Two shots to the knees and she’d fall, helpless and screaming in pain, ready for the final kill.
She glanced up and noted that Ercole, while he would not have had any such experience, was determined and calm. She was confident he’d do fine, if anything happened to her.
She whispered, ‘If Khaled is anywhere, it’s down there. Or the garage. More likely here, I’m thinking. So let’s go. You pull the door. And I go down, fast.’
‘No, I will be the one.’
She smiled. ‘This is my thing, Ercole. I’ll go.’
‘Let me. If he fires or attacks you will be able to shoot him better than I can. It is not a subject I excelled in at training. Truffle smugglers rarely carry AK-Four-Sevens.’ A smile.
She gripped his arm. ‘All right. Go fast. Here’s the light.’
He took a deep breath. And muttered something. A name. Isabella, she believed. Maybe a saint.
‘Ready?’
He nodded.
She yanked the door open. It crashed into the wall with a cloud of dust.
Neither moved for a moment.
It wasn’t a cellar. It was a closet. Empty.
Breathing fast.
‘Okay. Garage. We need something to break the padlock.’
They rummaged for tools and, in the kitchen, Ercole found a large hatchet. They left the house and made their way, crouching, to the outbuilding.
They prepared for entry again — different this time, since they could both establish a field of fire. He would break the lock and pull the sliding door open, while Sachs crouched and aimed into the small building with her flashlight and Beretta. He would do the same.
She nodded.
One swing of the tool and the padlock flew off. He yanked the door open... and just like the closet, empty space greeted them.
A sigh. They put their weapons away and walked back to the house.
‘Let’s see what we can find.’
How much time did they have until Khaled died? Not much.
They walked into the living room and, donning blue gloves now, looked over the desk, the papers, files, notes, strings. Searching for anything that might give a clue where the Composer and Khaled might be.
Her phone hummed — she’d put it on silent before the entry.
‘Rhyme,’ she said into the microphone attached to her earbud cords. ‘It’s his hidey-hole. But they’re not here. The Composer or the vic.’
‘Massimo says the Carabinieri should be there any minute.’
She could hear the sirens.
Rhyme said, ‘There’s not much time. He’s uploaded his video. Massimo sent the link to Ercole’s phone. The Postal Police are trying to track his proxies through the Far East. He doesn’t have Edward Snowden’s chops but it’ll still be a few hours before they get a specific site.’
‘We’ll keep at it here, Rhyme.’
She disconnected and continued the search, telling the Forestry officer, ‘Check your phone.’
Ercole showed her the screen. ‘Here.’
The video showed the unconscious form of Khaled Jabril, sitting in a chair, a noose around his neck, mouth gagged. Even through the small speakers of the mobile, it was easy to hear the bass beat, keeping time to the waltz that played underneath the visuals. The tune was eerie.
Ercole said, ‘Ah, he’s not using gasping breath for the rhythm, like before. It’s the victim’s heartbeat.’
Sachs said, ‘It’s familiar, that music. Do you know what it is?’
‘Ah, yes. It is the “Danse Macabre.”’
Sachs actually shivered, hearing the pulsing, ominous piece. She then squinted as she gazed at some papers in front of her.
No. Impossible.
She hit redial.
‘Sachs. You’ve found something?’
‘It’s far-fetched, Rhyme, but it’s the only chance we’ve got. Where’s Massimo?’
‘Hold on. You’re on speaker.’
‘I’m here, Detective Sachs,’ Rossi said.
‘Here’s an address. In Naples.’ She recited it.
‘Yes, it’s in the Spanish Quarters, not too far away from us. What’s there?’
‘Khaled Jabril, I’m pretty sure. The only question is, is he still alive?’
Chapter 51
Sachs saw Massimo Rossi, standing before what seemed to be an old factory, long abandoned, boarded up. The word Produzione was legible, appearing below another word — a person’s name or a product or a service — that was not.
The inspector saw them and called, ‘Qui. This way.’
She and Ercole were on foot. They had to be on foot, for the address they sought was in what Rossi had described as Quartieri Spagnoli, a congested, chaotic warren of narrow streets and alleyways in Naples. ‘Named for the Spanish garrison that was stationed nearby in the sixteenth century,’ Ercole told her. ‘If you see a boy running here, unlike the Vomero, he very likely is alerting his father or brother to the presence of police. Camorra are here. Tanti Camorra.’
Above her, laundry on white lines fluttered in the soft breeze, and scores of residents watched the flashing lights and the manhunt underway by dozens of uniformed officers. The spectators’ vantage points were balconies and open windows — which were probably where they spent much of their time; there were no yards, front or back, or even door stoops to sit on and rock babies or talk about politics and the day’s adventures at work, in the evening with a beer or wine.
Sachs was startled as a large basket descended to the ground just ahead of her. A boy ran to it and dropped in a plastic grocery bag. The basket ascended; three stories above his father or older brother began to haul the heavy load upward.
Life in the Spanish Quarters seemed to be largely overhead.
They entered the factory now. The air was dank, nose-pinching with mold. The bases of some type of equipment were still bolted into the floor, though what had been mounted to them was impossible to tell. The place was not large and was now made smaller by the many police officers inside. Little sunlight reached in; bright lamps had been set up and, while the rooms were naturally spooky, something about the stark white illumination made them seem even more troubling, like a bright light shining into an open wound. She saw Daniela and Giacomo and nodded. They greeted her in return.
Rossi pointed to the back of the facility and she and Ercole continued to the doorway he indicated. ‘Down there. The Composer has outdone himself this time,’ he muttered.
The inspector was already wearing booties and now Sachs and Ercole paused to slip them on too. Blue latex gloves, as well. They entered a small room and descended to the basement of the factory.
The area did not cover the entire footprint of the building but only the back half. The sting of mold and mildew was greater here. Decay too. Overhead were beams, and the floor was pocked stone, giving the place a medieval appearance.
A torture chamber.
Which was exactly what it had been. Khaled Jabril had been stationed — in a chair again, as with Ali Maziq — against a damp wall, the backdrop for the Composer’s latest video.
‘He was taped down and the noose went over the beams. It was tied to that.’ He pointed out a body-builder’s circular weight, sitting on the floor, in a large evidence bag. Another bag held the noose.
‘Qual è il peso?’ Ercole asked.
Rossi replied, ‘Ten kilos.’
About twenty-five pounds. Maziq was going to be strangled by a water bucket that would have weighed roughly the same, Sachs guessed.
Rossi clicked his tongue. ‘But what is so devious. Look there.’