by Gregg Loomis
"A little something to remember me by," he said, delivering a kick to the man's groin.
There was a grunt, and the man melted into a groaning heap on the cobblestones.
Maria had Jason by the arm. "We must go. Someone's surely called the police by now."
As though to verify her observation, the pulsating wail of a siren could be heard.
Jason let himself be led down the alley and into another.
Damn, he thought. Someone must have found the plane on the Dominican shore. That discovery, coupled with a liberal application of cash to Dominican officials for a search of names on exit visas as compared with recorded entries, as opposed to mere stamps on a passport, would have revealed that a Mr. Harold Young was the only person within days to depart the Dominican Republic without having first entered it. Having apparently dropped out of the sky, Young then departed Santo Domingo for Paris via Air France. It would have taken simple hacking into reservation computers to determine that Mr. Young had taken Alitalia from Orly to Rome, thence onward to Messina.
They had arrived at Maria's Explorer. She was fumbling with the keys. "Whatever your real business is, somebody is displeased by it."
He took the keys from her shaking hand. "Apparently."
The lock popped open and he held out the keys.
She was staring as though seeing him for the first time. "You really were going to kill that guy."
Jason was walking around to climb into the passenger seat. "Think of it as returning the favor. He very nearly ran over both of us."
Now Maria was having trouble getting the key into the ignition. Jason got out and opened her door. "You're in no shape to drive. Let me."
Wordlessly, she climbed over the gearshift and brake and sat.
Jason started the engine. "Where to?"
For a moment he wasn't sure she heard him. Then: "You really were going to stab him."
She was looking straight ahead.
Jason bit back a retort and said, "Maria, we don't know that he was alone. I'd suggest we not hang around to find out. Where to?"
She shook as though the words had shocked her back into reality. "To? Your hotel, I guess."
Jason was turning the car around, stopping only to allow a blue-and-white police car, siren wailing, to pass, headed in the direction from which they had come.
"Not a good idea. If that guy knew where to find us, he—or one of his pals—must have followed us. They know my hotel. Next time they might get lucky. Where are you staying?"
She turned to look at him, the hint of a nervous smile tugging at her mouth. "I thought I had heard every come-on there was, but this is the first for 'I need to stay with you tonight because someone is trying to kill me.'"
"Delighted to have exhausted another possibility of human experience," Jason said. "I might remind you that truck driver was perfectly willing to kill you, too. Which way?"
Her eyes grew large. "Me? He had no reason to want to run me over!"
"You want to bet your life on that? Which way?"
She pointed. "Right, up the hill past your hotel."
They were quiet for a few minutes until she said, "I think it is only fair to warn you: I do not do sleepovers with men whose real names I do not know."
He nodded, keeping his eyes on the serpentine road but taking his right hand off the wheel to extend it. "Jason. My pleasure."
She shook it. "Certainly not mine. Nearly getting killed is hardly my choice of a date. This sort of thing happen to you often?"
He was steering around a hairpin turn to the left. "Often enough. Comes with the job."
"Which is?"
"Now a job description's a prerequisite to staying at your place, too?"
"Okay, so I can guess." She looked out over one of the turns. The town below was a handful of jewels. "You really were going, to kill him, were you not?"
Jason nodded. "Someone very like him and his pals killed someone very dear to me, along with about three thousand other innocent people, all in the same morning. They're terrorists, Maria, just the same mind-set as any other bunch willing to kill to achieve their political or religious aims. Civilization as we know it can't coexist with people like that."
" 'Civilization as we know it'? Don't you think you are being a little extreme?"
He took his eyes off the road just long enough to give her a questioning glance. "Extreme? I don't think so. There's only one way I see of solving the problem: exterminate them like any other vermin."
"I take it your business involves just that."
"You could say that."
"Surely there are good people with extreme ideas."
