Gregg Loomis - Gates Of Hades

Inspectore Guiellmo was curious as to the company she might be keeping.

Piazza San Carlo

Turin, Italy

Late afternoon

The cobblestoned square had become world-famous from television coverage of the 2006 Winter Olympics. The only differences were that the red tile roofs were not snow covered and the crowds were nonexistent. As Jason and Maria sipped espresso in front of a trattoria, he studied the white limestone baroque churches of San Carlo and Santa Christina at the southern end of the piazza, his fingers drumming a nervous tattoo on the table. Somewhere nearby was the small cafe where, supposedly, vermouth had been invented, a mecca for martini drinkers worldwide. In the distance, purple shadows were blurring the jagged edges of the Alps.

This time there had been no unusual requests for rooms at the small hotel just off the arcaded Via Roma, the main street of the historic district. They had left a message for Adrian before Maria had called Eno Calligini, whose arrival they now awaited.

Maria glanced around the piazza as she took a Marlboro from her purse without exposing the pack. She ignored Jason's grimace of disapproval as she lit up and exhaled a jet of blue smoke. "Did you watch the Olympics here?"

Jason shook his head. He had not owned a television since he left Washington. "Missed it." He swiveled his head, scanning their surroundings. "This professor friend of yours usually on time?"

Punctuality was not an Italian virtue.

She leaned back in her chair, squinting through the smoke drifting into her face. "My, are not you the chatterbox?"

His attempt at a smile was a failure at best. "Don't like sitting out here where we can be seen by people we can't see. Makes me nervous."

Maria took a long drag as she looked around the square. "You are paranoid."

"I'm still alive."

They sat in the silence of an uneasy truce until Jason leaned forward to pull the magazine containing the summary of Dr. Calligini's book from his pocket. He had read all but the last two chapters on the train they had taken after the boat back to the mainland. Flying would have been quicker but would have involved security likely to turn up his weapon. The SIG Sauer would have been hard to explain.

"I appreciate Adrian giving this to us." He held it out. "Want to read it?"

She stubbed her cigarette out in a small glass ashtray. "Read the book when it first appeared. I do not know if…"

She stood, leaving the sentence unfinished. Jason followed her gaze across the piazza to where a tall man was striding toward them. Hatless, with a full mane of shoulder-length silver hair that reached a shabby cardigan. Faded jeans were stuffed into rubber-soled boots. As the man approached, Jason saw tanned features, the skin wrinkled from exposure to wind and sun.

It was not until he stood at tableside, his long face split by a dazzling smile, that Jason realized the man was more than old enough to be Maria's father. That did little to diminish a twinge of jealousy as the two embraced.

Jason stood as Maria turned to him. "Jason, I want you to meet Dr. Calligini…"

The doctor extended a hand with a firm grip. "Eno, please." He immediately returned his attention to Maria with a stream of Italian before stopping and turning back to Jason. " Mi displace. I'm sorry. I have not seen little Maria long time."

Jason arched an eyebrow, looking at Maria. "'Little' Maria?"

Eno nodded. " Si. Beeg Maria, she my seester, marry to Maria's poppa."

For reasons quite understandable, Jason felt relieved. "A pleasure, Dr., er, Eno. You speak good English."

Jason was treated to a smile that could have served as an ad for toothpaste as the doctor held thumb and index finger an inch or so apart. "Only a leetle."

The three sat, and Eno barked Italian at the waiter, who scurried away, returning almost immediately with a tiny cup of espresso.

The professor's eyes fell on the magazine on the table, and he smiled even wider. "You read?"

"Interesting," Jason said without commitment. "I'm not sure Greco-Roman mythology is going to be helpful in finding what I want."

Eno turned to Maria, obviously seeking a translation.

They exchanged sentences Jason didn't understand before she said, "It is no myth. He believes that the Roman's journal is an accurate representation of what happened."

Jason lowered the coffee cup he had almost put to his lips. "It's real; he thinks it's real? That there really is a hell?"

Eno apparently understood the gravamen of that. He shook his head. "No 'hell.' Hades."

"There's a difference?"

" Si. Difference."

The professor ignored his coffee to speak rapidly to Maria. His gesticulations confirmed Jason's belief that an Italian unfortunate enough to lose both arms would be struck dumb also.

When he had finished, or at least subsided, Maria said, "There really is-was-a Hades, complete with River Styx and all. It was the place of departed spirits, a place of darkness, of heat and volcanic activity, hence the fire and brimstone the Christians associate with hell."

Jason leaned back in his chair, unconvinced. "If it was real, where was it?"

"Baia, or in the old Roman Latin, Baiae."

"The place in the article."

She nodded.

"But how-"

Eno interrupted with another stream of italian.

When he finished, Maria said, "General Agrippa blocked it in, perhaps on the orders of Augustus Caesar, his friend and patron. That would have been sometime a.d. 12 or before."

Coffee completely forgotten, Jason rested his chin on open palms, elbows on the table. "You mean they sealed it off?"

She shook her head. "No, they tried to completely fill it in. Like Nero's Golden House in Rome."

He shook his head.

"When Nero died, years after Augustus, Vespasian filled the palace with dirt. It's been excavated for only a few years. Hades at Baia was the same, filled in."

"Then how…"

She held up a hand, rushing on. "A chemical engineer, an Englishman by the name of Robert Paget, retired to Baia and became interested in the local antiquities. In

1962 he and a native crew excavated part of it. They could work only in fifteen-minute shifts because of the heat and the gases, but he cleared the passageway to an underground river, the Styx. Along the way were sacrificial altars-"

"Gases?" Jason's interest quickened.

"They did no analysis, but there was some kind of gas that made them sleepy as well as prone to hallucinations."

"Ethylene?" Jason was twisting his cup around on the tabletop.

Maria shrugged. "Possibly. They were amateur archeol- • ogists, not geologists."

Eno was following the exchange closely. "The Inglese, Paget, he want to find Greek Hades, no geologist."

Jason straightened up, palms flat on the table. "Okay, so it looks like I'll have to go to… where?"

"Baia," Maria and Eno said in unison.

"Not so easy," Eno added. "After Paget explore there, Italian government…" He made a motion of touching his hands together in silent applause. "How you…?"

"The Italian government shut up the entrances, said it was too dangerous," Maria said.

"Nobody's been in there since 1962?" Jason was incredulous.

Eno explained something to Maria, who turned to Jason. "Another archaeologist, Robert Temple, convinced the authorities to let him explore further in 2001. He reported the gas levels had subsided, as had the intense heat reported by Paget. He took some pictures and wrote a book about it, Netherworld. Then the government sealed it off again."

Jason drained the remains of what was by now very cold espresso. "Why? I'd think the archeological value of the real Hades would be worth keeping it open."

Eno motioned to the waiter for refills and joined in. "Government say too dangerous. My guess, Church wanted closed."