“Were you trying to exorcise your sense of guilt about having lied to the world?”
Alberti’s freckles glowed phosphorescent. “It’s not like I knew all that many things, after all. And right after the massacre, Esposito and I had the ‘cousins’ on us like a pressure cooker. For two weeks we couldn’t leave the house or make a phone call or even talk to each other. So I kept my mouth shut until the deputy captain felt better, and then she told me what to do.”
They’d reached Mezzanotte and Alberti opened the new gate with a remote control. The farmhouse had undergone a few modifications in the previous days, with the utmost discretion. A series of video cameras—small ones, practically invisible, and all facing outward—now surrounded the building, while the ramshackle old gate, hanging off its hinges, had been replaced in record time with a brand-new electric one, complete with sharp spikes and barbed wire—and the barbed wire continued along the fence, surrounding the entire perimeter of the property.
On one of the house’s outer walls, a small dish antenna had been installed to provide an internet connection via satellite, and both incoming and outgoing signals were fully encrypted, while the dog trainer’s little hut had become an operative DCT (Department of Counterterrorism) station, which monitored every slightest movement on the road. The owner had agreed to cooperate, as long as he was allowed to come feed his dogs twice a day.
The scraps of wood and the broken furniture scattered across the backyard were clearly visible now that the untended grass had taken the place of the snow. The technicians who had installed the security systems had carted off their own garbage, but not the preexisting garbage.
“Does Colomba really live in all this mess?” Dante asked.
“It’s a little better inside.”
Alberti opened the door and led him in, passing through the kitchen and taking him to the room overlooking the backyard. It was still unfinished, with walls and floors in bare gray cement: Colomba had laid out a large white wool carpet, a king-sized tatami, a small table with a chair, and a chest of drawers purchased on sale from IKEA. What made it perfect for Dante, though, was the longest wall, overlooking the fields beyond the back garden, and entirely faced in plate-glass windows, which had recently been replaced with bulletproof and shatterproof panes. No curtains—Colomba knew that Dante didn’t use them, even in his bathroom—but privacy was ensured by a thicket of prickly pears.
“It’s not like your hotel suite in Rome, but there’s a nice view,” said Alberti, gesturing toward the line of the hills, where the brown was sprouting into green.
“Do you have any idea of where I’ve been lately?” Dante let himself flop down onto the tatami. “This is definitely an improvement.”
Alberti pulled aside an accordion door at the other side of the room. “Here’s the squat toilet.”
“Seriously? Are there still houses with squat toilets?” Dante grumbled.
“If you need to go, I can give you a hand before I have to leave.”
“No, thanks. I consider time in the bathroom to be a solitary pleasure.” Dante rolled over on his back, lighting a cigarette as he did. He felt mighty proud of himself for having successfully performed that routine. “And you’re not going anywhere.”
“Protective services are sending me home today …”
“And counterterrorism will be sending you straight back, my friend. You might as well spare yourself the trip.”
Alberti sank down dispiritedly on the only chair. “Signor Torre … I’ve been here for a month.”
“It’s called the Wheel of Karma,” Dante said with a faint smile of false pity. “You do something disgusting, and in exchange you get the short end of the stick. In your case, they press-ganged you to hunt down Bonaccorso under Colomba’s orders and protect me from stray bullets. But don’t worry. You’re not the only one who’s going to be paying the price of poetic justice. Colomba just went to pick up your new partner in ‘forced labor.’ ”
2
Esposito emerged from arrivals at Rimini airport with an enormous suitcase and the look on his face of someone who’s been catapulted straight into hell without advance warning.
“Get moving, can’t you see I’m double parked?” Colomba shouted at him through the side window of a Jeep Grand Cherokee.
Esposito dragged the oversize suitcase as if it were the ball and chain and he the prison-farm convict, and stowed it in the vehicle’s trunk. The back of the Grand Cherokee was so packed with crates of fruit and vegetables that he had a hard time finding room for it.
“And this?” he asked, once he was situated in the passenger seat of the Grand Cherokee.
“A thoughtful loan from the NOA,” she replied, referring to Italy’s counterterrorism operative branch.
Colomba slid the vehicle into the stream of traffic, giving the paddle shifter a series of rapid taps that made the engine groan. “Sorry I didn’t get a chance to let you know in person. But it’s been kind of a shitty period,” she said.
Esposito hadn’t seen Colomba since her time in the hospital in Rome, and now she looked like her own self, though she did have a face full of bruises that were only starting to heal. “Well, just think what a great time I’ve been having,” he replied. “I only found out yesterday that I’m supposed to go get myself killed by Bonaccorso.” The Rome chief of police had given him just twelve hours’ notice, with a phone call while he was out for dinner at a pizzeria with his wife and kids.
“Don’t be such a pessimist. It just means you’re going to have to do a little police work, if you even remember what that is.”
“I’ve only been working in HR for a year; it’s not like I’ve become a certified desk jockey, you know,” Esposito retorted, his feelings hurt.
Colomba took the entrance onto the state highway. “You’ve always been a certified desk jockey, but if you want to get back home in a hurry, then you’d better get busy fast. And after all, I’ve arranged for you to have a nice soft reentry: for the next few days, all you have to do is take care of Dante and stand guard on the house.”
