Giorgio Faletti - I Kill

The man knows with certainty what he has to do. He has already done it and he will do it again, as long as it is necessary. There are many masks out there, worn by people who do not deserve the appearance they give to the world. Nor any other.

What is it, Vibo? Why are you looking at me that way? Is there something wrong?

The man is reassuring. His mouth smiles, his eyes sparkle, his voice protects.

‘No, Paso, there’s nothing wrong. I was thinking how handsome you are. And soon you’ll be even more so.’

Oh, no. Really? Don’t tell me!

The man cloaks his intentions in secret tenderness.

‘Stop. You mustn’t speak of it. Secret of secrets. Remember?’

Oh, is it a secret of secrets? Then we can only speak of it at the full

The man smiles at the memory of their childhood game, in the few moments when that man was not there to spoil the only game that they were allowed to play.

‘That’s right, Paso. And the full moon is coming soon. Very soon…’

The man turns and goes towards the door. The music in the other room is over. Now there is a silence that feels like the natural continuation of the music.

Where are you going, Vibo?

‘I’ll be right back, Paso.’

He turns to look at the body lying in the crystal coffin. ‘First, I have to make a phone call…’

At Radio Monte Carlo they were sitting and waiting, like every night. The story had created such a fervour that there were three-times the usual number of people in the building at that hour.

Now, in addition, there was Sergeant Gottet and a couple of men who had installed a much more powerful and sophisticated computer system than that of the radio station, and had hooked it up to the Internet. There was a young guy with them, about twenty-five and intelligent-looking, short brown hair with blond streaks and a ring through his right nostril. He busied himself with a pile of floppy disks and CD-ROMs, his fingers flying over the keyboard. The kid’s name was Alain Toulouse but hackers knew him as Pico. When he was introduced to Frank, he smiled and his eyes sparkled.

‘FBI, huh?’ he said. ‘I got in once. Well, actually more than once. It used to be easier, but now they’ve wised up. Know if they’ve got any hackers working for them?’

Frank couldn’t answer the question, but the boy was no longer interested. He turned and sat back down at his station. He typed with lightning speed as he explained what he was doing.

‘First, I’m going to set up a firewall to protect the system. If someone tries to get in, I’ll know. Usually we try to stop attacks from the outside and that’s it. This time it’s different: we want to find out who’s attacking, without their knowledge. I’ve installed a program that I developed. It’ll let us hook on to the signal and follow it back. It might be a Trojan horse.’

‘Trojan horse?’ Frank asked.

‘It’s what we call a masked communication that travels covered by another one, like some viruses. So I’m also installing anti-virus protection. I only want the signal that we intercept, when we intercept it.’

He stopped to unwrap a sweet and stuck it in his mouth. Frank noticed that the kid had no doubt that he would intercept the call. He must have a pretty high opinion of himself. Then again, his attitude was typical of computer hackers. Their presumption and sarcasm led them to do things that might not actually be criminal but were simply aimed at showing their victims that they could avoid surveillance and get through any wall designed to keep them out. They saw themselves as modern-day Robin Hoods, armed with mouse and keyboard instead of bow and arrow.

‘As I was saying,’ Pico continued, chewing vigorously on the caramel stuck to his teeth, ‘I don’t want them to include a virus that gets out if they’re intercepted. Otherwise, we’d lose the signal and our chance to follow it, along with our computer, obviously. A really good virus can literally melt a hard drive. If this guy is really good, then any virus he lets out won’t smell like roses.’

Until then, Bikjalo had been sitting silently at a desk nearby. Now he asked a question. ‘Do you think any of your friends might play tricks on us while we’re doing this?’

Frank shot him a look but the station manager didn’t notice. Pico turned his chair around to look at Bikjalo directly, incredulous at his ignorance of the computer world.

‘We’re hackers, not hoodlums. Nobody would do anything like that. I’m here because this guy doesn’t just break in where he doesn’t belong and leave a smiley face behind as his signature. This guy kills – he’s a murderer. No hacker worthy of the name would do anything like that.’

‘Okay, okay. Get on with it,’ Frank said, putting a hand on his shoulder, a gesture of trust that was also an apology for Bikjalo. ‘I don’t think there’s anyone here who can teach you anything.’ Then he turned to Bikjalo who had now come to stand next to them. ‘There’s nothing left for us to do here. Let’s go and see if Jean-Loup is back yet.’

What he really wanted to do was tell Bikjalo to get the hell out of the way and let them work without breathing down their necks. They had enough pressure without him. But a sense of diplomacy held Frank back. They were all working together at the station and he didn’t want to ruin anything. There was already too much tension in the air.

‘Okay.’

The station manager shot a last puzzled look at the computer and at Pico, who had already forgotten about him. Excited by this new challenge, his fingers were again flying over the keys.

Bikjalo and Frank left the computer station and went over to Raquel’s desk as Jean-Loup and Laurent came in at the door.

Frank scrutinized the deejay. Jean-Loup looked better than he had that morning, but there was an indelible shadow under his eyes. Frank knew that shadow. When this was all over, he would need a lot of sun, and a lot of light, to get rid of it.

‘Hey, guys. All set?’

Laurent answered for both of them.

‘Yeah, the outline’s ready. The hard part is thinking that the show has to go on, no matter what. Aside from those calls, we’ve still got our normal callers. How’re things here?’

The door opened again and Hulot came in. He seemed to have aged ten years since Frank had arrived in Monte Carlo.

‘Oh, here you are. Evening, everyone. Frank, can I talk to you for a sec?’

Jean-Loup, Laurent and Bikjalo moved over to let Frank and the inspector have some privacy.

‘What’s up?’

They walked to the other wall, next to the two glass panels covering the switchboard, the satellite connections and the ISDN links that were there in case there was a blackout and the repeater failed.

‘Everything’s ready. The Crisis Unit’s on call. There are ten men standing by at the police station. They can get anywhere in a flash. There are plainclothes men all over the streets. Nothing’s going on. People walking dogs, prams, things like that. The whole city’s covered. We can move people in seconds if we need to. If the victim is here, in Monte Carlo, I mean. If Mr No One has decided to get his victim somewhere else, we’ve alerted the police forces all along the coast. All we can do now is try to be sharper than our friend there. Otherwise, we’re in the hands of God.’

‘And in the hands of Pierrot, whom God has treated so badly…’ Frank pointed to two people walking in with Morelli.

Pierrot and his mother came over to them and stopped. The woman held her son’s hand as if she were clutching a lifesaver. Instead of offering protection, she seemed to be seeking it from her innocent son who was savouring his personal participation in that moment, something that was usually denied to him.