A Kidnapping in Milan: The CIA on Trial Read Free

information low to the ground and transmitted it to their cortical headquarters. The CIA’s chief in Milan had been replaced some time ago, but Massimo hadn’t met the new man yet, which was not unusual. Many months often passed without Massimo’s hearing from la Cia . The silences had daunted him when he was first recruited, more than twenty years ago. He had wondered if they meant the information he supplied was not useful, but he soon learned the silences meant nothing. New orders always arrived, and money too—in the quantity it should and at the time it should—which was sign enough that he was doing a good job. In the meantime, the less contact with the CIA, the better. It meant less chance of exposure.
    Massimo spent his life guarding against exposure. He could tell a dozen stories about the attentive porter, the bored housewife, the curious waitress who had stumbled onto a spy by accident. If you remembered at every hour of every day to keep your guard around the banal observer, you would simultaneously protect yourself from the true hunters of spies. Vigilance, however, had its cost. For one thing, if you were truly vigilant, you would permit yourself no intimate relationships. He knew of moles who took lovers or wives, but to do so was to invite peril into your life. Long ago he had concluded that it was better to struggle with loneliness and ennui than to risk such danger. No one knew him, and he knew no one.
    The reward for this isolation was the billow of adrenaline that coursed through him when he stole something and gave it to the CIA. That stolen something might influence the lives of many people, or even—why should he not say so?—of a nation. With the adrenaline came a sensation of power that, however brief, made the game worth it. The phrase was one Massimo liked to repeat: vale il gioco , the game is worth it.
    In Milan there was plenty of game. The extremists of Islam—the mujahidin and would-be mujahidin—made their spiritual home in the city’s two large mosques, and they hoped, like Massimo, to attain a permissive invisibility. Some of the Islamists were soapbox insurgents, more hellfire than gunfire, but others were organizers for al-Qaeda and kindred groups. For them Milan was like a stop on a caravan route of old, both a haven and a hazard—a place to gather supplies, knowledge, and allies, but also a place where they might be found by enemies. Among their enemies were intelligence agents from their Middle Eastern homelands. The agents came to Milan, watched the Islamists, and sometimes accomplished other ends. The Syrians, for example, trafficked in cigarettes and stolen cars. The Iranians shopped for forbidden technology. The Libyans—well, it was hard to say about the Libyans: they might be behaving themselves, or they might be doing as the Iranians. The Israelis were in Milan too, and their willingness to assassinate and kidnap had long inspired the deepest fear in Islamic terrorists. Then there were spies from beyond the Middle East, like the Chinese “businessmen” who sought industrial secrets and counterfeitable formulas, or the Russians, French, or Koreans who came to town for any number of reasons. In Milan, the game was all around you, if only you knew where to look.
    The day after the call from the Spaniard, Massimo left for the meeting. It was his precautionary habit with such meetings to spend at least two hours beforehand a piedi . The likelihood that he would be followed was small, but it took patience to make sure, or at least it took patience not to be crude about it. You could, inelegantly, walk down a street, double back, and note the faces, hair, coats, hats—whatever struck you—of the people you passed. Shoes were especially good; a person might shed a coat or a wig, but it was hard to change shoes on the go. Later, you could double back again, and anything familiar about the people you saw would give away your pursuer. Or you could hop on or off a bus just