She got on the radio and within a minute confirmed clearance to land at the air station. They flew in low over the coast of Sicily toward the Catania airport and with that airport in view, she banked hard to the west and Jake could finally see where she was heading.
“Have you landed here before?” Jake asked.
“Yes, during my time with the Italian air force. We conducted joint exercises with our NATO allies.”
Elisa landed with as much precision as she had throughout the flight. They taxied and came to a stop outside the base operations building, where a man in a flight suit waited with a flashlight. He was talking with someone on his headset by the time Jake and Elisa collected their bags and got to the tarmac.
“Jake Adams?” the man said as he approached and offered his hand to shake. “Lieutenant Max Stevens.”
They shook and then Jake introduced his friend as simply Elisa.
The naval officer said, “We picked you up on our system as soon as you requested to land. You know you had a tail, right?” Then he shone his flashlight beam onto the side of their airplane. “Jesus, what happened here. Looks like bullet holes.”
“Good eye,” Jake said. “What can you tell me about the tail?”
The naval officer’s eyes kept shifting from Elisa to the holes in the plane. “Well, they followed you until they must have realized you were landing here. Then they turned around and landed at Catania a few minutes ago.”
“Can you get on the horn and have them detained? They tried to drop us out of the sky over the Med.”
“Yes, sir.” He got onto his headset again and watched as Elisa walked past him toward the operations building. He turned and smiled at Jake. “Nice. You two a couple?”
“Easy sailor. She’s armed and dangerous.”
“A spook like you?” He nodded his head, obviously turned on by this new fact.
Jake ignored the inquiry. Instead he simply walked into the operations building after Elisa. Inside he found a chair and went through his backpack, checking again to make sure there was no tracking device. He was clean. But while he looked he realized he was getting short on 9mm ammo.
“Everything all right, Mister Adams?” the Navy officer asked him.
“I could use some nine mil rounds. Any way of getting some from your security folks?”
“I’ll see what I can do.” He started to leave and stopped himself. “Still waiting to hear back from the Polizia at the Catania airport.”
“Thanks.”
Just as he turned, the naval officer almost ran into Elisa, who was returning from the restroom.
“Everything all right?” she asked, taking a seat next to Jake.
“He’s heading out to get us some nine millimeter rounds.”
“I could get some from the local Carabinieri,” she said.
“Let’s try not to get them involved.” Jake had a few negative experiences with that law enforcement agency, and he wasn’t in the mood to have them look too deep into his background, even though he could show them fake identification. “Besides, we need to get moving to catch up with the ferry. It should arrive within the hour.”
“What about the Greeks from that other plane?” she asked.
Just then the naval officer showed up with two boxes of 50 rounds each of 9mm ammo, which he handed to Jake. “Got a call back from Catania airport. By the time the Polizia went to the airplane on the tarmac at Fontanarossa Airport the men were already gone.”
Jake let out a breath. “Great.” Now they’d have to keep looking over their shoulder. And the Greeks might actually know the destination of Sara Halsey Jones.
The naval officer smiled and said, “Turns out their airplane was also hit by a number of bullets. Strange coincidence. They also found some blood on one of the chairs in the back. Said a bullet came right up through the bottom of the fuselage, through the chair, and probably into the posterior of someone. Someone will have a sore ass for a while.”
“Any way we can get a ride down to the main ferry terminal in Catania?” Jake asked as he reloaded an empty magazine, keeping his prints off the brass casings.
“I can drive you,” he said.
Shaking his head, Jake said, “Not in that flight suit.”
“Understood. But I can change in less than five and take you in my personal car.”
“All right. Let’s do it.”
Naval Air Station Sigonella was just a short drive to downtown Catania and the waterfront, especially between three and four in the morning. The officer dropped them a couple blocks from the ferry terminal, so Elisa and Jake could walk in and make sure they were not under surveillance.
Outside on the sidewalk, the officer’s car driving away in the other direction on Via Cristoforo Colombo, Jake said to Elisa, “Let’s split up for a while so we can cover more ground. There has to be two hundred people on that ferry and it might be tough to catch her in the crowd.”
He let her go ahead and he followed a respectable distance behind her. As Jake got to the ferry terminal, he saw that Elisa already had a large cappuccino in her hand from a small kiosk. Needing the same jolt to get him to wake up, Jake ignored Elisa and got himself a large also and then walked off toward a position along a wall near the restrooms. Elisa found a chair across from him. From those locations they should be able to cover the entire offloading of passengers.
Better yet, Jake knew, he could see if anyone else, specifically the Greeks, were anywhere to be seen.
The ferry arrived on time at 4 a.m. Slowly the weary passengers strolled off like a group of zombies. There were families, couples, groups of youth, which Jake only viewed to make sure Sara Halsey Jones had not globed onto, and finally he saw the woman he had been seeking for days, and who had been on the run for weeks in Europe. She was still wearing all black, with a black scarf over her head, as if she were a much older woman in mourning. Jake threw his empty coffee cup in the garbage and caught the eye of Elisa, who also saw their target. It had been agreed that he would make contact with Sara and Elisa would watch to make sure they were not followed.
Sara Halsey Jones seemed to wander aimlessly about the small terminal, as if looking for something, her eyes scanning signs. This was the perfect opening for Jake. He simply walked up to her and asked, “May I help you find something, ma’am?” He threw in a slight Texas accent.
She startled at first and then said, “No, thank you. You’re an American?”
“Guilty.”
“I didn’t see you on the ferry,” she said.
“There were a lot of passengers.”
“I would have remembered you.” She took a slight step away from him.
“Sara. My name is Jake. I was hired by your brother to find you.”
She walked away from him and he quickly caught up, grasping her arm. “Let me go,” she said loudly. “I don’t have a brother.”
Jake loosened his grip slightly but still maintained control. “Listen to me very carefully. Your brother is Senator James Halsey. You are Sara Halsey Jones, professor of history from Rice University in Houston. You just came from Malta, where you spoke with another history professor. That man is dead.” He put great emphasis on that last word.
“He’s dead? Why?” A tear streaked down her cheek from her right eye.
“Because there are men who either want you dead or want you for some other reason. The same men who have been after you in Athens, Rome, Venice and Istanbul.”
Sara wiped away her tear but now the waterworks came from both eyes as she sniffled and almost lost her breath. She took deep intakes of air. “I don’t understand,” she finally forced out.
Jake glanced at Elisa, who pulled out a tissue from her purse as if offering it up from across the room. He took the hint and found a tissue in his jacket pocket and handed it to Sara, who accepted it and dabbed her eyes.