Dante's Key

by G. L. Baron

  He touched the word “call” and waited.

  One ring. Two rings. Three rings… Five rings. When he was about to disconnect, he heard a sleepy voice.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello, it’s Manuel.’

  27

  Paris, January 2nd. 01:12 a.m.

  An icy wind blew across the deserted square of Notre-Dame. The sky was a moonless black dome, the stars as bright as Christmas decorations.

  Hide Tanaka stood motionless, his shoulders illuminated by the cathedral, his hands deep in the pockets of his black coat.

  He was forty-five and considered himself a man of culture. More than a mercenary (his main business) he still loved to consider himself a tenor, although he had not performed in public for years. As a boy, he had shown promise in Kokuritsu Gekijou – the New Opera House in Tokyo – but early on, his passion for weapons had convinced him to leave the world of music.

  For the past ten years, he had run a much more profitable business at the head of Qualcon Services. It was a paramilitary service company, recruiting men from all four corners of the earth. Sometimes, they took care of unofficial rescue missions, usually organizing attacks against uncomfortable dictators upsetting the geopolitical balance in specific areas. In the past, his company had organized the untimely demise of two Somali leaders, some members of Hezbollah, and more than one Syrian rebel.

  It was also probable that his company had organized an attempted coup in Nicaragua, one of his only failures.

  Despite the fact that his operational base was in London, he worked between the Horn of Africa, the Middle East, and South America without difficulty. Wherever action could not be officially recognized by governments, Qualcon Services was available. It intervened, cleaned up and then sent regular invoices.

  His employers were often Western governments, but sometimes even multinationals demanded his services. When he operated for corporations – in most cases, Korean or Japanese – he frequently had to act in Europe or America.

  As in the case of this mission, which unlike the others, was proving to be a failure. The biggest problem was the death of Meredith Evans. An unfortunate collateral effect. It had happened while they were interrogating her. It was an unfortunate accident; things like that could happen in his work. Nonetheless, he was sure that it would give him unforeseen problems.

  He stamped his feet in the cold and at that moment saw a shadow moving slowly across the northwest side of the square.

  They had never met in person. The guy who had put them in touch, however, had guaranteed that Pierre Vadeleux, head of the Ritz’s control room, would respect the agreements.

  Tanaka looked up and stared. The man was approaching. He was alone, just as he had been asked, his gigantic size left him in no doubt that it was him.

  When he was close enough, Vadeleux extended his hand. ‘Mister Hide?’ he asked, his round face smiling. Condensation hung like a cloud in front of him.

  The Japanese smiled, ‘Were you expecting someone else?’

  The fat man shook his head. He looked for a moment at the Basilica’s Gothic facade and then at Tanaka. ‘Have you brought the money?’

  ‘And have you brought the files?’

  The man patted his hands on his coat pocket and showed him the transparent plastic sleeve. ‘From the arrival at the hotel until New Year’s Eve… as you asked.’

  ‘Ok. Give them to me.’ The Japanese took out an envelope from his coat and handed it to the fat man who grabbed it with both hands.

  The man took off his gloves and peered inside. There were some violet five-hundred-euro banknotes.

  He smiled and gave him what he wanted: six Blu-ray discs, containing the recordings of the Ritz’s surveillance cameras.

  The two nodded at each other, and Vadeleux returned to the Seine, where he had come from.

  While he crossed the windy square, he smiled. A no-risk deal; he had made the copies of the video personally and no one had noticed.

  ‘A victimless crime,’ he thought.

  He was wrong.

  28

  Paris, January 2nd. 01:15 a.m.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello, it’s Manuel.’ The professor did not move, he had his mobile phone in his hand, and stood between his suite’s four-poster bed and one of the windows. ‘Were you asleep, cousin?’

  At the other end of the phone there was a long pause. Then a woman whispered something, and finally the voice of Angelo came back. ‘Manuel… do you know what time it is?’

