Though the day was sunny, the temperature moderate, the area was largely deserted.

Now that Rhyme had told her of Stefan’s analysis of the phone call between Fatima and Gianni, she too was aware of the sounds that he’d identified—the pigeons, the gulls ganging over a garbage bin nearby, cars downshifting to make the summit, as she’d just done. Much dimmer were the other sounds—the ships at the docks in the far distance, south toward the volcano, the scooter repair shop, other vendors, tourists, children in a parochial school yard.

She and Ercole joined in the search, and the Forestry officer told Michelangelo that they would survey the vendors and the customers, since the police soldiers had the archives covered.

“Sì, sì!” the massive man said and plunged toward the archives with his men, his face registering disappointment, as if peeved that there was no one yet to shoot. The big, dun-colored building was not, in fact, open at the moment, but there were many alcoves and shadows and doorways where a bomb might be hidden—and that would kill or injure dozens, as Dante Spiro had pointed out.

Ercole and Sachs canvassed up and down the streets, she displaying the picture of Fatima, he asking if anyone had seen her, adding that she would be dressed in Western clothing and without the head covering, most likely. Since the photo, though, depicted the woman in hijab, the tourists and vendors surely thought that terrorism might be involved and they gazed at the picture with the eager intent to remember seeing her.

But none had.

The two walked up and down the winding street, stopping at residences and questioning people they passed, while uniformed police officers and Carabinieri swept the cars lining the curbs, some using mirrors on poles to look beneath them for the explosive.

And how much time?

Sachs’s phone showed: 1:14.

Forty-six minutes till the attack.

They returned to the top of the plateau, where Michelangelo was talking to a Carabiniere, obviously a commander, to judge from the medals and insignias on his breast and shoulder. His hat was quite tall.

The tactical commander saw Sachs and shook his head, ringed with fuzzy, red hair, with a grimace. He returned to the search.

She called Rhyme.

“Found anything, Sachs?”

“Nothing. And, you know what? This doesn’t feel right.”

“As in, it doesn’t seem like a target?”

“Exactly.” She was looking around her as wind stirred up shrapnel of crisp food wrappers and plastic bags and newspapers and dust. “The archive’s closed and there just aren’t that many people around.”

Rhyme was silent a moment, and then: “Odd. Gianni said the target would be crowded today.”

“It ain’t going to get more crowded in forty minutes, Rhyme. And no press. No reason for any press.”

Then: “Ah, no. Goddamn it.”

Sachs’s pulse quickened. This was his tone of anger.

She gripped Ercole’s arm and he stopped quickly.

Rhyme was saying, “I made a mistake.” He was then speaking to the others in the Questura—Charlotte McKenzie, Spiro and Rossi—but she couldn’t hear the words.