“Dante Spiro smiling?” Rossi laughed. “As often as a pope’s death.”

Sachs said, “I’ll find somebody in the consulate there to translate for me.” She looked at Ercole. “You can stay here and take care of other matters.”

Other matters…

He understood, as Rhyme did, that she was talking about the Garry Soames case. There was still the student’s apartment to search. Ercole looked worried for a moment, concerned that she might mention this mission in front of Rossi, but of course she did not.

She said, “The jet we flew here on is in England for the time being. Is there an aircraft of yours I can use?”

Rossi laughed. “We have none, I’m afraid. We fly Alitalia, like everyone else, except in very rare cases.” He looked at Ercole. “The Forestry Corps has aircraft.”

“For forest fires. Bombardier Four-Fifteen Super Scoopers. We have a Piaggio P One-Eighty. But none of those are nearby.”

He said this in a tone that, to Rhyme, really meant they were not available to shuttle American detectives anywhere, even if one had been nearby.

“I will check with Alitalia,” Ercole said.

“No,” Rhyme replied. Then to Sachs, “No commercial flights. I want you to have your weapon with you.”

Rossi said, “Yes, it would add considerable time and paperwork.”

Irregularness…

Sachs asked, “Then what? An overnight drive?”

Rhyme said, “No. I have an idea. But I’ll need to make a call.” Then he looked Thom’s way. “All right, all right. I’ll do it from the hotel.”

Besides, he was eager to continue his mission to acquire the acquired taste for grappa.

Saturday, September 25

V

Skulls and Bones

Chapter 35

At 8 a.m. Rhyme, Sachs and Thom were once again displaying passports to the U.S. Marine guards at the well-fortified entrance to the U.S. consulate and were shown inside, to the lobby.

Rhyme was rested and had only a slight hangover—grappa seemed to be kinder in this regard than single-malt whisky.

Five minutes later they were in the office of the consulate general himself, a handsome, well-built man in his mid-fifties. He wore a gray suit, a white shirt and a tie as rich and blue as the water sparkling outside. Henry Musgrave had the studied manners and perceptive eyes of a lifer in the diplomatic corps. Unlike Charlotte McKenzie, he had no problem striding up to Rhyme and shaking hands.

“I’ve heard of you, of course, Mr. Rhyme. I get to New York and Washington. You make the news, even in the nation’s capital. Some of your cases—that fellow, the Skin Collector, he was called. That was quite something.”

“Yes. Well.” Rhyme was never averse to praise but wasn’t inclined to tell war stories at the moment; he was sure that the Composer was planning another attack—because the one at the reception center had failed or because he was indeed slipping further into madness.

Musgrave greeted Sachs and Thom with an enthusiastic grip. He sat down and his attention drifted to his computer screen. “Ah, it’s confirmed.” He read for a moment and looked up. “Just got a National Security briefing report. Not classified—it’s going to the media now. You’ll be interested. The CIA and the Austrian counterterrorism department, the BVT, stopped a terrorist plot in Vienna. They scored a half kilo of C4, a cell phone detonator and a map of a mall in a suburb. No actors yet but they’re on it.”