The Italian Divide

by Allan Topol

  “You think he sold you out to Zhou?”

  “There’s a good chance of that.”

  “I don’t like disagreeing with you, but you don’t have much in the way of evidence to support that conclusion. In view of Tyler’s position, it’s not surprising he wouldn’t want to upset China. So I can’t draw any conclusion from his being negative in the meeting.”

  He had a great deal of respect for Betty and her judgment. “Maybe you’re right,” he said. “Let’s give it a little test.”

  Craig took out his phone, activated the record function, and called Zhou Yun’s office in Beijing. He told the secretary, “This is Barry Gorman. I’d like to speak with Minister Zhou.”

  “Just a moment,” she told him.

  A few seconds later, he heard a booming voice, “This is Zhou. It is a pleasure to hear from you Barry Gorman. Are you the famous Barry Gorman who’s the head of the Philoctetes Group?”

  Craig wondered what Zhou’s game was. He was determined to find out. “We have a mutual interest in a bank in Turin. Perhaps we can meet and reach a settlement.”

  “You’re mistaken,” Zhou said casually. “I have no interest in a bank in Turin, but I know who you are, Barry Gorman, and I would be happy to meet with such an important man. I’m sure we’ll have common business interests to discuss. You tell me where and when.”

  “I’m going to the Global Economic Conference in Ascona next week and I saw from the program that you’ll be speaking there on Friday morning. Suppose we meet 10 a.m. Thursday morning at your hotel.”

  “That would be good. I don’t stay at a hotel. I take over a private residence on the edge of Ascona. Why don’t you come there Thursday morning at 10:00.”

  That sounds good. What’s the address?”

  “I’ll call you on your cell phone Thursday morning at 9:00 and give it to you.”

  When Craig ended the call, he said to Betty, “I recorded the conversation. You have to listen to it.”

  He played it for her. When it was over, he said, “What do you think?”

  “He was toying with you. He knows Barry Gorman is Craig Page.”

  “My conclusion, too. From his emphasis on ‘I know who you are, Barry Gorman.’”

  “And the whole tone of the call. But how did he find out?”

  “I’d bet anything Tyler told him in Beijing.”

  “I’m coming around to your view. Let me call Jim Burton, the head of NSA. Their routine intercepts of Tyler’s calls may give us something.”

  She got Burton on the phone and told him what she wanted.

  He called back twenty minutes later with the information. “Two days ago, Zhou Yun, the Chinese Finance Minister called Tyler and told him that he had to come to Beijing immediately to discuss a new bond issue, ‘You must come to Beijing immediately,’ Zhou said. In response, Tyler told him that he would come that day.”

  Betty hung up with Burton and called Tyler’s office. She asked his secretary when he’d be returning. “Ten fifteen this evening on United from Beijing.”

  As soon as she reported that to Craig, he told her, “Here’s what I think you should do. Undoubtedly Tyler’s regular driver will be picking him up. Substitute one of your men driving Tyler’s car. He can say that the regular driver got sick.”

  Northern Virginia

  Before going to Dulles Airport, Craig called Giuseppe and woke him in the middle of the night. “Our friend will be taking over a private residence on the edge of Ascona. Number 16 via Delta. Check with the Ascona municipal officials and see if they can get the layout of the house and send it to you electronically. Then forward it to me.”

  “Will do. Are we still alive?”

  “Absolutely. I’ll explain when I see you.”

  Craig had an agency car take him to Dulles Airport and drop him by the side of the exit road leading out of the airport in the direction of Washington. He checked his watch. It was a couple of minutes before 10:00 p.m. This may not have been the smartest idea, Craig thought, as bolts of lightning pierced the night sky in the west and he heard rumbles of thunder. A powerful summer storm was zeroing in on Washington. Craig hoped to hell Tyler’s plane landed and his car reached Craig before he got drenched.

