Agent Matt: Academy of Shadows
Chapter 10: Shadow 13
It was raining in Rome. The city looked tired and disappointed; the coliseum looked like a giant bath plug as it tried to drain all the water out of the city. There was nobody sitting at the tables outside the cafes, and for once the little kiosks selling paintings and postcards were being ignored by the tourists, who were hurrying back to their hotels. It was five o'clock in the afternoon and the evening was drawing in, unnoticed. The shops and offices were emptying, but the city didn't care. It just wanted to be left alone. The plane had landed in a private area of The Ciampino Airport, and a car had been waiting to drive them in. Matt had said nothing during the flight and now he sat on his own in the back, watching the buildings flash by. They were following the road towards the centre of Rome, moving surprisingly fast along a wide, two-lane road that dipped above and below the water level. Their route took them past the coliseum. Then they turned off, weaving their way through a series of back streets with smaller restaurants and boutiques fighting for space on the pavements. "Welcome to Roma," Mrs. Stenavich said to Matt, pointing out the window. He pretended to show no interest. In fact, he had stayed in Rome once with his father and knew it as one of the most sophisticated and expensive places in the world. The car turned into a large square and stopped. Matt glanced out the window.
He was surrounded on four sides by the tall, classical churches for which Rome is famous for. But the square had been disfigured by a single modern hotel. It was a black, rectangular block, the windows fitted with dark glass that allowed no view inside. It rose up four floors with a flat roof and the name HOTEL DEL MONDO OSCURO in red and black letters above the main door. If a spaceship had landed in the square, crushing a couple of buildings to make room for itself, it couldn't have looked more out of place. "This is where we're staying," Mrs. Stenavich said. "The hotel is owned by the academy." The driver took their cases out of the trunk. Matt followed the assistant director toward the entrance, the door sliding open automatically to allow them in.
The lobby was cold and faceless, white marble and mirrors with a single potted plant tucked into a corner as an afterthought. There was a small reception desk with an unsmiling male receptionist in a dark suit and glasses, a computer, and a row of pigeonholes. Matt counted them. There were fifteen. Presumably, the hotel had fifteen rooms.
"Buonasera, signora Stenavich." The receptionist nodded his head slightly. He ignored Matt. "I hope you had a good journey from Japan," he then continued, but only in Italian. Matt gazed blankly, as if he hadn't understood a word. Matt Hiroku wouldn't speak Italian. He wouldn't have bothered to learn. Unfortunately for matt it was also one of the languages his father didn't teach him. But judging how close they were speaking together, it looked like they were talking about him. The receptionist took down two keys. He didn't ask either of them to sign in. He didn't ask for a credit card. The school owned the hotel, so there would be no bill when they left. He gave Matt one of the keys. "I hope you're not superstitious," he said, speaking in English now.
"No," Matt replied.
"It is room thirteen. On the first floor. I am sure you will find it most agreeable." The receptionist smiled. Mrs. Stenavich took her key.
"The hotel has its own restaurant," she said. Her voice was gravelly and strangely masculine. Her breath smelled of cigar smoke. "We might as well eat here tonight. We don't want to go out in the rain. Anyway, the food here is excellent. Do you like Italian food, Matt?"
"Not much," Matt said. "Well I'm sure we'll find something that you like. Why don't you freshen up after the journey?" She looked at her watch. "We'll eat at seven-an hour and a half from now. It will give us an opportunity to talk together. Might I suggest, perhaps, some neater clothes for dinner? The Italian's are informal, but if you'll forgive me saying so, my dear, you take informality a little far. I'll call you at five to seven. I hope the room is all right."
Room 13 was at the end of a long, narrow corridor. The door opened into a surprisingly large space, with views over the square. There was a double bed with a black-and-white comforter, a television and minibar, a desk, and, on the wall, a couple of framed pictures of Rome. A porter had carried up Matt's suitcase, and as soon as he was gone, Matt kicked off his shoes and sat down on the bed. He wondered why they had come here. He knew the plane had needed refuelling, and helicopter would take them the rest of the way, but that shouldn't have necessitated an overnight stop. Why not fly on straight to the school? He had more than an hour to kill. First he went into the bathroom-more glass and white marble-and took a long shower. Then, wrapped in a towel, he went back into the room and turned on the television. Matt Hiroku would watch a lot of television. There were about thirty channels to choose from. Matt skipped past the Italian speaking ones and stopped on MTV. He wondered if he was being monitored. There was a large mirror next to the desk, and it would be easy enough to conceal a camera behind it. Well, why not give them something to think about? He opened the minibar and poured himself a glass of gin. Then he went into the bathroom, refilled the bottle with water, and put it back in the fridge. Drinking alcohol and stealing! If she was watching, signora Stenavich would know that she had her hands full with him.
