Supernotes (23 page)

Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere, Rome

Friday, April 3, 2009

She's furious.

She knows it won't do her any good. With certain people, getting pissed off is useless. However, now that she's got her in front of her, Barbara would like to tell her what she thinks of her and her shifty way of doing things. Her slipperiness. Her empty, unfulfilled promises.

On the telephone, Manuela Sanchez had assured her they'd meet soon, but instead she'd let more than a week pass. Barbara had managed only to coax a few messages out of her, messages of the “I'll call you soon” type. And based on this promise Barbara had thrown away a round-trip airline ticket to Cambodia and wasted a lot of precious time.

“I'd like to know, once and for all, what's happening,” she says to Manuela, condensing her bad humor into a single question.

Manuela nods and smiles wanly. She points to the illuminated portico of the basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere and asks Barbara, “Okay with you if we sit in there?”

“In the church?”

“Why not?”

Right, why not, Barbara thinks, wading behind Manuela into the Saturday night crowd that floods Trastevere. They push their way through a party of Poles and a group of South American nuns, enter the church, and sit in one of the rear pews.

“I went to Nettuno this morning,” Manuela says, all of a sudden.

“Lovely. Nice beach in Nettuno,” Barbara hisses.

“I spent a few hours in the American war cemetery. My father's cousin is buried there. He was an Italian-American from Georgia, killed when the Allies landed at Anzio on January 22, 1944.”

“Of course, the cemetery. I went there on a school trip many years ago,” Barbara murmurs, wondering where Manuela's going with this.

The former drug dealer sighs. “Impressive, isn't it?”

“Impressive.”

“Can we possibly hate Americans?”

“What do you mean?”

“I hadn't been in that cemetery for a long time. The last time was with my father, not long before he died. He always found the place very moving. Not only because of his cousin, but also because of all those men and women who died—the sight of their graves moved him a lot. There are almost eight thousand of them in Nettuno alone. You look at the white crosses and you ask yourself, can I possibly hate the United States?”

“Why should you?”

“Because I live with a woman who's dying. And with every passing day, she feels more and more despair, not for herself, but for a son who may not ever return. Who may not even get a decent burial, considering where he is right now. She's a strong woman, she manages for the most part to hide her feelings, but at night I hear her praying, and with every prayer I hear her praying, the hatred inside me grows. It's hard not to focus that hatred somewhere.”

“And going back to Nettuno helped you?”

Manuela nods and looks up at the coffered ceiling. “When you're looking at that vast expanse of crosses, you understand why this country, like many others, owes America so much. But you also understand that nothing lasts forever. It occurred to me that maybe nations are like people: they grow, they reach their peak, and then they decline.”

“That's the history of every great civilization,” Barbara observes.

“True. Everyone goes into decline sooner or later. It's a delicate phase. You can give in to your worst impulses. I get the feeling that's what's happening to the Americans. To those Americans who still think they can bully people as hard as they want. Those days are gone. But they don't see it. The world's changing; it's less and less at their disposal. Less and less docile.”

“It's certainly harder to manage.”

“But you can't fix it by playing dirty. You can't settle things with spying, torture, and an iron fist. And God knows if this new president will be able to understand that. I hope he does, for his country's sake and the sake of the people who still love it, in spite of everything.”

“For a start, he's going to close down Guantánamo.”

“Is he really? It'll be interesting to see how he goes about changing the country he's inherited. And how much America will change him.”

The two women remain in silence for a little while, watching the continuous ebb and flow of tourists and worshipers.

“I found the résumé of the guy you were interested in, Bob Zelger,” Manuela says, with an abrupt change of tone and topic. “He was a CIA man. In the 1970s in Vietnam, he was one of the chief operatives in the Phoenix Program, a violent campaign of sabotage and counterespionage that killed at least thirty thousand Vietnamese, mostly civilians. Many of them were tortured. Zelger was one of the people in charge.”

Barbara smiles. “Speaking of decent Americans…”

“Zelger never got out of the game. He still operates in Asia, but under another identity. Maybe even his real one, for all I know. In any case, his name is John Bauer now.”

