by Gregg Loomis
“Someone has to start somewhere,” Tony Blackman, White House press secretary, said. “If all sides can agree on the future of our planet, what does it matter who made the first move?”
Chapter Forty-four
Hillwood
4155 Linnean Avenue, Washington, D.C.
Shirlee Atkins was no more than a cleaning lady. Oh, she had a free uniform furnished by the foundation that supported this big ol’ house, an’ she had the benefit of a union contract, an’ she was called a “custodian,” whatever that was, but other than that, this job wasn’t no different from the ones she’d had in homes of senators and representatives and them lobby people, houses some bigger than this one over to Georgetown an’ Kalorama an’ even Arlington. ‘Cept Arlington wasn’t really in Washington, was it? She wasn’t sure.
Anyway, this job paid enough for a small apartment away from the projects where the kids could go to school without dodgin’ between crack addicts, dope pushers, and hos, where the sirens didn’t wail all night. Place like hers, the kids had a chance to grow up an’ be somethin’ more ‘n a housecleaner.
But she’d never worked in a house furnished quite like this one. Ever’ day she come to work, walk right up to the columned brick front an’ into that room at the front door.
Foyer, yep, that was it, the foyer. Big, two-story entrance, whatever it be called. She never seen no chandelier like that before. Mr. Jimson, he say it be Louie somebody, some French king. Rock crystal, he tell her. An’ those people lookin’ down from their golden frames, most of ‘em draped with more fur than your average black bear. Course, they be Russians, and Shirlee understood it got pretty cold in Russia. Still, it suit Shirlee jus’ fine that most of them Russian pictures were out in the little house in the yard, the dacha, Mr. Jimson called it, a place Ms. Post built for her Russian art. Weren’t no nesting dolls there, though. Jus’ paintings and jeweled things.
Cabinets on either side of the foyer full of porcelain, too. Why anybody want to eat off somethin’ painted with flowers ‘n’ stuff, she didn’t know. Couldn’t hardly tell if it be clean even when you wash it.
Mr. Jimson laughed when she said that. But then, he laughed at a lot of what she said. Not that shitty you-dumb-nigga laugh some folks had when she said somethin’, but a warm chuckle, like she ‘n’ Mr. Jimson enjoyin’ the same joke. He an’ Shirlee, they had a lot of laughs together. Like the time he said Ms. Post done bought his place when she run out of husbands an’ chose it over successive… monog, monag… mahogany. Shirlee hadn’t unnerstood ‘xactly what he meant, but she laughed anyways. It made Mr. Jimson happy for her to laugh. He understood when one of her kids needed to go to the doctor or had a problem at school, too. Ain’t easy raisin’ three kids with no daddy. Mr. Jimson understood that, too.
She sighed deeply and wiped away a single tear rolling down one fat cheek.
Mr. Jimson.
Done got hisse’f keeled by a car, steppin’ off the curb two days ago. Driver never found. D.C. cops be lucky they could find the fly on their pants when they needed to piss.
This new man, the one called hisse’f some Russian-soundin’ name, look like somethin’ outta one o’ her kids comics: big guy, head shaved, and from some country other than this one. He hardly spoke to nobody, all nervous and such. Yesterday, he ‘bout jump outta his skin when Shirlee come up ‘hind him to ax if she could leave a few minutes early. Him standin’ there, lookin’ outta the dinin’ room window into the rose garden.
Shirlee guessed he was thinkin’ ‘bout that meetin’ gonna take place in that room. Must be some kinda meetin’, needin’ thirty chairs around the marble inlaid table.
She needed to vacuum that rug, polish the table again ‘fore any meetin’ started. She wasn’t too sure ‘xactly what sort of meetin’ gonna take place, but she heard tell the president hisse’f gonna be there. She wasn’t ‘bout to have no president come in ‘n’ think Shirlee Atkins was no sloppy housekeeper, no, sirree, Bob.
