“I wasn’t leading it.” Alana sits on side of her bed, her wet hair wrapped in a towel. “They needed me there to identify and secure potential bioweapon threats.”

“Perhaps you were able to convince the AISI team of this, Alana, but I know better.”

Alana rubs her neck and shoulder. The hot bath did little to loosen the knots that were aggravated by clamping her hand over the oozing gunshot wound for fifteen minutes. “I stayed well behind the advance team. I was never in any danger.”

“So you were in no danger whatsoever, and yet the agent standing right beside you was critically wounded?”

“He was in front of me,” Alana argues, realizing it’s pointless but persisting anyway. “He’s in stable condition now, after his surgery.”

“Use your head! You represent NATO. You’re not there for gunfights. Your pigheadedness could have gotten you killed or, worse, embroiled in an international incident.”

An incident would be worse than my death? But Alana adopts a conciliatory tone. “I will be more careful from now on. I promise.”

“What’s the English expression? Hope springs eternal.” Olin sighs. “What else have they learned about those radicals?”

“I just got back from the debriefing with the AISI team.” Alana can feel the adrenaline washing out of her system, and she struggles to keep her eyes open. “Forensics confirmed what we already knew: there’s nothing to connect the bomb-making lair with the plague. Or, for that matter, with Yasin Ahmed.”

“They still haven’t found any sign of him?”

“He’s vanished. His cell phone and credit cards have been dormant for over a week. All they found on his home computer was some hidden porn. Not a shred to connect him to the radicals, let alone this outbreak.”

“His disappearance alone is suspicious enough, is it not?”

“Maybe, but by all accounts, he’s just a regular teenager.”

“He wouldn’t be the first one of those to be radicalized. What about Ibrahim Hussein?”

“Hussein is a die-hard fanatic. All three of them in that apartment. They were planning an attack with homemade explosives. Looks like the target was the Church of St. Peter in Banchi. But Hussein is the only one who survived the raid, and he’s not talking.”

“He seems to be the only one who isn’t. We’ve been fielding calls nonstop from the national security services, including your National Security Agency. The Americans want to send their own team to Genoa.”

“That will only confuse things,” Alana says, trying not to sound defensive.

“Perhaps it’s time for me to come there myself?”

“We need you in Brussels to support us, Monique. On the political and diplomatic level.”

“You mean out of your way, do you not? I will expect another update in the morning.” With that, she disconnects.

Alana checks her voice mail. There’s another message from Nico, the third one tonight. He sounds rattled. She’s touched by his genuine concern over her well-being, but she picks up on the slight slur in his voice. And after he mentions their long-ago romantic escape to Palermo, she decides not to return the calls.