She swapped the heels for some Timberland deck shoes, and told herself it was unconventional.
She got to Ca’ Barbo around eight. It took four pulls at the bell, and several minutes, before Daniele appeared, dressed in his usual attire of sweatshirt and sneakers. She’d never seen an Italian man dress as casually as he did; but then, Daniele wasn’t like most men, let alone most Italians.
He gave so little sign of recognising her that she actually felt the need to remind him who she was. “Daniele? It’s me – Holly?”
“Of course. Come in.” He didn’t kiss her on both cheeks, as most Venetians would. She wondered if that was because of his deformities; if he liked to keep people at a distance from the missing ears and truncated nose that were the legacy of his own kidnap.
He led the way up to the first floor. Ca’ Barbo wasn’t big – indeed, it was probably no wider than a New York brown-stone – but it was beautiful. Huge oak rafters supported a painted ceiling, and the floor was a geometric pattern of tiles that put her in mind of Escher. There were also some remarkable artworks dotted around, mostly from the twentieth century. Daniele’s father had sold off the family’s Old Masters to invest in modern artists, before bequeathing his entire collection, and the palace itself, to the art foundation that now bore his name. For his part, Daniele had sold the furniture – the only part of Ca’ Barbo he actually owned – to fund the creation of Carnivia, filling the palace with cheap, functional pieces from IKEA instead. It made for a strange combination.
He took her into the old music room. It was warmer than the rest of the palazzo, heated not by a stove or radiators but by the four NovaScale servers ranged along one wall, their lights flickering in complex combinations. Cheap roller blinds hung between the marble barley-twist columns of the windows. A bottle of prosecco and two glasses appeared to be the only concession to the fact that this was meant to be a date.
“I brought you a gift.” She handed him an A4-sized frame. Inside it was an equation.
K := { (i, x)
“The Turing Paradox,” he said, nodding. “That’s a great one. Thank you.”
“I looked it up on the net. Turing invented the computer, didn’t he? And this was one of the equations that made it all possible.”
Holly was one of the few people who knew, from her previous work with him, that Daniele Barbo’s equivalent of his father’s priceless art collection was to decorate the walls of Ca’ Barbo with his favourite equations – which to him were just as beautiful, and just as profound, as any painting.
“I just got another message,” he said, changing the subject with his customary abruptness. “That makes two in the last hour.”
“Can I see them?”
He pointed to one of the screens. She went and read the email that was open there.
From: Mia Elston
Subject: Torture?
“Any fixed position which is maintained over a long period of time ultimately produces excruciating pain. After 18 to 24 hours of continuous standing, there is an accumulation of fluid in the tissues of the legs. This dependent edema is produced by the extravasation of fluid from the blood vessels. The prisoner’s ankles and feet swell up to twice their normal circumference. The edema may rise up the legs as high as the middle of the thighs. The skin becomes tense and extremely painful. Large blisters develop, which break and exude water serum…
“The accumulation of body fluid in the legs produces impairment of the circulation. The heart rate increases, and fainting may occur. Eventually there is renal shutdown, and urine production ceases. The subjects develop a delirious state, characterized by disorientation, fear, delusions, and visual hallucinations. As urea and other metabolites accumulate in the blood, the prisoner experiences agonizing thirst.”
“Jesus,” she said when she’d finished.
“I did a search – it’s from a Defense Department research paper, written back in the Cold War,” he said. “Ironically, it seems it was the communists who developed most of these techniques. At the same time as Stalin was ordering that men confess to plotting against him, he was also insisting that communism meant respect for the working man, and thus no torture. His secret police had to find ways of torturing people that didn’t look like torture… The CIA studied what they did, and turned the results into a training programme on how to resist those techniques.”
“SERE,” she said. “Search-Evade-Resist-Escape. I did the basic level myself – all officer cadets do.”
He nodded. “When President Bush demanded harsh interrogations after 9/11, it was the SERE psychologists he turned to. So the techniques that were developed during the paranoia about communism are now being used in the paranoia about terrorism. The wheel goes full circle.”
“And the other message?”
He clicked on the screen.
From: Mia Elston
Subject: Torture?
So, Daniele, I take it you’ve found my little Easter egg. Now you have a decision to make, don’t you? Close Carnivia down, and stop the show. Or sit back and watch, like the voyeur you are. What’s it to be? I think I know which you’ll choose. The trouble is, people aren’t going to like it, are they? Maybe they’ll decide it shouldn’t be up to you any more. Maybe this is goodbye Carnivia.
“What does he mean by ‘Easter egg’?” she asked.
“It’s a gaming term – a hidden surprise that can only be unlocked by highly skilled players.” He gestured at the screen. “He’s referring to that last film of Mia. Inadvertently, I was the one who unlocked it.”
He looked so pained that she asked, “Are you all right?”
“I feel like I’m torturing her myself,” he said quietly. “Like I’m helping them, somehow.” He looked directly at her. “What should I do?”
“You mean, should you close Carnivia? You’d really do that?”