Thing was, those men diggin’ in the rose garden right outside the French doors. They prolly Russian, too, judging by the way they talk English jus’ like the new man. Make sense, the house full of Russian art an’ all. She’d have to keep watch on ‘em, see they didn’ track no dirt into her house. Funny thing was that most of the diggin’ in the rose garden should be in winter, when the plants were dormant. She’d heard tell that some of the mens come to this meetin’ wanted some plants of their own. Why? Them roses pretty ‘nough for anybody.
Chapter Forty-five
Baia
Maria tugged at Jason’s shirt. “This way.”
He could barely hear her over the increasing clatter of falling stones. “You sure?”
“You are the one who said we had a fifty-fifty chance. I’d prefer to take mine in the direction from which the air is moving.”
For the first time Jason noticed the swirls and eddies in the mistlike cloud of grit. They definitely had a consistent flow, a river of air that could come only from an opening to the outside.
But which opening? There could be unclimbable vertical shafts.
In which case he would be no worse off than he was.
Those odds he could live with.
With Maria leading the way and Jason holding Adrian’s hand, the three made their way along the tunnel, pausing only as larger and more numerous rocks fell around them. No one spoke. The rumble of a shattering rock formation would have had made conversation difficult, and to open one’s lips was to invite a mouthful of grainy dust. Jason even managed not to swear when he barked his shin on a jagged boulder.
The echoes below the earth had made it impossible to tell with certainty the direction of the gunfire. Wherever it had come from, it had ceased. Jason supposed the combatants had exhausted their supply of ammo or people to shoot.
Or were trying to get out before the shaft collapsed.
He listened for the sound of feet on the rock floor behind them, but he doubted he could have heard a team of galloping horses over the sounds of the tunnel falling in.
The billowing dust seemed to grow lighter, and lighter until its shine actually hurt. He was squinting, eyes as close to shut as possible, when the air he took in was suddenly free of rock particles and he felt a gentle, warm breeze on his face. Instead of a dark tunnel, he was looking at a bay, the gold dust of sunlight sparkling across its blue surface.
Using a shirtsleeve to wipe away what felt like layers of grime several inches thick on his face, he gulped in the clean, salty air. Maria slid down the rock face as though her spine and legs had turned to wet noodles. Adrian was alternately tilting his water bottle to his lips and washing out his mouth.
“Hey,” Jason said, “c’mon. We can’t stay here. No matter who comes out of that entrance, they aren’t going to be friendly.”
Maria struggled to her feet. “I understand the first group, the ones with gas masks, were the same people who tried to kill us in Sicily and Sardinia, some sort of ecoterrorists. But the second?”
Adrian pointed to a pair of plain but shiny black Lancias. “I’d fancy them to be police of some sort.”
“Makes sense,” Jason agreed. “Somehow they guessed we’d be here. Good thing they came when they did.”
“Good for us,” Maria said, watching dust belch out of the mouth of the cave. “Perhaps not so good for them.”
As though her words were prophetic, the hillside trembled for an instant, then was obscured in a tornado of dust and rocks. None of the three said a word for perhaps five full minutes.
“Those policemen,” Maria finally said. “They are trapped inside.”
“So are Eglov and his thugs,” Jason added.
“Ye really think so?” Adrian asked.
“Who else would have been down there other than someone who was planning to use the gases emitted by the pumice? They were all equipped to deal with it.”
“But of what use to them would be nonlethal ethylene gas?” Maria wanted to know. “It is effective onl
y in enclosures.”
“I don’t know,” Jason admitted. “A hallucinogenic, nonfatal gas, usable only in enclosed space. But at least we now know what the “Breath of the Earth’ business was about. I’ll send the info to Washington and let them sort it out.”
“Do that on the way,” Adrian suggested. “We’ve na’ business hovering aboot here like drunken sods after last call. You can be sure the local constabulary’ll be on its way when those poor devils in the cave don’t return. Let’s get what little kit we left at that wee hotel las’ night an’ be gone.”
