The Traitor (The Carnivia Trilogy) (25 page)

The Fréjus attack, Daniele was sure, had been nothing more than a trial run. But in one week’s time, any of Carnivia’s users who were infected with the worm would become a zombie army, their computers under the hacker’s control.

He was still considering the implications when Max popped up on his screen.

How’s it going?
Max asked.

Gnarly. You?

I’ve been counting worms.
They were pretty sure Domino9859 wasn’t the only user to be infected, but they had no way of knowing how widespread the problem was. Daniele had asked Max to take a random sample of three hundred avatars and examine them, to see if any of those were infected too.

And?

In my sample of 300, I found 52 nasties.

Daniele stared at the screen. Over seventeen per cent! It barely seemed possible. If you scaled up from Max’s sample to the number of registered users, it meant that even on a conservative estimate, around half a million Carnivians had been infected.

How could that happen and us not know about it?

That’s what I thought. So I did a recount.

And?

And by the time I’d finished, there were 58. It’s growing all the time, Daniele. In some way we haven’t yet worked out, the virus is jumping between our users’ computers.

It must be spreading socially, inside Carnivia.
Every interaction, however brief, between Carnivians involved a small exchange of code. The worm must have a tiny self-replicating payload that attached itself to an infected user’s keystrokes. Essentially, the hacker was using each Carnivian he compromised to recruit others. A part of Daniele couldn’t help but admire the neatness of it.

This was no ordinary denial-of-service attack the hacker was planning, he realised. When you put all the parts together – the attack on Fréjus, the jihadist slogans, the sophistication of the worm, the date – there could be only one conclusion.

This was cyberwarfare, and his website – Carnivia – was where the battle lines were being drawn.

F
LAVIO
HAD
BEEN
working late, and Kat was making
risotto alla sbirraglia
, risotto with diced chicken and carrots, which had to be stirred with every ladleful of hot stock or it would not become creamy, and then they were in a hurry to get into bed and enjoy each other before it was time for the bodyguards to come back. Only after their lovemaking was over and they lay tangled in each other’s limbs, the backs of his fingers lightly stroking her shoulder, did she tell him what she’d learnt – that Count Tignelli’s goal appeared to be independence for the Veneto, and as much for personal gain as political belief.

“Vivaldo says there must be more to it than just a referendum that’s proposed and then denied, though. That might make people in the Veneto angry, but it wouldn’t be enough to make them break with Rome. He thinks Tignelli will do something to provoke a state of emergency.” She hesitated. “Avvocato Marcello mentioned that AISI’s interest in Cassandre was linked to terrorism. Could
that
be the pretext – some kind of terror attack?”

“I thought you were insisting that AISI were part of the Masonic conspiracy themselves.”

“Yes, well maybe I was wrong about that,” she admitted. “The more we find out about Tignelli, the more it looks as if he’s trying to break away from Rome, not cosy up with them.”

“We still don’t have any evidence of that,” he warned. “On the other hand, there probably is enough now to question Tignelli in connection with Cassandre’s murder. He had a clear motive to make that deal with the Banca Cattolica, and thus to get rid of anyone who got in the way.” He glanced at her. “It’s difficult. Not least because I have to be absolutely sure that personal feelings have played no part in my decision.”

“I understand.” Aroused by the absent-minded touch of his hand on her arm, she reached around and started rubbing his stomach, feeling the lattice of muscles beneath the skin.

“I’ll sleep on it,” he decided. “And let you know first thing in the morning.”

By way of answer, she kissed his chin, working up the line of his jaw to his earlobe. She could sense him becoming aroused, and moved her hand lower. On the bedside table his phone buzzed and flashed, as if in protest. Groaning, he reached for it.

“They’re here,” he said, looking at the screen. “Damn.”

She didn’t need to ask who. The bodyguards were like the wife in this relationship: duty and security, calling him away from her.

He swung his feet onto the floor. As he reached for his shirt, she stroked his back, for the simple pleasure of touching his skin for a few seconds longer.

He said quietly, “When I said I had to be sure that personal feelings weren’t a factor…”

“Yes?”

“It works two ways, you know. That is, I obviously feel a certain pressure to see things from your point of view. But I also feel the exact opposite, a need to keep our heads below the parapet. To keep you safe. If we were simply to ignore what Vivaldo Moretti told you… No one would ever blame us for not pursuing it.”

“I know,” she whispered.

“We could be in Amsterdam within a couple of months.”

She said nothing. She didn’t tell him that she wouldn’t respect him if he dropped the investigation now, because it wasn’t true. She trusted him to do the right thing, and who was to say, in a situation like this one, what that might be?

“The point is, I mustn’t be influenced either way.” He stood up, then leant down again to kiss her goodbye. “I’ll let you know first thing.”

H
OLLY
’
S
SPIDERGRAM
WAS
begetting a whole family of baby spiders now.

Something Carole Tataro had said to her in the prison interview room came back to her. She added:

“But please don’t tell me I’m any worse than those on the other side of the political spectrum.”

And then:

Was he doing the same thing on the right, with Gladio? Proost refused to answer that.

DEAD END?

But it wasn’t a dead end, she realised; not quite. The regular internet might not have been much use, but she had access to something many times more powerful.

