Worthy: to do the most righteous thing available to you, under a difficult set of circumstances.
I considered whether these words rang true, as I returned across the waters to Venice.
Chapter 83
Preparation.
A new computer, new clothes, new internet connection, new download of Tor through the Wi-Fi of San Servolo, a good place to work, a little university campus for people looking for three months of art history, or two months of intensive Italian in the city of wonders, easy to blend in, buy yourself a coffee, sit in the café and surf the web.
Tor: The Onion Router. It has its flaws.
Arguments for increased government surveillance of the internet:
1. To curtail bomb-making manuals, terrorism, pornography, drug dealing and crime.
2. Trolls, bullies and hackers. To a feminist blogger: “I’m going to rape you till you bleed your home address is 
”. Hate crime: “Fucking black bitches only good for being slaves”. It’s just the 1 per cent, say the apologists. Toughen up. (Fuck you, comes the answer. Fuck you for being too fucking cowardly to take responsibility for the society you live in. Fuck you for not giving a damn.)
3. If you have nothing to hide, why does it matter?
Arguments against:
The online privacy laws in the USA state that any email left for more than six months on a server owned by a third party, becomes obsolete, allowing that company (Hotmail, Gmail, etc.) to do whatever the hell it pleases with that data. Personal emails you have written to friends, lovers, colleagues now enter the public domain.
I love you. I want your skin against mine, your tongue in my mouth, your hands on my
I’m sending the money today, here are the details
My fucking sister is fucking getting on my tits again, fat bitch
Do I care that Google knows my religion, if I’m divorced or pregnant, that Facebook uses my face in an ad campaign? When I challenge my government; when I attack a media mogul, when I question a belief that others take for granted, do I care that my family history, finances and home address can be found immediately by my foes? Of course I don’t: I have nothing to hide.
Do I care that the only way to be free from the fear of surveillance is to be absolutely harmless? To conform to a sociological norm, and never say anything that is personal, or real, or half thought through, or challenging?
I ordered another espresso, and waited for Tor to load.
A new address from which to contact an old friend.
I chose Zenobia1862, and sent my message to the most plausible corner of Prometheus’ infrastructure.
I am _why. I am the woman that the man called Gauguin, also Matisse, forgets. I wish to discuss Byron14.
Yours sincerely,
It took them nearly three days to reply, but I kept myself busy. I ran through the city, learning the streets, the bridges, the dead ends and the waterways. Learning where to hide and where to steal. Finding my way into police-radio frequencies, counting the rich and the beautiful, the vulnerable and the criminal as they mingled beneath the palazzos and inside the hot, wine-soaked bars.
I looked for the 206, the elite of all elites, and it was easy to find, the glamour sheets and the gossip rags already buzzing, the Perfect Party, Perfect Millions they called it, and look, wasn’t it exciting, he was going and she was going, and didn’t his fiancée look beautiful, she’d clearly beaten the cellulose. And she’d be there and so would she even though she’d once slept with his brother and she’d called her a slut but that was another time, they loved each other really, you see, and she’d lost so much weight since getting Perfection did you see her exclusive hot beach holiday pics?
“You don’t want to be photographed, don’t make an exhibition of yourself,” said one paparazzi I gave a bottle of whisky to as he sat outside a grand hotel on the Grand Canal, cameras slung around his neck.
“What about people who want to make an exhibition of themselves in private?” I asked, and he shrugged.
“They’re rich, they’re famous, they gotta deal with the stuff that comes with it.”
The next day I went back, and there he was again, a little bit tipsy by 11 a.m., and I gave him another bottle of whisky and he said, “Hotel Madellena, that’s where it’s at, they’ve got royalty coming, all the rich princes and their pretty girls, you know how it is, pussy, hot pussy, all of them.”
I smiled politely, and thought about stealing his camera, throwing it into the canal, but no, that would be unworthy, must remember, even though it would be kinda righteous.
I counted my steps away from him, and by thirty paces the urge to steal had passed, and I laughed as I began to run again, heading back into the city.
When I returned to my hotel, Gauguin had replied to my message, with Luca Evard cced in for good measure.
Chapter 84
Meeting spies.
I paid a prostitute whose working name was Portia (“Like… Porthos?” I hazarded, and she glared and said, “Like Shakespeare, idiot”) four hundred euros to sit with a mobile phone outside a café on the Riva degli Schiavoni, drinking thick black coffee and huddling in a fur-lined coat. The weather was turning cold; a bare spit of snow fell upon the rooftop and melted again, but for four hundred euros Portia wasn’t going anywhere, and for a further two hundred neither was my water taxi, the driver sat with his feet up on the dashboard, a cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth, a book about giving up everything to become an alpaca farmer open on his lap.
I sat at the back of the cab as the wake from the passing buses tossed us from side to side, and watched the café through a pair of binoculars. First to arrive were three security goons, two men and a woman. When they were settled, Gauguin approached on foot from the direction of the Arsenal, sensibly dressed in rubber boots and a waxy brown anorak. Luca Evard walked half a step behind him, thick black jacket and dull green jeans, an offence to fashion even at five hundred yards, head down, eyes up, a hint of bald spot becoming a definite declaration on his shining skull, panda rings around his sleepless eyes.
They arrived at the café, consulting their phones, images of my face saved within, and as they looked I dialled Portia, and said, “Those two.”
Portia harrumphed, a busy woman having her time wasted, stood up, marched to Gauguin, and thrust the phone towards him screen first, arm locked and straight, and said, “It’s for you.”
Gauguin thanked her cordially, took the phone. She marched away, all buttock and thigh, haughty chin and Shakespearean pride.
“Who am I speaking to?” Gauguin enquired, English, polite, clipped.
“My name is Why,” I replied, watching him turn, turn, through my binoculars. “I want to talk about Byron14.”
A shuffle on the spot, Luca Evard behind, Luca wants the phone, glances at his own, at my face on it, stares at the crowd, sees no one he knows, looks down. A thing which might be anger; a thing he does not want the world to see in his eye.
I look away too, and it’s obviously shame, pure and true.
“I thought we would—”
“Meet personally? You have a habit of knives and guns, Mr Gauguin.”
“Do I?”
“You’ve watched the CCTV? Tokyo, Oman? Might not have footage of Istanbul, but seriously — knives. I assume you’re recording this?”