“I believe in the freedom of the internet,” he said. “But that shouldn’t mean the freedom to do this. Perhaps it’s time to admit that people will always use liberty for evil, not good.”
“Wait – let’s just think this through. It’s like there are two different voices in these messages, isn’t it? There’s the kidnappers themselves – they want Carnivia to stay open; it’s the only way they can achieve their objectives. But then there’s this other voice that seems to be taunting you, almost as if he wants you to shut it down. For him, it’s like the main objective isn’t Mia at all. It’s to draw Carnivia, and you personally, into what’s going on.”
“Yes. The tone is different.” He said it hesitantly, as if tone were a concept he had only recently discovered. Then he nodded. “Of course. They must have recruited a freelance.”
“A freelance? Is that possible?”
“Oh, yes. In Carnivia today, you can hire a hacker as easily as my ancestors could find a killer on the Rio Terrà Assassini. But you have to be careful. The hacker may well think himself cleverer than you – in fact, he undoubtedly is cleverer than you. He’ll certainly have no hesitation in using whatever you’ve employed him for to pursue his own agenda.”
“Which is…?”
“In this case, perhaps, to prove that he’s cleverer than Daniele Barbo.” He glanced at the servers. “It isn’t just governments who object to Carnivia’s independence. There are hackers who would love to take it down.”
“Why?”
“Kudos. In that world, the prestige that would come from being the first to hack a website like Carnivia would be enormous. And this hacker is good – very good. Already he’s sniffed out weaknesses that even I didn’t know existed.”
“So who is he? Is there a way to flush him out?”
He went to the long table and, pulling up a chair, began to type.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m crowdsourcing your question.”
She leaned over his shoulder. On the screen was the familiar Carnivia home page – a smiling mask and the words “Enter Carnivia”. But now there was also some text.
> Fellow Carnivians,
A Carnivia user in Italy has been taken – kidnapped from her family in protest at the construction of a US Army base.
The kidnappers appear to have recruited an accomplice on Carnivia. Some of you may know who that person is. If so, I need you to tell me.
Daniele Barbo
“You should add a link to the messages he sent you. Perhaps here?” She pointed. “And maybe mention the films, and the webcast.”
He typed some more. “There. That’s done.”
Reading the revised text over his shoulder, she felt him tense. Looking down, she saw that a strand of her hair was brushing his neck, just below the severed stump of his ear.
He glanced up at her. His gaze immediately slid away – he rarely held eye contact for long in any situation – but she sensed, in the suddenly charged atmosphere, that this was different.
She straightened, and the moment passed.
Daniele turned back to the screen. “I’ve never intervened before,” he said quietly. “It feels like crossing a line.”
“Maybe there’s a middle way.”
“What do you mean?”
“If there was some way of giving the authorities what they need,” she said slowly. “That is, some information about the kidnappers – but without letting it be generally known. And it wouldn’t just be to save Mia. They might be able to get this hacker off your back, too.”
He shook his head. “A principle isn’t a principle if you’re prepared to drop it the moment circumstances change. Those who care about the freedom of the internet will see that message and try to help.”
A pulse of blue light strafed the room.
“What’s that?” she said, suddenly fearful. Crossing to the window, she saw three blue-and-white “Polizia” motorboats chugging rapidly towards Ca’ Barbo’s landing stage. “Daniele, there are police launches coming this way. What will you do?”
“I don’t know. Stall them, if I can.” He turned back to his computer and typed some more.
The sound of splintering wood from downstairs suggested that stalling was unlikely to be an option for long. Within moments, it seemed, the room had filled with men wearing full riot gear. But it was a woman in plain clothes who stepped forward, brandishing a piece of paper.
“Inspector Pettinelli, CNAIPIC,” she said. Daniele raised his eyebrows. Amongst hackers, Holly knew, the National Computer Crime Centre for Critical Infrastructure Protection was generally considered something of a joke. “I’m authorised to take Carnivia offline.” She glanced at the NovaScales. “Those are the servers, I take it?”
“If you don’t know what those machines are, Inspector,” Daniele said calmly, “I’m certainly not going to help you.”
“I may not have your coding expertise. But I know how to pull out a plug,” she assured him. She went around the back of the servers, searching for the power supply.
Holly’s heart was in her mouth. She’s only shutting down a computer, she told herself; but a part of her felt that it was much more than that. All those millions of users whose avatars would be extinguished – it felt, strangely, like a kind of murder.
Inspector Pettinelli flicked a switch. On the screen in front of Daniele, the image of the grinning mask went blank.
Then, seconds later, faded back up.
Like everyone else in the room, Holly turned towards the NovaScales. They were still without power.
Only Daniele and Inspector Pettinelli appeared to understand what was happening. “So you have a mirror site,” she said.
“Sites,” he corrected her. “More than one.”
“But not many. I’ve seen your bank transactions. You can’t afford multiple hostings.” She was watching him closely. “And I can’t see you entrusting a Carnivia mirror to some random regime on the other side of the world. You’ll want them close at hand. Somewhere you think is safe.”
