“Gran Sasso,” said DeLuca. “I’ve seen pictures of that mountain. Rugged. Beautiful. But I’ve never been there.”
“Well, from the size of the speck on the map, this Assergi probably had less than a thousand people living there, if even that many.” Bruno looked out towards the approaching shore. “I bet it was a great place to ride out the Apocalypse,” he said, as he leaned forward and handed the map to DeLuca.
“No doubt,” said DeLuca, taking the map and slipping it into his jacket pocket. “There were worse places for sure. Like Naples. Or any large city, for that matter.” For a moment, DeLuca looked around, lost in thought. Then he looked over at Bruno.
“So, after we find the cache, we’re going to Assergi?”
“Look, I never said we should go there! I said we should get to the cache. Then, we’ll see.”
“But you just drew a line on the map, so I thought—”
“You thought wrong,” Bruno said. “I’m not sure what we’re going to do after we find the cache, if there is even a cache at all.” Bruno shook his head. “Gran Sasso! More like Gran Cazzo, for all I give a shit! I can’t believe you still just want to up and leave Capri, for what? For this speck on a map? I told you about the hospitals, the exterminations. Were you listening? This is another one of their lies.”
“It doesn’t make any sense. Why lure people they don’t even know to that place? Why—”
“Who knows? You have no idea who they are or what they want. I don’t believe a damn thing they say.”
“I believe them,” DeLuca snapped. “I have faith.”
“Oh, you believe? You have faith? Everyone’s dead, the world’s fallen apart, and you,” Bruno punctuated his words with his finger, pointing at DeLuca once more, “you believe in them? You have faith, in them? Well, let me tell you something . . . you, my friend, are a bloody idiot.”
After a long silence, DeLuca spoke, his voice clear. “Per chi crede, nessuna spiegazione è necessaria; per chi non crede, nessuna spiegazione è possibile.”
Having attended an old-fashioned classical grammar school for a time as a kid, Bruno had heard the medieval quotation before. For one with faith, no explanation is necessary. For one without faith, no explanation is possible.
Bruno turned away, gazing out over the sea. They spent the remainder of the boat ride in silence as Bruno stared at the water, his mind adrift on those words from long ago.
***
They arrived more quickly than Bruno thought they would, rounding the Sorrento peninsula and making landfall mid-morning at the marina just below the town of Sorrento itself. Bruno and DeLuca surveyed the marina. Two covered boats bobbed along the dock in the strong sun. The street wound around the marina along the water. While the restaurants and shops stood shuttered, to Bruno the scene along the water looked almost peaceful. Nothing was burned, nothing looted, nothing destroyed.
DeLuca echoed Bruno’s thoughts when he spoke. “It almost looks like nothing happened here, just that everyone’s left, on holiday or something.”
Bruno looked around. “Reminds me of Rome during Ferragosto; the city empty and everyone at the beach.”
“Yeah, empty all right, except they’re definitely not at the beach.”
Bruno looked right and left. “We can’t let our guard down, there’s no telling who might still be lurking about.” Bruno instinctively kept one hand rested on the butt of his pistol.
“Understood.”
Bruno glanced toward the two boats. “We need to see if there’s anything we can use.”
As they searched the two moored boats, to their surprise, they found both had some fuel in their tanks.
“This should be enough to get us back to Capri, maybe even a little more,” said DeLuca.
They moved as fast as they could to transfer fuel to their boat. As they worked, DeLuca continued to press Bruno, asking about leaving. “So, did you notice how far it is to Assergi?”
“Let me see the map,” said Bruno.
DeLuca reached in his jacket and handed Bruno the map.
“Looks like about two hundred fifty or three hundred kilometers northeast of Naples. More than a few days’ walk, that’s for sure.” Bruno returned the map to DeLuca for safekeeping.
DeLuca folded it and placed it in the pocket of his windbreaker. “Walk! You want to walk there? What about food? What about mosquitoes?”
“I know. We’d have to be careful. You’re the one who’s dying to go there, right? You have any better ideas? You’d like to drive? You think we can find enough fuel? Or even a car with a battery that works?” Bruno snapped his fingers. “Oh, now I get it—you want to fly, is that it? Come on, you know there’s no easy way to get there.”