  ‘Sorry Angelo, but I don’t feel well… I didn’t know who to call.’

  The man seemed to wake up. ‘Where are you? What’s wrong?’

  They did not see each other often; their relationship lately was almost exclusively via Facebook. However, they had always been very close. It seemed like one of the few cases where geographical distance did not affect the relationship.

  ‘I’m in Paris. I wanted to ask you for some advice… if we could call it that…’

  ‘What kind of advice?’

  ‘I’m having strange visions…’ Cassini lingered, undecided on the best way to explain what was happening to him. ‘I don’t even know how to define them… they seem almost like memories that suddenly appear. Facts or places, but I don’t remember ever seeing them.’

  ‘Go on…’

  ‘It all started this morning. I suspect that I was drugged… What do you know about memories? Explain how they work? Is it possible that I’m suffering from some kind of amnesia, and things I’ve done are slowly coming back to me?’ His mind went, in that instant, to the gun and Cavalli Gigli who was clutching his neck. It was an extremely sharp memory.

  Angelo was silent. ‘Well… I can only tell you that the experiences we live each day are stored and memorized thanks to the circuits around the hippocampus, in the temporal lobe.’

  ‘Try to be less technical…’

  ‘The information is lateralized, recorded in the cerebral hemispheres. The memories are nothing more than recruitment, recall of the various data that has been saved. – to use computer slang – inside your brain.’

  ‘Does a memory necessarily have to be something that I have seen or done?’

  ‘That’s not easy to answer…’ Angelo cleared his throat, and then he heard the sound of footsteps, as if his cousin had got out of bed to move away from someone who was sleeping. ‘Think, for example, about what you had for breakfast this morning. Immediately your mind compares the image of cappuccinos and croissants, their smells, their taste. It’s an electrical storm discharged in the synapses that generates the memories.’

  ‘But if I see a face, a church or a painting… have I really seen them or can they have been generated… how can I say, from my imagination or from the effect of a drug?’

  ‘Drugs can alter our perceptions. Another explanation could be a post-traumatic stress disorder, typical of those who return from war, so to speak. But theoretically, you should be able to distinguish whether it is a memory of an event, really lived, or something else…’

  Cassini did not answer.

  ‘You have to know the difference… Exactly how you perceive the difference between this phone call and a dream. When you wake up, excluding some normal foggy moments, you know you’ve just had a dream… you don’t wonder whether you’ve really lived it or not.’

  ‘I’m not hallucinating! These are real and proper memories…’ said Cassini.

  ‘Manuel, don’t worry… but as soon as you get back, maybe I should see you. I have a dear friend… he’s one of the hospital’s best neurologists…’

  ‘I’m not sick, Angelo. Someone drugged me and made me do things that I can’t explain… or remember. But they are coming back, bit-by-bit…’

  Angelo paused for a moment. ‘I wouldn’t insist, but…’

  ‘So you’re saying that if I identify them as memories… if I know that they are memories…’ interrupted Cassini,‘then they are memories? They’re things I’ve done… but I can’t man
age to remember them?’

  ‘Manuel, I stopped following you. Personally, I don’t know what happens under the influence of drugs, but if you say you’re sure it is a memory…’

  Cassini rubbed his temple and closed his eyes. Angelo was right; now he was sure. He had no idea what it was he saw, but he certainly had an idea of what a memory was. Exactly as he had in mind the foie gras and onion sauce dinner, he remembered the gun, the car ride and the facade of Santa Maria delle Grazie.

  ‘Thanks, Angelo. Sorry to bother you. You’ve been a great help.’

  Cassini hung up, dismissing his cousin. He was evidently alarmed and looked for a business card in his trousers. He picked it up and dialled the number.

  ‘Already had my steps, though slow, so far into that ancient wood, transported me,’ he muttered to himself, ‘I could not ken the place, Where I had enter’d’.

  He had gone too far forward in that maze of memories, allegations and flashbacks, and just like Dante… he saw no way out.

