Gregg Loomis - Gates Of Hades

Jason fired two rounds through the shattered door. The SIG Sauer might as well have been a cannon in the confines of the small room. He didn't expect to hit anything, but the noise should back Alazar's men off for a moment or two, since their reluctance to use automatic weapons indicated that they wanted to avoid attracting the attention of anyone on shore, particularly the local cops.

His ears ringing, Jason stuck the gun into its holster, made sure the computer was securely inside the back of his belt, and grabbed the anchor chain with both hands as he swung his feet through the hawsehole. He squeezed through the aperture until only his head was still inside.

"C'mon, Paco!"

In the dim light reflected through the opening, he saw Paco grab the chain.

Jason was halfway down the anchor chain when Paco grunted. "I'm stuck! I can't get through! The fookin' bottle…"

Jason's feet were feeling for the Zodiac. "Dump the goddamn champagne bottle!"

Above his head Jason saw Paco's legs wrapped around the chain hawser. They struggled and went limp. Arms dragged Paco back inside.

A face appeared at the opening.

It was not Paco's.

Jason grabbed the pistol and squeezed off a shot, the report merging with the clang of the bullet ricocheting from the steel hull.

The face disappeared.

His weapon pointed at the anchor port, Jason used his other hand to snatch the inflatable's line from the anchor chain and shoved the craft clear. He was tugging at the outboard's lanyard when a spitting sound was followed by the hiss of escaping air.

Shit, somebody had hit the Zodiac.

The motor caught on the third pull. Lying flat against the coolness of the thin rubber, Jason opened the throttle and streaked for the middle of the harbor. Something whined overhead and hit the water with a crack.

When he was certain he was out of range, Jason cut the motor and considered his options. He wasn't concerned about the Zodiac. Its inflatable hull was compartmentalized; one puncture wouldn't sink it.

Paco.

Dead or wounded. A prisoner.

Jason tried not to imagine what would happen to his comrade if he were alive.

Orders were clear: If something went wrong, the mission was nothing more than an effort by individuals to revenge one of the many victims of Alazar's business. Neither Jason nor Paco were employed by any government. The United States disavowed any connection with such a violation of France's sovereignty by mercenaries, even if one was a U.S. national. Any survivor was to vacate the area as quickly and quietly as possible, leaving his comrade to whatever fate he might suffer.

Rules of the game.

Fuck orders.

Had the syringe contained the nonlethal dose as advertised, a sedated Alazar could have been dragged with them, used as a shield or hostage. Because of someone's incompetence or dishonesty, a good man would likely die a very unpleasant death. Jason was not going to leave a comrade to the tender mercies of people whose stock in trade was death.

Water slopped over the deflated compartment of the Zodiac as Jason made for the harbor's mouth. Once he rounded the quay, he was out of sight from the Fortune. He beached the Zodiac on a rocky shore just beyond the lights of Chez Maya, a restaurant where waiters were stacking chairs on tables for the night. The place had a view of the roads as well as a small cemetery. Entirely appropriate in view of the evening's activities, Jason thought grimly.

Only when he beached the Zodiac did he remember Paco had the small cork attached to the keys to the sailboat, keys that not only allowed the single hatch and door to the cabin to be locked, but the ignition key to the small engine. At the moment, keys were the least of his worries.

It took nearly twenty minutes to make his way back to the harbor on foot along the narrow street. Keeping in the shadows was not difficult with the distance between the few streetlights and the occasional vehicular traffic. He was trying to formulate a plan when he rounded a curve and faced the straight stretch of pavement that bordered the harbor.

Half a mile ahead, the water, ships, and buildings were painted with flashing blue and red lights. The bleating of sirens bounced from the surrounding hills. Jason stopped. Dread grew in his chest like an undigested meal in his stomach-a dread that reached icy tentacles down his arms and legs.

Forcing himself to walk at a normal pace, he approached a small crowd of police, medics, and the curious at the edge of the dock. All he could see at first was a puddle of water with a pinkish tint he assumed was a reflection from a nearby ambulance. Closer inspection revealed something at the center of the group, something large, wet, and oozing red. A fish that some nocturnal fisherman had dragged ashore?

He knew better.

"What is it?" an anonymous dark form with an American accent asked another.

"A body," an earlier arrival answered. "Boat was headed out of the harbor and saw it. Thought somebody had fallen overboard."

Fighting back the acid bile that was rising in his throat, Jason slipped between several gawking spectators. A nude body of a man lay on the concrete, a stream of seawater and blood dripping from the jagged stump of a neck from which the head was missing. In the pulsating lights of emergency vehicles the network of scars across the chest was quite visible.

"Boy, I bet this causes an uproar," the first spectator observed as casually as though commenting on the nightly news. "A murder isn't going to do the island any good. Particularly one this grisly." He sounded as if he were enjoying the show.

"Murder?" the second man asked sarcastically. "What murder? It was a boating accident."

Jason turned his back on the following snicker. Where had these people become so emotionally calloused that they could view a decapitation with such equanimity? Violence had been part of his life for a long time, and he would never become accustomed to sights like that on the dock. Did American television and movies put that much bloodshed in the lives of normal people?

He looked for a place to throw up unobserved.

Almost unobserved.

One man in the crowd watched closely. Jason was too busy losing the afternoon's beers to note the small digital camera with its enhanced light lens.

Costa Rica

December 26

It was unlikely anyone would have come upon the building. It was so well concealed in the rain forest that at first sight it seemed like a jungle cat pouncing from the green curtain of growth.

Otherwise, it was remarkable only in that it had a veneer of concrete rather than the cement block from which most native homes were built. What could not be observed in the remote chance of a passerby was that the structure was not a house at all. It concealed the entrance to an underground network. The massive ficus tree whose branches seemed to embrace the modest edifice concealed a dozen or so high-tech antennae. The strangler fig vines, thick as a man's wrist, that draped from the tree like ropes anchoring a balloon were actually electrical wires that ran to a generator far enough away that its gentle hum could not be heard here.

Not that sound mattered. The nearest settlement, a native village, was miles away, and the increasing number of tourists visiting the Costa Rican rain forest were content to remain in their vehicles on what served as a road on the opposite side of the mountain.

The government, always in pursuit of U.S. dollars, had happily allowed the construction of a nature laboratory to study and preserve the local flora and fauna. No one in San Jose had questioned the necessity of using nonlocal labor to build the facility, workers who melted away like mountain mist in the morning sun as soon as the job was complete. As long as certain officials received their monthly "consulting fee," no one questioned what was going on in the rain forest.