Gates of Hades

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Maria slept most of the brief flight. In fact, she had slept most of the previous day once they had checked into a small hotel. Jason supposed it was a means of avoiding thinking about what had happened and what had nearly happened.

Jason had used the time the day before to make a call from a pay phone to an unsecured number in Sardinia. Without his BlackBerry, getting a secure message to D.C. presented a problem, since all calls worldwide were subjected to monitoring, not just the few that raised the political ire of the civil libertarians in the United States. The redeeming feature, of course, was that no entity or country possessed the assets to actually translate and evaluate any but communications between persons of interest. The truly unnerving fact was the question of the security of the system. Who might be monitoring the monitors? Despite the howls of politicians who knew the truth anyway, privacy had become no more than unexamined information, or, in the current euphemism, data at rest.

Even so, if someone was sophisticated enough to hack into ECHELON, they certainly could set key words to flag any specific communication. He longed for the days when a pay phone guaranteed anonymity.

Jason finally decided on an innocuous telegram he could only hope would be correctly interpreted.

Fairly transparent, but it was unlikely the other side would ever guess something as primitive as a transoceanic telegraph would be used. Additionally, since the nearly ancient Atlantic cable carried the few messages that still were exchanged in this manner, no one had bothered to develop the technology to monitor such messages. Satellites could not intercept messages on landlines.

Like most European countries, Italy’s telephone and telegraph functions were operated by the postal service. Jason left the post office, checked on Maria (still asleep), had lunch, and took in the few sights Calabria had to offer, then spent the one-o’clock-to-four-o’clock siesta sipping espresso and reading a two-day-old International Herald Tribune at an outdoor table at a small trattoria.

His patience was rewarded in the late afternoon when he returned to the post office. A courier from the American attaché in Naples had delivered a plain brown paper package.

Back at the hotel, Jason hurriedly unwrapped the parcel, removing a United States passport jacket for Ms. Sarah Rugger of Tampa, Florida, presumably the wife of William Rugger, the name and residence on Jason’s second set of identification. Also there was an appropriate Florida driver’s permit blank, Visa and American Express cards, a small digital camera, a gadget similar to one used to impress notary or corporate seals on documents, and another BlackBerry.

Why Florida? he wondered. Nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to vote there.

A note from Mama cautioned more care in the future.

Slowly waking to Jason’s persuasion, Maria needed no encouragement to apply makeup and brush her hair once she saw the camera. Jason took two pictures of her, being certain the background was different in each.

Down the street, he found a UPS business center, where he had the pictures printed. Back in the room, he glued the pictures onto the passport and used the press to apply a reasonable facsimile of the U.S. seal. There was little he could do with the driver’s license other than make sure the application of the photo was smooth and hope that the holograms would pass muster. It was the passport that got the closest scrutiny anyway, he told himself.

Finished, he had gone back outside and deposited camera and seal in different trash bins before finding an Alitalia office and booking two tickets to Rome the next day.

If Eco hacked into the reservation system, they would find of interest any American couple and would have someone watching the airport to make a positive sighting.

This morning they had indeed driven to the small airport and parked the Explorer in a conspicuous place in the lot. Jason had then signaled a cab for the short ride to other side of the field, where the five- or six-plane general aviation fleet was based.

After some discussion with the field’s only charter service, they boarded a DeHaviland Twin Otter, a high-wing, fixed-gear twin designed for takeoff and landing on short, rugged terrain. Jason had patiently explained that he was interested in being transported to a specific location that was unlikely to have an airstrip.

Language was only a minor barrier, since English was the international language of aviation. A Russian Aeroflot pilot approaching Hong Kong International Airport would speak English with the Chinese air traffic controller. The only exception was France and spheres of French influence, where the sanctity of the French language was deemed a greater priority than air safety.

For that matter, the French deemed it a greater priority than anything Jason could think of, with the posible exceptions of wine and sex.

Luckily, he was not dealing with the French, a fact for which he was always grateful.

Maria was asleep before the tires left the ground.

The jaw-jarring return to earth gave truth to the hoary pilots’ axiom that a landing was only a controlled crash. Had he not tightened Maria’s seat belt, she would have been thrown to the floor.

From the window, Jason could see nothing but dust swirling from the field in which they had landed. The right engine shut down, the plane pivoted, and one of the two crew members came back from the cockpit to open the door.

“These es eet,” he said in accented English. “Th’ coordinates you wanted.”

The jolt of the landing had Maria wide awake. “This is no airport,” she observed, sitting up straight and peering out the window. “This is some sort of a farm.”

The dust had almost settled when they reached the bottom of the aircraft’s three steps. They had no sooner put both feet on the ground than the door retracted while the pilot restarted the right engine, taxied downwind, and took off almost straight up. Both Jason and Maria closed their eyes against a cloud of flying grit of Saharan proportions.

When they finally dared open dirt-encrusted eyes, they were facing a man standing in front of a battered Volvo. He was perhaps six feet tall with a huge white walrus mustache. Silver hair was visible underneath a tweed cap he wore despite the season. The headgear was the same color as his jacket. A dress shirt, complete with tie, was stuffed into corduroy pants, which, in turn, were bloused over the tops of knee boots, the rubber sort the English called wellies.

As the last of the dust settled, he used both hands to brush himself off and approach. When he got within handshaking distance, his blue eyes twinkled as though with a wry story he was impatient to tell.

Instead of shaking, he embraced Jason with a squeeze any grizzly bear might envy. “Jason, lad!” he exclaimed. “It’s been too long! Welcome to Silanus.”

The accent was guttural, yet musical, the sound of his hereditary Gaelic, a language common in Europe half a millennium before Rome existed, now clinging tenuously to the continent’s westernmost fringes. The tongue was fading but, for the time being, secure in his native Scottish Highlands.

Jason managed to extricate himself and turned to Maria. “Adrian, this is Maria Bergenghetti. Or should I say Dr. Maria Bergenghetti?”

Maria involuntarily flinched as the Scot approached, fearful she, too, would receive a suffocating hug.

Instead he bowed from the waist, extending a hand. “A pleasure, lassie. Welcome to you also. The lout ye’re with’s too uncivilized for a proper introduction. I’m Adrian Graham, major, Her Majesty’s First Grenadiers, retired.” He winked at Jason. “I’d be pleased if you’d just call me Adrian.”

Maria seemed uncertain whether her hand would be shaken or kissed. She held it out nonetheless, showing relief at the conventional shake.

“Adrian’s an old, er, business associate,” Jason added. “Retired here to Sardinia.”

Actually, Adrian’s affiliation with the grenadiers, Her Majesty’s or otherwise, had been extraordinarily brief. He had hardly finished basic training when his fierce competitiveness and total lack of fear of any man (or rank) had brought him to the attention of Special Air Services, SAS, a semiclandestine, small-unit combat force generally considered to be made up of the best commandos in the world. The service had a lot more to do with special than air, the name dating back to World War II, when its men were usually parachuted behind enemy lines to perform the service’s raison d’être: murder, arson, and general mayhem.

In large part the American Special Forces, the parent of Delta Force, had been patterned after SAS.

Jason and Adrian had met during the chaos of the Bosnian Conflict, when both English and American “peacekeepers” were taking fire from both sides, Muslim and Christian, each intent on exterminating the other.

That day both men had been separated from their individual units and from their communication equipment.

By pure circumstance, each was being pursued by Bosnian rebels intent on driving foreign powers from the area to be able to ethnically cleanse Muslims at their leisure. By even more extraordinary circumstance, each man had chosen the same wooded crest of a small hill as a likely place to make a stand.

Each was delighted to discover the other and that their defense had just increased by one hundred percent.

“Jason Peters, Delta Force,” were the first words Jason had spoken.

“Adrian Graham, SAS.”

They glanced at each other with the admiration elite forces share for one another.

“Say, mon, how many of yon blokes’re after your scalp?” Adrian had asked, looking over Jason’s shoulder.

“No more than ten or so,” Jason had said calmly. “And you?”

“ ’Bout the same,” Adrian had said. “We’d best not let them see we’ve joined up until they’re in range.”

Jason peered down the slope, waiting for the first of his pursuers to show himself. “And why’s that?”

“If they know there’re two of us, the sodding bastards’ll run.”

The timely arrival of a low-strafing, rocket-bearing F-16 fighter actually scattered the attackers, but neither Jason nor Adrian would ever admit that the plane’s arrival was more than an intrusion by air forces with not enough else to do.

After the conflict they had kept in touch, spending boozy, ill-remembered evenings in places most people had never heard of, until Adrian’s retirement a few years ago.

Like most Highland Scots, Adrian was intensely proud of his heritage and equally eager to leave its desolate landscape and dreary weather.

In the seventeenth century, Cromwell had had one of Adrian’s ancestors hanged by the neck — but not until dead — then castrated and drawn and quartered. Although presumably no longer of interest to the victim, his component parts had then been buried at various unmarked crossroads. Years later, such remains as could be found had been entombed in a grand sepulchre in St. Giles in Edinburgh. It was a fact of which Adrian was extremely vain, but no more so than that his bloodline had three centuries earlier stood with Robert the Bruce at Bannockburn, with somewhat happier results. Even family pride, though, could not overcome the misery of the nine-month Scottish winter.

