No Place Like Rome

by Julie Moffett

  I helped clear the table, but Nonna wouldn’t let either Slash or I assist her with the dishes.

  Slash put a companionable arm around my shoulders. “She told us to get out of her kitchen and go play with our hi-tech toys so we can save Uncle Bendetetto’s skin.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “I’m in love with your grandmother. Although I’m pretty sure I just gained thirty pounds from that meal.”

  “Every meal is like that at Nonna’s.”

  “How is it she’s so thin?”

  “She expends a lot of energy cooking.”

  “Ah, the physics of exertion.”

  “Exactly. You made her happy by eating so much.”

  “Well, I’m pretty sure my stomach has never been happier. So, there you have it. Two peas in a pod.”

  We started to walk toward the stairs. I’m glad Slash still had his arm around me because I felt a little tipsy. “Hey, what did she call you when we first arrived? It was cheery something.”

  “Chierichetto.”

  “Yes, that’s it. What does it mean?”

  “Altar boy.”

  I stopped. “You were an altar boy?”

  “That surprises you?” He grinned, reached beneath his sweater and pulled out his gold cross. He kissed it once and then tucked it back inside.

  That was Slash for you. Mystery and enigma all rolled into one. Master hacker, secret agent, a former or current employee of a Vatican secret service that didn’t officially exist, a hot male specimen, and an altar boy. I wasn’t sure I’d ever figure him out.

  But I sure did enjoy a good challenge.

  Chapter Seven

  I grabbed the banister and wobbled onto the first step. “I take it that your given name is not chierichetto.”

  Slash laughed as we climbed the stairs. “Cara, you can call me whatever you’d like. Just as long as you call me.”

  I groaned. “Ha, ha.”

  We entered the sewing room and Slash sat down in a chair facing one of the laptops. I realized we’d taken a long break from hacking and that I was actually looking forward to taking another crack at that big encrypted file. I would certainly be more relaxed and energized now. It occurred to me that Slash had known that all along and I felt a rush of gratitude toward him.

  Slash glanced over at me and caught me staring. Could I act any more like a socially clueless teenager?

  “Shall we see what’s in those two encrypted files we cracked, cara?”

  “Sure. I thought you’d never ask.” I stood behind him and leaned over his shoulder as he opened the first file. “What is it?”

  He scanned the document. “Financial statements. Payments, I think.”

  “For what and to whom?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ll have to study it in greater detail. Let’s take a quick look at the other file.”

  He clicked it open. “That’s strange.”

  “What’s strange?”

  Slash rubbed his unshaven chin as he read. “It’s a news article from a local paper.”

  “About what?”

  He read a bit more. “The Vatican archives.” He sighed. “I was hoping for something a lot more substantial in such a heavily encrypted file. This is public knowledge.”

  “Maybe there’s something else in there. Or it has some kind of special significance.”

  “Perhaps. I’ll read it carefully. But which file to deal with first? The spreadsheet or the news article?”

  I sat in the chair next to him. “Actually, Slash, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something. It’s the hack.”

  He turned his full attention on me, those mysterious brown eyes regarding me thoughtfully. “What are you thinking, cara?”

  “Well, I just don’t get it. Why do you think they targeted the Vatican Bank in the first place?”

  “Money?”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t feel like the whole story here. Despite the fact that money was stolen, it doesn’t seem like a simple hack and grab to me. With hacking skills this good, these guys could have got into another, way less visible, bank much easier and with a thousand times less the risk. So, is it religion? Politics? And if so, where’s the message, the public statement?”

  Slash nodded, his eyes thoughtful. “Si. Good point. We’ve been so busy tracing the hack, dealing with the fallout, we haven’t taken time to think about the why.”

  “Exactly. I’m also not getting the vibe that it was a hack to show-off because technically they didn’t hack in—they were let in. Any decent hacker knows that’s a big difference.”

  I pulled my hair into a ponytail, but I didn’t have a band, so it fell loose again. “It’s just that the hack...it felt almost as if it were designed to be flashy. Someone purposefully wanted the hack to be discovered quickly, but made the trail so hard that unraveling it would take significant time.”

  “Si, but why?”

  “I don’t know.” I leaned back in the chair, closed my eyes. I needed to think like a hacker. What would be my motivations for such a strange series of actions? Why would I commit a high-profile hack, sure to be noticed, but at the same time want to ensure it couldn’t be traced...at least not quickly? It didn’t make sense. Why in the world would I design a hack intended to get a lot of attention, if I really didn’t want anyone to trace me? It was crazy.

  Unless...

  I jumped up from the couch. “That’s it. It has to be it.”

  “What’s it?”

  “It’s got to be a diversion, Slash. The real target is somewhere else. They want everyone busy on the hack at the Vatican Bank—”

  “—so they can hack elsewhere in peace. Brilliant, cara.”