“But walking? I’ll be a walking corpse! And anyway, how will they know when we get there? Do you think anyone will be there?”
Bruno didn’t think for one second that in the unlikely event they made it to Assergi anyone would be there to greet them. But he decided to indulge DeLuca’s optimism for a change.
“Well, it would be completely foolish for them to broadcast their exact location, even using ALE. They can’t be sure who we really are. No, I doubt whoever is left is actually in that village. But I think their shelter—bunker—or whatever it may be, must be somewhere in that area. And if they have enough working technology to send an ALE message, I’ll bet they have some way of monitoring the area.”
By the time they finished transferring the fuel, the sun had moved well past its high point. “We’ve got to get moving,” said Bruno. "If we don’t hurry up, we might not get to the cache before twilight.”
“How long do you think we have?”
Bruno glanced at his watch. “A few hours. Maybe more. But I’d rather not take any chances getting caught outside with mosquitoes.”
“So what’s the plan?”
Bruno laughed. “The plan? Well, the plan, such as it is, is to get to the cache ASAP and find shelter. Simple, yes?” He patted DeLuca on the shoulder. “Now stop asking questions and follow me.” DeLuca kept his mouth shut and fell in line behind Bruno as he moved up the winding streets towards the center of town.
Arriving at the main square, Piazza Tasso, took Bruno longer than he would have thought.
“I’d forgotten how high Sorrento was above the water.”
“Well,” said DeLuca between breaths, “we finally made it.”
They looked up and down the piazza, taking time to drink from their bottles of water. The low, pastel-hued buildings stood in quiet, splendid loneliness in the afternoon sun. The wind moved scraps of paper here and there, but Bruno could see no evidence of fires, riots, or mayhem. Though they were tattered and fading, the ragged flags of many nations still flew over the Hotel Sorrento, right on the square. Oblong terracotta flower pots still stood in neat lines in front of the remains of restaurants, their flowering plants clinging tenaciously to life against the encroaching weeds. And the statue of St. Anthony still faced east, one hand on his shepherd’s crook, the other raised in a blessing to no one. Bruno pictured all the people who once frequented this place, laughing, talking, and filling the piazza with life. But all of them were dead now. Dead and gone.
As they lingered on the edge of the piazza, DeLuca said, “Guess when people in a place with money like Sorrento died, they just went quietly. Unlike poor Naples.”
Bruno shoved the bottle of water back in his backpack. “Yeah, well, good for them.” He wanted to focus on the task at hand. “Follow me. And stay sharp.”
Bruno crept into the piazza, with DeLuca two steps behind. Although they hugged a building, Bruno felt exposed as they gazed about. DeLuca saw their target first. “There!” he said, a little too loudly for Bruno’s liking. DeLuca pointed to the only building in the square with a clock tower. The transmission had been quite specific about the clock tower.
Bruno nodded. “That’s it. Let’s go.”
They jogged across the piazza to the light-pink building with the stopped clock
. A glass-enclosed patio surrounded its base. Vines grew wild about the glass walls, climbing from the pots below into the weeds hanging from the low balcony above. Narrow streets stretched along both sides of the building into the rest of Sorrento. On one side of the patio, just where the street met the piazza, Bruno spotted double metal doors nearly flush with the asphalt of the street just in front of the building.
“I think this is it,” said Bruno. “Hell of a place to put a weapons cache—right in the middle of Sorrento!”
DeLuca nodded. “Yeah, but who would have ever imagined they’d put one under a restaurant.”
There was a chain and padlock wrapped around the handles. He gave the handles on the doors a tug. They moved a few centimeters, but that was all. He should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.
He turned to DeLuca. “Hand me the crowbar, and keep your eyes open.”
Bruno slipped the end of the crowbar into the handles on the metal doors. Leveraging the crowbar with all his bodyweight, Bruno heard the metal groan, then give way with a crack. Bruno, still huffing from his effort, tossed the chain and padlock into overgrown weeds growing out of the pots.
DeLuca raised his eyebrows. “What are you doing?”
