Hot Ice (2 page)

This was President-for-Life Bugunda’s tribal village. He preferred its humble backdrop, which emphasized his native Shana heritage to the palatial presidential palace in the capital when making a speech he knew would be filmed or perhaps televised to the rest of the world.

The president was, by his own account, a humble man, was he not? A humble man who had removed the chain from his people’s throat and set them free from the foot of the oppressor.

Perhaps.

He was undeniably fond of metaphors. And today’s would be a momentous speech indeed, if not the way the president intended.

For an instant, the sniper almost pitied whoever was in charge of the man’s security detail. A building can be secured as tight as needed. But facing acres of open space with head-high grass?

The sniper rolled onto his back, affixed the scope, and returned to his stomach before he checked the scope’s stability in its mount.

Ordinarily, the ravings of African dictators were ignored by Western civilization, the brutality of an Amin or Mugabe the source of amusing headlines somewhere in the inside pages of newspapers. Genocide? No threat to national security. Famine and plague? Quarantined by oceans.

Except where national security was involved.

Months ago, Bugunda had startled the world, or at least the world’s intelligence communities. ECHELON had picked up a series of telephone transmissions between Bugunda and eastern Pakistan. Thinly coded, they had been quickly deciphered. Bugunda would shortly be hosting Al Mohammed Moustaph, al-Qaida’s number-three man.

Although Bugunda was no threat outside his own borders, Moustaph was one of the world’s most wanted men. Suspected of engineering train and subway bombings in Europe, an attempt to blow an international flight out of the air, and a mass shooting at a beach resort in Australia, the various rewards offered exceeded the gross national product of most third-world countries.

That was where the sniper became involved.

Brush in hand, Jason Peters stood in his villa’s loggia before the easel, not quite content with the seascape he thought he’d finished. The jagged rocks of the coast were right; he could almost feel the spray. There was something not quite right with the color of the sea, though. Of course, that color changed hourly as the sun moved. A dark, almost black morning ocean became cerulean by noon, electric by sunset.

Perhaps the fishing boat needed to be painted out.

Perhaps acrylic was not the proper medium.

He bobbed his head as the mathematics of a Mozart concerto danced through the villa. Then he put down his brush and simply admired the same view he had enjoyed for the last three years. Half a mile away, the medieval Cathedral of the Assunta crowned a hill that dropped into the sea. He could also see the fifteenth-century causeway that joined the tiny hamlet to the larger island, a rugged bit of rock that jutted out of the water like some legendary sea monster about to devour a ship and its crew.

His view was not entirely for aesthetic purposes. With the high, rocky coast, the only approach to his villa was by that path and the single road that came up the hill to his front gate. There had been a time when he had first come here that security was more important than scenery.

A loud snore was audible over the music, disrupting his artistic thought. Turning, he saw the large dog sprawled across the tiles of the floor. It was difficult to even look at Pangloss without smiling. Part German shepherd, part collie, part whatever had been available to a promiscuous kinsman, the animal personified the description “mutt.” He also had been the only friend Jason had had for a very long time, a time from the death of his wife until Maria …

The dog awoke suddenly, lifting his head, and whined softly.

“Yeah, I miss her too,” Jason said, kneeling to take the big furry head in both hands. “But she had to go to Hawaii to observe the eruption of that volcano. You understand?”

A long tongue polished a black button nose before the animal gave a sound that could have been a sneeze or a snort. With Pangloss, one was never quite certain what was going on.

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’”

Having assented, the dog stretched, extending shaggy legs in a move that, had it been made by a woman, might have been sexy. Well, maybe not exactly sexy, Jason thought, but it did somehow remind him of Maria waking from the afternoon nap indigenous to the island and all of Italy.

Maria. God, but he missed her.

Whenever she was not actively pursuing her profession as a volcanologist, she had shared Jason’s villa and the dog’s affection. An eruption somewhere on the globe—Indonesia, the Italian mainland, or northwestern America—meant days of absence. Worse, boredom.