"Ideas are free. It's when someone is willing to kill anyone who doesn't share them that the trouble starts. Not to put too fine a point on it, but General Sheridan could have been speaking of fanatics, religious or political, when he defined a good Indian: a dead one."
"Turn right here." She pointed to a barely discernible path leading away from the road. "You don't really believe that."
He was squinting, trying to make sure he stayed on the dim track. "Let's say I believe most beliefs have their good and bad people. Culling one from another is the problem." A small building took shape in the headlights. "That it?"
She nodded. "The government rents it for staff when we are working at Aetna. There is a spare bedroom."
He turned off the lights and ignition. "Lucky me."
She looked over her shoulder as she reached for the door. "Lucky you, indeed. Believe me, it always was the spare room or the foldout."
Jason got out and shut the door. "And here I thought my charm, wit, and good looks would prevail."
She produced a set of house keys from her purse. "I am almost as allergic to violence as I am liars. I would say we have a real personality conflict."
She opened the door and flipped on the light. From behind her, Jason saw her body stiffen as she emitted a frightened squeak. In a step he was beside her, the SIG Sauer in his hand.
The single living room/kitchen/dining room was a wreck. Drawers had been pulled out, emptied, and left on the floor amid their contents. Drapes lay in heaps or thrown over chairs or a sofa from which the cushions had been removed.
Weapon in hand, Jason searched the two adjacent rooms.
" 'Fraid they've been tossed, too," he said, putting the gun away.
Tears were running down Maria's face, whether from
anger, fright, or both, Jason couldn't tell. "Who ... What did they want; what were they looking for?"
Jason righted a chair and picked up what looked like the matching cushion. "If I had to guess, I'd say they were looking for the samples I gave you."
She was still gazing around the room, dazed. "I left them at the portable lab, not here. But why would they...?"
Jason slowly raised his hands, nodding toward the still- open door. "I'm afraid we're about to find out."
On the threshold stood a tall, bald man, the one Jason had seen in the photograph, Eglov. He held what Jason recognized as a Colt M733, a true submachine gun not much larger than a pistol. Delta Force had used them in the jungles of Asia.
Jason's eyes cut toward a window.
"Don't bother, Mr. Peters," the intruder said in almost accentless English. "I'm not alone."
"Jason," Maria asked in an unsteady voice, "who are—"
"You can bet they're not among the 'good' idealists we were talking about."
The man with the weapon made a motion, and Jason heard a rear door crash open, making Maria give another frightened squeak. Rough hands grabbed Jason from behind, and he felt the weight of the SIG Sauer being lifted from his belt while a hand groped into his pockets.
A voice behind him spoke in Russian that Jason couldn't follow.
"Who are you? What do you want?" Maria had regained enough composure to start getting angry.
In a step, the man with the Colt was beside her. He slapped her with the back of his hand hard enough to send her staggering backward.
"Silence! You'll find out soon enough!"
Instinctively, Jason started to move toward her until he felt the jab of a gun's muzzle in his back. Maria slid down a wall, sitting splay-legged on the floor.
The man who had hit her motioned to whoever was behind Jason. The gun muzzle moved, and another man, this one with a mustache, carrying an AK-47 with a full clip, walked over to a table and deposited the contents of Jason's pockets along with the SIG Sauer.
"Okay," Jason said. "Now that you've made yourselves at home, exactly what is it you want?"
Eglov smiled, showing one shiny steel front tooth. "Allow me an introduction. My name is Eglov. Aziz Saud Alazar was a friend and business associate. You have caused considerable inconvenience, Mr. Peters. But I what I want is information. We will start with why you have consulted Dr. Bergenghetti."
"Consult?" He shrugged. "She's an attractive woman. I like attractive women."
A nod from Eglov sent Mustache over to where Maria was still sitting on the floor. She screamed as he yanked her to her feet by her hair. Transferring his rifle to his other hand, he ripped away the top of her dress and roughly grabbed her bra. Maria whimpered in pain and fright.