“Don’t want to leave signs of our presence,” Bruno said. Bruno looked around, then motioned for DeLuca to stand behind him. He took a black metal flashlight out of his backpack with his left hand, then slung it over his back. In his right hand, Bruno held his pistol.
“I’m going down,” Bruno said. “Stay outside, in case there’s a problem. My radio’s on; it should still work unless this place is a lot further underground than I think.” He tapped the inside pocket of his jacket and felt the reassuring bump of the radio. “But I won’t use it unless it’s an emergency. If I’m not out in twenty minutes, it means I am having a problem.”
“So if you’re not back, what should I do?”
Bruno smiled and patted DeLuca on the shoulder.
“Don’t worry. You’ve got the pistol I gave you, right?”
DeLuca nodded.
“Well, it’s up to you. If you think it’s too dangerous, run back to the boat and get back to Capri. But if I’ve just tripped and bumped my head, it would be nice if you came and helped. Look, old man, if you need to run, to hide, then run, hide. I understand. Do what you have to do to live.”
DeLuca opened his mouth then shut it again, and simply nodded as he spoke. “All right, Bruno. Whatever you say. I’ll open the door.”
Bruno nodded and stepped back. DeLuca pulled back the door, but the only sign of movement was the breeze whistling down the street and the chattering sparrows. Daylight illuminated a concrete ramp stretching down into darkness. Bruno stepped onto the ramp and glanced back towards DeLuca.
“Don’t worry. Worst that could happen is, it’s empty.” Bruno turned on his flashlight. “Remember, if I’m not back in twenty minutes, something’s happened. Don’t initiate radio contact. If you see anything up here, hide or come down and get me if you can. And shut the door behind me.”
“And what if it is empty?”
Bruno shrugged. “Guess we’ll try the one in Naples. What else can we do?”
Bruno walked down the steep ramp and darkness swallowed him as DeLuca lowered the door with a clang. The barest crack of daylight shone through the seam where the metal doors met. He turned around and shined his flashlight ahead as he walked.
The ramp sloped down at a steep angle, leveling out over some meters. When he looked behind and above, he could make out the seam of the doors, now two meters above and at least four meters behind him. The width of the tunnel surprised Bruno as he shined his flashlight around, looking around at the poured concrete walls and floor. He pressed forward, the beam of his flashlight cutting the gloom.
The light landed on double metal doors. His pace quickened, and he reached the wide doors in seconds. He swept his flashlight around. The metal doors stood taller than a man, unpainted, and a fine sheen of rust constituted their only decoration, except for a square metal handgrip jutting out from the overlapping door. Bruno rubbed his hand on the door, feeling the cold steel beneath his fingers. His hand strayed down to the handle. Bruno tugged on it, but the door didn’t even jiggle. No key or any way to access the doors’ locking mechanism could be seen.
Bruno swept the beam over the frame of the doors. On the left side of the door, between the door and the tunnel’s wall, Bruno saw a black square the width of a hand. He moved closer to the square, shifting his pack to his right side, and shone his flashlight on the square.
Bruno saw the dark plastic keypad, with no visible numbers or letters. He nearly swore out loud. A scramble pad. The position of the numbers or letters moved to a different key every time it was activated, that way no one could just learn the pattern or look for wear marks on certain keys. He had assumed the code would be used on a physical device, like the combination lock on a safe, not this power-dependent lock. How could he get in? The power had to be off, and he didn’t have nearly enough tools to try to force the doors.
For a moment Bruno stood there. Not sure what else to do, Bruno touched the keypad. The keys lit up, glowing red, and they beeped in acknowledgement. The keypad’s response startled him. Must be battery powered. He wondered how long before the battery died, making whatever lay behind the doors forever inaccessible. Bruno looked at the keys, now a matrix of scrambled numbers glowing a dull red, with an extra row of letters underneath, and two arrow keys on either side of the letter row. He had never seen one with that extra row before. He typed in the number code and scrolled through the alphabet until he found the right letters. He had studied the complex string of letters and numbers from the transmission so much that it took him only seconds to input them. Bruno paused for a moment, then he pushed the “enter” key. He heard a buzz and a click from the door. Breathing deeply of the dusty air, he pulled the door handle.
