by Agent Kasper
Outside the room, every movement they make is closely monitored.
The guards in the towers have orders to shoot anyone who makes any move that could be construed as an escape attempt. The wall around the prison is four meters high, more than twice as tall as the tallest man, and topped with an additional meter of barbed wire. Outside the wall is a walkway from which the guards mount directly to the towers on ladders inaccessible to the prisoners. Beyond that, there’s just water and mud: a great expanse in which the local peasants cultivate rice. Standing in water, bending to their task, the rice farmers probably look over at Prey Sar and feel privileged.
No weapons circulate among the prisoners in the camp, just the kapos’ big sticks. The guards, armed with Kalashnikovs, support the kapos in the more demanding activities, such as nighttime raids of the prisoners’ sleeping quarters.
The prison director, Mong Kim Heng, is a significant figure in the government power structure. Many of the men whose lives he oversees aren’t ordinary convicts but formerly powerful officials who have fallen into disgrace. Others have actively opposed Hun Sen and his regime. Still others are individuals who, for the most disparate reasons, must simply vanish.
The director of Prey Sar prison is also one of those Cambodians with whom the Americans tend to get along. When Mong Kim Heng learned that the Italian was in Darrha’s hands, he wanted to know more about him. The fact that the CID lieutenant was moving his prisoner from one hiding place to another suggested that there was money to be made. And Darrha was pissing off the Americans, which is never a good idea. So the director made sure to have the problem brought back within normal channels.
A doctor in Mong Kim Heng’s employ had Kasper relocated to Preah Monivong Hospital, snatching him away from Darrha. And after a period of treatment, the gates of Prey Sar opened to welcome him.
Now Mong Kim Heng knows that Kasper’s family has already made some hefty payments. He also knows that an Italian diplomat stationed in Phnom Penh has requested a meeting with his countryman.
The director has told the diplomat, “It can be done, but you’ll have to be patient.”
Mong Kim Heng has taken his time. He wanted to know what the Americans thought about all this.
—
Kasper is called into the director’s office. The Kapo, who had introduced him to the prison’s pay-to-live policy, shows him where to go. “You have visitor, Italian,” he says, spitting on the ground. “Remember, you must pay.”
Kasper heads for the big door leading to the rooms where some inmates are allowed to meet with their lawyers or family members. He finds himself in an inner courtyard where a guard indicates the room he should enter. A table, two plastic chairs, no window.
A Westerner is sitting on the other side of the table.
“I’m Italian,” he says, introducing himself. Marco Lanna is the Italian diplomatic liaison in Phnom Penh. Northern accent. From Liguria, maybe. He asks Kasper how he is. Before he can reply, Lanna adds a proposal: “Shall we speak informally?”
“Why not?” says Kasper with an ironic smile. “Even though I’m not clear about who you are. You’re not the ambassador, and you’re not from the Farnesina….”
“I’m the Italian diplomatic representative in Phnom Penh,” Lanna explains. “Honorary consul. Maybe you don’t remember, but we’ve met before. You were involved in work here with the Comboni Fathers. We were introduced to each other….”
Kasper gives his head a little shake. “You must excuse me.”
“Don’t worry about it. In any case, I’m not a professional diplomat. My real line of work is quite different, but when I can help…”
“Honorary consul,” Kasper nods. “A sort of hobby.”
Lanna recognizes the sarcasm but makes no reply. All he has to do is look at this countryman of his to know what he’s going through. Lanna’s well aware of the kind of facility Prey Sar is.
After pausing a little, he says, “Our foreign minister has apprised me of your case. I’d like to help you somehow….Tell me about what happened to you.”
Kasper stares at him without feeling any particular emotion. A strange apathy has come over him. It’s as if he were able, at certain moments, to withdraw. To exit his body and look down on himself from above.
He’s learned to do this during the torture sessions and the beatings.
Lanna observes him in silence.
I don’t suppose my appearance encourages conversation, Kasper reflects. There’s a good chance the honorary consul finds the sight of me pathetic. And a bit disgusting, too.
