Gregg Loomis - Gates Of Hades

He stood, turned, and looked straight into the shock- widened eyes of a woman carrying a huge bowl of mangoes on her head.

He nodded politely. "Mornin', ma'am." Then he bolted for the police station in front of the jail.

It was unlikely, he reasoned, that the police would anticipate his return after escaping. The emptiness of the building verified his assumption. It took him less than a minute to empty several open lockers in the room with a coffee machine and two worn Naugahyde couches. As he had hoped, neither of the two officers who had taken his money belt had trusted the other enough to allow its removal from where it was hidden under a pile of odoriferous laundry. A quick glance satisfied him that most, if not all, the bills were still there. More important, so was his passport.

Now he was good to go. The question was, where?

From the sounds coming from the prison yard, there wasn't a lot of time before the would-be escapees' resistance collapsed and the police on duty returned.

As calmly as he could manage in shoes with no laces, he sauntered outside, hands in his pockets to support beltless trousers, and merged with the foot traffic. He could easily walk to the airport; it was less than a mile away.

He had gone one, perhaps two blocks when the squeal of rubber against asphalt split the air. He turned just in time to see four men spilling out of an eighties-model Lincoln on which a faded taxi was still legible. Jason's attention was not drawn to the passengers themselves as much as the briefcase each was opening. He didn't have to look twice to recognize the collapsible-stock Uzis. It was the same gun, carried the same way, as the Secret Service's presidential detail.

He had hoped to get the hell out of Dodge before Eco's disciples, Eglov or others, arrived for their revenge. A few more minutes and he would have made it.

Jason ducked into an alley along the back of Front Street, trusting the shade to make him difficult to see by the gunmen standing in brilliant tropical sunlight. He never knew if the theory worked. A string of shots showered him with concrete fragments as they dug into a wall above him.

He tried to pull his head into his chest like a turtle into its shell. In these narrow confines, the ricochets and cement chips could be deadly.

There was screaming from behind him, a terrified woman in shock, mixed with shouts in Russian that were getting closer.

The alley was only a couple of blocks long, ending in an open park just off the beach where Jason would have no cover at all.

Desperation made a decision for him.

He snatched at a door leading into one of the buildings, finding it locked. He had better luck with the second, pulling it open only wide enough to slip inside and locking it behind him.

He was in a well-lit, air-conditioned corridor lined with offices. In those with the doors open, Jason could see guayabera-clad solicitors and consultants advising clients or speaking softly on telephones as they conducted the financial affairs of those who did business where income and property taxes were only nightmares. From the voices he heard, both blacks and whites had spent time in England. There wasn't a native accent among them. A couple of heads came up with curious stares. Jason made himself walk slowly and calmly, as though looking for someone in particular.

"Can I help you, sir?" a well-dressed native woman asked in Oxfordian tones. "Is there someone you wish to see?"

Jason tried to push his pursuers from his mind long enough to remember the name of the Irish-born solicitor who had handled the purchase of the property on North Caicos. "O'Dooly, Seamus O'Dooly. Is he in?"

One eyebrow twitched in what might have been annoyance. "I believe Mr. O'Dooly has his offices next door."

Jason gave her the best imitation of embarrassment he could manage as he headed toward the front of the building. "Thanks."

He stood in the reception area for a moment, trying to see past the four or five people plastered to the plate-glass window that looked out onto Front Street and the beach.

"What's going on?"

"A shooting," someone said without turning around. "Some idiots just started firing guns in the middle of the street and looks like someone's hurt."

Edging closer, Jason saw ten or so people gathered in the middle of the street. Behind them, its doors still open, was the Lincoln. The gunmen were nowhere to be seen, no doubt checking each door off the alley behind him.

Soon enough they would come around front to check on those they couldn't enter. Jason didn't intend to wait.

With purposeful steps he strode into heat made all the more intense from his brief exposure to air-conditioning. He hardly noticed that his shirt was instantly sweat- plastered to his back. He kept his face away from the buildings and alley, fighting the urge to look around for men with guns. He gave only a cursory glance at the crowd gathered in the middle of the street. Shielded from view by the morbidly curious, a woman was wailing. From the few words Jason heard, her child had caught a stray bullet.

He should, he supposed, have felt some degree of guilt. Had he not been here, there would have been no blameless victim. The child lying on the pavement had been no more deserving of that bullet than Laurin had been of a hijacked airliner. His well of remorse was long dry.

Besides, he did not have the luxury of debating hypothetical fault. If he didn't make the right moves, any guilt he might bear would become academic.

The Lincoln was empty, its doors open and the engine running. Jason cast a thankful glance skyward. As usual, luck was going to play a stronger hand than skill. No one noticed as he shut all but the driver's door and climbed in behind the wheel. The interior stank of stale tobacco smoke, the headliner had long ago been replaced with some sort of ragged and gaily colored cloth, and the seat's loose spring was trying to castrate him.

Whatever amenities the car lacked were more than compensated for by the opportunity. At the moment, he would gladly have settled for a garbage truck.

As he slipped the balky gear into drive and eased away from the center of town, he could hear a siren. He crossed his fingers that the ambulance from the island's only medical facility got there in time.

He might be fresh out of guilt but he had a full tank of hope.

In minutes, the stubby control tower was visible above the low brush along the road. Jason pulled into one of the three parking places outside the small cement-block passenger terminal. The absence of other cars told him no arrivals were imminent. Getting out of the Lincoln, he walked past the terminal and onto the tarmac of the general aviation area, that part of the airport reserved for private aircraft.

Under the shade of the only tree nearby he recognized a familiar face and walked over to where a young native in a white shirt and dark, well-pressed pants was sipping the last swallow from a drink can.

Jason extended a hand. "Charlie, how you doin', mon?"

Charlie looked up with a smile showing perfect, brilliant white teeth. "Doin' fine, Jason." He shook the hand briefly. "Sorry t' hear 'bout that fire over to yo' place, though. Folks say you gonna leave."

In these latitudes, custom required polite conversation before coming to the point. Jason opted for brevity instead. "Charlie, some men are after me. There's already been some shooting in town."

Charlie's smile was replaced by confusion. "Mens? Mebbe four big guys, carryin' briefcases?"

"Those are the ones, yeah. I-"

"But dey can't," Charlie protested. "I mean, can' nobody bring guns into the Turks 'n' Caicos, not 'less you gots a permit."

Jason just stared, thinking of the collection of firearms that had gone up with his house, weapons that had sailed through local customs when accompanied by a liberal "gift" for the inspector. Charlie, like anyone else who lived here, knew full well that a few dollars placed in well-connected hands bought the right to do just about anything.