  “No, no. Not so brilliant. Not yet. It still doesn’t answer the question of why the Vatican Bank and where they intend to hack. There has to be a connection.”

  Slash snapped his fingers. “The archives.”

  “As in Vatican archives? Great idea, except you can’t hack into something that isn’t digital.”

  “That’s the point.” Slash leaned forward, his eyes gleaming. “For the past ten years, the Vatican has been quietly and methodically going through the archives, cataloguing, photographing, and converting priceless documents, paintings and other historically significant items, into digital files.”

  “Once the material is digital, it becomes vulnerable.” I considered for a moment. “This could be big.”

  “Bigger than we imagined.”

  I inhaled a breath, my brain humming. “Okay. Now we are starting to make sense. It’s possible the hack at the Vatican bank is intended to keep the police preoccupied so they can hack unnoticed into the new digital files of the Vatican archives with little to no detection.”

  “Si, but there’s one problem.”

  “Which is?”

  “You. They didn’t count on you, cara. They expected the trace to take significantly more time. You didn’t give it to them.”

  “Which means?”

  Slash turned in his chair and studied the monitor. “I’m not sure. Not yet. But I have my suspicions.”

  “No fair. Share.”

  “I will, cara. I promise. Just give me a minute to read this article. I need a moment to get my thoughts together.”

  I stood and started pacing while he read the article. Then he flipped over to the financial statements and scrolled down through the file. After a moment, he rose from his chair and examined the big encrypted file on which we were making exactly zip prog
ress. He leaned over, started another protocol on the file and straightened. He rolled his shoulders a couple of times and sat down on the couch, patting the cushion beside him.

  “Okay, come here. I have a theory.”

  I plopped down on the couch next to him. “Spill.”

  “There is something unusual about that big file. The file we are not able to crack.”

  “It does seem to contain a strange form of encryption. Nothing seems to be working.”

  “I may know where it originated.”

  “You do?”

  “Potentially. I’ve heard of a group who have been working on a new protocol utilizing some newer aspects of deniable encryption.”

  I straightened. My interest was piqued to say the least. Deniable encryption was pretty cool stuff. It actually permitted users to deny the very existence of specific encrypted data. I was pretty well versed in its theoretical aspects, but I hadn’t actually seen it in action.

  “Okay. You’ve got my full attention. Where exactly is this group located? The NSA? The CIA?”

  Slash exhaled a breath. “The Vatican.”

  I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. It’s just I didn’t naturally connect sophisticated hackers and priests in the same sentence. Then I thought about Slash and his background and I remained silent, waiting for him to continue.

  He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I actually considered the possibility of an advanced form of deniable encryption with some unusual twists when I first saw the file, but I quickly discarded the possibility as too conjectural. I hadn’t heard of a practical application yet occurring.”

  “But you’re considering it now.”

  “Si. I just started a new protocol designed to see if we can make any headway. But the truth is, cara, if that file what I think it is, we are facing big trouble.”

  “Why? Do you think it’s something from the Vatican’s archives?”

  “No. Not just the archives. The secret archives.”

  “There are secret archives? Really? Why?”

  A faint smile touched his lips. “There are some things so sacred and personal to the Holy Order they are not for public consumption.”

  That didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, but my religious knowledge was pretty shaky, so I didn’t ask for clarification.

  “Okay, so that news article we just cracked, did it refer to these secret archives?”

  “No. But I’ve got a feeling.”

  I trusted his feelings completely. “Okay, so then who put that news article on Serafina’s hard drive?”

  Slash rubbed his chin. “Perhaps Serafina herself. It looks like someone pulled it up off a local newspaper website just a few days ago.”

  “If it were her, there was no way she encrypted it herself.”

  “No. But perhaps she suspected something was up. Overheard a conversation or something. She wanted more information.”

  I considered. “It’s plausible. Maybe one of the hackers saw it—saw what she was reading and got nervous. Perhaps even Marcus, Alex, or whatever his real name is, himself. He figured she knew. So, he encrypted the file and protected it from any casual onlookers. He probably meant to go back and delete it later. But he confronted her first.”

  Slash nodded. “It fits. Maybe she spilled her suspicions to him. Or maybe he made her talk.”

  I shuddered, remembering how she looked lying in the bed with a slit throat. “Still, she wasn’t dumb. She shut down her computer before she met with him. Smart girl. He didn’t expect that. He couldn’t get in again.”

  “Si. He had no time to clean house. Then we came.”

  “Okay. So, in the big picture, what does it mean in terms of this freakishly hard-to-crack file? And why did Serafina have it on her hard drive?”

  Slash spread his hands. “Easy. They hacked into the secret archives via her account.”

