Gregg Loomis - Gates Of Hades

Jason started to interrupt but she went on. "No, let me finish. What Ito does and for whom is none of my affair. But I view with suspicion anyone he refers. I don't really care what your 'business' is." She made quote marks in the air with her fingers. "But I do insist on knowing who the hell you really are. Short of that, we will enjoy the meal, part on good terms, and I hope you enjoy your stay in Sicily."

Jason was silent while the dishes were removed and the swordfish served.

"Answer enough," she said, tearing off a piece of bread and dipping it in the small dish of olive oil. "I hope you like the entree."

They ate in silence, the only sound music piped from inside. He would never know if he had eaten the best swordfish cooked in vegetables on the island, but he was certain that the meal would not be easily bested. He was even beginning to tolerate, if not enjoy, the local wine.

Leaning back on his chair's rear legs, he looked up and down the narrow alley, where unevenly spaced streetlights created archipelagos of illumination in a sea of darkness. An old woman, dressed in the traditional black, leaned from an upper window to shake a tablecloth free of the evening's crumbs. Another reached to tend to a window box of listless flowers. Men gathered around a pair of cardplayers inside gave grappa-induced laughs.

Jason broke the silence between them. "This is authentic, Liz and Richard notwithstanding. Seems like the real

Sicily. No TV, no iPods, no ringing cell phones. Totally un-Americanized."

Maria looked up from her plate with mischief in her eyes. "You sure about that?"

"About what, that this is one of the most non-American-like places I've seen in Europe?"

She put a hand behind her ear. "Really? Just listen."

The canned music that he had hardly noticed. It was the theme from The Godfather.

A few minutes later, they were walking back to Maria's car when Jason said, "I'm at a bit of a loss: I know the samples came from around Naples, but that's too large an area to be of any help."

Maria stopped, turning toward him. "I would like to help, but I don't even know your real name, let alone what you are looking for."

" 'Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise.'"

"Milton, Paradise Lost. Knowledge is its own reward."

"Ben Franklin?"

"Maria Bergenghetti."

Jason grinned. "Okay, you got me…" He stopped midsentence, his attention drawn to the sound of an engine. "I thought you said cars weren't allowed…"

Maria was looking over his shoulder, a question on her face. "They are not, only delivery vehicles and garbage pickup, both in the early morning."

Jason turned and saw it: one of those trucks peculiar to European cities with narrow streets. Not as large as a small pickup, but larger than a conventional sedan, the truck filled the alley. Its headlights were dark, it showed no intent of stopping, and there was no room on either side for Jason or Maria.

Jason didn't have time to think; he reacted.

Roughly shoving Maria into the first recessed doorway he saw, he began to run. There was no hope of outdistancing the truck, but the farther he got from Maria, the less likely the driver was to take the time to try to harm her also.

He thought of the SIG Sauer clipped to his belt and discarded the idea immediately. A bullet ricocheting from the sides of the buildings lining the narrow alley would be as likely to hit a resident as the truck driver. Besides, there was always the chance the driver had gone to sleep at the wheel, had a heart attack, or was motivated by something other than homicidal intent.

And there was the certainty that gunshots would bring the attention of the police, something that could end Jason's mission as certainly as that truck.

The sound of the small engine at high rpms told Jason how fast the truck was gaining on him. At one point, he hoped he could make it to an intersection with a wider street, giving him more room to dodge the oncoming vehicle.

His pursuer was now so close, he imagined he could feel the heat of the engine.

And there was no intersection to be seen.

But there were window boxes like the ones he had seen from the dinner table.

With hardly a break in stride, he gave a leap, adrenaline adding a Michael Jordan quality to his jump. His fingers touched the rim of a ceramic window box and managed to close before gravity reclaimed him. His prize was much heavier than he had anticipated, but at least he could move it using both hands.

Half running, half stumbling, he made it to the next recessed doorway. As anticipated, the truck swerved just enough to aim a fender at him.

At the last possible moment, Jason took advantage of the truck's effort, stepping into the narrow angle between where the front bumper angled toward the door and the wall of the building. The truck was committed, although brakes screeched in futility against cobblestones before the left front fender smashed into the edge of the doorway at precisely the place Jason had been. At the instant of impact, Jason swung the window box at the windshield.

He was rewarded with the sound of crunching safety glass and a yelp.

Without stopping his forward motion, he had a hand on the truck's door handle and wrenched. He didn't slow to bend over and look. Instead, he grabbed the first thing he touched and snatched.

There was another yell and Jason held a man by the shirt collar. The man struggling in his grip had the same bulky build, the same slant to the eyes and shaved head as the man whose picture he had seen, Eglov. But it wasn't the same man.

The man was reaching inside a pants pocket when Jason took a hand from the shirt's collar to grab his assailant's wrist. As Jason pulled it upward, light reflected from the long, thin blade of a stiletto.

Jason saw not only the knife but flames of that September morning. He heard screams, one of which could have been Laurin's. The agony of his loss, coupled with his anger at nearly being run down like a dog in the street, ignited a fury that erased any rational thought.

Grabbing the hand with the knife, Jason snatched the arm level, at the same time bringing the heel of his other hand crashing down on the wrist.

Jason thought he could hear the ulna snap a split second before there was a howl of pain and the clatter of steel falling onto stone.

His former assailant was moaning as Jason changed hands to take the shattered wrist in his left hand while stooping to scoop the knife from the street with his right. Blade in hand, he drew back for the underhand stroke that would drive the blade under the protection of the rib cage and up into the heart.

"Stop it!"

Startled, he whirled to see Maria standing only a couple of feet away.

"Stop it!" she commanded again. "You are not going to kill that man!"

Something in the tone of her voice made Jason hesitate just long enough to think rationally. Lights were flickering on up and down the street. No doubt the sound of the truck's crash had drawn more than one person to their window. Poor light or not, Jason was not going to bet someone wouldn't be able to identify him to the police.

Instead of the coup de grace he had begun, Jason drew back his hand and threw the knife as far as he could before slamming the would-be assassin against the wall.

"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.