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.”