Jeffery Deaver - The Burial Hour

‘What’s your name?’ Sachs asked. She repeated the question in Arabic. All NYPD officers in Major Cases who had occasion to work counterterrorism knew a half-dozen words and phrases.

‘Ali. Ali Maziq.’

‘Are you injured anywhere, Mr Maziq?’

‘My throat. It is my throat.’ He took to rambling again and his eyes darted once more.

Ercole said, ‘He doesn’t seem too injured.’

‘No.’

‘He is, it seems, quite disoriented, though.’

Tied up by a madman and nearly hanged in an old Roman ruin? No surprises there.

‘Let’s get him upstairs.’

The tactical team arrived.

A dozen SCO officers. They appeared in deadly earnest and were fully confident as they scanned the area and gripped their weapons like true craftsmen.

Sachs stopped them at the entrance. She was wearing the NYPD shield on her belt, gold for detective, which gave her some authority, ambiguous though it might be. The commander asked, ‘FBI?’ A thick accent.

‘Like that,’ she said. Which seemed to satisfy him.

The man was large of body and large of head, which was covered with a fringe of curly red hair, about the same shade as hers. He nodded to her and said, ‘Michelangelo Frasca.’

‘Amelia Sachs.’

He vigorously shook her hand.

She gestured past him to the arriving medical team, a burly man and a woman nearly as imposing — they might have been siblings — and they sat Maziq on a gurney and took his vitals. The medic spent a moment examining the red ligature mark and said something in Italian to his partner and then to Sachs: ‘Is okay, is good. In physicalness. His mind, very groggy. Drunk I would say if he was not Muslim. Maybe it is being drugs the assaulted used.’ They assisted Maziq into the back of the ambulance and had a conversation with Ercole.

The young officer spoke at length to Michelangelo, presumably about what had happened. He gestured toward the entrance.

‘I have told them where to search and that the killer may still be nearby.’

Sachs noted that the men wore black gloves, so she wasn’t worried about fingerprints, and hoods, which would prevent hair contamination. She dug into her pocket and handed Michelangelo a dozen rubber bands.

He looked at her quizzically.

‘ Fai così ,’ Ercole said, pointing to his feet.

The commander nodded and his eyes seemed impressed. ‘ Per le nostre impronte. ’

‘ Sì .’

‘ Buono! ’ A laugh. ‘ Americana. ’

‘Tell them to walk quickly through the entrance room, where we found the table and water bottle, and to avoid the chamber where we got the victim. That’s where most of the evidence will be and we don’t want it contaminated any more.’

Ercole relayed the information, and the big man nodded. He then quickly deployed his troops.

She heard voices behind them. A large crowd had gathered — among them reporters, calling questions. The police ignored the journalists. Uniformed officers strung yellow tape, as in America, and kept back the crowd.

Another van arrived, large and white. The words Polizia Scientifica were on the side. Two men and a woman climbed out and walked to the double doors in the back, opened them. They dressed in white Tyvek jumpsuits, the name of the unit on the right breast and the words Spray Guard over the left. They approached a uniformed officer, who pointed to Sachs and Ercole. The three approached and spoke with Ercole, who, she could tell from his gestures, told them about the scene. The woman glanced at Sachs once or twice during the lengthy explanation.

Sachs said, ‘If I can borrow a suit, I’ll search with them. I can show them exactly where—’

A man’s voice interrupted her. ‘That is not necessary.’

Sachs turned to see the prosecutor, Dante Spiro. He was approaching from behind a clutch of uniformed officers and cars. One officer leapt forward and lifted the yellow tape for him, high so that Spiro did not have to bow down.

‘ Procuratore ,’ Ercole began.

The man cut him off with a stream of Italian.

The young officer said nothing but looked down and nodded every few seconds as Spiro continued to speak to him.

Ercole said something, nodding to Maziq, sitting in the back of the ambulance now, looking much better.

Again, Spiro shot words his way, clearly unhappy.

‘ Sì, Procuratore. ’

Then the young officer turned to her. ‘He says we can leave now.’

‘I’d like to search with the team.’

‘No, that is not possible,’ Spiro said.

‘I’m a crime scene officer by profession.’

Michelangelo appeared in the dim doorway. He spotted Spiro and approached. He spoke to him for a moment.

Ercole translated. ‘They have finished the search. No sign of the Composer. They’ve gone down all the aqueducts and searched all the rooms in the basement. There is a supply tunnel that leads to the subway station. No sign he was anywhere there.’

‘The building above the basement.’ She nodded to the structure behind them.

Michelangelo said, ‘Is sealed off with concretes. No entrance is possible from sotto terra .’

As the woman forensic officer walked past her she said, with a smile, ‘We’re going to step the grid.’

Sachs blinked.

‘Yes, we know who you are. We use Ispettore Lincoln Rhyme’s book in our lessons. It is not in Italian but we took turns translating. You are both an inspiration. Welcome to Italy!’

They vanished through the doorway.

Spiro fired another dozen sentences to Ercole, then walked off toward the ancient doorway, pulling on his own blue latex gloves.

Ercole translated, ‘ Procuratore Spiro appreciates your assistance and your offer to help with the scene but he thinks it would be best, for continuity’s sake, if the investigation is conducted by Italian law enforcement.’

Sachs decided that to push the matter further would merely embarrass Ercole. He looked desperately to the Mégane and lifted a hand to her shoulder, as if to direct her toward it. Her glance at him had the effect of lowering the limb as if it were in free fall, and she knew he would never try to usher her anywhere again.

As they approached the car he looked tentatively at the driver’s seat.

Sachs said, ‘You drive.’

To Ercole’s great relief.

She handed him the keys.

Once she and Ercole were settled and the engine running, she asked, ‘That line you gave me about continuity? Is that what Spiro really said?’

Ercole was blushing and concentrating on getting the car in first gear. ‘It was a rough translation.’

‘Ercole?’

He swallowed. ‘He said I was to get the woman — that is, you — out of the scene immediately, and if I let her — that is, again, you — talk to any officers again, much less the press, without his express permission, he would have my job. Here, and in my own unit of Forestry.’

Sachs nodded. Then asked, ‘Was “woman” the word he really used?’

After a pause: ‘No, it was not.’ He signaled, let up on the clutch, then pulled gingerly into the street surrounding the square, as if his frail grandmother were sitting in the backseat.

Stunned.

That was Rhyme’s impression of Ali Maziq.

In the situation room at police headquarters Rhyme was watching the kidnap victim through open doorways, across the hall, an empty ground-floor office.

The scrawny man sat in a chair, clutching a bottle of Aranciata San Pellegrino soda. He’d already drunk one of the orange beverages, and several small drops dotted his beard. His face was gaunt — though this would be his natural state, Rhyme supposed, since his ordeal had been only a day or so in length. Dark circles under his eyes. Prominent ears and nose... and that impressive mass of wiry black hair that wholly enveloped his scalp and lower face.