Rossi said to Rhyme, "The case against Mike Hill and Procopio, however, will proceed. I know you wish to extradite Hill, at least, back to the United States for trial. But we cannot let you do that. Rome--and I--intend to try him and his associate here. I'm sorry, Lincoln. But there is no other way. Are you going to look for a lawyer from Wolf Tits now?"
The new friends were now opponents once again.
"We have no choice, Dante."
With a sad face, Spiro ran his cheroot beneath his nose. "Did you know that the emperor Tiberius, one of our more infamous forebears, had a luxurious villa not far from where we are just now? Perhaps more than most emperors, he loved gladiatorial contests."
"Is that right?"
"I will paraphrase what he said at the beginning of each, when the warriors and spectators faced him: 'Let the extradition games begin.'"
Chapter 70
You don't trust us?"
Charlotte McKenzie was speaking to Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs outside police headquarters. Stefan stood beside her.
Two agents from the FBI's Rome office were standing beside a black SUV, a man and woman, both in dark suits that must have been nearly unbearable; a heat wave had settled over Naples, as if Vesuvius had woken and spewed searing air over all of Campania.
Rhyme himself was sweating fiercely but, as with most other sensations, good and bad, he was largely immune. His temples tickled occasionally but Thom was always there to mop.
And remind. "Out of the sun soon," the aide said sternly. Extreme temperatures were not good for his system.
"Yes, yes, yes."
Sachs repeated to Charlotte McKenzie, "Trust you?"
"No," Rhyme answered bluntly. They'd found no proof but he thought it likely that the AIS unit had somehow staged an op to steal the evidence against her and Stefan from the Questura evidence room and ditch it. He added, "But it wasn't really our call. Your travel arrangements were made by Washington. You'll be on a government jet to Rome, then onward to Washington, and agents'll meet the fight. They'll make sure that Stefan gets to his hospital. And you get to...wherever your mysterious headquarters is."
"A parking garage at Dulles will be fine."
"After that it'll be up to the U.S. attorney and the DA in New York to see where your new address'll be."
Though he knew there would be no charges brought for the Robert Ellis kidnapping, which was not, of course, a kidnapping at all.
Stefan was looking over the city, which here was filled with a cacophony of sounds. His attention was entirely elsewhere and his head bobbed from tim
e to time and his lips moved once or twice. Rhyme wondered what Stefan was hearing. Was this, for him, like an art lover gazing at a painting? And, if so, was the experience a Jackson Pollock spatter or a carefully composed Monet landscape?
One man's lullaby is another man's scream.
A Flying Squad car pulled up and an officer climbed out, collecting two suitcases and a backpack from the trunk: McKenzie's and Stefan's belongings--from her place and from the farmhouse near the fertilizer operation, Rhyme supposed.
"My computer?" Stefan asked.
The officer said, in fair English, "It was with the items stolen from the file room. It is gone."
Rhyme was watching McKenzie's eyes. No reaction whatsoever at this reference to the theft of the evidence against them.
Stefan grimaced. "My files, the sounds I've collected here. All gone?"
McKenzie touched his arm. "Everything's backed up, Stefan. Remember."
"Not Lilly. In the cemetery. Tap, tap, tap..."
"I'm sorry," she said.
The officer said, "Arrivederci." His tone was not unfriendly. He returned to his car and sped off.