Gregg Loomis - Gates Of Hades

He hated the things.

Disease balls. Benefit for multiple sclerosis, funding for breast cancer research, cure for whatever. Mostly social aspirants, those unable to attain membership in the better clubs-women more on the outside than the inside of Washington society, could put on a five-thousand-dollar gown and chance meeting the current social glitterati in the name of charity. God forbid they be subjected to disgusting and dreary work at a homeless shelter or soup kitchen, where they would never be photographed for the society section of the paper.

Or at even in the small magazines that sold subscriptions to the very people they covered.

Jason had pointed out that a two-hundred-dollar ticket to such galas meant the charity in question would be lucky to get fifty. Why not, he reasoned, simply give the institution half the cost of the unbought gown and go out to a good restaurant while others were busy climbing the social ladder?

After all, as a partner in one of the city's premier law firms, Laurin had multiple club memberships paid for by her partners. There was no need to spend an evening of bad food and worse company among social wannabes.

Laurin would have none of it.

She spent at least one weekend a month doing the true grunt work of charity-helping in a hospice, giving free legal advice at a halfway house-efforts that would never be rewarded by public recognition. So why not do the glitzy part, too?

He didn't remember the specific event or the malaise it celebrated.

Prevention of terminal flatulence, maybe?

He did recall the former home of the Post heiress. Far from the street, out of the way. Small for the wealth it represented but on a large estate, one that would be difficult to totally close off from the rest of the world.

He supposed the conference would be held in the dining room, where he had experienced a lavish buffet of overcooked roast beef, rubber chicken, listless salad, et cetera, by the yard. The usual poor quality of the food had been overshadowed by the appearance of a man whose name Jason had forgotten within minutes of hearing it, a doctor who attached himself to Jason like a human leech. He was typical of the tedious types that peopled such functions, unable to discuss anything but his golf score and his brilliance in the stock market.

Jason had introduced him to Laurin and disappeared, leaving the man trying to be discreet in looking down the decollete of her ball gown while she frantically searched for a way to disengage herself.

It seemed ample revenge for her dragging Jason there.

He had escaped through the French doors that led into a garden, where rosebushes were just beginning to bloom.

Jason had guessed those doors could be left open, letting diners enjoy the fragrance of the flowers.

Or some other fragrance.

Like in a trawler in the Bering Sea.

Or at Baia.

The thought that had prowled the back of his mind now leaped from the tangle of his subconscious, a concept so powerful it would have struck him dumb had he had anyone to talk to.

He checked his watch. Hours before the ferry docked.

A ship-to-shore telephone on board?

He would certainly arouse suspicion by demanding to use it.

But he couldn't simply sit here and allow events to spin on their present course by his inaction. He had to do something, get the word to Mama no matter what.

But how?

Hillwood

4155 Linnean Avenue

Washington, D.C.

1530 EDT

Shirlee Atkins had been right.

Them mens hadn't given a shit whether they tracked dirt into the house or not. Chattering in some language she had never heard before, they went about their work in the rose garden and they would walk right cross the Chinese Oriental rug to go to the bathroom without so much as wiping their dirty boots. Mr. Jimson, he wouldn'ta let 'em do that, but this new fella, the one whose head look like an Easter egg, he didn't much seem to care.

Prolly wouldn'ta much cared 'bout what Shirlee done found in one of the silver drawers in the sideboard, either. The drawer stuck and she'd had to give it a real tug. Thing fell out on the floor, spillin' knives 'n' forks everwhere. But underneath them knives 'n' forks was some kinda false bottom, a place Shirlee reckoned Ms. Post used to hide real valuables. Like the curve-bladed knife with a golden handle. She 'spected there be no reason tell the new man she near done broke that drawer, jes' put it back like it was.

Ever since that man what call himself Rassavitch showed up this mornin' in that big ol' beat-up truck, the mens with the shovels, they workin' harder'n Shirlee had seen all week. They was sho' gonna finish this afternoon, git the place ready fo' that big meetin' tomorrow.

Stuff on that truck strange.

Some kinda spindly little plant. Downright ugly, and hadn't no flowers on it. Then they unloaded a bunch o' rocks. Big, round white-colored stone, look like they coulda weighed tons. But they didn't. One o' them scrawny little guys could pick one o' them rocks right up an' carry it to where they were planting those scraggly little bushes between them rocks in a line right outside the floor-to-ceiling doors of the dinin' room.

Not near as pretty as rosebushes.

But then, what did Shirlee know?

She wasn't nothin' but a cleanin' lady.

Naples-Cagliari ferry

At the same time

Jason looked up from the table, most of his two squares of pizza uneaten. His attention was focused on the man standing in the doorway talking on a cell phone and smoking a cigarette at the same time. Both hands occupied. Jason picked up his London Times, pretending to read while he kept his eyes on the man by the door.

The minute the conversation ended, the man turned, jamming the phone into a jacket pocket. Jason moved as quickly as he could while appearing to be just one more bored passenger with nothing to do but try to find an alternative to the ferry's tiny staterooms.

Outside, the bright lights of the car deck outlined everything along the edges of the passenger deck above. The man Jason was interested in was leaning against the rail as the breeze snatched sparks from his cigarette into the air like a child's sparkler.

Jason muttered something unintelligible and staggered against the side of the cabin, bouncing off the railing. He couldn't see the man's face, but he was pretty certain it was turned toward him. Jason stopped a few feet away, swaying with the ocean's swells like the drunk at sea he was imitating.

He waited until the next large wave, then lurched forward, colliding with the smoker.

"Mi dispiace," Jason mumbled. I'm sorry.

His victim never felt the hand slip into the jacket pocket.

The smoker gave Jason a gentle push as he stepped back. "Prego."

The Italian word that translated as anything from you're welcome to quickly to a simple acknowledgment of an apology.

Jason staggered down the steel catwalk, trying not to seem in a hurry until he was certain he was out of sight of his victim.

Once in protective shadows, he held up the cell phone. Its keyboard lit up when he flipped it open. He turned his back in the direction of its owner. He hoped he couldn't be seen using the stolen device. He punched series of buttons, the number of the American consulate in Naples, one of several he had memorized before leaving Washington.

The voice that answered was definitely American and just as certainly bored. The person Jason wanted to speak with was gone for the evening, sorry.

"It's important," Jason said.

Not to the person on the other end of the line. "He's still not here."

"Your name?"

"What does it matter?"

"It matters," Jason growled, "because when I hang up, I'm calling the ambassador in Rome. I'm telling him he has some lazy little dweeb down here in Naples who doesn't care enough to get off his ass even where national security is involved."