Sar and the surrounding area, transforming the world around him into a stifling swamp. A downpour like this isn't normal for the end of January, one of the least rainy periods of the year. But the climate's really going crazy, Kasper thinks. Or maybe someone up there has finally had it with the human race.

When the rain finally slows down, the prisoners get ready to go out. They throng at the doors, waiting for the kapos to give them a chance at some fresh air. The temperature is climbing rapidly. The equatorial climate offers no compromises. In a few minutes, the sun will emerge from the fog, everything will start boiling again in the unbearable heat, and the humidity will reach about a thousand percent.

Kasper heads outside with the others. The prison yard is one giant puddle. He's carrying his cell phone, which he hid in his clothes during the night. He wants to warn Brady to get ready.

Today's his day.

But first he has to retrieve the pistol and the hand grenade.

He heads to where he's dug the hole for them. Chou Chet spots him from a distance and comes over to him. “What you doing?” he asks.

“Nothing.”

“You have face like man about to do something. Not good. Face like that bring you trouble in here.”

Kasper dodges around him and proceeds on his way. There's water everywhere, and this makes him anxious. If his package is buried in the mud, he'll still be able to find it, but if the hole has been washed away, then he's in deep shit.

“Tell me where you going,” Chou Chet says again.

“The gun and the grenade. They're over there, near the garden.”

“I get them for you. You don't get excited.”

“I'm not excited.”

“They watching us,” says Chou Chet.

Kasper ignores him, but his prison guard “friend” is right. The Kapo—with whom Kasper has unfinished business—is less than twenty meters behind him, his eyes fixed on Kasper's every move. Two guards hover nearby, observing the scene. A few prisoners are standing around, among them Mr. T, a Cambodian of Nigerian origin serving a hundred-year sentence who looks exactly like the actor from
The A-Team.
He's a black mountain of a man, exuding violence from every pore. He hates whites, so Kasper's not exactly his favorite prison mate.

In short, the audience isn't on his side.

But Kasper doesn't give a damn about that. He has to retrieve his weapons. That's the only thing that matters now.

Too much haste. Too much excitement.

“I get them for you,” Chou Chet repeats.

“They're over there,” Kasper mutters, praying they haven't disappeared. Because the moment has come. Jump and takeoff are near at hand. Now he'll call Brady, and then he'll go to where the ladder is…

The ladder.

It's not there anymore.

He moves a few meters away and turns in place as though in some hysterical ballet. Then he grabs Chou Chet by the shoulders. “Where are they?” he pants.

“Who? What?”

“The workers! Where are they?”

Chou Chet's scared. He looks around and tries to free himself from Kasper's grip. “What you saying?” he asks forcefully.

“The workers! On the wall! Where are they?” Kasper repeats.

“Work called off. They go back to Phnom Penh. No more work. Finished!” Chou Chet barks. Now he thinks he understands, and he's looking at Kasper like he's a madman.

A suicidal madman.

A danger to himself and others.

“The ladder…” Kasper stammers, cell phone in hand. “The ladder's gone.”

Chou Chet shakes his head and goes away. Kasper remains unmoving in the middle of the prison yard, then falls to his knees and bows his head like a penitent. His forehead just touches the mud.

The foot he feels on his neck is a storm warning. Without rain this time.

“Bravo, Italian, eat your shit!” the Kapo yells in his snarling English. He pushes Kasper's head farther down.

Kasper breathes deeply. He puts up no resistance, letting himself be pushed. For a moment. Then his movement is lightning quick, purely instinctive. He shifts his body sideways, the Kapo loses contact with him, and with his right hand, Kasper seizes his adversary's ankle. His leg remains in midair. Before the Kapo can react and strike out with his big stick, Kasper's got him on the ground, his ankle twisted behind him and his face in the mud. Kasper, now on his feet, delivers a series of heel kicks to the Kapo's back, right in the spine, and pauses to assess what's left to be done. A little stomping assures that the Cambodian is driven well down into the muddy earth. The Kapo struggles and gurgles something, and Kasper kicks him harder. The mud's the best place for this worm.

Then Kasper has the disagreeable sensation of a steel tube pressing on the nape of his neck. A Kalashnikov, an old acquaintance. Neurotic screams in Cambodian are the last sounds he hears.

Before all his senses shut down.

“How many days did you spend in solitary?”

Grumpy gazes at him with the disgusted expression of someone eyeing a wreck on its way to the junkyard. He turns to his blond colleague and shakes his head disconsolately. “You see this guy?” he asks, with his usual theatrics. “This is a genuine Italian asshole.”

“Sure is,” his companion echoes him. “An almost dead Italian asshole.”

Kasper looks at them, trying to focus. It's not easy for him to remain seated on that chair. They haven't even bothered to tie him to it. He's in such bad shape that any one of them could topple him with a finger. He's spent two weeks in the tiger cage, with periodic visits from the Kapo and his sidekicks.

They haven't been gentle with him.

His face is gashed and bruised. They've worked over his fingers and toes with a rifle butt. His nose has been broken again; a few teeth are gone for good. And his legs have received special treatment. Particularly his right leg, the one he'd used to hop around on the Kapo's back.

When the Americans returned, that's how they found him. A wreck.

The woman didn't come this time. Her absence is one thing that makes Kasper feel better. Because she's the most dangerous of them. He's sure of it.

Grumpy and the blond guy are synchronized. They take turns talking to him. The usual douche bag duet.

They tell him that if it weren't for them, he'd still be in the punish pit. They may even be telling the truth, these Visitors. Too bad they always sing the same song: sign our papers, come away with us.

“You promised you'd think about it, and what did you do instead? You kicked a Cambodian around.” Grumpy sighs before going on. “They told us you had a Nokia. What a guy. A prisoner with a cell phone. I bet you never managed that before, not even in Italian jails. Why did you need a cell phone?”

