The Abduction: A Novel

by Jonathan Holt

  Holly said nothing.

  “Well, I don’t imagine anyone will be very shocked to discover that we took steps to protect our installation. The fact that the group our asset infiltrated is also behind this kidnap simply proves how dangerous they are. If anything, we’ll probably take flak for not having more people on the inside.”

  “If that group are behind the kidnap, sir.”

  He looked at her sharply.

  “There’s a body of opinion within the Carabinieri that’s starting to wonder if Azione Dal Molin could be some kind of false trail,” she explained.

  “By who? And why, for Chrissake?”

  “I don’t believe they’ve worked that out yet, sir. But they’re wondering who Mazzanti’s reports went to. Besides yourself, of course.”

  Holding her gaze, he said, “I kept the distribution extremely restricted, Second Lieutenant. Sagese at Transformation. Mike Pownall in Site Security. One or two staff officers here who report directly to me. That’s it.”

  She mentally filed that answer away for future examination. “Then it may be something quite different. Has Major Elston’s unit ever been involved in any controversial actions – anything that might make him or Mia a particular target?

  “Not that I’m aware of. Recon Red is the 173rd’s RSTA.”

  Translated out of military-speak, Carver was saying that Elston commanded a company of around eighty paratroopers with special responsibility for reconnaissance, scouting and target acquisition behind enemy lines. “He’s a proper fighting man,” Carver added unnecessarily. “And a damn good one.”

  Holly understood him to mean that, as a mere liaison officer, and a woman at that, she was neither. “That’s what I told them.”

  “Told who?”

  “You know what these Italians are like, sir – they just love their bureaucracy. The Carabinieri want to interview all of Major Elston’s troop, to see if they can find some special reason why his daughter might have been the one to get kidnapped. My worry is, if we let them start down that path it’ll divert resources from the real investigation. But equally, we don’t want to look like we’re telling them how to do their job.”

  “I’m not having the men interrogated as if they were the criminals,” Carver said. “Besides, Recon Red’s on a training run, up at Asiago. If I start pulling troops off their deployments just to satisfy some carabiniere with a fancy hat and a red stripe down his pants, pretty soon my whole battalion will have ground to a halt.”

  “Maybe I could do it, sir – just get a few quick details, put it all into some official-looking files. That should be enough to keep them off our backs.”

  “Very well. But don’t interrupt the men’s schedule.”

  “Roger that, sir. I can drive up to Asiago, no problem.”

  “And keep me informed about Major and Mrs Elston.” Carver nodded to show she was dismissed.

  When she’d gone, he sat for a moment, thinking. Then he lifted the handset on his desk.

  “We may have a problem,” he said, when the other person answered.

  FORTY-FIVE

  KAT WAS GOING through the most recent film, the one of Mia being walled. It had occurred to her that, if it was an impromptu response to the threat of Carnivia being closed down, the kidnappers might have made some small slip-up or mistake that they hadn’t in the others.

  Piola came to stand by her shoulder. “Anything?”

  She shook her head, frustrated. “Although there is a curious discrepancy between the titles and the film.” She wound back to the very first title. “Do you see here, how it says, ‘The detainee remains nude’? And then we see Mia, and she isn’t. She’s wearing those overalls.”

  “Which is correct?”

  “The caption is an accurate quote from the CIA memos. So why give her clothing? The whole point of the kidnap seems to be to sensationalise the CIA approach. It seems strange that they wouldn’t take the opportunity to get a few extra ratings.”

  “Maybe she’d done something to earn a privilege. Or maybe they just got tired of humiliating her.”

  “Which is interesting in itself,” she said thoughtfully. “It suggests they’re not quite as ruthless as the people they’re copying.” She looked up at him. “Did you speak to Sagese?”

  “Yes.” He sounded just as frustrated as she was. “Stonewalled.”

  The Transformation director had been no more cooperative than he had the last time they’d met, on the morning of the protestors’ break-in. Flanked by Costruttori Conterno lawyers, he claimed to have done no more than skimmed Mazzanti’s reports. Operational decisions about site security matters, he said, were entirely up to the military.

