The Sudden Disappearance of the Worker Bees

by Serge Quadruppani

  Several opposition movements have already frightened public officials and industrial powers into learning their lesson not to introduce a new technology too quickly and too carelessly.

  Simona felt her eyes closing on her.

  Reading the pamphlet given to her by Signor Miro had helped her to calm down after the argument with her husband. She put it down and turned out the light. Just before drifting off to sleep, a question suddenly arose in her mind: Exactly what were they trying to get the valley’s inhabitants to accept? She tried not to look for an answer, but she tossed and turned for a long time before losing consciousness.

  And as she was flailing around in her bed, three floors below, in the only armchair in Ciuffani’s room, a man of about fifty was drinking his third glass of whiskey from a bottle he had procured for himself at the bar. The reporter, on the other hand, wearing a dressing gown and sitting on the edge of the double bed, was on his first drink. He gazed down at his Band-Aid-wrapped big toe with a sullen expression.

  “That bitch really hurt me,” he grumbled. “For tomorrow’s episode of La Mosca I’ll do a show live from San Giorgio al Monte and I’ll really lay into her, the big whore . . . And to think that some people find her charming. My network director even used the word ‘sexy.’ Can you believe that? With that giant ass and white hair?”

  The man in the armchair, bald and slightly overweight, wearing leather moccasins, linen pants, and a designer polo shirt, made a gesture with his hand as if swatting away a fly.

  “De gustibus . . .” he murmured.

  He seemed to be musing to himself and took a while to finish his whiskey before adding: “Far be it from me to give you orders, but I think that, for the moment, it would be better if you didn’t attack her.”

  The reporter sneered.

  “I’m sure you’re not trying to put words in my mouth. I’ll content myself to broadcast the information that the Internal Information and Security Agency brings me, provided it’s something I find interesting. And you know very well that if you all try to coerce me into coverage that goes against my conscience, I’ll be the first to denounce you to the public. Just because we share the same vision of Italy’s future doesn’t mean you get to treat me like your puppet. For instance, if I want to bury Tavianello tomorrow . . .”

  The man from the AISI brought his hands up in front of him.

  “Of course,” he said with a warm smile. “We know that it’s only out of patriotism that you defend our theories on the nation’s most sensitive issues whenever we ask you to. And it’s only in recognition of your high standard of patriotism that we wanted to bring some good real estate opportunities to your attention.”

  Then the intelligence agent’s smile instantly disappeared.

  “But we don’t waste time with idle chitchat,” he added. “You know as well as I do that you have no interest in attacking us; that would weaken you considerably, and maybe then we would no longer be able to stop certain jackals from disseminating certain videos . . . For example, the one where you’re playing Polanski with a minor in a hot tub . . .”

  Ciuffani went pale. He returned his injured foot to the ground. A shudder shot through the long, muscular legs, left bare by the open dressing gown.

  “What are you saying?” he croaked.

  The agent smiled again.

  “Come on, Ciuffani. Nothing to be afraid of. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

  The reporter ran a hand through his unkempt hair.

  “I didn’t know she was a minor . . . It’s not the kind of thing that would have come up . . .”

  The agent shook his head.

  “Yes, that’s what Polanski said in his defense, and we have no reason to doubt your word,” he remarked, placing his glass on the nightstand and rising to his feet. “Let’s forget this nonsense. You will not attack Tavianello tomorrow night for the simple reason that it would be the wrong move. We’ll be keeping an eye on her. For now, my advice would be to drop just a few of those vicious insinuations that you’ve developed such a talent for. For example, you could say that it’s surprising how antimafia experts refuse to take terrorism investigations seriously. We’ll wait for Tavianello to go all in, and then I promise you we’ll have her hide. You know that she’s stepped on our toes enough times, too.

  “This whole ‘Worker Bee Revolution’ thing reeks of radical environmentalism. A prominent French intellectual, I can’t remember who . . . Bernard-Henri Lévy maybe, or no, it was a woman . . . whoever it was said that radicalism is often the shortest path to stupidity. An important slogan for us extremists of moderation, don’t you think? This time, a little radical ecological terrorism could be the shortest path to eliminating any opposition to Sacropiano’s major research project in these valleys, a project our government is very invested in. I’ll tell you about it some other time. And if Tavianello goes off course, as we hope she will, we’ll be able to kill two birds with one stone.”

  As he said this, he walked to the door, placing his hand on the knob. He held up the bottle of whiskey he had in his hand.

  “I’ll take this with me. I’m guessing that great marathon runners abstain from heavy drinking, am I right?”

  Ciuffani made a weary gesture and said nothing.

  “At any rate, I still have some work to do,” the agent sighed. “I need fuel.”

  * * *

  An hour later, in the plains surrounding Pinerolo, a small white van was driving on a dirt path. Jostling violently, it drove along a line of poplars, forded a stream, and came out on a narrow paved road. On either side, a nearly full moon shone on fields surrounded by netting, propped up by white signs among the plants. The road curved left and continued parallel to a metal fence, to which a No Trespassing sign was affixed every three hundred feet, bearing underneath the name of a multinational agrochemical corporation. After driving about a half a mile the van stopped.

