Jeffery Deaver - The Burial Hour

‘Well, I meant, where’s his home.’

‘Forget that.’ He scanned the chart. ‘Those scraps of paper you found? The photo paper?’

‘Right.’

‘Play jigsaw puzzle with them. See how they fit together.’

After pulling on gloves she opened the plastic evidence envelope and arranged the slips. ‘They make a frame, see? Something was cut out of the middle. A perfect square.’

Rhyme then consulted his computer. He asked, ‘One that measures fifty-one millimeters by fifty-one, by any chance?’

Sachs applied a ruler. She laughed. ‘Exactly.’

Sellitto grunted, ‘How the hell’d you know that, Linc?’

‘Goddamn it.’ He nodded at the burned triangle of paper, containing the mysterious code.

More typing. Rhyme reviewed the screen and said, ‘Try this: “Cash Tendered. Exchange Rate. Converted Amount. Transaction Amount.”’ He nodded at the screen. ‘I found a receipt from a currency exchange. That’s what it is. And the square cut out of the glossy paper. It’s the size—’

Sellitto filled in, ‘A passport photo. Oh, hell.’

‘Exactly,’ Rhyme said, exhaling slowly. ‘Call Washington.’

‘DC?’ Cooper asked.

‘Of course DC. I hardly want a cup of Starbucks or a Microsoft Windows upgrade, now, do I? Tell the State Department to alert the embassies that the Composer’s headed out of the country. Dellray too. Get him on the wire to the FBI offices abroad.’ Another scowl. ‘Don’t know what good it’ll do. No solid description or other info to give Passport Control.’ He shook his head in dismay. ‘And if he’s as smart as he seems to be, he’s not wasting any time. He’s probably halfway to London or Rio by now.’

Could this be the place, could this be the moment he’d been waiting for?

Hoping for?

Finally, was he about to capture the devil he’d been after for months?

Ercole Benelli rolled down the window of his police vehicle, a dusty Ford SUV. American cars were common in Italy, though you didn’t see many big off-roaders like this. But the nature of his work necessitated four-wheel drive and serious suspension. A bigger engine would have been nice, though Ercole had learned that budget was budget and he was thankful for what he could get. He peered through the flagging leaves of a stately magnolia, dominating this little-used country road, twenty kilometers northwest of Naples.

Youthful and taut of body, lean of face, tall and thinner than his mother had liked, Ercole played his Bausch + Lombs over the field that separated him from the abandoned structure one hundred meters away. The hour was dusk but there was enough light to see by, without using night-vision glasses. The land here was messy, carpeted with weeds and stray and struggling vegetables gone to seed. Sitting every ten meters or so, like huge, discarded toys, were parts of old machines, sheet-metal ducts and vehicle exoskeletons, which the thirty-year-old Ercole believed resembled sculpture he had once seen in an exhibit at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris on a long holiday weekend with his girlfriend at the time. Ercole hadn’t appreciated the art. No, he had appreciated it. He hadn’t liked it (she had, however — and passionately and tearfully — which explained much about the short life span of the romance).

He climbed from the truck, studying the building across the field again, carefully. He was squinting, though that didn’t seem to improve his vision much in the autumn dusk. He kept low; his uniform and brimmed cap, boasting on the crown a fierce eagle, were gray, in contrast with the pale-buff surroundings. With the sky still illuminated he had to make sure he would not be seen.

Thinking again: Could this be his chance to snare the prey?

Was the perp inside?

Well, for certain, someone was. Ercole could see a lamp within the farmhouse, and a presence was revealed from the motion of shadow. And it was not an animal. All species have distinctive locomotion, and Ercole knew nonhuman movements very well; these shadows were from a Homo sapiens — unsuspecting, unconcerned — as he walked around the interior of the place. And, though the light was fading, he could still make out in the grass and a stand of old wheat what appeared to be the tread marks of a truck. Some of the vegetation had returned to near upright, suggesting to Ercole that Antonio Albini — if indeed the suspect, the devil, this was — had been inside for some time. The officer guessed that he had driven into the farmhouse before first light and, after a long day of unconscionable industry, planned to slip away when dusk bathed the soft hills here in deepening blue light.

Which meant soon.

Albini’s modus operandi was to find such abandoned locales for his crimes but to travel to and from them only in the dark, to avoid being seen. The mastermind usually checked out his lairs ahead of time, and Ercole’s exhaustive detective work had found a witness up the road, a farmworker, who’d reported that someone fitting Albini’s description had examined this building two weeks ago.

‘He was behaving in most suspicious ways,’ the grizzled man had said. ‘I’m certain of it.’ Though Ercole guessed that this conclusion was only because the worker had been speaking to a police officer. It was how he himself might have spoken to a cop when he was young and hanging out in the Spaccanapoli, or a nearby Neapolitan square, and a Carabinieri or Police of State officer would ask him, in a bored voice, if he’d seen what street thug had made off with a purse or had cleverly lifted an Omega off a careless wrist.

Whether the intruder had acted suspiciously or not, though, the farm worker’s observation was enough to follow up on, and Ercole had spent much time conducting surveillance of the farmhouse. His supervisor thought long shots like this should not take as much time as Ercole allotted to them. Still, he could behave no differently. He pursued Albini the way he would have sought the notorious serial murderer, or murderers, known as the Monster of Florence, had he been an officer in Tuscany many years ago.

Albini’s crimes would not go unpunished.

Another flicker of shadow.

Now a frog called, hoping to impress a mate.

Now a tall stand of neglected wheat bent in a breeze like parishioners before a priest.

Now a head appeared in the window. And yes! It was the villain he’d worked so hard to capture. Round, porcine Antonio Albini. Ercole could see the bushy hair surrounding the bald pate. His urge was to duck, escaping the demonic gaze from under wizard’s brows. The suspect was not looking outward, though. He was gazing down.

The lamps inside went dark.

And Ercole’s heart twisted with dismay.

No, no! He was leaving now ? While it was still light? Perhaps the deserted nature of the area gave him confidence that he would not be seen. Ercole had thought he would have plenty of time, after verifying the identity of the occupant, to call for backup.

So the question became this: Should he apprehend the man alone?

But, of course, he realized that it was no query at all.

He had no choice. Arresting Albini was his mission and he would now do what he needed to, at whatever risk, to snare the prey.

His hand dipped to the Beretta 9mm on his hip. He took a deep breath and continued through the field, picking his steps carefully. Ercole Benelli regularly studied the procedure books of the Carabinieri, as well as those of the Police of State and the Finance Police — not to mention the law enforcement agencies of other countries and Europol and Interpol, as well. While he had not had many opportunities to effect arrests by himself, he knew the approved techniques to stop and control a suspect.