Like so many British, he and his wife had sought warmer climates. Unlike most English expats, he had not chosen the southwest of France, Tuscany, or Spain. His hobby of archeology had drawn him to the stone structures of the early Bronze Age that dotted the hills of the island of Sardinia. Through either beneficence or indifference, amateur exploration was not discouraged, and the cost of living was some of the lowest in western Europe, and life expectancy the highest.

Adrian and his wife had purchased a small farm in the rocky mountains that formed the spine of the island near the tiny village of Silanus.

Adrian held the door of the Volvo open. “You’ve no luggage?”

“We didn’t have time to pack,” Jason said. “Figured we could pick up what we needed when we got here.”

Adrian helped Maria into the front passenger seat, motioning Jason into the back. “Aye, well, there’s no Fortnum and Mason or Harrods in Silanus. Clare, m’ wife, will have a spare frock or two. An’ you, Jason — I think I can put something on yer back till you find suitable clothing.”

“I don’t look good in kilts,” Jason said.

Adrian was turning the key, the Volvo’s starter grinding. “An’ I’m not insultin’ th’ Graham clan tartan by givin’ ye th’ loan of any.”

The starter motor had quit whirring and simply clicked its solenoid.

“Damn piece of Swedish junk! Doesn’t like the Guinea climate.” Adrian got out and withdrew a cudgel from under the seat. “Just raise the bonnet and give ’er a tap.”

Jason could feel the blow to car’s engine.

Satisfied, Adrian climbed back in, tossing the club into the backseat next to Jason. “Like any woman, she needs to be shown who’s boss once ’n a while.”

Jason was thankful Clare wasn’t present to hear that.

Adrian turned the key. This time the engine purred. Adrian engaged a groaning clutch, shifted reluctant gears, and they were in motion.

He was grinning. “An’ Antonio, th’ closest thing we have to a real mechanic in these parts, wanted more’n a hundred euros to repair what a good thrashin’ could accomplish.”

They drove along a barely discernible trail among the foothills of the Gennargentu Mountains. Parched and sloping pastureland feuded unenthusiastically with jagged rock outcroppings. Gray rock was everywhere — in the path they were driving, intruding bluntly into scatterings of meadow, and rising into mountains. Rare patches of green stubbornly forced leaves up between stones. Scattered herds of sheep and goats added cotton fabric to the otherwise threadbare landscape. The vista was largely unforgiving and barren.

Other than the terrain’s stinginess with green, it was, Jason thought, remarkably similar to Adrian’s native Highlands.

At the end of a dusty, rocky path only generosity would call a driveway, the Volvo pulled into a dirt yard. At the far end sat a one-story cottage made from the gray native stone. Two stunted trees, perpetual combatants in the battle with the mountains’ winds, flanked the single front door.

Adrian gave a cheery toot on the horn, and a smiling, white-haired woman popped out of the door as though she had been waiting for the signal. Her round face was reddish and split by a smile as she trotted toward the car, wiping her hands on an apron.

Jason barely got out of the car in time to accept her embrace.

“Jason! It’s been so long….”

Tears glistened in her eyes. Despite differences in background and age, Laurin and Clare had become fast friends during the one time Jason and his wife had visited the couple in Scotland. The two women had exchanged e-mails on a regular basis, and Clare and her husband had appeared as grief-stricken as any blood relative at Laurin’s memorial service. Jason would always appreciate the time and expense involved in their attendance.

Clare dabbed a sleeve to her eyes and turned to Maria.

Dropping her arms from Jason’s shoulders, she gave a gesture that, in earlier times, might have been called a curtsy. “ ’Lo! I’m Clare.”

“Th’ present Mrs. Graham,” Adrian added.

“Auld fool!” Clare nodded toward her husband of over thirty years.

Maria extended a hand as she climbed out of the Volvo. “Maria Bergenghetti.”

“Dr. Bergenghetti,” Adrian added.

“Maria will do fine,” Maria said, darting a glance at Jason.

Clare looked from Jason to Adrian and back again. “Have they no luggage?”

Adrian was herding Jason and Maria toward the house as he tossed over his shoulder, “None at all. I’m sure you have a gown or two you can share with the lass.”

Clare hurried after them. “Of course. Not that anything I have here is high fashion.”

The inside of the cottage was somewhat more inviting than the outside.

Entry was into a large living room with a vaulted, beamed ceiling. A number of comfortable-looking leather chairs and a couch faced a fireplace large enough to hold man-size logs. Surmounting the rough wooden mantel was a huge double-edged sword, its burnished metal attesting to regular care.

Adrian followed Maria’s gaze. “A Graham swung that claymore beside Bonny Prince Charlie at Culloden Moor. ‘Twas what you might call the Stuarts’ last stand. Y’see—”

“I think they’d be more impressed with something to eat,” Clare interrupted before her husband could reach full speed. “Not much, just a typical local lunch.”

Behind her, a long wooden table was spread with a white cloth. Four tumblers guarded a bottle of red wine and a plate of carta da musica, the native flatbread so thin it did, in fact, resemble a sheet of music. A large slice of whitish-yellow cheese — Jason guessed pecorino — was next to a bowl of some sort of vegetable stew, probably eggplant, tomatoes, and fava beans. Not exactly the meal one would expect from a Highlander.

Adrian was the typical paradoxical Scot: thrifty to the point of parsimony, yet a generous and congenial host.

Perhaps apocryphal, certainly believable, was the story repeated to Jason by more than one of Adrian’s former subalterns as lore in the regiment. Nightfall on base brought young Lieutenant Graham prowling the enlisted men’s quarters, ostensibly to verify that no one had taken unofficial leave. His actual purpose was revealed in the morning, when a dearth of toilet paper in the latrine was noticeable. Young Graham, it seemed, had an aversion to spending his meager officer’s pay to purchase necessities so readily available.

A few of his peers called him Leftenant Bum Wad until the day he retired.

But Adrian had no compunctions about sharing the “last wee dram” of single-malt scotch or a Cuban cigar. On his sole visit, Jason had wanted for nothing. Jason supposed the generally hostile climate of his friend’s native Highlands disposed him to waste nothing but offer bounteous hospitality to those who sought it.

Adrian ushered them into cane-bottom chairs, poured the red wine, and raised his glass. “A cent’anni!” He took a sip and grinned. “Sardinian greeting and toast; means ‘live a hundred years.’ ”

Adrian dipped a generous serving of the stew onto Maria’s plate before serving Jason. “I’ll not be inspectin’ th’ teeth of any gift horses, but I’ll admit to a certain curiosity as to why you called, wantin’ to visit Clare ’n’ me all o’ a sudden.”

Jason gave Maria a slight shake of the head. He would explain.

“Maria was doing some work for my employer. We encountered some, er, unhappy customers and decided it would be best to let things cool off.”

Adrian gave Jason a long look, a smile tickling his lips, before he nodded his understanding and changed the subject as adroitly as a running back shifting field.

“You’ll be interested to see th’ farm Clare ’n’ I got.”

“I thought you came here because of the archeology.”

“That, too.” Adrian took a mouthful of stew, chewed, swallowed, and continued. “I spend as much time in yon old stone dwellings as I can. But it’s not like we have a butcher and greengrocer convenient. We raise most of our vegetables, slaughter most of our meat. Even raise a few grapes.” He held up his glass. “Not a fine claret, but sufficient.”

And far better than Sicilian.

“I can’t think of anything that would go better with what we’re having,” Maria said tactfully.

Adrian rolled his eyes at her. “Clearly ye’ve not had good wine, lassie, but thanks.”

After the meal, Adrian leaned over his wife’s chair, planting a prim kiss on her cheek. “Mind, now, Mother, there’s more’n enough of yer bonny stew for lunch on th’ morrow if it’s put up proper in th’ fridge.”

Clare rolled her eyes, a woman who had kept house for a lifetime only to have her retired husband begin to tell her how to do it.

Adrian took Jason by the elbow. “Let me show you my projects,” he said pointedly.

Outside, behind the house, Jason saw perhaps an acre or so of vines, the young green shoots limning the stumps of last year’s harvest. From nowhere a dog appeared, a large, shaggy animal with a tail wagging with pleasure.

Adrian stooped to pet the broad head. “Name’s Jock.”

“What kind is he?”

The Scot shrugged. “Never asked, but he’s good at roundin’ up the wee lambs that get lost, stays out of the henhouse, and generally makes good use o’ himself.”

Jock barked as if to confirm the résumé.

It was something Pangloss might do. Jason reminded himself to check on his dog’s well-being the next time he communicated with Mama.

They walked past a half acre or so of sprouting vegetables. Jason was surprised to see tomatoes already blushing with ripeness so early in the season. Yellow zucchini buds were visible through thick leaves, and there were the herbs mandatory for any Italian garden, basil and oregano.

