consulate in Naples, which Zen had contacted immediately after lunch, and read as follows:
PETER NEWMAN Passport # 733945610 Date of birth: 11/28/44 Place of birth: Spezzano della Sila, Italy Remarks: Birth certified under name PIETRO OTTAVIO CALOPEZZATI. Name legally changed 5/30/69 at San Francisco. US citizenship acquired 4/19/68, sponsor Roberto Marcantonio Calopezzati, SBU//FOUO file reference 48294/AVP/0006
Attached were several official photographs of Newman and a digitalised scan of his fingerprints, taken when he received US citizenship. Zen handed Arnone the documents without comment. The young officer read them through and whistled quietly.
‘Rather changes things, doesn’t it?’ Zen remarked.
The young officer erupted in a loutish, splurging laugh, instantly repressed.
‘In more ways than one.’
Arnone tapped the sheet of paper.
‘Until the land reform acts of the 1950s, the Calopezzati were the richest family in this province and far beyond. They owned half of Calabria.’
The two men eyed one another in silence.
‘Drop whatever you’re doing and get me a certified copy of that birth certificate,’ said Zen.
When Arnone had gone, he rang the consulate in Naples and asked them to explain the significance of the letters SBU/FOUO preceding the file records of Peter Newman’s naturalisation process.
‘Sensitive but unclassified, for official use only,’ came the reply.
‘So I don’t suppose there’s any point in my asking for further details.’
‘FOUO data will also be NOFORN. No foreign nationals. Distribution restricted to US citizens. Sorry we can’t help you.’
‘You already have,’ Zen replied.
Jake and Martin met at SooChic, a Japanese-Peruvian fusion place with accents of the Deep South. The furnishings were 1950s Scandinavian, easy on the eye but hard on the ass. A waitperson showed up and dispensed some intense culinary talk therapy.
‘So?’ said Jake.
‘Yeah,’ said Martin.
Martin Nguyen’s father had been one of the principal torturers for the Diem regime, and his son had inherited the plated face and sinkhole eyes that terrified the living shit out of you even before they cranked up the generator.
‘Basically, we’re solid,’ said Martin. ‘Newman is an independent contractor, totally ring-fenced off from Rapture Works. If he’s been kidnapped, that’s the family’s problem. The son is on his way to Calabria now. Pete knew what he was getting himself into. He’s from there, for Christ’s sake.’
Food came. Jake speared a chunk of sushi and dipped it in the fiery corn porridge puree.
‘Pete Newman?’
Martin nodded.
‘Usual Ellis Island illiteracy, I guess. Pop was probably named Novemano or some damn thing.’
He chomped moodily on his chitterling tamale.
‘I hate Italians.’
‘Foreigners suck,’ Jake remarked.
Martin looked at him sharply. Although he’d lived in the States most of his life, he still felt pretty foreign a lot of the time. Since getting hired by Jake as project manager for the Rapture Works venture, he’d learned how to decode and even speak the idiolect of the city’s software community, where geeks married nerds and the incidence of autism was the highest in the country. Jake wasn’t exactly autistic — mild Asperger’s, maybe — although it had occurred to Martin that he might well fail the CAPTCHA test designed to distinguish between human and artificial intelligence, maybe in both categories. Too dumb to be human, too fucked up to be a machine. But the hard fact was that someone who walked and talked and looked and spoke like Jake was worth more money, right now, up front in cash, than anyone else in the restaurant would earn in his entire lifetime. Including Martin.
‘I mean, to do business with,’ he said. ‘It’s all “Sure, yeah, no problem, you got it” and then no delivery. And they don’t even apologise, just act like you’re a sucker for ever believing they meant what they said in the first place. You need me to go there, Jake. Aeroscan have concluded their installation and set-up and will be ready to roll at eleven this evening our time. The civil authorities have granted them unlimited clearance below a hundred metres.’
Jake gave him one of those looks.
‘Three hundred feet,’ said Martin. ‘Newman said the mayor practically creamed in her pants. Apparently Cosenza is one no-hope town and this is the biggest boost they’ve ever had. I mean, it would be if it was for real.’
He smiled hideously. Jake torqued his lips just a fraction, as if remembering a joke that had seemed funny at the time.
‘So they bought the movie angle?’
Martin reassembled the shards of his face into an orderly pattern.
‘Totally. There’s another city down that way — Matera? An even smaller dump even further off the beaten track. Now it’s jammed with tourist buses, hotels packed to the brim, restaurants gouging to the max, souvenir shops selling out by noon. Know why? Because Mel Gibson filmed The Passion of the Christ there.’
‘Fuck,’ murmured Jake contemplatively.
‘So Pete Newman told the guys in Cosenza, if you think the Crucifixion was big, wait till you see the Apocalypse.’
More food arrived and they ordered another round of Diet Coke with sliced lime. Then the aisle was full of noises. The girl sitting at a table opposite reached for her mobile and started talking her boyfriend through the best route to the restaurant. Martin eyed her appreciatively. His line was that if they were legal they were over the hill. This one looked border-line.
‘Babe,’ he commented.
Jake dismissed her with a glance.
‘Ringtone sucks. So how come you need to go out there?’
‘Because if Aeroscan finds the treasure, we need to move fast. The movie cover is good for the search, but once we start digging it’s a whole different ball game. Anything we turn up is legally the property of the Italian state. Cultural heritage bullshit. Just breaking ground will be a felony, so we’re going to need a work crew who can be trusted not to talk later. I’ve got a plan for that, but now Pete’s out of the picture I need to be there to head up the team in person. I also need clearance from you on the hired help angle.’
‘What’s the deal?’
‘Contact of mine works for one of the big US contractors in Iraq. He’s found me some able-bodied guys who’ve never left the country in their lives and arranged, for a consideration, to have them given passports and sent to Jordan. From Amman they’ll fly into Italy on tourist visas and assemble at the site to carry out the excavation and transfer of the treasure to a storage facility rented by the film company. No Rapture Works footprint.’
Jake toyed with his peeled guinea pig in teriyaki sauce on a bed of collard greens.
‘And after that?’
‘We’ll need to discuss details once I have a chance to perform an assessment at the mission location, but I can tell you right now that export/import is going to be a bitch. I mean, we’re talking like drugs here.’
‘I mean the Iraqi guys.’
‘They go home.’
‘And tell everyone about their excellent Italian adventure?’
A decisive headshake.
‘They won’t.’
‘How can you be sure?’
‘You don’t need to know, Jake. Just trust me.’
‘Quit bullshitting.’
Martin sighed.
‘Okay. When the six of them get back, my contact invites them to dinner at some place in downtown
