by Gregg Loomis
After all, as a partner in one of the city’s premier law firms, Laurin had multiple club memberships paid for by her partners. There was no need to spend an evening of bad food and worse company among social wannabes.
Laurin would have none of it.
She spent at least one weekend a month doing the true grunt work of charity-helping in a hospice, giving free legal advice at a halfway house-efforts that would never be rewarded by public recognition. So why not do the glitzy part, too?
He didn’t remember the specific event or the malaise it celebrated.
Prevention of terminal flatulence, maybe?
He did recall the former home of the Post heiress. Far from the street, out of the way. Small for the wealth it represented but on a large estate, one that would be difficult to totally close off from the rest of the world.
He supposed the conference would be held in the dining room, where he had experienced a lavish buffet of overcooked roast beef, rubber chicken, listless salad, et cetera, by the yard. The usual poor quality of the food had been overshadowed by the appearance of a man whose name Jason had forgotten within minutes of hearing it, a doctor who attached himself to Jason like a human leech. He was typical of the tedious types that peopled such functions, unable to discuss anything but his golf score and his brilliance in the stock market.
Jason had introduced him to Laurin and disappeared, leaving the man trying to be discreet in looking down the decollete of her ball gown while she frantically searched for a way to disengage herself.
It seemed ample revenge for her dragging Jason there.
He had escaped through the French doors that led into a garden, where rosebushes were just beginning to bloom.
Jason had guessed those doors could be left open, letting diners enjoy the fragrance of the flowers.
Or some other fragrance.
Like in a trawler in the Bering Sea.
Or at Baia.
The thought that had prowled the back of his mind now leaped from the tangle of his subconscious, a concept so powerful it would have struck him dumb had he had anyone to talk to.
He checked his watch. Hours before the ferry docked.
A ship-to-shore telephone on board?
He would certainly arouse suspicion by demanding to use it.
But he couldn’t simply sit here and allow events to spin on their present course by his inaction. He had to do something, get the word to Mama no matter what.
But how?
Chapter Forty-eight
Hillwood
4155 Linnean Avenue
Washington, D.C.
1530 EDT
Shirlee Atkins had been right.
Them mens hadn’t given a shit whether they tracked dirt into the house or not. Chattering in some language she had never heard before, they went about their work in the rose garden and they would walk right cross the Chinese Oriental rug to go to the bathroom without so much as wiping their dirty boots. Mr. Jimson, he wouldn’ta let ‘em do that, but this new fella, the one whose head look like an Easter egg, he didn’t much seem to care.
Prolly wouldn’ta much cared ‘bout what Shirlee done found in one of the silver drawers in the sideboard, either. The drawer stuck and she’d had to give it a real tug. Thing fell out on the floor, spillin’ knives ‘n’ forks everwhere. But underneath them knives ‘n’ forks was some kinda false bottom, a place Shirlee reckoned Ms. Post used to hide real valuables. Like the curve-bladed knife with a golden handle. She ‘spected there be no reason tell the new man she near done broke that drawer, jes’ put it back like it was.
Ever since that man what call himself Rassavitch showed up this mornin’ in that big ol’ beat-up truck, the mens with the shovels, they workin’ harder’n Shirlee had seen all week. They was sho’ gonna finish this afternoon, git the place ready fo’ that big meetin’ tomorrow.
Stuff on that truck strange.
Some kinda spindly little plant. Downright ugly, and hadn’t no flowers on it. Then they unloaded a bunch o’ rocks. Big, round white-colored stone, look like they coulda weighed tons. But they didn’t. One o’ them scrawny little guys could pick one o’ them rocks right up an’ carry it to where they were planting those scraggly little bushes between them rocks in a line right outside the floor-to-ceiling doors of the dinin’ room.
Not near as pretty as rosebushes.
But then, what did Shirlee know?
She wasn’t nothin’ but a cleanin’ lady.
Chapter Forty-nine
Naples-Cagliari ferry
At the same time
Jason looked up from the table, most of his two squares of pizza uneaten. His attention was focused on the man standing in the doorway talking on a cell phone and smoking a cigarette at the same time. Both hands occupied. Jason picked up his London Times, pretending to read while he kept his eyes on the man by the door.
The minute the conversation ended, the man turned, jamming the phone into a jacket pocket. Jason moved as quickly as he could while appearing to be just one more bored passenger with nothing to do but try to find an alternative to the ferry’s tiny staterooms.
Outside, the bright lights of the car deck outlined everything along the edges of the passenger deck above. The man Jason was interested in was leaning against the rail as the breeze snatched sparks from his cigarette into the air like a child’s sparkler.
Jason muttered something unintelligible and staggered against the side of the cabin, bouncing off the railing. He couldn’t see the man’s face, but he was pretty certain it was turned toward him. Jason stopped a few feet away, swaying with the ocean’s swells like the drunk at sea he was imitating.
He waited until the next large wave, then lurched forward, colliding with the smoker.
“Mi dispiace,” Jason mumbled. I’m sorry.
His victim never felt the hand slip into the jacket pocket.
The smoker gave Jason a gentle push as he stepped back. “Prego.”
