“Shut up and listen,” Falcone barked. “Although you people seem to have forgotten the fact, there is such a thing as a legal system in this country.”

“There’s also such a thing as protocol-” Viale began to say.

“Crap,” Falcone interrupted. “There’s right and there’s wrong. And this is very, very wrong. I checked. You can’t just write out a couple of blanket protection orders like parking tickets. There are rules. They need a judge’s signature, for one thing.”

Falcone pushed the papers over towards the SISDE man. “You don’t have that, Filippo. You’re just trying to fool me with some fancy letterhead and bluster, and hope I’d never notice.”

Moretti bristled inside his black uniform and stared at Viale. “Is that true?” he demanded.

“Paperwork,” the SISDE man said to Falcone, ignoring the commissario. “Bureaucracy. People don’t work that way these days, Leo. I don’t. I don’t have to. Surely you know that?”

“It’s the law,” Falcone said quietly. “You can’t pick and choose the parts you want. None of us can. Not even you. You know that too. That’s why you just put a few SISDE signatures on there, badgered Moretti to do the same, and never bothered with the judiciary at all. You couldn’t handle this case yourself. It’s just too damn public. You had to get us on your side and you had to break the rules to get there.”

Viale’s phoney friendliness finally failed him. The dead grey eyes surveyed the two cops on the other side of the desk. “Is that so?” he asked.

“Oh yes,” Falcone continued. “The only circumstance when an order like this gets judicial approval is if it’s a matter of national security. Our national security. Not that of another country. Though I don’t believe even that’s the case here. You’ve deliberately railroaded a genuine investigation into a case which involved the murder of an Italian citizen. You’ve jerked around the police, you’ve given a carte blanche to a foreign security service to work here unimpeded, all outside Italian law. And for what? So Leapman can pursue some kind of personal vendetta against an individual we have every right to arrest on our own account. I could throw you in a cell right now. I could pick up the phone and have you in front of a magistrate by lunchtime.”

Viale sniffed and considered this. “You’re a judge of what is and isn’t national security, are you?”

Falcone smiled. “Until someone proves me wrong I am. So, gentlemen, are you going to do that? Do we get to hear who William F. Kaspar actually is? Or…”

He left it there.

“Or what?” Moretti asked.

“Or do we arrest all three of you and haul you up in front of a public court for…” Falcone turned to Peroni. “How many did we have the last time we added them up?”

“Oh.” Peroni frowned, counting them off on his fingers, staring at the ceiling like a simpleton, pretending it was hard to remember. “Conspiracy. Wasting police time. Forgery of official documents. Illegal possession of weapons. Use of the electronic media to issue criminal threats. Breach of the death registration rules. Withholding information-”

“You dare threaten me, Falcone!” Viale raged. “Here! Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”

“I think so,” Falcone answered quietly. “And also we have these.”

He took the sheets of paper out of the envelope and threw them on the table. Leapman snatched them up and stared at them, aghast. They were copies Costa had made that morning of the material Emily Deacon found the day before: the Net conversations and, most damning of all, the memo from 1990. The one labelled “Babylon Sisters.”

“Where the hell did you get this?” Leapman murmured.

“From Emily Deacon,” Falcone replied. “And now she’s missing.”

“That little bitch sure knows a lot of things she’s not supposed to. I thought-”

“What?” Peroni snapped. “That she was just a dummy? Like the rest of us?”

“Yeah,” Leapman agreed with a sour face.

Peroni pointed a hefty finger in his direction. “Wrong again, smartass. And here’s another thought. What if she’s dead too? You don’t honestly think you can keep that under wraps, do you?”

It was remarkable. Leapman was thinking then, exchanging glances with Viale. Something was going on. Peroni risked just the briefest of glances with the man at his side. The twinkle in Falcone’s eyes told him he wasn’t wrong. The ruse had worked. They were through.

Leapman shook his head and muttered, “This is a mess. Such a mess.”

Moretti had put down his pen and turned a sickly shade of white. “You told me none of this would happen, Viale,” the commissario complained. “You said-”

Peroni took immense pleasure in breaking in. “Must be a hell of a pension you’ve built up over the years, Moretti. I was in that position once. Hurts like hell when they take it away from you. Mind you, jail too…”

Moretti closed his eyes briefly, then shot Peroni a look of pure hatred. “You ugly, sanctimonious bastard,” he hissed. “You don’t have to deal with these people, day in, day out. You don’t have to listen to them pushing and pushing, threatening, cajoling: ”Do this, do that.“ ”

“I thought that was what you got paid for,” Peroni replied, then added a final, “sir.”

“We don’t have time for this, gentlemen,” Falcone reminded them, glancing at his watch. “Where’s it going to be? Here, or in the Questura?”

COSTA WAS GETTING DESPERATE. The picture of the heartless ultimatum Kaspar had set was starting to damage his concentration. Teresa was doing what she loved: cruising the Questura for any titbits of information she could glean by badgering people who, by rights, shouldn’t even be talking to her. Nic had taken on the task of working the street. No one answered the bell at the address Emily had mentioned. He’d peered through the window, looking at the sparse furniture, the kind you got in a rented apartment, not a real home, and thought about breaking in. It was difficult to see what it could tell him about what had happened there thirteen years before. Then he’d hammered on six doors to no avail. Struggling to decide what to do next, he watched one of the Jewish bakers lugging flour through the doorway of his tiny store, smelled the fragrance of fresh bread on the cold December air and, against his own wishes, felt his stomach rumble. He needed to approach this with the same cold, deliberate dedication that Kaspar was showing he possessed. Either that or he could panic them all into another bloody disaster.

At the heart of the Piazza Mattei stood the little fountain of the tortoises. It was a modest creation by Roman standards, and possessed a comic touch that had amused Costa when he was a boy. Four naked youths, their feet on dolphins, were struggling to push four small tortoises into the basin at the summit of the fountain. It was ludicrous, almost surreal somehow. And today, he noted, the water was flowing.

He walked to the fountain and climbed over the low iron rail protecting the structure from the carelessness of motorists negotiating the narrow alleys of the ghetto. Then he dipped a finger into the snow at its foot, in the central basin. The ice was melting. He looked at the sky. The bitter cold still blanketed the city, but a change in the weather was imminent.

It had to be. Something in the human psyche lost sight of facts like these from time to time. When extraordinary events occurred, one adapted, almost came to regard them as normal, forgetting to allot them the perspective they merited. Rome would return to the way it was supposed to be in December. Planes would fly again, buses and trains would run almost on time. One way or another, the killings would cease. Chaos, by its very nature, was impermanent.

What mattered was bringing events to a close quietly, with as little damage as possible. Nic didn’t know if he could do that. Falcone was in his meeting, but once he emerged he’d be on the phone, asking questions. Would Costa have any answers? If he did, would he be inclined to share them with his boss?