The Sudden Disappearance of the Worker Bees

by Serge Quadruppani

  “Whenever you want to give the signal . . . we’re ready to strike,” he concluded with a twitch of his legs that made it apparent he had restrained himself from fully clicking his heels. Calabonda took the objects that had been handed to him.

  “All right,” he said, turning toward the prosecutor. “If you’re ready, let’s go.”

  “One second,” Evangelisti cut in. “First give me a detailed account of what happened,” he said, speaking to the brigadier.

  The latter shot a look in the direction of the maresciallo, who nudged his sunglasses up his nose with his index finger and with a nod of the chin prompted his subordinate to answer.

  “Following your instructions, Maresciallo, I left headquarters at ten o’clock with two men, in the jeep belonging to Alio from the Forestry Corps, who drove. We parked here and then we climbed up the escarpment and began walking toward the area where the sheep are kept. And all of a sudden, a shot from a firearm. We dropped to the ground. I yelled, ‘Carabinieri! Come out with your hands in the air.’ Several seconds went by, then the subject yelled something in his language from inside. He seemed very agitated.”

  “What did he yell?” Simona asked.

  The brigadier turned around to face her and looked her up and down. He apparently recognized the famous policewoman whose photo had been published in the Quotidiano delle Valli, because he smiled and responded right away, this time without asking for permission from his superior. “I don’t know, Commissario. I don’t speak Albanian.”

  “Could you try to reproduce the sounds?” Simona insisted. “I’ve learned some of the language investigating the Albanian Mafia,” she explained, facing the prosecutor.

  The brigadier scratched his head.

  “I wouldn’t know. Something like ‘brakala.’ He repeated it many times.”

  The policewoman frowned. She didn’t respond.

  “Another question,” she said, returning to action. “You say there was another detonation. But are you sure it came from the sheepfold?”

  The carabiniere seemed disconcerted and let two or three seconds pass before answering. “One hundred percent sure? It’s hard to say. The detonation echoed across the mountains . . . but I can’t imagine who else . . .”

  “Listen,” the maresciallo said with an irritated cluck of the tongue. “It seems clear enough to me. Right? If he wasn’t the one to fire the shot, why would he refuse to leave the sheepfold?”

  “That’s true,” noted Evangelisti.

  “All right. Let’s go,” the maresciallo said. “Proceed as directed.”

  Calabonda removed the walkie-talkie from his belt and raised it to his mouth.

  “Permission to command the sharpshooters. Granted?”

  “Granted!” shouted the machine.

  “I’ll be right there,” the maresciallo said. “Cover me.”

  The exchange seemed to reverberate throughout the entire valley. If the other guy didn’t hear it, Simona thought, he must be deaf. And then she found herself running, hunched forward, alongside the maresciallo. When they had made it to the foot of the purplish rhododendron bushes and the maresciallo realized he had been followed by the commissario and the prosecutor, he let out an exasperated sigh but said nothing. Lying down on the grass, he took a minute to catch his breath, then asked the snipers, “Are all of the openings in check?”

  The three men responded one after the other.

  “Right window in check.”

  “Door in check.”

  “Left window in check.”

  Calabonda flashed his teeth in a smile.

  “So I guess you don’t think that training I put you through was so pointless after all!” he mumbled, then brought the walkie-talkie up to his mouth. “Tear gas squad, are you ready to fire on my signal?”

  The volume of the other walkie-talkies was set so high that the maresciallo’s question bounced back to them from the watering trough, reverberated by the surrounding peaks. Simona shook her head, but she kept quiet.

  “We’re ready,” barked Calabonda’s walkie-talkie.

  He set the gas mask on the ground, then grasped the handle of the megaphone in one hand, taking the microphone, connected to the speaker by a spiral cord, in the other.

  “Mehmet Berisha,” he began, but there was such a loud squeal of feedback that everyone present brought their hands up to their ears. The maresciallo adjusted a knob and continued.

  “Mehmet Berisha . . .”

  Someone screamed from inside the sheepfold. Simona stared at the structure, trying to interpret those sounds, thinking they vaguely resembled something. “Brakala”? No, that wasn’t it. “Brokala”? “Brokkanlé”? What was the shepherd saying?

  “This is Maresciallo Calabonda speaking. Come out immediately with your hands in the air or we will be compelled to use force.”

  The voice screamed again, and then again. Then silence returned to the valley.

  The maresciallo let several seconds pass, shrugged, and ordered into his walkie-talkie, “A grenade in each opening.”

  There were three almost simultaneous detonations. At the end of their smoking parabolas, one of the grenades fell six feet from the door, and another ricocheted against the stone wall and rolled not far from the first. They began to diffuse a dense white smoke that the wind spread toward the watering trough, where the men began to cough, and toward the sheepfold, where the sheep bleated and made a mad dash for the other end of the enclosure. The third grenade went through the window.

  Inside, the man continued to shout the same sounds, except that his voice had become shrill.

  “Fuck,” said Simona, finally understanding. She jumped to her feet and without stopping grabbed a gas mask as she set off for the building.

