The Abduction: A Novel

by Jonathan Holt

  EPIGRAPH

  In order for a war to be just, three things are necessary. First, the authority of the sovereign. Secondly, a just cause. Thirdly, a rightful intention.

  – Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae

  CONTENTS

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Day One

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Day Two

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Twenty-eight

  Twenty-nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-one

  Thirty-two

  Thirty-three

  Thirty-four

  Thirty-five

  Thirty-six

  Thirty-seven

  Thirty-eight

  Day Three

  Thirty-nine

  Forty

  Forty-one

  Forty-two

  Forty-three

  Forty-four

  Forty-five

  Forty-six

  Forty-seven

  Forty-eight

  Forty-nine

  Fifty

  Day Four

  Fifty-one

  Fifty-two

  Fifty-three

  Fifty-four

  Fifty-five

  Fifty-six

  Fifty-seven

  Fifty-eight

  Fifty-nine

  Day Five

  Sixty

  Sixty-one

  Sixty-two

  Sixty-three

  Sixty-four

  Day Six

  Sixty-five

  Sixty-six

  Sixty-seven

  Sixty-eight

  Week Two

  Sixty-nine

  Seventy

  Seventy-one

  Seventy-two

  Seventy-three

  Seventy-four

  Seventy-five

  Seventy-six

  Seventy-seven

  Seventy-eight

  Seventy-nine

  Eighty

  Eighty-one

  Eighty-two

  Eighty-three

  Eighty-four

  Historical Note

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Jonathan Holt

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  PROLOGUE

  IT WAS THEIR biggest night of the year, although you would have been hard pushed to find it advertised anywhere – anywhere, that is, apart from certain obscure internet bulletin boards and special-interest websites, where previous years’ efforts were still talked about in the ecstatic tones usually devoted to cup finals or rock festivals. It certainly wasn’t listed in the official programme of Venice’s annual Carnevale, although it was inextricably linked to that event in spirit as well as timing. Many of the attendees had flown in specially; for them, this night was as close to the official celebrations as they would come.

  At midnight, the club’s two thousand square feet of interlinked dance floors – and, even more importantly, the warren of dimly lit rooms that lay behind them – were almost deserted. But by half past, the queue of people waiting to use the lockers thoughtfully provided by the management stretched out almost to the parking lot, where security personnel in tuxedos and bow ties were checking names against the list of ticket-holders. By 1 a.m., the main dance floor was full.

  To anyone unfamiliar with these occasions, it made an incongruous sight. Every participant wore a carnival mask, ranging from the classic blank white Volto, topped with a tricorne hat, to more elaborate affairs modelled on the rays of the sun, the birdlike beak of a medieval plague doctor, or the jewelled visage of an eighteenth-century courtesan. But in almost every case, these costumes ended at the shoulders. From the chest down the partygoers were dressed more conventionally; the men in smart trousers and expensive loose shirts, the women in short skirts and tops, in accordance with the club’s strict dress code.

  By two, the reason for this had become clear. The clothes were starting to be discarded. Women danced topless except for their masks. The men tended to keep more on – at least, until they joined the throng making their way to or from the smaller rooms. There were more bars back there, where you could strike up conversations with other couples before making your choice. But most headed directly to the playrooms, where the dim lighting was colour-coded to signify when a particular room was dedicated to a particular pleasure. In some, knots of bodies joined and re-joined, their masks still in place. In others, the masks themselves were an impediment to the enjoyments being sought, and were discarded.

  In every playroom discreet stacks of towels, and bowls of flavoured condoms and mints, fulfilled the promise on the club’s website to provide an impeccable standard of hygiene as well as the best music, lighting and atmosphere in Europe.

  The slim female figure wearing a gold Columbina mask with grey feathers paused at the entrance of one of the playrooms. Inside, half a dozen couples were making love, the whole scene illuminated only by the jerky flashes of a strobe. Behind the feathered mask, her eyes were wide as she took it all in.

  A voice in her ear said, amused, “Shall we join them?”

  Without turning round she said, “You can if you want. I’m just going to watch.”

  The man reached for the hem of her T-shirt. “Let’s take this off, at least.”

  “No,” she said, putting her hand on his to stop him. “You have fun if you want. Just not with me. That was the deal, remember?”

  Slipping away without a backward glance, she made her way to the next room. In the lemon-coloured light, two women knelt in the middle of a small circle of masked male figures. The girl watched for a while, then moved on.

  Another room was completely dark: a notice by the door invited those who entered to take off their clothes and use their sense of touch. Almost regretfully, she turned away. In a small bar she stopped to look at a long-legged blonde who was lying on her back across a low table, a man at either end. Several couples stood around, drinks in hand, watching.

  “Hey, beautiful.” A man with a thick body-builder’s torso, improbably tanned for the time of year, spoke to her in guttural English. “My wife thinks you’re hot.”