Brown-spotted chickens scratched rocky dirt in front of a fenced shingle coop. A few feet farther they came to a run delineated by stout logs. Two of the biggest pigs Jason had ever seen stopped their rooting to watch through red, feral eyes.

Jason put his hand on the top rail and leaned over, the better to see. “Damn, Adrian, I’ve never—”

Adrian snatched him backward just as one of the animals charged the place where he had placed his hand. The animal moved faster than anything that size Jason had ever seen. Its head struck the wood with a force hard enough to shake the thick timber rails. Its teeth were grinding into the wood.

“Laddie, you’ve never seen swine like these, obviously. Both hog ’n’ sow are specially bred for size — have shoats that measure up to some full-grown pigs.”

Jason looked at the space between rails where one had stuck its snout through, exposing large, yellow tusks. “Not exactly friendly.”

“That’s why I keep ’em fenced rather than let ’em root wild. If I hadn’t pulled you back, ol’ Goliath there’d be chewin’ on yer arm.”

Jason looked from the pig to Adrian. “I didn’t know pigs were carnivores.”

“Omnivorous,” Adrian corrected. “Most pigs’ll eat anythin’ they can chew or swallow. The mate to Jock, the dog there, somehow got into that pen. Wasn’t much left of her, time I got here. Ever’ time I herd the sheep, I go way ’round, make sure none of ’em wander into that pen there.”

As they turned to go back to the house, Adrian produced a pipe from one pocket, a tobacco pouch from the other. In minutes he was puffing something that smelled like a combination of silage and wet dog hair, so bad that Jason checked the soles of his shoes before ascertaining that the pipe was the source of the odor.

Adrian sucked noisily on the pipe’s stem. “Clare won’ let me smoke in the house anymore…”

Small wonder.

“… and I can’t get the good tobacco I used to enjoy.” Surprise!

“You used to smoke cigars, I recall.”

But nothing that stank like that pipe.

“Still do when I can get Havanas.”

Adrian stopped, blowing a perfect smoke ring that shimmered in the daylight, then warped and disappeared. “If I’m pryin’, say so, but should I be on the watch for any, er, unexpected company?”

Jason shook his head. “Don’t think so, but you never know.”

“Perhaps you’d enlighten me. I’d be interested in hearing as much as you can tell me without breachin’ whatever security you’re operatin’ under.”

Jason shrugged. “You’re letting me hide out here; you’re entitled.”

While Adrian was staring into the bowl of his dead pipe, Jason took a quick breath of fresh air.

Striking a match with one hand, Adrian coaxed smoke from the briar. With the other, he indicated a woodshed and took a seat on an upright log. “We can talk here.”

Jason stared into the sky, wondering exactly where to begin. “Back last winter, I had a mission to snatch one of the bad guys, an arms dealer. He didn’t survive the process. One of his customers is afraid somebody knows too much or will find it out….”

“An’ who might that be?”

“We think they’re an organization that calls itself Eco, run by former Russian Mafia turned eco nut.”

“There’s always a chance they might figure you know nothing. Bad blood makes trouble.”

Jason remembered a two-hundred-year feud between Scottish clans, Graham as the House of Montrose on one side, the Campbells on the other, but he decided to say nothing.

Instead, he continued. “Whatever this thing, this weapon — they call it Breath of the Earth — is, it’s something that renders an enemy helpless while the bad guys cut his throat. Some minerals were included, minerals that came from somewhere around the Bay of Naples.”

Adrian was poking around the bowl of the again-dead pipe with a matchstick. “And your kit is to find out what that weapon is, destroy it, and manage not to get your own throat cut in the bargain.”

“As we used to say in the army, ‘kee-rect.’ ”

Graham struck a fresh match and applied it to the pipe. “I’m curious: why render someone defenseless and then kill ’em? Why not just apply lethal force to begin with?”

Jason edged away from the stream of smoke that insisted in drifting into his face. “Don’t know, but a good guess would be that having some natural substance make an enemy helpless has a certain appeal to radicals, those who believe they alone can save the earth. Sort of like Mother Nature’s revenge.”

“How involved is your… friend, Dr. Bergenghetti?”

“With me? She’s not. I mean, she’s a leading volcanologist. I asked her to do some tests and those bastards are threatening her to get at me. Seemed expedient not to leave her.”

“Expedient because she’s a bonny lass or because she’s really in harm’s way?”

Jason told him about what had happened in Sicily.

Adrian smiled around the stem of his pipe. “The one who got away — Eglov — he’ll not be on your trail?”

“I booked a flight to Rome, swapped IDs, and took a charter over here. I’d guess it will take Eglov a few days before he discovers we aren’t in Rome. By that time, I’ll no longer be imposing on your hospitality.”

Adrian was tapping pipe on the heel of a boot, knocking the contents onto the ground. “Aye, let’s hope.”

Jason grinned. “Hope what? That they won’t find us, or we’ll be gone in a few days?”

Before Adrian could answer, Maria came out of the house, lighting a cigarette. Clare’s ban on smoking applied uniformly.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The two men were not from Sicily. Their Italian was unlike any Enrico had ever heard. Or, rather, the Italian of the one who spoke. Guttural and harsh, with little distinction between the soft and hard Cs, as though he had learned the language from a book without speaking it.

There was something about them that made Enrico uncomfortable. Perhaps the bandage that covered the whole right side of the face, including the eye, of the man doing the talking, the mispronouncing. He must have been in some sort of accident recently, because bloody splotches were showing through the gauze.

Enrico was also uncomfortable about what the man wanted: information concerning a woman and an American man who might have chartered one of Aero Tyrrhenian’s planes.

Had they?

Where?

When?

Although no actual threat was made, Enrico got the feeling that the consequences of withholding information might be unpleasant. Very unpleasant.

Enrico had struggled for six years to establish his flying business, his one true love (besides Anna, his wife at home, and Calla, his secretary and mistress, of course). He had built the company up from one four-seat Cessna to a fleet of four aircraft, including the turbo-prop, twelve-seat Islander. Someday he would be able to afford a used jet.

He ran a business, not an information agency. To give out the information these men sought seemed like a betrayal of a customer. If a man had no integrity, he had nothing.

Enrico’s resolve was solidifying when the man with the bandaged face put a stack of hundred-euro notes on the counter.

The resolve became a little mushy around the edges.

“Mille,” the man said.

There was no problem understanding the number. A thousand euros.

The old Beech 18E, the radial-engine twin he used to haul cargo, was going to need the number two overhauled after a few more hours of flight time, and Enrico was fairly certain it would require one or more new pistons, very expensive pistons. A thousand euros wouldn’t cover the cost, but it would sure make it less painful.

Still, there was the matter of integrity.

The man with the bandage doubled the number of bills on the counter.

“Due.”

Enrico could feel Calla’s eyes burning into his back from her desk behind him. Two thousand euros would not only cure the Beech’s problem; it would pay for the dress Calla had seen in the window of the shop just off the Quattro Canti in Palermo last week.

The bills disappeared into Enrico’s pocket.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Adrian shared Jason’s taste in both music and drink. The two men sat in front of the empty fireplace, glasses of single-malt whiskey in hand. Violins were singing the first movement of Handel’s Second Symphony. The only thing preventing Jason’s serenity was the odor coming from the kitchen. Whatever Clare and Maria were preparing for dinner smelled suspicious enough to make him verify that Jock, the dog, was still alive and well.

“Haggis,” Adrian commented, obviously aware of his friend’s apprehension. “For you, we’ve killed the fatted calf. Or, in this case, the fatted sheep.”

“You really shouldn’t have.”

Jason could not have been more sincere.

The thought of a sheep’s heart, liver, and lungs minced with suet, onions, and oatmeal and boiled in the animal’s stomach was less than appetizing.

Adrian licked his lips in anticipation. “ ’Tis the dish of the Highlands, of all Scotland, for that matter.”

And Jason had always thought it was Scotland’s abysmal weather that had caused centuries of Scottish incursion southward.

Maria came in from the kitchen and sat beside Jason. “Clare does not need any more help.”

The expression on her face betrayed feelings similar to Jason’s regarding the impending meal.

“ ’Tis a complicated dish,” Adrian said, fishing his pipe from his pocket. “Sometimes it’s easier to do it yoursel’ rather than teach another.”

Like mixing a Borgia poison.

“I am sure I was more hindrance than help,” Maria offered, her tone unable to conceal gratitude at being released from the experience.

Forbidden to light up, Adrian was making sucking noises on the pipe. “So, tell me exactly what it is you seek, Jason. You mentioned that the poor sods on that fishing boat appeared to have traces of sulfur and various hydrocarbons, including ethylene, in their blood, and that Maria here says the mineral samples are linked to the area of the Bay of Naples.”

“I’m to find out exactly what this ‘Breath of the Earth’ business is all about, see what these extreme nuts have come up with, where they got it.”

Adrian took another sucking draw from the pipe, removed it from his mouth, and regarded the empty bowl sadly. “Damn nuisance, having to go outside to light a pipe I’ve been smoking thirty years. Things we do to please the womenfolk.”