  “What are you doing?” shouted Calabonda. “Come back immediately. Don’t shoot!” he screamed into the megaphone at full volume.

  As the maresciallo’s command thundered across the meadow, causing several marmots to make a run for it and a couple of pheasants take flight, to the disappointment of the fox that had been watching them, salivating, another “Come back!” resounded to a distance of two miles. A startled wolf on the rocky mountain terrain crossed one paw over the other, setting off a mini-landslide, chasing away some wild goats. The sound of a third call accompanied by an expletive rose up through a granite gully until it reached a bald eagle, which turned its round, astonished eyes on the tiny creatures below. Simona realized with a touch of pride that she had not run out of breath yet.

  But by the time she reached the smoke-filled entrance to the sheepfold she had lost it. The situation did not improve when she had to put on the mask. She struggled to attach it, coughed, fought the urge to spit, and raced inside.

  Two minutes later, when she emerged dragging the inanimate, incredibly heavy body of the stocky little shepherd, she had no more breath, no more strength, no more anything.

  She tore off the mask and surrounded by milky-white, poisonous spirals that immediately made her eyes tear up, she yelled at the figures rushing toward her, surrounding her, and pointing their weapons at the man lying on the ground: “Broken leg! Broken leg!”

  She couldn’t stop her lungs from inflating, desperately seeking oxygen. She swallowed a big mouthful of gas and muttered, “It’s English, you assholes.”

  And she threw up.

  “English,” she repeated. “Not Albanian.”

  And she threw up again.

  They helped her to her feet and walked her against the wind, away from the smoke. She spat abundantly, cleared her throat, and turning toward the carabinieri crouched at the shepherd’s side, screamed in a voice that was clearly used to giving orders, “Emergency medical evacuation!”

  Then she freed herself from the brigadier’s hand, which had continued to hold her up by one arm. “This man is gravely wounded,” she said to him. “He had a broken leg, shattered by a bullet. They shot him.”

  “What do you mean, they shot him? But it was him . . .”

>   She shook her head.

  “The shot was not fired from the sheepfold. Search it. I would be amazed if you found a gun—at any rate, a gun that had been used recently.”

  Evangelisti drew near, out of breath.

  “You really gave us a fright. Is the wound serious?”

  “Given the extent of the damage,” she said to him, “I wouldn’t be surprised if the bullet were of the same caliber as the one that killed the man in the apiary. He’s lost a lot of blood. I hope he makes it. If not, someone will need to explain why enforcers of the law attempted to asphyxiate him rather than come to his aid.”

  The maresciallo, after speaking with the group that was transporting the shepherd on a stretcher, walked toward them, as the prosecutor whispered in Simona’s ear, “There, now you understand the meaning of the expression ‘to pull a Cacabonda.’”

  Of course, that was the moment that Marco chose to call her back, demanding to know why she had been unreachable for the entire morning.

  * * *

  Since the helicopter was being used to transport the wounded man, they all crammed into the State Forestry Corps’s SUVs. Simona avoided climbing into the same vehicle as Calabonda. After some hesitation, Evangelisti decided to go with the maresciallo. The commissario found herself sitting next to an attractive female corps member, whose uniform, with each of the innumerable jolts caused by the rough terrain, almost failed to contain her generous, ricocheting bosom. Her name was Anna and she had a passion for emerging technologies. She explained to Simona the potential significance, in her opinion, of a pilot project still in the early stages. The project consisted of capturing the greatest possible number of animals in Val Troncea National Park in order to implant radio frequency identification chips under their skin before freeing them. This would allow them to track their movements for the rest of their lives.

  “Do you realize what this means? At any given moment, we’ll know the location of every animal in the park. We’ll be able to protect the flocks of sheep without having to shoot down a single wolf, and control overly populous animals by eliminating them with precision.”

  “But do you think this technique could be applied to humans as well?” Simona asked.

  “Could it?” said the Forestry Corps member excitedly. “You’ve hit the nail on the head. You’ve grasped the real significance of the project! The question isn’t if but when. The chip is the final step in a process that began the day someone had the idea to assign a number, the fiscal code, to every Italian citizen at birth. This number already contains the data of one’s name, date and place of birth, etcetera. In the past this number has been printed on an identification card and then stored on a microchip along with other information. All of this is ultimately leading up to the simpler option: putting the chip under people’s skin. In my opinion, in twenty, thirty years from now, every one of us will have a subcutaneous implant, which will function both as a document of identification and a credit card. And you know what else? These chips will interact with chips in the products we put in our shopping carts and with those in the supermarkets’ cash registers. All we’ll have to do is walk near the registers and everything we’ve bought will be added up and deducted directly from our bank accounts. The same for transportation, the same everywhere—which will ultimately mean the disappearance of physical currency. These chips will allow us to enter buildings we are authorized to enter, eliminating the need to present our documents. The chips in all human beings and all objects will ‘talk’ to one another; there will be supplies of products that, from thousands of miles away, will announce to other supplies that they are about to run out, reminding people to replenish them. Then those people will feel an electric impulse telling them to consult a screen and the products will be sent where they’re needed . . . Do you understand what that means?”

