The Burial Hour (Lincoln Rhyme 13)

"Yes, they were and, as you are suggesting, I believe, the pipes...shifting the water, transporting the water to the fountains and the homes and the buildings, were lead. Now replaced, of course, for healthy reasons."

"Ercole, maps of Roman water supplies?"

This document was readily available in the historical archives.

Ercole handed the printout to Daniela. He pointed to the document and said, "Here I have ten Roman water-holding chambers in the areas we have marked. They are like large wells or silos, round. These were connected to aqueducts coming into the city from the north and west. Some of them are large municipal reservoirs, twenty by twenty meters, and some are those serving smaller areas or individual homes, much smaller. When the supply of water became more modern, and pumping stations were created, many of these reservoirs were converted to warehouses and storerooms. Doors and windows were carved into the walls."

Daniela marked them.

Rhyme: "I want to see the video again."

The image came onto the screen once more. "Look at the wall, the stone. Is it a water reservoir?"

"It might be." Ercole shrugged. "Carved stone. Stained with what might be water marks. And if converted, it could have had a doorway cut for access. There, that shadow suggests there is a doorway."

Sachs said, "We've narrowed it to nine or ten locations. Can we do a search of them all? Get a hundred officers?"

Rossi seemed uncomfortable. "We do not have the resources I would like." He explained that there'd just been reports of potential terror attacks in Italy and other parts of Europe recently and many officers had been pulled off non-terror crimes.

Rhyme had the video played once more: the stone, the noose, the unconscious victim, his chest rising slowly, the trickle of dust, the--

"Ah. Look at that." His voice was a whisper. But everyone in the room turned to him immediately. He grimaced. "I saw it before but didn't think a damn thing of it."

"What, Rhyme?"

"The dust and pebbles, falling from the wall."

Sachs and Ercole spoke simultaneously. She: "Subway!" He: "Rete Metropolitana!"

"A train's shaking the walls. Ercole, quick, what lines run through the areas we've marked?"

He called up a subway system schematic on the laptop. Looking it over, Daniela drew the transit lines on their working map.

"There!" Rossi called. "That water reservoir, the small one."

It was a room about twenty by twenty feet, at the end of an aqueduct. It was accessed by a passageway that ran to a street by a square on Viale Margherita.

Giacomo added, "I know that area. That reservoir would be in the basement of an old building, now abandoned. Prostitutes could have used the passages years ago, yes."

"Abandoned," Rhyme said. "So the doors might be sealed with the lock and chain the Composer cut through; that's the rust and the slices of metal."

"I'll call the SCO," Rossi said.

Daniela offered: "Servizio Centrale Operativo. Our SWAT force."

Rossi spoke for several minutes, giving firm orders then hung up. "The central office is assembling a team."

Sachs met Rhyme's eyes. He nodded.

She asked, "How far away is that?" She stabbed the map, the entrance around which Daniela had drawn a red circle.

"No more than a few kilometers from us."

"I'm going," Sachs announced.

After a brief hesitation Rossi said, "Yes, certainly." He looked to Giacomo and Daniela, and the three had a brief conversation in Italian.

Rossi translated, "Their vehicle is with other officers. Ercole, you drive Detective Sachs."