“This isn’t right, Byron,” Alana says.

Byron looks up distractedly from the computer screen. “Which part?”

“Any of it. Sure, we could concoct some wild hypothesis of how the plague accidentally spread from the construction site to a park on the other side of the city.”

“Such as?”

“Who knows? A rat hiding in one of the workers’ backpacks?”

Byron snorts his doubt as his eyes drift back to the screen.

“But there’s no plausible explanation for how an infected rat traveled four hundred miles from Genoa to Naples on its own.”

“So we’re back to bioterrorism?”

“It’s always been a possibility. But this isn’t typical of terrorism. No one’s even taken credit for it.”

“What else could it be?”

“Not sure,” she admits, thinking aloud. “Okay, let’s assume the plague did recur by accident at the excavation site when the workers there dug into something they shouldn’t have. Maybe it had been hiding dormant all these years—in the form of spores or whatever—somewhere in that network of channels below the monastery that Zanetti described.”

“But . . .”

She locks eyes with him. “Since those initial cases related to the construction site, the spread of this plague has been anything but natural.”

He doesn’t argue. “So if it is intentional, do you think Zanetti is involved?”

“In the cover-up, for sure. But . . . no . . . not the spread to Naples. What would he stand to gain by that?”

“Who the hell would gain from the spread of the plague? Aside from maybe terrorists?”

“Not sure.” Her ears pop as the plane descends. “If we don’t figure it out soon, we might not be able to stop it.”

As soon as they land at Naples International, Alana receives a text from Claudio Dora asking her to call, but she doesn’t have time to reply. Sergio Fassino is already waiting for them outside the baggage area in a black suit, with his sculpted hair swept back as always.

Alana greets him with a handshake. “How long have you been in Naples?”

“A few hours,” he says, as he leads them out of the terminal to a waiting sedan with tinted windows and no official markings. “I am working with the Naples AISI office. Rome has taken charge of the investigation here.”

“Meaning you?”

“Yes.”

Once in the car, Byron asks, “Have they trapped any rats in the vicinity of where this local case came from?”

Sergio opens his palm. “The Public Health people are searching the neighborhood.”

“We need to speak to the patient,” Byron says.

“We’re going there now,” Sergio says.

In less than fifteen minutes, they pull up in front of a modern-looking hospital with a sign that reads OSPEDALE MONALDI. Unlike in Genoa, there is no media circus gathered outside the hospital. Not yet, anyway, Alana thinks. But inside, the hallways ripple with the same undercurrent of fear as elsewhere, as if there might be a bomb hidden in the basement.

The medical director, Dr. Debora Orrifini, greets them at the door and hurries them through the hospital. She is a fidgety middle-aged woman who speaks little English. Sergio translates as Orrifini explains that the patient in question is a sixteen-year-old drug user who lives in the “underprivileged” neighborhood of Scampìa.