Dante smirked. "Oh, I'm starting to see why they sent you here."

"Believe whatever you like."

"Then how do you explain the barrels? Who put them in the quarry?"

Di Marco said nothing, and Dante took advantage of the pause to study his audience. Their expressions were of bafflement, though also still of interest. The picture that was taking shape was so horrible that they all hoped it wasn't true. It was much easier to live with the idea of a serial killer than with that of a rotten limb of one's own country, capable of imprisoning and murdering innocent children and adults. No one sitting at that table was naive. All of them had seen enough in the work they did every day to lose faith in the human race. But what Dante was suggesting went beyond that; it made them feel suspicious of who might be working alongside them, whom they might be reporting to.

"Signor Torre," said Spinelli after a few moments, "no doubt the theory you're putting forth is fascinating, but it's still nothing but a hypothesis."

"But isn't that an investigator's job? To formulate hypotheses and then test them?"

"Then why don't you just throw aliens into the mix?" Di Marco asked.

"Strange you should mention aliens," Dante said. "Because, you see, after the revelations concerning the existence of MKUltra, there was an epidemic in America of people who swore they'd been kidnapped as children by soldiers and that they only remembered it much later. There are many pages on the Internet about this phenomenon; just search for the phrases 'MKUltra children' or 'MKUltra abduction.' Among them, there are several who claim that the many notorious alien abductions reported were nothing more than a cover for the experiments of MKUltra. Personally, I always assumed they were merely an urban legend. But now I find certain unsettling similarities to what happened to me." He turned to the woman from LABANOF. "Ma'am, have you by chance found something to corroborate my thesis in the remains of those poor souls?"

Caught off guard, Roberta started. "How would you know about that?"

"I saw the look on your face when I was talking about psychotropic substances."

The woman exchanged a glance with Spinelli, who nodded. "We have a great deal of work left to do, but in one fragment of a femur, there was still a certain amount of reasonably well preserved bone marrow. And, as you all may know, it is possible to detect in bone marrow residues of whatever substances were present in the bloodstream at the moment of death."

"Go on," said Spinelli.

"We believe that the victim had been subjected to the repeated administration of a substance similar to propranolol-an antianxiety agent developed in the fifties but that has recently been the subject of study because it seems capable of triggering selective amnesia."

"And that's not all," Dante added, his eyes sparkling. "It can be used for posthypnotic conditioning as well as to eliminate inhibitory brakes. It was one of the substances that the scientists at the CIA were studying in their work to come up with a truth serum."

"But that might be nothing more than a simple coincidence," said Curcio.

"Yes, but there are starting to be a lot of coincidences, don't you think? Certainly, if the German confessed, or if one of the other men in the picture said what he knows, it would all become much easier."

"Have any of them been identified?" asked Colomba.

"Only one, the man standing next to Bellomo," Curcio replied. "We've worked our way through Bellomo's and Ferrari's acquaintances, and he seems to have been a skydiving instructor who died in an accident six years ago."

"So that leaves two," said Colomba. "Including whoever took the picture."

"And we're looking for them, Deputy Captain," Curcio replied. "Just as we're searching for other ties to the German."

"So we still don't know who he is?" asked Roberta.

"Unfortunately, no," Spinelli replied. "But what we do know about him is sufficient to link him at the very least with the kidnappings and the murder of Luca Maugeri's mother. Signor Torre, if what you say were true, why at a certain point would the German and his platoon have killed all the prisoners?"

"Because times had changed and the Italian MKUltra program was shut down," Dante replied.

"If it ever existed," said Di Marco.

"We can always rely on you," Dante sneered. "In 1989, after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the idea of a Soviet invasion became much less plausible and it became harder to justify the allocation of funds to keep the operation running. The German was ordered to clean house. And a few weeks later, he did exactly as he was told." He lit his fifth cigarette since he'd started talking. "Nineteen guinea pigs wound up in plastic drums at the bottom of the lake. One of them is here, talking to you today. The members of the brigade responsible for the surveillance and kidnapping of the guinea pigs were sent into retirement with generous pensions. The equipment and the pharmaceuticals were destroyed and burnt. We'd never have heard another word about them if the Father hadn't decided to get back into business four years ago, to judge from when the first kidnapping of the new season took place. That is, of course, unless there's a whole set of prisoners in other containers that we know nothing about."

"You said earlier that the idea of a communist invasion is obsolete these days," said Curcio. "Why would the MKUltra program have been revived?"

"I don't believe for a second that it's been revived," Dante replied. "What I think has happened is that the Father has found a new customer. He's working for a private company."

27.

Dante lit his sixth cigarette since he'd begun talking, off the butt of the one before. "I believe that the Father went on studying the results of his so-called research over the years and came to the conviction, rightly or wrongly, that one of his guinea pigs, before being killed, had actually benefited from the mix of pharmaceuticals they were injected with. Am I wrong, Doctor, or is propranolol now being studied as a potential cure for a disease that is otherwise incurable?"