  The driver turned around to face the passenger.

  “Are you sure the alarm has been deactivated?”

  “Of course I’m sure. The security company is under our control.”

  The two men got out of the van, the passenger carrying with him a large bag. They jumped over a trickling stream and found themselves standing inches from the chain-link fence.

  The passenger pulled a pair of long diagonal pliers from the bag. He handed them to the driver.

  “Why me?” said the latter.

  His interlocutor sneered back at him.

  “I have to finish this,” he said, pulling a bottle of whiskey from the bag, and as the other man cut the wire, he downed the last of it.

  CHAPTER 6

  THE BUILDING RESEMBLED A TYPICAL enormous warehouse, with the sort of bare cement walls that one sees on the outskirts of almost every city in the world of the rich: one hundred feet tall and five hundred feet long, standing over a sweeping expanse of cultivated plants divided into lots, their numbers indicated by various signs. It was the kind of work of human genius that made Simona feel like going back to feeding her stray cats under the Sublician Bridge in Rome, at the heart of a city that was still a city. In the large parking lot in front of another building, police vehicles could be distinguished from those of the employees by their haphazard parking jobs, having been left wherever their drivers had found space. In front of the tall sliding doors the white jumpsuits from Forensics were going about their work. Farther along on the right, the minesweepers were keeping busy, some removing their reinforced jumpsuits, composite helmets, and polycarbonate visors, while those without the necessary attire hoisted a robot up on top of the van. On the opposite side, their arms crossed, Evangelisti and Calabonda watched in silence. When they saw her arrive, the former smiled and the latter shook his head.

  “So you still think terrorism should be disregarded in the investigation?” the prosecutor asked her when she was a few steps away.

  He gestured toward the wall next to the doors, where three-foot-tall letters written in spray paint said: SSACROPIANO KILLS
. THE WORKER BEE REVOLUTION LIVES.

  “What was it?”

  “An improvised explosive device,” the maresciallo said matter-of-factly. “Like in Iraq. A gas cylinder paired with two cans of gasoline and a detonator stolen from the army as a focalization device . . .”

  “Stolen from or provided by . . .” murmured Simona.

  “Excuse me?” said Evangelisti.

  “No, nothing. Why didn’t it explode?”

  “The bomb disposal team says the detonator was defective.”

  “And there was no alarm, no video surveillance system, no guards positioned around the warehouse?”

  Calabonda shrugged.

  “As you saw, there’s a security booth at the entrance equipped with video surveillance. Except that last night at four forty-five, after a virus was introduced into the computer system, the monitors started playing previously recorded footage in a loop rather than continuing to show what was happening in real time. We found the point where the terrorists entered. Around five o’clock they cut the wire fencing, and they acted while the cameras were down. You’d have to be a damn expert to access the security computer system. But we’ll verify that. If there was any negligence or complicity involved, we’ll find out about it sooner or later . . .”

  Simona sighed.

  “Let’s hope so. What is manufactured in this building?”

  “That would be a question for its owner,” Evangelisti replied, pointing to a luxury car with tinted windows that was pulling into a reserved space.

  From it emerged a man in full executive attire: suit and tie, an expensive watch that could be seen from a mile away, stylish glasses, confident stride.

  With a few steps, he reached the group.

  “So,” he asked Evangelisti, not wasting any time on hellos. “Do you have any leads?”

  “Allow me to introduce Francesco Signorelli, executive director of the Sacropiano Center for Research in Pinerolo,” the prosecutor said to Simona.

  Signorelli forced a big, unfriendly smile and held out his hand. “Ah, you must be the famous Commissario Tavianello? Come to lend a hand to our esteemed maresciallo?”

  With a nervous finger, Calabonda pushed his glasses up on his nose and cleared his throat. “In an officious capacity,” he ventured.

  “Absolutely officious,” said the commissario. “The fact that I allowed my gun to be stolen and that it was then used to kill your engineer hardly makes me especially qualified.”

  The director chuckled.

  “I read a similar appraisal in an interview with Ciuffani that came out in my brother’s newspaper this morning . . .”

  “Your brother?”

  “Yes, my dear older brother. Alberto directs the Quotidiano delle Valli. And don’t think that it benefits my business. He gives too much space to opponents of progress in general and of our laboratories in particular for my tastes . . . but if I may ask, I’d like to know where we are with the investigation,” he finished, turning to face Calabonda and Evangelisti.

  “In the preliminary stages,” the magistrate responded, visibly irritated by the executive’s manner. “But Commissario Tavianello was just asking me what is produced in your laboratory.”

  Francesco Signorelli smoothed his tie, glanced at his watch, and crossed his arms.

  “Oh, ‘produce’ isn’t quite the word. We conduct research on the agro-industrial applications of different types of nanotechnology. Do you have some idea as to what that means?” he asked with a wry smile.

  “Of course,” said Simona, to whom the question had been addressed. “Every now and again I manage to read something aside from memos. So-called nanotechnologies are methods of altering matter at an atomic and molecular level, which allows or which will allow—I don’t quite know—the atom-for-atom manufacturing of infinitesimal tools, artificial microorganisms, nanorobots. There has been talk of nanorobots capable of reproduction, which has raised fears of catastrophic scenarios. Michael Crichton wrote a book about it . . .”