Jason turned to walk down the slope, sidestepping pebbles and rocks still tumbling downhill. “Better yet, let’s not go back to the pensione. If the cops knew we were here, they’re gonna look around. They’ll find that an American and a woman fitting Maria’s description checked in and never checked out. They’ll assume we’re in that cave, too.”
“Fine for you, laddie,” Adrian observed, fishing a plastic bag out of his back pocket. “But sooner or later the lass has to go back to her work, an’ I’d like to go home m’self.”
“Easy enough for me,” Maria suggested. “I was duped by the handsome American spy who made me think he, too, was a volcanologist. By the time I found out otherwise, I was his captive.”
Adrian had removed his pipe from the bag and blew through it with a wet whistling sound. “An’ was madly in love, too blind to see the possible pitfalls.”
Jason looked at him skeptically.
“I’m na’ ‘round th’ bend, lad. ‘Tis the stuff of Italian fiction. They love it.”
“It might work at that,” Maria agreed.
“So, you just go back to work like nothing happened?” Jason asked.
The question did not come from idle curiosity. He remembered her vow to return to her job as soon as any volcanic exploration was over. He had managed to avoid thinking about it. Since Laurin’s death, women had entered his life for an evening, occasionally a weekend, and exited just as casually. In most cases he had watched their departure with a relief he suspected they shared. They had made his life less empty by supplying a diversion or even an imitation of love, a masquerade that shriveled and died in the morning’s light
Not Maria.
He admitted he did not want her to leave. For the first time since his wife’s death, he could actually imagine a more permanent relationship. There was something about that gap-toothed smile, the tenderness they shared after sex, even the ludicrously expensive Hermes scarfs. Mostly, there was that unexplainable something, that feeling that defining it would reduce it to the banal.
But had she changed her mind since that night on the Costa Smeralda?
” ‘Twould be best if she put a day or so between here an’ returnin’ to her normal life,” Adrian observed. “Wee bit too coincidental, she manages to escape at joos’ the time her captor is buried under a hundred tons or so of rock. I propose we leave the Volvo here, go back to Silanus for a day or so. Nothing happens there without people knowing aboot it. I’ll have m’ neighbors sniff out what they can before you return to whatever volcano you’re workin’ on, lass. Give me time to see how much muck I’ve gotten m’self into, too.”
Jason tried not to show his anxiety as Maria considered what Adrian had said.
He also tried not to show his relief when she replied, “You make sense. A few days, then. But how do we get back to Sardinia without being seen?”
Jason leaped in. “They won’t be looking for us if they think we’re under all that rock, particularly if we go separately.”
“Separately?” She looked apprehensive. “But what if some of those
… people are still looking for us?”
“Eglov’s people?” Jason asked. “I’d guess they’re permanently entombed in Hades. Talk about just deserts! If not, another reason to lie low at Adrian’s place for a few days. He can use his neighbors there to let us know if someone’s looking for us.” He reached into a pocket and produced the BlackBerry-like device. “Right now I gotta phone home.”
Adrian put out a hand, tugging Jason’s sleeve. “Not now, laddie. Give us long enough to get as far from here as possible before someone comes to check on the coppers we left in there.”
Jason was staring at his communication. “Something must have hit it. It’s not working.”
“Anything that canna wait?”
Jason shook his head. “Can’t think of anything.”
Chapter Forty-six
I-95, between Richmond and Washington
At the same time
Rassavitch’s eyes felt as though they were full of sand, and his back was telegraphing pain all the way down his leg, but he was thankful for the safe trip.
He forced his eyelids open a little wider to read the address the man had given him at the convenience store a few miles back, the last place on his primary instructions: I-95 to the Beltway, to Rock Creek Parkway to…
He rubbed the back of a hand across his face and bit his lip in hopes the pain would keep him awake.
He would complete this mission.
