Gates of Hades (21 page)

Like so many British, he and his wife had sought warmer climates. Unlike most English expats, he had not chosen the southwest of France, Tuscany, or Spain. His hobby of archeology had drawn him to the stone structures of the early Bronze Age that dotted the hills of the island of Sardinia. Through either beneficence or indifference, amateur exploration was not discouraged, and the cost of living was some of the lowest in western Europe, and life expectancy the highest.

Adrian and his wife had purchased a small farm in the rocky mountains that formed the spine of the island near the tiny village of Silanus.

Adrian held the door of the Volvo open. “You've no luggage?”

“We didn't have time to pack,” Jason said. “Figured we could pick up what we needed when we got here.”

Adrian helped Maria into the front passenger seat, motioning Jason into the back. “Aye, well, there's no Fortnum and Mason or Harrods in Silanus. Clare, m' wife, will have a spare frock or two. An' you, Jason—I think I can put something on yer back till you find suitable clothing.”

“I don't look good in kilts,” Jason said.

Adrian was turning the key, the Volvo's starter grinding. “An' I'm not insultin' th' Graham clan tartan by givin' ye th' loan of any.”

The starter motor had quit whirring and simply clicked its solenoid.

“Damn piece of Swedish junk! Doesn't like the Guinea climate.” Adrian got out and withdrew a cudgel from under the seat. “Just raise the bonnet and give 'er a tap.”

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.”

The 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 résumé.

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 walked 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, ol' 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?”