Jeffery Deaver - The Burial Hour

Ah, that was Stefan’s meaning not long ago.

Rhyme said, ‘Okay. The big question: How successful was AIS here?’

‘Very. We found out through our techniques that Ali Maziq’s terrorist assignment was to travel to Vienna, collect explosives from a garage outside of town and detonate them in a shopping mall.’

Rhyme recalled that Henry Musgrave, the consulate general, had told them about a foiled attack.

‘The calls to Bolzano,’ Spiro said. ‘The Trenitalia trip, six hours to get him there.’

‘Yes. He’d meet a German-speaking contact who would drive him into Austria. We didn’t have a chance to interrogate Malek Dadi before he was killed. His target was in Milan. But you helped us there — finding the Post-it note with the address of the warehouse in Milan.’

Sachs shook her head. ‘Ah. Your quote “legal liaison,” Prescott? He’s with AIS too. Of course. Before Mike Hill’s private plane landed at Linate, I gave Prescott the address of the warehouse. But he didn’t drive me right there. He took me all over Milan, complaining about the traffic — but that was to give your team time to raid the place. I found a broken beer bottle on the driveway apron. Your people must’ve finished removing the explosives just before we got there.’

McKenzie said, ‘That’s right. We recovered another half kilo of C4. We don’t know what the target was, somewhere in Milan. But that’s one attack that’s not going to happen.’

Rossi asked, ‘And Khaled Jabril? The third terrorist you interrogated?’

Her face tightened. ‘That was bad intel. Our asset in Libya gave us his name but he turned out to be innocent. We interrogated him thoroughly but he didn’t know about any plots. Our techniques are very, very good. If there’d been anything, we would have found it.’ McKenzie looked from one to the other. ‘So, I’ve told you everything. Hypothetically, of course. Now I need your help. There’s a problem.’

Rossi said, ‘I must say, Signorina, I have met many criminals in my day but no one who is as immune to contrizione ... contrition, as you.’

She turned cool eyes toward him. ‘This is for everyone’s own good. Your country, as well as ours.’

Spiro said, ‘Continue, per favore .’

‘The terrorists here, Malik and Dadi, were recruited in Tripoli by a man named Ibrahim. We don’t know much about him or his affiliation, maybe ISIS or al-Qaeda. Or other radicalized groups. Or he might be freelancing, working for anyone who pays him. Ibrahim’s accomplice is in Naples, or nearby. He was the terrorists’ contact here. He supplied the explosives and was the on-the-ground person planning the attacks in Vienna and Milan.’

Sachs said, ‘He’s the man Ali Maziq had dinner with before he was kidnapped near D’Abruzzo.’

‘Exactly. Under interrogation Maziq said that his name was Gianni. A code name, of course. But he didn’t have any more information.’

Rhyme recalled that Beatrice had found samples of Neapolitan soil — rich with volcanic trace — in the warehouse. It would have come from this man. He mentioned this now.

‘Yes, Gianni would be the one who left the explosives in Vienna and in Milan then returned here. Now, the point of our operation wasn’t just to stop the attacks; it was also to learn Ibrahim’s real identity and address in Tripoli. Finding Gianni is our only hope. But we have no more leads. Will you help me?’

And in her eyes, true, there was not a wisp of contrition. It seemed that she had hardly heard of — and certainly didn’t care about — the case against her that had just been laid out.

Spiro and Rossi shared a glance. Then the prosecutor turned. ‘And what, Capitano Rhyme, is your thinking on this matter?’

At 9 a.m., much of the team was assembled once more in the situation room, the basement of the Questura.

Rhyme, Sachs and Dante Spiro, along with Thom, of course, ever-present Thom. Ercole Benelli was in the building, but elsewhere at the moment. Massimo Rossi had ordered him to bundle up all of the physical evidence in the Composer case, now that it was more or less closed, and log it into the Questura’s evidence room.

Rossi himself would join them soon. He was in his office upstairs with fellow inspector Laura Martelli, preparing the documentation to have Garry Soames officially released, verifying the evidence and interviewing Natalia, her boyfriend and others who’d been at the party. Garry had been released from prison but was still being held in a minimum-security facility in downtown Naples, pending the magistrate’s signature.

Stefan was in a holding cell, too, but Charlotte McKenzie was present. No longer saddled with her fake role as a diplo, she was wearing black slacks, a dark blouse and a supple leather jacket. She was still grandmotherly — but she was a grandmother who might practice tae kwon do and enjoy white-water rafting, if not big-game hunting.

A uniformed officer wearing a shiny white belt and holster stood, nearly at attention, outside the door with orders not to let her leave the room.

Before he’d left, Rossi had said to him sternly: ‘ Qualcuno la deve accompagnare alla toilette ,’ which was pretty clear, even in Italian.

Though Ercole had taken the evidence to storage, the charts were still in place, on the easels surrounding them, and Sachs had created a new one — about their prey, Gianni, the terrorist Ibrahim’s accomplice.

With such a sparse description and no helpful physical evidence — and with Ali Maziq unable to provide details, after the drugging and electroconvulsive treatment — Rhyme, Spiro and Sachs decided that the best way to track him was through phone calls made to and from the mobile of the refugee he’d run: Ali Maziq.

Both the Postal Police and the domestic Italian spy agency had spent the night establishing calling patterns to and from the phones. They could identify Gianni’s phone, from which he’d sent and received calls to and from Maziq, and learned that Gianni had also frequently called and received calls from a landline — a café in Tripoli. It was undoubtedly the phone Ibrahim was using, not a mobile, for security’s sake.

Gianni’s phone, however, was now dead; he’d have a new one. And it was this new mobile they needed to find, so they could triangulate and track it — or at least tap the line and see if he gave away his location or more about his identity in conversation.

Massimo Rossi returned to the office and regarded the occupants, debating a strategy to discover Gianni’s new number. Spiro explained the situation.

Rossi said, ‘A landline, hm. Clever of him. In no small part because there has always been antagonism between Italy and Libya — we occupied them, you know, as a colony. And now our government is angered by their approach to the immigrant crisis — which is no approach at all. No one in Tripoli or Tobruk will cooperate with us.’

Dante Spiro said, ‘I must say I can think of a solution.’

Everyone in the room turned his way.

He added, ‘The only difficulty is that it is in a small way illegal. A prosecutor could hardly suggest it.’

‘Well, why don’t you tell us,’ Rhyme suggested, ‘ hypothetically ?’

New York has been called the City That Never Sleeps, though in fact that motto applies only to a few isolated establishments in Manhattan, where expensive liquor licenses and early work schedules keep the place pretty well shut down in the wee hours.