Gates of Hades (13 page)
Jason straightened up in his chair. “And?”
“I found silica, the usual thing you'd expect in any soil or clay, the ethylene, too. I also found traces of sulfides, slight radiation, the kind you'd assume around volcanic activity.”
“But there aren't any volcanoes anywhere near where those samples came from.”
Kamito shrugged. “You asked for an analysis; you got an analysis. And that's not even the real puzzler. I had to guess, I'd say the soil came from somewhere around the Mediterranean basin.”
Fascinated, Jason leaned forward, waking up Pangloss. “Lemme get this straight: you do tests on soil and a few pebbles from Georgia and a trawler's rock garden and determine they came from halfway around the world? How did they get there?”
Kamito leaned back in his chair. “That's what your employer pays you to find out.”
Jason sighed, despairing that the scientist would ever accept that he, Jason, was not employed by the CIA. Elbows on his knees, he said, “You're probably right. Let's start with how you came to the conclusion that this stuff is from the Mediterranean.”
Kamito stared at the ceiling a moment, as though the answer might suddenly appear there. “Although most soils contain common elements, the proportion of those elements varies. For instance, I would expect the water-leached soil of, say, a rain forest to be very low in chemical nutrients like nitrogen. On the other hand, desert sand would be high in nitrogen but, without life-sustaining water, low on hydrocarbons.”
Jason leaned back, aware that he had opened the jar and now the genie was going to take its time getting out.
“This particular sample is very rich in sulfides, which suggests past, present, or future volcanic activity.”
“Yeah, but there are volcanoes . . .”
Kamito held up a silencing hand. “To my knowledge, only one of the tectonic plates of the world contains these exact proportions of sulfides, sulfur nitrates, and the like.”
Jason searched his memory. “Tectonic plates? You mean those pieces of the earth's surface that more or less float on a sea of lava?”
A smile, almost condescending. “Not exactly, but very, very close. There are a number of plates that rub up against each other. One may override another or submerge under it, usually with cata . . . cata . . .”
“Catastrophic,” Jason supplied.
“Ah, so. For instance, the plate that is the Indian subcontinent slid under the larger Asian plate a few years ago, causing a massive earthquake. The San Andreas Fault is the line between the plate to which North America belongs and that of the Pacific Ocean. One dayâtomorrow, aeons from nowâeverything west of that line is likely to slip into the sea.”
Submersion of the Hollywood glitterati was a pleasing thought. Likely to raise the average IQ of both the Pacific and United States.
“Along these fault lines, the magma below sometimes boils to the surface. Volcanoes are least common where there is no fault line activity.”
“I don't recall any volcanoes in the western United States.” Jason said.
Kamito grinned yet again, explaining as though to a small child. “Possibly the largest volcano in the world is in the western United States, We call it Yellowstone National Park.”
It took Jason a moment be sure he had heard right. In the meantime, the chemist continued. “Not all volcanoes are above surface to begin with. If you consider the amount of thermal springs that regularly erupt under pressureâOld Faithful, for instanceâthere must be huge amounts of
pressure in the area. It can go dormant or, in days or aeons, erupt, taking Montana and Wyoming with it.”
Not as gratifying as California dropping into the ocean.
“Okay, I get the picture, but the Mediterranean basin is a little large. Could you be more specific?”
Kamito shook his head, the overhead lights shooting rainbow-colored streaks from his glasses. “Afraid notânot my area of expertise.” He reached into a desk drawer, fumbled around, and produced a card, handing it across the desk. “Call Maria Bergenghetti; take her what's left of what you people sent me. She's one of the world's top volcanologists.”
Kamito stood, extending a hand; the interview was over.
Jason studied the card, hardly surprised it was in Italian. Like those of most of her countrymen, her business card bore a bewildering list of phone numbers. “Exactly which one of these should I call?”
“The agency surely knows how to find people. Or you could try calling her office and asking where she is.”
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)
My feet felt as though they were encased in lead, so full of dread was I, almost as frightened of what I would hear as of my impending trip to the netherworld. My guide was silent, the only sound sandals on stone and the cooing of doves.
1
I inhaled deeply, tasting the musty odor of earth mixed with rancid lamp oil. I saw the cave was largely manmade. Large, regularly spaced openings let in the light, making the dark shadows seem even blacker and obscuring my guide in the gloom. From somewhere in front of me a dim light grew brighter, and there was a moaning, keening sound like no human voice I had ever heard.
Then I saw her.
She sat on the stone floor of a tiny room, the oldest person I had ever seen, the woman who had asked for eternal life but not youth. A guttering lamp emphasized deep furrows the centuries had plowed in the sagging flesh of her face. Her uncovered head was bald, and she drooled from a toothless mouth.
2
Scattered around her were hundreds of tiny oak leaves. I watched her write on one, set it down, and begin another. According to Virgil, nearly a century past, she was composing prophesies. Should a breeze scatter her work, she would not rearrange the leaves.
She looked up with eyes as dull as unpolished stones, and I saw she was blinded by cataracts.
But how could she write if . . .
She either saw or sensed me, for she pointed a sticklike finger, its arthritic joints the size of chestnuts, before throwing herself onto her back and writhing with an animation that belied her age. She was mumbling something I could not comprehend. It was only outside that my
guide repeated the words she had spoken, something in verse that sounded like [translation]:
“To meet your father you will go, Even though he is not there below. No harm are you about to receive, If you are one who will believe.”
3
I waited for her to finish for a full minute before realizing she had begun to snore.
“But what am I . . . ?” I asked the priest when he had given me her prophecy.
My only answer was the production of a clay dish held by the attendant who had led me in. It was time to leave an offering for the gods in payment for the prophecy.
