The Absolution (9 page)

“
GATE OPENS IN
approximately twenty minutes,” the check-in clerk said, sliding Holly's boarding pass and passport across the counter. “Have a great flight to Italy, Second Lieutenant.”

Holly nodded her thanks. The last time she'd made this journey in uniform, the clerk at JFK had added a fulsome thank you “for the amazing job you guys do to keep America safe”. That had been during the so-called Surge, when people were feeling more optimistic about the war on terror. Since the long, slow withdrawal from Afghanistan – a defeat only loosely masquerading as a victory – ordinary civilians hadn't been quite so supportive. Or perhaps it was the revelations of whistleblowers like Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden that had eaten away at their certainties.

On the other hand, serving military still got to use Delta's First Class lounge free of charge. She found herself a space among the businessmen tapping at their laptops and pulled out her father's memorandum again. She'd read the three double-spaced pages more than a dozen times now, googling every reference. It was hard going in places: her father had been writing for an audience familiar with the shadowy codenames, military acronyms and long-dismantled committees that he referred to. It was also clear that Andreotti's announcement to the Italian parliament about the existence of the
Gladio network had taken NATO's military intelligence by surprise: her father described a state of near panic as they scrambled to roll up the organisation before the Italian media got to it. But it was another section in the memorandum that she kept coming back to.

It was Gianluca Boccardo, a neighbour of mine and brother Mason, who first spoke to me about an influx of new members at our lodge. He asked whether I, as an American officer, could tell him if there was any truth in what some of them were claiming: that they were members of a paramilitary network dedicated to saving Italy from the left, and that following their betrayal by Prime Minister Andreotti they had been ordered to regroup in this manner and await further instructions.

I knew Signor Boccardo to be a reliable man, not inclined to jump at shadows, so made it my business to ascertain whether what he had told me was true. The new members, in turn, immediately recognised me as one of those who had been involved in Gladio and – to my consternation – began to speak openly with me about what they called “the crypsis”.

“Crypsis”, she knew, was a term used in the intelligence world for anything that concealed a person from detection, from a sniper's camouflage jacket to a field agent's cover story.

This plan, they said, had been suggested at the very highest level, quite possibly by “Caesar” himself. I formed the impression that this was an informal
nickname rather than a NATO codeword, since that name had never cropped up in any of the reports that passed across my own desk.

Without exception these men had nothing but scorn for the NATO command, which was, they said, abandoning them now that NATO's own objectives had been achieved, whilst leaving Italy itself in a state of political chaos, ineffectual government, and deeply entrenched corruption.

“Delta Airlines Flight 169 to Venice,” a metallic voice high in the roof girders interrupted. “Please proceed to Gate 18.” Holly blinked. She'd been staring at her father's words for over thirty minutes.

He'd taken the rudimentary precaution of making a copy of his report. It struck her that she should do the same. She went over to the desk. “Do you have a photocopier here? And envelopes?”

“Of course.” The attendant pointed towards a business centre to one side of the lounge.

Going to the machine, she made two copies. Then she noticed something. The machine was a modern one that offered a range of options, from printing documents to sharing them on Facebook.

She pressed the menu on the touch screen, and from the options selected “Email”.

THE NEXT DAY
, too, dawned bright and hot. Even at 8 a.m. Kat could feel the sun's heat searing her face, and once again she was grateful to be escaping the humidity and stink of Venice for a few hours. She thought of one of her favourite Venetian sayings:
D'istà, anca i stronsi gaégia
, ‘In summer, even the turds float.' It was used to describe the way a mediocre person could shine when surrounded by other mediocrities, but it also contained a literal truth about her native city: at this time of year, every canal and
rio
gave off a faint whiff of warm sewage.

With no excuse to turn on the blue light, she piloted the Carabinieri motorboat a little more sedately today. But it was also because she was in a reflective mood. Freemasons, Catholic banks, money laundering . . . and, if Father Calergi was right, politics as well. In Italy it seemed there were always these shadowy forces at work, the tentacles of corruption reaching so deep into ordinary life that they became almost invisible; until, that is, the tentacles gave a slight squeeze, and ordinary life was shattered. Small wonder that most people didn't try to fight those forces when they came across them, but simply turned a blind eye, or stuck their own hand out for a share of the action. But exactly who was being corrupted here? And who or what, besides the unfortunate Cassandre, was its true target?

