The phone rang in the dark, a metallic, insistent sound that sliced through the silence like a scalpel. Valesi opened one eye, then the other. The smell of cold coffee and ashes hung stagnant in the room. It wasn't his phone. Or rather, it was, but it almost never rang, because it was usually off.
He dragged himself off the sofa, his bones creaking in a symphony of protest. The display vibrated on the coffee table, illuminating a halo of dust. *Area code 06 or Rome prefix*. Headquarters.
"Hello."It's for you." The voice from the switchboard, a woman's, was excessively high, extraordinarily tense. "We… we need you. Now."What time is it?"Three forty-seven. But that's not the problem."
Valesi squinted toward the window. Beyond the dirty panes, Roma slept. Or at least, it seemed to. "Explain."The disappearances. They're not… normal."Disappearances are never normal, Paola."No, commissario. *They are not normal*. There are hundreds. Maybe thousands. All at the same hour. And…" Her voice cracked. "And there's a pattern. The mayor himself asked for you. He says to come to the Campidoglio. Now."
The line went dead before he could answer. Valesi stood motionless, the phone still pressed to his ear. Thousands. A pattern. Mayor Borghese calling at four in the morning. The last time had been for a water leak in the Sala della Lupa.
He dressed in the dark, yesterday's clothes sticking to his skin. The air in the street was still, charged with a humidity unusual for May. No wind. No noise. Not even the usual nighttime honk of a drunk taxi. Only the hum of the sodium streetlamps tinting everything a sickly yellow.
His car, a white Giulietta more scratched than painted, started with a hiccup. He drove down the deserted Via Marmorata, turned toward the Circo Massimo. Usually, at that hour, there were kids coming back from clubs, couples arguing, cats ruling over the dumpsters. Nothing. Only dark windows and empty sidewalks.
Officer Leonardi was waiting for him at the entrance to Piazza del Campidoglio, pale under the spotlight beams. His gaze slid away from Valesi, fixed on something behind him, in the void of the city.
"This way. The mayor is… agitated."I imagine."
Sala degli Arazzi. Borghese was standing in front of the large window, his back rigid. He wore a midnight blue suit, an impeccable white shirt, but his hair, usually perfectly disciplined, was slightly ruffled. He held a glass of water. He hadn't drunk from it.
"Valesi." He turned. His patrician Roman face was a mask of controlled tension. "Finally."Mayor. They tell me people are disappearing."Not *people*, commissario." Borghese set the glass down with an overly loud clink. "*The outsiders*."
Valesi blinked. "Excuse me?"From the first reports, cross-referenced with municipal registries and the initial statements from relatives…" He made a vague, theatrical gesture, but his hand trembled slightly. "It seems only those not born in Roma have disappeared. No native-born Roman is reported missing. No one."
The silence that followed was so thick you could cut it. Valesi felt the bitter taste of yesterday's coffee rise in his throat. "That's a… big claim."It's an international crisis-level claim!" Borghese burst out, his voice losing control for a moment. "We have tourists vanished from hotels. Diplomats evaporated from embassies. Erasmus students disappeared from universities. A delegation of German industrialists… vanished during dinner at Piperno! Embassy phones are going crazy. Washington, London, Paris… they all want answers. And what do I tell them? That Roma has decided to digest only its own children?"
The door opened. Leonardi signaled to someone.
She entered. The air in the room changed, became colder, sharper. The woman walked with military precision, but Valesi noticed the subtle tension in her shoulders, the way her eyes snapped from Borghese to him, to the window, calculating distances, exits, threats.
"Mayor Borghese." The American accent was clean, the Italian almost perfect, but rigid. "Special Agent Sarah Martinez, FBI. My team landed at Fiumicino two hours ago. We've already established a temporary HQ at the embassy."
Borghese offered a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Welcome to Roma, Agent. Unfortunately, the situation is…"Surreal. I know." Her gaze settled on Valesi. "You are?"Valesi. State Police."Our local liaison," Borghese added hastily. "He knows Roma like the back of his hand."
Martinez nodded, a brief gesture that didn't mean "pleased to meet you."Good. Then he'll know where to start. We need to establish a logical perimeter. The phenomenon appears to be geolocated within the boundaries of the Municipality of Roma. Preliminary reports indicate a peak of events between 1:05 and 1:17 last night. No sound, no flash of light reported. Just… absence." She paused. "The victims appear to have been physically removed from their clothing. Watches, jewelry, dental prosthetics were found intact on the spot, as if the body had… dissolved inside them."
Valesi felt a shiver run down his back. "All non-Romans."Apparently so. It's an illogical selection criterion. And therefore dangerous. We don't know if it has stopped, if it will repeat, or if…" He looked her straight in the eyes. "If the criteria might change."There's more," Borghese interjected, his voice choked. "The prefect called me twenty minutes ago. An Alitalia flight from New York. Landed at Fiumicino at 00:30. On board, 247 passengers and crew members. All disembarked, passed through customs, boarded the buses for downtown hotels." He passed a hand over his mouth. "The buses arrived at their destination. Empty. Only the luggage, still on the conveyor belt. Every single passenger, vanished during the transfer."