  His phone rang. He yanked it out of his pocket. Bruce, the CIA agent driving Tyler’s car said, “Subject called. He’s leaving the terminal. Knows I’m in the parking lot. No objection to a substitute driver.”

  “Good. Drive fast. The skies are about to open up.”

  “Will do. I noticed that.”

  Eight minutes later, a black Lincoln Town Car with US government plates that read “TREAS 1” came to a stop next to Craig.

  He opened the back door and got in. Tyler was in the back seat. Bruce was alone up front.

  “What the hell is this?” Tyler said.

  “Drive,” Craig told Bruce.

  Bruce activated the door lock mechanism and the car pulled onto the road.

  At that instant, the rain started, a fierce storm, pelting the windshield and severely limiting visibility. Bruce hunched over the wheel and struggled to stay on the road.

  “What the hell is this?” Tyler repeated.

  “I think you and I should have a little chat about what you did in Beijing.”

  “Are you crazy?” Tyler sounded indignant. “You’re going to jail for this.”

  Tyler seized the phone in his pocket and said, “I’m calling the FBI.”

  Craig grabbed it from him and placed it in his own pocket before Tyler had a chance to resist. Craig then took out his own phone and laid in in his lap.

  “Stop the car,” Tyler shouted to the driver.

  Bruce ignored him and continued driving.

  “Now do you want to tell me what you did in Beijing?”

  “None of your fucking business.”

  “We can do this the easy way or the hard. Easy, you tell me the truth about your little visit with Zhou Yun. Hard means Bruce drives straight to CIA headquarters. We have interrogation rooms in the basement. And we have drugs that cause such excruciating pain to the nerves that even hardened foreign spies will tell us what we want to know in a matter of minutes. Now you decide: Easy or hard?”

  “I’m an important official in the United States government. A member of the president’s cabinet. You can’t do this to me.”

  “But I am. Now what’ll it be: easy or hard?”

  “We talked about a new US bond issue and I asked China to participate by buying our bonds. Zhou agreed to do that.”

  “What did you tell Zhou to get that commitment?”

  Tyler didn’t answer. He stared out of the window of the moving car into the pounding rainstorm.

  “I didn’t have to tell him anything. He knows it’s in China’s financial interest.”

  “But he threatened not to buy the bonds if you didn’t tell him about me? Isn’t that right?”

  “Look, asshole. I did what I had to do to ensure the financial integrity of this country. That’s my responsibility. I have nothing to gain personally. All I care about is what’s good for the United States.”

  “So you told him that Barry Gorman is really Craig Page?”

  “It’s none of your fucking business what I told Zhou.”

  “When we get to the CIA, you’ll tell me everything. We’ll break you.”

  “Yes—I told him,” Tyler sounded defiant. “I did that because it was in the best interest of the United States. It’s my responsibility to make sure this country remains solvent. That means selling the bonds to China.”

  “Bullshit, it’s your job to do what President Worth orders you to do. If you wanted to cut that deal and sell me out, you had to get the president’s approval. He’s the one who approved the Barry Gorman ploy.”

  “I did what I had to do.”

  “You betrayed your president and your country.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Besides the president will support me.”

  “You can’t possibly believe that.”r />
  “He’ll know I did what’s best for the country.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  Craig picked up the phone on his lap and called Betty. “The recording of my conversation on my cell phone is coming to you right now.”

  “Good. I’m in the White House. Worth wants me to run it upstairs as soon as I have it. Then I’ll get back to you.”

  Craig hung up.

  “You scheming bastard,” Tyler shouted. “Don’t you know it’s a crime to record conversations without people’s knowledge?”

  “Treason is a worse crime.”

  Ten minutes later, Betty called back. “President Worth wants you to take Tyler to the CIA safe house near Charlottesville. Bruce knows where it is. I’ll have guards there who will hold Tyler in house arrest, incommunicado, until this is all over. Then we’ll charge him with treason.”

  “Can I leave once I get him there?”