It took twenty minutes to reach La Grazia, the island that Count Tignelli had bought. As she approached, she could see that it contained pretty woods of tamarisk and pine as well as vineyards and a formal walled garden. All were immaculate. There was a newly built granite sea wall to protect against flooding, and the jetty was of new oak, lined with brass rails. Clearly, money had been no object. Beyond a long, sloping lawn stood the former convent after which the island was named. Once little more than a ruin, it had been heavily rebuilt by its new owner. Its Gothic marble-framed windows were turned towards the city across the water, a Venetian palace in all but name.

She tied up to a huge brass ring set into the mouth of a carved lion, one of several positioned along the jetty. Next to her, a sleek eighty-foot yacht, a rich man's plaything, made the Carabinieri boat look as tiny as a dinghy. Beyond it was a smart private launch, the kind of thing a luxury hotel might use to ferry guests around. Unless you were a Venetian, and knew the subtle differences, you might well have mistaken it for a water taxi.

As she stepped onto land, a stocky man in a dark blazer, crisp white shirt and dark tie appeared from between the trees. A curly wire ran from his collar to his ear.

“May I help you?” he asked politely.

“I've come to speak to Count Tignelli,” she replied, equally polite. She'd worn her Carabinieri uniform for this trip. Although homicide investigators usually wore plain clothes, she'd decided it would do no harm to keep things more formal.

“May I ask what it concerns?”

“A murder investigation.”

The man's expression didn't change. “Please wait here.”

Within minutes he was back. “The count apologises that he's too busy to come to the house. But he would be pleased to speak with you at the
peschiera
. Please follow my colleague.”

He beckoned to a second, equally muscular bodyguard, who accompanied her down an immaculate path. There were water sprinklers everywhere, even on the helipad she glimpsed through the trees, and all around a small army of gardeners were trimming, weeding and cutting. One was carefully clipping the grass around a statue of an athlete holding a golden rod. The face seemed somehow familiar.

“The Emperor Napoleon,” the bodyguard said, seeing her looking at it. “He rejected that particular statue because the sculptor had tried to be too flattering. After Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington had it displayed at his residence in London, as a reminder of the greatest opponent he ever faced in battle. Count Tignelli acquired it five years ago for his collection.” The man recited all this as if he had said it many times before, an anecdote to entertain guests.

She recalled the archivist mentioning that Napoleon had a connection with Freemasonry. “What collection is that?” she asked.

“Count Tignelli has one of the most extensive collections of Napoleonic memorabilia in private hands.” The bodyguard nodded. “Please go ahead.”

By the edge of a large stone-walled basin that jutted into the lagoon, two figures were engaged in animated conversation. The taller of the two looked like a workman. The shorter man was giving him orders, gesturing at the basin with quick, sweeping gestures. He was about fifty, quite stocky, his thinning hair brushed forward over his temples. As he turned, Kat
saw that he was actually even smaller than he'd first appeared, his riding boots – which were presumably only for show, here in the middle of the lagoon – built up to give him a few extra inches. She wondered if that was why he had a flattering statue of the famously short Napoleon.

“What do you want, Captain?” Count Tignelli's greeting as he turned towards her was as abrupt as the bodyguard's had been polite.

She decided to be equally blunt. “I'm investigating a murder that took place two nights ago. The body of a man named Alessandro Cassandre was discovered yesterday morning on the Lido.”

“And why do you think I can help you?”

“First, because the body was almost certainly moved by boat from a location not far from here. I'm wondering whether you or any of your staff saw anything.”

“And secondly?” he said, without bothering to answer her first question.

“Secondly, because the death appears to be connected with Freemasonry. I understand that's an interest of yours?”

Count Tignelli shrugged. “I collect artefacts relating to the liberator of Venice, Napoleon Bonaparte. He happened to be a supporter of Freemasonry. So yes, you could say that I have a passing interest.”

