The pages were covered with neat handwriting and dated entries, but also with arrows, diagrams, small sketches, symbols. On some pages were more elaborate sketches done in what looked like coloured pencil. Geometric patterns, mainly, or what looked like stars and planets: dreamscapes. He saw his name in a couple of entries. It leapt out at him as one’s own name often does in unfamiliar texts. But this made him slam the book shut, ashamed at violating Natalia’s little psychic sanctuary. He would let her tell him herself why his name was in there. He would not steal such knowledge from her. Not now.
*
For Natalia, at first it was like a dream. But then it became very undreamlike as she became aware of what was happening and why. The men had been incredibly rough with her. She was thrown headlong into the back of the grimy van and she hit her head on the metal hump of the left-rear tire well. As she tried to get up, the side door slid shut with a terrific bang and she fell again as the van lurched off with a squeal of tires on the cobblestones. She was stunned by the two falls and dizzy, and simply lay for a moment on the rocking floor of the van as it careened around streets she could not see and would not recognize anyway. It smelled intensely of motor oil and tire rubber and grime.
Eventually she sat up. She could see two men in the small seats up front, talking intently to each other in Polish. One was gesturing to the driver, giving him directions. They were both smoking strong cigarettes. When the van had slowed a little and the driver was apparently clear on where he was going, the mustachioed navigator looked back and spoke to her in Polish.
“Not dead? Good.” He pushed the driver’s shoulder and they both laughed throatily at this witty remark.
They were almost a matched pair: identical black leather jackets; similar badly cut thick black hair, with a sheen of oils or hair creams; large rings on fingers, garish gold watches. In their thirties, both of them. Both muscular, aggressive, and dangerous. The walrus moustache on one of the faces was the only thing that really set them apart.
“Your boyfriend is probably not dead either, lucky for him,” the moustache said. “I’m sure he is tougher than that. He can take a little beating now and again, can’t he?” The two men laughed again.
Anxiety release, Natalia thought.
She decided she would not speak to them at all or answer any of their inane questions. She sat bracing herself on the floor of the van, holding onto the tire wells to remain upright as the vehicle swayed. She could not identify exactly what feelings she had. She was afraid, but not truly afraid, not panicked yet. Shaken, aching, waiting to see what came next. Then she might become truly afraid. She sat staring at the floor of the van, wondering if Francis was all right and what he might do next. The odd sense began to develop that somehow she had experienced all of this before, perhaps in a dream. She allowed that feeling to envelop her, to see what intuition or insight it might provide in this crisis. But no insight came.
The van roared and rattled its way through Rome streets for about twenty minutes, according to Natalia’s watch, which she could only just read in the dimness. As she was beginning to feel chilled and very sore, the van slowed and pulled into a sort of covered archway. She could see only parts of the scene outside through the windshield. But the sound changed and it was clear they were now in the courtyard of a tall building, an apartment possibly. Only a small light burned somewhere.
They did not blindfold her or make any attempt to stop her from seeing where she was. It could have been the interior courtyard in any large and rundown apartment building almost anywhere in Europe. It was late. Clearly, not many people would be around to see her get out, and if they did they would see nothing mysterious. Two men and a woman climbing out of a small vehicle in a European city. Still, her captors warned her against making a scene.
“Now we go upstairs, correct? We go upstairs like we are friends, correct?” Moustache said, switching to English for some reason. “No silly, OK?”
“OK,” she said.
The driver came around to open the sliding door. He grinned toothily at her as she moved to get out. Her pants and sweater were askew and dirty, but not torn. She could not see her handbag at first, but then Moustache reached in and pulled it out from a dim corner of the van. She must have held onto it instinctively, as women do. The rosary is inside, she thought. Good luck charm.
“We look later, yes?” Moustache said as he slung the bag on his shoulder. “Dirty secrets maybe?” More laughter.
There were steep stairs; a series of flights went up around a dark square stairwell. The staircase was wide and worn. They stopped climbing on the fifth floor, all of them panting from the ascent. On this floor, as on the others, there were two sets of double doors. Two apartments, or possibly two small lofts or warehouse spaces on each floor. The driver fumbled with keys and then pushed her, unnecessarily rough, through the doorway into an old shabbily furnished apartment. Plates and empty beer bottles sat on tables. Newspapers were strewn around the place. She saw two handguns and a long gun, what she thought might be a shotgun, sitting on an armchair. Moustache decided this was where she must be, so he moved the guns and motioned for her to sit.
“Sit, OK? Be quiet.”
Driver locked the doors and put his own gun down beside the others. Moustache took off his leather jacket. Natalia saw he was wearing a shoulder holster with another gun. Still she did not feel truly afraid. This surprised her. Her captors moved into another room and had a conference in Polish there for a moment. Then Driver dialled a number on the telephone in the main room and said to someone, in Polish: “It’s done.”
He hung up. Both men lit cigarettes and grinned foolishly at her.
“Welcome to our humble home,” Moustache said, his shoulders rising and falling slightly with laughter. Still apparently unable to resist his own wit. “Our humble little home.” Natalia sat quietly, saying nothing.
