He took out his phone and punched in Elisa’s phone number from memory, sending her a text that read ‘Taormina.’ He saw her pick up her phone and smile. Then he got this message back: ‘Una bella città.’ Yes, it was.
Jake needed to contact the lawyer in Washington to let him know he’d found Sara Halsey Jones. He considered making a call, but thought it would be more discreet as either a text or an e-mail. He decided on the later. On his phone he typed in the e-mail address for Brock Winthrop and sent him a simple message with the basic facts.
Seconds later he got an e-mail acknowledgment from the lawyer saying that was wonderful. Then the lawyer told him that Sara’s father was quite ill and had been sent back to Texas with only days to live. Her father was asking to see her before he died. He showed her the e-mail from Winthrop and she responded with a concerned look, but more curious than anything.
“You know this Brock Winthrop?” Jake asked her.
She laughed. “Yeah. The man has been trying to get me into bed since I first strapped on a training bra. He and my brother were friends in college, Yale Law. My brother Jim is fifteen years my senior and Brock has been sucking off the Halsey teat ever since. I don’t know what my brother sees in the man. Brock is Jim’s lawyer and advisor. He also handles my father’s estate.”
“Is your father really sick?”
“He’s eighty. My mother died a number of years ago. Dad was diagnosed with some kind of cancer two years ago. The doctors gave him a couple months back then. He’s just ornery enough to hang on for two more years.”
“What did the lawyer mean when he said they sent your father back to Texas?”
“Jim wanted him close to him in Washington. Dad really didn’t want to leave Texas, but he eventually agreed. He did stipulate that he wouldn’t be caught dead anywhere near the capital. He wanted to die in Texas. So maybe he is getting worse. I talked to him just before I left for Europe and he sounded all right. But that was weeks ago.”
Jake considered this new information. “Do you want to head back to Texas? We could pick up a commuter flight to Rome and the next flight to the Lone Star state.”
Sara let those thoughts brew within her. Jake could see the calculation, like a mathematician doing calculus in her mind. “This might sound callous,” she said, “but ask how long they expect him to live.”
Pulling out his phone again, Jake typed in the request. A couple of minutes later and the lawyer indicated it could be days or a week. Buck Halsey was a stubborn man. He showed this to Sara.
“All right. We keep at it for a couple of days.”
He nodded and put his phone away. “Could you tell me what you’re trying to discover here? It might help me find out why the Greeks are after you?”
“Greeks?” she asked, confused.
“Yeah, Greeks. That’s who’s after you.”
“Polybius was a Greek historian,” she said. “But he’s just the conduit to my understanding. My real subject is the great mathematician Archimedes from Syracuse.”
Jake had visited Syracuse, or Siracusa as the Italians called it, many years ago with his ex-girlfriend Toni Contardo. They visited all of the Roman and Greek ruins. But at the time they were more interested in exploring the body of each other.
“So eventually we will end up in Siracusa,” Jake said.
“Right. But to use a football analogy, we’re working our way down the field picking up yards until we’re within striking distance of the end zone.”
“Football? Do the Owls even have a team?”
“Hey, football is like religion in Texas. Don’t mess with our religion our football or our guns.”
Jake was beginning to like this woman. It wasn’t a requirement of his job, but it was a nice perk. He caught the attention of Elisa as he got up, indicating to keep an eye on their new friend. “I need to head to the restroom,” he whispered to Sara. “Be right back.”
The WC was right behind in the car in front of theirs. He got there and saw it was occupied. As the door opened, Jake and the man coming out met with their eyes, with immediate recognition by both of them. The man tried to throw a right punch but his shoulder hit the side of the door frame.
Without thinking, Jake thrust his right foot into the man’s stomach, sending him flying back into the restroom. Then he followed the man inside and forced the door shut behind him. They wrestled in the tight quarters, neither able to get a good punch off. Finally Jake shoved his elbow upward into the man’s jaw and knocked him out. Then he searched the man’s pockets for identification. This was the same man he had encountered on the ferry from Tunis to Trapani after he took the Glock from his friend — the one Jake had just killed in Malta. All he found was a wallet, which he shoved into his pocket. And, of course, another Glock 19 under his left arm and two extra magazines under his right. He had just seconds to get the hell out of there before someone came. Smiling, he decided to make things a little more difficult for this guy. Jake stripped the man’s pants off, along with his boxers, and rolled them up under his arm. Then he put the man back onto the toilet as if he was doing something sordid.
Opening the door slightly to see if anyone was there, Jake saw nobody. He slipped out and threw the man’s pants into a garbage can. Then he hurried back toward his seat. Somehow these guys had gotten on the same train. This could have been a coincidence, but he didn’t like the odds.
Back at his seat he reached down to Sara and said, “Let’s go. They found us.”
“What? How?”
He led her by the hand up the corridor toward Elisa, who could see he was concerned. She got up and said, “What’s up Jake?”
“The Greeks found us,” he said. “Yeah, she’s with us, Sara. I’ll introduce you later. Right now we need to get off this train.”
Lucky for them the train seemed to stop in every one-horse town between Catania and Taormina. But he was sure they would be watching for them. Within a minute the train slowed for a small station. Instead of getting off immediately, Jake held them there until the conductor said the doors were about to close. Just at the last second Jake pulled the two women out onto the platform and hurried away from the train. He didn’t look back until he was sure the train had left the terminal. They had gotten off clean. But now they needed transportation.
“What happened?” Elisa asked.
“Wait. Who is she?” Sara asked.
Jake introduced them and said they were all on the same team. He explained what had happened to the man on the train, then he started to walk outside and handed the Glock to Elisa. “A spare.” He went through the man’s wallet, but it only held a driver’s license with a photo barely recognizable. He kept the forty Euros and threw the wallet into the garbage as they left the tiny terminal.
“We need a ride,” Jake announced. “Any ideas? The rest of the Greeks will get off at the next stop and come back for us. Someone would have been on lookout for us getting off the train.”
The two women looked around. There were no taxis and the bus might come in five minutes or a half hour. However, there was a small parking lot with cars left behind by commuters. Jake went from car to car testing driver’s doors. The only one unlocked was an old beat up Fiat Uno. It would have to do.