The Abduction: A Novel

by Jonathan Holt

  “So?”

  “It seems that, as he was wearing uniform, he was entitled to the protection of the Hague Convention – which, unlike Italian civil law, has no statute of limitations. Cause of death was a bullet in the head at close range. An execution-style killing, in other words – a war crime. I’ve already opened a case file.”

  Saito stared at him. “Naming who as your suspect?”

  “It’s tentative. But initial indications are that the person responsible may have been a Major Bob Garland of OSS – the Office of Strategic Services.”

  “Is he even still alive?”

  Piola shook his head. “He died five years ago, after a long career working here in Italy for the same organisation – or rather, the organisation that OSS became after the war.”

  “Which was?”

  “The Central Intelligence Agency. Bob Garland was their Section Chief for Italy.”

  Saito laughed disbelievingly. “Colonel, you are priceless. You want to accuse a dead CIA officer of killing someone three-quarters of a century ago, in the middle of a war? What possible good can come of that?”

  “I know,” Piola said, matching the general’s smile with an apologetic half-smile of his own. “But an allegation has been made, and we have the forensic evidence supporting it, so…”

  Saito sighed. “Very well. Write up a report, if you must, and take it to a prosecutor. It won’t get any further than that, and at least that way the paperwork will all be in order. But don’t spend more than a couple of days on it.”

  “Of course not.”

  Saito clapped him on the back. “And try not to get too near to anyone in a skirt while you’re at it, eh? We don’t need any more junior officers’ hearts being broken.”

  FOURTEEN

  DANIELE BARBO SAT in front of his computer and prepared to hack into TIM, Telecom Italia Mobile. It was a relatively simple matter: a few minutes’ research on a hacker site had turned up a description of a known buffer overflow vulnerability in TIM’s system. In layman’s terms, it meant that the pro forma boxes on TIM’s website where users entered their names and email addresses in order to pay their bills would also accept raw HTML code. When Daniele pressed “Next”, the code would enter TIM’s system just as if it were being written directly into the mainframe. He was using it to grant himself root administrator privileges, but he could just as easily have used it to insert a logic bomb that would wipe hundreds of thousands of phones, steal customers’ identity details, or flood their email addresses with spam. It always amazed him that companies could be so lax about a portal into their systems which they themselves had created, yet buffer overflows were amongst the most common vulnerabilities on the net.

  As he waited for the code he’d written to turn up Mia’s phone records, he considered the various messages he’d received purporting to be from her. Some barely made sense, which was why he’d disregarded them at first. That had been a mistake, he now realised. If someone had really compromised her Carnivia account, it made the hack he was performing now look like child’s play. The messages would have a meaning; or if not, their very lack of meaning would form part of their intended purpose.

  He grouped them together on his screen. The first one said, in English:

  Let no one have contempt for your youth, but set an example for those who believe.

  Next came several emails describing procedures for dealing with captured prisoners, including the one headed: “Dan, a generic description of the process”. The latest, which had arrived only twenty or so minutes ago, was headed “Update”:

  The captors conduct an initial interview in a relatively benign environment and fashion. The captors take an open, non-threatening approach but can rely on non-specific fears, such as by asking, “You know what can happen to you here?” The captive may be offered clothing or other inducements in return for cooperation.

  Taken together, these techniques reduce the captive to a baseline. Establishing this baseline state is important to demonstrate to the captive that she has no control over basic human needs.

  The threshold question is whether this behaviour is so egregious, so outrageous, that it may fairly be said to shock the contemporary conscience.

  As he read, another message arrived from the same account. Immediately, he clicked on it. It said simply:

  Daniele, your website is pathetic. I’ve seen better security on a nightclub VIP rope.

  The first message, he quickly discovered by typing it into Google, was a quote from the Bible. Specifically, it was Timothy 4:12, the version used in American schools. The repeated phrase about “shocking the contemporary conscience”, however, was a legal one. According to Wikipedia:

  “Shocks the conscience” is a phrase used as a legal standard in the United States and Canada. An action is understood to “shock the conscience” if it is perceived as manifestly and grossly unjust, typically by a judge, and thus violates the due process requirement of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

  The remainder of the emails appeared to be extracts from a leaked U.S. government document on extraordinary rendition, the CIA procedure in which terrorist suspects were abducted in one country, then flown to another for interrogation – not least, to avoid the legal implications of the Fourteenth Amendment.

  Why would someone go to the lengths of getting his attention by hacking into a secure email account, only to send him an American government memorandum on rendition? It was clearly some kind of puzzle, designed to tease and provoke him – which meant, in turn, that it might well be a riddle without a solution, left deliberately opaque by its creator.

  On the other hand, Daniele reflected, even if someone thought they were writing gibberish, the gibberish they chose to write could still tell you a lot about them.

  The computer chimed, alerting him to the fact that it had succeeded in accessing Mia’s phone records. He switched his attention to the rows of entries on the screen. Perhaps there was something here that would make sense of it.

