Dolor finished. “This is why the agents of the Wrecking Crew were able to immediately discern that we had Stone and his wife at the insula Mattei: they had inside information. The insula had no outgoing servants, and we did not parade the prisoners in plain view for several weeks. How then did they already know to have us under observation? We noticed their surreptitious observers easily enough, but it took weeks to trace it back to Signor Ferrigno; he made use of routine connections between this villa and the world beyond to pass his intelligence, and he himself seemed a most unlikely candidate.”
But Borja’s wrath now seemed to focus on Dolor. “And you did not see fit to inform me at each stage? You lied to me,” he hissed. “From the start. You misinformed me about the troop strength at the insula Mattei, you-”
“Your Eminence, when I first arrived, did I not ask for your patience and trust? Here you are reaping the benefits of that trust. I spoke lies to your face, yes, but they were not intended for your ears, Your Eminence. They were intended for your scribe’s.” Ferrigno’s skin trembled beneath Dolor’s palm.
Borja acknowledged Dolor’s explanation with a testy nod, and then stared at little Ferrigno. “Execution is not enough,” he asserted after three seconds. “A man may come to grips with the fear of death, but not the fear of agony. Particularly not long, excruciating, varied, hopeless agony that will end in not merely death, but witnessing the dismemberment of one’s own body, the uncoiling and dissection of one’s own guts.”
Ferrigno gulped back vomit; Dolor’s nose told him that the scribe had soiled himself.
Borja noticed as well and sniffed in disgust. “Senor Dolor, you have much experience in this area: what would you recommend?”
Dolor shrugged; he knew he could not press too hard if he wanted to change Borja’s mind. “I do not recommend torture as punishment. Even when the objective is to gather information, torture is only advisable when there is reason to suspect it will be effective.”
Borja looked disappointed. “I would not have thought you squeamish, Senor Dolor.”
“I am not squeamish, Your Eminence; among my many faults, this one certainly cannot be reasonably attributed to me. But if one acquires a reputation for torture, it often instills desperate courage in his remaining adversaries. An enemy who knows that capture means mortal torture often chooses certain death of the battlefield. That way, we lose more men. I prefer my reputation to be one of efficiency and undefeatability; I want my adversaries to despair of besting me, but not to fear capture. That way, they may despair of hope and yet safely surrender, rather than fear torture and sell themselves dearly.”
Borja looked at Dolor strangely. “There is some wisdom in what you say,” the cardinal conceded finally, “but it is the wisdom of the streets, of your particular ‘calling.’ The wisdom of Mother Church tells us that if we spare the rod upon the back of one treacherous, homicidal child, we shall surely spoil many of the other untainted innocents. Mother Church uses the carrot when practicable-but in this case, we have only the stick.”
Dolor nodded. “What kind of stick do you instruct us to use in this case, Your Eminence?”
Ferrigno moaned slightly.
Borja considered. “The greatest terror would come from not knowing what kind of agony to expect, and in what sequence.” He stared at Ferrigno, attempted to keep a flickering grin from troubling the left corner of his mouth. “Why select just one stick, Senor Dolor? Be creative. Indulge yourself.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Estuban Miro peered into the dark. By the light of the half moon, he could make out the fishing ketch that the embassy Marines had boarded only minutes earlier. According to the morse code message sent by their Aldis-rigged bull’s-eye lantern, the boat’s single enemy operative had surrendered without a struggle.
Miro sighed; it was unfortunate that they had been compelled to remove the observer that Borja’s local spymaster had sent to watch the island of San Francesco del Deserto. In intelligence operations, the only thing better than knowing oneself to be unobserved (a rare, and usually unprovable, circumstance) was to know where the enemy observers were. Such had been the case with this particular fisherman. Ever since Harry Lefferts’ rescue team had departed for Rome several weeks ago, this wiry fellow had been casting his nets in the vicinity of the island’s Franciscan monastery: sometimes to the east, sometimes to the west; sometimes closer, sometimes farther. But always close enough to keep an eye on any comings and goings. Which, since the rescue team’s last meeting there, had been entirely routine.
Miro’s response to this observer had been merely to observe in return. Using a well-concealed spyglass, the friars gladly complied with his request that they watch the ketch’s positions and maneuverings and keep meticulous record of them. Meanwhile, a few distant friends of the Cavrianis started taking intermittent strolls past the pier where the fisherman tied up and off-loaded his day-end catch; they discovered that he was pulling in scarcely enough to feed his own family, these days. However, he did not seem disposed to try fishing in a new spot, nor did he seem particularly worried about his presumably diminished income. Rather, in just the last two weeks, he had paid for a new stepsail and other useful bits of small-craft chandlery. Taken together, these indicators were almost all the proof Miro needed to confirm that the fisherman was indeed an enemy pawn. However, just to be sure, and in an attempt to detect if the fisherman himself was being watched by Borja’s Venetian spymaster, Miro had his own growing network of agents keep track of the seemingly trivial exchanges and activities of the fellow’s day. They observed where he got his breakfast loaf, who came to check his day-end catch, which boats (if any) he approached during the course of his profitless net castings. Ten days of constant, but distant, watching had produced no leads; if the fisherman was exchanging information with his handler, there was no obvious sign of it. Which presented Miro with two possibilities: either communication did not occur unless the fisherman had something to report, or that the communication was conducted more subtly than could be detected by the maximally discreet methods of observation employed by his agents.
Miro would now have the answer to that mystery within a few hours. From the look of him, the wiry Venetian was not going to be resolute enough to resist the sustained interrogation that he would experience in a safe-house near the embassy. Not that he would be hurt-he wouldn’t; Miro’s personal tastes and Tom’s explicit instructions eliminated the option of torture. But the fisherman didn’t know that and did not look to be particularly courageous. So few of us are, when we are well-caught and alone, Miro mused, remembering close calls with the Ottomans, back during his days as a merchant sailing the Mediterranean.
“Don Estuban,” said the master of the small, yawl-rigged scialuppa that had been provided by the Cavrianis for the night’s work, “shall we approach the mooring, now?”
Miro held up a hand and waited. After a few moments, he saw more dit-dah flashing in the darkness to the west: K-E-N-N-E-L. So: the chase was indeed over. That codeword signified that the chase boats and Marines were now ready to return to their berths and billets, respectively. It was also a shorthand indicator of the concluding situation report: “known enemy observers apprehended; no others detected.” Personally, Miro had been hoping for the code sign “RABBIT.” That would have indicated that the fisherman-FOX-had been caught, and additional, suspected observers were being pursued, possibly resulting in a clean sweep of the opposition’s monitoring assets.
But that tidy outcome had not occurred. On the one hand, Borja’s spymaster in Venice might not have enough resources to put more than one man on the job of watching the island. Even if he had two men, he would then have to choose between keeping the island under almost constant observation, or having the second man watch what happened to the first. So even if Miro’s adversary had a second man, where was he? At home, sleeping before his next, solo shift-or was he out here right now, somewhere in the dark, lying low in a rowboat, watching as the first watcher was scooped up by Miro’s agents?