And she’d had a backpack over her shoulder. Where better to hide a bomb?

Blond, though? Well, if you were going shopping for a baby carriage for a prop, why not buy a wig too?

Turning abruptly back to where she’d seen the woman: “Give me just a minute more,” she whispered into the headset. “I have a lead.”

“Detective, there’s no time!”

Rhyme’s voice said, firmly, “No. Let her run with it.”

“But—”

Spiro said, “Sì, Massimo. Let her.”

Sirens were sounding now, growing closer. Heads were turning toward the mainland. Smiles cooling to frowns of curiosity…and then concern.

Sachs continued south, in the direction she’d last seen the woman and the baby carriage. Hurrying over the stone paths, hundreds, perhaps a thousand years old. Her head swiveled, eyes squinted.

Her hand? Inches from the grip of the Beretta.

1:55.

Where are you, Fatima? Where?

And then the answer: At the southernmost wall of the castle, the blonde with the carriage emerged from the building’s shadows near the docks. She stopped beside a pier, at which were tied a half-dozen gorgeous yachts, white as cold moonlight, ropes coiled perfectly on the decks and silver fixtures glinting. On the boat: older beautiful people, tanned and coiffed—“jet-setters” in an earlier era.

There was no target here—it wasn’t that crowded—but there was a solid archway that would protect her from the blast.

Fatima—Sachs could see her face clearly now as she looked back nervously—was wheeling toward this archway now. The dull-toned blond wig clashed with her olive skin. The backpack was over her shoulder still. It wouldn’t contain the bomb any longer. No, she would have planted it in a more populated part of the island.

Sachs drew her weapon but kept it hidden under her arm and jogged forward. She was thirty feet away when the woman saw her and froze.

Speaking softly, Sachs said slowly and in a low, clear voice, “You have been tricked, Fatima! Ibrahim is not who you think. He is using you. He’s lied to you.”

Fatima frowned, shook her head. “No. No trick!” Her eyes were wide—and damp with tears.

Sachs walked a few feet closer. Fatima moved back, turning the carriage and keeping it between her and Sachs.

“I don’t want to hurt you. You’ll be safe. Just put your hands up. Let me come talk to you. You don’t want to do this. You’ll be hurting people without any reason. Please!”

Fatima stiffened.

Sachs said, “I saved your husband. I saved his life. Remember?”

Then Fatima lowered her head. A moment later she looked up with a smile. “Yes. Yes, miss. Yes. Thank you for that. Shukran!” The smile twisted into a look of profound sorrow and Sachs saw tears. Then Fatima shoved the baby carriage toward the water. There was no barrier, or even a low lip, on the pier and it tumbled, as if in slow motion, twenty feet into the water.

Sachs caught a glimpse of blankets and black hair rising inside as it landed with a loud splash. The carriage settled and sank fast.