Supernotes (6 page)

The escape attempt seems to have driven the guards mad. They ordered everyone back inside. They kicked and punched the Cambodians, singling out the political prisoners for blows with sticks and rifle butts. They restored order.

Kasper and the American have been spared. The officer who inspects the prisoners goes over to Thomas and says, “They come for fetch you. You free to go.”

Then he goes over to Kasper and reveals his future: “Prey Sar.”

On the Way to Prey Sar, near Phnom Penh, Cambodia

September 2008

The Toyota SUV taking him away from Preah Monivong Hospital has left the last suburbs of Phnom Penh behind. Now the big 4X4 is driving through a rural landscape composed of rice paddies and a few green areas not yet destroyed by uncontrolled deforestation. They pass somnolent villages united by the torpor of poverty, and then more paddy fields.

Kasper's chained hand and foot. The smells of earth and suffocating heat mingle with the reek of sweat. The three soldiers escorting him will unload their prisoner at Prey Sar and drive away.

Prey Sar is the place of no return. It's the place that's spoken of as little as possible, and always very softly. Even the Westerners who live in Cambodia have learned that.

Prey Sar is hell. Kasper knows what's waiting for him there.

He's done a lot to deserve it.

He's committed at least three mortal sins.

First sin: he trusted the wrong people. Second sin: he underestimated the risk. But the most grievous of his sins, the one that's worse than everything else, is that he overestimated himself.

Not for the first time.

Now he realizes there's something more serious than irresponsibility and cockiness behind his tendency to tempt fate. Something seriously pathological. Crazy, like he said. Also kind of stupid, the way he persists in behavior that endangers his health. Such as landing airplanes in extremely adverse conditions. Such as opening his parachute only four hundred meters from the ground. Such as handling explosives.

He's spent thirty years like that, in a constant bath of foaming adrenaline.

These months in prison have given him time to think about his capture. Again and again he's asked himself: if he and Clancy hadn't been alone, if Patty had still been in Phnom Penh, what would have happened to her?

The answer is obvious.

Darrha and his thugs wouldn't have hesitated. There would have been no negotiations and no witnesses. The prisoners would have disappeared. Devoured, swallowed up by Cambodia, by the land that for decades has done nothing but chew up human bodies.

Kasper has decided—has vowed—never again to put other people's lives in danger.

Now he's fifty years old, and he feels the weight of every one of those years. His deepest wrinkles aren't the ones visible on his face; they're the ones time has inexorably inscribed inside him. Maturity is pain, pain that can stretch you out on the ground, emptied of strength and filled with remorse. There are words, promises, and looks that Kasper can't forget. He'd like to, but he can't. There are pledges he hasn't kept. And there are, above all, people who have trusted him.

The SUV heads for Prey Sar, bouncing along secondary roads.

Kasper observes his surroundings but retains nothing. Memories of his friend Sylvain Vogel cover the noise of the engine and cancel out all other sounds.

“The will to power. That's your greatest pitfall. Because it leads you to follow the childish impulses engendered by the myth you believe about yourself. It's a dangerous myth. Around here, it can cause you a lot of damage. It can get you killed.”

A prophecy. Delivered with a smile and a raised glass of red wine, as though for a toast between European gentlemen. But a prophecy, all the same.

Sylvain Vogel is a French professor at the Royal University of Phnom Penh. He's harsh and wise, the wisest man Kasper's ever met. Now that Vogel's prophecy has almost come true, Kasper can't help going back in his mind to their last meeting, a few weeks before his capture.

The conversation ranges far and wide, as usual. Patty's fascinated by Sylvain, but so is Kasper. It's hard not to be captivated by the breadth of the man's intellect. Besides French and German, he's a fluent speaker of English, Portuguese, Persian, Pashto, Khmer, and various other languages of Southeast Asia. “I'm not a polyglot. I'm a linguist,” he likes to point out. He's a scholar who is totally immersed in the work he loves: the study of how language develops as the result of a culture, of a history, of a way of life.

