Gates Of Hades

Chapter Six

That night

The number of things that had to be done before leaving the island always surprised Jason. Arrangements had to be made to refuel the house's generator every few days so that the contents of the freezer would keep; the bed linen needed to be stripped to prevent the mildew that bred in the humid air in any darkness; the cistern level must be checked to ensure a water supply upon his return. The alarm clock would have to be found so Jason could wake in time to take the Whaler over to Providenciales to catch the twice-weekly flight to Miami. Pangloss, along with appropriate rations, would have to be delivered in the morning to the native family who would keep him.

Pangloss.

The dog was scratching at the door, eager to enter where Jason was packing. Jason knew better than to let him in. The mutt recognized a suitcase and its purpose. With canine logic, the dog figured that if he unpacked the luggage, scattering its contents as wide and far as possible, Jason would not leave. It had taken Jason only one evening retrieving his underwear from the beach and his socks from the mangrove thicket to determine that Pangloss should be excluded from any area in which packing was taking place.

Closing the suitcase, Jason began to search for the tin of shoe polish he was certain he had bought only a few months ago. He found it under the sink in the bathroom. He sat on the floor to begin to try to remove the green mold that seemed to be devouring his only pair of toe caps.

In the background, Offenbach's overture to Orpheus in Hades cancanned through the sound system. Although he had never had any musical training, there was something about the symmetry of classical composers that Jason found restful. Contemporary pop, rock, or-worse-rap seemed to focus on the vocal, usually repetitive, and banal, with sharp elbows, rhythm without meaning. Or, in Jason's very private opinion, mere noise. He could endure the big band sound, the tunes of pre- and post-World War II, mostly long forgotten, but the classics of centuries past entertained him, setting a mood without the effort of trying to understand any particular lyrics.

He called it music to think by.

The heaviness of his eyelids told him it was well past his usual bedtime.

Pangloss had added a low growl to his persistent scratching. Putting down a shoe, Jason Opened the door. Hackles raised, Pangloss had his lips pulled back, exposing long teeth. As if to make his point, the dog gave two sharp barks.

Then Jason heard it over the dancing violins: a low series of beeps coming from the system he had rigged in every room except the bath. The sound was what had so disturbed the dog, sound from wireless transmitters in the weight detectors he had buried at random intervals along the beach. Each device gave off a sound slightly louder than the previous one the closer someone got to the house.

Jason was not expecting visitors.

The sportfisherman he had seen that morning popped into his mind. What had made him notice it? There was no bone in its teeth, no white wake as it cut through the water. It hadn't been moving. The flash he'd seen had come from a telescope or binoculars. Instead of trolling for marlin yet to arrive, it had been observing him. Oversight like that could get a fellow killed.

But how…?

The keys to the sailboat he had rented in St. Maarten's to sail to St. Bart's. The keys Paco had when he was captured. The float had the name of the rental company, and the rental company had… what?

Jason had used his employer's credit card, which matched his false passport, to rent the sailboat. Someone in Alazar's organization knew his face and recognized the fuzzy copy the rental company had made of his passport. The thought was less than comforting, but not as immediate as his present intruders.

In a single motion Jason removed something resembling a television remote and a pair of strangely configured binoculars from a dresser drawer and stooped to retrieve from under the bed a large wooden box clasped shut by a combination lock. Quickly touching a series of numbers, Jason opened the lid to reveal three fully assembled weapons with a loaded clip for each.

"Close," he said aloud, as though addressing Pangloss. "They're gonna get real close."

Letting the potential proximity of the intruders dictate his choice, he passed over a Chinese version of an AK-47 assault rifle and a stubby Heckler amp; Koch MP5A2 machine gun, a weapon designed to fill very small spaces with a maximum number of nine-millimeter Parabellum bullets, to select the bulkiest of the three, the military model Remington twelve-gauge fully automatic shotgun. The weapon had been designed for urban riot control, hence the name "Street Sweeper." At twenty-five yards or less it could fill an area fifty by fifty with painful but relatively harmless rubber projectiles or, using the loads in Jason's clip, deadly lead shot.

