“You look much better, Claudio,” she says. “Less pale.”

He motions to her protective garb. “And you still look like a glamorous beekeeper.”

“They say it’s all the rage in Milan this season.”

“Certainly in Genoa, at any rate. It’s all I ever see these days.”

“How are you, Claudio?”

“Better. I still tire easily, though. This Black Death can really wear a person out.”

She musters a smile. “Nico told you?”

“About the Black Death? Yes.” Claudio pauses. “Other things, too.”

“Like what?”

He looks skyward. “He struggles, our friend Nico. More so since you have arrived.”

“He drinks too much, Claudio.” She feels slightly sheepish voicing the concern in light of her previous evening, but it has been weighing on her mind.

“True. Even by Italian standards.” Claudio’s expression turns serious. “He was doing better. Much better. For years. And then Isabella . . . and the affair . . . It’s been hard on him.”

“That’s just an excuse, Claudio.”

“Sometimes we need those, though, Alana.” He falls silent for a moment, and then exhales heavily. “It’s amazing.”

“What is?”

“One unlucky construction worker shovels into the wrong pile of dirt, and presto, he drops dead from the plague. If his coworkers had reported Yasin’s death instead of trying to cover it up . . .” He shakes his head. “Then perhaps he would have been the only case instead of the tip of the iceberg.”

“Yeah, maybe,” she mutters, but her mind is elsewhere. “Unless . . .”

“Unless what?”

“That explains the second cluster.”

“What are you talking about, Alana?”

“The other hot spot, in Parco Serra Gropallo. We couldn’t figure out how the plague traveled from the old monastery all the way across the city to infect the rats in that park.”

“Do rats not travel?”

“Not that far in such a short period of time. Not even a healthy carrier.”

“So how does what I said explain anything?”

“The cover-up at the site. We already know they hid Yasin’s body. And then later they cleared away all the rats to make it seem as if the plague had never begun there.”

“Yes? So?”

“What if they took it a step further? What if they relocated the rats somewhere else to deflect suspicion away from the site?”

“Would someone do such a thing?”

She thinks of the explosives piled on the table in the extremists’ apartment. “You’d be amazed what lengths people will go to.”

He reaches for the book at his bedside with the grim reaper on the cover and raises it to show her. “During the time of the Black Death—the last go-around, anyway—they went to extreme measures, too.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“It’s ironic, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

He wiggles the book. “That the Black Death has come back home. To Genoa. After all, it was Genovese sailors who brought it to Europe from Asia in the first place.”

Alana takes the book from him and studies the cover. “I have my own text on the Black Death in Genoa. An eyewitness account.” She tells him of the medieval doctor’s diary Silvio emailed her, and then adds, “It’s written in Latin, of course. I will have them translate it into English for me in Brussels, but that could take a while.” She bites her lip. “Didn’t you once brag to me that you knew Latin?”