Arcadia Awakens (43 page)

Ahead, however, there was a small plateau no larger than the marketplace of a town. It too was overgrown, but there was an asphalt path through the middle of it. On the far side, the black outline of a bizarre rock formation was visible.

Although her eyes were accustomed to the pale moonlight by now, she saw what it really was only when Pantaleone said, “You should have the ruins of Gibellina in sight any moment now.”

The old man had lowered his voice. Rosa got down behind a few bushes for cover and looked at the bulky remains of walls. Her heart was pounding.

“The monument is to your right,” he said.

From where she was, she couldn’t see what was beyond the shrubbery. She was about to stand up and go on, when he whispered, “You must take great care now. There are bound to be guards. Take the cell phone in your left hand and the revolver in your right.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t fire unless it’s absolutely necessary. And when you can be sure of hitting your target. Six bullets aren’t a lot if you want to be a match for the Carnevares and their allies.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she whispered. “I’m not a match for
anyone
.”

“Then why did you set out for Gibellina?”

She bit her lower lip and didn’t reply.

“Very well, then,” he said a moment later. “If you start something, you ought to see it through. But try not to kill anyone. I can make sure that the tribunal decides in favor of the Alcantaras once—a second time would be much more difficult.”

“What
do
you really want me to do?” she whispered. “First you suggest I’m welcome to shoot everyone and their mother, then you don’t want me killing anyone. That’s not particularly helpful.”

“I can’t make your decisions for you. Do what you think is right. That’s usually what matters to you, isn’t it?” She couldn’t shake off her impression that he was testing her. “Your two friends are locked up in the ruins. What you see ahead of you is only a part of what was left of old Gibellina. On the other side of the hill, down the slope, there are some more ruined houses. That’s where you’ll find what you’re looking for.”

From far away came aggressive roaring.

She had heard the same sound before, on Isola Luna. Lions and tigers. Did they roam free here, as well? The gun seemed to be heating up in her hand. Her palm was sweaty against the metal.

“What is this place?” she asked softly. “Those ruins … it’s like a battlefield.”

“There are two Gibellinas,” he explained impatiently. “The new one near the expressway—and the old village up in the hills where you are at this moment. It was destroyed in an earthquake in 1968. Instead of being restored in the same place, Gibellina Nuova was built twelve miles farther to the west, and the survivors were resettled there. There are only ruins and rubble on the old site now. And the monument.”

She got to her feet and tried to get a glimpse through the bushes, but it was impossible. She would have to move out onto the plateau.

“I can’t see a thing from here,” she said.

“Don’t waste your time trying. The sun will rise soon, and then you’ll have much more difficulty moving about unnoticed.”

“I’m going over to the ruins now.”

“Brave girl.”

She looked around, listened again for the distant roar of the wild beasts, and ran. Ducking low, she passed through the waist-high grass, always looking for cover behind bushes and shrubs. There was no one in sight. However, she could now see a slope rising to her right, and farther up it a farmhouse. She couldn’t be sure whether that, too, was in ruins or not. From a distance it looked dilapidated but habitable. Behind it, on the nearby chain of hills, windmills stood motionless. Their white surfaces shone like gigantic bones in the moonlight.

But neither the house on the hill nor the distant windmill were what made her hold her breath as she knelt there, looking at what lay ahead of her on the slope.

The Gibellina monument was less than a hundred yards away, and at first glance she couldn’t work out exactly what was before her.

But she understood at once why Cesare had chosen this place for his hunt.

A
MAZE
.

An immense concrete labyrinth.

On an area at least the size of two football fields, the side of the mountain had been covered to a height of some six feet with a layer of cement—it looked as if someone had spread a gigantic gray sheet over the ground. A network of narrow paths crisscrossed the concrete, dividing it into blocks the size of houses.

Pantaleone’s breathing over the phone crackled in Rosa’s ear. “You can see it now, right?”

“What’s it supposed to be?”

“It’s the ground plan of the old village. The paths show the former streets and alleyways, the concrete blocks between them are the buildings. An artist had the whole thing built in the eighties as a memorial to the place that used to stand here.” The old man uttered a croaking laugh. “The money swallowed up by this ridiculous project could have been used to build a few decent houses for the survivors somewhere else.”

“And of course Cosa Nostra wouldn’t have made a red cent out of building them,” she remarked sharply. “All heart, aren’t you?”

“You’re getting the hang of the way it works, my dear.”

She hated him calling her that. However, she swallowed her reply, tore her eyes away from the cement labyrinth, and kept on moving through the grass and undergrowth, ducking low.

On the far side of the small plateau she cautiously skirted the rock formation that she had seen earlier from a distance. After a few steps she reached a ruin nestling against the boulders. There was no telling now what kind of building it had once been. The remains of the walls were sprayed with graffiti, and there were no doors left, not even window frames. Only black rectangles, with a disgusting smell of urine and carrion drifting out of them into the open air.

Farther down the slope, a big cat roared again. Cold shivers ran down Rosa’s spine. A chilly wind swept across the hills, carrying the smell of burnt wood with it.

