Douglas Preston - The Book of the Dead

He felt a rush of limb-trembling rage. She had invaded his home, his bolt-hole, his ultimate refuge. This was it: he had nowhere else to go, no other identity to assume. Flushed from here, he would be put to flight like a dog, pursued relentlessly. Even if he eventually escaped, it would take years to find a new safe haven, establish a secure identity.

No: he had to finish it here and now.

Three shots sounded in rapid succession, and he heard one of the shutters in the breakfast nook hurl open, slamming against the wall with a shuddering crash. He jumped up and, scuttling ahead at a crouch, took cover behind a half-wall of masonry separating the kitchen from the dining area. The wind howled through the open window, banging the shutter.

Had she gotten inside?

He scrambled around the half-wall, jumped up at a run, and swept the torch across the kitchen: nothing. Still running, he slid into the dining room, braced himself against a wall. The key was to keep moving…

Three more shots resounded, this time from the direction of the library, and he could hear another shutter begin to swing wildly in the wind.

That was her game, then: punch holes in his defenses, one by one, until the house was no protection at all. He wouldn’t play that game. He had to seize the initiative. He, not she, would choose the terrain for the final confrontation.

He had to get outside-and not only outside, but up the mountain. He knew every switchback of the steep and dangerous trail. She was comparatively weak and would be weaker after her long and exhausting pursuit. On the mountain, every advantage would be his-including the use of a handgun in the dark. Nevertheless, he reminded himself that he had underestimated her at each turn. That could not be permitted to happen again. He was up against the most determined, and perhaps most deadly, adversary of his career.

His thoughts returned to the mountain. The ancient trail had been built almost three thousand years ago by Greek priests to offer sacrifices to the god Hephaestus. About halfway up, the trail branched. A newer trail ran to the summit along the Bastimento Ridge. The ancient Greek trail continued westward, where it had been cut centuries earlier by the Sciara del Fuoco, the legendary Slope of Fire. The Sciara was a continuous avalanche of red-hot lava blocks forced from the crater, which tumbled down a vast ravine a mile broad and three thousand feet deep, to ultimately crash into the sea in explosions of steam. The cliff edge of the Sciara was a hellish, dizzying place, like no other on earth, swept by raging winds of heated air coming off the lava flow.

The Sciara del Fuoco. A perfect solution to his problem. A body that fell in there would virtually disappear.

Exiting the house would be his point of greatest vulnerability. But she could not be everywhere at once. And even if she was waiting, expecting his exit, she had little chance of hitting him if he kept moving in the dark. It took years to develop handgun skills at that level.

Diogenes crept up to the side door, paused briefly. And then, in one explosive movement, he kicked it open and charged into the darkness. The shots came, as he knew they would, missing him by inches. He dived for cover and returned the shots, suppressing her fire. Then he jumped up, sprinted through the gate, and turned sharply right, racing up a series of ancient lava steps at the top of the lane, which would connect to the trail that wound up the side of the volcano of Stromboli toward the Slope of Fire.

Special Agent Pendergast leaped off the swaying fishing boat onto the quay at Ficogrande, the boat already backing its engines to get away from the heavy surf along the exposed shore. He stood for a moment on the cracked cement, looking up at the island. It rose abruptly from the water like a black pillar against the dim night sky, illuminated by a fitful quarter-moon. He saw the reddish play of lights in the clouds capping the mountain, heard the boom and roll of the volcano, mingling with the roar of surf at his back and the howling of wind from the sea.

Stromboli was a small, round island, two miles in diameter and conical in shape: barren and forbidding. Even the village-a scattering of whitewashed houses stretched out along a mile of shoreline-looked battered, windswept, and austere.

Pendergast breathed in the moist, sea-laden air and drew his coat more closely around his neck. At the far end of the quay, across the narrow street that paralleled the beach, a row of crooked stuccoed buildings sat crowded together: one was evidently a bar, although the faded sign that rocked in the wind had lost its electric light.

He hurried up the quay, crossed the street, and entered.

A thick atmosphere of cigarette smoke greeted him. At a table sat a group of men-one in the uniform of the carabiniere-smoking and playing cards, each with a tumbler of wine in front of him.

He went to the bar, ordered an espresso completo. “The woman who arrived on the chartered fishing boat earlier this evening…?” he said in Italian to the bartender, and then paused, waiting expectantly.

The man gave the zinc a swipe with a damp cloth, served the espresso, tipped in a measure of grappa. He didn’t seem inclined to answer.

“Young, slender, her face swathed in a red scarf?” Pendergast added.

The bartender nodded.

“Where did she go?”

After a silence, he said, in Sicilian-accented Italian, “Up to the professor’s.”

“Ah! And where does the professor live?”

No answer. He sensed that the card game behind him had paused.

Pendergast knew that, in this part of the world, information was never given out freely: it was exchanged. “She’s my niece, poor thing,” he offered. “My sister’s heart is just about broken, her daughter chasing after that worthless man, that so-called professor, who seduced her and now refuses to do the right thing.”

This had the desired effect. These were Sicilians, after all-an ancient race with antique notions of honor. From behind him, Pendergast heard the scrape of a chair. He turned to see the carabiniere drawing himself up.

“I am the maresciallo of Stromboli,” he said gravely. “I will take you up to the professor’s house.” He turned. “Stefano, bring up the Ape for this gentleman and follow me. I will take the motorino.”

A dark, hairy man rose from the table and nodded at Pendergast, who followed him outside. The three-wheeled motorized cart stood at the curb and Pendergast got in. Ahead, he could see the carabiniere kick-starting his moto. In a moment, they were off, driving along the beach road, the surf roaring on their right, pounding up beaches that were as dark as the night.

After a short drive, they swung inland, winding through the impossibly narrow lanes of the town, rising steeply up the side of the mountain. The lanes grew even steeper, now running through dark vineyards and olive groves and kitchen gardens, enclosed by walls made of mortared lava cinders. A few sprawling villas appeared, dotting the upper slopes. The last one stood hard against the rising mountain, surrounded by a high lava-stone wall.

The windows were dark.

The carabiniere parked his motorbike at the gate and the Ape stopped behind it. Pendergast jumped out, looking up at the villa. It was large and austere, more like a fortress than a residence, graced with several terraces, the one facing the sea colonnaded with old marble columns. Beyond the lava wall stood a lush and extensive garden of tropical plants, birds of paradise, and giant exotic cacti. It was the very last house on the mountainside, and from Pendergast’s vantage point below, it almost seemed as if the volcano were leaning above the house, its rumbling, flickering peak reflecting a menacing bloody orange against the lowering clouds.