The Burial Hour (Lincoln Rhyme 13)

"Thank you," McKenzie said to the young man.

Spiro exhaled. "Sei un'artista. That is to say, you are a true artist."

Stefan smiled, shy once more.

Spiro was then leaning forward, his dark, focused eyes staring at the map. His finger stabbed a spot. "Ecco. I think Gianni had to be here. Monte Echia. It is not far from here. A large hill downtown overlooking the bay. That would explain the gear shifting. It's largely residential but below are shops like the one that could be the scooter repair place and the bar where the man was sick. With the vistas, it is a tourist spot, so there could be vendors there, selling food and souvenirs. The docks are not that close but within hearing range. And there is a church j

ust below it, the Chiesa di Santa Maria della Catena."

"Tourists?" Rhyme asked. "It might be a good target."

Rossi said, "It's not a major tourist attraction but, as Dante says, there are many residents and some restaurants. The gulls might have been fighting at one of their trash bins."

Ercole then said, "Ah, there is a possible target for Fatima: the military archive, Caserma Nino Bixio."

"I don't know that it's still open," Spiro said. "But, even if not, there would be residents and tourists nearby and bombing a state building would get the attention of the world."

Rossi was already calling the SCO team.

Rhyme looked at the digital clock: 12:50.

An hour and ten minutes until the attack.

Amelia Sachs was pushing Ercole's poor Megane to the limit once more, though this time not speeding; the unfortunate lower gears were struggling to ascend the steep slope of Monte Echia.

They breached the top and saw ahead of them two dozen tactical officers from the SCO, as well as a number of regulars from the Police of State and the Carabinieri. The Naples Commune Police was present too, along with soldiers from the Italian army.

Towering Michelangelo, the tactical force commander, gestured angrily for two police cars to back up and let Sachs pull closer. He smiled as Sachs jumped from the car and they played the Dirty Harriet/Make My Day game again.

She rigged her headset, and she and Ercole walked into a square beside the large red stone building that was the archive. At the western edge, where a sheer cliff descended to the street below, there were tourist stations--a sketch artist who'd do a portrait of customers with Vesuvius in the background, vendors of gelato and flavored shaved ice, a man behind a pushcart, selling Italian flags, limoncello liqueur in bottles the shape of Italy, Pinocchio dolls, pizza refrigerator magnets, maps, and cold drinks.

Though the day was sunny, the temperature moderate, the area was largely deserted.

Now that Rhyme had told her of Stefan's analysis of the phone call between Fatima and Gianni, she too was aware of the sounds that he'd identified--the pigeons, the gulls ganging over a garbage bin nearby, cars downshifting to make the summit, as she'd just done. Much dimmer were the other sounds--the ships at the docks in the far distance, south toward the volcano, the scooter repair shop, other vendors, tourists, children in a parochial school yard.

She and Ercole joined in the search, and the Forestry officer told Michelangelo that they would survey the vendors and the customers, since the police soldiers had the archives covered.

"Si, si!" the massive man said and plunged toward the archives with his men, his face registering disappointment, as if peeved that there was no one yet to shoot. The big, dun-colored building was not, in fact, open at the moment, but there were many alcoves and shadows and doorways where a bomb might be hidden--and that would kill or injure dozens, as Dante Spiro had pointed out.

Ercole and Sachs canvassed up and down the streets, she displaying the picture of Fatima, he asking if anyone had seen her, adding that she would be dressed in Western clothing and without the head covering, most likely. Since the photo, though, depicted the woman in hijab, the tourists and vendors surely thought that terrorism might be involved and they gazed at the picture with the eager intent to remember seeing her.

But none had.

The two walked up and down the winding street, stopping at residences and questioning people they passed, while uniformed police officers and Carabinieri swept the cars lining the curbs, some using mirrors on poles to look beneath them for the explosive.

And how much time?

Sachs's phone showed: 1:14.

Forty-six minutes till the attack.

They returned to the top of the plateau, where Michelangelo was talking to a Carabiniere, obviously a commander, to judge from the medals and insignias on his breast and shoulder. His hat was quite tall.

The tactical commander saw Sachs and shook his head, ringed with fuzzy, red hair, with a grimace. He returned to the search.

She called Rhyme.

"Found anything, Sachs?"