black produced by concentration of ambient light. As he watched, the colors assumed the recognizable shapes of the house, trees, and rocks. He saw nothing that did not belong.
'Over by the far corner of the house,' Adrian whispered.
There was a blur of monochromatic green as Jason shifted to his right. At first he observed nothing that wasn't part of the landscape.
Then something moved, a ghostly flicker edging toward the front of the house. Then another. Jason made a minute adjustment to the scope, and several images jumped out of the background with starling clarity.
'Six of them, by my count,' he whispered to Adrian, although the distance would have prevented the intruders from hearing anything less than a shout. 'The usual AK- 47s. Looks like they're deploying to cover all windows and doors. How'd they get here, anyway? I didn't hear a car.'
'You wouldn't. These hills can block sound sometimes, amplify it at others.'
Adrian was reaching for the return of the scope.
Jason took one last look. 'One of 'em has the right part of his face bandaged, all right. Can't be sure, but I think he's the one we ran into in Sicily.'
'Th' one w' th' bandage, he's the leader,' Adrian observed. 'Tellin' 'em to search th' house.'
It took the new arrivals only a few minutes to ascertain that no one was home.
A few minutes later, Jason caught a snatch of a voice, although he couldn't make out the words. 'What's happening now?'
'They dinna find us in th' house, an' now the man with th' bandage, he's pointin' in different directions, tellin' 'em to search for us, I'll wager.'
From behind him, Jason heard an intake of breath, a gasp. He could not tell if it was Maria or Clare. It was more for their benefit than Adrian's that he said, 'They'll have a tough time finding us here.'
'Aye, laddie, a tough time indeed, long's we keep quiet and our heads down.'
'And even if they do, this is as perfect a shelter as we could want. It'll take a high-explosive device to get to us here.'
'Don' be too sure o' that. A few shots through the slit here in front an' the ricochet'd be like grenade fragments off these stone walls. Best we lie low like a fox in his den till th' hounds have tired.'
Jason checked the luminescent face of his watch, surprised to note that only fifteen minutes had passed since they'd fled the house. He watched that fifteen stretch into twenty, then thirty. Waiting for action was one of the most difficult things in Jason's line of work. There was nothing to do but think, and thinking frequently complicated the problem.
Jason slid his sleeve over the watch's face and stared into darkness.
Minutes, an hour later, he heard footsteps crunching on the rocky soil outside. One, no, two men were following a course that would lead them straight to the cave.
Jason thumbed the SIG Sauer's safety.
Adrian backed farther inside, making sure that no errant source of light gave them away by reflecting from the nightscope.
Jason felt someone beside him, Maria. He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze and she would not let go, her grip tense and damp. Even so, Jason took pleasure from her touch.
Looking up toward the entrance, he could see them now, or at least, he thought he could make out two sets of legs from the waist down. Two ill-defined masses of darkness against a slightly less dark night. One moved slightly, the activity quite clear against the pinpricks of stars in the dome of the ink black sky. One said something, low, guttural words Jason could not hear clearly, and the two sets of legs moved off to his left, the sounds of grinding rocks and gravel growing gradually dimmer.
A hand, not Maria's, tugged at his sleeve.
'May as well get some sleep, laddie,' Adrian whispered into his ear. 'I'd bet a month's pay they'll not be leavin' us till they're sure we're gone. I'll stand a three-hour watch, then wake you.'
Like any seasoned combat soldier, Jason took an opportunity to sleep whenever it presented itself. Head on his hands, he was breathing deeply in less than a minute. His sleep was light, the sort that gave rest but was not so deep he could not come instantly awake. He pretended not to be awakened when Maria lifted his head and placed it in her lap.
Chapter Twenty-five
Silanus, Sardinia
Dawn, the next day
The morning did not begin with a slow grayness. Instead, the red of a cardinal's robe streaked the eastern sky momentarily before buttery light began to chase the night from the far ridge. In an instant of deja-vu, Jason was with Laurin, watching the sun climb to the lip of the bowl that was Aspen, Colorado. He had been so absorbed in the colors, he had forgone the ski slopes that morning for an opportunity to capture the scene on canvas.
Laurin. The places they had shared.
As always, the emptiness was filled with a sense of rage, a fury illogicaly directed at the men from whom he was hiding.
In minutes the cave would be in full daylight. Slipping out of the entrance, Jason used the last of the shadows to tend to bodily functions before returning to a refuge without comfort facilities.
Maria had much the same needs, and he met her as he entered. He pointed to the valley below that was quickly filling with daylight. 'Hurry.'
She started to reply, a sharp remark, he guessed, thought better of it, and disappeared behind a nearby boulder.
Not far below, somewhere near Adrian's chicken coop, a rooster belatedly proclaimed what was already fact.
Carefully holding his weapon behind him rather than risk an errant reflection of the early sun, Jason stretched. Muscles, including some he had temporarily forgotten, ached from sleeping on the rocky floor. He winced as he rotated his neck in a vain hope of working out the soreness. He gave up on the stiffness going away anytime soon and he surveyed the farm below.
Two men in military fatigues were poorly concealed beside the house's door. Two more were covering the approach up the driveway. Assuming he and Adrian had seen them all last night, that left two unaccounted for. Jason guessed they would be concealed somewhere along the turnoff from the road to the house. Or on the ridge behind the cave. Or both.
Or neither.
'No tellin' where th' sods might be.' Adrian had come up behind him, one military mind reading another. 'Could be that we dinna know exactly how many of them there are.'
'I thought of that,' Jason said, not taking his eyes from the view in front. 'Question is, how long do they plan to stay?'
Adrian shook his head. 'Long as they want, I'd think, waitin' for us to come back home. Folks 'round here pretty much mind their own affairs rather than constantly botherin' their neighbors. Could be a month or so 'fore anyone comes 'round.'
'You've got your cell phone, right? You could call the cops,' Jason suggested.
'Not in here. These rocks shield us from satellite contact. We might try calling the nearest carabiniere, about a hundred kilometers away, if we can get outside tonight and risk being overheard.'
Jason had a better idea. 'I'd as soon not have to answer the questions they'd ask, and I'm not sure how much scrutiny my papers will take. Tell you what-if they're still down there by dark, I have another way to handle it.'
If Adrian had doubts about that, he didn't show them.
The rest of the morning was spent alternating watches from the cave's mouth.
Shortly after noon, Maria observed, 'They are still searching for us, looking behind every rock, checking out every building. Except one.'