“To call your wife,” Kasper mumbles. “She says she misses me.”

“I understand,” Grumpy sneers. “Seeing that your girlfriend has decided to dump you.”

Kasper nods and sneers in return. But the American's gibe isn't like his. It has a ring of truth.

“But what can you say to her, poor Patty…” the other man says. “Her family doesn't approve of you. Her parents and her brother know you lead a pretty disorderly life….And she…Patty's such a terrific girl….”

“An old-fashioned girl. Studied a lot. Now a veterinary doctor,” Grumpy declaims. “So she knows how to care for animals, but you're an especially nasty beast. Too many lives, too many names. Too many girlfriends on your CV. And you don't treat your girls all that well anyway. You make a bunch of promises, and then you disappear….You even got one of them killed. You remember Silvia, the lovely Colombian, don't you?”

They know a great deal about him. They think they know everything. It's clear they want to wear him out. But they're lying about Patty. They're bluffing.

“Your girlfriend has left you. Your mother's going to leave you too, and soon, unfortunately,” says Grumpy, getting up from his chair. “That's some bad luck: she'll succumb to her terrible disease, and you won't be there to see her. Because you'll be here, or maybe in some fucking pit between two rice paddies. What a sad end, my dear colleague.”

Don't answer him, Kasper thinks. Don't say anything. Desperation is a fuel that shouldn't be wasted.

“Consider our offer,” the blond guy says tersely. “You have a week. Then you're dead to us.”

“Last call, colleague.” And Grumpy slams the door behind him.

The pills are in the usual transparent envelope.

Chou Chet gazes at him the way he did the first time. And, as he did the first time, he says, “Paracetamol.”

“Don't need it. Get me some cyanide instead.”

“Cy-a-nide…Don't understand.”

“Poison. Find me some poison.”

The Cambodian guard steps back, stiff as an icicle. “You make joke,” he says.

“No, I'm not joking.”

Chou Chet shakes his head and looks Kasper straight in the eyes. “I have your weapons. In safe place.”

Kasper doesn't answer.

“Have your Nokia too.”

“How did you get it back?”

“I paid guard who hit you. Americans wanted that cell phone. But looks like it got lost.”

“Does it work?”

“Is full of mud. I get you another one.”

“I can't pay you anymore. I have no more money. My mother has sent it all.”

“No matter. Someone pay for you.”

This time it's Kasper's turn to look at the Cambodian questioningly.

“While you in tiger cage, things happen.”

“Things…”

“You come. Someone want to see you.”

There he is, right in front of him. Dressed like a prisoner. Sitting like a prisoner. With the expression of a prisoner.

Victor Chao.

They embrace.

“How is this possible?” Kasper asks him.

“That doesn't sound like you,” the Chinese boss says. “Asking such a question isn't like you at all.”

“What happened?”

Victor Chao puts a hand on his shoulder. He looks at Chou Chet and gives him a little sign with his head. The guard nods and vanishes.

“Outstanding individual. Good choice on your part,” Victor tells Kasper. “They say he's the best guard in here.”

“I can confirm that,” Kasper says, nodding.

They sit in a corner of the camp, not far from the infirmary. “They've handled you with kid gloves,” says the ex-commander of Eagle Force. “It's strange you're still alive. If the rumors are true, you should have disappeared long ago.”

“What rumors?”

“You're supposed to have stuck your nose into something really big. You pissed off a whole lot of people. No, ‘pissed off' isn't right. They say you scared the shit out of them.”

“You know what I was doing?”

Victor Chao nods and smiles. “It was fate, after all.”

“Fate. What does that mean?”

“Same-same, but different. You remember, don't you? That night in my office at the Manhattan Club, the hundred-dollar bills…”

“You're talking about ten years ago.”

“Ten years ago, yes. They go by in a flash.”

“You were drunk, Victor. You can't possibly remember.”

“Fuck no, I wasn't drunk. They asked me to show you those banknotes. They told me you'd understand right away. A guy like you couldn't resist. You'd make a move….But instead, apparently, you didn't understand a fucking thing. You were the one who was drunk, probably.”

“Who asked you to show them to me?”

Victor replies with one of his smiles.

“Okay, then. So why me?”

“Because you'd tell the Americans.
Your
Americans. The ones who weren't involved, I suppose. You'd do it at your own peril. Some thought you were brave and fearless. Others thought you were a conceited lunatic. In any case, the perfect guinea pig.”

“I don't believe it.”

“Right.” Victor shrugs. “Don't believe it if that makes you feel better. At certain moments, I don't want to believe I'm here either. Then I glance around, I look the people around me in the eye, and I make peace with reality.”

Victor Chao has lost everything.

In just a few days, his life turned upside down. But when he talks about it, he's cool and lucid. Now, he explains, it's a question of figuring out how long he'll be able to hold out. Because something's bound to happen, sooner or later. Hun Sen will decide to make him disappear forever, or one of his Chinese friends will get him out of here. Friends are important; you just need some insight into the kinds of calculations they're making. That's how it works in the Triads.

Victor's fall from grace occurred in an instant. He clashed with Hun Sen's brother and was accused of not having paid the prime minister's family as much as he'd agreed to.

Whether he paid the agreed sum or not isn't very important. It was just a matter of time. With Hun Sen in power, you can't be a gambling boss and a prostitution boss and the leader of the country's main paramilitary group and think you're going to go peacefully into retirement when your working days are through. An early retirement is arranged for you. And when people who worked for Hun Sen are laid off, they don't usually draw a pension.

“Whatever you want to do, I'll help you do it,” Victor Chao tells Kasper.