  “Yes, I think I do. You are surprisingly well informed.”

  The young woman shot her a sarcastic look.

  “You think that forestry rangers are just a bunch of rubes?”

  Simona shook her head. Anna went on.

  “I belong to a group of technophiles here in the valley. We’re part of a global network of people who discuss the future applications of science. We are 100 percent in favor of the theory of the ‘superhuman.’”

  “What would that be?”

  Anna opened her mouth to answer but the SUV stopped abruptly. Several roe deer appeared in the shade of the trunks of the larch trees that ran along the side of the road. One of them turned its delicate muzzle toward the vehicle and its black eyes seemed to survey the extent of the damage in that hominid-filled mass of metals. The passengers sat in silence while the engine hummed pleasantly. In a few graceful leaps, four animals crossed the road, their hooves just barely touching the ground.

  “We’re entering into a new cycle of technological development that will transform mankind,” the forest ranger began again. “By that I mean NBCC, which stands for nano-, bio-, computer, and cognitive technology. These sciences will converge to modify the very nature of man, accelerating his development, so that he ceases to be Homo sapiens and becomes superhuman. You’ll find it difficult to believe if you don’t know the facts, but we could eventually succeed in conquering aging and death.”

  “Yes, it’s true: I’m not up on the facts, and I do find it difficult to believe,” Simona admitted. As they emerged from a bend in the road, she looked out at the alpine village of Sestriere, with its motionless towers and its large, motionless buildings, the stretches of barren terrain used as ski slopes and the weather vanes that greeted the Italian national soccer team on a pre–World Cup retreat.

  She coughed, determined to show interest.

  “To return to the subject of the subcutaneous chip, tell me, do you think it could be of some help to us, as enforcers of the law?”

  “Of course. Imagine the possibilities it could open up. We’ll be able to track anyone at any given moment; people will be incapable of getting lost, incapable of disappearing. Children, or Alzheimer’s sufferers, or people under house arrest who moved too far beyond the confines of their homes would set off an alarm. But there’s more. Let’s imagine where it could go from there in just a short time. The moment a crime is detected, video surveillance cameras— they’re widespread now, but one day they’ll be every- where—these video cameras will not only sound the alarm, they’ll instantly register the coordinates of the criminal, recording his every movement. Of course, any attempt to remove the chip from under the skin would set off an alarm.”

  “But aren’t these kinds of projects met with opposition?”

  “Oh, the usual enemies of progress. And the selfproclaimed defenders of human rights. As if humanity’s first right, the most important right of all, weren’t the right to safety . . . Don’t you agree?”

  When Simona didn’t respond, she insisted:

  “At any rate, if we haven’t done anything wrong, it shouldn’t bother us that we’re being watched, right?”

  When the commissario still refused to speak, the pretty forest officer burst out, “Do you have any idea how significant our park’s experiment will be, if this project gets approval? Thanks to research conducted here, in the not-so-distant future every one of us will be traceable at any given moment, with a real-time chronology of all our movements, all our purchases, all our actions! It’s brilliant, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, brilliant . . .” Simona said, thinking she had yet another piece of evidence to support her theory about the mountain air.

  * * *

  Two hours later, when she was speaking with the Gnone brothers of the Claudiana bookstore in Torre Pellice, she had to admit it might be wrong to extend her psychiatric analysis to all of the valley’s inhabitants. Clearly, these two weren’t the least bit crazy. They confirmed that they’d exchanged a few words with Minoncelli around eight, before they’d even opened the store. Which meant that he could not have killed Bertolazzi.

  “We were standing right here,
” Massimo said, gesturing to indicate the little room set up at the center of the store, with shelves of books on either side.

  “Minoncelli was talking about organizing a debate for members of a group of technophiles in the valley.”

  “Oh right,” Simona said. “I was just talking to someone about that stuff.”

  “That stuff,” Stefano intervened, “as you call it, is the antenna of a network of people in our valley in favor of emerging technologies, funded by all the big biotechnology companies, Sacropiano among them. Now, according to Minoncelli, who has at least one informant in Sacropiano—”

  “Has, or had?” interrupted Simona.

  The two brothers exchanged a glance. Then Massimo said slowly, “I see you’re caught up on the facts.”

  “Was Bertolazzi his informant?”

  Stefano shrugged.

  “Since you seem to be caught up . . . Minoncelli told us in confidence that he’d gotten his information directly from the engineer. According to him, the company was planning to branch out into nanotechnology with an experiment that consisted of attaching microchips to every bee in an apiary, in order to better understand colony collapse disorder.”

  “The syndrome that causes domestic bee colonies to dissolve,” Massimo clarified. Simona nodded.

  “I’m familiar with it.”

  “According to Minoncelli, Sacropiano intended to use the technophiles in the valley to gain support for the idea. And he wanted to organize a public debate to oppose it.”

  “But what’s Minoncelli fighting for? To protect his apiaries, or does he have a broader objective? What I mean is, could he belong to a party, an organization, outside of his circle of activists?”

  “Not that I know of,” Massimo said. “He opposes the artificialization and commoditization of living beings.”