Gates of Hades Read online

  "Rip the sheets into strips and tie and gag both of them. Let's hope nobody is scheduled to bring the caviar."

  While both captives cowered under Jason's automatic, Paco tore strips from the bedsheets. Minutes later the man and woman were trussed like bucks slung over the hood of a pickup truck. Jason rummaged around the top of a bedside table until he found a set of keys, one of which he used to lock the stateroom once he and Paco were outside in the passageway.

  They listened.

  Silence is an absence of sound. But to someone whose adrenaline is pumping, someone whose life depends on his hearing at the moment, silence becomes a sound of its own, the sound of the heart thumping, of breaths taken deeply, and, loudest of all, the sound of emptiness and space that create a pressure upon the ears.

  Jason's employer was going to be less than happy with a dead rather than captive arms salesman, but Jason and Paco hadn't formulated the contents of the deadly syringe. Maybe someone had planned for Alazar to die, lying to Jason for fear he would refuse to administer a fatal dose. If so, no one should have been concerned. Ridding the world of its Alazars was what Jason had sworn to do—kill all of them.

  He would never be even for what they had done.

  Alert to the possibility of being discovered, they began to move, to return the way they had come.

  They had almost reached the anchor locker when they heard shouts and the sound of heavy and hurried feet. Jason and Paco traded stealth for haste.

  Splinters, as deadly as bullets, flew from the ceiling over his head. He ducked reflexively as he and Paco stepped over the coaming and slammed the door.

  In the cramped darkness of the tiny room they could see the harbor's water through the anchor port.

  Jason motioned with his pistol. "You first. I'll cover."

  "No, man. Take me too long to get through th' fookin' hole. You go."

  The door trembled in its frame as jagged holes admitted light from the passageway outside. Wood fragments buzzed through the air like angry bees. No sound of gunshots. Silencers, Jason thought. They weren't using the arsenal of automatic weapons Alazar usually carried

  because rapid fire quickly burned out sound suppressors.

  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.

  Chapter Four

  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.

  Only ten feet below the surface of volcanic rock, a room of roughly a thousand square feet was as brightly lit as an operating room. Two men sat in front of a computer screen.

  Both were dressed in guayabera, the loose-fitting, four- pocket shirt the Latin America peasant wore outside rough white canvas pants rolled almost to the knees, with thong flip-flops. Notwithstanding the native attire, neither man would have been mistaken for a Costa Rican. Both were bulky, with the bodies of athletes from some sport where hurting someone was part of the game. The light from the computer reflected a bluish glow from two shaved scalps.

  "You're sure that's him?" one asked the other.

  "You can see the harbor of St. Bart's in the background," the other responded.

  The first man shifted his position for a better view. "What do we know about him?"

  The other touched a key on the board in front of him and read from the screen. "Very little so far. He was at one time employed by the army—we hacked into the military's files—but not much since he left in 2001."

  "Echelon?"

  The man referred to the supereavesdropping program that, from its place in England, monitored every e-mail and most telephone calls worldwide. The information gleaned

  was shared only by England, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The satellites and the system they made work had been in operation long before the American public learned that their communications could be intercepted. The sheer volume of transmissions made it highly unlikely that anyone would be listened to without already being of interest to one of the governments involved.

  "Our person there has secretly tagged Peters's name, although that's more difficult than watching for a specific phone number or e-mail address. He may use an encryption device. In any case, we're tracing what we took from his companion. Is he a threat?"

  "He or his employer has Alazar's computer."

  The other man, perhaps a year or so younger than the first, reached into a bowl containing the small, sweet bananas grown nearby. He began to peel. "Surely he wasn't so careless as to..."

  The older man snorted. "Alazar was not part of our cause. He was only in it for the money."

  The other finished the banana in two bites. "We've found the location of his secret; we no longer need him. Perhaps his death was providential."

  "Perhaps. But keep our people looking for Peters. We can't risk what might be on that computer. The secret he sold us is our greatest weapon against the despoilers of the earth."

  JOURNAL OF SEVERENUS TACTUS EXCERPTED FROM ENO CALLIGINI, PH.D., ORACLES, AUGURY, AND DIVINATION IN THE ANCIENT WORLD. (TURIN: UNIVERSITY OF TURIN PRESS, 2003). TRANSLATION BY FREDERICK SOMMES, PH.D. CHAPEL HILL, N.C.: UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS.

  Cave of the Sibyl

  Cumae, Gulf of Naples

  Campania, Italy

  Nones Iunius (June 1), Thirty-Seventh Year of the Reign of Augustus Caesar (a.d. 10)

  I, Severenus, son of Tactus, have decided to make this account of my descent into Hades1 and, the gods willing, my return, so it may form a record of a remarkable journey. It is not a trip I undertake lightly, but one of necessity.

