She pulled a halogen flashlight from her pocket, a tiny but powerful thousand-lumen model. A Fenix PD35.
Ercole squinted, surely thinking: Rubber bands, flashlight, flick-blade knife? These Americans certainly came prepared.
A nod toward the door.
His Adam's apple bobbed.
She pushed inside, raising the light and the gun.
There was a startling crash; the door had struck a table, spilling a large bottle of San Pellegrino mineral water.
"He's here!" Ercole whispered.
"Not necessarily. But assume he is. He may have set up the table to warn him somebody breached. We have to go fast."
The entryway atmosphere was pungent, the walls covered with graffiti. It resembled a cave in some wilderness, rather than a man-made structure. A stairway led down two flights. They went slowly. The halogen would give them away but it was their only source of illumination. A fall down these steep stones could be fatal.
"Listen," she said, pausing at the bottom. She believed she'd heard a moan or grunt. But then nothing.
They found themselves in an old brick tunnel about eight feet wide. The aqueduct, a square-bottomed trough about two feet across, ran through the middle. It was largely dry, though old iron pipes overhead--the ceiling was six feet above them--dripped water.
Ercole pointed to their left. "The reservoir would be there, if the map is correct."
A rumbling began in the distance and grew in volume. The floor shook. Sachs supposed that it was the subway, nearby, she recalled from the map, but it also occurred to her that Naples was not so very far from Mount Vesuvius, whose volcano she'd read might erupt at any time. Volcanoes equal earthquakes, even the smallest of which might pin her under rubble--and leaving her to die the worst death imaginable. Claustrophobia was her big fear.
But the roaring rose to a crescendo, then faded.
Subway. Okay.
They arrived at a fork, the tunnel splitting into three branches, each with its own aqueduct.
"Where?"
"I am sorry. I do not know. This part was not on the map."
Pick one, she thought.
And then she saw that the left branch of the tunnel contained not only an aqueduct but a terracotta pipe, largely broken. Probably an old sewer drain. She was recalling the scatological trace from the Composer's shoes. "This way." She began along the damp floor, the smell of mold tickling her throat and reminding her of the uranium-processing factory in Brooklyn, site of the Composer's first murder attempt.
Where are you? she thought to the victim. Where?
They pressed on, walking carefully in the aqueduct until the tunnel ended--in a large, dingy basement, lit dimly from airshafts and from fissures in the ceiling. The aqueduct continued on arched columns to a round stone cylindrical structure, twenty feet across, twenty high. There was no ceiling. A door had been cut into the side.
"That's it," Ercole whispered. "The reservoir."
They climbed off the aqueduct and down stone stairs to the floor, about ten feet below.
Yes, she could hear a gasping sound from inside. Sachs motioned Ercole to cover the aqueduct they'd come down and the other doorways that opened off the basement. He understood and drew his pistol. His awkward grip told her he rarely shot. But he checked that a round was chambered and the safety catch off. And he was aware of where the muzzle was pointed. Good enough.
A deep breath, another.
Then she spun around the corner, keeping low, and played the light through the room.
The victim was fifteen feet from her, sitting taped in a rickety chair, straining to keep his head raised against the upward tension of the noose. She saw clearly now the mechanism the Composer had rigged--the deadly bass strings running up to a wooden rod hammered into a crack in the wall above the victim's head, then to another rod and finally down to a bucket filling with water. The weight in the pail would eventually tug the noose tight enough to strangle him.
He squinted his eyes closed against the brilliance of the flashlight.
The room had no other doors and it was clear that the Composer wasn't present.
"Come inside, cover the door!" she barked.
"Si!"
She holstered her weapon and ran to the man, who was sobbing. She pulled the gag out of his mouth.
"Saedumi, saedumi!"
"You'll be okay." Wondering how much English he spoke.
She had gloves with her but didn't bother now. Beatrice could print her later to eliminate her friction ridges. She gripped the noose and pulled down, which lifted the bucket, and then she slipped the noose over his head. Slowly she lowered the bucket. Before it reached the floor, though, the stick wedged into a gap between the stones gave way and the pail fell to the floor.
