Gates Of Hades

Chapter Forty-nine

Naples-Cagliari ferry

At the same time

Jason looked up from the table, most of his two squares of pizza uneaten. His attention was focused on the man standing in the doorway talking on a cell phone and smoking a cigarette at the same time. Both hands occupied. Jason picked up his London Times, pretending to read while he kept his eyes on the man by the door.

The minute the conversation ended, the man turned, jamming the phone into a jacket pocket. Jason moved as quickly as he could while appearing to be just one more bored passenger with nothing to do but try to find an alternative to the ferry's tiny staterooms.

Outside, the bright lights of the car deck outlined everything along the edges of the passenger deck above. The man Jason was interested in was leaning against the rail as the breeze snatched sparks from his cigarette into the air like a child's sparkler.

Jason muttered something unintelligible and staggered against the side of the cabin, bouncing off the railing. He couldn't see the man's face, but he was pretty certain it was turned toward him. Jason stopped a few feet away, swaying with the ocean's swells like the drunk at sea he was imitating.

He waited until the next large wave, then lurched forward, colliding with the smoker.

"Mi dispiace," Jason mumbled. I'm sorry.

His victim never felt the hand slip into the jacket pocket.

The smoker gave Jason a gentle push as he stepped back. "Prego."

The Italian word that translated as anything from you're welcome to quickly to a simple acknowledgment of an apology.

Jason staggered down the steel catwalk, trying not to seem in a hurry until he was certain he was out of sight of his victim.

Once in protective shadows, he held up the cell phone. Its keyboard lit up when he flipped it open. He turned his back in the direction of its owner. He hoped he couldn't be seen using the stolen device. He punched series of buttons, the number of the American consulate in Naples, one of several he had memorized before leaving Washington.

The voice that answered was definitely American and just as certainly bored. The person Jason wanted to speak with was gone for the evening, sorry.

"It's important," Jason said.

Not to the person on the other end of the line. "He's still not here."

"Your name?"

"What does it matter?"

"It matters," Jason growled, "because when I hang up, I'm calling the ambassador in Rome. I'm telling him he has some lazy little dweeb down here in Naples who doesn't care enough to get off his ass even where national security is involved."

"Oh, yeah? And who is this, the secretary of state?"

"No, but if you've got any sense at all, you'll put me on hold while you contact extension two-oh-one in the Rome embassy and tell them you're talking to one of Narcom's people."

Two-oh-one was the extension number for the agency office in the embassy, those supposed trade, cultural, and military attaches whose actual work had nothing to do with their titles.

Apparently the jerk in Naples at least recognized that anyone who knew the extension number might be important. "Hold on."

Jason heard a loud, angry voice from above. No doubt someone had found their pocket picked and their cell phone gone. Jason moved farther back into the shadows.

The voice that came back on the phone was noticeably chastised. "Yes, sir, what can we do for you?"

"I need a patch through to a Washington number."

"A secure patch might take a little while. Where can I call you back?"

Jason had no way to know the number of the cell phone in his hand.

"You can't."

"But I-"

"I'll hold."

He could hear steps clamoring on the steal deck overhead. More than one person.

"Listen," he hissed into the phone, "things are a little busy at my end right now. Get the patch ready." He gave the number Mama had monitored twenty-four/seven. "I'll call you back in five minutes. Tell the recipient of the call it's from Italy."

He hung up before the voice could protest. Hopefully Mama wasn't running any other operations in Italy at the moment.

Squaring his shoulders, he tried to stand as tall as possible as he strode purposefully toward the ferry's forecastle, the location of his small stateroom. The two men, one in the uniform of the ferry company, pushed by him, the victim of the theft pointing toward the bow. Obviously they were looking for a drunk whose face had been obscured in the darkness.

Jason flipped on the single overhead light as he entered his quarters. He sat on the stingy bunk and redialed the Naples number.

Nothing.

He tried again with the same result.

He glared at the steel bulkheads that imprisoned the cell phone's signal as securely as any jail held an inmate. He wasn't going to be able to connect with the satellite from here.

Cracking the door, he checked the narrow hallway outside and climbed the companionway to the top deck. Other than a few passengers leaning on the rail, staring into the night, it was deserted. He descended to the automobile deck and selected a white van.

It was locked.

His next choice was a small Mercedes truck. The door opened at his touch and he slipped inside, settling into the darkest corner. He flipped the phone open and punched in numbers.

This time the voice from the consulate was polite, almost solicitous. "We have your connection, sir. Understand you're calling from an unsecured source. Anything said in this conversation is subject to interception."

Like any other call made by ph6ne users the world over. Unless the ecoterrorists had somehow found the number he was calling and managed to alert a computer to scan all its calls, this conversation would be hidden among millions of others the same way a pickpocket relied on the numbers of a crowd to conceal him.

"Yes?" The voice was unmistakably Mama's.

Besides the volume of phone traffic, Jason knew brevity would help, though there was no guarantee of anonymity.

"Conference in Washington tomorrow. Hillwood." He paused, wondering if the words would trigger the search program of some monitoring device. There wasn't time for circumlocution. "Breath of the Earth. It's ignited from rocks by plants that spontaneously combust."

The silence that followed was only seconds, but it seemed long enough for Jason to wonder if the connection had been broken.

"Plants? Rocks?"

"Like the trawler. If the conference is held near open windows, like the dining room at Hillwood."

Another pause.

"I'm not sure I understand."

"The gas, ethylene, will make everyone-delegates to the meeting, security, everyone-both drowsy and delusional, but it won't kill them. That's the beauty of it. While everyone's on a high, someone will slip into the room from outside, slit a few throats, and disappear while the Secret Service guys are on the nod. No one to yell, cause a ruckus till it's too late. Or, maybe one or more of the Eco people'll have a breathing device concealed on him. When the gas dissipates, no one knows what happened. People have been murdered literally in front of their security and no one knows anything. The Earth will have claimed some sort of revenge with its natural products, the plant and the gas."

"My God, the president is planning to attend!"

"I suggest he make other plans."

"You can document this?"

"Not by tomorrow morning."

Another pause before Mama's rich Creole voice said, "This conference is important. He thinks he can become the person history will record as dedicating his life to reconciling industrialists and conservationists."

"He will. Just not the way he'd planned."

"We'll look like idiots if you're wrong."

"How will you look if I'm not?"

"I see what you mean. Tell you what: I'm passin' this along to the CIA. They're our client and can do what they want."

In Washington, the buck never really stopped; it was in perpetual motion.