Jeffery Deaver - The Burial Hour

Rania, the director of the Capodichino Reception Center, was giving orders, endlessly. Because the work to be done here was endless. She marshaled all her troops: the paid Ministero dell’Interno employees, the volunteers, the police, the soldiers, the UN folks and the infrastructure workers, being firm, though patient and polite (except perhaps with the insufferable celebrities who had a habit of jetting in from London or Cape Town for a photo opportunity, bragging to the press about their donation, then jetting off to Antibes or Dubai, for dinner).

Rania walked around a massive pile of life preservers, orange and faded-orange, piled like a huge, squat traffic cone, and ordered several volunteers to board the buses to dispense bottled water. The month of September had not proved to be a respite from the heat.

She surveyed the incoming stream of unfortunates.

A sigh.

The camp had been intended for twelve hundred. It was now home to nearly three thousand. Despite the attempts to slow immigration from North Africa — primarily Libya — the poor folks kept coming, fleeing rape and poverty and crime and the mad ideology of ISIS and other extremists. You could talk about turning them back, you could talk about setting up camps and protective zones in their origin countries. But those solutions were absurd. They would never happen.

No, these people had to escape from the Land of No Hope, as one refugee had referred to his home. Conditions were so dire that nothing would stop them fleeing to beleaguered settlements like hers. This year alone nearly seventy thousand asylum-seekers had landed on Italian soil.

A voice intruded on her troubled thoughts.

‘There is something I would like to do. Please.’

Rania turned to the woman, who had spoken in Arabic. The director scanned the pretty face, the deep-brown eyes, the faint hint of makeup on the light-mocha skin. The name...? Ah, yes, Fatima. Fatima Jabril. Behind her was her husband. His name, Rania recalled, was Khaled. The couple whose intake she herself had processed just the other day.

In the husband’s arms lay their sleeping daughter, whose name she’d forgotten. Fatima apparently noted the director’s frown.

‘This is Muna.’

‘Yes, that’s right — a lovely name.’ The child’s round face was surrounded by a mass of glossy black curls.

Fatima continued, ‘Earlier, I was outspoken. The journey was very difficult. I apologize.’ She glanced back at her husband, who had apparently encouraged her to say this.

‘No, it’s not necessary.’

Fatima continued, ‘We have asked and have been told that you are the director of the camp.’

‘That’s right.’

‘I come to you with a question. In Tripoli I worked in health care. I was a midwife and served as a nurse during the Liberation.’

She would be talking, of course, about the fall of Qaddafi and the months afterward, when the peace and stability, so long anticipated and so bravely fought for, had vanished like water in hot sand.

‘Liberation’ — what a mockery.

‘I would like to help here in the camp. So many people, pregnant women, about to give birth. And sick too. The burns.’

Sunburn, she meant. Yes, a week on the Mediterranean with no protection took a terrible toll — especially on young skin. And there were other diseases too. The camp’s sanitation was as good as it could be, but many refugees were racked with illness.

‘I would appreciate that. I will introduce you to the medical center director. What are your languages?’

‘Other than Arabic, some English. My husband.’ She nodded to Khaled, who gave an amiable smile. ‘He is good with English. We are teaching Muna both languages. And I am learning Italian. An hour a day at the school here.’

Rania nearly smiled — the girl was only two, and bilingual instruction seemed a bit premature. But Fatima’s eyes were hard and her mouth taut. The director plainly saw that the woman’s determination to help, and to be granted asylum and assimilate, was not a matter for humor.

‘We have no way to pay you. No funds.’

Fatima said quickly, ‘I don’t wish to be paid. I wish to help.’

‘Thank you.’

The refugees were mixed when it came to generosity. Some — like Fatima — volunteered selflessly. Others remained reclusive and a few were resentful that more was not being done for them or that the asylum-seeking process took so long.

Rania was telling Fatima about the medical center facilities when she happened to look through the fence and saw something that gave her pause.

Outside, amid the hundreds of those milling about — reporters, family members and friends of the refugees — a man stood by himself. He was in the shadows, so she had no clear image of him. But it was obvious he was staring in her direction. The thickset man wore a cap, the sort American sports figures wore, a cap you didn’t see much in Italy, where heads went mostly uncovered. His eyes were obscured with aviator sunglasses. There was something troubling about his pose.

Rania knew she had incurred the anger of many people for her devotion to these poor people. Refugees were hugely unpopular among certain segments of the population in the host countries. But he was not standing with the protesters. No, his attention — which seemed focused on Rania herself — appeared to be about something else entirely.

Rania said goodbye to Fatima and Khaled and pointed to the medical facility. As the family walked away, Rania pulled her radio off her hip and summoned the head of security — a Police of State captain — to meet her fifty meters south of the main gate.

Tomas radioed back immediately saying he was coming.

He arrived just two or three minutes later. ‘A problem?’

‘A man outside the fence. Something odd about him.’

‘Where?’

‘He was by the magnolia.’

She pointed but the view was blocked by yet another refugee bus crawling along the road.

When it passed, and the view was clear once again, she could see the man no more. Rania scanned the road and fields bordering the camp but found no trace.

‘Do you want me to call a team together?’

She debated.

A voice from the office called, ‘Rania, Rania! The shipment of plasma. They can’t find it. Jacques needs to talk to you. Jacques from the Red Cross.’

Another scan of the roadway. Nothing.

‘No, don’t bother. Thank you, Tomas.’

She swiveled about, to return to her office and cope with yet another cascade of crises.

Endless...

‘Don’t really want it to deflect us too much from the Composer, do we now, Sachs? But it’s a curious case. An intriguing case.’

Rhyme, referring to the Garry Soames matter.

She gave a wry laugh. ‘A landmine of a case.’

‘Ah, because of Dante Spiro? We’ll be careful.’

They were in their secondary situation room: the café across the street from the Questura. Sachs, Rhyme and Thom. Rhyme had tried to order a grappa but Thom, damn it, had preempted him with sparkling water and coffee for everyone. How was he going to acquire a taste for the liquor if he was denied access?

In fairness, however, the cappuccino was good.

‘Ah, here we go.’

Rhyme noted the lanky figure of Ercole Benelli stride from the police headquarters toward the café. He spotted the Americans, crossed the street, stepped past the Cinzano barrier and sat down on a rickety aluminum chair.

‘Hello,’ he said formally, the tone revealing his curiosity. The young officer was, of course, wondering why Sachs had called and asked to meet out here.

Rhyme asked, ‘Has Beatrice found any prints on the plant leaves or any trace from the Composer’s surveillance outside the restaurant near D’Abruzzo?’