Sylvain's alert and cautious, but also determined. He's like a cat, a shrewd old puma, capable like few others of moving in a world littered with snares. He spends long periods of time between Afghanistan and Pakistan. With his opportunely neglected beard, the right clothes, and his mastery of languages, such comings and goings seem to be no problem for him. His hobbies hint at a military past. He goes to the shooting range and frequents the same gym as Kasper, where he trains in Muay Thai and Brazilian jiujitsu.

The professor feels a rough fondness for Kasper. Maybe Sylvain sees in him weaknesses he himself has come to terms with in the past. Maybe he intuits Kasper's demons. He seems familiar with Kasper's history and probably knows much more than he lets on. They've never talked openly about it, but people with experience in the field can smell that sort of thing. Therefore, when Kasper urges Sylvain to talk about his trips between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the professor doesn't hold back. He accepts Kasper's questions. He smiles at his provocations. He doesn't try to wriggle away.

Not even tonight, when they talk about the great quantities of drugs that make the journey to the West.

Not even when that word comes up: supernotes. The currency of choice for opium, heroin, and much else.

At this point in the conversation Kasper tries to raise the bar. He proposes to Vogel that they travel to Afghanistan and Pakistan together. “Just so I can understand a bit more about them,” he says. “You know the language, you know how to move around. I'll accompany you without speaking. I'll just look. Look and learn.”

The professor gazes at Kasper with great indulgence. He seems to be weighing the proposal, but in reality he's only trying to judge how best to steer Kasper away from that path.

“Do you remember the colonel?” he asks, as if talking about an old mutual friend they haven't seen for some time.

“Colonel…You're talking about Ian—”

“Ian Travis, exactly. The former SAS colonel.”

Kasper nods. “Of course. I remember him well.”

“That's good. Keep remembering him. And take your foot off the gas.”

Vogel pauses and studies him. He seems amused by the scowl on Kasper's face. “There are more important things you can do for your country,” the professor continues. “Al-Qaeda's setting up bases everywhere. Koranic schools and foundations, that's where you have to look. Rome and Milan aren't out of their range.”

Kasper acknowledges this point; for some time now, he's been doing some investigating in that area too. But then he returns to the topic he's most interested in.

“I can't tell you much more about supernotes,” Sylvain Vogel says, cutting him short. “Apart from the fact that there's an enormous quantity of them in circulation in this part of the world. In countries like these, where Westerners don't have easy access, it's hard to figure out who's turning the crank of the money printing machine.”

“That's just what I'd like to figure out.”

Vogel shakes his head. “Maybe you don't realize what risks you're running. Be careful of the people closest to you.”

“I know my limits,” Kasper says in self-defense.

The professor closes the discussion with a few smiling words that sound like a warning. “What you buy with supernotes is a ticket to hell. One way only.”

The SUV stops in front of the entrance to Prey Sar.

Sylvain Vogel's face dissolves.

One of the soldiers points at the car door, which opens slowly as he says, in mangled English, “You home now, Italian.”

Prey Sar Correctional Center, near Phnom Penh, Cambodia

October 2008

During Pol Pot's regime, Prey Sar was a concentration camp. Afterward, it was renovated with funding from the United Nations and became a “correctional center.” Which is only a different way to define what it has always been. There are two separate complexes, one for men and the other for women and minors. With a few exceptions, everyone wears a blue prison suit similar to pajamas. Kasper, the only Westerner, doesn't wear this uniform.

Instead of traditional cells, the men's quarters are “modernized.” Inmates live in large rooms that have a narrow central aisle with a low masonry wall running along either side. At one end of the aisle, a little cubicle with two holes in the floor serves as a latrine. There's no running water. Plastic jerry cans of water are delivered twice a day by the “slaves,” the lowest inmates in the prison hierarchy.

In each large room, between seventy and eighty wretches spend their miserable lives, packed into a space twenty people would crowd.

Outside the room, every movement they make is closely monitored.