"Perhaps you will be amused watching my friend enjoy the woman," Eglov said. "I can assure you she will not find it pleasant. Or perhaps you will slice to the chase, eliminate the cow excrement." There was no warmth in his smile. "You see, I have mastered your American idiom." The smile vanished. "The information I seek, Mr. Peters. Or the woman suffers."
Jason sighed his resignation. "Let her go and I'll tell you what you want."
"Do you take me for a fool, Mr. Peters? I let the woman loose and the place swarms with police like angry bees defending a hive."
"You don't let her go and she dies here after you've learned what you want."
Eglov shrugged. "She lives; she dies. It is a matter of your choice."
"Yours, not mine."
"You are not in a place to argue, Mr. Peters. The degree of her suffering is in your hands. Now, why are you here?"
Jason had no illusions that either he or Maria was going to walk out of this house.
Unless...
"Look, leave her alone. The information you want—it's all on the BlackBerry." Jason was pointing.
Eglov stepped over to the table, picked the device up, and handed it to Jason. "Summon the data you say is here."
Jason punched a series of keys and scrolled up the beginning of a paragraph before handing it back.
Eglov scowled. "It is encrypted! Do not play games with me, Mr. Peters. You will have ample time to regret it."
Jason pointed again. "Those coins that came out of my pocket. One of them has the decoding key."
Alternating quick glances at Jason, the Russian used the hand not holding the Colt to sort through a dozen coins. "The American quarter?"
"That's it." Jason held out his hand. "Let me have it."
Once he held the twenty-five-cent piece, Jason turned it heads up, offered the closest thing to a prayer he had said in years, and pressed Washington's head. Pretending to concentrate, he said, "Look closely at the screen now."
Eglov brought the BlackBerry nearer to his eyes. "I see nothing but—"
What happened next was a phenomenon Jason knew well from combat: the brain's slowing things down to better comprehend what was happening. It was like watching a film in slow motion, where every movement was as deliberate and sluggish as though performed underwater, and there were one hundred twenty seconds to the minute.
With more of a whoosh than an explosion, a sound like a stove's gas ring catching, the BlackBerry erupted. A single yellow flame blew the front of the device into Eglov's face.
Between the detonation and the Russian's howl of pain, Jason had the SIG Sauer in his hand.
Mustache never had a chance.
Before the man could let go of Maria's bra and raise the rifle, Jason fired off two shots close enough to sound like one. The AK-47 flew across the room as though levitating on its own as Mustache slammed into the wall. He stood openmouthed before his head bent down as if he were contemplating the two bright red splotches that were blooming on his shirt.
He muttered something and fell face-forward to the accompaniment of Maria's terrified screams.
The other man had a chance but not enough of one. A third shot from the SIG Sauer doubled him over. No longer interested in combat, he staggered outside.
Less than a second had passed since the BlackBerry had blown up. Jason whirled to take care of Eglov. The machine gun, along with a puddle of blood on the floor, was all that remained. Other than Jason and Maria, the room was empty of life.
Jason dove through the open door into the darkness outside rather than present an illuminated target. Even before his eyes became completely adjusted to the dark, he heard hurried feet moving unevenly on the pebbles of the driveway and saw a form moving at a staggering run away from him.
He took two quick steps in pursuit and stopped. There was no way to know how many others might be out there, nor whether there would be another attempt made on Maria and him that night. He wanted little more than a chance to finish Eglov then and there, but prudence told him getting out of the area was the wiser move.
But where?
Chapter Twenty-one
Autostrada A18
Between Taormina and Messina
Thirty minutes later
Maria had said nothing since Jason had draped a blouse from the closet around her bare midriff and bundled her into the Explorer. Tears she made no effort to wipe away coursed freely down her face, leaving trails that glistened in the light from the dashboard. Jason had been primarily occupied with the rearview mirror, making sure they were not followed, but the only traffic at this hour of night was trucks availing themselves of the deserted four-lane to make good time to their next destination.