The Italian word that translated as anything from you’re welcome to quickly to a simple acknowledgment of an apology.
Jason staggered down the steel catwalk, trying not to seem in a hurry until he was certain he was out of sight of his victim.
Once in protective shadows, he held up the cell phone. Its keyboard lit up when he flipped it open. He turned his back in the direction of its owner. He hoped he couldn’t be seen using the stolen device. He punched series of buttons, the number of the American consulate in Naples, one of several he had memorized before leaving Washington.
The voice that answered was definitely American and just as certainly bored. The person Jason wanted to speak with was gone for the evening, sorry.
“It’s important,” Jason said.
Not to the person on the other end of the line. “He’s still not here.”
“Your name?”
“What does it matter?”
“It matters,” Jason growled, “because when I hang up, I’m calling the ambassador in Rome. I’m telling him he has some lazy little dweeb down here in Naples who doesn’t care enough to get off his ass even where national security is involved.”
“Oh, yeah? And who is this, the secretary of state?”
“No, but if you’ve got any sense at all, you’ll put me on hold while you contact extension two-oh-one in the Rome embassy and tell them you’re talking to one of Narcom’s people.”
Two-oh-one was the extension number for the agency office in the embassy, those supposed trade, cultural, and military attaches whose actual work had nothing to do with their titles.
Apparently the jerk in Naples at least recognized that anyone who knew the extension number might be important. “Hold on.”
Jason heard a loud, angry voice from above. No doubt someone had found their pocket picked and their cell phone gone. Jason moved farther back into the shadows.
The voice that came back on the phone was noticeably chastised. “Yes, sir, what can we do for you?”
“I need a patch through to
a Washington number.”
“A secure patch might take a little while. Where can I call you back?”
Jason had no way to know the number of the cell phone in his hand.
“You can’t.”
“But I-”
“I’ll hold.”
He could hear steps clamoring on the steal deck overhead. More than one person.
“Listen,” he hissed into the phone, “things are a little busy at my end right now. Get the patch ready.” He gave the number Mama had monitored twenty-four/seven. “I’ll call you back in five minutes. Tell the recipient of the call it’s from Italy.”
He hung up before the voice could protest. Hopefully Mama wasn’t running any other operations in Italy at the moment.
Squaring his shoulders, he tried to stand as tall as possible as he strode purposefully toward the ferry’s forecastle, the location of his small stateroom. The two men, one in the uniform of the ferry company, pushed by him, the victim of the theft pointing toward the bow. Obviously they were looking for a drunk whose face had been obscured in the darkness.
Jason flipped on the single overhead light as he entered his quarters. He sat on the stingy bunk and redialed the Naples number.
Nothing.
He tried again with the same result.
He glared at the steel bulkheads that imprisoned the cell phone’s signal as securely as any jail held an inmate. He wasn’t going to be able to connect with the satellite from here.
Cracking the door, he checked the narrow hallway outside and climbed the companionway to the top deck. Other than a few passengers leaning on the rail, staring into the night, it was deserted. He descended to the automobile deck and selected a white van.
It was locked.
His next choice was a small Mercedes truck. The door opened at his touch and he slipped inside, settling into the darkest corner. He flipped the phone open and punched in numbers.
This time the voice from the consulate was polite, almost solicitous. “We have your connection, sir. Understand you’re calling from an unsecured source. Anything said in this conversation is subject to interception.”
Like any other call made by ph6ne users the world over. Unless the ecoterrorists had somehow found the number he was calling and managed to alert a computer to scan all its calls, this conversation would be hidden among millions of others the same way a pickpocket relied on the numbers of a crowd to conceal him.
“Yes?” The voice was unmistakably Mama’s.
Besides the volume of phone traffic, Jason knew brevity would help, though there was no guarantee of anonymity.
“Conference in Washington tomorrow. Hillwood.” He paused, wondering if the words would trigger the search program of some monitoring device. There wasn’t time for circumlocution. “Breath of the Earth. It’s ignited from rocks by plants that spontaneously combust.”
The silence that followed was only seconds, but it seemed long enough for Jason to wonder if the connection had been broken.
“Plants? Rocks?”
“Like the trawler. If the conference is held near open windows, like the dining room at Hillwood.”
Another pause.
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“The gas, ethylene, will make everyone-delegates to the meeting, security, everyone-both drowsy and delusional, but it won’t kill them. That’s the beauty of it. While everyone’s on a high, someone will slip into the room from outside, slit a few throats, and disappear while the Secret Service guys are on the nod. No one to yell, cause a ruckus till it’s too late. Or, maybe one or more of the Eco people’ll have a breathing device concealed on him. When the gas dissipates, no one knows what happened. People have been murdered literally in front of their security and no one knows anything. The Earth will have claimed some sort of revenge with its natural products, the plant and the gas.”
“My God, the president is planning to attend!”
“I suggest he make other plans.”
“You can document this?”
“Not by tomorrow morning.”
Another pause before Mama’s rich Creole voice said, “This conference is important. He thinks he can become the person history will record as dedicating his life to reconciling industrialists and conservationists.”
“He will. Just not the way he’d planned.”
