"I give a damn about them. And a lot of people give a damn, people who do their jobs, without fear or favor," she said bitterly. What she'd read was still churning angrily inside her. "Or do you think that we're all corrupt or compromised?"

"No, just outclassed by an organization far more powerful than yours."

"Which organization?" asked Colomba.

"I don't know that. But clearly someone in the army is involved. The photograph, Pinna's account . . . And then Bodini, the man they accused of being the Father and who killed himself. He was from the army, too."

"Do you seriously think that we're up against the army?" asked Colomba, aghast.

"Not now. The Father turned to an old friend to have you killed. If he'd been able to turn to the army or the intelligence agencies, he'd have used someone younger and much more efficient: there's always plenty of cannon fodder lying around ready to leap into the breach. Not to mention the fact that they could have just had you removed from the hospital with a few official stamped documents, and now you'd be in Guantnamo." He paused briefly. "But in the eighties . . . what do you think?"

"I don't know what to think."

"Neither do I. Whether it was for their own ends or on behalf of some organization, why did they kidnap me? Why did they kidnap the other boy and then the Palladinos' boy and Luca? And you want to know the thing that I find most upsetting?" Dante turned to look down into the courtyard, his shoulders bent. "I've spent my whole life believing I was the victim of a maniac, a brilliant one but still crazy. But now I realize there was a whole battalion and that they might actually have had a motive. A motive, do you understand that? To keep me aging like a piece of beef in a butcher's freezer."

Colomba stood up and went over to him. Then, a little surprised at herself even as she did it, she put her arm around his neck. The contact gave her an expected feeling of comfort. How long had it been since she'd hugged anyone? "Pinna thought there was some kind of an atomic plot," she said, trying to lighten the mood. "Maybe they wanted to use you as a guinea pig."

"I'm not radioactive. And they didn't test lethal weapons or bacteria on me," Dante retorted with a forced smile. "Aside from my hand and the malnutrition, the doctors found nothing out of the ordinary. And after all, the Father wouldn't have wasted time teaching me to read and write."

"Could it have been a vendetta?"

"But for what reason? My birth father has a terrible personality, but they turned his life inside out like a sock when I disappeared. He didn't have any links to crime or the army, and if he had, they would have found them. He didn't even do his military service because he had a heart murmur."

"Whatever motive the Father might have had, when we catch up with him we'll make him spit it out if we have to kick it out of him. I promise you that," said Colomba, trying to seem more confident than she was.

Dante shrugged his shoulders, taking care to move as little as possible. He didn't want Colomba to move away. "What are the odds that we catch him?"

"What do you think?"

"I don't know. But we still have some ammunition we haven't used yet. Let me tell you what I did while you were sleeping."

To Dante's disappointment, Colomba moved away and went back to sit in her armchair. "I'm listening."

Dante leaned against the railing again, assuming a pose of sorts. "Well, then, if we dismiss the nuclear issue, I figure that the five men in the picture were working in the Caorso area because it's the most tightly controlled place in Italy, on account of the feared terrorist attacks that never materialized. No foreigners, all access roads watched, video cameras along the roads. Anyone in uniform, on the other hand, could move freely."

"And the Father was the chief of the little group in uniform-that is, if he really is the German," said Colomba.

"He didn't have a German accent, that much I can swear to you, but it's certainly him. And he was the one who made Rovere realize that it hadn't all been a dream. Do you remember when he asked you to stop investigating?"

"I'd just shown him the identikit done by the wrong mother," said Colomba, remembering how strange Rovere's attitude had seemed to her and how sudden his change in mood.

"The identikit probably matched the description Pinna had given him, even if years later. He could no longer doubt that it was all connected. You'd brought him the proof he needed, and now he could tell you to go back to your kennel. He'd understood that Bellomo and the Father were connected. Which meant that the bombing in Paris might have another explanation." He paused. "And now that the Father has killed Rovere with a bomb, it's reasonable to imagine it might have been his handiwork in Paris, too, not Bellomo's. He just wanted to shut Rovere's mouth; he didn't trust him."

"Are you sure about this, Dante?"

"Yes. You've been tormenting yourself pointlessly for all these months, CC. It wouldn't have changed a thing if you'd shot Bellomo the minute you saw him. The Father was somewhere around there. And it was the Father who pressed the detonator."

"But they found fragments of it on Bellomo's body." Colomba was short of breath.

"He doesn't work alone, that's something we know now. Maybe he has friends there, too."

"God," Colomba murmured, covering her face with both hands. Dante stood there looking at her, but he lacked the nerve to get any closer. He cursed himself for a coward, then undid the parka and put it around her shoulders. She smiled. "You'll have to just give me this jacket, sooner or later."

"As long as you stop letting dogs chew on it."

Colomba wrapped herself tighter in the parka. "The Father must have considered Ferrari even less reliable than Bellomo, if he brought him in later."