  FIFTEEN

  PIOLA DROVE THROUGH an iron gate topped with barbed wire and past a row of crumbling wooden huts. A sign announced that this was Internment Camp 73. Underneath, in smaller letters, it said: “Twelve thousand men, women and children passed through these gates en route for Nazi concentration camps, punishment battalions and forced-labour factories.”

  Trevisano had said there might be some photographs of Max Ghimenti in the archives of the Resistance Museum at the old Carpi Internment Camp, and although it would, strictly speaking, add little to the evidence, Piola knew all too well the value of such visual aids when it came to convincing a prosecutor that a crime was worth pursuing.

  The museum – or, as it now called itself, the Visitor Education Centre – was a gleaming modernist extravaganza held up by steel girders as dramatically twisted as the strands of sugar in a Venetian dessert; a curious contrast with the decaying wooden huts around it. Another sign, rather larger than the first, thanked Costruttori Conterno for their generous support in providing it. It was odd, Piola thought, how that name was suddenly cropping up in so many places. But then he checked himself. Of course, it wasn’t cropping up any more than usual: it was simply that today he was noticing the heraldic griffin and regal typeface more than he usually did. One had to be careful not to see patterns that weren’t really there.

  Inside, the Centre had the hushed feel of an art gallery or a private bank. Piola explained his mission to the elegantly dressed woman behind reception, who made a call and told him an archivist would look into it.

  While he waited he wandered round the foyer display, entitled “Industry at War”. It was, he soon realised, simply a payback to Conterno for their sponsorship. Expensively put together, with old black-and-white photographs blown up to billboard size, it told the story of the war years from the firm’s perspective; specifically, that of Ambrogino Conterno, its founder. There was a grainy shot of the tractors Ambrogino had been manufacturing before war broke ou
t, then a portrait of the man himself, standing proudly next to a prototype racing car. A caption read: “Like many Italian industrialists, the young Ambrogino was forced to help the German war effort. His factory was moved to the caves under the hills at Longare, out of range of Allied bombs, where it produced aircraft parts and armaments for the Nazis. Having seen at first hand the conditions endured by forced-labour gangs, Ambrogino secretly began to help the Resistance.”

  The next picture showed Ambrogino with a detachment of cheering partisans. At the right was a tall, stooping man in American military uniform. “Ambrogino Conterno with partisans of the Trentino Brigade on Liberation Day, together with Major Robert ‘Bob’ Garland of OSS.”

  Piola stopped. So that was his suspect. He peered at the American’s face, but the photograph was too lacking in definition to give any sense of the man’s personality. Further along, he found some more pictures of Garland. One showed him amongst a larger group, including Conterno, dressed in robes as if for some religious ceremony. The caption read: “Ambrogino Conterno and his partisan colleagues in Rome, April 1948, on the occasion of their induction into the Order of Melchizedek, an ancient chivalric and charitable order of the Catholic Church.” In an adjacent cabinet were laid out the actual robes Ambrogino was wearing in the photograph, along with various medals and other honours. Many, Piola noticed, featured the same emblem: a cross, the down-bar of which ended in the point of a sword, and the motto “Fidei in Fortitudo”.

  The Order of Melchizedek… He’d come across that name before, during the ill-fated investigation with Captain Tapo, the one that had started with a dead woman wearing the robes of a priest and had ended with the revelation that NATO and the Vatican, amongst others, had been secretly stoking the civil wars that followed the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. The Order hadn’t been implicated in those crimes, though; or at least, not directly – he only remembered them now because of a turn of phrase Kat had used when looking at their website: something about how Italians were suckers for snobbery and ceremony when combined in the name of charity.

  “Here you are.” He turned. The receptionist was coming towards him, holding an envelope.

  “Thank you. Would it be possible to get copies of these as well?” He indicated the display in front of him.

  Reaching behind him, she handed him a glossy brochure from a stack. “It’s all in there. And a CD as well.” She turned her attention to where a group of schoolchildren were surging through the doors.

  Opening the envelope as he walked back to his car, he found it contained three photographs. The first showed a handsome young partisan holding a rifle, a bag of ammunition dangling insouciantly from his other hand. Piola peered closer. The reason the bag appeared to dangle like that was because it was looped over his wrist. The left hand was curled inwards, a useless claw. Below the photograph the caption said: “Massimilio ‘Max’ Ghimenti, commander, Marostica Brigade. At its height the brigade numbered over two thousand partisans. Their many achievements included the destruction of bridges, roads and other infrastructure used by the Germans.”

  The next photograph showed Ghimenti with three other young men, their arms looped around each other’s shoulders. All were grinning for the camera. Their chests were bare, but each still wore his red neckerchief. “‘Max’ Ghimenti with other officers of the Marostica Brigade, summer 1944, shortly before they were captured in an ambush and deported to the death camps.”

  Puzzled, Piola turned back to the brochure the receptionist had given him, and found the picture of the men in ceremonial robes. One was the same man as the partisan Max Ghimenti had his left arm around. He compared the two faces side by side, just to be sure. Definitely the same. Whoever the man was, he appeared to be proof that at least one partisan had survived the ambush.