PART VII
Chapter Forty-seven
Naples, Cagliari Ferry
Later the same day
The ferry provided overnight accommodations, but, unlike a hotel, no passport was required; nor was there a metal detector to screech at the weapon Jason was carrying. Jason stood at the boxy stern, watching the sun sink into the Tyrrhenian Sea. Maria would be following tomorrow morning with Adrian on the afternoon ferry. After a day or so Jason would be leaving, even though he was unsure as to where. Washington, certainly, for a debriefing. He supposed he had rid the world of Eglov, entombing him with a number of his radical environmentalists.
But what else? He had discovered a very strange plant and a rock that gave off a nonlethal anesthetic, the hallucinogenic gas ethylene. Hardly a threat like a nuclear or biological weapon.
In fact, some might even enjoy the high.
More questions remained than were answered. Why would Eglov and his fellow eco-nuts commit the time and effort to exploit something of such limited use, Breath of the Earth notwithstanding? As a practical, rather than ideological matter, it made no sense.
He shrugged, a man with no explanation. His job was over. Time to find a place to get on with his life, as the talk-show shrinks said, as though living were some kind of task to be fulfilled.
Returning to the Turks and Caicos was out. Even if he were able to satisfy the colonial government as to his innocence in the house fire, that hiding place had been exposed. Pity. In the short time he had lived on North Caicos, he had grown to love the remoteness, the fact that the feel, the very essence of the island had not been sacrificed to the tourist dollar.
Yet.
He would probably choose another island, the smaller the better. A place with only occasional air service, or, better yet, none at all, small enough that the arrival of a stranger was noticed. One place he could not live was the United States, not with the sizable bank balances he had accumulated since going to work for Narcom, accounts in capital-friendly countries that saw the wisdom of holding foreigners’ money, not confiscating it with punitive taxes. The very existence of the income produced by such accounts as could be found would attract the attention of the IRS, which would ask questions best left unanswered.
Besides, Jason had no desire to participate in the evergrowing and thinly disguised intent of American politicians to redistribute the wealth.
His wealth.
He turned and walked to the stairs leading up to the passenger lounge. Even though the sea breeze was blowing its salty air in his face, he imagined he could smell baking crusts from the cramped pizzeria that was the boat’s sole dining facility. He climbed the steel steps and went inside.
Jason could not decide between the artichoke-mushroom and the multiple cheese selections. He ordered a square of each and made his way to one of the ten or so small tables, only half of which were occupied. He had taken only a bite out of the
cheese pizza when he noticed a copy of the London Times crumpled on the adjacent table. Glancing around the room to be certain the paper was abandoned, he opened it up.
He scanned the day-old headlines. The lead story concerned a conference on the environment, a meeting in Washington whose main purpose, Jason guessed, was politics rather than statesmanship. The only agreement on allocation of the world’s resources would come when they either no longer existed or could be produced artificially. Those who profited by exploiting the earth were not likely to voluntarily relinquish them.
He took a bite of artichoke and mushroom.
He was about to turn the front page when he happened to notice a reprint from the Washington Post. The word Hillwood sprang out at him. He had escorted Laurin to some sort of function there, one of the several charity balls to which she had dragged him annually.
He hated the things.
Disease balls. Benefit for multiple sclerosis, funding for breast cancer research, cure for whatever. Mostly social aspirants, those unable to attain membership in the better clubs-women more on the outside than the inside of Washington society, could put on a five-thousand-dollar gown and chance meeting the current social glitterati in the name of charity. God forbid they be subjected to disgusting and dreary work at a homeless shelter or soup kitchen, where they would never be photographed for the society section of the paper.
Or at even in the small magazines that sold subscriptions to the very people they covered.
Jason had pointed out that a two-hundred-dollar ticket to such galas meant the charity in question would be lucky to get fifty. Why not, he reasoned, simply give the institution half the cost of the unbought gown and go out to a good restaurant while others were busy climbing the social ladder?