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Five minutes passed, then ten.
And then he heard it: the clink of the falling key. He instantly fired four shots through the door, covering it in a diamond-shaped pattern. The 9mm rounds would have no trouble penetrating even the thickest part of the door with plenty of velocity left to kill. He heard a gasp of pain; a thud; a scrabbling noise. Another gasp-and then silence. The door, now ajar, creaked open an inch in a gust of wind.
It sounded as if he had killed her. And yet he doubted it. She was too smart. She would have anticipated that.
Or would she? And on the other hand, was it even her? He might have just killed some hapless burglar or delivery boy.
Crouching low, he crept toward the door. As he drew close, he lay flat on the floor and crawled the final few feet. He stopped, his gaze on the narrow crack below the doorjamb. He needed to ease the door open another inch before he could see whether a body lay on the terrace beyond-or whether it was a trick.
He waited-and, when another gust of wind came, he used the opportunity to creak the door a little farther open to expose the terrace to view.
Instantly, two shots rang out, slamming through the door just inches above his head, showering him with splinters. He rolled quickly away, heart pounding. The door was now open a foot, and each gust of wind pushed it farther ajar. She had fired very low-expecting him to be crouching. If he hadn’t been completely prone, he would have been hit.
He stared at the holes her rounds had torn in the woodwork. She had managed to get her hands on a mid-caliber semiautomatic, a Glock from the sound of it. And she had learned at least the basics of how to shoot.
Another, heavier gust of wind blew the door wide open, and it slammed against the wall, then swung to, creaking loudly. Slowly he maneuvered around to its far side, and then with one swift movement kicked the door shut, rolled to a sitting position, and shot the bolt. As he rolled away again, another shot blew a hole in the wood inches from his ear, prickling him with splinters.
As he lay on the floor, breathing hard, he realized now the disadvantage of shutting himself up in the house. He could not see out; he could not know from what direction she would come. Although the house had been somewhat hardened against entry, he had seen no need to arouse local suspicion by making it as secure as the Long Island structure: with a gun, she could shoot the locks or bolts off any door and window. No-it would be better to fight her outside, where his superior strength, his expert shooting ability, and his knowledge of the terrain would put him at a decided advantage.
Had the gunshots been heard? People in town might be calling the police, and that could be awkward. But had they heard? With the wind coming off the water and roaring up through the figs and olive groves-not to mention the periodic booms from the restless volcano-perhaps the sound of the gunshots would not be noted. And as for the police, the only law enforcement on the island during the winter was a nucleo investigativo headed by a lone maresciallo of the carabiniere-who spent his evenings playing briscola at the bar in Ficogrande.
He felt a rush of limb-trembling rage. She had invaded his home, his bolt-hole, his ultimate refuge. This was it: he had nowhere else to go, no other identity to assume. Flushed from here, he would be put to flight like a dog, pursued relentlessly. Even if he eventually escaped, it would take years to find a new safe haven, establish a secure identity.
No: he had to finish it here and now.
Three shots sounded in rapid succession, and he heard one of the shutters in the breakfast nook hurl open, slamming against the wall with a shuddering crash. He jumped up and, scuttling ahead at a crouch, took cover behind a half-wall of masonry separating the kitchen from the dining area. The wind howled through the open window, banging the shutter.
Had she gotten inside?
He scrambled around the half-wall, jumped up at a run, and swept the torch across the kitchen: nothing. Still ru
Three more shots resounded, this time from the direction of the library, and he could hear another shutter begin to swing wildly in the wind.
That was her game, then: punch holes in his defenses, one by one, until the house was no protection at all. He wouldn’t play that game. He had to seize the initiative. He, not she, would choose the terrain for the final confrontation.
He had to get outside-and not only outside, but up the mountain. He knew every switchback of the steep and dangerous trail. She was comparatively weak and would be weaker after her long and exhausting pursuit. On the mountain, every advantage would be his-including the use of a handgun in the dark. Nevertheless, he reminded himself that he had underestimated her at each turn. That could not be permitted to happen again. He was up against the most determined, and perhaps most deadly, adversary of his career.
His thoughts returned to the mountain. The ancient trail had been built almost three thousand years ago by Greek priests to offer sacrifices to the god Hephaestus. About halfway up, the trail branched. A newer trail ran to the summit along the Bastimento Ridge. The ancient Greek trail continued westward, where it had been cut centuries earlier by the Sciara del Fuoco, the legendary Slope of Fire. The Sciara was a continuous avalanche of red-hot lava blocks forced from the crater, which tumbled down a vast ravine a mile broad and three thousand feet deep, to ultimately crash into the sea in explosions of steam. The cliff edge of the Sciara was a hellish, dizzying place, like no other on earth, swept by raging winds of heated air coming off the lava flow.
The Sciara del Fuoco. A perfect solution to his problem. A body that fell in there would virtually disappear.
Exiting the house would be his point of greatest vulnerability. But she could not be everywhere at once. And even if she was waiting, expecting his exit, she had little chance of hitting him if he kept moving in the dark. It took years to develop handgun skills at that level.
Diogenes crept up to the side door, paused briefly. And then, in one explosive movement, he kicked it open and charged into the darkness. The shots came, as he knew they would, missing him by inches. He dived for cover and returned the shots, suppressing her fire. Then he jumped up, sprinted through the gate, and turned sharply right, racing up a series of ancient lava steps at the top of the lane, which would co
Chapter 77
Special Agent Pendergast leaped off the swaying fishing boat onto the quay at Ficogrande, the boat already backing its engines to get away from the heavy surf along the exposed shore. He stood for a moment on the cracked cement, looking up at the island. It rose abruptly from the water like a black pillar against the dim night sky, illuminated by a fitful quarter-moon. He saw the reddish play of lights in the clouds capping the mountain, heard the boom and roll of the volcano, mingling with the roar of surf at his back and the howling of wind from the sea.
Stromboli was a small, round island, two miles in diameter and conical in shape: barren and forbidding. Even the village-a scattering of whitewashed houses stretched out along a mile of shoreline-looked battered, windswept, and austere.