The Absolution (15 page)

KAT SAT AT
her desk and went through the websites Cassandre had visited. For the most part, they were a random assortment of newsfeeds, financial information sites and Wikipedia pages. He'd also visited a site called Eurotwinks. She clicked on it, then wished she hadn't. Cute young men with short gelled haircuts and pale hairless chests, having things done to them by older men that made her wince. So perhaps that explained the wife's curious detachment.

Rather more incongruously, he'd also paid multiple visits to the online game World of Warcraft. He definitely wasn't a gamer, that was for sure. She picked up the phone to Malli.

“I know you don't want to get involved,” she said. “But just answer one question, would you? Can you think of any reason why a fifty-four-year-old banker should play World of Warcraft?”

Malli hesitated, then said reluctantly, “Do a search for Warcraft and Snowden.” He hung up.

She did as he'd suggested, and found an article from the English newspaper that had broken the Edward Snowden story. Titled “NSA Infiltrates Online Worlds”, it revealed that the National Security Agency had become aware that in-game currencies were being used to transfer untraceable funds around the world.

She did a quick check through the Wikipedia pages Cassandre had visited. One was headed “1964 Piano Solo”, another “1970 Golpe Borghese”, a third “1976 Killick Initiative”. She clicked on the last one.

In the early 1970s,
Christian Democrat
party leader Aldo Moro came to the conclusion that the key to preventing outside interference in Italy's affairs lay in persuading the Italian Communist Party to renounce its revolutionary goals and transform itself into a fully pro-West, democratic party. If that occurred, there could be no further pretext for subjecting Italy to Anglo-American intervention under the guise of “anti-communism”.
^[1]
Moro therefore developed the strategy of a “
Compromesso storico
” or “Historic Compromise”, under which the Communists would join the Christian Democrats in a coalition government of the left.

Far from being reassured, however, the outside powers that had kept a close watch on Italian politics for three decades reacted with alarm. On March 25, 1976,
John Killick
, the British ambassador to
NATO
, wrote in a memorandum that, “the presence of communist ministers in the Italian government would lead to an immediate security problem inside the Alliance”.
^[2]
A subsequent briefing document added: “For a series of reasons, the idea of a bloodless and surgical coup to prevent the Italian Communist Party from coming into power is attractive. It could come from right-wing forces, with the support of the army and the police.”
^[3]
This was similar to the way two previous coup attempts, the
Golpe Borghese
and
Golpe Bianco
, had been organised.

The link to the Golpe Bianco page was coloured, showing that Cassandre had clicked on it. She did the same.

The Golpe Bianco or “White Coup” plot was the brainchild of former partisan leader
Edgardo Sogno
. Sogno conceived the idea of using a combination of political unrest, mass insurrection, the ballot box and military power to force the president to declare a state of emergency, allowing Sogno to form an emergency government – a “white” or “legal” coup.

Kat frowned. Cassandre appeared to have been looking at attempted coups from Italy's violent past. But while a coup might have been conceivable in the dark days of the Years of Lead, surely there was no way the Freemasons could be planning anything like that now?

Her phone beeped. It was her mother, texting an invitation to Sunday lunch. On an impulse, Kat called her back.

“Mamma, would it be all right if I brought someone?” she asked, after the usual pleasantries about her father,
nonna
, and her sister's children.

There was a startled silence at the other end. “You mean – a
boyfriend
?” For Kat to bring a man to meet her parents was almost unheard of.

“Yes, a . . . My . . .” Now that she'd started, “boyfriend” seemed the wrong word for a highly distinguished forty-year-old prosecutor. “A man. Someone I'm seeing.”

“Of course you can. What does he like to eat?”

“He's not fussy.”

“He's not Venetian?”

Kat laughed, though she was aware her mother hadn't meant it as a joke. “No, he's from Bassano.” That Flavio was from the Veneto would, she knew, be a point in his favour.

“And is he . . .?” Her mother left the question hanging delicately in the air.

Kat felt herself getting angry. She couldn't help it: no one could wind her up like her mother. She wished she could pretend she didn't know what her mother was talking about –
What, Mamma? Gay? Black? A Protestant? Muslim?
– but instead, forcing herself to stay calm, she said mildly, “Married? No, this one's single. Although he
was
married, a while back.”

