The same unwritten code of loyalty that said you didn’t question orders also said you didn’t doubt the people who gave them. Your chain of command was always right: if subsequent events proved the opposite, you acknowledged that the burden of leadership was such that even a bad decision was better than none. And there had to be a fundamental breakdown of trust before you made any kind of complaint, official or otherwise.
To question the actions of a colonel was a breach of the code so severe, she’d probably be court-martialled if it ever became known what she was up to.
But then there was Mia. Holly hadn’t told anyone that every time she looked at Mia in those terrible films, she saw herself. She knew what it was like to have grown up on an army base, part of the military world but not quite a soldier. She’d ended up going into the army, but there had been a time when she could just as easily have rebelled.
She knew, too, what it was like to feel smothered by others’ expectations of what it meant to be a woman.
She even knew what it was like to have been tortured. As she’d told Daniele, her training had included a basic level of SERE – Search-Evade-Resist-Escape. The “Resist” module was meant to give you an idea of what to expect if you were captured by the enemy. After the first Iraq war, a module on sexual humiliation had been added for aspiring female officers, with the part of the torturers played by final-year cadets. Once the course was over, everyone involved pretended that they’d simply been playing their roles to the hilt. But she’d known that wasn’t really the case. No method actor, let alone a young army officer, could have faked the excitement in her captors’ eyes. For her, that had been the worst part – discovering what people she’d looked up to and considered her friends really thought of her. She’d known that female cadets were dismissively labelled “trous” – short for “trousers” – by some cadets, because they were considered only good for putting on and wearing like an item of clothing. She hadn’t expected to have it chanted at her with quite so much venom, or at so much volume, or to hear cadets she’d trained alongside offering to warm up her frigid lesbian cunt while she hung, semi-naked and in chains, under the jets of cold water from their hoses.
If there was even the slimmest chance that what she was contemplating now could help Mia, she’d do it.
At Asiago she left the autostrada. Soon she was tacking up vast mountainsides on little roads, her right wheels never more than a foot or so from precipitous drops. The slopes above her were thick with snow, the branches of the pine trees sagging under its weight. She loved the mountains – her father had brought the whole family up here every winter, to ski – but more than once she had cause to be grateful for the Italians’ preference for small, nimble cars as she encountered a coach or lorry, swinging out dangerously on a hairpin bend.
Red Troop were training in a wooded valley high above the snow line. She located the unit base in a secluded clearing and was unsurprised to find no one around, apart from a couple of cooks peeling potatoes. One told her that the unit – about sixty men – wouldn’t be back until lunch time.
“That’s if they don’t mess up,” he added. “Stick around, and you should see the balloons.”
“Balloons?”
He nodded. “Skyhook. They’re training for evade-evac. First pass was twenty minutes ago.”
She looked at the snowy woods, interested to see this. Skyhook – or the Fulton Surface-to-Air Recovery System, to use its proper name – was rarely deployed these days except by reconnaissance units, who might be required to exfiltrate from enemy territory in regions inaccessible to helicopters. Instead, a plane dropped a pack for each soldier containing a weather balloon, harness and gas cylinder. One by one, each soldier inflated his balloon, which lifted him rapidly into the air. A yoke-shaped device on the plane then hooked the line and the soldier was pulled to safety. It was simple, crude, and required split-second timing – inflate too early, and you’d find yourself floating upwards with no plane in sight and nothing to stop you freezing to death; too late, and you’d either be captured by enemy forces who’d seen the package being dropped and could thus zero in on your location, or miss your ride completely.
“How’s the exercise set up?” she asked. “One team does the exfil, the rest play the bad guys?”
He nodded. “And just to make sure they’re motivated, the guys doing the chasing only get chow if they succeed. My money’s on them. Not that I won’t feel sorry for the runners. If they get caught, the bad guys do a little role-play on them.”
Holly suppressed a shudder. Units most likely to be captured, such as reconnaissance troops, underwent SERE Level C. The “role-play” the man was talking about would undoubtedly be far worse than anything she’d experienced.
“Sounds like show-time now,” he added, looking up.
She caught the sound of an aeroplane. The snow-covered woods bounced the noise back and forth, making it impossible to tell which direction it was coming from. Bang on cue, a red balloon – she judged it to be around a yard in diameter – rose from the distant trees, gathering speed as it ascended. After about ten yards it shuddered, then continued to rise more slowly. That would be the jerk as it took a man’s weight, she realised. Sure enough, a figure in combat whites appeared above the woods, hauled up into the sky by the balloon’s ascent. She could only imagine the force of that jerk as it took you off the ground, or the sensation of being pulled into the air like that.
“They say it’s a hell of a buzz,” the cook said, watching. “Mind you, they say that when they’re safely back on the ground.”
Another balloon appeared, thirty seconds behind the first. The plane was visible overhead now, swooping over the trees low and fast, the Y-shaped yoke on its fuselage aiming for the rope below the first balloon. Scooping the soldier up, it performed a tight turn and headed for the second. The gap between each soldier’s ascent, she realised, was precisely timed to match the time it took the plane to turn. Another balloon was already appearing over the trees.