I reached into my
subucularm
4
for my purse. “But . . . but I have no idea what she meant. I mean, she made no sense.”
But then, sibyls didn't have to.
Although I had never been there, legend and literature were full of the riddles spoken by the Delphic oracle in Greece, as well as this Cumae Sibyl. If the priest's rendition was verbatim, she had delivered hers in almost perfect trochee.
5
Sensing the growing impatience of the cloaked figure, I dropped a gold denarius onto the plate. Far more valuable than indecipherable prophecy, but it does not pay to be cheap when dealing with the gods.
Leaving the cave, I climbed the gentle hill to the temple of Jupiter. Actually, the temple of Zeus, I suppose, since the Greeks had originally built Cumae, as
they had most of southern Italy. Had the Sibyl been here then? No matterâI left another gold coin at the foot of the god's statue that stared off across the sea as though it might be searching for Aeneas fleeing the ashes of Troy. Satisfied I had done all I could, I took the path down to the city gate, where the groom held my horse that would take me the few miles south to Baia.
And to Hades.
1
. Doves, pigeons, and even swallows abound in ancient descriptions, symbols, and pictures of oracles. Since no form of prophecy can continue long without being right occasionally, many scholars believe that carrier birds were used to bring immediate news of far-off events that could then be “prophesied” weeks or even months before the news arrived.
2
. While the oracle at Delphi supposedly made her forecasts under the influence of narcotic gases from a cleft in the earth, the Cumae Sibyl is commonly believed to have made her predictions while in an epileptic seizure.
3
. By “translating” the ravings of an epileptic, the priests could often utilize the information gained as noted in 1, above. They were certainly adept at ambiguity.
4
. The
subucular
is commonly translated as a shirt. Actually, it served more as an undergarment. Severenus was carrying his money in such an unusual way as to suggest he had reason to fear of robbers.
5
. The long-short meter of the seven types of Latin verse.
C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN
North Caicos, Turks and Caicos Islands
British West Indies
The next morning
Jason was the only white or male in the line outside the cinder-block building that Barclays Bank shared with Island Hair and Beauty. Although he had stood in this very spot more times than he could count, he already felt like a stranger here. He had spent last night in a resort hotel on Providenciales, the islands' tourist destination, where he knew no one. This morning, he had hired a stranger to bring him to North Caicos by boat.
After leaving Dr. Kamito yesterday, Jason had taken Pangloss to one of those high-end kennels found in cities where a large segment of the wealthy population were frequently unable to take their pets on their excursions abroad, a place where treatment of four-legged guests was designed to soothe the consciences of two-legged owners. Jason had stayed in hotel roomsânice hotel roomsâthat cost less per diem than Pangloss's temporary home. Of course, hotel rooms rarely came with soundproofing, regularly scheduled exercise, or personal attendants. The
dog's quarters were even video monitored so separation-anxiety-racked owners could view their pets on closed-circuit TV accessible from the establishment's Web site.
Despite the glory of a tropical morning, Jason was in a black mood not entirely attributable to Pangloss's absence. Generally the homeless had a cardboard box, a street corner, a bridge, some familiar place that included that sense of belonging that tethered the human soul to reality. Jason was truly homeless. He was domiciled no place at all, had no location where he belonged. Annoyed at his own self-pity, he reached in a pocket to make sure he still had his real passport and bankbook. The homeless weren't standing in line to move a high six-figure account. He felt a little better.
He could have simply had Barclays wire-transfer the money, but anything done by computer was theoretically subject to hacking. If his new enemies, Eco or whoever they were, knew he had been living here, it would be logical for them to watch for the transfer of funds to learn his new locationâof which, at the moment, even he was uncertain.
He'd had a couple of other details to clear up, too. Jeremiah would sell the Whaler for him and reap the political profit of donating the proceeds equally to the island's four or five churches. He had succumbed to a compulsion to sift through the charred remains of the house to make sure there was nothing of Laurin's that was salvageable.
There wasn't.
He planned to spend no more than half a day in the Turks and Caicos before beginning a convoluted series of international flights. Even if the islands were being watched, he should be able to get in and out before his enemies could muster an attack.
The door opened and a dozen or so native women queued up inside. He was the sole bank customer.
The solemn-faced teller dolefully counted out the
money, a large stack of hundred-dollar bills, as Jason had specified by a phone call to the bank's main branch in Grand Turk. The request was facilitated by the fact that the U.S. dollar was the currency of the islands, rather than pounds sterling. He was leaving when he spotted Felton, the island's constable and entire police force.
It was not unusual to see Felton in his uniform of starched white jacket and red-striped navy trousers. It was unusual for the policeman to have an old Welby revolver stuck in his shiny black belt. Since most crime on North Caicos involved drunkenness, fighting, or petty theft, there was little or no need for Felton to be armed. Sentences, imposed by Felton acting as prosecutor, judge, and jury, consisted of confinement for a day or two in the constable's guest room, which doubled as the jail. The prisoner served his time by playing endless rounds of dominoes with his jailer.
More unusual yet were the two young men walking beside Felton, two men whose uniforms identified then as police from Grand Turk.
Someone was in trouble, and Jason had an uncomfortable feeling he knew who.
Felton and his two companions stopped, blocking Jason's path.
“ 'Lo, Jason,” the constable said, his eyes refusing to lock onto Jason's.
“Morning, Felton,” Jason replied. “There a problem?”
Felton, clearly unhappy to be the harbinger of ill tidings, nodded. “ 'Fraid so. Police over to Grand Turk got a 'nonymous call day or two ago, say some folks were killed 'fore your house blew up.”
The coffee and island fruit Jason had eaten for breakfast felt like a cannonball in his stomach. He didn't have to guess at the source of the call.