“What do you want to know, Mr. Consul?” Kasper’s tone is brusque. But not brusque enough, he thinks. I can do better.
Lanna widens his dark eyes and takes a deep breath. “Who are you really? I’d like to know why…why this has happened to you.”
Kasper tries. But his mind goes down disordered, mysterious paths. His memories are incoherent flashes. The Asian music, the dancers with their typical costumes and frozen smiles. The sepulchral silence surrounding the French-style building he entered, holding his breath. The bright neon lights illuminating the pallets he saw in front of him, loaded with piles of banknotes two meters high. He can’t manage to find a thread connecting them to a rational thought. Or anything logical.
Kasper starts with what he remembers better, while trying to put those other events into some kind of line, some kind of order. He begins with his capture and imprisonment. The torture. The threats and the extortion.
Lanna’s face betrays his shock and disbelief. He never interrupts Kasper, but every now and then he makes inadvertent, truncated comments such as “Impossible” or “I can’t believe it” or “That’s insane.” Until Kasper abruptly stops talking. He’s lost the thin thread of his story, and he’s lost his patience. He assails Lanna with something between a hiss and a snarl: “Of course it’s unbelievable. But can you see me now? Can you see me or not?”
“Sure I see you,” Lanna stammers.
And then Kasper raises his T-shirt and displays his bruises and wounds. He gives Lanna a close-up view of his infected ear, shows him his smashed foot and shattered hands. “So what do you say, Mr. Honorary Consul?”
Lanna’s eyes are shining and his lips drawn. Eventually he breaks the silence.
“In Phnom Penh you established a branch of the Island of Brotherly Love—”
“It’s a foundation,” Kasper snaps, cutting him short. “It carries out humanitarian operations. It does what the gentlemen and ladies of the NGOs don’t do. They drive around in their air-conditioned Toyotas. We get into a truck, a beat-up piece of shit, and bring real help to the people who live in the garbage dumps of the capital….Have you seen where those poor bastards stay? Have you ever smelled the stench of those places? I imagine you haven’t. Well, I have, and I can tell you that after you’ve been there you have to throw away all your clothes. Then you wash yourself for hours. We go there every Thursday. I mean, I used to go there….I hope the others are still going. It’s just us, a few American volunteers, and a French monk.”
“I was told your girlfriend took care of some of those children….”
“Patty’s a veterinarian, which gives her enough training to treat an eye infection or childhood bronchitis….Listen, let’s not waste time. I don’t think any of this has anything to do with why I’m in Prey Sar prison.”
“You’re right,” Lanna says with a smile. He clears his throat and says, “When I asked for information about you, the people in Rome told me you’re an ex-Carabiniere. Also an ex-pilot for Alitalia. I know you own the bar called Sharky’s, near the Tonlé Sap. When I met you, you were at an evening fund-raiser for the foundation with the Comboni Fathers. And yet, despite all that, there are a bunch of strange stories going around about you….”
“Is that important?”
“It could be, if you want me to help you.”
“What more do you want to know?”
“What is a man like you doing in Cambo
dia? How did you happen to come here? That’s what I want to know.”
“Who do you think I am?”
“Someone who stepped on some important toes.”
“Right…Listen, Mr. Consul, that would be a long story. I’m afraid we don’t have enough time for me to tell it.”
“Start. I’ll come back tomorrow and the next few days as well.”
Kasper bobs his head. This is just diplomatic dicking around. Maybe the last in a long line of booby traps. And in any case, a torment.
He’d like to tell Lanna, Better yet, you talk to me. Talk to me about the normal world: about an evening at the movies, or a boat trip, or a simple plate of pasta. Talk to me about civilization and its little, fundamental, everyday stupidities.
So that I won’t die even before I’m killed.
He sighs. “You can push me to talk, but it’s no use, believe me. Remembering isn’t…it doesn’t do any good.”
“Start,” Lanna insists. “Start wherever you want.”
