Chapter Fourteen
Files
The code is easy to crack, one of the simpler systems Albert taught me.
An alphabet shift with one letter substituted for another.
After a couple of attempts, once I realise the letter C corresponds to the letter K and T tallies with B, the riddle is solved.
As I work through the rest of the code, everyone stares at me.
“Key to black case in garage.”
Mrs Bellacci shakes her head at the fuss, but I know Albert went to this trouble for a reason. Even if someone had found the envelope with the key, it’s unlikely they would know about our obsession with cyphers.
“Did Albert stow anything in the garage?”
“Not that I am aware—” begins Romano.
“Yes, he did,” says Mrs Bellacci. “Boxes. Things he did not need in the house. But I don’t know if there is a black case. We shall go and check.”
At the back of the grounds behind the lemon grove, the double garage turns out to be something I had mistaken for a wooden-slatted outhouse. Only as we draw closer do I realise the door is double-fronted, and the building stands before a rough gravel track that leads back to the villa’s front gate.
Lorenzo unlocks the heavy padlocks, and I help him open one of the doors, which swings outwards remarkably easily.
Inside is not what I had been expecting.
I had envisaged cobwebs, dust and clutter but am met with a well-organised space containing a seated lawnmower and the silhouettes of three motorcycles.
When Lorenzo flicks a wall switch, bright neon lighting bleaches the room, and I recognise one of the bikes from when I first arrived, the black BMW sitting outside Pensione Galli.
There is a steel rack along the back wall filled with wooden crates, large plastic storage containers and cardboard packing boxes.
“Where do we start?” I ask.
“The plastic crates belong to Mrs Bellacci. Do not touch them unless you want your hand cut off,” Lorenzo says with a sly smile.
Mrs Bellacci tuts and gives him one of her humoured looks as she shuffles towards the cardboard boxes. “Those contain my professional wardrobes and accessories. Things I might take with me when I am on assignment.”
“Perhaps you could introduce Aksel to la contessa one night?” says Lorenzo, going over to help her.
“I have work to do and meals to prepare,” she says, pulling open one box after another. Lorenzo checks containers on the top shelf that are out of her reach.
Dr Romano leans into me and whispers. “One of Mrs Bellacci’s skills is her range of disguises. I have worked with them both for almost seven years now, and I am always amazed at how she can perform such transformations so quickly.”
“Once we begin his training,” she says, not turning from her labours, “I will start with basic camouflage lessons, and together, we’ll develop a few simple disguises for him to adopt.”
“Hey, Aksel,” says Lorenzo, turning and nodding at the motorbikes. “Do you remember how to ride?”
Dr Romano turns to smile at me.
“As far as I know, I have never driven a car or ridden a bike,” I reply, looking over at the collection of machines.
“Then we will need to add another skill to your list,” says Lorenzo. “One I will gladly teach you.”
“I think I have found it,” says Mrs Bellacci.
Standing before one of the boxes, she lifts out a compact briefcase made of black steel. She holds the case before her for a moment, checking the locks before coming over to us.
“This has a key lock,” she says. “And those boxes all belonged to the professore.”
She holds the case with the locks towards me, and I try the key. We watch as the key slides in, turns, and the case unlocks. When I click the clasps, the lid springs open.
Contained inside are two stiff plastic file folders. I lift them both out as Mrs Bellacci places the case on the ground.
“I suggest we return to the house to study these. The light is better there,” says the doctor, and nobody objects.
Back in the kitchen, we settle around the table with the doctor and me together on one side.
Mrs Bellacci and Lorenzo remain standing together.
She takes one file, and I take the other.
Romano peers over my shoulder as I read through.
A shiver runs through me when I read a label on top with the name Gabriel R written in felt pen, in beautiful cursive lettering.
Inside the folder, the various documents are clearly photocopies. Another note inside is clipped to the front, once again in the stylish handwriting I recognise instantly as Sylvie Leblanc’s, and reads simply,
Please be careful. This is dangerous information. But I agree that he should be told.
Romano and I look through the file together, with me reading then passing items to him.
Each report produced by Special Operation KW—whoever they may be—refers to someone called Subject K5.
Tests on general health and fitness, agility, survival skills and language skills include an official-looking document called an AFIC.