Outside, the moonless sky was black silk paved with diamond chips. Ducking below the railing of the deck to prevent presenting his silhouette against the stars, Jason scooted back to the other building, followed closely by Pangloss. Once inside, Jason went to the kitchen and out what served as the back door and down steps to a room originally designed as a garage. From there, man and dog went outside and circled the house to face the front.

Straining his ears, Jason could detect only the soft lapping of the tide at the beach and the wind's sigh through the few scrubby trees. He put one reassuring arm around Pangloss, using the other to hold the pair of night-vision binoculars to his eyes as he swept the beach. At the moment he could see only interlocking fields of dull green, the color the glasses used to concentrate all available light. Jason wished he had taken the time to buy the newer technology, vision aids that picked up heat to display images. Deep shadows might momentarily conceal something from the equipment he was using, but there was no hiding body heat from infrared.

He forgot his discontent as a green blob emerged from the darkness and took form. A man carrying… carrying… a long-nosed handgun. No, a handgun equipped with a silencer. Why go to the trouble of using a silencer when the nearest neighbor was miles away? Jason wondered. His curiosity was replaced by awe as four more figures followed the first silently up the stairs to the house's deck.

Five men for a single kill? In other circumstances, Jason would have been flattered his enemies took him that seriously. At the moment he had other things to think about.

Before moving, he swept the area a final time, to be rewarded with the green image of a sixth man standing guard a few yards between the beach and the house.

"Taking no chances, Pangloss," he muttered to the dog. "Damn! Too many!"

In any action movie worth a box of popcorn, Bruce Willis or Arnold would have successfully taken on all six assailants, defeating each in a spectacular display of strength, marksmanship, and agility, Jason thought ruefully. Unfortunately, neither of those two heroes was available tonight. Six men, each armed, presented impossible odds in the real world.

He could simply flee, disappear into the night. But where? Anyone who had tracked him this far was not going to be discouraged by not finding him at home, and the islands presented few hiding places. No, he was going to have to terminate this venture here and now, giving himself plenty of time to find another place to live. Subliminally, he had known this moment would come no matter how much he hated the idea of leaving these islands. He had hoped he would not need the preparations for defense even as he had made them.

Jason sighed. His fight had been from the first very, very personal. He had taken satisfaction from the expressions on the faces of men who knew they would be dead within the next second. Satisfaction and a small degree of revenge, a minute reprisal for his loss. Tonight there would be only impersonal killing, from which he would derive little vindication.

Well, with one exception.

Commandolike, Jason crept forward on his knees and elbows, the plastic device between his teeth and the shotgun held in both hands. When he was close enough to see the sentry against the sky, he stood.

"Welcome to North Caicos," Jason said softly.

He waited just the split second it took for the man to spin around and begin to raise his weapon, that nanosecond of hope he might survive.

The shotgun's muzzle flash burned into Jason's retinas the image of the impact of six ounces of lead shot in the midriff, a blow that sent the man stumbling backward, hands flung outward if in one final, desperate supplication to his maker.

Before he could see clearly, Jason pushed one of the buttons on the remote. Instantly every light fixture or lamp in the building came on. Jason was standing just outside the rim of light that turned the surrounding sand a glossy silver.

Startled by the blast of the shotgun and the sudden brilliant illumination, two of the intruders ran out onto the deck, their weapons pointed in different directions. Even at this distance, Jason thought he could see shock and surprise on their faces. One had his mouth open, a black O in the bright lights.

"Come 'n' get it!" Jason shouted. "I've got a hell of a welcome waiting for you!"

Two more men joined the first pair in searching the darkness. Jason waited until one pointed at him before he dove headfirst into the sand at the instant he pressed another button.

Even with his face buried under his arms and eyes closed, the brilliance of the explosion lit the back of Jason's eyelids. He felt rather than heard the blast. By the time he raised his head, small pieces of debris and ash were floating down like a sprinkling of snow. Where the house had stood, timbers burned, sending sparks aloft in a Fourth of July fireworks show. There was no chance any living thing, including a recent infestation of mice, had survived.

Beside him, Pangloss whimpered.

He stood, running a hand up and down the dog's back. "Pangloss, looks to me like we're moving."