“Then it's him,” Barbara says. “He's the one who had Kasper framed in Cambodia. Bauer's at the bottom of the whole thing. I'll see what other matches I can find….”

“What do you plan to do with this information?”

“I'm planning an international denunciation. I intend to talk to some American journalists and tell them about Zelger or whatever the hell he calls himself these days, tell them about supernotes and all the rest. It's the only way to save Kasper.”

Manuela's eyes are fixed on the altar directly in front of her, her lips twisted in a grimace that makes her opinion of Barbara's initiative all too clear.

“If you disagree, I can't help it,” Barbara says, articulating carefully. “You made me get off that flight. You've doled out information in tiny bits and left me for days without any news at all. We're talking about one of my clients—”

“Do you know why we're here?” Manuela asks, interrupting her.

“How could I?” Barbara snorts impatiently.

“This is the church where I came to talk to God when I decided to leave my former life. I'd read that until the end of the nineteenth century, criminals who wanted to change their lives used to seek refuge here. They'd hang up their weapons outside, enter the church, and convert. Fifteen years ago I did the same thing. This is where I started to pray again. I come here whenever I can and pray to the Virgin and all the saints. But there are some prayers that need to be said together.”

Barbara studies Manuela, trying to determine how seriously this woman believes in what she is proposing. And therefore she repeats, “Pray together. You and me.”

“Yes, my dear counselor. We have to pray to the Virgin and to Saint Leonard of Limoges, patron saint of the jailed and imprisoned. We must ask them to stay close to our friend—at least for the next few hours.”

“The next few hours…” Barbara can't help jumping in her seat. “Wait, what do you mean?”

Manuela looks at her watch. It's a little after nine in the evening. In Cambodia it's three in the morning. Kasper's surely awake, waiting for the dawn.

“Let's pray, Counselor,” Manuela Sanchez whispers. “Let's pray that tomorrow's a better day.”

Prey Sar Correctional Center, near Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Saturday, April 4, 2009

“Italian! You come here right now!”

He's obeyed the call. Calmly, slowly. Without any outward sign of agitation, emotion, defiance. They're waiting for him in the offices of the prison administration. They have news to give him.

It's Saturday, April 4.

The day he's been waiting for. His last turn on the merry-go-round. However it may end.

Prey Sar's office block is just a few dozen meters away. He drags his Ho Chi Minh sandals and prepares all his remaining strength. He's been awake all night, but he pretended to be asleep. He didn't want to make Victor Chao and the other inmates suspicious. He's reviewed his plan again and again and kept his weapons, newly fished out of the water jar, well hidden but close at hand.

Louis Bastien has asked him not to do anything crazy. Sorry, Monsieur Bastien, Kasper thinks. If the thing goes wrong, this time it ends. And it ends my way.

During his sleepless night, he's made one final reassessment of his present and his past. As for the future, he steers clear. He's not tempted to imagine what's going to happen afterward.

This “departure plan” runs on a very fine thread, and if someone has made a mistake, there will be no afterward. If Bastien isn't what he seems to be, Kasper's walking into a new trap. New and definitive.

He proceeds along in the dust, under the sun and before the eyes of men who would like to settle their scores with him. Prisoners who have become his enemies. Desperados in a pack.

They're looking at a shadow and they don't know it.

If they could imagine that this is the last time Kasper's going to walk across the prison yard, they'd probably get themselves better organized, accelerate their plans. But it's too late. Whatever the outcome, Kasper's determined to put an end to his torment.

His final stroll.

Today he exits the Cambodian concentration camp.

One way or another.

And here's the door.

Get ready, you're taking the stage, he tells himself. Don't back down. No mistakes. How many times have you done shit like this? How many tests have you passed in front of people who were waiting for the smallest sign, the tiniest hint, so they could put a bullet through your head? And you've always come through. You've always made it.

Kasper listens to himself, reasonably convinced.

But in the same instant he hears another voice, serious and deeper:
This time it's different. This time, if things go wrong, it's all over for you. It's the end.

The door opens and a guard shows him into a small space, just a few square meters, the “courtyard of sighs,” as Kasper calls it. Here prisoners who've coughed up enough money can talk to visitors without the usual partitions separating them. There are many rumors about this sweltering courtyard. Whispered testimonies. Dangerous confessions. Tales of sexual acts performed in fleeting, frantic moments of intimacy.

