Gates of Hades

by Gregg Loomis

  He pointed to the light on his helmet as he turned it off. Maria and Adrian did the same, leaving them in a darkness punctuated with the flare of the bushes that did not burn. The gaseous flames cast flickering shadows that danced menacingly across the walls to make forms of fanciful creatures of all descriptions.

  In fact, Jason thought at first that it was these imaginary creatures he saw emerging from the hazy darkness at the farthest point of the cavern. The thing looked insectlike, round eyes occupying a full three-quarters of a face with a tube for a mouth. Approaching with a low shuffling motion, it was something out of a bad sci-fi movie, although there was noting fictional about the automatic weapon it carried.

  Jason's hand went to his own face, searching for a leak in his breathing equipment that could have allowed him to inhale the hallucinatory fumes of the steaming rocks. As far as he could tell, the ethylene gas had nothing to do with what his eyes kept insisting he was perceiving and his brain kept trying to dismiss as impossible.

  Another of the creatures emerged into the shimmering light, and Jason realized what he was actually seeing, ashamed of the relief he felt. The fire dancing above several bushes was reflecting off the glass eye ports of old- fashioned gas masks, their air hoses a trunklike connection to the air purification system on each man's back.

  Jason counted six of them. Mere men or not, they were now probing the reluctant shadows of the cavern with flashlights, both sweeping the floor with each step to prevent falling into one of the numerous shafts to the tunnel below, and searching every crevice. It required no effort to guess for whom.

  Jason could see Adrian, a solid form of darkness to his left. Keeping a low profile, he pulled Maria behind as he duckwalked over, took a breath, and removed his mouthpiece. "We need to back out of here, same way we came."

  "That a fact?"

  On all fours, hands outstretched, searching for unseen openings that could result in a fatal fall, Jason, Adrian, and Maria shuffled across the rubble-strewn floor.

  Any doubt as to the intentions of the men in gas masks dissolved when a beam of light exposed Jason. He rolled violently to his left, shoving Maria away as a stream of gunfire chipped an explosion of tiny, shrapnel-like fragments from the stones where he had been. The sound was still booming off the walls and unseen ceiling as Adrian rolled onto his back and fired two single rounds from the captured Beretta in the direction of the muzzle flash. He was rewarded by a yelp of pain.

  "The river," Jason said, trying to keep his attention on the floor they were crossing. "If we can make it to the riverbed we should be able to see them better than they can see us."

  "Aye." Adrian grunted. "But then, there're a lot more of them than us."

  Adrian, always the optimist.

  By the time the three slid down the steep bank of the riverbed, the flaming bushes were little more than a glow in the distant darkness, not enough light to frame their pursuers.

  "We can put the breathing equipment away," Maria whispered.

  "You can read the gas gauge in the dark?" Adrian wanted to know.

  She held it up, showing a tiny green light.

  Thankful for the smallest of favors, Jason wriggled out of the heavy backpack, helped Maria off with hers, and led the group to the far side of the dry river. Without the equipment, they should easily outdistance those behind them. Halfway up the embankment they stopped, each looking over a shoulder.

  "Sodding bastards're comin' right on," Adrian whispered, seeing the beams of light sweeping the gully. "Wee long for a shot."

  "A bit long for their flashlights, too," Jason said, starting back up the incline. "I wouldn't be revealing our position by taking a shot at them."

  Jason reached the top first and reached back to take Maria's hand.

  "I can manage," she said tartly.

  Was it the tension or had he made some unknown misstep?

  Once all three were atop the bank, they began to feel their way along the narrow passage through which they had entered. Here, at least, there were no holes concealed in the dark.

  There was, however, endless rubble.

  As Adrian tripped for the third time, he swore softly. "I'll be bloody killin' meself; I canna see."

  "If we turn on our lights, somebody else will do it for you."

  "Look!" Maria spoke aloud.

  At the instant she spoke, Jason saw a glimmer of light ahead, a mere flicker that could just as well have been his imagination.

  Adrian had seen it, too. "Bloody hell! Now they're in front as well!"