The silence swelled again, oppressive. Martinez didn't blink, but Valesi saw a muscle twitch along her jaw.
"We have to treat this as a high-potential bio-terrorism act," she said, flatly. "Until proven otherwise. Isolation of the area, information quarantine, total control of outgoing communications."Quarantine? Of Roma?" Borghese burst into a dry, hysterical laugh. "Agent, this is a European capital, not a pesthouse! The economy, tourism…"The economy is already dead, Mayor," Valesi interrupted him, his hoarse voice ringing out harsher than intended. They both turned to look at him. He lit a cigarette, ignoring the "No Smoking" sign. The first drag burned his lungs, familiar, anchoring. "If what you say is true out there, there's no one left to spend money. Only us Romans. And judging by Leonardi's face out there, we're not even that happy to be the ones left behind."
Martinez studied him, for the first time with something resembling a glimmer of interest. "What do you suggest, commissario?"
Valesi exhaled a plume of grey smoke toward the frescoed ceiling. "I suggest we go and see. To see for ourselves. Before someone down there," he nodded his head toward the window, toward the silent city, "decides the quarantine idea isn't so bad after all and locks us in here forever."
They went out together, he and Martinez, leaving Borghese staring at his glass of water. The corridor was cold. Leonardi followed at a distance, his hand never straying far from his gun's grip.
"Your mayor is panicking," Martinez observed as they descended the stairs.
"My mayor is an actor. Panic is part of the repertoire. But this time… this time it's genuine."
In the square, the air was still. Valesi's Giulietta, as beat-up as it was, seemed the only living car in a museum of relics. Martinez got in without commenting on the state of the interior.
"Where are we going?" she asked.
"A place I know. A bar. The owner is from Terni."
The streets were an abandoned movie set. Scraps of paper dancing for no reason, traffic lights changing from green to red for non-existent cars. In front of a luxury hotel on Via Veneto, the wide-open glass entrance revealed a deserted lobby. On the sidewalk, an open Louis Vuitton suitcase, silk clothes scattered like petals. Next to it, a pair of sunglasses with the left lens shattered.
Valesi didn't stop the car. He kept driving, his fingers gripping the steering wheel tighter than necessary.
The bar "Lo Sgobbone" was on a side street behind Piazza Bologna. The shutter was halfway down. Valesi crouched, called out. "Tonio!"
No answer. He ducked under the shutter, Martinez at his heels. The inside smelled of burnt coffee and sour milk. The lights were on. A cathode-ray tube television whispered silent news from a shelf. The counter was clean, freshly washed glasses resting on the drainer.
"Tonio!" Valesi called again, and this time his voice had an empty echo.
Behind the counter, a passage led to the small back room. The door was ajar. Valesi pushed it open with a knuckle.
The body of Tonio, the owner from Terni, wasn't there. But his clothes were. Fallen in a strangely composed pose on the terracotta floor: the tracksuit pants, the t-shirt with the Roma logo, the worn-out sneakers. As if he had simply… vaporized, leaving behind the shell of fabric. Next to the clothes, on the floor, was a cheap wristwatch. The dial read 1:09.
Martinez knelt, without touching anything. She pulled out a pocket flashlight and illuminated the floor around the clothes. "No signs of a struggle. No residue. Nothing." She looked up at Valesi. Her eyes, in the flashlight's beam, were black wells. "It's real."
Valesi's phone vibrated. It was Leonardi.
"Come back. Now."What is it?"
The agent's voice was a thread of anger and terror. "The American embassy. They lost contact with the FBI's temporary HQ. Half an hour ago. They sent a patrol from our rapid response unit."And?"The building is empty, commissario. Completely empty. Even the marine guards… are gone. They only found the uniforms, still folded on the chairs. And…" He hesitated. "And there's a message. Written in what… looks like coffee, on the operations map."
Valesi felt his heart pounding in his ears. "What does it say?"It says: 'Welcome to Roma. Next time it's Milan's turn?'"
The line went dead. Valesi lowered the phone. Martinez was looking at him, she had heard enough from his tone. Her professional face had cracked, revealing beneath it a thin, raw layer of pure bewilderment.
"My team," she whispered. It wasn't a question.
Valesi nodded, slowly. He looked at Tonio's clothes on the floor, then at the woman standing in the deserted bar. FBI Agent Sarah Martinez, born in Miami, Florida. In Roma for less than twenty-four hours.
The second criterion. The contagion. Or the curse. Or whatever the hell it was.
And the timer, invisible, relentless, had already started ticking for her too.