"Yes, autism," said the scientist from LABANOF, shaking her head as she returned to the topic at hand. "Though autism isn't a disease. It's more accurate to think of it as a cluster of personality disorders."

"True, you're quite right," Dante admitted with an apologetic smile. "And I don't know whether one of the guinea pigs really was autistic and whether he actually improved before being killed and dissolved in acid or whether the Father is simply a madman. What I do know is that he has resumed his experimentation on prisoners, choosing very specific guinea pigs to work with."

"Were they all sick, Madame Judge, even before the kidnapping?" asked Curcio.

"As of now, only five of the ten prisoners in the containers have been identified. All of them suffered from one form or another of autism or cognitive deficit," Spinelli replied.

"It can't have been a random selection," Dante observed.

"And would the Father have done this just to find a cure?" Curcio inquired.

"Just?" asked Dante. "Aside from the possibility that he considers this his life's mission, do you know how much an effective cure for autism would be worth on the market?"

"Billions," said Roberta. "There are at least five million people with autism in Europe alone: an enormous market. But as I was saying earlier, it's a syndrome, not a disease. Autistic patients need speech and learning therapy, not injections. Psychotropic drugs can be used in certain cases strictly to mitigate states of crisis."

"What about the theory that autism can be caused by vaccinations?" asked Curcio.

"Pure idiocy," Roberta replied tensely.

"I believe that the Father has been funded by someone who had a specific interest in having him continue with his experiments. Someone who offered him access to an ideal venue, such as Silver Compass, where he could select his guinea pigs, someone, however, who got tired of wasting his money and two years ago cut off the funds. That's why Silver Compass shut down and the Father started to sell child pornography on the Web to raise money."

"And just who would his financers be?" Curcio inquired.

"Find out who supplied him with pharmaceuticals, and you'll have your answer."

"If he's truly convinced he can find a cure," Spinelli broke in, "why hasn't be made use of a standard experimentation protocol?"

"Because no one would have approved treatment based on his methods, given the fact that he couldn't tell anybody how he got started. And because he wanted to isolate his guinea pigs, the way he did before, and that, too, wasn't possible under normal conditions." Dante shook his head. "Deputy Captain Caselli and I have always wondered why the Father didn't just take street children or abandoned kids. Why go to such extreme risks, why commit murder and stage car crashes? In the context of medical experimentation, the answer becomes clear: he needed to know everything about his guinea pigs, including any potential hereditary defects. He needed to know who the parents were, how they'd lived, what treatments they'd undergone."

"Laboratory conditions," said Roberta.

"Exactly." Dante looked over at Spinelli. "Forgive me if I jump in for a moment and ask questions myself . . . but can you tell me whether the medicines found in the German's cellar storehouse have been analyzed?"

Spinelli nodded. "So far, there have been no matches with pharmaceuticals on the market."

"Maybe they're not on the market yet."

"Signor Torre, would you rule out the possibility that the German was operating alone the whole time?" asked Curcio. "The presence of this Father has never been pinned down in the investigations. The German might very well know something about medicine."

Dante shook his head. "I know that you'd rather believe that he never existed, but the Father is still out there," he replied. "He has no men, he no longer has the German to kill for him, he no longer has funding. But he was the one who set the whole thing up, and he's the most dangerous one. He's the one who has to be stopped before it starts all over again somewhere else, with new guinea pigs."

For a few seconds there was silence.

"Are you done?" Di Marco asked rudely. "Because if so, I ought to go back and work on some serious matters."

"I'm done," said Dante. "Thanks so much for your invaluable contribution."

Spinelli held out her hand to the colonel from IISA. "Thanks for taking part."

"It was my duty, signora." Di Marco got up and left without saying good-bye. The others exchanged doubtful and slightly embarrassed glances. Deep down, Dante sighed. He'd hoped to be hailed as a conquering hero, but the outcome, unfortunately, was the lukewarm response he'd actually expected. He'd planted a seed; perhaps something would come of it one day. All of them, magistrates and cops, the next time they found themselves confronted with a new coincidence, a tiny significant match, might be less likely to file it away with a shrug of the shoulders. At least they might stop and think.

He lit another cigarette and felt the urge for a good espresso, followed by a Moscow Mule big enough to swim in. As he was saying good-bye to them all, thanking them for their words of praise-especially the scientist from LABANOF, Roberta, who gave him her phone number-Dante couldn't help but notice that Colomba was remaining at a distance, shut up in her own thoughts, with the grim expression of the very worst times. Yet she'd been in a good mood when she'd arrived earlier that day. And the mood had held for almost the entire meeting. What had happened? He was about to go over and talk to her, but Curcio beat him to it.