Hell. The water would contaminate any trace on the stone.
But nothing to do now. She turned to the poor man and examined him. His panicked eyes stared from her to the tape binding his arms up to the ceiling and back to her.
"You'll be okay. An ambulance is coming. You understand? English?"
He nodded. "Yes, yes."
He didn't look badly hurt. Now that he was okay, Sachs pulled on latex gloves. She removed her switchblade once more, hit the button. It sprang open. The man recoiled.
"It's all right." She cut the tape and freed his hands, then feet.
The victim's eyes were wide and unfocused. He rambled in Arabic.
"What's your name?" Sachs asked. She repeated the question in Arabic. All NYPD officers in Major Cases who had occasion to work counterterrorism knew a half-dozen words and phrases.
"Ali. Ali Maziq."
"Are you injured anywhere, Mr. Maziq?"
"My throat. It is my throat." He took to rambling again and his eyes darted once more.
Ercole said, "He doesn't seem too injured."
"No."
"He is, it seems, quite disoriented, though."
Tied up by a madman and nearly hanged in an old Roman ruin? No surprises there.
"Let's get him upstairs."
Chapter 19
The tactical team arrived.
A dozen SCO officers. They appeared in deadly earnest and were fully confident as they scanned the area and gripped their weapons like true craftsmen.
Sachs stopped them at the entrance. She was wearing the NYPD shield on her belt, gold for detective, which gave her some authority, ambiguous though it might be. The commander asked, "FBI?" A thick accent.
"Like that," she said. Which seemed to satisfy him.
The man was large of body and large of head, which was covered with a fringe of curly red hair, about the same shade as hers. He nodded to her and said, "Michelangelo Frasca."
"Amelia Sachs."
He vigorously shook her hand.
She gestured past him to the arriving medical team, a burly man and a woman nearly as imposing--they might have been siblings--and they sat Maziq on a gurney and took his vitals. The medic spent a moment examining the red ligature mark and said something in Italian to his partner and then to Sachs: "Is okay, is good. In physicalness. His mind, very groggy. Drunk I would say if he was not Muslim. Maybe it is being drugs the assaulted used." They assisted Maziq into the back of the ambulance and had a conversation with Ercole.
The young officer spoke at length to Michelangelo, presumably about what had happened. He gestured toward the entrance.
"I have told them where to search and that the killer may still be nearby."
Sachs noted that the men wore black gloves, so she wasn't worried about fingerprints, and hoods, which would prevent hair contamination. She dug into her pocket and handed Michelangelo a dozen rubber bands.
He looked at her quizzically.
"Fai cosi," Ercole said, pointing to his feet.
The commander nodded and his eyes seemed impressed. "Per le nostre impronte."
"Si."
"Buono!" A laugh. "Americana."
"Tell them to walk quickly through the entrance room, where
we found the table and water bottle, and to avoid the chamber where we got the victim. That's where most of the evidence will be and we don't want it contaminated any more."
Ercole relayed the information, and the big man nodded. He then quickly deployed his troops.
She heard voices behind them. A large crowd had gathered--among them reporters, calling questions. The police ignored the journalists. Uniformed officers strung yellow tape, as in America, and kept back the crowd.
Another van arrived, large and white. The words Polizia Scientifica were on the side. Two men and a woman climbed out and walked to the double doors in the back, opened them. They dressed in white Tyvek jumpsuits, the name of the unit on the right breast and the words Spray Guard over the left. They approached a uniformed officer, who pointed to Sachs and Ercole. The three approached and spoke with Ercole, who, she could tell from his gestures, told them about the scene. The woman glanced at Sachs once or twice during the lengthy explanation.
Sachs said, "If I can borrow a suit, I'll search with them. I can show them exactly where--"
A man's voice interrupted her. "That is not necessary."
Sachs turned to see the prosecutor, Dante Spiro. He was approaching from behind a clutch of uniformed officers and cars. One officer leapt forward and lifted the yellow tape for him, high so that Spiro did not have to bow down.