  I am well aware many have crossed the River Styx never to return and that the trip is costly. In nearby Baia2 already I have purchased from the priests three suitable bullocks and three lambs for sacrifice, as well as innumerable ducks and chickens so that these priest might augur the most favorable of times to enter the underworld.3

  By inquiry, I ascertained that no one entered the underworld before visiting the Sibyl at Cumae a few miles north of my inn in Baia to ascertain if they would survive such a journey.4 As Apollo's chariot reached its zenith for the day, I stood at the mouth of the cave, waiting for one of the Sibyl's priests to lead me inside. I stared into the alternating streaks of light and dark that marked the entrance, wondering again how wise were the actions I was preparing to take. I was half convinced consulting the seeress was the only sage part.

  At least she could advise me of what will happen when I go down into Hades.

  I only wished she could answer my question and obviate the necessity of confronting the shade of my dead father. Tactus was a difficult man and one who shared his secrets with no one. He had provided me and my siblings with a Greek slave to educate us, clothing, food and shelter, and little else, although he was one of the wealthiest merchants in Rome. When he died last year, my mother and siblings and I found his treasury nearly empty, both of goods and money. A diligent search and inquiry of Ms workers, both slave and freemen, revealed nothing. The only way to locate the fortune Tactus had secreted was to "descend to the world of the dead and ask him.5

  I was of the thought that it wasn't only Baia's mild climate, a refuge from the heat of Rome's summers, warm sulfur springs, and fat, purple oysters that had made the town the empire's premier resort location. More brothels than temples, more gambling halls than public buildings, exquisite baths. Seneca the Younger had described the place as a "vortex of luxury" and a "harbor of vice" two hundred years ago.

  No, it wasn't the cooling breezes or the attractiveness of the prostitutes that had established the town.

  It was the entrance to Hades.

  My thoughts returned to the Sibyl. They said she dated to before man; and, at her request, the gods had granted her eternal life. She had not asked for eter-

  nal youth, an oversight that explained why she ...

  There was movement in the cave. An androgynous figure, its face completely shadowed by a cloak, was coming toward me. Or was it? It alternately approached and disappeared like a ghost, getting closer with each reappearance.6

  Wordlessly, a hand motioned me forward.

  NOTES

  1. Other than Virgil, Homer, and other Greco- Roman poets, this is the first account of such a journey, certainly the first by a nonheroic personality or in the first person, although there is little doubt that real persons in addition to legendary ones (Aeneas, Odysseus, etc.) risked such a venture. Then, of course, there was Persephone, who, k
idnapped by Pluto, lord of the underworld, was allowed to return to the earth each spring for a visit.

  2. The modern name for the town, used for convenience's sake. The Roman name was Bauli.

  3. The selling of sacrificial livestock was a mainstay of the priests and attendants at oracles and sibyls throughout the ancient world. Not all the animals purchased for this purpose were slaughtered, allowing any number of resales.

  4. Cumae is the oldest Greek settlement yet found in Italy. The Cumae Sibyl was regarded as one of the two or three most important sources of divination in the ancient world and was held in equal or higher esteem than the oracle at Delphi in Greece.

  5. The easy solution would seem to be simply asking the Sibyl, but oracles dealt only with secrets of the future, not the past. Possibly this division of labor kept more priests profitably occupied, not unlike the strict division of tasks favored by today's labor unions.

  6. The cave of the Sibyl at Cumae may be visited today. The approach is a number of equally wide pillars of stone and open space. In the afternoon sun, a person walking along this corridor would enter darkness and light at identical intervals, giving the illusion to the observer outside of alternately appearing and disappearing. We will further examine other tricks of showmanship designed to dazzle, or better yet, frighten, those who dealt with the cult of priests.

  PART II

  Chapter Five

  North Caicos, Turks and Caicos Islands

  British West Indies

  January

  The silver column of bubbles floated lazily toward the surface, leaving tiny globs of air to hang momentarily on the lips of the barrel sponge and plate coral above Jason's head. Despite the eighty-foot depth, the tropical sun was bright enough to make an artist's palette of color of the wall, a natural drop that fell into the hazy blue hundreds of feet below.

  His artistic eye was oblivious to the spectacular quality of his surroundings. Instead, his attention was focused on something else as he hung motionless over the abyss, concentrating on a small hole in which he could see a spider crab. Though it was small in body, the crustacean's legs and claws were large enough to make a meal for two, a meal of the sweetest meat Jason had ever tasted. He wouldn't taste this one, though, unless he could get it out of its lair. The crab had retreated far enough back that it was out of reach, and Jason had left his spear in the boat. Nothing to do but remember the spot and come back.