  “Absolutely. I’ll be waiting for you in my office. We have to talk. You’re taking a little trip tomorrow.”

  Northern Italy

  Elizabeth was behind the wheel of a rental car again. She felt as if she knew the road from Milan southwest into Piedmont like the palm of her hand.

  As she drove, her head ached from all that wine last evening. Even the two extra Tylenols chased by two double espressos she had this morning before leaving the Four Seasons in Milan—a luxury hotel in what once been a 15th century monastery—did little to alleviate her headache, but it had all been worthwhile.

  She knew exactly how to extract from Carlo Fanti the information she needed. Carlo loved good Barolo, which he couldn’t afford. She, on the other hand, had a virtually unlimited expense account with her paper. So she asked him to be her guest for dinner last evening at Principe di Savoia, a hotel near the train station, which the Nazis had taken over as their headquarters during the war.

  During dinner, they talked in general about the election campaign and Italian politics. Carlo saw himself as a mentor to Elizabeth.

  They began with a bottle of ’04 Barolo Colonnello Aldo Conterno and followed it with a ’97 Barolo Falletto from Bruno Giacosa. Midway through the second bottle, she sensed Carlo loosening up. Time to move in. She told Carlo that she was working on a feature article about Parelli. She had already interviewed Parelli, she told Carlo, then dodged his questions about what she’d learned. They were, after all, competitors as well as friends.

  By the time the last of the second bottle had been poured from a crystal carafe into their glasses, Elizabeth said, “I need a favor, Carlo.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The address of Luciano, Parelli’s campaign manager, and his home phone number. I want to interview him as part of my feature on Parelli.” She didn’t mention that she learned he was sick and had left the campaign.

  He pulled out his iPad. “I can probably get that for you, but I’ll want something in return.”

  Good old Carlo, always bargaining. A favor for a favor. “I’m sure you would. And what is that?”

  “How about if we stop by your hotel room after dinner.” He smiled and winked at her.

  “I doubt if your wife would like that.”

  “You can’t blame a guy for trying.”

  “What’s your second choice?”

  “You’re a damn good reporter. I’ll bet when you write your Parelli story, it will be explosive. I want your promise that the instant your article goes live, you’ll email it to me. I’ll be on line with your revelations right after you and beat all of my Italian competitors.”

  “That’s a deal,” she said.

  So last evening, Carlo had given her Luciano’s home address and phone number. She was betting Luciano went home when he left the campaign. She decided not to call first for fear he’d run away rather than talk to her.

  She was now entering the small village in which Luciano lived, about ten miles from Parelli’s farm.

  She stopped at a café in the center of town for directions and another espresso.

  A few minutes later, she pulled up in front of Luciano’s house. It was a modest two floor wooden structure on a dirt road on the edge of the town. A heavy set gray haired woman, in her sixties, Elizabeth guessed, answered the door.

  “I’d like to see Luciano,” Elizabeth said.

  The woman looked worried. “Who are you?”

  “Elizabeth Crowder. Foreign news editor of the International Herald.”

  The woman ran her eyes over Elizabeth as if she could make a judgment about her surprise visitor. Then she motioned for Elizabeth to enter.

  “I’m Luciano’s wife, Maria. Why do you want to see him?”

  “I’m writing an article about the Parelli campaign. I’d like to talk to him about it.”

  “Well good luck if you can get him to talk to you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He came home several days ago. He was upset, but he refused tell me why. So he mostly sulked, sitting out on the back verandah, smoking cigarettes. I took the scotch and wine away from him. He’s never been like this before. I hope he’ll talk to you. That way I’ll learn what’s happening.”

  “Well, I’ll try.”

  Maria led Elizabeth to the verandah in the back. There she left Elizabeth and retreated into the house.

  After Maria’s description, Elizabeth wasn’t surprised to see Luciano sitting in a rocker smoking a cigarette and looking morose.