The guards in the towers have orders to shoot anyone who makes any move that could be construed as an escape attempt. The wall around the prison is four meters high, more than twice as tall as the tallest man, and topped with an additional meter of barbed wire. Outside the wall is a walkway from which the guards mount directly to the towers on ladders inaccessible to the prisoners. Beyond that, there's just water and mud: a great expanse in which the local peasants cultivate rice. Standing in water, bending to their task, the rice farmers probably look over at Prey Sar and feel privileged.

No weapons circulate among the prisoners in the camp, just the kapos' big sticks. The guards, armed with Kalashnikovs, support the kapos in the more demanding activities, such as nighttime raids of the prisoners' sleeping quarters.

The prison director, Mong Kim Heng, is a significant figure in the government power structure. Many of the men whose lives he oversees aren't ordinary convicts but formerly powerful officials who have fallen into disgrace. Others have actively opposed Hun Sen and his regime. Still others are individuals who, for the most disparate reasons, must simply vanish.

The director of Prey Sar prison is also one of those Cambodians with whom the Americans tend to get along. When Mong Kim Heng learned that the Italian was in Darrha's hands, he wanted to know more about him. The fact that the CID lieutenant was moving his prisoner from one hiding place to another suggested that there was money to be made. And Darrha was pissing off the Americans, which is never a good idea. So the director made sure to have the problem brought back within normal channels.

A doctor in Mong Kim Heng's employ had Kasper relocated to Preah Monivong Hospital, snatching him away from Darrha. And after a period of treatment, the gates of Prey Sar opened to welcome him.

Now Mong Kim Heng knows that Kasper's family has already made some hefty payments. He also knows that an Italian diplomat stationed in Phnom Penh has requested a meeting with his countryman.

The director has told the diplomat, “It can be done, but you'll have to be patient.”

Mong Kim Heng has taken his time. He wanted to know what the Americans thought about all this.

Kasper is called into the director's office. The Kapo, who had introduced him to the prison's pay-to-live policy, shows him where to go. “You have visitor, Italian,” he says, spitting on the ground. “Remember, you must pay.”

Kasper heads for the big door leading to the rooms where some inmates are allowed to meet with their lawyers or family members. He finds himself in an inner courtyard where a guard indicates the room he should enter. A table, two plastic chairs, no window.

A Westerner is sitting on the other side of the table.

“I'm Italian,” he says, introducing himself. Marco Lanna is the Italian diplomatic liaison in Phnom Penh. Northern accent. From Liguria, maybe. He asks Kasper how he is. Before he can reply, Lanna adds a proposal: “Shall we speak informally?”

“Why not?” says Kasper with an ironic smile. “Even though I'm not clear about who you are. You're not the ambassador, and you're not from the Farnesina….”

“I'm the Italian diplomatic representative in Phnom Penh,” Lanna explains. “Honorary consul. Maybe you don't remember, but we've met before. You were involved in work here with the Comboni Fathers. We were introduced to each other….”

Kasper gives his head a little shake. “You must excuse me.”

“Don't worry about it. In any case, I'm not a professional diplomat. My real line of work is quite different, but when I can help…”

“Honorary consul,” Kasper nods. “A sort of hobby.”

Lanna recognizes the sarcasm but makes no reply. All he has to do is look at this countryman of his to know what he's going through. Lanna's well aware of the kind of facility Prey Sar is.

After pausing a little, he says, “Our foreign minister has apprised me of your case. I'd like to help you somehow….Tell me about what happened to you.”

Kasper stares at him without feeling any particular emotion. A strange apathy has come over him. It's as if he were able, at certain moments, to withdraw. To exit his body and look down on himself from above.

He's learned to do this during the torture sessions and the beatings.

Lanna observes him in silence.

I don't suppose my appearance encourages conversation, Kasper reflects. There's a good chance the honorary consul finds the sight of me pathetic. And a bit disgusting, too.

“What do you want to know, Mr. Consul?” Kasper's tone is brusque. But not brusque enough, he thinks. I can do better.