Jason had gotten used to living alone before she came into his life. He had actually enjoyed having only Pangloss’s company for days on end. The peaceful serenity of obscure islands had appealed to him since his life had undergone a violent change over a decade ago. He could paint without interruption and had no social obligations to waste his time. He also could keep fully apprised of who came and went, an unfortunate necessity of his former employment.

Maria had changed all that. It was well and fine that he lived what most would consider a dull life while she was in it. But when she was gone … ?

He sighed, turning back to the easel and reaching to pick up the brush. She was all the excitement he needed when she was there. When she was gone, memories of past adventures seemed sweet indeed. He had lived up to his promise of retirement, but that pledge might be hard to keep if the opportunity arose, the chance …

His BlackBerry beeped and he frowned, hands on hips.

There were no phones in the house, no landlines, anyway. Jason detested them. Always ringing at inconvenient times, bringing news he either didn’t want to hear or didn’t care about. There was no need on the island anyway. It wasn’t as if he had to call ahead for a dinner reservation at either of the two trattoria. If he showed up, they were glad to see him. If he needed to speak to his housekeeper or one of her cousins, grandchildren, or in-laws who comprised his staff when they were off duty, he got on a bicycle and rode to their nearby house.

Since Maria’s arrival and subsequent business trips, he had agreed to the BlackBerry. She was the only one who had his e-mail address. Her infrequent messages lessened the burden of her absences.

No doubt it was Maria e-mailing. What the hell time was it in Hawaii, anyway?

Jason stepped into the relative cool of the villa’s interior, where the sunlight would not make the tiny screen difficult to read.

At first, he thought he was not seeing what was clearly printed:
COME TO MOMMA. NAPLES A’PT 0800 TOMORROW.

Jason glanced over his shoulder as though he suspected someone might be watching the fulfillment of what might have been a wish. Mephistopheles never sleeps. His first reaction was to return text something short and obscene. That didn’t work.
UNABLE TO TRANSMIT
appeared on the screen just as he knew it would.

“Fuckers!” he snorted.

Pangloss opened one eye.

How the hell had they known how to contact him? Why now?

He went to a seventeenth-century buffet deux corps, fussed with the iron latch, and opened the bottom doors. Removing a half-full bottle of Antinori Solaia 2006, he fumbled with the recorking mechanism and poured himself a generous glass before crossing the room to sprawl onto a couch.

The heavy Tuscan red would have gone well with the mustard flavor of a lamb dish or the garlic of roasted pork loin, two of Jason’s favorites once winter’s chill replaced the heat of summer. To hell with the seasons. At the moment, he wanted something thick, almost viscous.

Pangloss got up, stretched again, and came over to sit in front of him, brown eyes looking into Jason’s from a cocked head.

“So, what are your thoughts on the matter?”

If he had any, Pangloss kept them to himself.

Jason took a healthy swallow of wine, the hearty red sticking to the back of his tongue for a moment. Almost instantly, his anger faded along with the lingering taste. Drinking during the day usually put him to sleep or at least made him drowsy. He wasn’t thinking about that. He had been angry that the wall of privacy, if not secrecy, he had taken so much trouble to erect had been breached.

But, his logical mind interrupted:
You were just thinking about the good old days and how bored you are.

“Maybe so,” Jason said aloud, “but I don’t think they’ve perfected mind-reading. At least, not yet.”

“Mi dispiace?”

Gianna, his housekeeper, was standing in the doorway, a plate in her hand. From what he could see, his lunch would consist of
frutti di mare freddo
: octopus thinly sliced and tender, prawns, clams, and squid, all served cold. Sometimes it included a half
l’aragosta
—small warm-water lobster. The dish was one of his favorites.

“Prego.”

The Italian word that means everything from “quickly” to “pardon me” to “you’re welcome.”

He pointed to a long oak table, a piece he had rescued from the refectory of a Umbrian monastery. Gianna lifted an eyebrow as she noted the red wine. Jason rarely had alcohol with lunch. Even on the occasions he did, he invariably had a single beer or a glass of a Gaja, a buttery Piemonte white.

