"Bonny good!" Adrian applauded. "That little prank saved our lives."
Maria shook her head slowly. "Had I known what would happen, I don't know if I could have done it." She examined her hands. "I killed someone."
"If you hadn't, we all would have been dead soon," Jason said.
"And you…" She was pointing an accusing finger. "I saw what you did. That was… was… inhumane!"
"Inhumane? Like gassing unarmed workers so they could peacefully be murdered? Like planning to assassinate the president? And what do you think they would have done to you when they tired, of raping you?" Jason asked. "If you hadn't stabbed that man…"
She was wringing one hand with the other as though washing them. "Whatever they might have done… I cannot live with killing someone." She glanced at the door. "I want to leave. Now."
"Maria," Jason reasoned, "give it a few days. We can-"
"No!" she almost shouted. "There is no more 'we.' Because of you, I killed another human being. I watched you literally feed a man to pigs to be eaten alive. No, Jason, I cannot be around someone whose business is violence."
"But-"
She was unconscious of the washing motions, Lady Macbeth. "I love you, Jason, but I cannot live with what you do. The sooner I start trying to forget you, the sooner I will."
It was then that Jason realized that, quite possibly, he, too, was in love. The thought surprised him. After Laurin, he hadn't thought he was capable of it.
"Look, Maria, I don't have to keep doing this. I can…"
She shook her head. "No, Jason. I can never forget the things you have done, even though I suppose you had to do them. I will find some quiet college-professor type, get married, and have a dozen or so children. I could not live with a man who killed for a living."
"A college professor like Eno Calligini?" Jason asked bitterly.
"Perhaps similar to him. They seem all similar. It is none of your concern." She turned to Adrian. "Would you take me to the nearest place I can get a bus to the airport?"
Adrian looked at Jason.
"Go ahead," Jason said dully. "I can't make her stay."
Maria followed Adrian out the door, then reappeared. Crossing the room with quick steps, she threw her arms around Jason and kissed him. "Do you understand, Jason? I cannot live with what you do or what your duty requires. Even if you quit, you would resent me as the cause." Then she was gone.
Epilogue
Ischia Ponte, Islade Ischia
A year later
Jason stood on the second-floor loggia of his villa as the triumphant clamor of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" boomed from carefully placed speakers. He was concentrating on a group of buildings sloping up a hill a half a mile away. Brush in hand, he squinted as he tried again to catch in acrylic the exact hue the sun tinted the gray-white stone Cathedral of the Assnta, a golden sheen that seemed to radiate from within the stone of its craggy heights itself. The electric blue of the sea beyond looked more painted than real. Transferring these colors to canvas was a Sisyphean task; they changed by the minute. The challenge, though, was one too beautiful for any artist to decline, and his previous efforts had sold well in the artists' market in town.
His new house was an Italianate walled compound situated on a small hill. White with a red tile roof, it possessed little other than size to distinguish it from other island homes nestled among the rugged terrain. He loved the way the sun recolored its stucco every hour with a glow he had no hope of reproducing with mere earthly equipment.
He put down his brush and inspected the canvas in front of him.
Beyond the piazza enclosed by his own walls, he could see the sole approach to the tiny village of Ischia Ponte, a causeway dating back to 1438, joining it to the volcanic island of Ischia. The Argonese Spanish also built a castle, a monastery, and the cathedral, all protected by a shoreline too steep to harbor ships or land a hostile army. Subsequently, the island became a favorite of Bourbon royalty and, today, of landscape painters and tourists avoiding the more popular attractions of Europe by seeking the main island's black sand beaches or tumultuous terrain.
Jason had all but convinced himself his choice of residences was based on the single means of ingress and egress rather than the island's proximity to Naples, where he knew a certain volcanologist spent a great deal of her time.
He had moved there immediately after a week of debriefing by Mama and the various American intelligence agencies, all of whom owed him a debt they could never admit. Failure to timely access the Breath of the Earth project could have resulted not only in assassination of the president, but political recriminations that would have sent any number of department heads into early and obscure retirement.
In addition to the fee paid him by Narcom, he had asked only that the State Department do what was necessary to ensure that he was no longer wanted by the British Colonial or Italian authorities.
In the first instance, the British Colonial office was all too happy to forget the matter. After all, their Caribbean possessions were one of the world's vacation spots. Even the rumor of violence would frighten the tourists who were the islands' main source of income.
The Italians, understandably thorny when it came to activity by a foreign power on their soil, simply did not acknowledge that any such exercise had taken place at all. No one was certain exactly what had inspired Inspectore
Santi Guiellmo, capo, le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Democratica, to lead men into a shaft closed since antiquity. As was his custom, he had confided in no one. The old archeological site was far too unstable to risk any effort at retrieving the bodies. A simple Mass for the dead was said at the mouth of the hole and the matter officially forgotten.
Although the depth of the sea surrounding Ischia precluded scuba diving, the fishing from Jason's small skiff was successful enough. Dorado and other fish were plentiful, and what he didn't catch was available in the open- air market in Ischia Porto, the island's main town and ferry port. Pangloss seemed relieved that there were no crabs lying on the trays of ice, but the claws of the large prawns gave him pause.
Even with a dog, painful memories lingered.
Otherwise, Pangloss loved the people, color, and, above all, the smells of the market. Jason got the impression the dog would have preferred a car to having to keep his balance between the front wheel and Jason's feet on the floorboard of the Vespa, though.
Daily help was inexpensive and provided a form of company, once the old woman realized the dog was far more friendly than fierce. Her extended family basically adopted Jason, including him in an endless procession of weddings, saints' days, birthdays, and one funeral, all occasions for appropriate gifts to grandchildren, nieces, nephews, cousins, and others of whose relationship he was uncertain. The affiliation also provided him with numerous eyes and ears. Should someone come looking for him, he would know before they found him.
He took Italian lessons twice weekly.
At night he cooked, read, drank wine, or watched bad Italian soaps or, worse, American sitcoms on the rabbit- eared set the previous owners had correctly appraised as not worth taking with them.
Almost by accident one evening, he found the dogeared magazine Adrian had given him, the one containing the condensed version of Eno Calligini's book. Only then did Jason remember he had not finished the misadventures of Severenus Tactus, the one facet of the Breath of the Earth operation still incomplete.
A glass of wine at his elbow, he had begun to read.
JOURNAL OF SEVERENUS TACTUS
Two days I remained in Agrippa's household. I began to despair that he would ever have restored to me what I had lost, for he rarely left the house, instead conferring for hours with men, many of whom I recognized as among the most powerful in Rome.