Jason's gaze followed the line from his gun muzzle to the security man's head. 'Maybe. But I'm the one holding the gun.' He jabbed it forward in a threatening manner. 'And I'm not afraid to use it. Tell him he's got about ten seconds to answer my question.'
Jason was now certain the older man understood English. He puffed out his chest in the pose that had become associated with the Italian dictator, as he spoke to Maria.
'He doesn't, er, submit to threats from criminals. To do so would dishonor his country, his service, and himself.'
With studied indifference, Jason squeezed off a shot that missed Belli's ear by no more than an inch, close enough that the man could feel its hot breath as it whined by and chipped a piece of rock from the incline behind him. Both Italians were flat on the ground before the first echoes bounced from hill to hill like a volleyed tennis ball.
Maria's eyes were larger than Jason would have imagined nature allowed.
'Tell him the next two will take his ears off one at a time.'
Dishonor, it seemed, was preferable to disfigurement.
Belli spoke quickly, shifting an uneasy glance from his prone position from Jason to Maria as he talked.
'The chief of their agency was notified of the body of what appeared to be a Russian in the house in Taormina. Since the bureau I work for is the owner and I had suddenly taken holiday time, they wanted to question me. Then that wreck in Sardinia with all those bullet shells and more dead lying about-he made a connection. You were the only person Interpol suspected of killing Russians, at least outside of Russia, and…'
Jason held up a hand. He had heard enough.
Maria was looking at him warily. 'Jason, what are you going to do
…?'
'Do?' A voice came from behind them. Adrian was marching the other two suits in front of a pointed pistol Jason recognized as a government-issue Beretta. The Sten was again slung over his shoulder. One of men looked somewhat worse for the wear. 'We'll leave 'em in their bleedin' car an' toss the keys.'
'Good idea,' Jason concurred.
Moments later the four Italians were stripped of their cell phones and handcuffed inside a black Lancia from which the radio had been removed.
Adrian stuck his head in the open window, making sure all were secure. 'Nice 'n' comfy, 'r ye?'
' Vaffancula!' the oldest one muttered.
Adrian grinned. 'He's suggestin' I commit an anatomical impossibility.'
The tone had suggested as much to Jason. 'C'mon; let's get outta here before more show up.'
'But they have our license plate number,' Maria protested. 'Will we not be stopped by the first policeman we see?'
Jason was already climbing into the driver's seat. 'It's not the tag that helped them find us, believe me. Besides, isn't Baia just over those hills? We'll be there before dark.'
Minutes later, Jason pulled off the pavement beside one of several roadside restaurants, partially shielded from view by a row of plane trees. He waited until two cars, a Smart and a Fiat 1500, parked and disgorged what looked like local workmen.
'On th' way home from work, I'd guess,' Adrian said, stuffing his pipe. 'Stoppin' by f their pint.'
'Grappa's more like it,' Jason observed, hoping the pipe wasn't going to get lit until he could get upwind.
He was disappointed. He smelled the sulfur of a match, followed by a sour stench that reminded him of the time Pangloss had gotten too close to a charcoal grill. On second thought, he was maligning the aroma of scorched dog hair.
It was as if Adrian had read his mind. Or seen the wrinkled noses of both the other passengers. 'Na' t' worry.'
He got out of the car and lay down to look under it.
'There she is!'
He stood, the pipe clinched in his teeth, puffing in exultation. He exhibited a small square of metal about the size of the bar of soap Jason would expect in a hotel bathroom. He trotted off across the parking lot, smoke trailing behind him like a locomotive. He stopped and knelt beside the Fiat.
'What is he doing?' Maria wanted to know.
'Replanting the bug.'
Her expression said he might as well have been speaking in Aramaic, Swahili, or jet-propelled Sanskrit.
'The bug, that little black thing he took from under this car. The reason the police didn't have to follow us is because they had a homing device stuck somewhere underneath. Some satellite did their surveillance for them. Good thing about that kind of satellites, though, is that they only 'see' the impulses from the tracking equipment. They don't see whose car it may be attached to.'
'But where…?'
'My guess is at the observatory.'
'Why not arrest us there?'
'Then they wouldn't know where we were going or if others might be involved in whatever they think we're doing, would they?'
'I guess not. But that car over there, the one Adrian is attaching-'
'Somebody's going to have a real surprise on the way home.'
Chapter Thirty-seven
Via Delia Dataria
Rome
That night
Inspectore Santi Guiellmo paced the floor of his office, oblivious to the late hour. Zuccone! Belli was a fool! Had it not been for a couple of teenagers on bicycles looking for a deserted place to fornicate, Belli and his men would have spent a miserable night handcuffed to their own police car. Guiellmo almost wished they had. They certainly deserved it!
Belli had followed that farce with an even greater one.
He had commandeered one of the lovers' cell phones, checked in with his headquarters, and called every available polizia and carabiniere within a hundred kilometers in the name of the forze dell'ordine, a security force that was now the joke of every cop south of the Alps. It had required nearly thirty armed officers to apprehend two elderly, unarmed, and grappa-besotted stonemasons on their way home from work in a Fiat.
Guiellmo had little sense of humor, none where his agency was involved. Under Italy's civil service, firing someone was even more impossible than it was in the private sector, but Belli would reach retirement in Italy's remote northeastern Adriatic coast, the Marche, chasing Gypsy sheep thieves.
No doubt they, too, would outsmart him.
At least the imbecile had been able to give descriptions. The woman was certainly Dr. Bergenghetti, something already known. What remained a question was her involvement with the two men, and in what were they involved? Judging by the Volvo's registration, one of the men was a Scot named Adrian Graham, who had retired from the British army and resided in Sardinia. Belli had heard the woman call the second man Jason, confirming his identity.
What was going on? Peters was likely responsible for the death in Sicily and four more in Sardinia. But why? Surely the man was not on some campaign of his own, simply out to reduce the Slavic population. Such a goal might be commendable, albeit illegal, but certainly profitless. Peters was after something else.
But what?
Guiellmo spread a map of the Bay of Naples across the top of his desk, his forehead wrinkled in thought. What was Peters doing at Cumae, seeking aid from a Sibyl who had not been in residence for two thousand years? What else was there at Cumae other than ancient Greek ruins that could be of interest? He ran a finger along the