  I nodded, my thoughts whirling. “Yes, yes. That makes sense. They’d have fewer barriers hacking from within a Vatican institution. They just didn’t have time to either extract it completely or delete the file from her hard drive before Serafina shut down her computer, locking them out.”

  “That is the most likely scenario.”

  I pressed my hand against my forehead. “Then this is really looking like Serafina was not cooperating. I think she discovered she’d been duped.”

  “I’m afraid so, cara.”

  I hopped up from the couch and started pacing again. “Then we are too late.”

  “No. I don’t think so.

  I raised an eyebrow. “Why not? They have the file just as we do.”

  “They may have the file, but I would presume they haven’t been able to crack the encryption yet either. We’ve had the about same amount of time and while they may be good, we’re better. I think they knew this well before we did, which is why they tried to kidnap you.”

  “The solution is easy, right? Can’t you just talk to the people at the Vatican archives who encrypted this file? Ask them for the key? You’re one of them, right?”

  “It’s not so simple. Technically I work for the U.S. government, cara. I no longer have the same rights, access, or privileges at the Vatican as I once did. Of course, I have connections and I will exploit them, but it will take time. Time I’m afraid we don’t have.”

  I glanced over at the computer running the new encryption protocol. “What the hell is in that file?”

  “I don’t know, cara. But one person has already died for it.”

  I sat down in front of one of the other laptops. “I’m going to read up on deniable encryption.”

  He sat next to me. “Good idea.”

  I slid on my glasses and pulled up some technical information. I was surprised at the speed of the connection in coastal Italy. “Your grandmother has a good wireless service.”

  “Nothing but the best for my girls. You should see her alarm system.”

  He brushed my hair back from my shoulder, ran his fingers along the side of my neck. “I’m going to start running the face recognition program on Alex Rogolli.” I thought he might say something else, but he cleared his throat and turned away.

  I started to read, but the big meal and wine had made me impossibly sleepy and the words began to run together. Even worse, Nonna brought us dessert—tea, cookies and sweets. I couldn’t stop shoveling it all in my mouth. I wondered if she hadn’t put something addicting in the food that kept my hand moving methodically from the plate to my mouth. Jeez, it was a wonder that with food like this all Italians didn’t weigh a million pounds.

  Feeling like a slouch because at least I’d had a nap in the car and he hadn’t, I tried to plug on, but after about an hour, I couldn’t keep my eyes open and couldn’t even remember if I’d read one interesting thing.

  Slash must have noticed my head nearly banging the keyboard because, at some point, he came up behind me. “Off to bed, cara.” He eased me out of the chair and propelled me toward the doorway.

  I mumbled with eyes half-mast. “No, no. I’m good. Really. I just need a minute. I’ll just crash here on the couch.”

  I pulled out of his grip and wobbled toward the flowered couch where I collapsed. “Just a minute or two, ’kay?”

  Sighing, Slash knelt beside the couch, lifting up my arm and tucking a quilt over me. It smelled like roses and lavender. On the other hand, Slash smelled like pasta, red wine and sexy man.

  I yawned. “Why aren’t you tired? I ha
d a nap and I still can’t keep my eyes open.”

  “It’s Nonna’s cooking. It’s hard to do anything after one of her meals.”

  “She’s an amazing cook. I may ask her to marry me.”

  He grinned. “You won’t have been the first. I’m going to run an analysis on a few more things and then I’m out as well.” He placed a soft kiss on my forehead. “Buona notte, cara.”

  Without really thinking about what I was doing, I took his chin in my hand, raised my mouth to his and kissed him back. See, I could do the Italian thing, too.

  He tasted like wine and his mouth was hot and soft. “Hmmmm. Good night, Slash.”

  I closed my eyes, but I didn’t feel him leaving, so I peeked them open again. He was staring at me.

  Uh, oh, I thought, all vestiges of sleepiness vaporizing in an instant. He looked at me with a fierce, almost predatory look. My cheeks heated and I started to apologize when he leaned down and kissed me, again, effectively shutting me up. His lips scorched mine and I forgot everything except the exquisite feel of his mouth. After a few moments, he lifted his lips, but his mouth lingered against the corner of my mouth.

  “Do you know what you’re doing, cara?” he murmured. “Playing with fire.”

  My heart pounded and all I could think about was how much I wished he’d just stop talking and kiss me again. But he deserved an explanation of my temporary insanity.

  I wiggled until he lifted his head. “I’m sorry, Slash. I’m an idiot. The wine and jet-lag has impaired my thinking. I’m not sure why I kissed you like that...on the mouth. I thought while in Rome, I should do as the Romans do. However, it’s painfully obvious that I’ve not mastered the social appropriateness of when or to whom or where to offer such a kiss.”

  For a moment he just gazed at me and then he laughed softly. That was the second time in so many days he’d laughed openly at me. Indignant, I tried to sit up just as he bent down. My forehead smashed into his nose.