  “Hello Luciano,” she said. “I’m Elizabeth Crowder. We met in—”

  He looked up. “I know who you are. What do you want?”

  He sounded hostile. This won’t be easy.

  “To talk to you for an article I’m doing about the election.”

  “You’re too late. I’m not involved any longer. You’ll have to ask someone else.”

  “I’m confused. When I called the campaign office to arrange an interview with Parelli, a young man, Stefano, said you were sick and quit the campaign. But you don’t seem to be sick. What’s the real story?”

  “Parelli’s lying as usual,” Luciano said emphatically.

  “You and Roberto Parelli have been very close. Haven’t you?”

  “Yes, for about sixty-five years.”

  Elizabeth sat down in a battered wooden chair facing the rocker.

  Luciano put out his cigarette and lit another.

  He was talking. For now, she wanted to keep it low key, not threatening, hoping he would continue. “That’s a long time. Were you in school together?”

  “More than that. If you interviewed Roberto, I’m sure he told you how my father saved Roberto from being killed by the Germans. He was only six months old.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “He told me.”

  “My parents lived very close to the Parelli farm. His mother and siblings had been killed by the Germans. I was an only child and Roberto and I were the same age. When he was five, Mario, his father, spent much of his time in Rome in politics, and my father began going with him as an advisor.

  “As a result, Roberto and I were together almost all of the time. He was at my house for many meals. My mother treated him as if he were her child. We were like brothers. That continued until he went away to the University in Rome to study law.”

  “He must have been smart.”

  “He was and a star athlete in school, too. I loved him, but he wasn’t perfect.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean the way he was with women. No matter whom Roberto dated, he always slept with others. That continued even after he was married.”

  She remembered what Hanson said. “His wife Diane is American. Isn’t she?”

  Luciano nodded. “He met her when he went to Yale Law School for a year after he graduated from the university in Rome. When he brought her home, we were appalled at the idea of him not marrying an Italian woman, but she made us change our minds. She’s wonderful. We all loved her. Even after they had three children, he continued with other women, causing her so much angui
sh—even though he loved her, and his family meant so much to him.”

  Elizabeth thought about the prostitute in Venice. To this day, he hasn’t changed.

  Luciano paused to light another cigarette. Then he continued. “But with all of that, I felt close to him, like a brother. We saw less of each other when he was an important lawyer in Milan and ran the wine business. I had taken over my father’s firm as a political consultant. Then a year ago, when he decided to go into politics and start the New Italy Party, he asked me to work with him. I immediately said ‘yes.’ Even though I wasn’t sympathetic with the objectives of his party.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Luciano hesitated, and then replied, “I want your promise that if you write an article about Roberto, nothing will be attributed to me.”

  “Absolutely. You have it.”

  He stared hard at her for a minute. Apparently satisfied, he continued, “I don’t like the idea of dividing Italy. I love this country the way it is. Like Roberto, it isn’t perfect, and I may not have much in common with people from Calabria, Brindisi, or Sicily, but we are all Italians. Do you understand?”

  “Very well. In the United States we fought a bloody civil war to keep our country together—where did he get this idea?”

  “A few years ago, Roberto took a trip to Spain. First, he read about Scotland. Then he went to San Sebastian and Catalonia. He talked to people about the separatist movements in the Basque country and in Barcelona. That’s when it started. I couldn’t talk him out of it. I think he honestly believes dividing the country would be better for those in both the north and south. I didn’t agree, but I still went to work helping him.”

  “So why’d you quit?”

  Luciano looked away and didn’t respond. Elizabeth was at a critical point in the interview. She had to convince him to continue. “I promise I will never attribute anything to you.”

  He still didn’t say a word.

  She decided to rely on what Craig had told her as a way of jarring Luciano into talking. “I’ll tell you what I think.”

  He turned back to her.

  She continued in a soft voice. “I think Roberto recently and secretly received money from the Chinese for his campaign, and you couldn’t accept that.”