Gates Of Hades

Chapter Four

Costa Rica

December 26

It was unlikely anyone would have come upon the building. It was so well concealed in the rain forest that at first sight it seemed like a jungle cat pouncing from the green curtain of growth.

Otherwise, it was remarkable only in that it had a veneer of concrete rather than the cement block from which most native homes were built. What could not be observed in the remote chance of a passerby was that the structure was not a house at all. It concealed the entrance to an underground network. The massive ficus tree whose branches seemed to embrace the modest edifice concealed a dozen or so high-tech antennae. The strangler fig vines, thick as a man's wrist, that draped from the tree like ropes anchoring a balloon were actually electrical wires that ran to a generator far enough away that its gentle hum could not be heard here.

Not that sound mattered. The nearest settlement, a native village, was miles away, and the increasing number of tourists visiting the Costa Rican rain forest were content to remain in their vehicles on what served as a road on the opposite side of the mountain.

The government, always in pursuit of U.S. dollars, had happily allowed the construction of a nature laboratory to study and preserve the local flora and fauna. No one in San Jose had questioned the necessity of using nonlocal labor to build the facility, workers who melted away like mountain mist in the morning sun as soon as the job was complete. As long as certain officials received their monthly "consulting fee," no one questioned what was going on in the rain forest.

Only ten feet below the surface of volcanic rock, a room of roughly a thousand square feet was as brightly lit as an operating room. Two men sat in front of a computer screen.

Both were dressed in guayabera, the loose-fitting, four- pocket shirt the Latin America peasant wore outside rough white canvas pants rolled almost to the knees, with thong flip-flops. Notwithstanding the native attire, neither man would have been mistaken for a Costa Rican. Both were bulky, with the bodies of athletes from some sport where hurting someone was part of the game. The light from the computer reflected a bluish glow from two shaved scalps.

"You're sure that's him?" one asked the other.

"You can see the harbor of St. Bart's in the background," the other responded.

The first man shifted his position for a better view. "What do we know about him?"

The other touched a key on the board in front of him and read from the screen. "Very little so far. He was at one time employed by the army-we hacked into the military's files-but not much since he left in