“Do you know us?” he asked, suddenly serious.
“What do you mean? How would I know you?” Natalia said.
“Do you know us, woman? You know where we are from?”
“Poland,” she said, now becoming a little more afraid. They will try to trip me up, and then be aggressive with me when I make mistakes, she thought. They are this type.
“Of course, Poland. Of course. We do not have to be psychiatrists to know this when Polish words are spoken, do we?” Moustache said. Driver smoked quietly, squinting at her. “No,” Natalia said.
“Do you know us?”
“You mean who you work for?”
“Yes, yes. Who we work for.”
“No.”
“We think you must, dear woman. Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who?”
“The Polish government? The secret service?” The men both howled with laughter.
“The secret service? What a clever name. We are secrets from the secret service.” Laughter, coughing through smoke.
“Here is who we are, dear woman,” Moustache said. “Not who we work for, but who we are. Who we work for is not so important to you tonight. You see? We are your enemies. That’s all. We need to know something that you know, and we will know it. It doesn’t matter to you who we work for because you will tell us anyway. And then maybe you can go home. Maybe.”
Moustache spoke very quietly to Driver in Polish so that Natalia couldn’t hear. Driver nodded and left the room. They were starting to frighten her badly now.
“Are you in secret service too, dear woman?” Moustache asked her, as he lit another cigarette.
“No, I’m not.”
“We know that. We know that. Do you think we would not know that already?” Natalia said nothing.
“I have just asked you something,” he said.
“I don’t know what you would know about me,” she said.
“You don’t.”
“No.”
; “You are sure?”
“Yes.”
“About what?”
“What do you mean?”
“What are you sure about?”
Natalia realized the aggression would come soon. With a personality like this there could be very few correct answers.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said.
“You don’t.”
“No. I’m sorry.”
He liked that. He liked women to be sorry, Natalia suspected. Her apology was like a small treat thrown to a dog. He enjoyed it privately for a moment. Then he called out to his partner: “Feliks!”
Moustache grinned at her as Feliks came down the long hallway from another room.
“We must have a witness, correct? Feliks likes to witness these things.”
Again there was a low whispered conversation in Polish.
“We will start this right away, because we do not have time to frig around, like Americans say,” Moustache said.
Feliks moved his head and shoulders around in small circles, as if his muscles were stiff. Moustache walked over to where Natalia sat in the overstuffed old armchair and pushed his knees up against hers as he stood over her.
“There is something we would like to know, dear woman, and you will tell us about it tonight. Then, after you have told us, your boyfriend will come here and we will get him to tell us too. Then we will see which story we like best.” Now Natalia was afraid.
“In our business of work, we have to find out many little things, always little things people know and do not wish to tell. It happens so often. I am good at this work. Feliks too, but I am better. Correct, Feliks?”
Feliks nodded, but said nothing.
“Why am I better than Feliks at this work, dear woman? Why?”
“I couldn’t say.” Natalia wanted now to be very careful in her phrasing of anything, as one must be when dealing with psychotic personalities.
“Why couldn’t you say, dear woman? Why wouldn’t you say?”
“I don’t know why you are better.”
“Here is why I am better. It is exactly because Feliks asks people questions and then, after a while, he hurts them and asks them some more and then eventually they tell him. But I myself like to make clear to people first what it is that is happening, and then they cannot be unclear. You see? Make things clear first, and then ask questions next, after that? You see?”
“Yes.”
“No you do not, I think.”
“It’s clear to me,” Natalia said.
“No. I think it is not. Because you are one of those people who has never had to do very much that you did not want to do. Have you?”
“No.”
“No what?”
“No, I have never had to do very much that I didn’t want to do. You’re right.”
Moustache looked over at Feliks and said: “I am right.”
Then, with a large open right hand, he slapped Natalia with great force on the side of her face. His blow came from shoulder height and smashed diagonally down across her cheek. It swung her face to one side with more force than she had ever had applied to her body. It shook her neck vertebrae, made her ears ring, her skin burn. Her body started to shake with fear and pain.
Then Moustache slapped her again, from the other direction, with the back of the same hand. Shoulder height again, with great force. He made a small indescribable sound in his throat as he hit her. His knuckles and ring grazed her left check, and her neck was badly jarred again.
She began to cry immediately. She held her hands up over both of her eyes, sobbing, and dripping tears and mucus and blood from her eyes and nose and mouth. Her heart raced in her chest, and her stomach muscles were in spasm. She hoped they wouldn’t do this very long. She hoped they wouldn’t rape her. Now she was truly afraid. As required.
Through the ringing in her ears, amidst the other alarms of her body now, she heard Feliks say something in Polish. Then she could hear Moustache as if from a great distance: “Do you understand now what I was trying to say, dear woman? How this will work tonight?”
“Yes,” she said through her hands, looking down. She felt the texture of her eyebrows against her fingertips. This, inexplicably, was a small comfort.
“I understand,” she said.