He had left the house occupied by Mustache's body and whatever other evidence the police might find. Sanitizing the scene would have taken more time than he was willing to risk in case Eglov had others nearby. Leaving additional firepower behind was contrary to any training Jason had, but he elected to leave the AK-47 where it had fallen. Should he be stopped, he wanted no part of explaining to authorities, who would take a dim view indeed of an unregistered, fully automatic weapon in the hands of an American traveling under a false name.
For the first time, he noticed that Maria was shivering in the warm Sicilian night. A chill or the onset of shock? Reaching an arm around her shoulder, he gently pulled her against him, sharing body heat. She made no effort to resist, nor gave any acknowledgment of the gesture.
"You okay?" he asked.
She gave the bare minimum of a nod and snuggled closer.
He was slowing down for one of the numerous automated tollbooths when she finally spoke. "Where are we going?"
"For the moment, as far from Taormina as I can get. The ferry from Messina to Calabria runs twenty-four hours a day."
"And then?"
"I'll surprise you."
"In other words, you do not know."
"Let's say only that I'm not yet sure."
She pulled away to sit up straight. "I think I want to go back to my office and volcanoes."
Jason pulled out to pass a lumbering truck. "I wouldn't recommend it. You saw what those guys were willing to do to you."
She turned in the seat to face him. "You are saying I need to stay where you can protect me? I am not helpless, you know."
Jason simply gave her a wordless look.
"Okay, okay, so we stay together for a while. I will call in to take leave."
She put her head back on his shoulder. In minutes she was snoring gently.
JOURNAL OF SEVERENUS TACTUS
Gulf of Naples
Campania, Italy
The sun was beginning to set behind the mountains to the west when I reined
my horse in at the top of a hill. The Bay of Baia shimmered gold in the setting s
un. Even though the town at the bottom of the hill was only a mixture of white marble and lengthening shadows, the thought of my coming visit to the underworld somehow gave it a sinister pall.
As I started downward, I could see the villa of Agrippa,1 a place I had once visited long ago with my father. The general had been old then and must now be ancient, but I knew he still had the ear of the emperor for whom he had won so many batdes.2 He and my father had had a long relationship that ended for reasons I knew not when I was barely twelve. Should I survive my ordeal, I decided to pay him a visit.
Spurring the horse forward, I made for the inn where I had taken a single room. There, sometime in the night, I would be taken away to a place unknown, to a bath, where I would be purified by steam and by magic potions for two days before entering Hades.
In the inn's courtyard, I let the thirsty horse plunge its nose into the impluvium.3 Once the beast was sated, I handed the reins to a waiting groom and swung a leg over the animal's back.
"Be quick to dismount, Severenus," came a voice from behind me.
Turning, I saw a figure in a black cape, his face concealed both by its folds and the final darkness of the night.
"Who tells me when to dismount?" I snapped, unused to taking orders since my father's death.
Undaunted, the stranger replied, "The dead tell you. In your room you will find suitable vestmenta. Once you have put them on, come outside and follow the slave with the torch."
"It is dark. Any slave on the street will be carrying a torch for his master."
"Then you must select the correct one."
The stranger stepped back into the deeper of the shadows. By the time I reached the spot where he had been, the man was gone.
On the way to my room I was accosted by a young girl, perhaps ten or eleven, her face gaudily painted. Prostitutes were not allowed to solicit business at respectable inns, since several men occupied the same bed. The farther one got from Rome, the less enthusiasm the local authorities had for enforcing the rule.
I shooed her away. As she slunk down the stairs with a sultry look far beyond her years, I wondered what such a meeting might portend.4
I retired to my cubiculum5 to change. On top of the rough-woven covers was a cloak similar to the one I had seen in the courtyard below. Stripping off my horse- sweat-soaked clothes, I exchanged them for a clean tunic, over which I tossed the new cloak and went back downstairs. Outside the gate to the inn, a lone slave waited with a torch.