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The victim's eyes were wide and unfocused. He rambled in Arabic.
"What's your name?" Sachs asked. She repeated the question in Arabic. All NYPD officers in Major Cases who had occasion to work counterterrorism knew a half-dozen words and phrases.
"Ali. Ali Maziq."
"Are you injured anywhere, Mr. Maziq?"
"My throat. It is my throat." He took to rambling again and his eyes darted once more.
Ercole said, "He doesn't seem too injured."
"No."
"He is, it seems, quite disoriented, though."
Tied up by a madman and nearly hanged in an old Roman ruin? No surprises there.
"Let's get him upstairs."
Chapter 19
The tactical team arrived.
A dozen SCO officers. They appeared in deadly earnest and were fully confident as they scanned the area and gripped their weapons like true craftsmen.
Sachs stopped them at the entrance. She was wearing the NYPD shield on her belt, gold for detective, which gave her some authority, ambiguous though it might be. The commander asked, "FBI?" A thick accent.
"Like that," she said. Which seemed to satisfy him.
The man was large of body and large of head, which was covered with a fringe of curly red hair, about the same shade as hers. He nodded to her and said, "Michelangelo Frasca."
"Amelia Sachs."
He vigorously shook her hand.
She gestured past him to the arriving medical team, a burly man and a woman nearly as imposing--they might have been siblings--and they sat Maziq on a gurney and took his vitals. The medic spent a moment examining the red ligature mark and said something in Italian to his partner and then to Sachs: "Is okay, is good. In physicalness. His mind, very groggy. Drunk I would say if he was not Muslim. Maybe it is being drugs the assaulted used." They assisted Maziq into the back of the ambulance and had a conversation with Ercole.
The young officer spoke at length to Michelangelo, presumably about what had happened. He gestured toward the entrance.
"I have told them where to search and that the killer may still be nearby."
Sachs noted that the men wore black gloves, so she wasn't worried about fingerprints, and hoods, which would prevent hair contamination. She dug into her pocket and handed Michelangelo a dozen rubber bands.
He looked at her quizzically.
"Fai cosi," Ercole said, pointing to his feet.
The commander nodded and his eyes seemed impressed. "Per le nostre impronte."
"Si."
"Buono!" A laugh. "Americana."
"Tell them to walk quickly through the entrance room, where
we found the table and water bottle, and to avoid the chamber where we got the victim. That's where most of the evidence will be and we don't want it contaminated any more."
Ercole relayed the information, and the big man nodded. He then quickly deployed his troops.