"Seeing how he acquitted himself in hand-to-hand combat, I'd have to say you were right," Dante sneered. "I checked the cell phone you took from his apartment. Many of the numbers are of no importance, others need to be checked out, but there's one that we can definitely trace back to the Father. A Skype number, like the one he used to call Luca's mother, though not the same one."

"Not that we need any other evidence to show that they were working together," Colomba pointed out.

"No, I'd say not." Pulling the picture out of his pants pocket, he pointed to the faces of the two nameless ones. "Coming back to the group of uniformed men, I'd say that these two we don't know are even less reliable or out of play entirely. Dead, or else they emigrated with a nice pile of cash."

"Like Ferrari with his regular income," said Colomba.

"Or Bellomo, who burned through his. Pinna said that before he killed his girlfriend he led a comfortable life. Then he lost it all. They stopped paying him once he murdered her. There must have been a good-behavior clause in the agreement."

"Established by whom?"

"Maybe by the Father himself." Dante twisted his mouth. "I don't like the idea that he isn't the boss. Still, even the Father must have run out of money at a certain point."

"The video," said Colomba.

"Exactly. He wouldn't have had to sell the video of the Palladino boy if someone was still financing him. Which means he's operating on his own resources now. He has cover, collaborators, and accomplices; plus maybe someone who helped him back then, or even someone who gave him orders, is still in a position of power and can give him some help. Especially when they see a pair of shoes hung up at the scene of a crime. I think it's a signal of some sort: 'This was our work, stay out of it.' And his friends cover up for him. They forget to have an autopsy done on the Palladino boy, they hasten to arrest Luca's father . . ."

"A signal more or less like what we assumed the whistle was for you," said Colomba.

"Even though we now know that it was Rovere who put the whistle there to draw me in. Just like he did with you. What a remarkable coincidence that he happened to have the exact newspaper clipping to show you that would make you believe. Truly a cunning son of a bitch, if I may. It must have been interesting to work with him."

"Like playing in the major leagues. Always," Colomba replied, battling against the memories that came crowding into her mind. "Did you ask your friend Santiago to dig into Blackmountain? To see if we can find the names of any other beneficiaries?"

"Yes, but it's impossible. It's an international holding company based in Portland, and its servers are too well protected. Plus it has millions of shareholders around the world, and it sits on the board of directors of I don't know how many banks and major corporations. Name a company, and it's part of the inside power structure, from armaments to tobacco, by way of pharmaceuticals and aerospace. And plenty of nonprofits and charities, too, including Save the People." Dante tried to extract a cigarette from his pack, only to discover that it was empty. He made a gesture of disappointment and hurried over to Santiago, coming back with one cigarette, lit, in his mouth and another tucked behind his ear. "We don't know whether other members of the Father's little group might have received money from the same holding company. Even if they did, it's more or less like using a bank. There's only one detail that might be of some significance, though it also might not."

"Which detail?"

"Save the People was one of the international financers of Silver Compass, the support center where the Palladino boy went. Two years ago, they cut off the funding."

"That could be pure chance," Colomba began. "We don't even know whether Silver Compass was really connected."

"But if it was, then it means that the Father had international financers."

"To kidnap children?"

"This is something big, CC," Dante said in a whisper. "So big that we have trouble seeing the outlines of it. That's why we have to work back to the origins. The eighties. What Pinna was talking about."

Colomba grimaced in distaste. "If I were still on duty, I'd ask the Ministry of Defense for information."

"Luckily, Rovere already did. The ministry didn't give him anything about Bellomo, but they told him where Pinna had been. The General Annoni Barracks, which was actually a reconverted ammunition dump. It was open only as long as the Caorso power plant was in operation, from 1981 to 1990. They mostly sent men there who had criminal records or were disciplinary problems. In those nine years, roughly a thousand conscripts passed through there, about eighty in the same period Pinna was there."

"Do we have all the names?"

"There were about eighty of them, and seventy or so are still alive, scattered the length of the peninsula. But before going through them one by one I'd like to test a hypothesis."

"Namely?"

"Pinna said that when he dismantled the warehouse, Stankfoot was there too, right? If he mentioned him but not the others, I'd have to imagine that they were pretty close friends."

"Maybe."

"In the documentation on Pinna that Rovere put on the flash drive there was also a criminal complaint for a brawl while he was still doing his military service. He got into a fight in a bar not very far from where he grew up. According to the police report, he was with a certain Augusto Stanchetti, twenty. Stanchetti, stanky, stankfoot . . ."

"Now you're just taking wild guesses," Colomba observed.

"Maybe so, but since we have to start with someone, he might just turn out to be the ideal candidate. Let's go see him. He lives in Cremona," said Dante with a dark flash in his eyes. "A chance for a homecoming visit."

Colomba shook her head. "We're wanted, Dante. We can't go around as if everything were all right."

"Santiago will put us in touch with someone who can get us a car."

"And maybe even fake IDs," she said, feeling a wave of irritation rise inside her.

"That would take too long. But my birth father will find us a place to stay."