Four balloons went up: all four were rescued by the plane. The cook grinned. “Looks like my money’s safe. It was a six-man team.”
Thirty minutes later the first truckload of soldiers returned. While they ate, Holly explained to the lieutenant in charge that she wanted to talk to the men about Major Elston. She kept Carver’s name out of it for now.
“Of course,” he said immediately. “If it might help the major’s kid, talk to them all you want.”
She took the opportunity to ask him about Red Troop’s recent combat.
“Five tours of Afghan in six years. In Wardak province mostly. Tough place.” He gestured at their surroundings. “Everyone thinks Afghan’s hot, but the mountains look like this four months of the year.”
“Was Red Troop ever involved in anything…” She hesitated. “Anything controversial?”
“Like what, Second Lieutenant?”
“I’m not sure exactly. But anything which could have made Major Elston a particular target for reprisal. Anything that involved interrogations, or the death of civilians, for example.”
He scratched his head. “Not that I know of. The last mission, we did pick up a few targets for the intel guys to question. They’d give us a name, photograph and location, then we’d go into Taliban territory and snatch them. But all we did was pick ’em up and hand ’em over. Glorified taxi service, with added bullets.”
When she talked to the men, they all confirmed what the lieutenant had said. Major Elston, it was clear, enjoyed genuine respect. One man told her how the major had risked his life to save a farm boy caught in the middle of a firefight between the Taliban and his own troops. “Gave him a piggyback through no man’s land, walking backwards so he shielded the kid with his body,” the man said. “I saw it with my own eyes.”
Carver’s name drew shrugs and blank looks. They saw little of him, was the general theme. While they were out in the forward bases, in Taliban territory, he was with the command units back at Bagram Air Bas
e, or shuttling back and forth to the Pentagon.
Another soldier told her how Elston had looked after a wounded soldier. “Joe took a bullet in the leg and his army career was over. The major stayed in touch, helped him sort out his Tricare claims. Joe got into a bad way with drugs for a while, but the major helped him get clean. He still visits him every few months – Joe hasn’t got any family of his own, so he stayed here in Italy. I think maybe he didn’t want to move too far from the troop.”
Holly could understand that. Her own father had intended to retire to a village in the Tuscan hills, visiting Camp Darby every week for the veterans’ perk of tax-free shopping and petrol, until his first stroke had brought a premature end to his military service. “Do you have his address? I’d like to speak to him.”
“Sure, it’s on my phone.” He showed her. “Up near Lake Como. Joe likes mountains. Personally, I’ve seen enough freaking mountains to last me a lifetime. Give me the sandbox any day,” he added, using the soldiers’ slang for the desert.
FORTY-EIGHT
KAT TOOK HER laptop back to the Stucky for her expedition into Carnivia. Daniele had given her a link to an administrator login, but the only difference she could see between it and the usual one was a box that appeared, asking:
Do you wish to be:
a) visible?
b) invisible?
She clicked “visible” and found herself in Palazzo Barbo, at the base of the staircase. Walking up amongst a throng of other masked avatars, she knocked on the door of the music room. Normally, this area was off limits, the door permanently closed. But today it opened for her.
Inside, two figures were waiting. One wore the mask of a Scaramouche, with spectacles and an exaggeratedly long nose. That, she knew, was Max. The other wore a black Volto with elaborate gilding. Daniele had told her this would be Zara.
Thank you for doing this, she typed.
No problem, Max answered. We’ve already done some asking around. There’s someone in the market we can talk to.
We’ll be right beside you, Zara added reassuringly. No one else can see us, but we’ll be there.
It was a strange sensation to be walking the narrow canal-side pavements of Carnivia with the two administrators – she still couldn’t bring herself to think of them as “wizards” – flanking her like two guardian angels. Although Daniele had told her that Zara had visited the real city only a couple of times in her life, and Max never, they knew Venice as well as she did, automatically picking the best route through the tangle of tiny streets towards the Rialto.
In the market, Zara and Max steered her towards a stall that appeared to sell nothing more interesting than lemons. But as she peered closer, the trays shifted and telescoped to become a series of tickets, each with a description written on it: “John the Ripper”, “p0f SYN+ACK”, “Kraken”, “BlueCoat Proxy SG9000”. She was, she realised, looking at the tools hackers used to carry out their work.
How can I help?
It was the stall owner, leaning in close so that their conversation was encrypted.
I’m looking for something specific, she typed.
Such as? Not everything I have is on display.
A RAT. One powerful enough to cover its own traces. Perhaps one that can be adapted to order.
There was a long pause, as if he was communicating privately with someone else. Then: Look for Pulcinella379 in the bar.
Looking round, Kat saw the entrance of the Bacaro al Mercato behind her. She went inside. An avatar with a Pulcinella mask sat at a counter, typing on a laptop. Feeling a little self-conscious, Kat approached him.
Excuse me, she typed.
Without looking up, the avatar responded. What do you require?
She repeated her request.
I have a NetBIOS RAT customised from the Gh0stnet source code, he replied.
