"Maybe four or five kilometers. Let me drive."
The reason for her request became quickly obvious. Climbing and descending, she took what seemed a haphazard course. From one hill, Jason could see the lakes, from another the sea in the opposite direction.
At last she pulled into a small unpaved parking lot with no indication as to its purpose, turned off the ignition, and got out.
Jason followed, staring up at the surrounding low hills. "This is it?"
Maria nodded, walking around to the trunk. "It is."
"But there's no…" He was looking at a deserted ticket booth and an iron gate hanging open on the last of its hinges.
"No tourists?" She filled in the blank. "Cumae is not one of the popular destinations. Few people other than archaeologists come here."
Cumae must be remote indeed if no one was selling tickets, picture brochures, or cheap souvenirs. Jason suspected that, in Italy, tickets would be printed for a dogfight if it could be anticipated in time.
Maria was digging through the trunk. "I doubt we will encounter the gas you seek here, but we will test the air." She held up a device with a meter attached to a hand pump. "This wall tell us if ethylene is present." She handed a miner's helmet to both Jason and Adrian. "And you will need these."
She led Jason and Adrian along a dirt path that skirted the base of the hill to their left. After the trail made a ninety-degree turn, she stopped. The trio were looking at a passageway cut along the side of the hill. The exposed rock was yellow in color, the tufa Maria had explained was native to the region. Rather than round, the opening was square for its first three or four feet, then towered upward about eight feet in a lopsided A shape. Like floor-to- ceiling windows, open spaces alternated with stone. Even from outside, Jason could see the effect of equal areas of light and dark as the end of the tunnel vanished into shadow.
"You're right," Jason said. "Too open. No gas could be held there."
Maria entered. "The Sibyl's cave is not so open."
The passageway was not quite wide enough for two abreast. Gauge in hand, Maria led the way, followed by Jason and Adrian. Without looking behind him, Jason rested his hand on the SIG Sauer in its holster, and he sensed Adrian also was prepared for whatever might happen. Although only a few feet away, Maria appeared and disappeared in much the same way described by Severenus Tactus two millennia ago.
Jason wondered what other parts of the Roman's account would prove accurate.
The alternating spaces that admitted light came to an abrupt end. Jason and Adrian put on the helmets, turning on the light on each. The artificial illumination gave the yellow walls a reddish tint as though washed in blood. Every few feet a niche was carved into the stone, stands for ancient lamps, judging by the halo of soot above each.
A few more steps brought them to the end of the passage. To their left was a cavern, a low-ceilinged, square room carved into the rock. Lamp niches were on three of the four walls.
"The Sibyl's cave," Maria said, as she worked a small hand pump. "No sign of anything but normal air here, oxygen, nitrogen…"
Adrian held up a hand, a signal for silence.
Jason heard only the echo of his own breathing, then… a scrape, the sound of a shoe on stone or something hard against rock.
Maria and Adrian needed no signal to turn off the lanterns on their helmets as Jason did the same. "Any other way in?" he whispered.
He could only see Maria's dull silhouette shake its head, no. "Not that has been discovered."
Taking each by the arm, Jason eased Maria and Adrian back the way they had come. Even if they had no other means of escape, they had one advantage: the location of the Sibyl's cave would force whoever had entered the passage to enter successive squares of light, while Jason, Adrian, and Maria remained in concealing darkness.
Pressing the two others against the wall, Jason drew his weapon. The slight rustle of clothing told him Adrian had unslung his Sten. Jason thumbed off the safety and heard the echoing snick of the Sten's bolt being cocked.
Though he knew better, an eternity seemed to pass before Jason saw indistinct shapes flitting between the light and dark sectors of the long passage. Had he not reined it in, his imagination could easily have seen long- robed priests leading a young Roman to hear his fate foretold.
Instead, he made out four distinct figures, each moving with hands clasped in front as though carrying a weapon at the ready, each progressing in synchronized movements designed for a minimum of exposure to the sunlight and a maximum of coverage by his comrades.
Jason pushed Maria toward the first opening, speaking with his lips to her ear. "When they move next, you go through outside."
He felt, rather than saw her nod.
When the four figures simultaneously slipped from one patch of dark to the next, Jason shoved Maria, knocking her forward and out of the corridor. He lunged after her, half expecting shots.
There were none.
Outside, Adrian stood, dusting himself off while holding the Sten, its stock still folded. He had it trained on the passage they had just exited. "Get a look at 'em?"
Jason shook his head. "No. But they move like they've been trained, not some pickup gang of thugs."
He wasn't sure if that was better or worse.
Adrian helped Maria to her feet. "Any way out of the area without passing by the entrance?"
Instead of speaking, she motioned. Jason followed, keeping the gun's muzzle pointed at the slots in the cave's side. Where were they, the people who had entered? Was it possible they were only tourists visiting an obscure place?
Not moving in concert, as he had seen. More like military.
Then why…?
Possibly they had been blinded by emerging into light; possibly they hadn't seen Jason, Adrian, and Maria's exit.
Possible, but unlikely.
They were walking up a stone-paved path that wound its way around the hill into which the Sibyl's cave had been carved. Idly, Jason wondered if the rocks had ben worn smooth by the feet of ancient Romans. The trail ended at steep stairs carved into naked rock and long ago polished by use and the elements.
"Temple of Jupiter, highest point in the site," Maria announced. "We should be able to see them when they come out of the cave."
Jason started to reply and decided to save his breath for the ascent.
Minutes later they stood among broken and tumbled columns. From the stubs still in place, Jason guessed there had originally been six to a side, with two across the front and back. Rubble of columns and pediment were strewn around a large stone platform atop crumbling stairs that had led into the floor of the temple. To his right, Jason could see a number of figures slowly working in a field beyond two large arches.
"Archeological dig," Maria explained, following his line of sight.
Adrian was looking the other way. "And that would be?" He was pointing to a similar collection of ruins slightly below and across a dirt path.
"Temple of Apollo."
Adrian took a step back as four men emerged from below, turning their heads in deferent directions. The dark suits they wore were out of place, both as to location and climate.
"Th' lot look like coppers," Adrian observed.
"Whoever they are, we can bet they're not here to help," Jason said, squinting against the reflection of the afternoon's sun on the ocean to his left. "Is there another way to get back to the car?"
Maria nodded. "We can go down to the excavation site"-she pointed-"and then around the bottom of the hill."
"No good," Jason observed. "They've split up. We'd run into at least two of them."
"So much the better," Adrian said. "We ken where they are. They dinna have but an idea as to us. I say we divide up, too, an' take 'em on."
Maria looked nervously from Jason to Adrian and back again. "Surely you are not going to shoot these men when you do not even know