“Here is the chosen site,” the voice commands.

As he steps out of the bathroom back into the maelstrom of travelers, he wonders why he hadn’t thought of it sooner. Why spread the scourge myself when these godless sinners can do the work for me?

He strolls the terminal, pretending to wait for a train, while he surreptitiously scans for the best place to release one of the males. He is leaning toward Cacio.

He wanders over to a platform where a train is loading. At the far end, tucked behind a pillar, he spots an overflowing yellow garbage bag beside a metal trash can.

He reaches for his bag and then takes another quick glance around. He notices a group of young girls in matching school tunics waiting to board a train. They look to be perhaps seven or eight years old. They line up in pairs, each holding the hand of a partner. One of the little girls has reddish hair tied in a ponytail. She looks over in his direction and grins. He can’t tell if she is smiling at him or not, but it hardly matters. Her expression is the epitome of innocence.

No, not here. He involuntarily backs away from the trash can.

“This is the chosen site!” the voice rails inside his head.

The girl turns her head away, lost in laughter with her partner.

Anywhere but here, O Lord. Just not here.

Chapter

Thirty-One

Alana has never before visited the Istituto Giannina Gaslini, Genoa’s renowned children’s hospital, but she wishes she didn’t have to come today, especially not to the pediatric ICU. She stands with Nico and their host, Dr. Lina Montaldo, beside a wall painted in an ironically cheerful pastel color near the nursing station. With her freckled unlined face, Montaldo doesn’t look much older than a child herself, but according to Nico she is already one of the most well-respected pediatric infectious diseases specialists in the city.

The hood of Alana’s PPE suit feels particularly constrictive today, and sweat beads along her upper lip. The warmer temperature alone doesn’t account for her overwhelming urge to bolt, nor do the children inside the unit, who are barely clinging to life with the aid of ventilators. No, it’s the parents who trouble her so much. She can’t begin to imagine their degree of anguish and helplessness as they hover at the bedsides, separated from direct contact with their critically ill children by layers of rubber and latex.

Montaldo leads them to the first of the rooms, where they gather outside the glass door. “Rosa is only three and a half,” Montaldo announces.

Inside, two nurses busily attend to lines and tubes attached to a little girl on a stretcher. Her skin is pale to the point of gray. Her long dark hair is pulled back in braids and tied at the ends with blue and pink bows. Her mother sits on a stool at the bedside, hunched over and motionless. Her gloved hand clutches her daughter’s as if hanging on to it for life.