He spent the next forty minutes watching television and pretending to drink the gin. Then he took the glass into the bathroom and dumped it in the sink. It was time to get dressed. Should he do what he was told and put on neater clothes? In the end, he compromised. He put on a new shirt, but kept the same jeans. A moment later, the telephone rang. His call for dinner. Mrs. Stenavich was waiting for him in the restaurant, a large, airless room in the basement. Soft lighting and mirrors had been used to make it feel more spacious, but it was still the last place Matt would have chosen. The restaurant could have been anywhere, in any part of the world. There were two other diners-businessmen, from the looks of them-but otherwise they were alone. That was strange as he looked around, all the keys apart from two- his and Mrs. Stenavich's- were all booked out...so where was everybody else. Mrs. Stenavich had changed into a black evening dress with feathers at the collar, and she had an antique necklace of black and silver beads. The fancier her clothes, Matt thought, the uglier she looked. She was smoking another cigar.
"Ah, Matt!" She blew smoke. "Did you have a rest? Or did you watch TV?" Matt didn't say anything. He sat down and opened the menu, then closed it again when he saw that it was all in Italian. "You must let me order for you. Some soup to start, perhaps? And then some pasta with meat. I've never yet met a boy who doesn't like meat."
"My cousin Benny is a vegetarian," Matt said. It was something he had read in one of the files. The assistant director nodded as if she already knew this.
"Then he doesn't know what he is missing," she said. A pale faced waiter came over and she placed the order in Italian. "What will you drink?" she asked.
"I'll have a Coke."
"A repulsive drink, I've always thought. I have never understood the taste. But of course, you shall have what you want." The waiter brought a Coke for Matt and a glass of champagne for Mrs. Stenavich. Matt watched the bubbles rising in the two glasses, his black, hers a pale yellow. For a moment he thought these drinks represented their souls, hers gold and transparent his dark and mysterious "Per la buona salute" she said.
"I'm sorry?"
"It's Italian, for good health."
"Oh. Cheers . . ." There was a moment's silence. The woman's eyes were fixed on him as if she could see right through him.
"So you were at sorobokoura," she said casually.
"That's right." Matt was suddenly on his guard.
"What house were you in?"
"The Simbourogh." It was the name of a real house at the school. Matt had read the file carefully.
"I visited sorobokoura once I remember a statue I think it was of a Shogun. It was just through the main gate..." She was testing him. Matt was sure of it. Did she suspect him? Or was it simply a precaution, something she always did?
"You're talking about Hōjō Takatoki," he said. "His statue's in the Schools Yard. He founded sorobokoura."
"But you didn't like it there."
"No."
"Why not?"
"I didn't like the uniform and I didn't like the Turks." Matt was careful not to use the word teachers. At sorobokoura, they're known as Turks. He half smiled to himself. If she wanted a bit of soro-speak, he'd give it to her. "And I didn't like the rules. Getting fined by the poroks. Or being put in the Tardy Book. I was always getting fifived and Ingoes ... or being put on the scroll. The Bing Ja's were boring . . ."
"I'm afraid I don't really understand a word you're saying."
"Bing ja's are lessons," Matt explained. "Fifived is when your work is no good."
"I see!" She drew a line with her cigar. "Is that why you set fire to the library?"
"No," Matt said. "That was just because I don't like books." The first course arrived. Matt's soup was pale red and had something floating in it. He picked up his spoon and poked at it suspiciously. "What's this?" he demanded.
"Pasta e fagioli." He looked at her blankly. "Pasta and dried bean soup. I hope you enjoy it."
"I'd have preferred tomato and basil," Matt said. The second course arrived and Mrs. Stenavich told him it was spaghetti all' amatriciana, spaghetti with bacon and onion, it was typically Italian: lots of tomatoes and herbs. Matt took a couple of mouthfuls of the food, then threw down his spoon and fork and used his fingers to eat all the bacon and onions before finishing. His leather fingerless gloves were coated in tomato sauce. Mrs. Stenavich talked to him about the French Alps, about skiing, and about her visits to various European cities. It was easy to look bored. He was bored. And he was beginning to feel tired. He took a sip of Coke, hoping the cold drink would wake him up, but the more he drank the more tired he was becoming. The meal seemed to be dragging on all night. But at last the desserts-a delicious mixture of soft lady fingers soaked in coffee and mascarpone cheese, with a name that translated as "pick me up"-Tiramisu, had come and gone. Matt declined coffee.
"You're looking tired," Mrs. Stenavich said. She lit another cigar. The smoke curled around her head and made him feel dizzy. "Would you like to go to bed?"
"Yes."
"We don't need to leave until midday tomorrow. You'll have time for a visit to The Pantheon, if you'd like that." Matt shook his head.
"Actually, places like that, bore me."
"Really? What a shame!" Matt stood up. Somehow his hand knocked into his glass, spilling the rest of the Coke over the pristine white tablecloth. What was the matter with him? Suddenly he was exhausted. "Would you like me to come up with you, Matt?" the woman asked. She was looking carefully at him, a tiny glimmer of interest in her otherwise dead eyes.