"They're going to keep him under surveillance if they're looking for you."

"But I know how he spends his days and where to find him. And he's the only person I trust, aside from you and Roberto."

"I don't know, Dante . . ."

"What alternatives do we have? Stay here and wait for them to come get us, or turn ourselves in and hope that they believe us?"

Colomba thought it over for a solid minute, while her mind teemed with disastrous scenarios and her heart filled with suffering. She'd started out by breaking the rules, then she'd turned into a fugitive from the law, and now she was going to scrape bottom, piling deceit upon subterfuge.

She sighed. "I'll have to dye my hair. Find some clothing . . ."

"Santiago's sisters have everything you'll need. If you want, you could even add fake nails. I'll think of something."

"When do you want to leave?"

"Tomorrow morning. Tonight we'll make our preparations, and then we'll get moving at dawn."

"Rush hour would be better. Harder to spot us."

"Right." Dante put out his last cigarette. "If you go downstairs, would you bring me up a pack of cigarettes when you come back? There are a few cartons lying around."

"You're not coming?"

He shook his head. "Too many people down there. Up here I have a sleeping bag and a sofa. And there's a bathroom in the garret, so I can use it."

"A full life."

"I really miss my balcony," said Dante sadly. "I really, really do."

Colomba went back down into the chaos of Santiago's apartment, where there were now three more girls between the ages of thirteen and sixteen and the mother, a fat bleached blonde who eyed her suspiciously.

Ayelen understood what Colomba needed, supplied her with a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, and told her to choose between a bottle of mahogany red hair dye and a light blue one. Colomba concealed her disgust and chose the mahogany red; she refused Ayelen's offer of help, though. As a girl she'd dyed her hair more than once and thought she remembered how it was done. Ayelen went away, promising to get her some clothing and make her something to eat. Colomba suddenly realized that she was hungry as a wolf. She shut herself up in the bathroom, at least as much as the ramshackle door would allow, and took off her hospital gown. She was covered with bruises, and the bags under her eyes made her look like a junkie: she pitied herself. She took an enormous hamper of dirty clothing out of the tub and ran the water, getting ready to wash her hair. Outside the bathroom, in the meantime, the hubbub had grown more intense, punctuated by bursts of laughter, shouts, and the ringing of phones. One of the cell phone ringtones caught her attention because it was identical to her own, a ringtone she'd very carefully chosen out of the less overused and abused ones, and she instinctively turned her head toward the door: in the gap between door and door frame, she spotted one of the thirteen-year-old girls answering a cell phone. When their eyes met, the girl suddenly looked guilty and slipped away. Colomba also noticed that the cell phone the girl was using looked exactly like hers.

That can't be, she told herself, struck by an alarming thought. She was convinced that Dante had gotten rid of her cell phone, along with Ferrari's car. But she'd never asked him.

She slipped the hospital gown back on and went in search of the girl, whom she found sitting on the bed in the master bedroom. She was talking into the cell phone in a low voice, and even seen from up close, it looked like her phone. When the girl noticed that Colomba was staring at her, she hid the phone behind her back. "What is it?" she asked.

"Where did you get that?" asked Colomba.

"It's mine."

Colomba held out her hand. "Let me see it."

The girl shrank into herself. "I'd used up my own phone card . . . I swear, I only used it twice."

"Give it to me now!" she roared.

The girl left the phone on the bed and took off. Colomba grabbed it and removed the battery.

She ran out of the room and almost crashed into Santiago, who was sprinting down from the roof. "Dante and I have to get out of here," she told him.

Santiago grimaced. "It's too late." And that was when Colomba heard, above the ruckus that surrounded her, the distinct sound of sirens.

12.

Dante had stayed up on the roof, alone, stretched out on the sofa, wrapped in the parka that Colomba had given back to him before heading downstairs. He was going off coffee cold turkey, refusing to drink the foul swill Santiago's mother made, so his head hurt. He lit a cigarette, trying to assuage his anxiety.

Cremona.

Cre-mo-na.

He turned the word over and over again in his head: the city where he had been born was a clump of nostalgia and regrets, but the thought of going back there summoned up the worst memories. He'd believed for years that the Father might still be there, hidden in one of the ancient, dusty streets, though now he knew that that city had been just one of many stops in his career as a kidnapper and murderer. But even if Cremona was no longer any more dangerous for him than any other city on Earth, he still trembled at the thought of going back. With a sigh, he selected a tablet from his now sadly depleted supply and gulped it down with a mouthful of vodka from the pint bottle he kept under the sofa, hoping that the combined effect would lower his internal thermometer, now dangerously close to sounding alarm bells. He almost thought he heard that alarm bell ringing, until it dawned on him that the sound was coming from outside and below him.

Police sirens.

His eyes opened wide and he saw Colomba emerge from the fire escape, followed in short order by Santiago and Jorge. She was wearing only the hospital gown and her police boots, but she carried what looked like a bag of clothing. "They've found us," she said. She didn't say who, and there was no need.