  "Feel your way along the wall," Jason advised. "Somewhere along here is the sacrificial chamber where that other passageway comes in."

  "An' what is making you think we're the only ones knowin' aboot it?" Adrian asked. "They could jus' as well be comin' through there, too."

  Adrian had the optimism of a man mounting the gallows.

  Chapter Forty-two

  I-95, between Savannah and Charleston

  22:21 EST the previous day

  Eighteen-wheelers owned the interstate late at night. They rushed by with a blaze of headlights and a whoosh of air that made the old flatbed truck shiver, sometimes so hard that Rassavitch feared the single container on the back might come loose from its restraints.

  The container.

  When he had arrived at the Savannah bus station, a man had brushed by him, shoving a slip of paper into his hand. The paper bore what Rassavitch thought was a street address, a guess confirmed by the cabbie who had driven him away from the Greyhound terminal. In minutes, the taxi had been cruising through a seedy neighborhood where the few functioning streetlights showed houses thirsting for paint and weedy yards hosting rusted hulks of automobiles. The occasional resident strode quickly along cracked sidewalks as though in a hurry to get off the street, casting only a glare of resentment at the wealth implied by a taxi ride.

  The cab slowed and the driver was scanning the few street numbers. He stopped in front of a house showing no lights but with a flatbed truck in the dirt driveway. "This looks like it." He turned his head, looking up and down the deserted street as if expecting an assault any minute. "You want, I kin wait here till you inside."

  Rassavitch shook his head, peeling the fare off the wad of bills that was ever diminishing.

  As the cab's taillights hastily retreated to an area where passengers were more likely, Rassavitch circled the truck. Through the slats of the sides he could see a single large box on the flatbed. He looked around. Surely someone had been watching the vehicle. In this neighborhood, it would not have still been here otherwise.

  The door to the cab was unlocked. As he heaved himself into the driver's seat, he noted that the key was in the ignition and a road map of the eastern United States was taped to the dash. He cranked the engine, surprised at an even purr inconsistent with the shabby body. He made one last effort to peer into the shadows around the house before putting the gear into reverse.

  So far, the ride had been uneventful, the silver-on-green mile markers slipping by rhythmically. Between eighteen-wheelers, the symphony of a late-spring night in the South flooded the cab through an open window: the constant argument of the katydids, the chirp of crickets, and an occasional shriek of some night raptor. The sounds were almost hypnotic, totally unlike the moan of the night wind across the Siberian steppes of his youth.

  Another behemoth of the road roared by, drowning out the music of living things and snapping Rassavitch's attention back to the highway in his lights.

  I-95 had been marked in red on the map with a small town in Virginia just south of Washington circled. On the margin, in Russian, had been the words for tomorrow night. He had torn them off and shredded the small slip of paper. He had no idea why he must deliver the truck and its cargo overnight, nor would he ask.

  He would simply do it.

  Chapter Forty-three

  Baia

  Jason no longer touched the carved stone wall; only empty space. With his hand holding Maria's left, he probe
d the darkness.

  "We must be in the chamber," he whispered. "The secret passage is here somewhere on the left."

  The flicker of lights from behind them as becoming a constant glow.

  "Aye," Adrian replied sotto voce, "but can we find it in time?"

  "Only if we all try. Let's spread out as far as we can and still hold one hand; use the other to search the wall."

  Jason was moving when he heard voices echoing in the tunnel in front of them. Lights were getting close enough that he could distinguish gray forms that were Adrian and Maria. He estimated that the two groups would meet in minutes.

  With the three of them between.

  "Here!" Maria said triumphantly. "I found it."

  She pulled Jason toward her to verify that there was a void in the stone. As soon as his hand could define the opening, he pushed her inside, using his other hand to tug Adrian along. The passage was too narrow. Not only did Jason's shoulders touch both sides, but he had to stoop to avoid smacking his head on the ceiling. Turning his body would have been difficult.