“Oh –
divorced
.” Her mother made it sound even worse than being married.

“He's a lawyer.” On the plus side, she meant. But her mother chose to misunderstand that too.

“Well, I suppose it's easier for them, isn't it? To divorce. Since they know all the rules, they know how to get round them.”

Kat sighed audibly.

“Any children?” her mother added.

“We haven't decided yet.”

“No, I meant—”

“I know what you meant,” Kat interrupted. “He has two. A little boy, Julius, and a girl, Anna.”

Her mother didn't even have to voice her thoughts out loud for Kat to know what they were.
If he's got a family already, he won't want one with you
.

“Though he doesn't see much of them,” she added. “They live abroad.”

Oh, the heartless philanderer's a bad father as well, is he?

She decided she'd better bring this one-sided internal conversation to an end before she said something she regretted. “So we'll see you around midday, shall we?”

“Of course. I'll see if your sister can come too. You know
how Nonna loves to see her great-grandchildren. And it'll be nice for your . . . friend, won't it? If he doesn't get to see his own children much.”

Oh, joy
, Kat thought. She wondered if Flavio was going to be up to this.

THE HACKER TRAVELLED
to Sicily by ferry, on a stolen passport provided by the cleric. During the crossing he stood at the rail, thinking about the last time he'd made this journey.

He'd been twelve years old when his family had fled Gaddafi's Libya. His father was an educated man, with an American college degree, but when his US visa expired he'd made the mistake of applying to stay in the United States legally, instead of simply slipping underground like so many others. His application was refused. America wouldn't send goods to Libya, because of UN sanctions, but it would send Libyans – unless, that is, they could specifically prove their lives would be in danger.

Pointing out that every Libyan's life was in danger from the mad, murderous dictator who ruled them didn't count, apparently.

By Libyan standards, Tareq's father was reasonably well off. He could afford a laptop, for example – the same laptop that his son discovered when he was six years old. To Tareq, it was like coming across a magic lamp with a genie inside. All human knowledge was contained within it. He didn't have to pester grown-ups with questions any more.

A month or so later he stumbled across a document titled “The Hacker Manifesto”, written under the alias “The Mentor”.

I am a hacker, enter my world . . .

I'm smarter than most of the other kids, this crap they teach us bores me.

I've listened to teachers explain for the fifteenth time how to reduce a fraction. I understand it. “No, Ms Smith, I didn't show my work. I did it in my head.”

– Damn kid. Probably copied it. They're all alike.

And then it happened. A door opened to a world. Rushing through the phone line like heroin through an addict's veins, an electronic pulse is sent out, a refuge from the day-to-day incompetencies is sought. A board is found.

This is it. This is where I belong.

I know everyone here. Even if I've never met them, never talked to them, may never hear from them again. I know you all.

– Damn kid. Tying up the phone line again. They're all alike.

So there were others like him: young people who existed more fully in the online world than in the physical one. He started to hang out on hacker boards, silently at first, then with growing confidence as he realised that no one knew or cared how young he was. But unlike Mentor, he didn't hate school, or his parents. His father, recognising how gifted he was, had sent him to the best madrasa he could. Tareq studied the Qur'an, but he also learnt algebra and mathematics.

Soon after Tareq's twelfth birthday, his father made a decision.

“Tareq is clever,” he told the family one evening after prayers. “He needs to go to a better school. And we need to go to a better country.” He looked at each of them in turn. “I've decided. We're going to Italy.”

There was silence as they all digested this. Neither Tareq's mother, Zafeera, nor his sister, Faizah, dissented. They all knew Italy would mean a better life. In Libya secret policemen hung round every corner in their leather jackets and sunglasses, watching you. In Libya every neighbour was a potential informant. In Libya people disappeared in the night, never to be heard of again. The only question was whether it was possible to get out of Libya.

Now his father sought Tareq's gaze. “We will have to sell everything to pay for our passage. Everything we have,” he said gently.

It took Tareq a moment to understand what he meant. “Not the laptop!” That was unthinkable.

“It's the only way. And soon, when I have a good job in Italy, I'll buy you a better one. I promise.”

Tareq bowed his head. “I understand.”