She went to Camp Ederle late that night. But even after midnight, a US base is rarely quiet. The MP on the gate told her it was good to see her back, ma’am; and just walking from the parking lot to the building where her own section, Civilian Liaison, was based, she encountered several other people who recognised her.

The main thing, though, was that her boss, Mike Breedon, wasn’t around. Her desk was much as she’d left it months before, bare and neat, apart from a pile of accumulated mail.

She slid her Common Access Card into the card reader by her computer and booted it up. After entering a clearance code, she was able to access NIPRNet, the Department of Defense’s own intranet, and CREST, the CIA’s Records Search Tool. Because the information she was looking for was more than twenty-five years old, she was hoping it would be readily accessible.

She typed in “Gilroy, Ian”.

For a moment, nothing but the response

Searching.

Then:

ERROR. No records relating to that term.

Frowning, she tried SIPRNet, the NSA’s secure equivalent. Nothing there either.

As a last resort, she logged into JWICS, the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System. Where SIPRNet was cleared for material up to “Secret”, and could be accessed by up to four million trusted allies around the world, JWICS was FAEO, For American Eyes Only.

Gilroy, Ian. 798 records. Refine your search?

She typed “operations”. That got it down to seventy-four documents. She clicked on the first one.

ERROR. You do not have clearance to access this material. Please contact your network administrator or chain of command.

Going back, she typed “personnel, location, based at”.

54 records.

Opening the first document, she found that it was a simple note of which CIA office Gilroy had been working out of in 1974. She clicked the next one. That gave her the same information for 1979.

A thought occurred to her. Using the regular internet, she made a timeline of all the atrocities and assassinations that had characterised the Years of Lead. Then she highlighted the locations.

19 November 1969.
Antonio Annarumma, a policeman, was assassinated during a riot by far-left demonstrators in
Milan
. There was immediate public revulsion, with many commentators denouncing the left.

12 December 1969.
Four separate bombs were planted in
Milan and
Rome
, killing 16 and injuring 90. The Red Brigades were initially accused of what became known as the Piazza Fontana massacre. Later, officials admitted that there was no evidence for this.

In 1969 the young Ian Gilroy, newly arrived in Italy, had been based at the Milan Section, where – according to JWICS – he was assigned to something called Operation Amethyst. By the end of the year, however, the same records showed he’d been travelling regularly to Rome, for something called Operation Beachcomber. The dates corresponded to the period immediately preceding the Piazza Fontana bombing.

31 May 1972.
Massacre of three policemen at
Peteano
, north of
Venice
. Although the Red Brigades were accused of the killings, over a decade later a right-wing activist admitted having planted the explosives.

By 1972 Gilroy was stationed at Venice, where he was running an operation codenamed Clockhouse. All records for Clockhouse ceased abruptly at the end of May.

28 May 1974.
Bombing at Piazza dell Loggia,
Brescia
, west of
Venice
. Killed 8 and wounded 100.

Again, May 1974 saw a flurry of activity in the Venice Section for something called Operation Emerald.

Gilroy had continued to be stationed at Venice during the summer of 1977, when Daniele Barbo had been kidnapped by the Red Brigades. Then, in 1978, he’d moved to Rome.

March 16, 1978.
Christian Democrat leader Aldo Moro kidnapped by the Red Brigades in
Rome
.

Coincidence? Or an indication of something more sinister?

After the end of the Cold War, and the enforced termination of the Gladio network, the Red Brigades had also fallen silent. Until, that is, almost a decade later, when they’d made a sudden resurgence. The last assassination they carried out was as recent as 2003. Shortly afterwards, Ian Gilroy retired from the CIA’s payroll.

Again, was it a coincidence that terrorists were killing people on Italian soil just as America was calling for its allies to join a global war on terror?

Excitement prickled her skin.
I may not have the evidence yet. But I’m building a picture.

She sat back, thinking. Then she pulled a memory stick out of her pocket and downloaded everything.

A message flashed up.

SECURITY WARNING. Downloading classified material may only be carried out with the express permission of your Command. In no circumstances may such material be removed from NSA-approved facilities.

She clicked “Continue”.

Was it just the insubstantial weight of the memory stick in her pocket making her jumpy as she walked back to her car? Every shadow seemed to hide a figure, watching her; every surveillance camera seemed to swivel in her direction. She jumped when a horn blared behind her, but it was only a group of men heading out of the base at high speed and in high spirits for some late-night R&R.

She took a right out of the camp and drove slowly along Viale della Pace, scrutinising her rear-view mirror. There was no one coming after her. But she found those words of her father’s favourite poem echoing in her head, all the same:

This season’s Daffodil,

She never hears,

What change, what chance, what chill,

Cut down last year’s;

But with bold countenance,

And knowledge small,

Esteems her seven days’ continuance

To be perpetual.

Had it been a warning? A prophecy? Or just a statement of the obvious:
with
knowledge comes fear
?

Back in the centre of Vicenza, she parked her car in the usual place, an underground multi-storey. As she got out, she heard footsteps coming up behind her, rubber soles scuffing on rough concrete. She turned, panicking, her hand reaching automatically for the can of pepper spray that, ever since the events in the caves of Longare, she’d carried everywhere she went.

“
Hai qualche monetina?
”