  He managed to look over his shoulder in time to see six or seven men pick their way single file along the main corridor behind them, each carrying a flashlight in one hand and a pistol in the other. They wore no gas masks. Their bulky Kevlar body armor attested to the fact they expected trouble of a more ordinary sort. Jason felt Maria tense, and he became aware he was holding his breath rather than risk the sound being heard.

  When the dark finally swallowed the reflection of flashlight beams, Jason gave Maria a gentle push. "If we're lucky, we can make it back to the main passage and out of here....."

  He was interrupted by a shout, words distorted as they echoed down the long tunnel. The staccato burst of an automatic weapon was followed by the popping sounds of pistols.

  "Who in hell...?" Adrian asked.

  "In hell, indeed," Jason said. "Whatever's happening, let's get out of here before they stop shooting at one another and start looking for us."

  With shots and voices reverberating behind them, Maria risked turning on the lamp on her miner's helmet. Although it illuminated the narrow way, it did little to define the rubble over which the trio hurriedly stumbled. The broad sweep of the light showed the intersection with the main corridor just as Maria stopped suddenly.

  Jason ran into her back as Adrian ran into his. "What?"

  "Don't you feel it?"

  "Feel what?"

  Before she could reply, he had his answer. With each series of gunfire there was a faint quiver beneath his feet, as though he were feeling the sound. A string of automatic fire sent an almost imperceptible tremor through the wall Jason was touching.

  Adrian spoke Jason's mind. "Best we be on our way, 'fore this bleedin' fox's burrow falls in on our heads."

  As if in reply, a stream of dust poured from overhead, followed by a rock the size of Jason's fist.

  "It's the vibrations," Maria explained needlessly. "There's nothing shoring the rock up."

  Her observation was punctuated by a grinding sound overhead, another eruption of dust, and a crash as the top of the side tunnel they had just passed through collapsed.

  This time Jason was less than gentle as he shoved her forward. "Move!"

  Quick movement was difficult. The beams from their lights reflected from dust particles to form a choking, shimmering fog that obscured visibility more than a few inches in any direction. A short distance away, Jason heard the crash of larger stones striking the floor. His sight was wavering as the dust stung his eyes. Every breath felt as if he were inhaling sand. He coughed and tried to spit out the grit grinding between his teeth. His mouth was desert dry.

  Were they behind or in front?

  Adrian gave voice to the fear Jason was trying to stifle. "How th' bloody hell're we supposed to know which way is out?"

  "A fifty-fifty chance," Jason said without the slightest intent of being facetious.

  "Aye, laddie, but a certain chance of bein' crushed if we dinna move quick."

  THE WASHINGTON POST

  CEREAL HEIRESS'S HOME TO BE SITE OF CONFERENCE WASHINGTON—

  The location of the president's environmental conference was announced

  today as Hillwood, the last home of cereal heiress and legendary Washington hostess Marjorie Merriwether Post, who resided there from 1957 until her death in 1973.

  Ms. Post's former husband, Joseph Davies, served as ambassador to Russia from 1937 to 1938, during which time a cash-pressed Soviet Union was selling art treasures confiscated from both the Catholic Church and the deposed Romanov family. Ms. Post and her husband became connoisseurs of Russian art, and Hillwood contains the largest collection of such art outside Russia, including at least fifty imperial Fabergé eggs.

  Located between Connecticut Avenue and Rock Creek Park in the Woodley Park residential area, the estate was left to the Smithsonian Institute upon Ms. Post's death.

  The size of the property, its multiple gardens, and towering trees will provide privacy for the meeting, while its limited accessibility will aid security measures that White House sources have described as "tight."

  Further details, such as the names of those attending and which conservation organizations will be represented, have not been made public. The president, in a highly controversial move, has announced possible amnesty for those accused of crimes in the name of the environment, such as the American Greens, three members of which are accused of burning a corn-cloning laboratory in Kansas last year, which accidentally resulted in the death of a chemist.

  "Someone has to start somewhere," Tony Blackman, White House press secretary, said. "If all sides can agree on the future of our planet, what does it matter who made the first move?"

