“No, I mean the flashers. You have blue here, in Italy?”
“Blue? Oh, police lights? I don’t have them—” He gasped as she zipped into a space between a truck and a trio of motorcyclists. “This is my personal car.”
“Ah. And how much horsepower? Eighty?”
Ercole said, “No, no, it’s closer to a hundred, one ten, in fact.”
Be still my heart, she thought, but said nothing. Amelia Sachs would never tarnish anyone’s image of his own wheels.
“You don’t have flashers in your personal cars?”
“The Police of State might. Inspector Rossi and Daniela. I am, as you know, with the Forestry Corps. We do not. At least none of the officers I work with do. Oh, we are to turn soon.”
“Which street and which way?”
“Left. That one up there. But I didn’t prepare. I am sorry. I don’t think we can get over in time.”
They got over in time.
And took the ninety degrees in a screaming second gear. He gasped.
“Next turn?”
“Half a kilometer, to the right. Via Letizia.”
He inhaled harshly as she accelerated to eighty kph, weaving into and out of all four lanes.
“Will they reimburse you, the Police of State?”
“It’s only a few euros for the mileage, hardly worth the effort of the forms.”
She’d been referring to repairing the transmission but decided not to bring that up. Anyway, how much damage could a hundred horses do to a tranny?
“Here is the turn.”
Via Letizia…
The road grew congested. Rear ends and brake lights loomed.
She was skidding to a stop, using both brakes, inches from the jam.
A blast of horn. Nobody moved.
“Hold your badge up,” she told him.
His smile said the gesture would do no good.
She hit the horn again and guided the car over the curb and along the sidewalk. Furious faces turned toward her, though the expressions of some of the younger men switched from indignant anger to amusement and even admiration when they noted the insane driver was a beautiful redhead.
She breached the intersection and turned as Ercole had instructed. Then roared forward.
“Call,” she instructed. “See if the—what’s the name of your tac outfit again?”
“Tac?”
“Sorry. Tactical. See where they are.”
“Oh, SCO.” He pulled out his phone and placed a call. Like most of the conversations she’d heard so far, this one unfolded lightning-fast. It ended with a clipped, “Ciao, ciao, ciao, ciao…” He gripped the dash as she shot between two trucks and said, “They’re assembled and on the way. It should be fifteen minutes.”
“How far are we?”
“Cinque. I mean—”
“Five.” Sachs was grimacing. “Can’t somebody be there any faster? We’ll need a breaching team. The Composer would have locked the doorway or gate again. He did that in New York.”
“They’ll probably think of that.”
“Tell them anyway.”
Another call. And she could tell from the tone, if not the words, that there was nothing to do to expedite the arrival of the tactical force.
“They have hammers and cutters and a torch.”
A fast shift, fourth to second. She punched the accelerator. The engine howled.
A phrase of her father’s came to mind. A bylaw of her life.
When you move they can’t getcha…
But just then: A blond teenager, his long curls flying in the breeze, steered a peppy orange scooter through a stoplight, oblivious to any traffic.
“Shit.”
In a blur of appendages, Sachs used the gears, the foot brake and the hand brake to decelerate and then skid around the Honda, missing the kid by inches. He didn’t even notice. Sachs saw he wore earbuds.
Then first gear, and they were on their way once more.
“Left here.” Ercole was shouting over the screams of his laboring engine.
It was a narrow street they were speeding along. Residential—no stores. Pale laundry hung above them like flags. Then into a square around a tiny anemic park, on whose scarred benches sat a half-dozen older men and women, a younger woman with a baby carriage and two children playing with scruffy dogs. It was a deserted area and the Composer could easily have slipped the victim out of his car and underground without anyone’s seeing.
“There, that’s it,” he announced, pointing to a shabby wooden doorway in the abandoned building Giacomo Schiller had referred to. This, like all the building fa?ades nearby, was covered with graffiti. You could just make out the faded sign: Non Entrare.
Sachs brought the Mégane to a stop twenty feet from the door, leaving room for the tactical officers and ambulance. She hurried out. Ercole was close behind her.
Jogging again. But carefully. Sachs kept a close monitor on her legs—she suffered from arthritis, which had become so severe she’d nearly been sidelined from her beloved profession. Surgery had removed much, if not all, of the pain. Still, she always stayed mindful. The body can betray at any moment. But now, all functioned smoothly.
“You’re new to this, right? To entry.”
“Entry?”
That answered the question.
She’d learned enough. “First, we secure the site, make it safe from hostiles. It doesn’t help the victim, even if he’s seconds away from dying, if we die too. Okay?”
“Sì.”
“When it’s clear, we try to save him, CPR, open airways if we can, apply pressure to stop bleeding, though I don’t think blood loss is going to be a problem. After that we secure the crime scene to preserve evidence.”
“All right…Ah, no!”
“What?”
“I forgot the booties. For our shoes. You are supposed to—”
“We don’t wear those now. They’re too slippery. Here.”
She dug into her pocket and handed him rubber bands. “On the ball of your feet.”
“You carry those with you?”
They both donned the elastic.
“Gloves?” he asked. “Latex gloves.”
Sachs smiled. “No. Not in tactical situations.”
The door, she was surprised to see, was barred with the cheapest of locks and a hasp that was affixed to the wooden door and frame with small screws.
She dug into her pocket and the switchblade was in her hand. Ercole’s eyes went wide. Sachs smiled to herself as the thought occurred that the weapon was Italian—a Frank Beltrame stiletto, a four-inch blade, staghorn handle. She flicked it open and in one deft move pulled the bracket away from the wood, then tucked the knife away.
Holding her finger to her lips, she studied Ercole’s nervous, sweaty face. Some of the consternation was from the harrowing drive; the source of the remainder was clear. He was willing, but he was not battle-tested. “Stay behind me,” she whispered.
“Yes, yes.” Which came out more as a breath than words.
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.