Jason was tempted to remind his friend of his comment about demonstrating who was boss, but said, “So far, only thing I’ve learned is that this guy Eglov takes keeping a secret very seriously.”

“Bad sport, that lad.” Adrian tapped the pipe’s stem against his teeth. “You think the sailors were gassed?”

“Only way I can think of to get those chemicals into the body short of an injection.”

“And if th’ bleedin’ Ecos were that close, they bloody well didn’t need all those chemicals.”

“Exactly.”

Pipe temporarily forgotten, Adrian stared into space for a moment. “Y’ know archeology is my passion.”

Puzzled as to the connection, Jason leaned forward in his chair. “Yes, but—”

“Subscribe to the magazines, popular and some academic.” Adrian stood and went to kitchen. “Clare, where’ve you been puttin’ me archeological journals ’n’ stuff?”

“Try lookin’ in th’ shed,” came the disembodied answer.

Adrian turned away, grumbling. “Shed, indeed! All my valuable research material in a leaky auld building…”

“If it’s leaky,” came Clare’s voice, “it’s not because I haven’t asked you a score of times to see to th’ roof!”

Adrian was still griping as he walked out of the door.

Moments later he returned with a stack of magazines.

Dumping them in front of the chair he had occupied, he sat and began to page through each. “Year or two ago, I saw an article on Greek Baia. Two or three millennia after the Bronze Age dwellings here in Sardinia, so I didn’t give much mind to it.”

“Baia?” Jason asked. “What’s Greek Baia?”

“Oldest Greek settlement in Italy.” Maria spoke for the first time. “It is in the Naples area.”

Adrian was still turning pages. “Had something to do with gases, I think.” He held up a gray-backed journal. “Ah, here it is. Written by a Professor Calligini, translated by one of your American chaps.”

“Eno Calligini, of the University of Turin?” Maria asked.

Adrian moved the magazine a little closer to his face. “Aye, a professor at Turin. Y’ know th’ man?”

Maria smiled. “Our fields, volcanology and archeology, are not unrelated, at least not here in Italy. He and I participated on a symposium on the Vesuvius eruption of A.D. 79, the one that buried Pompeii.”

The look on her face told Jason it was likely she and the professor were, or had been, more than professional colleagues. He felt a twinge of jealousy. Irrational, but nonetheless real.

Adrian glanced from Jason to Maria. “Y’ may want to read what th’ professor has to say, Jason. I recall it, he speaks of hallucination-producing vapors.”

Clare appeared in the kitchen door, holding a serving tray. “Supper’s ready. I—”

The first bar of “Scotland the Brave” chirped from Adrian’s pants pocket and he pulled out a cell phone.

“Sorry. Only have the bloody thing so th’ kids can keep in touch.” He snapped it open. “Graham here.”

His face went blank as he listened before a single, “Grazie.”

From Clare’s expression, Jason guessed they didn’t get a lot of phone calls from their kids or anyone else.

The phone disappeared back into Adrian’s pocket. “Peppi.” He turned to Jason in explanation. “Runs the local trattoria, closest thing about to a pub. A man was asking directions here.”

Jason squinted through the windows at the collecting darkness. “Any description?”

Adrian nodded. “Big, shaved head, didn’t speak Italian like a local. Or an Italian, for that matter. Had half his face bandaged.”

“How many others?”

“Peppi didn’t see anyone else. I gather this chap is an acquaintance of yours?”

“I’d guess he’s the same one I told you about. You can bet he’s not by himself. How long would you guess it’ll take him to get here?”

Adrian gave a grim smile. “Depends on how long it takes him to figure out that Peppi’s directions are leading him astray.”

“Your friend gave him misleading directions? Why?”

Adrian shrugged. “Could be because Peppi knows we don’t have many visitors. Could be because he dinna like the cut o’ the man. Probably was a combination of the locals’ distrust o’ strangers an’ the perverse Sardinian sense o’ humor.”

“He sent the guy out to the boonies as a joke?”

Adrian nodded as he crossed the room toward Clare, taking the tray and setting it on the table. “Aye, havin’ a stranger lost in these hills would be very funny to th’ natives, particularly a stranger Peppi’d taken a dislike to.” He looked over his shoulder at Clare. “Mother, if you’d gather some bottled water from the shed, along with a few tins we can open for supper later…”

Clare left the room.

Adrian went to a low chest, removing several blankets. Underneath them was a long object wrapped in an oil-spotted cloth. Jason inhaled the familar smell of Hoppe’s gun oil. It took only a moment before Jason was looking at SAS’s favorite weapon, a Sten Mark IIS. From the silhouette, Jason noted that his friend had the model with a lengthy silencer built onto the barrel. The machine gun was clearly recognizable from the thick canvas sleeve around the rear of the silencer, the only protection a shooter had from a heated barrel. With the Sten, automatic fire was unadvisable except under the direst circumstances. Still, the British commandos had had an affection for the gun and its predecessors since before World War II, when it had been manufactured by British Small Arms along with the oil-spitting, brake-failing BSA motorcycle.

The British saw romance in ineffective machinery; hence the long life of the Jaguar automobile.

Adrian slammed one of two thirty-two shot clips into the gun. “Looks like we’re about to have company.”

Jason took the SIG Sauer from its holster in the small of his back, checked the magazine, and put it back. “I don’t know how they found us unless they went to the charter service.”

Adrian was stuffing the Sten’s extra clip into his belt.

“ ‘Th’ best laid plans of mice and men gang af’t a‘wry.’ Or so th’ bonny bard Bobby Burns tells us. Reason enough to keep me old weapon handy and ready.”

Jason was in no mood to discuss either alliterations or Scotland’s most beloved poet. “I doubt we have the firepower to fend them off.”

Adrian tossed one of the blankets to Maria and pulled out a Savage Model X20 nightscope, something any hunter in America could purchase at his local gun shop. “Wasn’t plannin’ on a fight, not with women around…”

“Don’t let me keep you boys from your fun,” Maria snapped.

Adrian cocked an eyebrow. “An’, as I was about to say, only th’ Sten an’ a pistol between us.”

Unspoken was the fact that, unlike in Bosnia, retreat was not an viable option.

Clare reappeared, carrying a military knapsack. “I’ve got enough water and food to last us a day or two.”

Motioning Jason and Maria to follow, Adrian headed for the door. “We’ll not be going far, but we need to hide the car, make it look like we’re gone, perhaps off on holiday.”

“What about that?” Clare was pointing to the tray with the still-steaming haggis.

“Canna leave hot supper around, now, can we?” Adrian thought for a moment. “Much as I hate it, we’ll have to let the swine have it.”

Jason had never imagined he would be indebted to ecological terrorists.

“Ah, wait!” Adrian exclaimed. “I’ll take a wee second to turn off the ginny motor.”

“Ginny motor?” Maria asked.

“Aye, lass, the generator that provides the ’lectricity for the house. We dinna have a local power company out here.”

The house went dark, and Adrian returned seconds later holding a flashlight. “It’s on our way we are then.”

The Volvo cranked on the first try. They drove less than a hundred yards into a deep ravine carved into the hillside that would make the automobile impossible to see unless someone knew where to look or was very lucky. From the car, Adrian led them uphill to a scattering of large stones Jason had seen earlier and dismissed as just one more of the island’s rock formations. Only when Adrian played a flashlight across the surface did Jason see a horizontal opening leading under an overhanging boulder.

“One of the early Bronze Age dwellings,” Adrian said, ducking to get into the space beneath. “Phoenicians and Romans invaded the Nuragic settlements along the coast, forced the indigenous population to retreat here into the ridges. They built homes that were difficult to find, easy to defend.”

Jason followed Adrian’s light. They stepped down into a cave — no, a room perhaps thirty by thirty. The walls still showed marks of the ancient chisels that had pried away the stone. At the back, the cool night air entered through a hole in the roof, a primitive fireplace, recognizable by smudges of soot still visible on the wall. The closer he looked, the more Jason realized the habitation was not as primitive as he had thought. The streaked wall behind the fire pit would have been heated by the flames, radiating warmth throughout the small room.

Adrian switched off his flashlight. “Make y’sel’ comfortable, but cut off the torches. Don’ wan’ th’ light givin’ us away.”

As his world went dark, Jason heard, rather than saw, Adrian stretch out on his stomach at the slit that was the cave’s entrance. He could see the outline of the Scot studying his house with the nightscope. “Dinna take ’em long.”

Jason felt the glass pushed into his hand. At first he saw little other than the disconcerting hues of green and black produced by concentration of ambient light. As he watched, the colors assumed the recognizable shapes of the house, trees, and rocks. He saw nothing that did not belong.

“Over by the far corner of the house,” Adrian whispered.

There was a blur of monochromatic green as Jason shifted to his right. At first he observed nothing that wasn’t part of the landscape.

Then something moved, a ghostly flicker edging toward the front of the house. Then another. Jason made a minute adjustment to the scope, and several images jumped out of the background with starling clarity.