Two weeks later they left from a fishing village near Misrata, the smugglers rowing their passengers out in small groups to escape detection. When Tareq saw the ship that was to transport them across the sea he gasped. It was tiny – no more than twenty feet long. A fishing boat. Already the deck was crowded with people.

By the time they sailed, there were so many people crushed onto the deck that he and Faizah had to hold hands to prevent themselves from being separated. Already, some of the passengers were being sick as the vessel rocked in the swell.

The plan was to land at Lampedusa, the most southerly of Italy's islands, and claim asylum. So many people did this, his father had told him, that a military base on Lampedusa had been converted into a holding camp, where they would stay for a few weeks before being taken to the mainland. “It will be like a holiday,” he said. “A holiday by the sea.”

What his father didn't know, however, was that in the previous few weeks the political climate had changed. The West, having declared war on terror, had decided to make peace with strong Arab leaders like Gaddafi who they believed could act as a bulwark against the threat of radical Islam. President Mubarak in Egypt, President Assad in Syria and King Abdullah in Saudi Arabia were just some of the dictators now being favoured with aid and trade deals instead of sanctions and accusatory speeches in the UN.

In Italy, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi seized the opportunity to forge closer links with Libya. Libya had vast reserves of oil, not least because for decades it hadn't been able to sell them to the West. Now pipelines could be laid across the Mediterranean directly to Italy. To smooth that deal, Berlusconi agreed to take care of some minor nuisances that were irritating the Libyan leader. Principal amongst these, it turned out, was the steady drip of Libyans claiming asylum in Italy, whose criticisms of Gaddafi's human rights record were still deterring some – though by no means all – Western firms from investing in his country.

Since Berlusconi didn't want Libyans coming to his country any more than Gaddafi wanted them leaving his, the conversation was a short one. Then the two leaders got on to more important matters. It was Gaddafi, after all, who introduced Berlusconi to the phrase “bunga bunga”.

When the wet and exhausted refugees finally reached
Lampedusa, they were met by armed soldiers. All of them, Tareq's father included, spoke the words that should have entitled them to asylum. But the soldiers simply separated them into two groups, one of Libyans and one of other nationalities. The Libyans were bussed to the military port, where a ship was waiting. A few men in the group tried to make a run for it. They were soon brought down by Italian soldiers using their rifle butts.

When the ship reached Tripoli, the refugees were kept on board for several days while the Libyan police interrogated them. Every so often, the police came and took away small groups of people.

“Whatever happens, we must stay together,” Tareq's father told his family. But to Tareq he said quietly, when Faizah and Zafeera weren't listening, “If anything happens to me, remember you are the man of the family now. Protect your mother and your sister.”

His father was one of the last to be questioned. Almost immediately, he was taken away. Then the policemen came for the rest of the family. They drove them to a police station not far from the docks. “Perhaps they're going to put us with Father,” Faizah whispered to Tareq. He nodded, trying to look hopeful, but inwardly he knew it was unlikely. “Keep your hair covered at all times,” he told her.

The policemen took them to a room where the walls were stained with brown smears and the fluorescent light tubes overhead were in metal cages. There were two men in leather jackets waiting for them, as well as two uniformed policemen. One of the men in plain clothes asked Tareq why his father had tried to claim asylum.

“Because he believed his life was in danger in Libya,” he replied, trying to sound calmer than he felt.

“Why? Do we look dangerous to you?” the man demanded, smiling.

Tareq knew it was a trick question, one with no right answer. But he also knew that whatever these people were going to do to him, they had probably already decided on it. “No?” he said tentatively.

The man laughed. Approaching Tareq, he slapped him hard across the face, knocking him to the floor.

When Tareq could hear again, the man was talking. He was offering him a choice.

“You father has dishonoured your family. I have decided to punish him by dishonouring one of his women. Because he's not here, you can decide which one.”

Tareq's head swam. He heard his father's voice.
Protect your mother and your sister.

“I don't want to choose,” he said. “Please . . .”

“Fine. I'll rape them both.” The man clapped his hands. “Bring them in.”

“Wait,” Tareq said. He was desperately trying to think. Rape would be a terrible thing for either woman, but in Libya's deeply conservative culture, it would destroy any chance his sister had of having a life. “My mother,” he said quickly. “If you have to punish one, punish my mother.”

The door opened and his mother and sister were brought in.