Daniele didn’t answer.
“Well, wherever they are, I will trace them. And I will take them offline.”
“I’ll see you in court, Ispettore,” he said.
Pettinelli shook her head. “You’re going to see a great deal of me, but it won’t be in court. Under anti-terrorism legislation I am authorised to take you into preventative detention. You are not under arrest and you will not be charged, but you will remain in custody until we are satisfied that your liberty no longer poses a threat to this country’s security. Daniele Barbo, you’re coming with me.”
THIRTY-SIX
ALDO PIOLA WENT to retrieve his car from the multi-storey at Tronchetto for the drive back to the mainland. It had been a long day, and he knew there would be many even longer days to come, but his mind was not now on the kidnap so much as the conversation he had to have with his wife when he got home.
He had promised Gilda that he would never again be alone with Kat Tapo. That meant not working with her, let alone having dinner with her. And it was no use, he thought ruefully, trying to pretend that conversations about work were different. It was precisely because work was different, because he and Kat had shared the all-consuming intensity of a big investigation, that their affair had started in the first place. If only work were more like the mundane, banal reality of marriage and parenthood – the daily grind of laundry and shopping and homework, and telling the kids not to look at their phones at the table – it would probably never have happened.
But Kat was also the best junior officer he’d ever worked with, and he, like her, needed someone to bounce ideas off. The problem with a case as big as this one was that you could end up as no more than a tiny cog in a massive machine, feeding it with scraps of evidence but never seeing the big picture.
For Mia’s sake he needed to work with Kat. For the sake of his marriage, he needed to be honest with his wife.
Gilda would have to understand that this was a purely professional decision. And then, after the case was over, he’d put in for a transfer. It would probably mean moving to Milan or Rome, which would be a wrench for the children. But they’d make new friends soon enough, and it would be a new beginning for Gilda and him. Perhaps he could even wangle Genoa, where her parents lived. That would be the deal he would offer her, although he wouldn’t put it in exactly those terms: he would work with Kat again now, but it would be for the last time.
Without being aware of it, he sighed. Although not a native of Venice, he had come to love this strange, stinking city. Of course, it was full of tourists in the summer, and flooded in winter, but there was something about these mist-filled canals, the improbable Byzantine palaces that floated up out of the black depths of the lagoon as if built by mermaids, that spoke to something poetic in his own soul. In Venice, it was possible to think a man could be a hero. In Milan or Genoa, he suspected, life would be more prosaic.
His phone buzzed. Pulling it out, he saw it was simply reminding him that he had a message. Whoever had called earlier, when he was in the restaurant, had left a voicemail.
Retrieving it, he heard a woman’s voice. “Colonel, it’s Dottora Iadanza. I wanted to tell you that I’ve been in contact with Professor Trevisano, as you suggested, and we think we’ve found something rather interesting. Could you call me back?”
This time it was him who got voicemail. He left her a message in turn saying he’d try again tomorrow. Then he started his engine and headed across the Ponte della Libertà, over the misty waters of the lagoon, towards Gilda.
THIRTY-SEVEN
AT HOME IN her apartment, Kat logged on to Carnivia and read Daniele’s appeal. The final paragraph now read:
As I write this, the police are downstairs. I have no doubt they will try to take Carnivia offline. I have taken steps to prevent this from happening, but no website is proof against a determined government. If they succeed in closing us down today because of this one case, tomorrow there will be another, and then another. The future of Carnivia is in the balance.
Looking up the anti-terrorism act, she discovered that the authorities coul
d keep Daniele detained without charge for as long as they wished. The measure had been described as a last resort when it was introduced, but without legal precedent to define it, it seemed no one could say what that actually meant.
Kat doubted if anyone in authority really cared whether shutting down Carnivia would help or hinder the search for Mia. The media had demanded action, and since leaving the website up would look like inaction, closing it down had seemed the better alternative.
But then, she found herself on a different side of this debate from Daniele. Whether or not to close down Carnivia was, for her, a pragmatic question. Of course freedom of speech was generally a good thing, and censorship bad – but if what you were censoring included child pornography, drug deals and stolen credit card details, what was the big deal? In her professional capacity she’d had to watch films depicting sexual violence against women so sickening, it was impossible to think that any person who was aroused by watching them should be allowed to go on doing so. Daniele, she knew, would say that no individual should have the power to make such a complex moral judgement. But she wasn’t sure that Daniele’s moral universe was a place she particularly wanted to live in.
Out of habit, she checked her messages. Because she was now logged on to Carnivia, they included anything she’d been sent as Columbina7759. Some were alerts that new gossip had been uploaded about people she knew – since Carnivia could glean from your computer who you worked with and who your Facebook friends were, it could also alert you to any rumours that were circulating about them. Some were messages from strangers who’d come across her profile on Married and Discreet. Three, though, were from Riccardo, the last man she’d hooked up with. She scanned the headers:
The Abduction: A Novel Page 17