“Six of them, by my count,” he whispered to Adrian, although the distance would have prevented the intruders from hearing anything less than a shout. “The usual AK-47s. Looks like they’re deploying to cover all windows and doors. How’d they get here, anyway? I didn’t hear a car.”

“You wouldn’t. These hills can block sound sometimes, amplify it at others.”

Adrian was reaching for the return of the scope.

Jason took one last look. “One of ’em has the right part of his face bandaged, all right. Can’t be sure, but I think he’s the one we ran into in Sicily.”

“Th’ one w’ th’ bandage, he’s the leader,” Adrian observed. “Tellin’ ’em to search th’ house.”

It took the new arrivals only a few minutes to ascertain that no one was home.

A few minutes later, Jason caught a snatch of a voice, although he couldn’t make out the words. “What’s happening now?”

“They dinna find us in th’ house, an’ now the man with th’ bandage, he’s pointin’ in different directions, tellin’ ’em to search for us, I’ll wager.”

From behind him, Jason heard an intake of breath, a gasp. He could not tell if it was Maria or Clare. It was more for their benefit than Adrian’s that he said, “They’ll have a tough time finding us here.”

“Aye, laddie, a tough time indeed, long’s we keep quiet and our heads down.”

“And even if they do, this is as perfect a shelter as we could want. It’ll take a high-explosive device to get to us here.”

“Don’ be too sure o’ that. A few shots through the slit here in front an’ the ricochet’d be like grenade fragments off these stone walls. Best we lie low like a fox in his den till th’ hounds have tired.”

Jason checked the luminescent face of his watch, surprised to note that only fifteen minutes had passed since they’d fled the house. He watched that fifteen stretch into twenty, then thirty. Waiting for action was one of the most difficult things in Jason’s line of work. There was nothing to do but think, and thinking frequently complicated the problem.

Jason slid his sleeve over the watch’s face and stared into darkness.

Minutes, an hour later, he heard footsteps crunching on the rocky soil outside. One, no, two men were following a course that would lead them straight to the cave.

Jason thumbed the SIG Sauer’s safety.

Adrian backed farther inside, making sure that no errant source of light gave them away by reflecting from the nightscope.

Jason felt someone beside him, Maria. He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze and she would not let go, her grip tense and damp. Even so, Jason took pleasure from her touch.

Looking up toward the entrance, he could see them now, or at least, he thought he could make out two sets of legs from the waist down. Two ill-defined masses of darkness against a slightly less dark night. One moved slightly, the activity quite clear against the pinpricks of stars in the dome of the ink black sky. One said something, low, guttural words Jason could not hear clearly, and the two sets of legs moved off to his left, the sounds of grinding rocks and gravel growing gradually dimmer.

A hand, not Maria’s, tugged at his sleeve.

“May as well get some sleep, laddie,” Adrian whispered into his ear. “I’d bet a month’s pay they’ll not be leavin’ us till they’re sure we’re gone. I’ll stand a three-hour watch, then wake you.”

Like any seasoned combat soldier, Jason took an opportunity to sleep whenever it presented itself. Head on his hands, he was breathing deeply in less than a minute. His sleep was light, the sort that gave rest but was not so deep he could not come instantly awake. He pretended not to be awakened when Maria lifted his head and placed it in her lap.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The morning did not begin with a slow grayness. Instead, the red of a cardinal’s robe streaked the eastern sky momentarily before buttery light began to chase the night from the far ridge. In an instant of dèjà vu, Jason was with Laurin, watching the sun climb to the lip of the bowl that was Aspen, Colorado. He had been so absorbed in the colors, he had forgone the ski slopes that morning for an opportunity to capture the scene on canvas.

Laurin. The places they had shared.

As always, the emptiness was filled with a sense of rage, a fury illogicaly directed at the men from whom he was hiding.

In minutes the cave would be in full daylight. Slipping out of the entrance, Jason used the last of the shadows to tend to bodily functions before returning to a refuge without comfort facilities.

Maria had much the same needs, and he met her as he entered. He pointed to the valley below that was quickly filling with daylight. “Hurry.”

She started to reply, a sharp remark, he guessed, thought better of it, and disappeared behind a nearby boulder.

Not far below, somewhere near Adrian’s chicken coop, a rooster belatedly proclaimed what was already fact.

Carefully holding his weapon behind him rather than risk an errant reflection of the early sun, Jason stretched. Muscles, including some he had temporarily forgotten, ached from sleeping on the rocky floor. He winced as he rotated his neck in a vain hope of working out the soreness. He gave up on the stiffness going away anytime soon and he surveyed the farm below.

Two men in military fatigues were poorly concealed beside the house’s door. Two more were covering the approach up the driveway. Assuming he and Adrian had seen them all last night, that left two unaccounted for. Jason guessed they would be concealed somewhere along the turnoff from the road to the house. Or on the ridge behind the cave. Or both.

Or neither.

“No tellin’ where th’ sods might be.” Adrian had come up behind him, one military mind reading another. “Could be that we dinna know exactly how many of them there are.”

“I thought of that,” Jason said, not taking his eyes from the view in front. “Question is, how long do they plan to stay?”

Adrian shook his head. “Long as they want, I’d think, waitin’ for us to come back home. Folks ’round here pretty much mind their own affairs rather than constantly botherin’ their neighbors. Could be a month or so ’fore anyone comes ’round.”

“You’ve got your cell phone, right? You could call the cops,” Jason suggested.

“Not in here. These rocks shield us from satellite contact. We might try calling the nearest carabiniere, about a hundred kilometers away, if we can get outside tonight and risk being overheard.”

Jason had a better idea. “I’d as soon not have to answer the questions they’d ask, and I’m not sure how much scrutiny my papers will take. Tell you what — if they’re still down there by dark, I have another way to handle it.”

If Adrian had doubts about that, he didn’t show them.

The rest of the morning was spent alternating watches from the cave’s mouth.

Shortly after noon, Maria observed, “They are still searching for us, looking behind every rock, checking out every building. Except one.”

Jason snorted derisively. “And that one is the pigsty.”

Maria didn’t take her eyes from the men below. “And that would be because…?”

Jason shrugged. “They may well know those pigs would go for them. Plus, how eager would you be to wade through pig slop up to your knees?”

Surprisingly, Maria smiled, the first time since leaving Sicily. “I thought these people were nature lovers. Pig shit is part of nature, is it not?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The day seemed interminable, as long as those days Jason had lain in hiding before a night operation. Only this time he had little equipment to check and recheck to pass the endless hours. Jason and Adrian had decided that only one person at a time should keep watch, the other three remaining invisible in the cavern’s recesses. Whether caused by darkness or apprehension, anxiety in the cave had reduced conversation to monosyllabic whispers and grunts. Even so, Jason feared they might be overheard by an unseen prowler.

When evening’s shadows finally flowed across the small valley, they brought relief to the tension like flotsam on an incoming tide.

Twenty minutes after the first star winked on, Adrian surveyed the area with the nightscope. “Sodding rotters still surrounding the house, far as I can see. Now’s as good a time as any for whatever you plan to lay on.”

Jason retreated to the far reach of the cave, a flashlight in one hand, his BlackBerry in the other.

“You canna get satellite reception back there,” Adrian reminded him.

“Don’t have to. I’m inputing a text message. Once I’m done, I’ll step outside and send it.”

Adrian cocked his head. “An’ jus’ to whom would you be sendin’ such a message, the U.S. Marines?”

Jason’s grin was visible in the flashlight reflecting from the stone. “Close guess.”

“An’ those blokes down there.” Adrian jerked his head toward the cave’s entrance. “You’re betting they have no way of intercepting or tracing…?”

“Omnidirectional. If they had such equipment, it would tell them the message came from all three hundred sixty degrees. Second, transmission time to the satellite is in the nanoseconds, less time than it takes a lightbulb to go dark when you turn off the switch. Someone staring at a direction finder wouldn’t even have time to see the indicator move. Finally, it’s encrypted. Anyone listening in would hear only a single beep.”

Adrian’s eyebrows arched. “All this in a simple Black-Berry?”

“It only looks like one.”

Finished, Jason moved to the front of the cave.

“Be careful,” Maria whispered as he crept by.

“I’m not even going all the way out,” Jason said, extending an arm through the opening. “There, done.”

“That quick?” she asked.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

PO 2d Class Shawana Davis had a tough choice to make: her enlistment would be up in three months, and the navy would provide a substantial sum for tuition to any of the three colleges to which she had been accepted. Conversely, she had come to like her life in the military. It was something very different from the endless flat fields of dusty clay where soybean field met soybean field, where being able to buy something you wanted depended on the harvests and excitement was defined by whatever movie was on HBO. The job offered a genuine chance of advancement, too, not some bogus showcase job where the occupant’s chief value was to demonstrate the company’s commitment to equal opportunity for women and minorities. Any promotion she got in the navy would be one she earned.

She liked that, relying on ability rather than her sex or race, to get ahead.

She also liked the prospect of being not only the first person in her family to graduate from high school, but the first from college, too.

Tough choice.