“You don’t have protective services?”
“Open the glove compartment.”
Esposito did as he was told. Inside was a tangle of electric wires and pieces of plastic.
“Ambient microphones,” Colomba went on. “Every time the house is empty, Di Marco’s men plant them everywhere.”
“I thought we were working for the spy shop …”
“We’re pretending to work for them and they pretend to believe it.” Colomba took advantage of a red traffic light to shoot him a razor-sharp icy glare. “But never forget that you work for me.”
Esposito nodded. “Understood. So where do we start?”
“We start with the Father.”
Esposito gave some serious thought to just throwing himself out the door of the moving vehicle. He hadn’t taken part in the investigation into the serial killer known as the Father, but he knew as much as he needed to. “Wait, wasn’t he dead?”
“Oh, he still is. But we may not know all there is to know about him. Tommy, the son of the Melases, is behaving just like the other kidnapped children.” Esposito held up his pack of cigarettes and flashed it in Colomba’s direction. She nodded and lowered her window: no point in objecting when you’re used to working with a tobacco fiend like Dante.
“How old is the boy?”
“Nineteen. He might be part of the second wave of kidnappings. Finding out whether that’s true might be the best way of getting to Leo.”
“Have you tried questioning him?”
“Unfortunately, he isn’t able to answer our questions. Luckily, I know someone who can help. We’re going to stop by and see him before we head home.”
3
Stefano Maugeri was a skinny man in his early forties, and in spite of the cold he wore a pair of knee-length denim cutoffs. He received his visitors in the setting of his apartment in Assisi, surrounded by coffered ceilings and antiqued furniture in the his
toric center of the small Umbrian town, midway between the piazza outside of city hall and the Basilica of Saint Francis. He’d bought the place with the proceeds from the sale of a shop he owned in Rome and legal reparations for false arrest and imprisonment and police brutality. He’d been charged with murdering his wife and son, but Colomba and Dante had proved that it was the Father who’d kidnapped the boy after murdering the woman.
“Deputy Captain Caselli, what a gift it is to see you again, and here in my home,” he said as he danced around them. “And Esposito, it’s good to see you, too. Please, come in, be my guests. Have you had an accident, Deputy Captain?” he asked, peering into her face.
“No,” she replied in an icy voice. Maugeri hadn’t murdered his wife, but he’d knocked her around more than once, and Colomba wasn’t interested in celebrating old home week or trading confidences with him. “As I informed you over the phone, Signor Maugeri, we’re here strictly to talk to your son.”
“I thought that the investigation into the Father had been archived as a cold case.”
“That’s right, it has.”
“So, then, what’s up? Has something new happened?”
Colomba’s eyes darkened. “You remember that I exonerated you, right?”
“Yes, of course, and I’ll never get tired of thanking you for it,” said Maugeri.
“There’s no need. Just let us have twenty minutes with your son. Of course, if you insist, you can be present, but if you weren’t, we’d prefer it.”
Maugeri nodded discontentedly. “Why of course, certainly. Go right ahead.”
Luca Maugeri was a lanky towheaded boy with a pair of round glasses and a striped T-shirt. He was sitting in his room at a child-sized desk, writing in a checkered graph notebook.
“I brought a couple of old friends to see you, Luca,” said Maugeri, shutting the door behind him. “Do you remember them?”
“Yes, Papà, thank you,” said Luca in a ringing voice, without turning around; he had already spied the new arrivals in the reflection on the windowpane. Colomba had only met the little boy twice, on the day of his liberation and in court, but Luca hadn’t spoken to her either time. He was autistic, had higher-than-average intelligence, and was self-sufficient, but it had taken him years to get over the shock of the kidnapping and his mother’s murder.
“All right, then, I’ll let you talk. I’m in the next room, if you need anything,” Maugeri said, shutting the door behind him.
“You look well, Luca. You’ve grown a lot, you know,” said Colomba. “How old are you now?”
“Ten. Thanks for coming to see me, Signora Colomba,” said the boy, in the same tone of voice as before, slightly mechanical and an octave too high. “You too, Inspector Esposito. I sent you a card last Christmas.”
“That was really nice of you, Luca, thanks,” said Esposito, with some embarrassment. He’d escorted the boy and his father back and forth to court.
“But you didn’t write back.”
“Because he’s nothing but a bumpkin and an oaf, Luca,” Colomba broke in. “But are we interrupting you? Were you doing your homework?”
Luca nodded. “Italian is hard, but I’ll pass.” He paused. “Has something bad happened?”
“No,” said Esposito. “What would make you think such a—”
“Yes,” said Colomba.
“Thanks for telling me the truth. Lots of people won’t because they think I don’t understand,” said Luca. He pulled out a toy walkie-talkie from his desk drawer and called his father. “Papà, we’d like tea and cookies.” He put the radio away and turned his face ever so slightly toward Colomba. “When you have guests, you ought to offer them something to drink.”
“Yes, that’s right, thanks,” said Colomba.
“Go ahead and sit on the bed, I just vacuumed it.”