“The liberator of Venice!” she repeated. To a Venetian, that was not unlike calling Hitler the liberator of Poland. Even today, Napoleon's legacy was still so controversial that when the city museum obtained a statue of him, it had been subjected to a mock trial before it was put on show.

Tignelli nodded; a curt, almost military inclination of the head. “At the time of Napoleon's arrival, Venice was mired in decadence and corruption. Just as it is today, although for
very different reasons. As a Carabinieri officer, you will surely agree with that. But that's as far as my interest extends.”

“So you don't know Signor Cassandre?” she persisted.

The count made a dismissive gesture. “I meet many people. I really couldn't tell you whether any of them share that surname.”

“Do you have an account with Banca Cattolica della Veneziana?”

He looked thoughtful, as if the connection had only just occurred to him. “Oh, of course. There's a Signor Cassandre there I've had some dealings with.”

“That's who's been killed,” she said, watching him closely.

His expression didn't change. “How terrible. I must tell my assistant to send flowers to his family.”

“You know them socially?”

“I really can't recall. Zuane!” he called. “How are you doing?”

“Almost done,” the workman said in a thick Buranese accent.

“This may interest you, Captain, as a fellow Venetian,” Tignelli said, nodding at the basins. “I've been restoring this fish farm to its original condition – a not insubstantial project, given that each basin is lined with over two thousand ancient bricks. Our investigations show that they survived intact for over eight centuries, only to fall victim to damage from cruise ships in the last three decades. I've had to replace over half of them.”

The man he'd addressed as Zuane was opening a sluice gate. A torrent of silver poured into the basin – water, catching the morning sunlight, but in the water, she saw, another kind of silver as well: eels, hundreds of them, released from a holding tank.

“When this was a convent, the nuns would have eaten eel every week,” Tignelli said conversationally. “But the farm actually dates back to Roman times. Did you know, Capitano, that wealthy Romans used to make pets of their favourite eels? They'd decorate them with jewellery, pit them against each other in fights, and feed them on unlucky slaves to increase their ferocity.
Bisati
were one of the things Napoleon liked best about Venice, incidentally. He took the recipe for eel stew back to France, and insisted that his cooks learn how to prepare it the Italian way.”

He called an instruction to Zuane, who reached into the cascade of silver and deftly tossed two eels onto the bank, where they lay for a moment, stunned. Pulling a tattered plastic carrier bag from his pocket, the workman quickly wrapped it over his hand like a glove, grabbed the eels, then turned the bag inside out to trap them.

“For you, Captain Tapo,” Tignelli said, waving Zuane forward. “A small recompense for your wasted journey. So that you can cook
bisato in umido
, and toast the Emperor. But be careful to tie a knot in that bag. They're slippery little creatures.”

“Thank you,” she said, accepting the bag from Zuane. “Though personally I prefer my eel cooked
su l'ara,
with bay leaves. As for not letting it escape, you don't have to tell a Venetian how to deal with an eel, however slippery.”

And as for how Tignelli had known her name, she reflected, when she hadn't actually told him; or that she was a native Venetian; or why he'd been so unbothered by her questions, almost as if he'd known in advance she was coming – that, perhaps, was an even slipperier mystery.

HOLLY CAME OUT
of the Customs Hall at Venice airport and turned right, towards the car-rental booths. The very last booth, discreetly tucked into a corner, bore a small sign: “Welcome, Vicenza Community”.

The first time she'd made this trip, the sign had said “SETAF Personnel Report Here”. But even the vague-sounding acronym of the Southern European Task Force was now deemed insufficiently bland for her employers' purposes.

The desk was no longer manned, either. She followed the instructions taped to the wall and picked up the desk phone. When it was answered, she gave her name and ID number. “You just missed a shuttle, Second Lieutenant,” a voice on the other end said. “There'll be an hour's wait.”