  Shaking her head with a quick, regretful smile, she headed back to the dance floor. There was a platform at one end where two professional dancers, one male and one female, performed non-stop, their bodies gleaming with oil and sweat. The male dancer’s chest was thin as a rock star’s, but rippled with muscle. She watched him for a while, copying his movements, abandoning herself to the pulsing beat.

  “Hiya.” A masked girl a few years older than her smiled a greeting over the music. “Having a good time?”

  “The best.”

  The girl leaned in closer. “You need anything sorted? Pills, coke, cheap cigarettes…”

  “Uh… Maybe some cigarettes.”

  “Talk to him.” The girl pointed to where a young man with striking blond dreadlocks and a Trifaccia mask stood slightly apart. “Whatever you need. He’s cool.”

  Nodding her thanks, the girl in the feathered Columbina made her way over to the young man. “Hey,” she said casually.

  Looking round quickly, he pushed open a fire door and mo
tioned for her to step outside. She did so, shivering as the cold, foggy air hit her. “I hear,” she began, but the words were hardly out of her mouth before she felt strong arms pinning her from behind. The Carnevale mask was plucked from her face, and some kind of bag made of heavy cloth dropped over her head in its place. More hands fastened round her calves, the two-man team lifting her as effortlessly as if she were a shop mannequin being moved to a different window. She felt herself propelled forwards, then lowered onto a hard surface that gave beneath her assailants’ weight as they clambered in after her, rapidly securing her legs and arms with what felt like plastic strips. I’m in a van, she thought. They’ve put me in a van. It must be the police. Then, moments later, came the realisation that the Italian police would never hood her like this. “Dad?” she said hesitantly, just before a thick strip of tape was wound round her mouth, hood and all, muffling even the scream that belatedly escaped her. Terror and panic flooded her limbs, but though she bucked and jerked frantically, like a landed fish, she was too tightly secured to free herself.

  She heard doors slam, felt the van move off. The whole thing had taken less than thirty seconds.

  A hand held her down, and a male voice spoke close to her ear, crooning some words in Italian before switching to heavily accented English.

  “Stay still, Mia. Stay still and I promise you’ll be all right.”

  He knows my name, she thought, and the realisation was even more terrifying than anything else that had happened so far. She felt her bowels clench and unclench, and struggled without success to keep control of her bladder. Then a sweet-smelling liquid soaked the hood around her nose, and the darkness came racing towards her.

  DAY ONE

  ONE

  COLONEL ALDO PIOLA of the Venice Carabinieri woke with a start, unable at first to remember where he was. Nearby in the darkness a white screen flashed, and a tinny speaker played a pop song. He recognised the tune as one his nine-year-old son had been listening to recently, by the American singer Pink, and felt a twinge of annoyance. Claudio must have changed his ringtone as a joke, or – more likely, he thought, his irritation replaced by a sudden surge of tenderness and guilt – in the hope of getting his father’s attention at work.

  There was no light by the sofa, so he answered by feel. “Pronto?”

  “Colonel, it’s Saito. Apologies for waking you at this unfortunate hour.”

  Piola had no idea what the hour was, but if something was serious enough to require a call from his generale di brigata, the time was hardly relevant. So he said only, “No problem.”

  “We’ve been asked to oversee an investigation at Vicenza. Some human remains have been found at that new American military base they’re building.”

  Piola noted the curious use of “human remains” instead of “body”. “Who found them?”

  “A local boy, engaged in some kind of protest. Hence the ungodly hour. Unfortunately there’s no one of your rank available over there – Serti’s on a training course, and Lombardo’s assigned elsewhere.” General Saito hesitated. “There’s a sense it should be someone senior, so that it’s clear we’re taking it seriously.”

  Ah: so it was a matter of politics. If it involved the US Military, perhaps that was no surprise. “Speaking of commitments, you’re probably aware there are some administrative matters taking up my own time just now.” Piola crossed to the door and flicked on the light switch as he spoke. The sofa, covered with one of his son’s cast-off AC Milan duvets, sprang into view, along with the alarm clock balanced on one of the arms. It was 4.32 a.m. He reached for his trousers, the phone still clamped between his shoulder and ear.

  “Indeed. To be frank, Aldo, that’s why I thought of you. A quick and professional investigation, tactfully handled by an experienced officer, is all that’s required here. It shouldn’t be too time-consuming. And it won’t hurt with Internal Affairs to have the Americans putting in a good word.”

  “I understand. Thank you.” Through the open door Piola caught a movement across the corridor, a nightgown ducking back behind a doorframe. It was Gilda, his wife, trying to overhear. “Sir,” he added, to make it clear that it was work. The nightgown disappeared.

  “Thanks. A car’s on its way. Keep me informed, won’t you?”

  By the time Piola had rung off, his wife had gone back to bed, her door shut against him. He knocked softly. “I have to go out,” he said through the wood. “I’ll see you tonight, shall I?”

  There was no reply.