What if she—

There was a loud buzz that startled her before she realized the ship was receiving a message. Unusual for this time of day — must be important. As the sole person on duty in the communications room, she watched an incomprehensible series of letters and numbers march across the screen. In the old days — at least, according to the old war movies she loved — the message would have clattered through the printer louder than two skeletons making it on a tin roof. Now, only the buzzer alerted her to incoming traffic.

She waited for the characters to stop and then picked up a phone on the bulkhead next to her station just below the bridge. She waited a second or two before Lieutenant (J.G.) Wade, tonight’s duty officer, picked up.

He must have been daydreaming, too. Woolgathering, her daddy would have called it. Easy enough to do when the only sounds were the rhythmic throbbing of the engines and swish of the hull parting a flat sea.

His voice sounded as though she had woken him up. “Wade.”

He didn’t have to identify himself. His drawl was right out of North Carolina’s tobacco fields.

“Sir,” Shawana said, “incoming message received.”

“From battle group, fleet?”

Shawana frowned and held her head back from the screen as if that might answer the question. “Don’t think so, no, sir. Copy to fleet and battle group, but the communication appears be code ten.”

There was an audible intake of breath. “The navy department? Direct to the Carney?”

“Looks like it, sir.”

Thank you, Davis. I’ll be right down.”

The immediate clang of hard leather on metal stairs made good on the promise. Less than fifteen seconds later, Lt. (J.G.) Robert Lee Wade was looking over her shoulder. From his breath, Shawana guessed the spaghetti sauce in the officers’ mess had been heavy on the garlic.

“That’s something I’ve never heard of,” he said. “Why would Washington communicate directly with a guided missile destroyer instead of going through channels?”

“Maybe somebody’s in a hurry,” Shawana suggested. “Maybe you ought to get this to the captain on the double… sir.”

“You may be right, Davis. I’ve never seen that particular cipher before.”

Neither had she, but she said nothing as he ripped the page from the printer and bolted for the companionway.

It took Cmdr. Edward Simms a full ten minutes of playing with his encryption computer to decode the message, and another ten to confirm he had done it correctly the first time.

“Balls!” he said to no one in particular. “This makes no sense at all.”

The other four men in the room, Wade and the three men who had been playing bridge with the ship’s captain, looked at one another before one said, “It’s from Washington. It doesn’t have to make sense.”

Old joke. More truth than humor.

Simms held the offending paper up to the light as though there might be a secret message in light-sensitive ink. “We’re to program the specified target location into one of those experimental aircraft, launch, and recover it.”

“But sir,” one of the men protested, “We have no armament for the Thing, only dummy bombs to test its stability and accuracy.”

“The Thing” was the nickname the Carney’s crew had given the CRW (canard rotor/wing) X50A UAB (unmanned aircraft, bomber). The X designated the machine experimental. As one wag had noted, it looked like a helicopter and a Piper Cub had had sex with a resulting miscarriage. It had wings and propeller at the rear, but also rotor blades above. The aircraft had vertical takeoff and landing capacity, making it able to act as either an attack or observation vehicle. Its composite skin made it a poor radar target even if it should climb higher than the terrain-hugging altitude suggested by the bulbous radome at the front end. The only thing in general agreement was that it was the ugliest object in the military since, along with the front parts, the rear end of mules had been retired.

“I don’t get it,” someone else piped up. “Launch an experimental drone to drop phony bombs?”

“You don’t have to get it,” Simms said, studying the map posted on the bulkhead. “It’s an order. Not ours to question who or why, et cetera. It is ours to confirm with fleet, however.”

Simms knew too many horror stories where careers had been sunk by following unusual orders outside the chain of command, only to have some REMF (rear echelon motherfucker) deny issuing such orders when the excrement was being distributed by the ventilating device. Confirmed orders were undeniable orders. Undeniable orders covered one’s ass nicely. He wasn’t about to risk having his nineteen years end in front of a court-martial.

“Say,” the captain continued, “look at these coordinates. We’re conducting a phony strike on Italian territory, Sardinia, to be exact.”

“Perhaps that’s why Washington wants to use the Thing. Suppose it involves some sort of spook operation. The plane doesn’t officially exist, being as how it’s experimental. They could deny responsibility under adverse circumstances.”

Simms glared at his junior officer. “Wade, you sound like a politician.”

It was not a compliment.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Jason had insisted everyone gather up whatever few possessions they had brought to the cave and be ready for a speedy departure.

“Y’ tellin’ us the cavalry’s gonna come chargin’ o’er yon hill?” Adrian had asked, only half joking.

“Something like that,” Jason had replied enigmatically.

“Exactly what will happen?” Maria wanted to know.

“I’m not sure,” Jason confessed. “I just know we’re gonna have to move in a—”

He was interrupted by a flash of light. Half a second later, a sound like a thunder reached the cave. All four peered out of the entrance to see smoke rising from a patch of ground near the house. Fifty feet away, a second burst was followed by the same roar and dense smoke.

Adrian was chuckling. “Practice bombs! Little noise, lots of smoke to show where the thing hit. ’Less a man knew, he’d think he was being assaulted by ground forces.”

Against the billowing smoke, additional flickers silhouetted men running in every direction, firing at imagined attackers. One or two bullets whined off the rock at the entrance to the cave.

“We’ll never have a better shot at it,” Jason said, rolling out onto the rocky ground. “Let’s go!”

With his hand on Maria’s elbow, Jason dashed up the hill, followed by Adrian and Clare.

It must have been the loose pebbles and scree that cascaded from each hurried step that drew the attention of the ecoterrorists below. First one shot, then two, then a fusillade split the air above their heads.

Maria moaned in fear.

“Bloody sods dinna know where we are, just shooting at th’ sound,” Adrian puffed.

Maria ducked her head as though she might be able to dodge a stray bullet. “They do not have to know if they hit us.”

As they crested the edge of the gully where the car was hidden, Adrian took the lead. He seemed to know their position from memory rather than whatever he could see with the nightscope. The steep hills blocked all but the stars directly overhead. It seemed to Jason they had been on this trek for hours, although his watch told him they had left the safety of the cave only minutes before.

Behind them, the sound of both rifle fire and practice bombs had stopped. Apparently, Eglov and company had realized they were not under any serious attack.

A glimmer of light on metal told Jason they had arrived at the place they had left the Volvo.

Adrian opened the driver’s door and swiftly disabled the interior light. “Briskly, now.”

The whine of a nearby rifle shot suggested they had not been quick enough.

“Somebody saw the courtesy light,” Jason surmised, piling into the backseat just as the rear windshield became a spiderweb of cracked glass.

“Never mind,” Adrian said, pulling his wife in beside him. “We’ll be outta here…”

The sentence died with the empty clicking of the car’s solenoid and the thump of two more rounds hitting sheet metal.

“Jesus wept!” Adrian was back out of the car, handing the Sten to Jason through an open window. “Spiteful ol’ bitch! She picks a hell of a time to demand attention!”

Jason was considerably more interested in getting the Volvo going than attributing malevolent intent to it. He was using the butt of the machine gun to clear the remaining glass from the back window so he could see to shoot if necessary. “If you can’t get her started, now’s the time to run for it. They don’t see us yet, but that interior light gave somebody the general location.”

As if to verify the observation, a bullet kicked up pebbles as Adrian slammed the hood down. “Give ’er a try, Mother!”

Clare leaned across the seat and tried the key. The feminine touch was no more successful.

Jason opened his door. “Hey, you saved over a hundred euros, remember?”

“An’ where’s Antonio when you need him?” grunted Adrian.

“Not exactly the time to play mechanic, Adrian. We need to make a run for it.”

“I dinna think so. In th’ dark you’d na’ be able to follow me. You’d be lost in five minutes, left to the tender mercies of our friends back there once the sun came up.”

“So, what the hell do you suggest?”

Adrian leaned against the post of the open driver’s door. “I suggest you bloody push on t’ other side. There’s a steep swale a few yards away an’ we might be able to jump ’er off.”

There was no time for argument. Jason put his shoulder against the car door, his feet scrabbling in the loose, rocky soil. The car didn’t budge, and he saw one, two muzzle flashes as their opponents drew closer. Fortunately, the shots were still wild.

They wouldn’t be much longer.

“Give ’er a shove, now.” Adrian gasped. “On th’ count o’ three. One, two…”

The Volvo seemed to move forward a few inches before rolling back, but at least a ton or so of inertia had been overcome.

Jason ducked as a bullet sang by, too close for his liking. Ignoring a second, he heaved again.

This time the car began moving ahead, tires grinding at glacial speed against loose dirt and rocks.

“Should we get out?” Clare wanted to know.

“Nah. We get this thin’ goin’, there’ll be na’ time to stop for you,” Adrian puffed.

If we get it going.

The Volvo was picking up speed, reaching the pace of a steady walk. A bullet buzzed past Jason’s ear like an angry bee.

“Any chance that lot has access to night-vision equipment?” Adrian panted.

Jason was thinking the same thing. “Who knows?”

The automobile was now moving at the velocity of an octogenarian’s brisk walk as four more shots sprayed Jason with biting, stinging dirt. “But I’d say it’s a definite possibility. We’re not in accurate range of the AK-47s they carry.”