At the coffee shop, she bought herself a
macchiato
and a copy of
Il Giornale
. America was on the front page again. Ever since Edward Snowden had revealed that the US was intercepting data from its biggest internet companies and using it to spy on the rest of the world – an intrusion that, if it had been directed at its own citizens, would have been in breach of the US Constitution – Europe had been smarting. To add insult to injury, as far as the Italian government was concerned, several of the “splitters” were actually located on Italian soil. Three of the internet's busiest underwater cables – SeaMeWe3,
SeaMeWe4 and Flag Europe-Asia – made landfall in Sicily, where there just happened to be a cluster of US signals installations. Over two billion intercepts, the newspaper said, had been forwarded to an Anglo-American facility on Cyprus for analysis.

“Excuse me?” a voice said.

She looked up. The man sitting next to her at the counter gestured at her uniform. “I can't help noticing how many American soldiers there are round here.” His accent was British. A tourist, from the look of his wheeled hand luggage, en route for a weekend in Venice.

“There's a few of us, sure,” she said neutrally.

“How many, if you don't mind my asking?”

“Here in the Veneto? Around five thousand. Ten thousand, if you count the families.”

He looked amazed. “Why so many?”

“Not so long ago, the Iron Curtain was just over there.” She nodded east, towards the lagoon. “If the Russians decided to invade, someone had to stop them.”

“OK. But the Cold War ended twenty years ago. How come you're still here?”

She opened her mouth to reply, then closed it again. How come indeed? Answers flitted into her head, but they weren't ones she could speak out loud.
Because we decided our foreign policies have to be imposed on the rest of the world through force. Because we exchanged the enemy beyond the Urals for the enemy beyond the Bosporus, with barely a beat in between. Because somewhere along the way, we stopped being the optimistic, youthful superpower of old and turned into the weary, paranoid giant we are today.

“There's always bad guys somewhere,” she said lamely. “I guess it saves on gas if we're already in the region.”

A woman came out of the baggage hall, putting away her iPhone. “All done,” she told the man. “Shall we go?”

As they left, he said to Holly politely, “Nice talking to you.”

When they'd gone she exhaled thoughtfully. It struck her that, for the first time in her life, her automatic response hadn't been to spring to the defence of her country.

She was a soldier. More than that, she was an army brat. Growing up around Camp Darby, loyalty had never been a conscious decision so much as part of the air she breathed.

And yet it could only have been someone within the military who had decided to silence her father.

The more she thought about it – and on the plane she'd thought about little else – the more certain she'd become. Only an insider would have had access to his medical records. And only an insider would have had sight of that memorandum.

So her start point had to be whoever he'd given the memorandum to.

I have therefore passed the memorandum to a US intelligence officer of my acquaintance who, I knew, had previously been involved in the neutralisation of terrorist organisations such as the Red Brigades, in the hope that he will be able to distribute it to those best placed to take action.

She sat bolt upright. Pulling out her phone, she made a call. It went straight through to voicemail.

“Daniele, it's Holly,” she said. “I need to speak to you. Call me back, will you?” Just to be sure, she sent a text as well.

She waited twenty minutes to see if he'd reply. Then she
dialled another number. This time it was answered immediately.

“Holly,” an American voice said warmly, before switching to Italian. “
Come stai? Così sei tornata in Italia
?”

“Fine,” she said hesitantly. “I just got back. Look, could we meet?”

A few kilometres away, in the music room of Ca' Barbo, Daniele looked at his phone as it displayed, first, Holly's caller ID, then the voicemail alert, and finally the text.

Holly Boland.

Holly Boland voicemail.

Holly Boland message.

Glancing at the To-Do list still taped on the wall, his eye rested on the second item.

Finish with Holly.

He had slept with the wiry blonde American just once, but the experience had disturbed his dreams for weeks. Sometimes he found himself entertaining crazy fantasies of domesticity, in which they lived together like any other ordinary couple. Then he would catch sight of his face in a mirror – the horribly truncated nose, flat-tipped like a pig's, the white rose buds of scar tissue where his ears had once been: the twin legacies of his childhood kidnap – and he loathed himself. Not for what he looked like, but for his weakness in not accepting that cosy domesticity would never be his lot. Whatever Holly's motives for going to bed with him – and in his bleaker moments he believed she had been pushed into it by his guardian – he knew it hadn't meant the same to her as it had to him.

Reaching for a pencil, he crossed the second item off. Then, abruptly, he pushed back his chair and stood up.