Every test appears to have a scribbled rating of 98%-100%, A+ or O/S.
Each is stamped with a simple Hartfield Facility seal and contains an indecipherable signature.
“AFIC refers to the Advanced Fitness, Intelligence and Cognitive test,” says Romano, as he glances over the report I am holding.
“It is a dedicated and highly specialised test that elite special forces in the UK are required to undertake and pass, and a huge step up from the MATT, the annual test for all armed forces. If this is you, Gabriel, you would have been considered top of your…”
Dr Romano stops speaking, and I let him take the AFIC report from me, his attention drawn to something on the page.
“Do you think that might be you, Gabe—Aksel?” asks Lorenzo, shaking his head in defeat at the file Mrs Bellacci has in her hands and is sifting through.
“I have no idea. I wouldn’t have thought so. These tests sound punishing. And surely they’re aimed at adult soldiers. I know everything that’s happened to me since the age of twelve, and none of that included anything to do with the military.”
Dr Roman holds up the AFIC sheet with the word O/S scrawled across the top. I shrug at him. I assume the letters mean outstanding.
“As I said, I don’t remember any tests,” I reply.
“Not the score. Look at the age of the subject.”
Even Mrs Bellacci’s attention is drawn to him now. We all stare. The subject’s age is recorded as seven years old. I may not know much about the army, but I am reasonably sure no modern military service of any country would allow someone that young to be recruited.
“A mistake?” I suggest.
“No,” says Romano, holding up another. “This health report is dated a year earlier and has the subject’s age as six. If this is you, Aksel—or whoever you are—you were a part of some kind of elite armed forces unit that recruited and trained young persons.”
“Surely that would not be legal—” I begin, but am interrupted by Mrs Bellacci.
“I thought so,” she says, staring at me intently. “The tattoo on your wrist. The Knight and the number five. I believe you are the subject, K5.”
Now I am baffled. If she is right, how could Albert have known this and never told me? Does this explain who I was before my accident and memory loss? And was this the reason Albert was killed? I am confident the handwriting on the file is Sylvie Leblanc’s.
“This is why I was curious earlier,” she continues and now has everyone’s attention.
“Many years before I worked with either of you,” she says, looking at the doctor and Lorenzo, “I volunteered for an undercover reconnaissance operation in Iraq. This was before the US-led invasion. My assignment was to help rescue three political prisoners—one Italian and two Germans—from a high-security prison compound a few miles north of Baghdad. The Italian UN general who briefed me at the time said I would pose as the widow of an Iraqi officer and would be accompanied by my six-year-old daughter, another agent, who could speak fluent Arabic. I objected, naturally. I worked alone back then. And in our line of work children are a liability. But my objections were overridden. That is when I was paired with Jamila, a British girl of mixed parentage. To this day, I have met nobody like her. Physically, she looked like a small girl. But she had the head and wisdom of an old woman and the skills of a seasoned fighter. In public she became a sweet, innocent little girl who could charm and beguile anyone. Privately, she knew how to strategise, could climb almost as well as Lorenzo, could squeeze through small spaces, and knew how to fight. I watched her strangle a guard with a skipping rope. Without her help, getting into the compound where the prisoners were held would have been impossible. Our mission was a success, but I only found out about other outcomes when we returned. As part of our cover, Jamila had been enrolled in an exclusive preparatory school that she attended during the day. Only after we parted ways did I learn that a high-ranking officer in the Iraqi armed forces had died in an explosion in the school carpark after visiting his nephew. The UN general told me that, apart from helping me, Jamila had been assigned her own special operation.”
“But how does that relate to him?” asks Lorenzo.
“Not only would she have been around his age, but she had a similar tattoo on her wrist, a chess Knight with the number two in old numerals beneath.”
“You think they are connected, her and Aksel?” asks Lorenzo, staring at me.
“This I do not know,” says Mrs Bellacci. “But the coincidence is remarkable, is it not?”
I have a swarm of questions crowding my head. Most focus on how much Albert knew and why he told me nothing. To protect me?
“Have you ever heard talk of chassins?” asks Romano out of the blue.
“Chassin is a town,” says Mrs Bellacci, with a shrug. “In St Lucia, I think.”