It surprised Bruno how much of his body weight he used as he tugged on the handle. The door crept outward, with only the smallest creak.
As the door crawled open, muffled shouts, barely audible, reached Bruno’s ears. The sounds drifted down from back towards the ramp. DeLuca! Bruno’s mind played out his choices in microseconds—leave the door open and risk having whatever was behind the door taken from him, or close the door and risk not being able to open it again, maybe losing the opportunity forever to acquire real firepower and whatever else might lay hidden behind the steel door.
For a second he hesitated, paralyzed by the choice that might determine his fate and that of DeLuca. Then he acted. Pushing the door firmly closed, Bruno angled his flashlight toward the ground and jogged back toward the entrance. The voices grew louder, but Bruno slowed as he got closer to the entrance, fearful they might hear his steps. As Bruno approached the bottom of the ramp, he turned off his flashlight. Figures moving back and forth interrupted the crack of light that shone down.
“E con chìstu ccà, che cazzo ci facimmo?” asked a male’s voice from above, speaking in the dialect of the region. “So, what are we gonna do with this one?”
Someone laughed. A boy, Bruno thought. “Dunno. Let’s kill him.”
A third male voice: “Screw that! We’d better take him back.”
“Why? What if he’s got the Bloody Shits?” asked the second voice.
“You! Show me your hands!”
“He seems clean.”
“Doesn’t matter, we’ve still got to put him in quarantine. Us, too. Three days, no less.”
“We need to find out who he is, why he’s here. Does he have friends? Did he come from Naples?”
There was some muttering, but Bruno couldn’t make out what they said.
“Fine. We take him. Cover his eyes!”
“Hold on . . .” That was DeLuca, but a slap cut him off.
Bruno had to decide what to do. And fast. He knew if he tried to burst out from down there, guns blazing, he wouldn’t have much of a chance. A thought from deep within bubb
led to the surface of Bruno’s mind. Bruno could abandon DeLuca. Yes, some dark part of Bruno thought, it’s his fault this happened, it’s his fault we’re even here. DeLuca deserves this. DeLuca caused Veri’s death. Why should Bruno ride to his rescue, yet again? ‘Do what you have to do to live’ is what he’d said to DeLuca; why should Bruno do any less himself? It would be so easy just to leave that old man, to wait until they took him away, and then slink back to the boat. Back to Capri. Safe. Back home. Bruno squeezed his eyes shut, fighting the urge to do nothing and wait all alone in the dark until they were gone for good.
He heard steps and scuffling, and then the voices faded. He walked up the ramp and pushed the door up just enough to get a look. Bruno looked at the backs of four or five figures heading out of Piazza Tasso, north onto Viale Enrico Caruso, between the tall trees lining the wide boulevard. He bided his time, and just as they rounded a bend in the road, maybe three blocks away, he pushed the metal door open, making his way onto the street. He shut the door behind him as quietly as he could.
Bruno shouldered his backpack and cinched it tight. A balancing act. Not too close, not too far. Almost on tiptoes, He stepped quickly, following the group north. He hid between cars and trees as he moved, the sinking sun casting long shadows over the silent buildings.
Bruno had made his choice. He would not just leave DeLuca to his fate. Not without a fight.
Chapter 20
September 19
Bruno lowered his binoculars, turned around in the cramped back seat, and rubbed his back. At least he was able to stretch out a little in the back seat overnight. Still, cat-napping in the two-door car had left him fatigued and sore, and he chafed at being confined in the back seat of the hatchback all night. But any stiffness was well worth it: the car sheltered him from any mosquitoes that might be lingering in the late summer, and its tinted windows gave him good cover from prying eyes. Still, Bruno had been on edge all night. His little cat-and-mouse game had nearly ended in disaster when he kicked that empty soda can as he followed them back through the winding, narrow street out of Sorrento into the hills to the south. After that, the group holding DeLuca took great care to be silent on the way back, and Bruno had nearly lost them more than once. But he persisted, and had found their lair.
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