He was about to say Or both.
But the words never reached his lips. Two things had happened on the screen. In the right-hand corner a digital stopwatch appeared, counting down from the hour. 59:59, 59:58, 59:57 …
As it ticked away, an object entered from centre left, first in a sudden movement that darted in so quickly he was unable to see what had happened, only the result, that it had inflicted yet more pain and fright on the trapped man struggling on the screen in front of them, and that blood was now welling from some fresh wound that had appeared on Allan Prime’s left temple.
The image vanished. After a long break the picture resumed. A narrow, deadly spear, the shaft as shiny as a mirror save for the bloodied tip which had just stabbed the trapped man’s face, had slowly emerged, sharp and threatening, aimed directly at Prime’s temple.
The stopwatch flicked over from 58:00 to 57:59. The spear moved on a notch towards Allan Prime’s head, as if attached to some machine that would edge it forward, minute by minute, until it drove into the actor’s skull.
Quattrocchi stared at this gigantic, real-life depiction of a captive man waiting to die. There were hints to be found in this sight, surely. Clues, keys to unlock the conundrum. Otherwise why broadcast it at all? Simply to be cruel? Behind the head, he could just make out some shapes in the darkness, paintings perhaps, images, ones that might have been familiar had he possessed some way to illuminate the scene.
Beyond the projection room, out in the cinema, Tonti ceased roaring. Someone moaned. Another voice cried out in outrage. A woman screamed.
Bonetti threw open the door and bellowed at an attendant, “Clear the room, man! Everyone!”
Then he returned and stared at Quattrocchi, shocked, finally, babbling, “Find him, for God’s sake. Find him!”
“But where?” Quattrocchi asked, to himself mostly, as he held down the shortcut key for headquarters on his phone, praying that there was someone there who was good at riddles.
He got through. The wrong man answered. Morello. A good officer. Not a bright man. Not the one Quattrocchi hoped for, and there was no time to locate others. He had to work with what he had.
“Are we listening to our friends?” Quattrocchi asked.
There was silence on the line. The Carabinieri weren’t supposed to eavesdrop on the police. And vice versa. But it happened. In both directions.
“We can be. Are we listening for anything in particular?”
“I would like to be informed of any mention of the actor Allan Prime, from any source whatsoever.”
“Of course.”
“Good,” Quattrocchi said, then got himself put through to forensic.
While waiting he caught the attention of Tom Black. The young American stood back from his silver machine, staring at the flashing monitor with concern.
“I need my scientific officers to see what’s happening,” Quattrocchi told him.
The American winced, as if afflicted by a momentary pain. “Tell them to find a computer and tune in to Lukatmi,” he answered glumly. “These bastards are putting it out to the public, too. Through us. We can stop them, but the only quick way would mean we lose the stream here, too …”
“Touch nothing!” Quattrocchi roared. He pointed through into the cinema, where Prime was screaming on the screen again. The small, deadly spear had moved closer to its destination. “If we lose that, we lose him.”
Josh Jonah walked up to the machine and peered calmly at the monitor. “I can read off the URL,” he said. “Are you ready?”
5
One kilometre away, in the forensic lab of the centro storico Questura, the same word was puzzling another law enforcement officer, though one from a very different agency.
“Url? What’s a URL?” Peroni asked.
He thought they were in Teresa Lupo’s morgue to stare at the head of a store window dummy and the curious death mask that had been attached to it. And to talk to Simon Harvey. At the age of fifty-one, with an understanding of the cinema industry which extended to no more than a few security duties at the Cinecittà studios over the years, Peroni felt it was time to become better acquainted with the working methods and mores of the movie business, such as they were. He had an inexplicable feeling they might come in useful, and that Simon Harvey was a man who could impart much worthwhile information on the subject if he felt so minded.
No one answered his question. Harvey and Silvio Di Capua had exchanged a brief conversation, and the whole game plan seemed to disappear in smoke. While Teresa and her two young white-coated trainee assistants played halfheartedly with the head and mask — finding no new information — Di Capua and Harvey had gone over to the nearest computer and started hammering the keys, staring at the gigantic monitor as it flipped through image after image.
“Will someone please tell me what a URL is?” Peroni asked again.
“Universal resource locator,” Di Capua grumbled. “What I’m typing. Any the wiser?”
“No. Enlighten me. How is this helping exactly?”
“Gianni,” Teresa said. “If I’d been allowed to set up some kind of a crime scene on that stage … If we were in control in any shape or form …” She opened her hands in a gesture of despair. “We have nothing to work with. Nowhere to begin. If staring at a computer helps, I’m all for it. What else is there?”
“This is my fault,” Harvey apologised. “I didn’t mean to start an argument. It was only a suggestion.”
The suggestion being, Teresa explained patiently, that they use the strange, unexplained Internet service owned by two American geeks who’d helped finance Inferno to try to find out what people at large were saying about Allan Prime.
“Think of it this way,” Harvey went on. “Would you like to be able to tune in to every TV newscast around the world that was covering Allan right now? Every little net TV channel, every vidcast, too?”
Peroni shook his big, grizzled head. “Every what?”
“If it gave us a clue …” Di Capua said. “I’d take anything. This thing …” He blinked, incredulous at the flashing series of moving pictures on the monitor. “… is unbelievable. I never realised …”
“They bring stuff online before announcing it,” Harvey said. “It’s all part of the hype. You never know what they’ll turn up with next. You just have to tune in to check.”
Teresa had her head bent towards the screen. Peroni felt like an unwanted intruder from a different century.
“How the hell do they do it?” Di Capua asked, still in a state of awe.
Harvey sighed. “I don’t really understand it myself. From what they said, it’s a mixture of reading keywords, transcribing speech, recognising faces … All the TV stations are now online and streaming. Add to that new video material. Blogs. Small web stations. I guess they have some way of consuming it all as it appears, reading it, then serving everything up. Google for video and audio, only ten times bigger, ten times faster, and deadly accurate. That’s why they’re worth a billion or so each.”
Peroni cleared his throat. “This is so interesting. Is anyone going to find something for me to look at?”
Teresa stepped back and gestured at the screen. “Take your pick.”
What enthusiasm he had left swiftly dissipated. The monitor was crammed with moving pictures the size of postage stamps, each with odd graphs and a geographical location.
“Allan Prime’s a star,” Di Capua observed. “When someone like him disappears, it’s a big story.”