“Say that again,” the policeman said with a smirk. “You want me to screw your mother, is that right?”

“Yes,” Tareq mumbled. He couldn't look at her.

“And you're going to screw your sister, you filthy dog.”

Tareq stared at him, appalled. “I never said that!”

“I said you could choose which one
I
raped. I didn't say the other one would get off.” He glanced at the other men, who
were all laughing now. “But if you don't want to do it, I guess we'll just have to do your sister too.”

The memory of what happened in that room would always be with him. He remembered their screams, the laughter of the men, the things they did to all three of them, not just with their bodies but with their guns and truncheons and boots. When at last they were done, the men dragged them to a car and drove them at high speed to a sports stadium. Even though it wasn't yet dawn, a small crowd was gathering. Policemen were directing people to their seats.

In the middle of the stadium was a crane. Thirty minutes later, a group of hooded men stumbled out of the changing rooms, barely able to walk. Their hands were bound and they were prodded along by policemen with truncheons. Tareq couldn't even tell which one was his father until the hoods were taken off.

They hanged them three at a time, their wrists still bound, their jerking bodies swinging into each other as the crane hoisted them up, their feet kicking at each other's shins.

When it was over, a policeman standing near the family turned to them. “Now get out. And tell everyone you meet what happens to those who criticise Gaddafi.”

But their troubles weren't over. They were tainted now, and who knew if the regime was still displeased with them? The madrassa wouldn't give Tareq his place back. His mother couldn't get a job. They lived off tiny handouts from relatives.

After a month of staring numbly into space, Tareq woke up. He went to an internet café he knew. The owner was a good businessman, but he had almost no technical understanding. Tareq offered to take care of any IT issues that
arose. He would do it at night, he said, when there was no one around to see him.

The café owner thought, then agreed. He named a wage that was ridiculously low. But at least it was a wage.

Late at night, when there were no customers, Tareq went online himself. It was a different kind of message board he frequented now. Not just those places in the Deep Web where the most sophisticated hackers lurked, but the even more hidden websites frequented by anti-Gaddafi activists.

After Gaddafi's fall, and the commander's instruction to come up with a plan, Tareq made contact with those hackers again. Some had moved on. But others, he discovered, had made the same journey he had, and were now radicalised. None used their real names, of course, or gave out any details about themselves. But by pooling information, they were soon operating at a whole new level of technical knowledge.

The people he consorted with now taught him how to cover his tracks from the world's security services. Because many had needed to evade Gaddafi's Western-built internet-surveillance system, they already had a working knowledge of how to escape attention. Accordingly, they knew about PRISM, TEMPORA and other Western surveillance programs long before Edward Snowden leaked details of them to the media.

The Snowden affair gave them a unique opportunity, however. Suddenly, the rest of the world was waking up to what the NSA and GCHQ were doing. Countries like Italy were seeking out and removing the wiretaps on their fibre-optic cables.

Tareq reckoned something like the US's proposed opt-in system, VIGILANCE, was probably inevitable in the end. But
in this brief surveillance-free window lay his best chance to strike.

It was another hacker called Jibran who gave Tareq his big idea. They'd been on a secure message board discussing the Stuxnet worm, the virus engineered by American and Israeli cyberwarfare specialists to undermine Iran's nuclear programme. In ordinary computers, the worm was almost undetectable. But when it was introduced to a new network, it was programmed to seek out certain centrifuges made by Siemens that were used in the preparation of nuclear material. If it found them, it made them spin at high speed until they broke.

The hackers got hold of Stuxnet and took it apart line by line, looking for what it might tell them about the NSA's cyber capabilities. In fact, the technology inside the worm wasn't particularly new or complex. It was the idea itself that was revolutionary.

A virus that attacks devices instead of computers
, Jibran observed.
If you think about it, that's pretty neat. But they should be careful. Once the rest of the world gets into that game, they're the ones with most to lose.

A lightbulb went on in Tareq's head. He hadn't forgotten the commander's instruction. But only now did he have his first inkling of what his plan might be.

He began researching the Internet of Things.

By now he was regularly using Carnivia to communicate with his fellow hackers. They had all, at some time or another, tried to hack the website's source code. None of them had been able to. And if they couldn't break Carnivia, they reasoned, neither could the authorities.