"Procuratore," Ercole began.
The man cut him off with a stream of Italian.
The young officer said nothing but looked down and nodded every few seconds as Spiro continued to speak to him.
Ercole said something, nodding to Maziq, sitting in the back of the ambulance now, looking much better.
Again, Spiro shot words his way, clearly unhappy.
"Si, Procuratore."
Then the young officer turned to her. "He says we can leave now."
"I'd like to search with the team."
"No, that is not possible," Spiro said.
"I'm a crime scene officer by profession."
Michelangelo appeared in the dim doorway. He spotted Spiro and approached. He spoke to him for a moment.
Ercole translated. "They have finished the search. No sign of the Composer. They've gone down all the aqueducts and searched all the rooms in the basement. There is a supply tunnel that leads to the subway station. No sign he was anywhere there."
"The building above the basement." She nodded to the structure behind them.
Michelangelo said, "Is sealed off with concretes. No entrance is possible from sotto terra."
As the woman forensic officer walked past her she said, with a smile, "We're going to step the grid."
Sachs blinked.
"Yes, we know who you are. We use Ispettore Lincoln Rhyme's book in our lessons. It is not in Italian but we took turns translating. You are both an inspiration. Welcome to Italy!"
They vanished through the doorway.
Spiro fired another dozen sentences to Ercole, then walked off toward the ancient doorway, pulling on his own blue latex gloves.
Ercole translated, "Procuratore Spiro appreciates your assistance and your offer to help with the scene but he thinks it would be best, for continuity's sake, if the investigation is conducted by Italian law enforcement."
Sachs decided that to push the matter further would merely embarrass Ercole. He looked desperately to the Megane and lifted a hand to her shoulder, as if to direct her toward it. Her glance at him had the effect of lowering the limb as if it were in free fall, and she knew he would never try to usher her anywhere again.
As they approached the car he looked tentatively at the driver's seat.
Sachs said, "You drive."
To Ercole's great relief.
She handed him the keys.
Once she and Ercole were settled and the engine running, she asked, "That line you gave me about continuity? Is that what Spiro really said?"
Ercole was blushing and concentrating on getting the car in first gear. "It was a rough translation."
"Ercole?"
He swallowed. "He said I was to get the woman--that is, you--out of the scene immediately, and if I let her--that is, again, you--talk to any officers again, much less the press, without his permission, he would have my job. Here, and in my own unit of Forestry."
Sachs nodded. Then asked, "Was 'woman' the word he really used?"
After a pause: "No, it was not." He signaled, let up on the clutch, then pulled gingerly into the street surrounding the square, as if his frail grandmother were sitting in the backseat.
Chapter 20
Stunned.
That was Rhyme's impression of Ali Maziq.
In the situation room at police headquarters Rhyme was watching the kidnap victim through open doorways, across the hall, an empty ground-floor office.
The scrawny man sat in a chair, clutching a bottle of Aranciata San Pellegrino soda. He'd already drunk one of the orange beverages, and several small drops dotted his beard. His face was gaunt--though this would be his natural state, Rhyme supposed, since his ordeal had been only a day or so in length. Dark circles under his eyes. Prominent ears and nose...and that impressive mass of wiry black hair that wholly enveloped his scalp and lower face.
Rossi, Ercole and Sachs were with Rhyme. There was little for Thom to do at the moment, so he'd left to check into the hotel and make sure the disabled accessibility was as the place claimed.
For a half hour, Maziq been interviewed by a Police of State officer, who was fluent in Arabic and English.
Sachs had wanted to be present, or to conduct her own interview, but Rossi had declined her request. Dante Spiro would have been behind that.
Finally, the officer concluded the interview and joined the others. He handed Rossi his notes, then returned to the office across the hall. He spoke to Maziq, who still seemed bewildered. He slowly rose and followed the officer down the corridor. He clutched his orange soda as if it were a lucky charm.
Rossi said, "He will stay here in protective custody for the time being. He is remaining in a, how do you say, a state? Confused state. Better that we keep an eye on him. And, with the Composer still out in the world, we do not know for certain that Maziq is safe. There is, of course, no motive that we can see."
