The Burial Hour (Lincoln Rhyme 13)

Sachs had known all along that Fatima's and Khaled's little girl, Muna, was not in the carriage. When she'd been to the Capodichino Reception Center earlier that day, after Fatima had vanished, Sachs had seen Muna in the care of a neighbor, in the vacant lot beside their tent. And among the boxes inside their tent was an empty carton that had once held--from the picture on the side--a dark-haired doll, the size of a large baby. Sachs had caught a glimpse of the toy in the carriage.

A clever diversion. Rhyme had to give Fatima credit.

He glared at the agitated tourist until she fell silent, turned and left.

Prosecutor Spiro approached. "Have they found the phone yet?"

"No," Rossi told him. "Five divers in the bay. But nothing."

This was the object of the navy divers' search. They hoped to recover the SIM card from Fatima's new phone and track Gianni's or other numbers that might lead to him, to Ibrahim, or to whoever within the Italian anti-immigrant movement had hired them to derail the pro-immigrant legislative proposal in Rome.

But the currents in the bay were not, it seemed, cooperating.

The Carabinieri's bomb team, directed by Fatima Jabril, had found and removed the explosive device, which had been placed deep in a stone recess of the castle, not far from the fashion show reception. It was a bad placement, from a terrorist's point of view. The solid walls would have protected almost everyone from the blast. Dogs had searched and found no other explosives and a team had cleared Fatima's backpack, too, which contained no weapons, but only medical supplies--bandages and antiseptics and the like. An ID badge from the refugee camp indicated that Fatima was a nurse/aide.

The woman herself was nearby--in the castle, being treated by a medical team. The injuries were minor--two broken carpals, finger bones, and one hell of a bruise. But the 9mm slugs, which had destroyed the phone, had not broken any skin.

Sachs had not shot to kill.

After the phone had been so dramatically removed from her hand, Fatima had grown hysterical. She said that--because she'd failed--Ibrahim would now kill her family in Libya.

But Sachs explained that that was unlikely, given that the plot was not what it seemed. Ibrahim and Gianni weren't terrorists; they were mercenaries being paid to stage phony attacks. Still, to reassure Fatima--and snag her cooperation--Spiro told her that Italian agents in Libya would keep an eye on her family.

She readily agreed and gave a statement about everything she knew about him: It wasn't much, true, but she confirmed he was a tanned, unsmiling man who smoked foul-smelling cigarettes, was clean-shaven and had thick curly hair, an athletic build. She described him as a man who traveled much, whose hours were not his own. When they spoke he was often out of town and usually on the road.

Rossi's phone hummed and he answered. "Si, pronto?"

Rhyme couldn't deduce from the conversation whether the inspector was receiving good news or bad. At one point he lifted a pen from his breast pocket, pulled the cap off with his teeth and jotted something in a notebook.

After he disconnected he turned to the others and said, "Beatrice. She found one print on the detonator phone. It came back positive. An Albanian--in the country legally."

"Legally?" Rhyme asked. "Then why was he in the system?"

"He was required to have a security check because he works at Malpensa airport. In Milan. He is a mechanic for fuel trucks and those big vehicles that tow and push airplanes. All airport workers are fingerprinted. He would have, I think, some connection with the Albanian gangs. He could smuggle drugs without having to pass through Customs. Explosives too, it seems."

Sachs was looking out to sea, squinting. It was her intense look. Her huntress look. Rhyme enjoyed watching her at moments like that.

Rhyme asked, "Sachs? Enjoying the view?"

She mused, "Malpensa's the other airport in Milan."

"Yes," Spiro said.

She said, "Didn't Beatrice say she'd found samples of industrial grease at the warehouse in Milan? And jet fuel too?"

"She did, yes. But we didn't pursue it because it didn't seem there was any connection between the warehouse and the Composer."

She turned to Spiro. "Everyone in Italy, citizens, has an ID card, right?"

"Yes. It is the law."

"With a picture?"

"That's right."

"If I give you a name can you get me an image?"

"If the name is not too common, yes. Or you have an address or at least a commune, a town."