Free The Puppeteer by Timothy Williams

anybody else who might be interested in the facts that he’s revealing. Highly unnerving. And sometimes very damaging. The final stage of blackmail.”
    “And Maltese?”
    “Don’t rush me.”
    “I don’t see the connection with Maltese.”
    “He was furious with his newspaper, the
Popolo d’Italia
—or at least with the new, subservient management. He wanted revenge. More important, from Novara’s point of view, Maltese possessed the kind of information that could be very damaging.”
    “What did he know? He’d been living in Argentina?”
    “Precisely.”
    “Well?”
    “Banco Milanese de l’América del Sur.”
    Trotti asked irritably, “What?”
    “As a journalist—when the
Popolo d’Italia
was still a respected newspaper—he had done some work on the holdings in the Southern Hemisphere.”
    “Where?”
    “In Argentina, Chile and Peru—and even in Nicaragua where the bank was selling arms to the Sandinista rebels.”
    “So what? Italy sells arms to everybody.”
    “But not every bank—not every national and highly respected bank, particularly with a strong Catholic foundation—is now threatened with bankruptcy.”
    Trotti could imagine Magagna smiling.
    “There are a lot of people who have reason to regret that Maltese was ever fired. He was a good journalist, from what I gather. But with a change in management of the
Popolo d’Italia
and with considerable financial interests at stake, the Banco Milanese could not afford be on bad terms with the military men in Buenos Aires and Santiago. And in Argentina, the Generals were hardly likely to do business with people who owned a newspaper unfavorable to their régimes. So Maltese was fired.”
    “Buenos Aires could have expelled him.”
    “Maltese, in fact, did a lot of his work out of Brazil, where he felt safer. Even so, several attempts were apparently made on his life.”
    “In Italy he was safe.”
    “Until he fell in with Novara—and Novara pulled off his coup.”
    “You mean the Night of the Tazebao?”
    “You heard about it, Commissario?” Surprise in his voice which Magagna did not try to hide. “And you know what Tazebao means?”
    “Something to do with political posters.” Trotti shrugged modestly. “I sometimes glance at the papers.”
    “Then there’s no need for me to explain what happened?”
    “Remind me.”
    “Overnight the posters went up all over Milan—plastered on every available wall. So that by the time Bastia, the director of the Banco Milanese, arrived for work—the offices are near the Scala—the damage had already been done. Of course, he tried to rip the posters down, but people had seen them and read them. One or two important people had even found copies in their morning post. They’d seen the accusations.”
    “What accusations?”
    “A Catholic bank selling arms to South America—to both communists and reactionaries; of illegally exporting currency to Switzerland, in the face of all exchange-control laws.” Magagna laughed. “There was even the secret number of Bastia’s private account in Switzerland. Bastia’s and his wife’s. The posters on the walls also accused Banco Milanese of subsidizing fascist regimes in Central America—and of investing in the cocaine trade. A highly respected Italian bank, with close Vatican ties, was accused of being involved in the production and sale of contraceptives. But perhaps most damaging of all was the simple question on the poster. Why had the prestigious
Popolo d’Italia
never mentioned, never made the slightest reference to the illegal traffickings of the effective owner?” Magagna paused. “Nobody was fooled about the source of information—just as nobody for a moment ever suspected anyone other than Novara as instigator. Maltese had helped him spill the beans. It was as if Maltese had signed his own death warrant.” Then Magagna added, “That was in January. From then until last Friday, nobody saw him—nobody, not even his old friends