  Only one person seemed to know more than him…

  At the other end of the phone, the voice was sharp, despite the late hour.

  ‘Hello? Inspector Sforza… it’s Manuel Cassini. I need to talk to you… I think I’m Andrea Cavalli Gigli’s murderer.’

  29

  Paris, January 2nd. 09:05 a.m.

  Hidetoshi Tanaka had established his operative base in a hotel near the Opéra. His suite was on the second floor of a building overlooking Boulevard Haussmann. From the windows one could hear the incessant traffic flowing around the Lafayette galleries.

  He leaned on the sill with a cigarette between his fingers, his eyes focused on the department store’s red canopies. A few flakes of snow began to flutter in the sky. A wave of cold air flooded the room.

  ‘Let’s start over again,’ he grunted in a guttural tone to one of his men, sitting in front of a laptop. ‘Let’s see all their movements from their arrival at the Ritz.’

  ‘They entered the hotel in the early afternoon of the 31st,’ the young man chanted, Japanese like Tanaka, but much younger. It was the third time he had seen the images of the surveillance cameras. ‘They stayed in their room until six o’clock. Then Meredith Al Husayn went to the bar.’

  ‘It will be a breeze…’ thought Hidetoshi. So Edward had assured him… but the reality had proven very different. He would have to ask for more money. ‘Are you sure there are no images of the blonde at that time?’

  The young man shook his head. ‘According to the data we’ve been given, she stayed in the room.’

  ‘She had the device all along. Not the American,’ the boss commented bitterly.

  ‘Here it is. The blonde leaves the room at 8:03. While the American was at the bar, she was in her room.’

  ‘And goes directly to the Espadon…’ groaned Tanaka, putting out the cigarette and returning to the room. Apart from the young man at the computer, there were two other men in black suits, looking tired and sitting on a sofa. ‘We know this. Okay, start again from the bar.’

  The warm and welcoming ambiance of the Bar Hemingway came up on the screen.

  ‘6:35,’ announced the young man drumming on the keyboard buttons. ‘Is this what you wanted to see again? The barman?’

  ‘The blonde got away. The American is dead. I don’t think we have much choice,’ said Tanaka bitterly. ‘If they acted as they did in Rome, he probably still has it on him…’

  ‘Here it is.’ On the screen was the slender figure of Meredith in a black dress and high heels. She turned, looking for someone, and then went towards a young man at the bar. She whispered a few words, smiled, and then placed her fingers on the table, brushing his hand.

  ‘Change camera. Can we see his face better?’ asked the boss.

  A second later, the image on the display showed the scene from a different angle, shooting from above the counter. The two were side-by-side; the woman seemed to be talking amiably, while he was less inclined to conversation.

  ‘Zoom in.’

  The young man zoomed in on the face of the man; he was pale, balding, with a high forehead and brown hair. He had a Martini in front of him and looked like he was reading the bottom of the glass.

  ‘Stop here. What did you say his name was?’

  The computer technician called up one of the other files on the screen and ran his finger through a list of contacts. ‘Manuel Cassini.’

  ‘Is he still at the hotel?’

  ‘According to the information I have here, he should be leaving today.’

  ‘Then let’s not let him get away.’

  30

  Paris, January 2nd. 10:31 a.m.

  The fog that enveloped the Tuileries gardens clung to the skin like a wet sheet. The sky was a grey table, and some snowflakes carried by a cold wind danced in the air, before settling timidly on the octagonal fountain.

  ‘I think I killed him,’ began Cassini. A cloud of condensation rose from his lips. He walked slowly along the central avenue’s pavement.

  Sforza was silent. He kept his hands tucked in his leather jacket, and although there was not a ray of sunshine, wore a pair of gaudy Ray-Ban Aviators. There was nobody else nearby.

  ‘Actually I don’t have a precise memory. But I am sure it’s a memory… Unfortunately, I’m afraid I killed him.’