The guard who admits him points to a room on the right: “In there.”

Two more guards are inside, standing in the middle of the room, waiting for him. One is holding some sheets of paper in his right hand. He raises them, stares at Kasper, and says, “You get out today.”

He passes the papers to his younger colleague, who takes them and glances at the first page. He doesn't even look at the rest. Rocking his head slowly from side to side, he mutters something in Cambodian. He stops and then begins to mutter again, this time more forcefully.

The two guards murmur together.

Then the older man translates: “Maybe better to ask director.”

It's not an opinion. It's a stage direction from which there is no appeal.

The younger guard takes out his cell phone and finds the number. He presses the call button and puts the phone to his right ear. Satisfied, he smiles.

And then everything seems to stand still.

There are moments in which life is concentrated in a single frame.

It's an odd feeling. It's come over Kasper before, in other situations. But never like this. Never with this sensation of a bubble on the point of bursting.

The images brake and slow down until everything freezes: faces with their worst expressions, bodies caught in the unlikeliest positions. Everything crystallized, unnaturally still.

Kasper thinks: all right, here we are. The end of the line.

He looks around. The room where the two guards have brought him is sober and bare: two plank beds of black wood, a yellowish telephone, a few rickety plastic chairs. Cardboard boxes in the farthest corner. No windows.

Kasper assesses potential escape routes. He clutches his cotton T-shirt, wrapped around the bundle containing the pistol and the grenade. The main entrance of Prey Sar is just a few meters away from the room he's in. The last white-hot screen between him and freedom.

The two guards continue to pass the papers back and forth, reading or pretending to read them. They watch Kasper, take turns staring at him. They look uncertain about what to do. Their liquid, suspicious eyes reflect, indifferently, indolence or sadism. And meanwhile, Mong Kim Heng's not answering his phone.

The documents that keep dancing in front of his eyes have a very precise name: “release papers.” An order in the official government format. Incontestable.

Maybe they're waiting for an offer. The umpteenth bribe.

Maybe they're waiting for him to make a false move.

This can't go on, not for much longer, Kasper repeats to himself, his body melting into sweat. Any minute now something's going to happen: the telephone will act as a fuse, some unforeseen obstacle will explode. His escape will be downgraded to an unrealistic attempt. A failure.

Kasper wonders what Louis Bastien's doing right now, wonders if he's really waiting for him, as he promised, not far from here.

At the sound of the first gunshot, Bastien will drive away. He too will disappear.

And who could blame him?

The guard with the cell phone finally stashes it and tilts his head as if to say, I'm not convinced.

He gets the release papers in his hands again. He goes over them closely. They're printed on the right paper. All the proper signatures and seals have been duly affixed. The ministerial courier was authentic. The documents are obviously real.

Fake, but real.

Produced for this specific occasion by someone in possession of all the equipment necessary for producing such documents.

Same-same but different.

There's a sudden sound, muffled, from a trouser pocket. The younger guard remembers that the ringing cell phone is his. He bursts out laughing and pats his pockets, looking for the source of the sound.

This time the guard's voice is high-pitched, effusive. He moves a few meters away but first hands the documents back to his colleague. He bends like a willow over his cell phone, laughing, and then with an eloquent gesture exits the room, leaving the other two alone.

The older guard shrugs, squints, sneers, and reexamines the release papers. Just for a few seconds.

“You ready to leave?” he asks in English.

Kasper nods. “I'm ready.”

The white Ford has a diplomatic license plate. It's cold inside, maybe 10 degrees Celsius. A thermal shock. Kasper has walked the hundred meters from Prey Sar's main entrance to the Frenchman's car in the blazing sun. He's walked deliberately. Without turning around. Determined and patient.

The longest hundred meters of his life.

Now he's about to be sick. Sitting beside Louis Bastien, he barely manages to murmur, “Let's go.”

He's trembling. Shivers shake his hands and knees. It must be the sudden cold.

“I'll turn off the AC,” Bastien says.

“Leave it alone. Let's go,” Kasper repeats.