  The lawyers had been more interested in making sure that the Carabinieri weren’t entertaining any notion of giving in to the kidnappers’ demands. Any attempt to do so, they emphasised, would result in an immediate claim for millions of euros’ worth of damages from the construction firm. They had already sought, and received, assurances from the very highest levels of government that the existing policy of not making concessions to hostage-takers would be rigidly adhered to.

  Piola had looked Sagese in the eye. “Just to be clear, if it came down to a straight choice between holding a referendum and leaving Mia to rot, you’d prefer her to rot?”

  “But it isn’t a straight choice, is it, Colonel?” Sagese had replied blandly. “There’s a third option, which is that the Carabinieri do their job and find her. And in answer to your question, it doesn’t matter how innocuous a kidnapper’s demands appear: if you give in to them, next day you’ll have a dozen more kidnaps on your hands.”

  Piola had cut his losses then and stood up. But as he was leaving, Sagese stopped him.

  “By the way, Colonel, I thought I should give you this.”

  He was holding out a small red document. The cover bore a crest and the words “Penyблuкa Cpбuja: Пacoщ”.

  “The excavator driver left it behind when he absconded,” he added. “I wasn’t sure what to do with it after my men found it, so it’s been sitting here in my safe.”

  Piola took it. It was a Serbian passport, in the name of Tarin Krasnaki. That fitted with Krasnaki having forged work papers; whereas Albania was sufficiently advanced in the EU membership process for its citizens to work in Italy legally, Serbia wasn’t. But it seemed strange that the driver would have left such an important document behind.

  Remembering the passport now, Piola took it out of his pocket and handed it to Kat. “Open a Missing Person file for this man, will you? I doubt we’ll find him, but you never know.”

  A voice cut across the hubbub of the operations room. “There’s another film.”

  All the Carabinieri present gathered round one of the biggest screens. Someone clicked “Play”, and the room went quiet.

  The film began with one of the now familiar captions:

  ACCORDING TO THE USA, STRESSFUL STANDING IS NOT TORTURE.

  Then it cut to a shot of Mia, sitting on a chair. Her wrists were shackled, and she was wearing the orange jumpsuit, but otherwise there was no indication that she was being mistreated. More captions appeared, fading on and off over the image:

  JUDGE FOR YOURSELF.

  IN RESPONSE TO THE COWARDLY ATTEMPT BY THE ITALIAN GOVERNMENT TO CENSOR OUR EXPOSÉ, WE APPEAL DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE OF ITALY TO SUPPORT OUR DEMAND FOR A FREE AND FAIR REFERENDUM.

  FOR THIS REASON WE WILL NO LONGER USE THE STATE-OWNED AND US-INFLUENCED MEDIA AS INTERMEDIARIES. FROM NOW ON, WE SPEAK DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE.

  AT 9 P.M. TONIGHT MIA ELSTON WILL NOT BE TORTURED.

  WATCH IT LIVE ON CARNIVIA.

  The Carnivia URL appeared. Then the screen went blank. That was all.

  “What does it mean?” someone asked.

  “It means they’ve changed their tactics,” another officer replied. “It’s like a film trailer. They’re drumming up ratings in advance.”

  “It seems the kidnappers are setting the agenda, yet again,” Kat said
quietly to Piola.

  He nodded. “Have you heard from Holly?”

  “She left me a message.”

  “And?”

  “She’s spoken to Carver. There are no further leads but she’ll keep us informed. She sounded like she didn’t hold out much hope.” As she spoke, she became aware that they were being glanced at. Doubtless, the news that the two of them were talking again had gone round the building within minutes. “Would you rather have this conversation somewhere else?”

  He brushed the suggestion aside. “I’ve nothing to hide. What’s next?”

  “Well, there’s one place we haven’t really investigated yet.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Inside Carnivia.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Isn’t that CNAIPIC’s territory?”