  The executive brought his hands together in a gesture of prayer, as though to invoke the spirit of progress and science.

  “Every new advancement in knowledge causes irrational fears,” he declared. “It’s human nature, don’t you think?”

  Simona abstained not only from responding but from expressing any thought whatsoever. When a singer tried to get the audience to sing along to a chorus at a concert, when a supervisor posed a question to the auditorium at a work assembly, when a speaker at a political or union rally threw out a slogan for the crowd to repeat, her reaction was always the same: she slumped her shoulders and waited for the moment to pass. This behavior dated back to her youth, when she was subjected to the teaching methods of an elementary school instructor who never finished her sentences but rather waited for the pupils to complete them, while Simona, a child trying to find the right words, thought, It’s your sentence—figure it out yourself!

  “What do you think?” repeated Signorelli. When no one said anything, he continued: “We’re on the verge of developing a new generation of pesticides that will have the capacity to penetrate on a nanometric scale—meaning a millionth of a millimeter,” he benevolently clarified for Calabonda, whose creased forehead expressed confusion. “Because these products will be far more powerful than the ones currently available, they will be effective in infinitely smaller amounts. Do you understand what that means?”

  When no one indicated that they understood, he explained:

  “It means that it will be much, much more ecological. Do you understand?” he repeated, with a little smile directed at Calabonda.

  Simona observed the maresciallo, his arms crossed, perplexed, silent. His whole body had contracted as though to absorb the contempt that evidently rained down on him in this region and to which the rich, powerful so-and-so Signorelli delicately paid tribute. A faint feeling of compassion began to stir in her, but then the carabiniere slowly removed his sunglasses, smoothed his mustache, and asked:

  “But aren’t these nanoparticles at risk of crossing the blood-brain barrier?”

  Francesco Signorelli’s mouth dropped open and he stammered, “The blood . . . the blood . . .”

  “Yes, the blood-brain barrier that separates the circulating blood from the central nervous system of every living being on earth, protecting it against toxins and hormones circulating in the bloodstream. If the nanoparticles that make up your pesticides are capable of flowing directly into the brain, won’t that cause massive damage to humans and animals alike?”

  When the executive just stared back at him, speechless, Calabonda added, “You seem stunned by my question. But it’s my duty as an officer to read the literature produced by the militant environmentalists who oppose you—to better protect you, you understand.”

  Seeing as the honorable Dottore Signorelli’s silence continued, the maresciallo added, “Carabinieri know how to use Wikipedia, too.”

  Calabonda returned his glasses to his face and the executive let out a faint laugh of appreciation.

  “My compliments, Maresciallo. No, obviously creating a product that would endanger human and animal health is out of the question. We are only trying to fight the parasites that threaten our crops as effectively as possible.”

  The carabiniere pointed to the gigantic building behind him with his thumb.

  “Can we take a look inside?” he asked. But Signorelli shook his head.

  “Ah, that’s completely impossible. Our research is highly confidential and the findings are systematically protected by patent law. Please understand—competition is fierce in our sector. There are countless attempts at corporate espionage, and the orders from our global board of directors are extremely strict. Without a search warrant, access to company property is severely limited.”

  There was a pause. Calabonda didn’t say anything. Nor did Evangelisti. Simona took him by the arm.

  “May I speak with you?”

  They took a few steps away from the others.

>   “Why don’t you ask for a warrant to search the company’s properties?” she asked.

  Evangelisti passed his large hand over his small head.

  “What would that accomplish? Pending evidence to the contrary, the company is the victim, no?”

  “Yes, but, for whatever reason, members of their staff could be involved. The computer failure that deactivated the surveillance cameras—don’t you think that suggests that it could have been partly an inside job? We’d need to see their list of personnel, take a look inside their lockers, see if the explosive device could have been assembled in the same laboratory . . .”

  Evangelisti shook his head.

  “This center is protected by a special statute. Before making any move having to do with it, I have to call Turin and request approval from my superiors, who refer the matter to Rome. You see, the research conducted here is of national importance. And on a side note, just between the two of us, the Signorelli brothers are members of the prime minister’s party, and they have some very powerful political and institutional supporters. So if I seek authorization to search the premises now I’m sure I won’t get it. I don’t have enough to back up such a request.”

  Simona and the prosecutor walked back to where the executive stood. Lifting his long arm toward the graffiti, the magistrate asked him, “Is there anything in your current operations that could explain this slogan?”

  Signorelli shook his head. “You can’t know what’s going on inside people’s heads. Those guys from the Alpine Valley Beekeepers’ Defense League say that colony collapse disorder is caused by our pesticides, but it’s never been proven. We think that it has to do with parasites like the Varroa destructor or viruses like IAPV or the bubonic plague. We are 100 percent prepared to conduct research in collaboration with the apiculturists, but they prefer to resort to tactics of pure aggression, sabotaging the debates and meetings that we organize . . .”