“Now what?”

“Have you reached the first building?”

“What’s left of it.”

“On the other side of it the slope goes down into the valley. There are a series of ruins scattered over it, far apart, and farther down are the remains of a short street. You must go there. That’s the part of the village that wasn’t covered over with that supposed work of art. Everything is still as it was after the earthquake.”

“You know your way around this place.”

“Cesare Carnevare isn’t the first to have seen its uses.”

She closed her eyes for a couple of seconds, took a deep breath, and moved on.

On the other side of the rocks, the bushes grew taller and closer together, and it was easier to find cover. Cautiously, she made her way through the shadows until the terrain began sloping downhill. The revolver felt as if it had been welded to her hand, with her fingers clutching the butt.

She heard voices. They came closer, then stopped. Peering over the tall grass, she saw two men walking up a steep road that had obviously once joined the upper and lower parts of the village. There were many branching cracks in the asphalt, with weeds growing through them. Ordinary cars couldn’t have driven along this road; even Land Rovers would find it tough going.

The men wore black leather jackets and had headsets on. One was holding a submachine gun, the other a heavy flashlight. He had a pistol in a shoulder holster.

“What’s happening?” crackled Pantaleone’s voice over the cell phone.

Rosa jumped, and covered the loudspeaker with her hand.

One of the men looked around, but he walked on. The two of them were ten yards from Rosa, approaching a bend in the road. Once they had passed it, they would have their backs to her.

A little later she slipped away from the cover of the rocks. The wind ruffled her hair, blowing several blond strands into her face. She wished she had tied it back.

Below her, only a stone’s throw away, stood the remains of a three-story house. The back of it must have crumbled away in the earthquake. Rooms gaped open in the narrow wall at the side of the building, like in a dollhouse. But the front was more or less intact. There were even balconies still outside the windows of the second and third floors.

Someone was sitting there in the dark, behind its balustrade. He ought to have been able to see her, too. Was he looking in the other direction at this moment? She could vaguely make out his silhouette, but nothing else.

Alarmed, she kept very close to the facade so that he couldn’t see her from above. If she was going to get past this house, she would have to pass several open doors, as well as a gaping hole where there had once been a window.

She reached the first door, then the second. Someone had painted the words
DONNE
and
UOMINI
over the doors, as if they were public toilets.

A figure came out of the third door and barred her way.

Rosa raised the revolver.

The man, in a leather jacket and jeans like the other two, held up his left hand reassuringly. He was holding a submachine gun in his right hand, with its muzzle pointing to the ground. His long black hair fell over his shoulders.

She was still wondering what to do when he shook his head and gestured to her to follow him.

“What—”

He put a finger to his lips.

“Rosa.” Pantaleone spoke up again. She had almost forgotten about him.

She put the cell phone in front of her mouth like a microphone. “Not now.”

“I assume you’ve met Remeo,” said the old man. His voice sounded distorted, with a crackle in it.

“Remeo?” she repeated.

The man with the submachine gun nodded. “Quiet, now. Come with me.”

Instead, she put the cell phone to her ear again. “Who is he?”

“How do you think I know what Cesare gets up to?” asked Pantaleone. “Remeo is my man in his camp. An informer, if you will. He told me they’d picked up Alessandro. And where they’re keeping him and the girl. He’ll take you there.”

She still didn’t trust Pantaleone, let alone this henchman of his, who was obviously working for both sides. But she had no choice.

Taking no more notice of her or the gun she was holding, Remeo turned and went into the house. She hesitantly followed him inside. The soles of her shoes crunched on broken glass. The narrow corridor had a back wall, but through another door she could see that there was nothing left behind it. After a couple of feet the ground fell abruptly away. Old linoleum hung in rags over the edge.

But Remeo was not on his way to the back of the house. He went down a flight of stairs to a cellar. Reluctantly, she followed him through pitch-dark rooms. They finally reached the open air again on a bank below the ruined building, where tilting piles of rubble were overgrown with bushes. They were making their way through a crevice in the rubble when Remeo suddenly stopped, pointing to three houses a little farther down the slope. In the moonlight, and at this distance, they looked almost intact. Their former gardens had merged into a jungle of dense undergrowth.

“It’s the middle house,” her companion whispered. “The back door is open. There are several men patrolling the road outside it. And at least one in the house itself. Probably in the kitchen, or what’s left of it. Your boyfriend is on the second floor, the room at the end of the hall. There’s no lock, only a bolt on the outside of the door. If they catch you and shut you in there, no one can help you.”

There wasn’t much for her to remember, but she went through each piece of this information separately in her head.

“Where’s Iole?”

“She was in the house with him, but they took her away.”

“Where to?”

He shrugged.

Pantaleone’s crackling voice came again. “You may have to decide between them.”

If he said any more about
her decision
she’d scream. Even here.

“Thank you,” she said to Remeo, and set off. After she had gone a couple of steps, she looked over her shoulder.

There was no one on the slope behind her.