by Gregg Loomis
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.”
Hie 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 resume.
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 w
alked 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, oP 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?” lason 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
Office of Aero Tyrrhenian
Aeroporto Calabria
At the same time
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 expensi
ve 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
Silanus, Sardinia
1840 Hours (6:40 P.M.)
The same day
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.”