Yet he had been saved.
That was, of course, wonderful. Yet it tore Fatima’s heart in two. Because everyone, from Rania to the American police to the Italian officers, had worked so very hard—some even risking their lives—to save Khaled, a man they didn’t know, a man who had come to this country uninvited.
Certainly there were those who resented immigrants but, apart from some protestors outside the camp, Fatima had yet to meet them. Why, look at the woman a moment ago.
Your daughter, she has the hair of an angel!
Most Italians were heartbreakingly sympathetic to the asylum-seeker’s plight.
Which made what she was about to do, two hours from now, all the more shameful.
But do it she would.
If you fail in any way, your family will die…
But she wouldn’t fail. She saw the target ahead of her. Less than two hours remained until the attack.
Fatima found a cluster of unoccupied benches not far from the water. She sat in one that faced the bay. So that no one could see her tears.
Chapter 63
The lead to the Royal Palace had been a bust. Rhyme was sure Gianni had made the call to the Tripoli coffeehouse solely to see how much the police knew and if they were tracking phones. He’d learned that they were and so he’d gone off the grid.
Without any chance of finding him via phones, and no physical leads to Fatima, the team turned to the question of what might the intended target of the bombing be. Speculation, sure, but it was all they had.
Because the refugee camp was near Naples airport, Rhyme and Spiro thought immediately that Fatima was going after an airplane or the terminal.
The prosecutor said, “She can’t get a bomb on board an aircraft. But she might cut a hole in the fence, run to a full aircraft about to take off and detonate the device on the runway.”
McKenzie said, “These aren’t suicide attackers. They’re remote detonation devices, using cell phones. I don’t see airports. Train station maybe. Less security.”
Rossi called security at Trenitalia. After disconnecting he said, “They’re sending officers into the stations. We have our history of domestic terrorism too, like you in America. In nineteen eighty a terrorist group left a bomb in the central train station in Bologna—nearly twenty-five kilos. It was placed in the waiting room and because the day was hot—it was August—many people were inside the air-conditioned room. Very few buildings were air-conditioned in Italy then. Over eighty people were killed and more than two hundred wounded.”
Spiro said, “And shopping malls, city centers, amusement areas, museums…”
Rhyme’s eyes were on the map of Naples.
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.”
“The more injured you are, the more everyone will think you are innocent. Bleed, you should bleed. They will think it was a suicide bomb at first and you are merely another victim.”
“Yes.”
“I am going now.”
“My family…”
“They are relying on you to make sure this happens.”
There was the click of disconnection.
Rhyme muttered, “Any location for his phone?”
McKenzie said, “No. The NSA bot wasn’t tracking GPS. Just recording.”
Again the map of Naples took his attention.
Spiro said, “Can we tell anything more about the site of the attack from their conversation? It seemed like an event of sorts today. Fourteen hundred hours. And something that will draw media. What could it be?”
“In the afternoon. A sports event? A store opening? A concert?”
“On Monday, though?” Ercole asked.
Rhyme said, “There’s a stone arch, a doorway she’ll hide in. For protection from the blast.”
Ercole scoffed. “That is about three-quarters of Naples.”
Silence for a moment.
Then Rhyme said, “Dante, you asked if we can we tell anything more from the recording. You meant the conversation. What about what isn’t in the conversation?”
“The background sounds, you mean?”