  “Technically, perhaps, but it seems to me that anything to do with Carnivia is going to require Daniele Barbo’s cooperation. And I don’t suppose, having been detained without charge, that he’s going to be in the mood to assist CNAIPIC very much.”

  “You think he’ll talk to you?”

  “I think it’s worth a try.”

  As Piola went back to his desk, his phone rang. “Pronto?”

  “Ispettore Marino, from the Padua Polizia,” a voice said. “Is this Colonel Piola?”

  Piola agreed that it was.

  “This may seem a strange question, Colonel, but do you have any connection with a Dottoressa Ester Iadanza?”

  “Dottora,” Piola corrected automatically. “She calls herself ‘Dottora’. And yes, she’s involved in an investigation of mine. Why?”

  Inspector Marino’s voice was guarded. “And Professore Cristian Trevisano?”

  “Him too.” Piola was beginning to get a bad feeling about this. “Why do you ask, Ispettore?”

  “They’re both dead,” Marino said bluntly. “It appears he shot her, then turned the gun on himself. I’m calling because you left a message on her phone. I thought perhaps she was a ‘person of interest’, as we say.”

  “She was a forensic archaeologist,” Piola said heavily. He had a sudden memory of her shapely rear descending that ladder, how he had looked up admiringly and then wished he hadn’t. She had been clever, passionate and alive, and now she was dead. He sat down, suddenly sick to his stomach. “She was removing a skeleton from the Dal Molin air base for us. And Trevisano – he was someone I spoke to about the identification.”

  “Did you know they were lovers?”

  Piola thought back. Of course, it had been Dr Iadanza who’d recommended the professor to him. But there had been no hint that they were romantically involved. “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely. They were found in his apartment, in bed. Of course, given the presence of the gun, we can’t rule out rape, but it seems highly unlikely – there was a bottle of wine by the bed, as well as a bowl of olives that had been eaten, and the stones put to one side. My hypothesis is, after they’d made love she told him she was leaving him, and he couldn’t take it.” Marino’s voice was fading in and out, and he was a little breathless: Piola guessed he was walking briskly as he told him all this, probably towards a bar for his lunch. “Anyway, I thought I should give you a call, as a professional courtesy.”

  “Thank you. I have to tell you, Ispettore, I doubt it happened as you describe. They were neither of them temperamental types.”

  “Well, who can say.” Marino’s voice was neutral. “When it comes to affairs of the heart, we all do strange things.”

  “But you’re collecting more evidence? You’ll look for any signs they were both murdered?”

  There was a small pause. “Why do you say that? Was your investigation one that could have placed them in danger?”

  “Not on the face of it, no,” Piola admitted. He’d asked them to try to identify the missing partisan, he recalled, the one who’d survived the shooting of Max Ghimenti and the others. And in the message she left, Dr Iadanza had said they’d found something interesting. But her tone had been relaxed, with no hint that she might have considered herself to be in jeopardy. “I think you should investigate further, all the same.”

  Marino’s voice became a notch frostier. “I don’t know how you do things in the Carabinieri, Colonel, but in the Polizia we try to look at all the available evidence and make a professional judgement before spending taxpayers’ money on unnecessary investigations. The team looking at the scene, I might add, were all extremely competent.”

  “Of course,” Piola said. “I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.”

  “We’ve had our leave cancelled in any case, so that we can concentrate on this American teenager’s abduction.” Marino paused significantly. “A Carabinieri investigation initially, I understand.”

  “Indeed. We’re all very grateful for the Polizia’s assistance,” Piola lied. “Can I take a look at it?”

  “At what?”

  “The professor’s apartment.”

  “It’s a crime scene, Colonel. We can’t have you contaminating it, can we? I’ll send you the photographs.”

  He rang off before Piola had time to point out that, firstly, he could hardly contaminate it, since there were to be no more investigations, and secondly, it was curious that Marino was still calling it a crime scene, when he had just been at pains to point out that they were no longer bothering to treat it as any such thing.