“Start, you say. Where do I start? Well, maybe ten years ago, in Rome. It was 1998. No, I’m wrong—it was ’97, eleven years ago. It was April ’97. I could start there….”
12
Our Man in Phnom Penh
ROS Headquarters, Villa Ada, Rome
April 1997
The Ferrari 348 is the flaming red color you expect from a Ferrari.
It’s shiny, gleaming in every detail, as if it’s just been washed and polished. Kasper walks past it on his way to the headquarters building. The young subofficer who’s escorting him gestures toward the car as if to say, “Not bad, huh?” Then, without moving his head an inch, he whispers: “We found it yesterday with half a dozen other cars, Mercedes and BMWs, all top-of-the-line machines. The Roman Mafiosi treat themselves well.”
Walking on, the subofficer shifts topics. “Your meeting will take place in the bar.”
“In the bar. Of course.”
The coffee bar in the ROS headquarters is located on an interior corner of the barracks, across from the main building. Informal meetings, the meetings where things are actually decided, often take place here.
It’s a beautiful April day in Rome. Kasper has arrived a few minutes early, practically escorted by the joggers heading for Villa Ada, one of the loveliest public parks in the capital and home to the Carabinieri’s Talamo barracks.
Everything here evokes a long and busy past.
Via Salaria, a few meters from the park entrance, was used two thousand years ago as a route for the transport of loads of salt from the Adriatic coast to the city of Rome. Every layer of earth in these parts represents a historical epoch, from the rape of the Sabine women to the Roman Empire to the vicissitudes of the House of Savoy. In 1943, Benito Mussolini was arrested at Villa Ada and taken away in an ambulance. The stones, the towering pines, and the centuries-old oaks have witnessed pages of history.
A Carabinieri barracks is a perfect fit in here, Kasper thinks.
The Talamo is home to the Special Operations Group, the ROS, for which Kasper has worked since it was officially established in 1990, when he was not much over thirty.
The Talamo is where his superiors are. His past and present are there too, as well as—he hopes—his future.
The men he’s to meet are waiting for him at an outside table. The subofficer escorting him stops a few meters away and says, “I’ll leave you here.”
The general seems the same as always, serious and stern in his dark gray ministerial suit. He’s listening attentively to the colonel. The captain’s also following him, nodding slightly as he does. The three men focus on Kasper, and the conversation stops.
Handshakes, a few polite phrases. The general gestures to Kasper to take a seat and says, “We may as well stay here. Later, if necessary, we’ll move upstairs.”
The colonel and the captain nod. All Kasper has to do is sit down, drink some coffee, and speak when the time for speaking comes. He knows very well how these meetings work; for all their informality, they still involve military men and military affairs. If they “move upstairs,” it will be to the colonel’s office, where they’ll finalize the details of the proposed operation.
The colonel concludes his explanation already in progress, something to do with an operation aimed at the laundering of Mafia money abroad. “Very well,” the general says emphatically, which is tantamount to saying, “Let’s change the subject.” He turns to Kasper, and with a little movement of his head, more like a father than like a superior officer, he asks, “How’s business down there at Sharky’s?”
“We get a lot of traffic,” Kasper replies.
“And your American partner?” the captain inquires.
“Partners,” Kasper corrects him. “There are two of them.”
“And they’re working out?”
“They’re working out fine.”
“They’re both with the Company?”
“Only one of them.”
“The one you call Clancy.”
“Right, Clancy,” Kasper confirms. “The other partner used to work as a supplier for the United Nations. He’s been in Cambodia since the mid-1980s. Opening the bar in Phnom Penh was his idea.”
“Sharky’s,” the captain says with a chuckle.
“A good idea,” the colonel says comfortingly. “Phnom Penh’s becoming more and more interesting.”
Kasper tries to think of something appropriate to say, but the general clears his throat and asks a question: “Before we talk about Cambodia, I’d like to know where we are with the Sinai operation. Am I mistaken, or are we at a standstill?”
“Not exactly, sir.”
