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.