Jeffery Deaver - The Burial Hour

Some tourists, but also many people who seemed to be true Neapolitans — families, women with strollers, children on bicycles... and preteens and teen, boys and girls. They strutted and shied and revealed themselves, wearing proud boots and bold running shoes and high heels and patterned tights and languid shirts, and they displayed, with understated pride, their latest: necklaces and clever purses and anklets and eyeglasses and rings and ironic mobile phone covers.

The flirts seemed harmless and charming, the youngsters innocent as preening kittens.

Oh, and the view: beautiful. Vesuvius ahead in the distance, the docks and massive ships. The bay, rich blue.

But Fatima Jabril paid little attention to any of this.

Her focus was on her mission.

And pushing the baby carriage with care.

‘Ah, che bellezza !’ the woman of a couple, herself pregnant, cried. And, smiling, she said something more. Seeing that the Italian language wasn’t working, she tried English. ‘Your daughter!’ The woman looked down into the carriage. ‘She is having the hair of an angel! Look, those beautiful black curls!’ Then, noting the hijab her mother wore, she paused, perhaps wondering if Muslims believed in angels.

Fatima Jabril understood the gist. She smiled and said an awkward, ‘ Grazie tante. ’

The woman cast another look down. ‘And she sleeps so well, even here, the noise.’

Fatima continued on hiking the back-pack higher on her shoulder. Moving slowly.

Because of the crowds.

Because of her reluctance to kill.

Because of the bomb in the carriage.

How has my life come to this?

Well, she could recall quite clearly the answer to that question. She’d replayed it every night falling asleep, every morning rising to wakefulness.

That day some weeks ago...

She remembered being pulled off the street in Tripoli by two surly men — who had no trouble touching a Muslim woman not a relation. Terrified and sobbing, she had been bundled off to the back room of a coffeehouse off Martyrs’ Square. She was pushed into a chair and told to wait. The shop was called Happy Day. An irony that brought tears to her eyes.

An hour later, a horrific hour later, the curtain was flung aside and in walked a sullen, bearded man of about forty. He identified himself as Ibrahim. He looked her over stonily and handed her a tissue. She dried her eyes and flung it back at his face. He smiled at that.

In Libyan-inflected Arabic, a high voice, he had said, ‘Let me explain why you are here and what is about to happen to you. I am going to recruit you for a mission. Ah, ah, let me finish.’ He called for tea and almost instantly it arrived, carried by the shopkeeper, whose hands trembled as he’d set out the cups. Ibrahim waited until the man left, then continued, ‘We have selected you for several reasons. First, because you are not on any watch lists. Indeed, you are what we call an Invisible Believer. That is, you are to our faith what a Unitarian might be to Christianity. Do you know what Unitarian is?’

Fatima, though familiar with much Western culture, was not aware of the sect. ‘No.’

Ibrahim said, ‘Suffice to say moderate . Hence, to the armies and the security services of the West you are invisible . You can cross borders and get to targets and not be regarded as a threat.’

Targets , she thought in horror. Her hands quivered.

‘You will be assigned a target in Italy and you will carry out an attack.’

She gasped, and refused the tea Ibrahim offered. He sipped, clearly relishing the beverage.

‘Now we come to the second reason you have been selected. You have family in Tunisia and Libya. Three sisters, two brothers, all of whom, praise be to God, have been blessed with children. Your mother too is still upon this earth. We know where they live. You will fulfill your obligation to us, complete these attacks, or they will be killed — every family member of yours from six-month-old Mohammed to your mother, as she returns from the market on the arm of her friend Sonja, who will die too, I should say.’

‘No, no, no...’

Ignoring the emotion completely, Ibrahim whispered, ‘And now we come to the third reason you will help us in this mission. Upon completion of the assignment, you — and your husband and daughter — will be given new identities and a large sum of money. You will get British or Dutch passports and can move where you wish. What do you say?’

The only word she could.

‘Yes.’ Sobbing.

Ibrahim smiled and finished the tea. ‘You and your family will travel to Italy as refugees. A smuggler I work with will give you details tonight. Once you arrive, you will be taken to a refugee camp for processing. A man named Gianni will contact you.’

He’d risen and left, with not another word.

They’d no sooner landed in the Capodichino Reception Center than Gianni in fact called her. He explained in a guttural voice, clear and still as ice, that there would be no excuses. If she fell ill and could not detonate the bomb, her family would die. If she were arrested for stealing a loaf of bread and could not detonate the bomb, her family would die. If the bomb did not go off because of mechanical failure, her family would die. If she froze at the last moment... well, she understood.

And what should happen but, of all horrific coincidences, her husband had been snatched by that psychotic American! That in itself had been terrible — she loved him dearly — but the incident had also brought the police. Would they find the explosives and phone and detonator that Gianni had left for her? Would they relocate her and her daughter while they searched for Khaled?

Yet he had been saved.

That was, of course, wonderful. Yet it tore Fatima’s heart in two. Because everyone, from Rania to the American police to the Italian officers, had worked so very hard — some even risking their lives — to save Khaled, a man they didn’t know, a man who had come to this country uninvited.

Certainly there were those who resented immigrants but, apart from some protestors outside the camp, Fatima had yet to meet them. Why, look at the woman a moment ago.

Your daughter, she has the hair of an angel!

Most Italians were heartbreakingly sympathetic to the asylum-seeker’s plight.

Which made what she was about to do, two hours from now, all the more shameful.

But do it she would.

If you fail in any way, your family will die...

But she wouldn’t fail. She saw the target ahead of her. Less than two hours remained until the attack.

Fatima found a cluster of unoccupied benches not far from the water. She sat in one that faced the bay. So that no one could see her tears.

The lead to the Royal Palace had been a bust. Rhyme was sure Gianni had made the call to the Tripoli coffeehouse solely to see how much the police knew and if they were tracking phones. He’d learned that they were and so he’d gone off the grid.

Without any chance of finding him via phones, and no physical leads to Fatima, the team turned to the question of what might the intended target of the bombing be. Speculation, sure, but it was all they had.

Because the refugee camp was near Naples airport, Rhyme and Spiro thought immediately that Fatima was going after an airplane or the terminal.

The prosecutor said, ‘She can’t get a bomb on board an aircraft. But she might cut a hole in the fence, run to a full aircraft about to take off and detonate the device on the runway.’

McKenzie said, ‘These aren’t suicide attackers. They’re remote detonation devices, using cell phones. I don’t see airports. Train station maybe. Less security.’