The police officer locked arms with Colomba and led her over to the parapet. She gave him a half smile, and he released her arm immediately. "What I just saw was very interesting, though I'm not sure how useful it will prove to be. What do you think about it?"

"I believe it," Colomba replied grimly.

Curcio stroked his mustache. "Even without evidence."

"We fished evidence out of the bottom of the lake. But thanks for everything all the same."

He smiled. "You've already thanked me once, when we met at the farmhouse, but if you really want to pay me back . . . why don't you come by my office one of these days? To talk about your future."

"In the police?" Colomba asked, astonished.

"It'll take a while before all your legal issues are cleared up once and for all, but I'm pretty sure everything will turn out all right. So why shouldn't we do some advance planning?"

Colomba shook her head. "Give me a few more days."

"All right. A car is going to take me back to Rome in a few minutes. Would you care to join me? With Signor Torre, if you like."

"I still have something to take care of here. I have to . . . meet someone." Looking over Curcio's shoulder, Colomba saw that Dante was coming over, and she felt a surge of panic. "I need to go, excuse me." She turned on her heel and hurried out, leaving Dante open-mouthed and feeling hurt. Colomba felt guilty for having abandoned him, but he seemed to read her mind with disturbing ease. She'd have had to lie to him, and that was something she knew she couldn't pull off. Better to just turn and run and apologize later.

The day was cold, and the lights in the shop windows made it clear that Christmas was coming. Colomba walked up the Corso and reached the old city center of Cremona, stopping at three pharmacies along the way, until she finally found what she needed. Then she turned off into a small pedestrian street onto which opened the courtyard of an eighteenth-century palazzo with cobblestones perfectly arrayed in a peacock-tail pattern behind the bronze street door. She rang the doorbell, and a housekeeper ushered her up to the second floor, through a living room with a fireplace, and down a long hallway lined with books.

Annibale Valle was waiting for her, sunk in an enormous armchair, wrapped in a dressing gown that might be big enough to serve as the mainsail of a brigantine. He was drinking from a snifter of cognac that practically vanished in his hand. "What do you want?" he sighed. The only light burning was a small table lamp beside him, which cast long shadows onto his face.

He doesn't look like him, thought Colomba. He doesn't look a thing like him. How could I have missed it?

"Aren't you happy that Dante and I have been let off the hook?"

He took a sip. "I called him this morning to give him my best wishes. I invited him to lunch, too . . . I don't think he likes my house. Not that I like it either, but it was such a good investment. He'll inherit it."

Colomba turned a chair and sat down in front of him, straddling it. "We're going back to Rome tomorrow."

"Good," said Valle.

"But you asked what I want. Well, before we leave, there is something I need you to do for me." Colomba pulled the DNA kit out that she'd bought in the pharmacy of her pocket. She tore open the sealed envelope and pulled out the test tube; she extracted the long stick with a sterile cotton swab on the end. "Put this in your mouth, please."

Valle half-closed his eyes. "No."

"It doesn't hurt. I'm just going to collect some of your saliva."

"No. And you can't force me to."

"I could take it by force."

"Are you willing to beat up an elderly invalid?"

"I'd be willing to beat you up."

Valle sighed. "How did you figure it out?"

So it's true, thought Colomba, losing the last crumb of hope that she might be wrong. "I found the family photo album that you'd hidden at Wanda's house. The one you claimed you burned."

A sad smile wrinkled his face. "I could never bring myself to destroy it. They were the last memories I had of him."

"Of Dante."

"Yes." He took another drink. "I had resigned myself to the fact that I'd lost him. In prison . . . I didn't even care anymore that no one believed me. Then my lawyer came to tell me that he'd been found. That he'd run from his kidnapper, who had kept him in a silo. That my son couldn't wait to see me. And I believed in the miracle."

So did I, thought Colomba. We all did.

"They gave me a nice suit to wear, and they took care of all the bureaucratic red tape to get me out in a hurry," Valle continued. "Word had already spread through the prison. For the first time the other convicts looked at me with something other than contempt. I was no longer . . . the child molester, the killer of kids. Someone actually gave me cigarettes, someone else gave me chocolate . . . I felt . . ." He shook his head. "I can't even begin to tell you how I felt. They took me to the hospital in a civilian car, without handcuffs. I knew that he'd look different, older. It had been eleven years. I'd last seen him as a child; now I'd be meeting him as an adult. But I didn't care." He coughed. "I went on believing in the miracle until I saw him. He shouted 'Pap!' and hugged me. But I knew."

"You knew that it wasn't him," said Colomba in a whisper.

"No. It wasn't Dante. It wasn't my son."

28.

Valle poured himself another glass. He gestured toward Colomba with the bottle, but she shook her head coldly. "Go on."

"If you insist." Valle licked his lips. "The boy kept talking about things that Dante had done when he was little. He didn't get a thing wrong. Only he wasn't Dante."