Neither of them breathes for the first minute or two. The diplomat touches his mustache and drives with apparent calm, his eyes on the road and, often, on the rearview mirror. They drive along the prison access way and join the main road into Phnom Penh, leaving the paddy fields and the rural areas behind.

Kasper's fiddling with his pistol. He wants to unload the chambered round, but his hands won't work right.

“You were prepared for an explosive exit,” Bastien observes. “Good thing I asked you not to do anything crazy. A pistol and a grenade. Got anything else?”

“Considering what they cost me, I couldn't very well leave them there.”

“Brilliant…You could have screwed up everything with a stupid stunt like that.”

Kasper nods. He knows Bastien's right. Now that Prey Sar's behind him, he realizes he risked ruining the whole thing when he was one step away from freedom. If the guards had asked him to show them what he had in that bundle, it would have been the end of him.

And yet, deep inside, he feels a twinge of regret.

Of honest, terrifying disappointment.

Because he was ready to fire, ready to take out as many guards as he could. Ready to die.

“Speaking of leaving things behind…” he says.

“Go on.”

“I left something there.”

“Something where? For what?”

“For the Visitors. A message in a bottle.”

“What does that mean?”

As he was leaving, Kasper gave the guards a brief letter addressed to the American agents. For when they'd come looking for him. He explained that he was leaving. Malnourished, sick, and covered with bruises, but leaving.

He wrote that he'd recover eventually. And so he hoped, for their own safety, he'd never meet them on a street somewhere, going about their business like normal citizens. Basically, he told them to go fuck themselves and promised not to forget their names and their faces.

“You taunted American federal agents? You threatened them?”

“More or less.”

The Frenchman laughs and says, “You really are a fucking jackass.”

“You can take me back if you want.”

“After what you've cost me? It's too late now. No, now I'm taking you to lunch. But first we have something else to do.”

“And that would be?”

“Get you into a shower. You stink like an animal.”

Le Deauville restaurant is empty, because it's open only for dinner. But today the chef has been called in to work a little overtime. It's a simple menu, and Louis Bastien has seen to the setting of the table himself.

Kasper's table is ready, and so is lunch: grilled steak, warm bread, and mixed salad. Perrier water and red wine.

Kasper sits down. He can scarcely believe his eyes. Cutlery, glasses, white tablecloth, napkin.

Civilization, after three hundred and seventy-three days.

“Now, you eat your meal in peace,” Bastien tells him. “Afterward I'll give you what you'll need for your trip. We'll stay here till this afternoon, and then we'll make our next move.”

“You're not having lunch with me?”

“I'll eat something in a little while. Right now I need to do something else.”

“What?”

“Back soon,” Bastien says, leaving the dining room.

Odd, thinks Kasper; nevertheless, he starts eating. Hunger's something that transcends caution and distrust. And also fear.

He pauses to reflect.

He'd like to believe it's over, but he can't.

He's out of Prey Sar, but he's still in Cambodia.

The restaurant is not far from the French embassy and a few blocks from one of Phnom Penh's major boulevards. It might look like an old-fashioned eating place in the French provinces, but it's in a far more dangerous, less predictable part of the world. Kasper can't let his guard down yet.

Kasper calms his dark, ugly thoughts the only way he can: he contemplates the pistol and hand grenade on the chair by his side.

While getting reacquainted with the taste of steak, he pulls his little arsenal closer and puts the pistol in his lap, ready to his hand. He drinks the Bordeaux. If something has to happen, at least let it come after he's had a glass of good wine again.

Suddenly the background music stops. Silence falls.

A strange, chilling silence.

Kasper can hear only the working of his jaws. The room is empty. There's not a sound from the kitchen. And yet he knows he's not alone.

A few seconds pass.

And then, from somewhere, the unexpected sound of an electric guitar. Playing those unmistakable opening chords.

“Brothers in Arms” by Dire Straits.

Kasper sits as though paralyzed, his fork suspended in midair, his mouth open. Without warning, tears well up in his eyes, spill over, and stream down his face.

Bastien comes closer, still playing, still singing. He finishes his verse and lays his guitar on a neighboring table and sits across from Kasper. “Now I can have lunch with you.
Voilà.
”