  So that he wouldn’t disturb his family any more than he had to, he went and waited in the street, hoping the driver would have the sense not to use his siren. The caìgo, the fog which blanketed Venice and the surrounding Veneto region most nights at this time of year, was especially thick tonight. It had drifted into Venice the day before from the direction of the sea, slipping up the canals and their smaller brethren, the rii; sliding over pavements and door sills into cloisters and courtyards, so that what had started around 4 p.m. as nothing more than a faint opacity in the air turned, as dusk fell, into a dense, otherworldly miasma that muffled church bells and gave every streetlamp a hazy aura, like a dandelion-clock. It brought with it a salty, numbing cold, the cold of the lagoon and the Adriatic, and Piola kept his jacket well zipped up. Normally he wore plain clothes for investigations, but since this one involved the US Armed Forces he’d opted for the working Carabinieri uniform of dark, pleated trousers, well-polished black shoes and dark blue windcheater. The lapels of the windcheater bore three silver stars above a three-turreted castle. Not that the Americans would be impressed by his rank, but it would do no harm to remind them that the Carabinieri, like themselves, were a military organisation. He placed his colonel’s hat under his arm, making a mental note not to forget it when he put it down, as he usually did.

  He was in luck: the car had its blue light on but no siren. The driver, Adelmio, had even thought to bring coffee. Tipping the contents of the tiny carton down his throat, Piola was also pleased to discover that it was laced with a generous corretto of grappa.

  “Who’s there so far?” he asked as they drove.

  “Dottore Hapadi, sir. He was the one on call. And a few of our lot – I think they’re the local boys.”

  “Know anything about it?”

  Adelmio shrugged. “Not much. A skeleton, I heard. But it was on the construction site, and it was protestors who found it, so…”

  Piola nodded his understanding. The new American base being built at the disused Dal Molin airfield, just a few miles from the existing garrison at Caserma Ederle, was one of the biggest building projects in northern Italy, matched only by the flood barriers in the Venetian lagoon. Both projects were controversial, but in the case of Dal Molin the controversy had quickly turned to something more.

  Many local people had already been uneasy about the number of US Military installations ringing their city, from underground missile silos to vehicle compounds. Others had been riled by the way the Americans appeared to have been able to bypass the usual planning procedures, their very presence sanctioned by secret agreements dating back to the Second World War. In 2007, a hundred and fifty thousand people had joined hands around the centre of Vicenza – a UNESCO World Heritage site – symbolically forming a wall around their city to show that it would be defended. A proposed referendum on the new base had been mysteriously cancelled at the last minute by the courts; undeterred, the Vicentini vowed to go on protesting, even establishing a permanent “peace camp” adjacent to the construction site. It seemed to make no difference whatsoever to the work, which according to the local papers was due to be completed in record time. But Piola had no doubt that a Carabinieri investigation would be seen as a significant event by both sides.

  If it was a skeleton – which would certainly explain Saito’s reference to “human remains” – it might of course be an ancient one, in which case no criminal investigation would be required. Such skeletons turned up quite often during construction work in the
Veneto, which was densely populated even before the time of the Roman Empire. But Piola also knew that a body buried in the region’s damp soil could be reduced to bare bones in months, and building sites had long been favoured by the Mafia as a convenient place to get rid of their victims. It was best to make no assumptions.

  The drive took about forty minutes. They left the deserted A4 autostrada by the Vicenza Ovest exit, then sped up Viale del Sole.

  The fog had thinned a little as they came inland, so Piola was able to get some glimpses of the old airfield as they approached. The perimeter had mostly been boarded off, providing an irresistible temptation for fly-posters and graffitists. Slogans denouncing the Americans – “Vicenza Libera!” “No Dal Molin!” “Fuori Dalle Balle!” – were in turn partially covered by banners depicting smiling men in crisp black suits. There were elections coming up for the regional parliament, and these gameshow-host faces were the candidates. But access gates and stretches of chain link also allowed a glimpse of what lay within. Jagged spills of mud, like frozen waves, were proof of the pace of construction, as were the clusters of metal cranes that climbed into the fog like fairytale beanstalks. What caught the eye most, however, were the great corkscrews of coloured smoke – green, white and red – that fizzed up into the night sky, turning the fog itself into a giant, glowing Italian flag.

  “I heard the protestors let off flares,” Adelmio said. He pointed to a blue pulse over in the distance. “That’ll be us.”

  Sure enough, by a gap in the boarding marked “Gate G” they found two parked Carabinieri vehicles, one with its light still flashing. A uniformed appuntato saluted Piola as he got out of the car, but it was a man in American grey-green combat fatigues who hurried forward, greeting him in passable Italian.

  “Colonel Piola? Sergeant Pownall, Military Police. I’ll be escorting you to the scene. If you wouldn’t mind putting these on.” He handed Piola a fluorescent jacket, a hard hat, and a laminated card on a ribbon. On it were the words “VISITOR – TEMPORARY PASS”. Piola put it all on without comment, then followed the man to a waiting Jeep.

  When they were under way, bumping and sliding over the rough ground, the sergeant spoke again. “Nothing’s been moved or disturbed. Your medical people got here around an hour ago.”