Jason managed a smile as he took the plate from her and pointedly said,
“Grazie.”

He waited until she left the room before he sat down. He was immediately joined by a ball of orange fur that plopped down on the table from nowhere. Robespierre, the cat. Robbie, as he was known, never slunk into a room with the hauteur common to felines. He dropped from something, pounced, dashed, or exploded like a missile.

“Never see you till there’s food on the table,” Jason observed, moving the plate away. “Fine friend you are.”

Robbie licked a paw, pretending not to care. Jason knew that trick: the minute his attention was distracted a good part of his seafood lunch would disappear.

The cat had simply appeared in Jason’s villa, origins and return address unknown. The only thing clear was that the animal had come in a very distant last in some feline dispute. Half an ear was missing, as was a good bit of fur and skin. The creature was so pitiful that Jason, not a cat lover, felt compelled to take him to the local undertaker who, in absence of a medical doctor, served as the community’s physician and veterinarian. After their first encounter, Pangloss and Robespierre had reached a tenuous truce if not a friendship. The association involved no effort on Jason’s part other than vigilance at the dining table. Besides, since no one really owns a cat, how do you get rid of one?

His logical mind returned to the text message.
So,
it persisted,
you were feeling deserted, bored, and generally sorry for yourself. Then, like a genie in a bottle, along they come and you get pissed off because your precious privacy has been violated. Jeez, give me break!

Jason methodically peeled a prawn and began to chew. Robespierre still feigned indifference.

So?

So, I promised Maria I was through with them. No more killing, no more violence.

That’s not
exactly
what you promised.

Oh?

She left you after that episode in Sicily when you fed that terrorist to a feral hog… .

Actually, it was in Sardinia.

OK, Sardinia. She left you because she couldn’t stand violence. If she’s not here, she won’t be exposed to anything that’s distasteful to her. What you promised was that if she stayed with you, you’d give up working for them and you did. Now she’s not here.

I doubt she’ll see it that way.

I doubt she’ll see it at all. If you can do a job and be back here before she is …

Jason started on the cold slices of octopus, took a bite, and put his fork down. Mozart was starting over. He stood, moved Robbie to the floor, crossed the room, and changed CDs, switching to a Mendelssohn. Son of a German philosopher, the composer’s sonatas had a logical cadence helpful in resolving moral dilemmas.

He finished his meal without further intrusion.

True, with Maria gone, he was bored. Also true, she could be gone for a month or more. He hadn’t been off this rock in … He couldn’t remember. What was the harm in catching the early hydrofoil, meeting someone at the Naples airport? He could always walk away, spend the day at Italy’s finest archaeological museum and be back by dinnertime.

He would not have liked to explain why he put his paints away and began to search the villa for a suitcase.

As the cab from the next morning’s ferry climbed above the harbor that is Naples’s front door, the twin humps of Vesuvius marred the western horizon like a malignant wart. Jason remembered the observation station on the slopes of the volcano, now largely a museum, where Maria had worked and where the last part of what he recalled as the “Hades matter” had begun.

Maria.

The thought had returned that morning as he regarded his face in the shaving mirror. What kind of a guy promises the woman he loves to abandon his previous life and then goes back on his word as soon as she’s gone?

I’m not going back on anything; I’m just going to the airport, he argued with himself. To say “no.” After all, I’m rich because of that organization, well-off for the rest of my life. I owe them the courtesy of a face-to-face reply.

His reflection had grimaced back at him.
Yeah? Then why the packed suitcase?

Answer: shave faster.

The taxi exited the four-lane, passed the rental-car lots, and turned into the mass confusion that surrounds the Naples airport. Fat buses farted clouds of diesel fumes as they went through the useless ritual of honking at cars blocking the entrance. Tiny Fiats discharged entire families like circus acts. Men pushed carts stacked above their heads with plastic luggage while their wives restrained small children and dogs the size of rats.