Chapter 13
Delaney had somehow managed to contain his intense anxiety about Natalia, to put it away somewhere deep inside himself. He had decided that he owed her this calm because direct and well-considered action in the world was urgently required. The best plan now, he had decided, was to make himself as conspicuous as possible. And to search, with all the skills he had acquired over the years, for the inconspicuous.
He had not slept again after waking at 2:30 a.m. He spent the remainder of the night examining the situation from every possible angle — over and over again. And in his insomnia, against his will, he also examined in minute detail his whole life to date and all the various mistakes and missteps he had made. Mistakes professional, social, and personal. Mistakes with colleagues, lovers, and wives. But he was determined that from this moment onward he would make no more mistakes. By sunrise, he knew what he must do.
He showered as best he could with his stiff side and cleaned up his scraped face. He applied creams and ointments to the most noticeable of the wounds. He put on jeans, a loose-fitting polo shirt, and some sturdy shoes. He checked the pistol in his equipment bag and then placed his aging Nikon F camera beside it, with a long lens attached. Notebook and pen. Passport and press pass. Rosary. Tools of the trade. For now, he would simply be on assignment. He had no choice.
In the lobby he told various desk clerks and the concierge and just about anyone else who would listen that he would be around the hotel that day, doing some work and waiting for delivery of an important message or package. Could they all please see to it that he was informed as soon as anyone asked for him, as soon as anything arrived?
It was still early, before 8 a.m. He paraded himself through the lobby several times and through the small dining room. He stood for a long time on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, allowing anyone watching to have a clear view of the Canadian journalist staying there. He sat for almost an hour at a sidewalk table of the café next to the hotel, drinking several cups of coffee and standing occasionally to stretch his legs and allow hotel watchers to have an unimpeded view. Here I am.
The watchers, if they were there at all, did not come forward. Delaney expected word from Hilferty at any moment, and became more and more concerned when it did not come. Was it possible, he wondered, that CSIS was so slow off the mark, so poorly connected, so badly informed that they would not now know what was going on? Or were they simply content to hang back and watch him watching for others?
By midmorning, Delaney was back in the lobby, explaining to patient desk clerks that he would have to go off for perhaps two hours, that he would be back at lunchtime, that messages or letters or packages were to be expected and were to be treated with care. He would be back. Si, Signore Delaney, si.
Now he would be the one to watch for a time, rather than allowing himself to be watched. He went outside to hail a taxi and told the driver to move off in the direction of the Colosseum. He sat half turned around to see if any cars pulled out behind him in the narrow street. None appeared to do so. If they want me, they know where to find me already, he thought.
After about ten minutes he had the driver circle back to the bottom of the Spanish Steps and let him off there. Still no one seemed to be behind him. To the left of the steps there was an elegant tall apartment block with entrances both at the lower level and at the top of the steps where they met the Via Sistina, the street where his hotel was. He wanted to spend some time on the roof of that apartment, watching the Via Sistina below and the entrance to his hotel.
The building’s concierge, he discovered, was a Mr
. Viviano, a very dark, very wiry little Sicilian who was apparently surprised by nothing in this life. His English was New York or Detroit style.
“I am a journalist and a photographer, Mr. Viviano,” Delaney said, showing his red International Federation of Journalists passbook.
Viviano peered at it with interest through halfframe glasses. At midmorning he was well dressed in flannel trousers, a quality shirt in wide blue-andwhite stripes, and soft leather loafers, perhaps Gucci. “I want to possibly take some pictures from the roof of this lovely building if that is no trouble to you.”
Viviano peered up at Delaney over the top of his half-frames.
“Hey, but of course,” he said.
Delaney marvelled at how different the Italians were from the French, or at least the Romans from the Parisians. In Paris, none of this would be possible. Everything would be impossibly complicated and viewed with suspicion, if not outright disdain.
Viviano led him to an ornate elevator door and pressed the button for him.
“Top floor. You will see the door marked so clearly with ‘Exit’ you do not need me to come,” Viviano said. “I am busy feeding my birds, and they are hungry this morning. You come to me when you are all finished up. No problem.”
“Thank-you,” Delaney said as the steel-mesh door slid noisily shut.
Viviano peered at him through the mesh as he glided up and out of sight. He will be up to check things out in a while, Delaney thought.
The roof gave a splendid view of Rome on a brilliant late-winter morning. Delaney did not allow himself to think for very long how much Natalia would enjoy this view. He positioned himself at the corner of the roof, Nikon at the ready, but more for Viviano’s benefit than to use the long lens for viewing. Then he simply watched as intently as he knew how. He was a reporter on the job. What was there to report?
The café where he had spent an hour that morning was quiet. Only a few tourists sat at the outside tables. Most of the locals were now at work. A hotel employee was sweeping the sidewalk out front, stopping whenever necessary to watch Italian women sidle by. A couple of Fiat cabs sat at the curb. The two drivers sat together in the first car, smoking and exchanging views. Another cab sat behind the first two. Its driver was not in the mood for talk, apparently.
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