“Not exactly,” the general repeats.
“I think a brief overview would be helpful,” the colonel intervenes.
This is just what Kasper was expecting.
Operation Sinai has been under way for more than a year, ever since Kasper succeeded in making contact with Michael Savage.
Savage is a drug dealer working out of Bangkok, an Irishman who exports cocaine from Colombia to Europe, chiefly Spain, and uses the money he makes to help out his friends in the IRA. Then there’s his plan to transfer his European drug distribution hub from Spain to Italy. His projects are ambitious. His connections are of the highest order. For many Americans of Irish ancestry who support the IRA, Savage is a point of reference, a strategic junction.
Kasper was introduced to him by a Thai drug dealer named Wanchai, who had described Kasper to Savage as a good Italian guy, an ex-military man and a pilot willing to do anything for money. Including flying an airplane full of cocaine from Colombia to Italy. And not some small-load flying machine, but a DC-8 Cargoliner with a whole lot of capacity.
Ten thousand kilograms of the very purest stuff. That’s the coup Michael Savage wants to pull off. The big score, all at once.
“You understand what I mean?” Savage asks, stressing every word and staring at Kasper. Blue eyes, Irish rebel freckles.
“Ten thousand kilograms is ten tons,” Kasper remarks pedantically.
“Does that sound like too much to you?”
“It doesn’t to you?”
“It sounds like enough to me.”
“It can be done,” Kasper replies. And then he names his price: $2 million.
They like each other right away.
Savage asks him to come up with a plan. He wants the plane to land somewhere in Northern Italy, or at least in Central Italy, but no farther south than, say, Tuscany. A large portion of the cargo will have to be transported to northern Europe by truck. The less time a truck spends on the road, the fewer risks it runs.
“I want a plan that’ll work, no matter what. No bullshit,” Michael warns him. “Remember, I know Italy well.”
“Excellent. Then you’ll be able to judge for yourself without too much asking around.”
“What does that mean?”
“You Irish run your mouths too much. That always causes major problems.”
“Where
as you Italians…”
“My father’s an American.”
“Italo-American bastard.”
“Irish arsehole.”
It’s a beginning, and a good one, too.
Michael has no idea he’s one of the ROS’s next targets. He also doesn’t know that a few years previously, Kasper contributed to the successful outcome of a similar operation, Operation Pilot. A web is being woven around Michael that will not leave either him or his band of Irish and Colombian accomplices any escape.
Kasper has been working hard during the past few months. He and Savage have met in Bangkok, Phnom Penh, and Europe. Kasper has constructed the plan piece by piece before his eyes. Now everything’s ready; all that’s lacking is the Irishman’s definitive okay. Once he gives it, Operation Sinai will enter its final phase.
Kasper too is ready.
He’ll be on that plane. Its belly will be loaded with cocaine in Medellín, he’ll be in the cockpit, and he’ll fly the beast to Pisa. Ten thousand kilos: a mountain of coke. The biggest drug bust ever pulled off in Italy.
Sinai will be even more sensational than Pilot.
—
A soft gust of wind blows through Villa Ada and carries off Kasper’s last words. The general keeps his dark eyes fixed on Kasper as he speaks, his lips pressed together under a moustache that looks as though it was drawn on with a pencil.
“Ten thousand kilos in one shipment,” the general says, barely nodding. “How many did we seize in Operation Pilot?”
“A thousand, sir.”
“And this Irishman wants to bring in ten times as much. How much does that come to in dollars?”
“Half a billion, more or less.”
“Only cocaine?”
“Maybe a little crack too, but crack is generally destined for the American market.”
The general and the colonel look at each other. It seems to be a signal: the colonel arranges his mouth into a bizarre grimace. “Now, tell me something,” he says. “What’s this business about a meeting with Savage in Switzerland?”
Kasper’s been expecting that, too. “We’re supposed to meet sometime in the next couple of weeks in Geneva,” he replies, in the tone of a man offering the most natural explanation in the world.