“We’ll look like idiots if you’re wrong.”
“How will you look if I’m not?”
“I see what you mean. Tell you what: I’m passin’ this along to the CIA. They’re our client and can do what they want.”
In Washington, the buck never really stopped; it was in perpetual motion.
Chapter Fifty
Near Silanus, Sardinia
An hour later
There were three men in the rented Mercedes that had pulled off the ferry two hours ago. The face of one of the men in the rear seat was partially covered by a large eye patch. One cheek displayed scars that were angry red, as though recently inflicted. All four wore the loose blouse and baggy pants of the local farmers for whom they easily could have mistaken.
Sardinian farmers, however, would have been unlikely to drive such a car. It was equally doubtful locals would drive through the night to a simple farmhouse, one where a thorough search demonstrated that the normal occupants were still not in residence and had not been for several days.
The refrigerator had a sour smell about it, containing only an open canister of milk long gone rancid. The source of the house’s electricity, wherever it was, had been turned off, and flashlight beams revealed that a light patina of dust had begun to collect on flat surfaces. There was nothing remarkable in the house. A few inexpensive oils hung on the walls and a huge sword over the fireplace-a sword, though effective in its time, that would be no match for the weapons these men carried.
One of the men turned to the one with the eye patch, speaking in Russian. “You are certain the Scotsman and the American will return?”
The man with one eye nodded. “And with the woman. We will wait.”
Chapter Fifty-one
Cagliari, Sardinia
The next morning
Jason was careful he was not observed as he dropped the stolen cell phone overboard before being one of the first to disembark from the ferry. A quick survey of the harbor revealed fishing craft, private sailboats, a few motor launches, and no place to rent a car. Adrian had omitted that factoid, he thought sourly.
Taxis, though, were plentiful. He took one to the airport.
The ride through town began as one of no particular interest. Apartment houses of undistinguished architecture and recent vintage shouldered one another for room, screening the view of the ocean. The churches gave some small clue as to the island’s multicultural history. Graceful Moorish facades were only blocks from chunky Romanesque fronts left by conquering Normans and Spanish. The ebullience of Italian Gothic, unlike any other of the period, was equally represented. It looked like every second street corner hosted an outdoor market.
The airport was featureless modern. Jason paid the driver and went inside the terminal, where boutiques, tour guide offices, and duty-free shops outnumbered the two ticket counters. Turning to his left to follow the signs, he crossed a neatly groomed patch of ground to another building housing rental car offices. There were no lines in front of any of them.
The Rugger passport had been left at the pensione in hopes of convincing the authorities that Jason had perished at Baia. He pulled a leather pouch from a jacket pocket and examined the other two IDs Mama had sent him before he left the Dominican Republic. The pictures on both driver’s licenses and passports were the same. He selected the documents and cards in the name of Andrew Forest Stroud of New York City. He looked at the address. East Seventy-second Street.
Jason hoped he looked like someone from the tony Upper East Side. But then, New York’s wealthy made a practice of shabby dress.
Eurocar had a selection varying from the largest Mercedes to the tinies
t Smart Car, also by DaimlerChrysler, though the manufacturer was understandably ashamed to adorn it with the three-pointed star. Jason chose a four-door Peugeot, something that would attract as little attention as possible.
The drive back to town was unremarkable, other than the normal frustration of finding a parking space. Jason felt truly blessed when he pulled in behind a departing Opel only six blocks from the harbor.
From his table outside a waterside trattoria, Jason watched the ferry dock. As the cars drove off, the few pedestrian passengers disembarked. The bright colors of Maria’s gold-and-blue scarf were visible all the way across the quay. Jason could only marvel how the woman always managed to come up with a different one. He had little doubt she could find a Hermes shop in the middle of the Sahara Desert.
Women possessed some sort of internal navigational system for such things. Laurin could detect the proximity of a shoe store in cities she had never visited. Once in Paris…
He pushed the thought aside, surprised at how easy it was becoming to dismiss his former wife. He watched Maria seat herself at a table identical to his but on the other side of the small harbor. The plan called for her to have a cup of coffee and remain where she was until Jason verified that she was not being followed or observed.
Unlike their American counterparts, Italian, and most European trattorias, bistros, or whatever considered the price of a single beverage to be a ticket to occupy a table as long as the customer wished. In fact, the national pastime in many large cities was to order a sole glass of wine and spend the afternoon watching the passing crowds from the same table.
After forty minutes, the only interest in Maria that Jason noted was the openly admiring glances for which Italian men were notorious. He was amused by the persistence of one who had tried to share her table and finally admitted defeat after ten minutes of being intensely ignored.
He stood, reluctant to leave the pleasant morning sun, and walked casually along the edge of the port, feigning interest in first one sailboat, then another. He barely gave Maria a glance as he passed within ten feet of her and sauntered on. Without looking back, he turned away from the water’s edge and strolled up one of the two streets that dead-ended into the harbor. He paused in front of a gelaterie, seeming to marvel at the variety of flavors of ice cream the small shop displayed. In the glass of the adjacent store’s display window, he saw Maria turn the corner and enter the same street.