Behind her, Zara typed privately: [Kat, Gh0stnet was a Remote Administration Tool created by Chinese hackers – probably the most sophisticated RAT ever built. It’s linked to cyber-espionage by the Chinese government. If he really has the source code, that would explain a lot.]
To the Pulcinella, Kat wrote, What’s the price?
20 BTC.
[Kat, BTC are bitcoins, a digital currency. They’re currently trading at US $820. He’s asking for over sixteen thousand dollars for a copy of the program.]
She thought, then said to the Pulcinella, Can I have a sample? Some proof it really is what you say?
No problem.
A text box appeared in the air between them.
Pulcinella379 has sent you an attachment. Accept?
[Kat, be aware that once you click on that attachment, you may not be able to limit how much control he has over your machine.]
[I understand.]
She clicked “Accept”.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then the window in which she was viewing Carnivia abruptly minimised. A new page opened, a notepad program on her computer she’d never used before. Some words appeared, as rapid as typing:
The sample is you.
The screen filled with her own startled face, filmed by her webcam. Over the image, a myriad of windows opened and closed. He was inspecting every program installed on her machine – her web favourites, browsing history, recent documents, emails, even her photographs. As Daniele had instructed, she’d deleted everything that might identify her too precisely, but even so it felt uncomfortable.
As her screen filled with windows, he typed:
Tell me. Why do you want this RAT?
She was ready for this.
A scumbag who filmed me and him together. I want to get him back.
Hmm.
More windows opened and closed. He typed at the same time:
I’m just showing off, you understand. Normally, this part is completely hidden. There’s no reason for the slave to realise they’ve been ratted.
Then:
I’m looking for the film. Why isn’t it here?
She typed: It was a still. And I deleted it.
Shame. I was looking forward to watching it. You’re cute, for a MILF.
Fuck off, Pulcinella.
Call me Ethereal. And I *do* need to see that pic.
Why?
Because I want some proof you’re who you say you are. Everyone’s a little jumpy just now. A still from the film will do just fine.
She could probably get a copy from her Carnivia message box. But every nerve in her body was telling her not to share that picture with the man who called himself Ethereal.
She typed: I won’t do it. Do you want the money or not?
He didn’t reply. Boxes opened and closed. One was black, and contained the command prompt C:. She watched as he typed a number of commands, culminating in >unkill [Recycled].
A Windows message appeared. Are you sure you want to restore the deleted file [Recycled]? Y/N
Y flashed. Moments later, the names of all the files she’d deleted to clean her machine were flickering down her screen.
Shit. Daniele had told her to wipe her laptop, so she’d deleted everything and emptied her recycle bin – which, according to the warning message flashed up by her computer, would permanently delete all its contents. She hadn’t realised such a command could be undone. She reached for the keyboard, intending to close down the internet connection to shut him out. But Ethereal was ahead of her. No sooner had she opened the wi-fi panel than it closed again. She tried going to the “Start” button, to click on “Shut Down”, but that, too, closed before she could do anything.
She had no idea where in the hotel the internet router was. Short of running out into the street and losing the signal, she had no way of breaking the connection to Ethereal. And she knew he’d be done long before she managed that. He was scrolling down the list of deleted files, rapidly opening the ones he was most interested in. She watched in horror as her emails, photographs and even her search history filled the screen.
He stopped on the header “A lovely pic
ture of you and me”. A moment later, the picture of her and Riccardo in bed together filled the screen.
OK, Ethereal typed at last. You’ve got my attention, Kat. Or do I call you Rita?
FORTY-NINE
HOLLY MADE THE briefest of stopovers at Camp Ederle before heading north again. Joe Nicholls, the soldier invalided out of Red Troop, lived right up by the Swiss border. There were no east–west roads up there, so she drove inland first, before beginning the long journey into the mountains.
She drove alongside Lake Lecco, the road winding in and out of tunnels hewn through the rock as it climbed. Once again, she was soon above the snow line, the road signs – which were in three languages now – pointing her onwards to St Moritz and San Bernardino. At Chiavenna, she turned onto an even smaller road towards Passo dello Spluga, the Splügen Pass.
Nicholls lived at the base of Bocchetta del Pinerocolo, a massive col of snow-encrusted black rock that towered over the tiny village below like an ocean liner over a skiff. Technically, this was still within Italy, but she noticed how even the blackboard outside the village bar proclaimed tonight’s specials in Swiss francs as well as euros.
She’d called ahead, so as to give him some warning but not too much. When she rang the doorbell at his isolated chalet he opened it readily enough, greeting her with a nod and a quick “Boland, right?” before leading the way past racks of skis and snow shoes into a pretty kitchen with a view of the mountain. Despite the snow outside he was wearing just a T-shirt and sweat pants, as if he’d been working out. He still had the muscular physique of a professional soldier, although he walked with a pronounced limp.
He made her coffee in a stovetop Bialetti while she explained why she was there.
“I’ve been following the news about Mia,” he said when she was done. “Sent the major a message of support when I heard. This must be killing him.”
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