Gregg Loomis - Gates Of Hades

Clare appeared in the kitchen door, holding a serving tray. "Supper's ready. I-"

The first bar of "Scotland the Brave" chirped from Adrian's pants pocket and he pulled out a cell phone.

"Sorry. Only have the bloody thing so th' kids can keep in touch." He snapped it open. "Graham here."

His face went blank as he listened before a single, " Grazie."

From Clare's expression, Jason guessed they didn't get a lot of phone calls from their kids or anyone else.

The phone disappeared back into Adrian's pocket. "Peppi." He turned to Jason in explanation. "Runs the local trattoria, closest thing about to a pub. A man was asking directions here."

Jason squinted through the windows at the collecting darkness. "Any description?"

Adrian nodded. "Big, shaved head, didn't speak Italian like a local. Or an Italian, for that matter. Had half his face bandaged."

"How many others?"

"Peppi didn't see anyone else. I gather this chap is an acquaintance of yours?"

"I'd guess he's the same one I told you about. You can bet he's not by himself. How long would you guess it'll take him to get here?"

Adrian gave a grim smile. "Depends on how long it takes him to figure out that Peppi's directions are leading him astray."

"Your friend gave him misleading directions? Why?"

Adrian shrugged. "Could be because Peppi knows we don't have many visitors. Could be because he dinna like the cut o' the man. Probably was a combination of the locals' distrust o' strangers an' the perverse Sardinian sense o' humor."

"He sent the guy out to the boonies as a joke?"

Adrian nodded as he crossed the room toward Clare, taking the tray and setting it on the table. "Aye, havin' a stranger lost in these hills would be very funny to th' natives, particularly a stranger Peppi'd taken a dislike to." He looked over his shoulder at Clare. "Mother, if you'd gather some bottled water from the shed, along with a few tins we can open for supper later…"

Clare left the room.

Adrian went to a low chest, removing several blankets. Underneath them was a long object wrapped in an oil- spotted cloth. Jason inhaled the familar smell of Hoppe's gun oil. It took only a moment before Jason was looking at SAS's favorite weapon, a Sten Mark IIS. From the silhouette, Jason noted that his friend had the model with a lengthy silencer built onto the barrel. The machine gun was clearly recognizable from the thick canvas sleeve around the rear of the silencer, the only protection a shooter had from a heated barrel. With the Sten, automatic fire was unadvisable except under the direst circumstances. Still, the British commandos had had an affection for the gun and its predecessors since before World War II, when it had been manufactured by British Small Arms along with the oil-spitting, brake-failing BSA motorcycle.

The British saw romance in ineffective machinery; hence the long life of the Jaguar automobile.

Adrian slammed one of two thirty-two shot clips into the gun. "Looks like we're about to have company."

Jason took the SIG Sauer from its holster in the small of his back, checked the magazine, and put it back. "I don't know how they found us unless they went to the charter service."

Adrian was stuffing the Sten's extra clip into his belt.

" 'Th' best laid plans of mice and men gang aft a'wry.' Or so th' bonny bard Bobby, Burns tells us. Reason enough to keep me old weapon handy and ready."

Jason was in no mood to discuss either alliterations or Scotland's most beloved poet. "I doubt we have the firepower to fend them off."

Adrian tossed one of the blankets to Maria and pulled out a Savage Model X20 nightscope, something any hunter in America could purchase at his local gun shop. "Wasn't plannin' on a fight, not with women around…"

"Don't let me keep you boys from your fun," Maria snapped.

Adrian cocked an eyebrow. "An', as I was about to say, only th' Sten an' a pistol between us."

Unspoken was the fact that, unlike in Bosnia, retreat was not an viable option.

Clare reappeared, carrying a military knapsack. "I've got enough water and food to last us a day or two."

Motioning Jason and Maria to follow, Adrian headed for the door. "We'll not be going far, but we need to hide the car, make it look like we're gone, perhaps off on holiday."

"What about that?" Clare was pointing to the tray with the still-steaming haggis.

"Canna leave hot supper around, now, can we?" Adrian thought for a moment. "Much as I hate it, we'll have to let the swine have it."

Jason had never imagined he would be indebted to ecological terrorists.

"Ah, wait!" Adrian exclaimed. "I'll take a wee second to turn off the ginny motor."

"Ginny motor?" Maria asked.

"Aye, lass, the generator that provides the 'lectricity for the house. We dinna have a local power company out here."

The house went dark, and Adrian returned seconds later holding a flashlight. "It's on our way we are then."

The Volvo cranked on the first try. They drove less than a hundred yards into a deep ravine carved into the hillside that would make the automobile impossible to see unless someone knew where to look or was very lucky. From the car, Adrian led them uphill to a scattering of large stones Jason had seen earlier and dismissed as just one more of the island's rock formations. Only when Adrian played a flashlight across the surface did Jason see a horizontal opening leading under an overhanging boulder.

"One of the early Bronze Age dwellings," Adrian said, ducking to get into the space beneath. "Phoenicians and Romans invaded the Nuragic settlements along the coast, forced the indigenous population to retreat here into the ridges. They built homes that were difficult to find, easy to defend."

Jason followed Adrian's light. They stepped down into a cave-no, a room perhaps thirty by thirty. The walls still showed marks of the ancient chisels that had pried away the stone. At the back, the cool night air entered through a hole in the roof, a primitive fireplace, recognizable by smudges of soot still visible on the wall. The closer he looked, the more Jason realized the habitation was not as primitive as he had thought. The streaked wall behind the fire pit would have been heated by the flames, radiating warmth throughout the small room.

Adrian switched off his flashlight. "Make y'sel' comfortable, but cut off the torches. Don' wan' th' light givin' us away."

As his world went dark, Jason heard, rather than saw, Adrian stretch out on his stomach at the slit that was the cave's entrance. He could see the outline of the Scot studying his house with the nightscope. "Dinna take 'em long."

Jason felt the glass pushed into his hand. At first he saw little other than the disconcerting hues of green and black produced by concentration of ambient light. As he watched, the colors assumed the recognizable shapes of the house, trees, and rocks. He saw nothing that did not belong.

"Over by the far corner of the house," Adrian whispered.

There was a blur of monochromatic green as Jason shifted to his right. At first he observed nothing that wasn't part of the landscape.

Then something moved, a ghostly flicker edging toward the front of the house. Then another. Jason made a minute adjustment to the scope, and several images jumped out of the background with starling clarity.

"Six of them, by my count," he whispered to Adrian, although the distance would have prevented the intruders from hearing anything less than a shout. "The usual AK- 47s. Looks like they're deploying to cover all windows and doors. How'd they get here, anyway? I didn't hear a car."

"You wouldn't. These hills can block sound sometimes, amplify it at others."

Adrian was reaching for the return of the scope.

Jason took one last look. "One of 'em has the right part of his face bandaged, all right. Can't be sure, but I think he's the one we ran into in Sicily."