The Burial Hour (Lincoln Rhyme 13)

A thousand possible targets.

Charlotte McKenzie's phone hummed. She glanced at the screen and took the call.

"What?" Her eyes narrowed. "Good, good...'Crypt it and get it to me ASAP. Thanks."

She responded to the querying glances from the men in the room. "We've caught a break. That was Fort Meade again. When I sent them Fatima's phone, the number was automatically checked against the NOI list. That's Number of Interest. The supercomputers snagged a conversation on that phone a few days ago. The bot heard the word 'target' in a conversation between Libya and Naples, where there've been recent terrorist alerts. The algorithm recorded the conversation. As soon as I sent the request with her number, the bot flagged the recording and it went to First Priority status. They're sending it now, the recording." She tapped a few keys, read a screen. She hit a button and placed her phone on a table near them all.

From the speaker: the sound of ringing.

"Yes?" A woman's voice, speaking English with an Arabic accent. Fatima.

The gruff Italian male voice--it would be Gianni--said, "It is me. You are in Capodichino?"

"Yes, I am."

"You'll be getting the package soon. Everything will be inside. Ready to go. A new phone too. Don't take this one with you. Throw it away."

"I will doing that." Fatima's voice was shaky.

"Your husband, when he was kidnapped? He told no one anything that would make them suspicious?"

"What could he say? He knows nothing."

"I..." He paused. There was a great deal of ambient noise--which seemed to be coming from Gianni's end of the line. He continued, "I'm in Naples now. I can see the target. It's good. At the moment, there are not so many people."

More noise. Motor scooter engines, shouts. Voices calling.

Gianni said something else, but the words were drowned out. Birds screeching and more shouts.

"...not so busy now, I was saying. But on Monday, there will be many people. A good crowd and reporters. You must do it at fourteen hundred hours. Not before."

Beside Rhyme, Spiro whispered, "Ninety minutes from now. Cristo."

"Tell me the plan," Gianni instructed.

"I remember."

"If you remember then you can tell me."

"I go to location you have told me. I will go into a bathroom. I will have Western clothes with me and I wear them. I turn on the mobile taped to the package. I leave it where the most people will be. Then I walk to a big doorway."

"The arch."

"Yes, the arch. The stone will protect me. I dial the number and it will go off."

"You remember the number?"

"Yes."

Rhyme, Spiro and Rossi looked at each other. Please, Rhyme thought. Say it out loud! If either of them did, the team could send it to the NSA to hack and disable the phone in seconds of its being turned on.

But Gianni said only, "Good."

Fuck, thought Rhyme. Spiro mouthed, "Mannaggia."

"After the explosion, you will fall down, cut your face on the stone and stumble out of the wreckage. You know stumble?"

"Yes."