Colomba took a seat, but only after glaring icy daggers at Esposito with a glance meant to keep him on his feet. “The bad thing that’s happened, Luca,” she began, trying to find the right words to keep from scaring him, “is that there’s a boy a little older than you who’s just lost his parents.”
“Where did he lose them?”
“No, I meant that they’re dead,” Colomba corrected herself. “It’s a metaphor. Do you know what that is?”
“Yes, Signora Colomba. Every time I hear one, I write it down so I’ll remember it.” And to show that he was telling the truth, he got out another notebook and copied down the phrase.
“Well, that boy needs our help, Luca. But if we’re going to help him, we need to talk to you about some things that aren’t very pleasant.”
“The Father?”
“Yes.”
The boy nodded, perfectly composed. “All right. After our tea.”
The tea arrived along with a trayful of cookies. Esposito, who hadn’t eaten since breakfast, scarfed down half the tray while Luca used a magnifying glass to study the picture of Tommy.
“I’ve never seen him,” he finally said, then set the photograph down on the desk so Colomba could take it back. “I never saw any of the other prisoners until we were freed. But I never saw him at the hospital, either, afterward.”
Luca had been kidnapped just like nine other individuals, and kept like them in a shipping container, but upon their liberation, he was the only one who’d been in any condition to be questioned. His imprisonment had lasted only a few days, and that had ensured that he was able to describe his kidnapper, the Father’s accomplice, a man who was known as the German; as a result, his father, Stefano Maugeri, had been absolved of suspicion once and for all.
“I don’t think he was with you, Luca. I remember perfectly well what you told the judge, and you were fantastic when you testified. But I still need to ask you a few more questions. May I?”
“Certainly, Signora Colomba.”
“When you met the others at the hospital, didn’t any of them mention other prisoners to you? Did they talk about people they’d seen whom we never found?”
“No.”
“Did the Father or the German ever mention other boys besides the ones we liberated? Did they ever talk about a boy named Tommy?”
“No. The German never talked to me. And the Father only said that stupid beasts would die.” He paused. “It was a metaphor. It meant I should behave myself.”
“Did he ever talk to you about prisons other than the one where he kept you?”
“No. Never.”
A little at a time, Luca had turned to face them. He had light-blue eyes and fine features: he was going to grow up to be a handsome man. It warmed Colomba’s heart to think that she’d rescued him, and she felt guilty for reawakening horrendous memories: “But I know that there were others like me.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell us about that?” Esposito asked. “That’s a big piece of news.”
“Because I promised I wouldn’t, Inspector Esposito. And a promise is a debt of honor.” Luca turned to look at Colomba. “But you saved me. If you want me to, I’ll tell you all about it.”
“I do want you to, Luca. And I assure you that I’ll be very careful about how I use what you tell me. Where were these prisoners you speak of?”
“They were where we were. Before we were there. I think they’re all dead now.”
Stupid beasts die … Colomba bit her lower lip.
“Do you know what DNA is?”
“Deoxyribonucleic acid.”
“And do you know that in the police department, we use DNA in our investigations?” Luca nodded. “Well, in your shipping container and everybody else’s, the only DNA we found belonged to the ten of you. And also …” She stopped midsentence. The police had churned through the soil all around the site in search of buried bodies, but to no avail. “So, I’m wondering, how can you be so sure?”
“Because some of us saw them.”
“You said that you didn’t talk about them …”
“I said that we hadn’t talked about them in the hospital.”
Co
lomba and Esposito exchanged a glance. “The shipping containers were separate, Luca. You couldn’t talk to each other from one to the other,” Colomba said. “We checked.”
“That’s right, Signora Colomba. But there were other systems. And that’s what I’d promised never to tell a soul.”
“You weren’t supposed to talk about how you all communicated?”
“Yes. It was a secret.” Luca rapped his knuckles on the desktop. “The Code.”
4
After they had finished their tea, Luca had insisted on ordering cups of hot chocolate for them all, again over the walkie-talkie, in spite of his father’s feeble attempt to protest that he’d already brought them tea and cookies. “It’s an exceptional occasion,” Luca had retorted, remaining stubbornly entrenched in his demands.
“So, you communicated by banging on the walls of the shipping containers?” Colomba asked as she blew on her cup of piping hot chocolate.
“That’s right,” Luca replied, stirring the sugar into his. He was careful not to touch the sides of the cup with his spoon.
“It was like Morse code. In a way. When I got home, I checked it against the official Morse code. It’s different.”
“Do you remember it?”
“Yes.”
The boy got a sheet of paper and wrote:
A .
B ._
C ..
D ._ _
E ._.
F .._
G ...
H ._ _ _
I ._ _.
J ._._
K ._ ._
L .._ _
M .._ .
N ..._
O ....
P ._ _ _ _
Q ._ _ _ .
R ._ _._
S ._ _ ..
T ._ . _ _
U ._ ._ .
V ._.._
W ._ ...
X .. _ _ _
Y .._ _ .
Z .._._
Colomba took a moment to check on her cell phone, and sure enough, it was the way Luca had said: Morse code was similar, but radically different. “Are you sure that you’re remembering correctly?” she asked.
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