  FORTY-SIX

  DANIELE WAS BEING held at the men’s prison on Giudecca. Like so many of Venice’s public buildings, it was a former convent, its beautiful but worn façade quite at odds with its present-day function. There was, Kat had heard, even an old walled garden nearby where the nuns once grew vegetables and fruit for their own consumption, and where today female prisoners grew produce for a weekly market on Fondamenta delle Convertite.

  When she was shown into the interview room, she found herself shocked by Daniele’s appearance. Even in this short space of time, his eyes had acquired a deep-set, haunted look, and he was rocking backwards and forwards in his chair. As she took a seat she saw that under his shirt his arms were covered with scribbles.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “You need to get me out of here.”

  She spread her arms helplessly. “It isn’t up to me. It isn’t even up to the Carabinieri.”

  “There are things I need to do. Things that could help Mia.”

  “You’ll have to let me do them for you.”

  “You!”

  “Why not? I have a Carnivia account. I’m reasonably familiar with how it works.”

  He seemed to come to a decision. “Give me your phone.”

  She hesitated – what he was asking was almost certainly against prison rules – but only for a moment. He went to the web browser and from there straight to Carnivia, skimming rapidly through commands and shortcuts unfamiliar to her.

  “How do you—” she began, but he cut her off.

  “We’ll talk in a minute. Right now I need to concentrate.”

  For several minutes she watched him skip rapidly through messages, replying to some and deleting others. Then he handed the phone back. “I’ve left it logged in with an administrator password. You’ll be able to communicate directly with the wizards.”

  For a moment she wondered if he had suffered some kind of breakdown in here. “Wizards?”

  “I don’t run Carnivia on my own,” he said impatiently. “The wizards are the administrators. Eric, Anneka, Zara and Max. You can trust them.”

  “Trust them with what?”

  He took a breath, slowing himself down. “That crowdsourcing appeal – a Carnivia user has reported being offered films of Mia for sale. What’s significant about these is that they date from before the kidnap. At least one shows Mia in her bedroom.”

  She frowned. “How’s that possible?”

  “A RAT.”

  “Daniele, you’re going to have to explain.”

  “A Remote Administration Tool. It’s a relatively simple prog
ram that allows you to take over another person’s computer. You can open their email, go through their files, collect their passwords as they type them… Or you could turn on their webcam and film them through it without them realising. It explains how the kidnappers knew Mia was going to the club, too. They were following her electronically, as well as in the physical world.”

  “So that’s how they got into her Carnivia account? By getting her password?”

  “Perhaps. It doesn’t explain everything they’ve done.”

  “Is there any way of establishing who this hacker is?”

  “Not easily. But that’s not to say you can’t trap him.”

  “How?”

  “He has at least one weakness – his ego. He showed it in his messages to me, and he showed it by trying to sell films of Mia. He wasn’t doing that for the money – he was showing off to his fellow hackers. If we offer him a big enough prize, maybe he’ll take a big risk for it.”

  “What prize?”

  Daniele pointed at her. “You.”

  “Me!”

  “Yes. Seek him out, flatter him, tell him you need his services and are prepared to pay for them. He’ll almost certainly put a RAT on your computer to check you out. What he won’t be anticipating is that the wizards will be able to use that as a tunnel back to his own machine. But you’ll need to be careful. I’d advise making a complete backup of your computer, wiping it, then creating a totally new version of yourself. Clean out any data that could allow him to identify who you really are, or where you live, but leave enough to give a sense that you’re a real person.”

  “How will I know when I’ve found him?”

  “Don’t worry, he’ll want to boast.” He took her phone and, opening a message thread, showed her. “This was one of the responses to my appeal.”

  So you want your friends to find me? That should be fun!

  FORTY-SEVEN

  HOLLY DROVE NORTH in her little Fiat 500, towards the mountain range that rose up out of the Veneto’s northern plains like a huge, forbidding wall, its battlements topped with white. The drive took almost two hours, but she hardly noticed the time. She was thinking about her mission – which was, essentially, to spy on her own commanding officer.