  After a long pause, Sforza suddenly stopped near a small kiosk, surrounded by bare trees swaying with each gust of wind. There were a few empty benches in front. ‘Professor… I don’t know what you remember,’ the inspector winced. ‘What I know is that Andrea Cavalli Gigli was killed on December 26th in Chianti. And you, on December 26th, as you have already had the occasion of telling me, were in Naples. I’m saying this because I have, of course, already checked.’

  Cassini did not object. In fact, if he excluded the flashback that placed him at the crime scene that day, he was convinced that he had not left home. But there was always the vision of his hand holding the gun and pulling the trigger. And then there was Cavalli Gigli bleeding. These were memories… he was sure, in spite of everything.

  ‘Look Cassini, if we had held you responsible, believe me, you would be in jail now. This is a paradoxical situation… I’ve never had someone claiming to be guilty, asking me to arrest them contrary to what I believe.’ Sforza took a packet of Jin Ling out from his back pocket and put one in his mouth. He did not light it and began to walk towards Place de la Concorde. ‘If I agreed to meet you it wasn’t to give you a shoulder on which to cry… really, there is another reason.’

  Cassini sighed and blew a new cloud of condensation out of his mouth.

  Meanwhile, they had arrived at the octagonal fountain where Sforza sat down. Cassini, his head down and arms folded, remained standing next to him instead. He was convinced that the conversation would clear his every doubt. ‘Extract the tooth and finish the pain,’ he had thought the night before, as he dialled Sforza’s mobile. Things, unfortunately, were not going as he had imagined…

  ‘If I can be honest, professor, I don’t think you told me the whole truth last night,’ Sforza urged him, lighting his cigarette with a golden Zippo.

  Cassini looked up and glared.

  The inspector leaned back and put his trainers up on the frozen fountain. ‘You see, professor, the story of the amnesia is at least…’ Sforza paused, searching for more suitable words. ‘Interesting. Convenient, if we want. Sometimes, it happens that the witnesses suffer from strange selective amnesia. I’m not saying that is your case, but most of the time, it’s false… and is only used to avoid telling the Police anything. Assuming that you were making it up, the question is: what don’t you want to tell me?’

  Cassini did not utter a word. He seemed to be pondering Sforza’s words, but the reality was that he was furious. He had called him, accusing himself of murder, and was told that he was lying?

  The inspector took a folded piece of paper out of his jacket pocket. ‘Last night you did not convince me, for two reasons. Number one, you h
aven’t been able to explain what the American wanted from you… The idea that she wanted an autograph doesn’t offend me, but it makes me laugh.’

  ‘It’s the truth!’ replied the professor angrily, frowning.

  ‘Number two, when I showed you this photo you had a strange reaction.’ Sforza handed the sheet to Cassini. ‘You told me you had never seen that object… do you mind looking at it again.’

  Cassini took the paper; it was the same picture from last night. In fact, it had made a strange impression on him in the restaurant, but he had never seen it… he could not say he had lied.

  He stared at it again. He could see the neck and nape of a woman amplified and a small translucent microchip.

  The professor swallowed suddenly and folded the paper at once. He remembered now… without knowing exactly how, in his mind he found himself in his suite, after the New Year’s Eve party…

  His heart began to pump as if it wanted to explode from his chest. He saw his room lit by a dim light. He saw the four-poster bed and could hear the city traffic in the distance.

  There was a person on the mattress, lying on one side with their back to him.

  He then walked around the bed to see their face. He walked slowly, barefoot on the carpet, and in the end he saw it. The picture became more vivid, sharp as if he was there at the time… and at that point he was startled; it was as if he had seen a corpse. His own!

  31

  Paris, New Year. 03:42 a.m.

  The slender hands fumbled in the briefcase.

  The room was dimly-lit by a small table lamp next to the canopied bed. Subject C lay unconscious on the bedspread. Across the room was another female figure standing still with her arms folded, watching her in silence.