  Chapter Forty-four

  Hillwood

  4155 Linnean Avenue, Washington, D.C.

  Shirlee Atkins was no more than a cleaning lady. Oh, she had a free uniform furnished by the foundation that supported this big ol' house, an' she had the benefit of a union contract, an' she was called a "custodian," whatever that was, but other than that, this job wasn't no different from the ones she'd had in homes of senators and representatives and them lobby people, houses some bigger than this one over to Georgetown an' Kalorama an' even Arlington. 'Cept Arlington wasn't really in Washington, was it? She wasn't sure.

  Anyway, this job paid enough for a small apartment away from the projects where the kids could go to school without dodgin' between crack addicts, dope pushers, and hos, where the sirens didn't wail all night. Place like hers, the kids had a chance to grow up an' be somethin' more 'n a housecleaner.

  But she'd never worked in a house furnished quite like this one. Ever' day she come to work, walk right up to the columned brick front an' into that room at the front door.

  Foyer, yep, that was it, the foyer. Big, two-story entrance, whatever it be called. She never seen no chandelier like that before. Mr. Jimson, he say it be Louie somebody, some French king. Rock crystal, he tell her. An' those people lookin' down from their golden frames, most of 'em draped with more fur than your average black bear. Course, they be Russians, and Shirlee understood it got pretty cold in Russia. Still, it suit Shirlee jus' fine that most of them Russian pictures were out in the little house in the yard, the dacha, Mr. Jimson called it, a place Ms. Post built for her Russian art. Weren't no nesting dolls there, though. Jus' paintings and jeweled things.

  Cabinets on either side of the foyer full of porcelain, too. Why anybody want to eat off somethin' painted with flowers 'n' stuff, she didn't know. Couldn't hardly tell if it be clean even when you wash it.

  Mr. Jimson laughed when she said that. But then, he laughed at a lot of what she said. Not that shitty you- dumb-nigga laugh some folks had when she said some- thin', but a warm chuckle, like she 'n' Mr. Jimson enjoyin' the same joke. He an' Shirlee, they had a lot of laughs together. Like the time he said Ms. Post done bought his place when she run out of husbands an' chose it over successive ... monog, monag ... mahogany. Shirlee ha
dn't unnerstood 'xactly what he meant, but she laughed anyways. It made Mr. Jimson happy for her to laugh. He understood when one of her kids needed to go to the doctor or had a problem at school, too. Ain't easy raisin' three kids with no daddy. Mr. Jimson understood that, too.

  She sighed deeply and wiped away a single tear rolling down one fat cheek.

  Mr. Jimson.

  Done got hisse'f keeled by a car, steppin' off the curb two days ago. Driver never found. D.C. cops be lucky they could find the fly on their pants when they needed to piss.

  This new man, the one called hisse'f some Russian-soundin' name, look like somethin' outta one o' her kids comics: big guy, head shaved, and from some country other than this one. He hardly spoke to nobody, all nervous and such. Yesterday, he 'bout jump outta his skin when Shirlee come up 'hind him to ax if she could leave a few minutes early. Him standin' there, lookin' outta the dinin' room window into the rose garden.

  Shirlee guessed he was thinkin' 'bout that meetin' gonna take place in that room. Must be some kinda meetin', needin' thirty chairs around the marble inlaid table.

  She needed to vacuum that rug, polish the table again 'fore any meetin' started. She wasn't too sure 'xactly what sort of meetin' gonna take place, but she heard tell the president hisse'f gonna be there. She wasn't 'bout to have no president come in 'n' think Shirlee Atkins was no sloppy housekeeper, no, sirree, Bob.

  Thing was, those men diggin' in the rose garden right outside the French doors. They prolly Russian, too, judging by the way they talk English jus' like the new man. Make sense, the house full of Russian art an' all. She'd have to keep watch on 'em, see they didn' track no dirt into her house. Funny thing was that most of the diggin' in the rose garden should be in winter, when the plants were dormant. She'd heard tell that some of the mens come to this meetin' wanted some plants of their own. Why? Them roses pretty 'nough for anybody.