Gregg Loomis - Gates Of Hades

"You're right," Jason said. "Too open. No gas could be held there."

Maria entered. "The Sibyl's cave is not so open."

The passageway was not quite wide enough for two abreast. Gauge in hand, Maria led the way, followed by Jason and Adrian. Without looking behind him, Jason rested his hand on the SIG Sauer in its holster, and he sensed Adrian also was prepared for whatever might happen. Although only a few feet away, Maria appeared and disappeared in much the same way described by Severenus Tactus two millennia ago.

Jason wondered what other parts of the Roman's account would prove accurate.

The alternating spaces that admitted light came to an abrupt end. Jason and Adrian put on the helmets, turning on the light on each. The artificial illumination gave the yellow walls a reddish tint as though washed in blood. Every few feet a niche was carved into the stone, stands for ancient lamps, judging by the halo of soot above each.

A few more steps brought them to the end of the passage. To their left was a cavern, a low-ceilinged, square room carved into the rock. Lamp niches were on three of the four walls.

"The Sibyl's cave," Maria said, as she worked a small hand pump. "No sign of anything but normal air here, oxygen, nitrogen…"

Adrian held up a hand, a signal for silence.

Jason heard only the echo of his own breathing, then… a scrape, the sound of a shoe on stone or something hard against rock.

Maria and Adrian needed no signal to turn off the lanterns on their helmets as Jason did the same. "Any other way in?" he whispered.

He could only see Maria's dull silhouette shake its head, no. "Not that has been discovered."

Taking each by the arm, Jason eased Maria and Adrian back the way they had come. Even if they had no other means of escape, they had one advantage: the location of the Sibyl's cave would force whoever had entered the passage to enter successive squares of light, while Jason, Adrian, and Maria remained in concealing darkness.

Pressing the two others against the wall, Jason drew his weapon. The slight rustle of clothing told him Adrian had unslung his Sten. Jason thumbed off the safety and heard the echoing snick of the Sten's bolt being cocked.

Though he knew better, an eternity seemed to pass before Jason saw indistinct shapes flitting between the light and dark sectors of the long passage. Had he not reined it in, his imagination could easily have seen long- robed priests leading a young Roman to hear his fate foretold.

Instead, he made out four distinct figures, each moving with hands clasped in front as though carrying a weapon at the ready, each progressing in synchronized movements designed for a minimum of exposure to the sunlight and a maximum of coverage by his comrades.

Jason pushed Maria toward the first opening, speaking with his lips to her ear. "When they move next, you go through outside."

He felt, rather than saw her nod.

When the four figures simultaneously slipped from one patch of dark to the next, Jason shoved Maria, knocking her forward and out of the corridor. He lunged after her, half expecting shots.

There were none.

Outside, Adrian stood, dusting himself off while holding the Sten, its stock still folded. He had it trained on the passage they had just exited. "Get a look at 'em?"

Jason shook his head. "No. But they move like they've been trained, not some pickup gang of thugs."

He wasn't sure if that was better or worse.

Adrian helped Maria to her feet. "Any way out of the area without passing by the entrance?"

Instead of speaking, she motioned. Jason followed, keeping the gun's muzzle pointed at the slots in the cave's side. Where were they, the people who had entered? Was it possible they were only tourists visiting an obscure place?

Not moving in concert, as he had seen. More like military.

Then why…?

Possibly they had been blinded by emerging into light; possibly they hadn't seen Jason, Adrian, and Maria's exit.

Possible, but unlikely.

They were walking up a stone-paved path that wound its way around the hill into which the Sibyl's cave had been carved. Idly, Jason wondered if the rocks had ben worn smooth by the feet of ancient Romans. The trail ended at steep stairs carved into naked rock and long ago polished by use and the elements.

"Temple of Jupiter, highest point in the site," Maria announced. "We should be able to see them when they come out of the cave."

Jason started to reply and decided to save his breath for the ascent.

Minutes later they stood among broken and tumbled columns. From the stubs still in place, Jason guessed there had originally been six to a side, with two across the front and back. Rubble of columns and pediment were strewn around a large stone platform atop crumbling stairs that had led into the floor of the temple. To his right, Jason could see a number of figures slowly working in a field beyond two large arches.

"Archeological dig," Maria explained, following his line of sight.

Adrian was looking the other way. "And that would be?" He was pointing to a similar collection of ruins slightly below and across a dirt path.

"Temple of Apollo."

Adrian took a step back as four men emerged from below, turning their heads in deferent directions. The dark suits they wore were out of place, both as to location and climate.

"Th' lot look like coppers," Adrian observed.

"Whoever they are, we can bet they're not here to help," Jason said, squinting against the reflection of the afternoon's sun on the ocean to his left. "Is there another way to get back to the car?"

Maria nodded. "We can go down to the excavation site"-she pointed-"and then around the bottom of the hill."

"No good," Jason observed. "They've split up. We'd run into at least two of them."

"So much the better," Adrian said. "We ken where they are. They dinna have but an idea as to us. I say we divide up, too, an' take 'em on."

Maria looked nervously from Jason to Adrian and back again. "Surely you are not going to shoot these men when you do not even know

…"

Adrian grinned. "Na need to be shooting lass, if we right surprise 'em." He pointed. "Jason, you 'n' Maria go back th' way we came. I'll go 'round."

Jason wasn't wild about the idea, but it made more sense than waiting to be surrounded. He nodded, and he and Maria set off down the hill, his hand on the weapon at his back as they descended the stairs.

They had just reached the last step when two men rounded a bend in the path below. Both were red-faced from the exertion. The older of the two, overweight and white-haired, was puffing loudly and was watching carefully where he placed each footfall.

His companion was the first to see Jason and Maria. His right hand went inside his suit jacket. Jason glimpsed a flash of blue steel.

The advantage of carrying a weapon in the small of the back rather than a shoulder holster was that the shooter could assume a firing position without waiting for his gun to come to bear. Jason was in a two-handed stance, the SIG Sauer covering both men, before the other man had cleared his Beretta.

Both of the suited men slowly raised their hands.

Jason turned his head in Maria's direction, unwilling to take his sight off the men for an instant. "Tell them to use their left hands to take their guns out and drop them on the ground."

They complied, the older man speaking angrily as Jason kicked the two automatics well out of reach down the slope.

"He says they are National Security Service and that you will never see the outside of prison if you do not put your gun down immediately and surrender."

Italians knew the second-person form of the verb?

"Ask him to show identification. Slowly."

Before Maria could translate, both men were holding wallets with badges attached. Jason looked carefully, aware that he wouldn't recognize the bogus from the real. Again the older man spoke irately.