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“Well, we have the sat phone. Call the police. Umberto?”
The Italian shook his head. “They wouldn’t get here in time.”
“We can turn around or keep going and do our damnedest to get in and out before they get here.”
“There are only two roads in and out of here,” Umberto said, “and Bianco will have both watched. You can be sure of that.”
Remi looked at Sam. “You’re quiet.”
“Thinking.” The engineer in him was looking for an elegant solution, but he quickly realized he was overthinking the situation. Much like with their initial run-in with Arkhipov at the boiler graveyard, they had neither the time nor the resources for a sophisticated plan.
“Fortune favors the bold,” he finally said.
“Oh, no. . . .”
“He who dares, wins,” Sam added.
“I know what that means,” Remi said.
“What?” Umberto asked. “What’s happening?”
“We’re going to make it up as we go along.”
Sam started the car, put it in gear, and pulled out.
They found the graveyard in a weed-filled meadow surrounded on three sides by hillocks covered in pine and cork trees. Only an acre in size, it was surrounded by a waist-high wrought-iron fence that had long ago been overtaken by rust and vines. Befitting the evening’s task, a low fog filled the meadow, swirling around the headstones and crypts. The sky was clear, showing a bright full moon.
“Okay, I’m officially creeped out,” Remi said, staring through the windshield as Sam brought the car to a stop before the gate. He shut off the engine and doused the headlights. Somewhere in the trees an owl hooted twice, then went silent. “All we’re missing is howling wolves,” she whispered.
“No wolves on Elba,” Umberto replied. “Wild dogs. And snakes. Many snakes.”
The graveyard was arranged haphazardly with no regard to spacing or symmetry. Headstones jutted from the weeds at odd angles, some within a foot of its neighbor, while crypts of all shapes and sizes rose from the ground in various states of disrepair, crumbling or overgrown by foliage or collapsed altogether. In contrast, several crypts, freshly painted, were islands of manicured grass and flowers.
“They’re not much for civil planning, are they?” Sam said.
“It’s been here so long the government can’t bring itself to intervene,” Umberto replied. “The truth is, I can’t remember the last time anyone was buried here.”
“How many are here?”
“Many hundreds, I think. Some graves are deep, some
shallow. The dead are stacked atop one another.”
Remi asked, “Where’s Laurent’s crypt?”
Umberto leaned forward and pointed through the windshield. “That one, in the far corner, the one with the domed roof.”
Sam checked his watch. “Time to find out how well the Lancia holds up to punishment.”
He started the engine, did a Y-turn on the gravel drive, then spun the wheel and drove into the meadow, the tall grass scraping the car’s underbody. He followed the fence line to the back of the graveyard and coasted to a stop behind Laurent’s crypt. He shut off the engine again.
“Where does that go?” Sam asked Umberto, pointing past Remi out the passenger window. A half mile away a pair of tire ruts disappeared over the hill and into the trees beyond.
“I have no idea. It’s an old mining road. It hasn’t been used for seventy, eighty years—since before the war.”
Remi murmured, “The road less traveled.”
“Not for long,” Sam replied.