Supernotes

by Agent Kasper

  Kasper can hear only the working of his jaws. The room is empty. There’s not a sound from the kitchen. And yet he knows he’s not alone.

  A few seconds pass.

  And then, from somewhere, the unexpected sound of an electric guitar. Playing those unmistakable opening chords.

  “Brothers in Arms” by Dire Straits.

  Kasper sits as though paralyzed, his fork suspended in midair, his mouth open. Without warning, tears well up in his eyes, spill over, and stream down his face.

  Bastien comes closer, still playing, still singing. He finishes his verse and lays his guitar on a neighboring table and sits across from Kasper. “Now I can have lunch with you. Voilà.”

  Epilogue

  It’s cold in Vienna.

  It doesn’t feel like April. It doesn’t even feel like a Sunday. But maybe all days look alike in international airports. Kasper’s dressed like a strange tourist who got on the wrong flight. But his passport’s in order, and his final destination is closer than before.

  A few hours later, he’s on the train that’s taking him back to Italy.

  While the landscape flowing around him becomes more and more familiar, Kasper looks back on the past few hours. He thinks about the flight from Phnom Penh to Macao in a private plane, about the fake reservations in his name on various flights to Europe, about the documents obtained by Louis Bastien that got him out of Cambodia.

  “One day you’ll tell me how you did it,” Kasper told him as they were saying their good-byes.

  “It wasn’t that hard,” the Frenchman said unassumingly. “I followed their rules. I paid their price and then doubled it. Remember, ‘There’s so many different worlds. So many different suns…’ ”

  “You’re a good guitar player.”

  “I don’t have Mark Knopfler’s touch. Or his voice, unfortunately.”

  “Same-same but different,” Kasper said, smiling.

  “Same-same but different,” Louis Bastien said, embracing him.

  They made no promises to meet again.

  But if it happens, it will be a good day for both of them.

  And, very probably, it won’t be in Cambodia.

  Thanks

  The authors thank the people who believed in this book and dedicate it to the women and men who every day, with honesty, loyalty, and respect for the rules, in silence and far from any spotlight, contribute to the security of the society we live in.

  A Note About the Authors

  Agent Kasper is a former operative for both the Italian intelligence services and the American CIA.

  Luigi Carletti is a prize-winning veteran investigative journalist and the author of several novels.

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