Michael Dibdin - End games

‘Choppers are no use without the hardware.’

‘Have extra units shipped over.’

‘Well, you’d need to talk to head office about that, Mr Nguyen, but I think it might be a problem.’

‘You mean a challenge?’

‘No, I mean a problem. The scanner we’re using was originally developed for military purposes, in highflying planes or drones. The civilian variant, operable at low altitudes, is still in development, but Aeroscan was able to get hold of a beta release prototype for use on your project. It’s a beauty, works just great, but as far as I know there aren’t any more available right now.’

‘Okay. You say you’re working twelve hours a day. That’s only a fifty per cent effort. Get your company to fly out more people, hire another pilot — maybe another gas supplier while you’re at it — and keep going right around the clock.’

‘I hate to tell you this, Mr Nguyen, but it can’t be done. This is strictly visual navigation. We’re flying at less than a hundred feet in a complex environment on the outskirts of a major city surrounded by mountains on three sides. We’re working the flood plain now, but some of the side valleys on our survey chart are barely thirty feet across near the bottom. No aviation instruments could cope with that. The authorities have been pretty co-operative so far, but they’d never let us operate between civil dusk and dawn. Apart from anything else, we’re supposed to be selecting prime locations for a movie shoot. How can you do that in the dark?’

That hiss again.

‘So, worst-case scenario, when is the latest we’ll know whether there’s anything there?’

‘About a month, if all goes well.’

‘That’s way too long.’

‘I don’t know what to tell you, Mr Nguyen. I didn’t think this thing was time-dated.’

‘The situation has changed. The director of the movie we’re using as cover for the operation now wants to start shooting next week.’

‘So? He won’t bother us none.’

‘No, but you’ll bother him. He’ll wonder what this helicopter is doing all day, patrolling up and down when he’s trying to set up a scene. When he asks around, he’ll be told that it’s surveying locations for scenes in his movie. Bullshit, he’ll say, I never asked for anything like that.’

‘I’m sorry, Mr Nguyen, this is way beyond my area of competence.’

‘All right, let’s see how competent you are, Larson. You don’t have a month any more. You have barely a week, so you’ll have to prioritise.’

‘On the basis of what criteria?’

‘How do you mean?’

Phil sighed.

‘Mr Nguyen, our project chart is posted right here on the wall of my office. I’m looking at it now. What I’m seeing is a large-scale map of the area divided into fifteen-metre-wide strips. Those that have been completed are shaded in — apart from today’s, because I haven’t had a chance yet. All the remaining strips look pretty well identical to me. I don’t even know what we’re looking for, except it’s a man-made structure buried somewhere down beneath the riverbed. You’re now asking me to favour some sections of the survey over others, so I’m asking you who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. They don’t seem to be wearing their hats.’

‘Don’t get flippant with me, Larson!’

‘Sorry, Mr Nguyen. The heat must be getting to me. Plus everything’s a whole lot tougher since Newman went AWOL. Just yesterday this Italian guy comes around wanting to know what we’re doing and where’s our authorisation from the city. At least I think that’s what he was saying, his English wasn’t too good. I gave him the agreed cover story but he wanted to see the paperwork. I don’t know where those permits are. Never even seen them. And I sure as hell can’t deal effectively with people like that in a foreign language. That was what Pete Newman was for. I do electronics.’

Another, briefer silence.

‘I’ll be there tomorrow,’ Martin Nguyen announced.

The isolated stone barn had evidently lain derelict for years, but still smelt strongly of sheep and manure, interwoven with more recent layers of rot, damp and mould. The floor was of beaten earth and the windows filled in with roughly mortared blocks of terracotta brick. Once Giorgio had closed and bolted the massive door, the darkness was broken only by peeps of light from the roof, whose flat stone slabs had shifted over the years. He turned on his torch and suspended it from a loop at the end of a length of rusty wire attached to the main roof-beam, so that it dangled down like a domestic light fixture, then he moved away into the shadowy depths at the fringes of the building.

It was only now that Mantega realised there was another odour present. It was the smell of fear, and the fear was his own. A couple of days after Peter Newman’s kidnapping, an envelope had been deposited in the letter box of Mantega’s villa. It was unstamped and addressed only with his name. The note inside, printed by a typewriter in block capitals, gave detailed instructions to be followed in the event that meeting in person proved to be necessary. Mantega had followed these to the letter, and Giorgio had duly shown up at the designated station on the secondary line to Catanzaro.

So far so good, but since then nothing had gone according to plan. Mantega had expected a warm welcome from his associate, a rapid update on the latest developments regarding both of them, followed by a discussion of the most appropriate means to bring their joint enterprise to fruition. None of that. Giorgio had remained silent and glacially cold throughout the twenty-minute drive to the ruin where they now were, and had offered absolutely no explanation for having insisted on the meeting in the first place.

‘We’ll talk once we get there,’ was all he would say.

As he watched his host return, carrying two tumblers full of some colourless liquid, it occurred to Mantega that an important component of the primitive terror which had him in his grip was that Giorgio appeared physically different. He was still the same wiry weasel of a man, as thin and heavy as a sheet of beaten lead, but his movements had lost their fluidity, their naturalezza. He bristled with suppressed tension, and the hand that offered Mantega his glass of grappa might have been robotic.

‘ Salute.’

Neither man wanted to drink. Both did. Once this ceremony had been concluded, Mantega waited for Giorgio to get to the point. He felt sure that Peter Newman was being held near by, possibly even in the cellarage of the barn, and was anxious to discuss the ways and means for his release and their payment by the son. But Giorgio didn’t seem to want to discuss anything. He just stood there, his back to the light, eyes focused on nothing within view, listening intently to the silence between them. Eventually Mantega could stand it no longer.

‘I’ve been under a lot of pressure, you know!’

Giorgio moved his eyes, though not his head, and regarded him for a moment dispassionately.

‘From the police, as a matter of fact,’ Mantega continued with a hint of sarcastic emphasis. ‘This outsider that they’ve brought in as a temporary replacement for Rossi seems determined to make his mark at my expense. He gave me a very unpleasant grilling yesterday, and seems to regard me as a probable accessory both before and after the fact.’

Still Giorgio said nothing.

‘Rossi couldn’t be bought, but he’d grown lazy,’ Mantega went on. ‘The new man has a quite different approach. He’s given the case top priority, is heading the investigation in person and, since the victim is a prominent foreign citizen, he’s getting full cooperation from his superiors and the judiciary. I therefore have to assume that all my phones, both at home and at work, are being tapped. I may even be under surveillance.’