  Not for the first time that day, Piola wondered if he were mad to try to investigate Ghimenti’s death. Quite apart from the practical difficulties of doing so, the war had claimed the lives of over a quarter of a million soldiers and two hundred thousand civilians in Italy alone. Only a few academics like Trevisano could possibly be interested in this one small incident amongst so much slaughter.

  And yet Piola had an old-fashioned view that, just as every human being had the right to a proper burial, so every victim of violence had the right to justice. What had Fallici said? “We must ensure that this unfortunate individual receives the same respect in death as any other citizen.” Empty words, perhaps, in the mouth of a politician, but that didn’t make them any less true. The fact that the crime had happened so long ago, at a time when all of Europe was engaged in killing, only made the choice more stark: when there was no reason to investigate other than principle, not to do so would be a clear betrayal of that principle.

  But ultimately, he knew, it would be up to a prosecutor, not him, to determine what resources would be assigned to the investigation. And as Saito had said, few would think it a matter worth expending much energy on. Piola would have to assemble his case quickly, and well, before it was subjected to a colder scrutiny than his.

  SIXTEEN

  HOLLY WAS MAKING enquiries with Kat among the Elstons’ neighbours when Daniele called back. “I’ve got the phone details,” he said without preamble.

  “And?”

  “I take it you know how these things work? Basically, whenever your phone’s turned on, a switching centre sends it small packets of data to find out which mast it’s nearest to. The phone companies only keep that information for twenty-four hours – unless you make or receive a call. Then they attach it to your billing record. Mia’s phone was turned off just before midnight on Saturday, but she’d received a text a few minutes before.”

  “Suggesting she was meeting someone?”

  “I guess so. Anyway, it means we can identify the cell she was in at the time.” Daniele hesitated. “Where are you, Holly?”

  “Just outside Camp Ederle. Why?”

  “Her phone was switched off just to the south of the sector you’re in now.”

  Holly digested this. “We have an idea that wherever she went, it might have had something to do with Carnevale. If you’re at a computer, can you see if there were any events listed just south of here?”

  “Maybe that’s what he meant,” Daniele said slowly.

  “Who?”

  “‘I’ve seen better security on a nightclub VIP rope’ – that was one of the messages the hacker sent me.” She could hear the click of his keyboard. “There’s a nightclub less than a kilometre to the south of you. Club Libero.” He clicked again. “According to its website, it’s a club privé. And it just held a special party night for Carnevale.”

  The area south of Ederle was flat and featureless, a sprawling suburb of industrial buildings and retail units. Club Libero’s entrance was down a side road, tucked between a motorbike shop and a warehouse selling swimming-pool parts. If they hadn’t had the address, they’d have gone straight past.

  “Not the most glamorous location,” Holly commented.

  “On the other hand, no problems with neighbours,” Kat said. “I bet this area’s deserted after dark.”

  Their banging eventually produced a cleaner. “We need to speak to someone in charge,” Kat told her. The woman hurried off, returning a few minutes later with a man in his thirties.

  “I’m the owner,” he said. “Edoardo Pagnotto. How can I help?”

  “We’re looking for a missing teenager. Her phone was last used in this area on Saturday, just after midnight.” Kat showed the photograph of Mia.

  Edoardo frowned. “Saturday was a big night for us. But we operate an over-21 door policy.”

  “She may have had fake ID. Look, we’re not accusing you of anything. But if you have any information that could help us, you should tell us immediately.”

  “As a private club, we have to make everyone sign in. We can check the list, if you like.”

  They followed him into the reception area. There was a long counter, and a side room cont
aining rows of lockers. Apart from the CCTV camera over the door, it looked, Holly thought, more like a private gym than a nightclub.

  “What’s she called?” Edoardo said, opening a ledger.

  “Mia Elston.”

  After a moment he shook his head. “Not here.”

  “Again, she may have used a false name.”

  Edoardo looked up, suddenly thoughtful. “There is one thing.” He gestured towards the side room. “We provide lockers for our guests. They keep the key with them, on a bracelet, then give it back when they leave. Occasionally people forget, so we have someone on the door, checking no one’s still wearing a bracelet when they go. Usually that works fine. But there’s still one locker from Saturday that hasn’t been opened. I thought whoever it was would come back when they realised, so I haven’t opened it.”

  “You’ve got a master key?”

  He nodded.

  “Let’s open it, then.”

  Producing a key, Edoardo led the way to the lockers and fitted it into the only door that was closed. As it swung open, Kat and Holly craned to see inside.

  A coat, a small bag, a wallet. And a mobile phone in a pink case.

  Kat reached for the wallet. Inside was a University of Milwaukee student card with Mia’s photo, giving her name as Mia Cooper and her date of birth as 1992.

  “Looks like she managed to buy some better ID after all,” Holly said quietly.

  Kat looked at Edoardo. “We’ll need to go through your door tapes.”

  “Of course. I’ll call the man who looks after our security.” He got out his phone.

  While he was calling, Holly went back to the reception desk, her eye caught by a big bowl of what she’d assumed were sweets. “Kat,” she said carefully. “Are these what I think they are?”