“When will we be?” Maria’s voice asked from the floor of the backseat.

“No time soon, I hope, lassie. Jason, jump in.”

This was going to be it. Either the balky Volvo cranked when Adrian popped the clutch or they had lost valuable time trying to escape. At least they had the chance, Jason thought. Had the Volvo an automatic transmission, there would have been no possibility of using the car’s own motion to replace the starter motor.

The Volvo shuddered and jerked, its tires skidding on the dirt, then stopped.

Nothing.

“Not fast enough yet. We’ll give ’er a go again,” Adrian said with unwarranted optimism. “Jason, kin ye fend those lads off a bit?”

The Sten wasn’t known for its accuracy at any sort of range, and Jason would have cheerfully exchanged the silencer for a flash suppressor. A shot would be hard to trace by sound in these hills, but the fire from the muzzle would pinpoint their location.

Jason rested the machine gun on the roof of the automobile and flicked the selector to single fire. “Soon’s there’s a chance of hittin’ anything. How ’bout you get this buggy going?”

His answer was another shuddering jerk as Adrian popped the clutch again. This time the effort was rewarded with the sound of the engine. The Volvo fishtailed with the sudden application of power, steadied, then lurched forward. Jason fired two or three rounds behind them before jumping into the rear seat. Unlikely he would hit anyone, but it served notice to their pursuers to keep their distance.

“There’s a paved road coupla kilometers on,” Adrian announced. “We get there—”

The Volvo hit a bank, lifting the right wheels.

“If you dinna turn on the headlights, we’ll na’ make it to the paved road,” Clare observed. “Easy to run right inta the edge o’ the’ combe w’out seein’ it.”

“She’s right,” Jason observed. “We’re at the edge of their range, anyway. More chance of us crashing into something or running over a cliff than getting hit.”

The road in front of them was suddenly visible in the car’s lights. Jason marveled that they had not smashed the radiator against one of the boulders lining the rocky trail like irregularly spaced sentries. Or hit the unforgiving rock that, in several spots, towered above the path. This would have been difficult four-wheel-drive territory. That the Volvo had not left its oil pan or transmission housing along the way had to be the sheerest of luck.

“ ’Ere we be.” Adrian was turning onto what at first looked like a continuation of the uneven path they had followed. Closer observation revealed dirt-colored pavement, cement or asphalt, Jason couldn’t be sure. Whatever the material, it served to join a series of tooth-loosening potholes.

At least here there was small chance of unexpectedly hitting a stone larger than the car. As it was, the road was carved from the hills that formed the spine of the island, a serpentine, narrow two-lane that looked barely wide enough for two medium-size vehicles to pass.

Over Adrian’s shoulder, Jason could see the speedometer wavering around eighty-five kilometers, less than fifty miles an hour. Even so, he nearly hit the headliner with each bounce.

He tightened his seat belt to the limit, noticing Maria doing the same.

Through teeth clenched for fear of biting his tongue, Jason asked, “Where’re we going?”

“Cagliari,” Adrian answered, not taking his eyes off the road.

“Where?”

“Cagliari,” Maria said. “Provençal capital. Italian naval

base.”

“Only town of any real size on the island,” Adrian added. “Figgered you could head to wherever you were goin’ and I could drop Mother off, send her home to visit with the wee grandchildren back in Scotland until all this blows over.”

“You need to figger again,” Clare said. “I’ll not be shipped off like some mail-order parcel, not after th’ years I spent waitin’ for you while you were in the service, waitin’ to see if you came home upright or in a box.”

“But y’ kenna come along,” Adrian argued. “There’s people back there mean us all harm.”

“I’m no more in danger than th’ lass,” she said, referring to Maria.

Swell.

Barely escaped from Eglov’s killers and Jason was listening to a domestic argument that sounded like which child would get to use the sole ticket to the county fair.

He was about to speak up, thank Adrian for his implicit offer to help, and decline, when the interior of the Volvo was filled with light from behind.

“Jesus wept!” Adrian grunted. “You’d think this was the bleedin’ M4. Somebody’s drivin’ way too fast.”

It didn’t take a clairvoyant to guess who.

Jason guessed Eglov and his men had reconnoitered the area well enough to know the paved road was the likely, if not only, escape route. They had also obtained a car with a lot more power than the aging Volvo. It was gaining quickly, already well within range of the AK-47s.

“Anywhere we could turn off, maybe lose them?” Jason asked.

“Na’ but winding road for the next ten kilometers,” came the reply.

A burst of gunfire, this time close enough to hear, came from the right front of the pursuing car and went wide right.

Jason involuntarily ducked.

The swaying, bucking motion of fast travel made any sort of accurate shooting unlikely. Whether the silver-bullet-firing six-guns from Silver’s back by the Lone Ranger or a Walther PPK from a speeding Aston Martin driven by James Bond, a hit was the result of far more luck than skill. The sudden shifts in wind, direction, and elevation all made a moving gunfight more spectacular than deadly.

Nonetheless, Jason felt compelled to fire a few shots in return, with equal lack of result.

“They’ll be right up beside us in minutes,” Jason observed. “Got any ideas?”

Adrian nodded. “Aye. In a moment we’ll reach a wee straight. Remember the bootleg?”

Jason did.

He sat back down in the seat to cinch his seat belt tighter. “Ladies, I’d make sure your seat harness is supersecure.”

“Jesus!”

The sudden expletive made Jason forget his seat belt.

The edge of the headlights was reflecting from a truck pulled across both lanes of the narrow road.

The Eco men must have had a backup crew farther down the road, one that could commandeer the truck now effectively hemming the Volvo in. They also could not have picked a better spot: to the right was sheer wall, to the left the abyss.

Adrian slowed as though to surrender. Jason knew what was coming and hoped Clare and Maria had followed his suggestions to make themselves secure.

“We have enough room?” Jason asked, instantly wishing he had kept his concern to himself.

“Na’ matter,” Adrian said, keeping an eye on the rearview mirror as the car behind closed the gap. “Goin’ over th’ edge’s better ’n what those sods have in mind for us.”

At a point no more than fifty feet from the truck, Adrian hit the gas, momentarily gaining on the surprised driver of the pursuing car. Just as the gap started to close again, Adrian stood violently on the brake, at the same time snatching the wheel toward the emptiness of the road’s outer edge.

The snap of the steering mechanism broke any adhesion between rubber tire and paved road. At the same time, centrifugal force threw the automobile’s rear end outward, causing a spin.

“Chicago! Al Capone!” Adrian chortled. “Elliot Ness!”

The maneuver had its origins in Prohibition bootleggers’ moonshine-filled cars dodging pursuing revenue agents, one of a number of driving tactics taught in commando training worldwide, perhaps the only one with truly American roots. Although Jason suspected the trick was more at home on the winding dirt roads of Appalachia than the streets of Al Capone’s Chicago, he had to admit Adrian executed it perfectly.

At the exact moment the car was facing the opposite direction, Adrian hit the accelerator, regaining traction, and the Volvo leaped like a springing cat in the direction from which it just come. Jason had only an instant to see astonished faces as they whizzed past the chasing vehicle.

Unable to stop or turn so unexpectedly, the car that had been behind — it looked like an older Mercedes as it flashed past — skidded into a sideways drift. For an instant the two left wheels pawed empty air, and Jason thought it might roll over.

But there was no time for a roll. Instead, Mercedes met truck with a crash of splintering glass and tearing sheet metal.

“Hold it; stop!” Jason yelled.

Before the Volvo was entirely still, Jason bolted from the rear, dashing toward the mass of metal that was hissing and steaming like the death throes of some mythical dragon.

Jason sprayed the carnage with nine-millimeter bullets until the Sten’s firing pin clicked on an empty chamber and the barrel burned his hand through the canvas cover.

Slamming another clip into the weapon, he took two steps forward before he was restrained by Adrian’s hand on his shoulder.

“No time to put a bullet in each of ’em, laddie. We canna ken if there’s more about. Best we make our way while we can.”

Jason reluctantly agreed with the wisdom of the observation, if not the sentiment. He would prefer not to chance facing any survivors later, survivors who would be less than appreciative of his bounty in letting them live.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

After the highway was effectively blocked by the collision, Adrian had been forced to reverse course, taking an all-night alternate route to put a protesting Clare on a flight to Edinburgh via Rome and London. Like it or not, she would visit with her grandchildren for a few weeks.

Jason was as happy to have the Scot join him as Adrian was to see action once again. The pastoral life, though simpler and potentially longer, lacked excitement, the addictive narcotic from which Adrian had not entirely withdrawn since his retirement from SAS. Neither man knew what to do with Maria, a question largely mooted by her stubborn refusal to join Clare out of harm’s way, and the fact that she would provide the introduction to Dr. Calligini as well as translate the questions Jason had.

The one thing the remaining three had agreed upon was that a couple drew far less attention than two men and a woman. Adrian had set out for Turin while Jason and Maria would follow in a day or so.