Lanna widens his dark eyes and takes a deep breath. “Who are you really? I'd like to know why…why this has happened to you.”

Kasper tries. But his mind goes down disordered, mysterious paths. His memories are incoherent flashes. The Asian music, the dancers with their typical costumes and frozen smiles. The sepulchral silence surrounding the French-style building he entered, holding his breath. The bright neon lights illuminating the pallets he saw in front of him, loaded with piles of banknotes two meters high. He can't manage to find a thread connecting them to a rational thought. Or anything logical.

Kasper starts with what he remembers better, while trying to put those other events into some kind of line, some kind of order. He begins with his capture and imprisonment. The torture. The threats and the extortion.

Lanna's face betrays his shock and disbelief. He never interrupts Kasper, but every now and then he makes inadvertent, truncated comments such as “Impossible” or “I can't believe it” or “That's insane.” Until Kasper abruptly stops talking. He's lost the thin thread of his story, and he's lost his patience. He assails Lanna with something between a hiss and a snarl: “Of course it's unbelievable. But can you see me now? Can you see me or not?”

“Sure I see you,” Lanna stammers.

And then Kasper raises his T-shirt and displays his bruises and wounds. He gives Lanna a close-up view of his infected ear, shows him his smashed foot and shattered hands. “So what do you say, Mr. Honorary Consul?”

Lanna's eyes are shining and his lips drawn. Eventually he breaks the silence.

“In Phnom Penh you established a branch of the Island of Brotherly Love—”

“It's a foundation,” Kasper snaps, cutting him short. “It carries out humanitarian operations. It does what the gentlemen and ladies of the NGOs don't do. They drive around in their air-conditioned Toyotas. We get into a truck, a beat-up piece of shit, and bring real help to the people who live in the garbage dumps of the capital….Have you seen where those poor bastards stay? Have you ever smelled the stench of those places? I imagine you haven't. Well, I have, and I can tell you that after you've been there you have to throw away all your clothes. Then you wash yourself for hours. We go there every Thursday. I mean, I
used
to go there….I hope the others are still going. It's just us, a few American volunteers, and a French monk.”

“I was told your girlfriend took care of some of those children….”

“Patty's a veterinarian, which gives her enough training to treat an eye infection or childhood bronchitis….Listen, let's not waste time. I don't think any of this has anything to do with why I'm in Prey Sar prison.”

“You're right,” Lanna says with a smile. He clears his throat and says, “When I asked for information about you, the people in Rome told me you're an ex-Carabiniere. Also an ex-pilot for Alitalia. I know you own the bar called Sharky's, near the Tonlé Sap. When I met you, you were at an evening fund-raiser for the foundation with the Comboni Fathers. And yet, despite all that, there are a bunch of strange stories going around about you….”

“Is that important?”

“It could be, if you want me to help you.”

“What more do you want to know?”

“What is a man like you doing in Cambodia? How did you happen to come here? That's what I want to know.”

“Who do
you
think I am?”

“Someone who stepped on some important toes.”

“Right…Listen, Mr. Consul, that would be a long story. I'm afraid we don't have enough time for me to tell it.”

“Start. I'll come back tomorrow and the next few days as well.”

Kasper bobs his head. This is just diplomatic dicking around. Maybe the last in a long line of booby traps. And in any case, a torment.

He'd like to tell Lanna, Better yet, you talk to me. Talk to me about the normal world: about an evening at the movies, or a boat trip, or a simple plate of pasta. Talk to me about civilization and its little, fundamental, everyday stupidities.

So that I won't die even before I'm killed.

He sighs. “You can push me to talk, but it's no use, believe me. Remembering isn't…it doesn't do any good.”

“Start,” Lanna insists. “Start wherever you want.”

“
Start,
you say. Where do I start? Well, maybe ten years ago, in Rome. It was 1998. No, I'm wrong—it was '97, eleven years ago. It was April '97. I could start there….”