"Who is he?" Sachs asked.
"He is an asylum-seeker from Libya. One of so many. He came here on a ship that crashed." He frowned and spoke to Ercole, who said, "Beached."
"Si. Beached in Baia a week ago, a resort area northwest of Naples. He and forty others arrived there and were arrested. They had good fortune. The weather was good. They survived, all of them. That very day a ship sank off Lampedusa and a dozen died."
Sachs said, "If he'd been arrested why was he out in the countryside?"
"A very good question," Rossi said. "Perhaps it is helpful to explain our situation in Italy with regard to refugees. You are aware of the immigrants coming out of Syria, inundating Turkey and Greece and Macedonia?"
Current events held little interest for Rhyme, but the plight of refugees in the Middle East was everywhere in the news. He'd actually just read an article about the subject on the long flight from the United States.
"We have a similar problem here. It's a long, dangerous journey to Italy from Syria but a less long trip from Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. Libya is an utterly failed state; after the Arab Spring it became a land of civil war, with extremists on the rise. ISIS and other groups. There is terrible poverty too, in addition to the political turmoil. Adding to the problem, the drought and famine in sub-Saharan Africa are driving refugees from the south into Libya, which can hardly accommodate them. So human smugglers--who are also rapists and thieves--charge huge sums to ferry people to Lampedusa, which I mentioned. It is Italy's closest island to Africa." He sighed. "I used to vacation with my family in there, when I was a boy. Now I would never take my own children. So, the smugglers bring the poorer asylum-seekers there. Others, if they pay a premium, will be taken to the mainland--like Maziq--in hopes they can avoid a
rrest.
"But, like him, most are caught, though it is an overwhelming challenge for the army, navy and the police." He looked toward Rhyme. "It has not touched your country as much. But here it is a crisis of great proportions."
The article Rhyme had read on the plane was about a conference presently under way in Rome, on the refugee situation. The attendees, from all over the world, were looking for ways to balance the humanitarian need to help the unfortunates, on the one hand, and the concerns about economic hardship and security in the destination countries, on the other. Among the emergency measures under consideration, the story said, the U.S. Congress was considering a bill to allow 150,000 immigrants into the country, and Italy itself was soon to vote on a measure to relax deportation laws, though both proposals were controversial and were being met with strong opposition.
"Ali Maziq is typical of these people. Under the Dublin Regulation on asylum seeking, he was required to apply for asylum in the country of entry--Italy. He was run through Eurodac, and--"
"Dactylosopy?" Rhyme asked. The technical term for fingerprinting.
It was Ercole who answered, "Yes, that is correct. Refugees are fingerprinted and undergo a background check."
Rossi continued, "So, this is Maziq's situation. He passed the initial review--no criminal or terrorist connections. If so, he would have been deported immediately. But he was cleared so he was removed from the intake camp and placed in a secondary site. These are hotels or old military barracks. They can slip out, as many do, but if they don't return they will be deported to their home country when caught.
"Maziq was staying in a residence hotel in Naples. Not a very pleasant place but serviceable. As for the events leading up to the kidnapping, he himself has no memory of what happened. The interviewer was inclined to believe him, because of the trauma of the kidnapping--the drugs and the lack of oxygen. But Daniela canvassed the hotel and a fellow refugee said Maziq told him he was planning on taking a bus to meet someone for dinner near D'Abruzzo. It's a small town in the countryside."
Sachs said, "We should find that guy he ate with and talk to him. He might have seen the Composer. Maybe tailing Maziq."
Rossi said, "There is a possibility about that. The Postal Police have analyzed the data from the phone card found where he was kidnapped. It is surely his, rather than the Composer's. He used a prepaid mobile, as all refugees do. Just before he was kidnapped he made calls to other prepaids--in Naples, in Libya and to an Italian town in the north, Bolzano, not far from the border. The Postal Police believe they can correlate the pings. You understand?"
The Burial Hour Page 12