Jason and Maria spent a day on the Costa Smeralda, on Sardinia’s northeastern coast. It was, Maria informed him, the ritziest part of the island. The scalloped coastline consisted of hundreds of small stretches of narrow beaches, each containing one or more resort hotels. Many were so close together that “ocean view” consisted of craning one’s neck left or right even to glimpse the water between buildings. The beach, the water, and the decor of the Holiday Inn — knockoff hotel were interchangeable with south Florida, if slightly less tacky. The major difference was that even the Sunshine State’s major hotels would have blanched at prices rivaling the French Riviera.

In a bikini from one of the hotel’s several overpriced shops, Maria drew less than covert glances from male vacationers whose chubby wives and loud children were also reminiscent of Florida. Jason watched her tan on the beach while he stretched out on a lounge, where he could watch the single path from the hotel.

He was the only sunbather wearing a shirt. He was also probably the only one with a pistol tucked into the waist of his swimming trunks.

In the late afternoon, Maria produced another of her Hermès scarfs, this one in brown and gold depicting horses’ heads, riding whips, bridles, and other stable gear Jason didn’t recognize. He had no idea how it had survived the last few days, and even less where it had been.

Tying two corners around her neck, she turned for him to knot the remaining ends behind her back. “See, a backless blouse.”

Just as he had done for Laurin a hundred times.

“How very clever,” he said.

She turned before he had finished, startling him. “You don’t sound surprised. Maybe you tied some other woman’s scarf for her.”

“Maybe.”

She started to say something, thought better of it, and nestled against him like a puppy seeking warmth from its mother. “I’m getting chilly. Let’s go in.”

He would have preferred the touch of her body against his to any comfort inside. Strands of her hair tickled his nose pleasantly. Instead of the smell of salt water, her skin had a musky, pleasant odor that was not the residue of her tanning lotion.

He started to put an arm around her shoulder and stopped in midair. He wasn’t here for romance and neither was she. Maria, after all, had voiced the request that had made the eyebrows of the hotel’s otherwise circumspect desk clerk give a slight quiver of surprise: Mrs. William Rugger of Tampa, Florida, insisted on una camera con due letti, a double room, an accommodation usually requested by European families traveling on a budget.

Jason had pointed out that any variation on the norm was potentially dangerous. Maria had countered that the danger of sharing a bed was more than potential.

Jason was well aware of the futility of arguing with a woman: an apparent victory simply meant the fight wasn’t over.

Besides, they would be staying only a single night, two at the most.

Jason struggled up from the lounge with a mixture of disappointment that a possible romantic moment had slipped away and relief at its escape. He led the way to the pink stucco building and down a hallway with wallpaper exhibiting blue and pink seashells. Uncharacteristically, Maria chatted aimlessly: the quality of the beach, the warmth of the water.

He stopped when he reached the door of their room. Squatting, he surveyed the doorknob.

“Looking for fingerprints?”

He shook his head as he stood. “Nope. When we left I used spit to stick a hair between the frame and door. It’s still there.”

It took her a moment before she nodded her head. “If anyone had gotten into our room…”

“We’d know about it,” he finished, pushing the door open.

She stood in the hall. “You think…?”

“I think it pays to be careful.”

She stepped across the threshold behind him, shoving the door shut. “Playing spies is fun for just so long. Yesterday when those people started shooting at us, I thought…”

Her lips quivered and a single tear tracked down her cheek, the trickle before the dam broke. She covered her face with her hands, and her shoulders heaved. Between sobs, she blurted, “I hate acting like… like such a weak person.” She hiccupped. “But I cannot take it, the killing, the brutality of…”

Impulsively, Jason wrapped his arms around her. He tried to think of something comforting to say but couldn’t come up with anything, only a very hollow, “It’ll be okay, really. Everything will be fine….”

She pushed off against his chest, regarding him with red-rimmed eyes. “It will not be okay! You and those, those… people!” She spit the word as though it were a curse. “You and they will keep it up until you are all dead, and God help anyone who gets between you! And for what? Some macho, male bullshit!”

He was tempted to point out that opposing the use of deadly force to impose environmental views was hardly a personal vendetta. He doubted the observation would do much good.

Her eyes were locked onto his. “Violence only makes for more violence. Do you not understand? Killing one another is not the way to resolve differences!”

Tell that to Laurin, he thought. But he said, “Think, Maria. Both the, er, incidents began by them attacking us.”

She used a forearm to wipe her eyes, smearing mascara and leaving dark areas under her eyes like a raccoon. “Jason, one side has to stop, to try to reason with the other. Can you not understand?”

He understood perfectly. One didn’t reason with rabid dogs, a life-form he held in a great deal more esteem than fanatics. A dog didn’t choose to go mad.

She sniffed and gave voice to the perennial pacifist platitude: “War is not the answer.”

Depends on the question.

“Oh, Jason,” she said with an imploring look, “I am frightened. I’ve never been shot at before, never had people want to kill me. It is not a good feeling.”

No shit.

It might have been her look of desolation, of utter helplessness, or it might been something more biological; Jason never knew nor cared. He took her back into his arms, squeezing her close. His lips brushed hers. For an instant she drew back and then pressed her mouth against his.

In seconds clothes were flying and the two were writhing on a bed amid moans, grunts, and sounds defying description.

Later, Jason lay on his back, watching the room’s Venetian blinds paint zebra stripes on Maria’s bare back as she snuggled into the hollow of his armpit. This was not the first time since Laurin’s death he had found sexual release, but it was the first time he had felt no guilt, no sense of betrayal.

Suddenly, he realized he had no independent recollection of his wife’s face. He could recall thousands of shared incidents, but every time she appeared in his memory, he saw a face from one of many photographs. Maybe he was finally letting go; maybe Laurin was finding peace.

Maybe…

A sharp rap on the door sprang him out of bed, his hand reaching for the SIG Sauer in its holster.

Weapon in hand and back against the wall next to the door, he nodded to Maria. “Ask who it is.”

Maria rattled off a question in Italian. A woman’s voice, muffled by the door, replied.

“The maid. She wants to know if we want the beds turned down.”

Jason let out a deep breath he had not known he had taken. “Later.”

As he returned to the rumpled bed, Maria began to weep again, silent tears leaving shiny trails on each cheek.

Jason sat beside her, reaching out.

She pushed him away. “No.”

“But…?”

“Jason, I care for you — care for you a lot more than I ever wanted to.”

“And I you,” he admitted. “That’s a reason to cry?”

She nodded wearily. “No matter how I feel about you, Jason, we are finished after I’ve helped you with Dr. Calligini as I said I would.”

“But—”

She put a finger across his lips. “It will not be easy getting over you, Jason. I do not… what did we used to say in America? I do not fall for guys that often. I might even learn to accept what you do, even if it makes me sick. Even sicker because you enjoy it. Some Old Testament sense of vengeance, I suppose. I gave up on one man because he was a cheat, a liar. I might learn to accept what you do, but I cannot bear to be there for you when you do not outdraw the other fellow at the OK Corral, the time when you do not see it coming.”

“Maria—”

She silenced him with a kiss as her hands reached for his groin.

The next day they rented a car and drove to Palau, a small port town a few kilometers north. Seated in front of a trattoria across the tree-lined street from the crescent-shaped harbor, they lunched on stewed baby octopus washed down by an astringent white wine that originated in the nearby hills. They watched ships come and go.

A table away, four young men in navy whites made no effort to disguise their admiration of the pretty woman seated with the American. Several made remarks, the tone of which Jason understood, if not the words. Just as Jason was wondering whether chivalry required him to flatten each of them, Maria turned. Radiating charm, she spoke in machine-gun Italian. The sailors’ faces went from surprise to embarrassment. They quickly finished their beers and left.

“What the hell did you say?” Jason wanted to know.

Maria tossed her head, treating him to that Wife of Bath smile. “I told them their mothers would be ashamed of them for saying things about a woman closer to her age than theirs. Italian men always worry what Mama might think. Even long after she is dead.”

“Even if they don’t live with her anymore?”

As an Italian, Maria was fully aware that many Italian men never left, simply bringing a wife to their childhood home.

“They are from that ship.” She pointed toward the harbor where a white, military-looking ship rode at anchor. “The new Italian navy.”

Jason nodded. “No doubt equipped with a glass bottom so they can see the old Italian navy.”

He ducked the half loaf of bread she threw at him.

After lunch, they took the ferry across the Golfo dell’ Asinara to empty, wooded hills. A single road led to the crest that held the tomb of the unifier of Italy, Giuseppe Garibaldi. People stood in line at souvenir and refreshment stands to enter the small building. Instead, Maria led Jason up a slight rise and into a rare copse of dense foliage.

“Wha…?”

He never finished the question; her lips were pressed too tightly against his. Oblivious to the crowd screened by folage only fifty feet or so away, they made love even more passionately than the night before.

Afterward, as they returned to the parking lot, Jason was certain some of the people were staring at them. If so, Maria didn’t notice.

They made the ferry from Cagliari to Naples with only minutes to spare. During the drive, she pointedly changed the subject whenever he mentioned any future beyond the next few days.