"No. I'll be all right." Matt stepped away. "Good night." Getting upstairs was an ordeal. He was tempted to take the elevator, but he didn't want to lock himself into that small, windowless cubicle. He would have felt suffocated. He climbed the stairs, his shoulders resting heavily against the wall. Then he stumbled down the corridor and somehow got his key into the lock. His vision was becoming blurrier. When he finally got inside, the room was spinning. What was going on? Had he drunk more of the gin than he had intended, or was he ...? Matt swallowed. He had been drugged. There had been something in the Coke. It was still on his tongue, a sort of bitterness. There were only three steps between him and his bed, but it could have been a mile away. His legs wouldn't obey him anymore. Just lifting one foot took all his strength. He fell forward, reaching out with his arms. Somehow he managed to propel himself far enough. His chest and shoulders hit the bed, sinking into the mattress. The room was spinning around him, faster and faster. He tried to stand up, tried to speak-but nothing came. His eyes closed. Gratefully, he allowed the darkness to take him. He was still sitting with his upper body on the bed and his lower half on the floor.
Thirty minutes later, there was a soft click and the room began to change. If Matt had been able to open his eyes, he would have seen the desk, the minibar, and the framed pictures of Rome begin to rise up the wall. Or so it might have seemed to him. But in fact the walls weren't moving. It was the floor that was sinking downward on hidden hydraulics, taking the room-with Matt half on the bed, half on the floor-into the depths of the hotel. The entire room was nothing more than a huge elevator that carried him, one inch at a time, into the basement and beyond. Now the walls were metal sheets. He had left the wallpaper, the lights, and the pictures high above him. He was dropping through what might have been a ventilation shaft with four steel rods guiding him to the bottom. Brilliant lights suddenly flooded over him. There was a soft click. He had arrived. The bed had come to rest in the centre of a gleaming underground clinic. Scientific equipment crowded in on him from all sides. There were a number of cameras: digital, video, infrared, and X-ray. There were instruments of all shapes and sizes, most of them unrecognizable to anyone without a science degree. A tangle of wires spiralled out from each machine to a bank of computers that hummed and blinked on a long worktable against one of the walls. A glass window had been cut into the wall on the other side.
The room was air-conditioned. Had Matt been awake, he might have shivered in the cold. His breath appeared as a faint white cloud, hovering around his mouth. A plump man wearing a white coat and a big yellow bow tie had been waiting to receive him. The man, who was about forty, had yellow hair that he had slicked back, and a face that was rapidly sinking into middle age, with puffy cheeks and a thick, fatty neck. The man had glasses and a small moustache. Two assistants were with him, also wearing white coats. Their faces were blank. The three of them set to work at once. Handling Matt as if he were a sack of vegetables-or a corpse. They picked him up and stripped off all his clothes. Then they began to photograph him, beginning with a conventional camera. Starting at his toes, they moved upward, clicking off at least a hundred pictures, the flash igniting and the film automatically advancing. Not one inch of his body escaped their examination. A lock of his hair was snipped off and put into a plastic envelope. An ophthalmoscope was used to produce a perfect image of the back of his eye. They made a mould of his teeth, slipping a piece of putty into his mouth and manipulating his chin to make him bite down.
They made a careful note of the birthmark on his left shoulder the scar on his arm, and even the ends of his fingers. Matt's nails were strong; he never bit them; that was recorded too. Finally, they weighed him on a large, flat scale and then measured him-his height, chest size, waist, inside leg, hand size, and so on-making a note in their books of every measurement. And all the time, Mrs. Stenavich watched from the other side of the window. She never moved. The only sign of life anywhere in her face was the cigar, clamped between her lips. It glowed red, and the smoke trickled up. The three men had finished. The one with the yellow hair spoke into a microphone.
"We're all finished," he said.
"Give me your opinion, Mr. Stockman." The woman's voice echoed out of a speaker concealed behind the wall.
"It's a cinch." The man called Baxter Stockman was English. He spoke with an upper-class accent, and he was obviously pleased with himself. "He's got a good bone structure. Very fit. Interesting face. You notice the pierced ear? He's had that done recently. Nothing else to say, really."
"When will you operate?"
"Whenever you say, old girl. Just let me know." Mrs. Stenavich turned to the other two men.
"Envoyer ceux-ci!" She snapped the words. The two assistants put Matt's clothes back on him. This took longer than taking them off. As they worked, they made a careful note of all the brand names. The Quicksilver T-shirt. The Gap socks. By the time they had dressed him, they knew as much about him as a doctor knows about a newborn baby. It had all been noted down. Mr. Baxter Stockman walked over to the worktable and pressed a button. At once, the carpet, bed, and hotel furniture began to rise up. They disappeared through the ceiling and kept going. Matt slept on as he was carried back through the shaft, finally arriving in the space that he knew as room 13. There was nothing to show what had happened. The whole experience had evaporated, as quickly as a dream. He laid on the bed and would not remembering anything or how he managed to get on to the bed, everything happened in the shadows of Room 13.