Wayward Son (7 page)

Her mind was flooded with conflicting thoughts as she considered both options. How could she decide something this important so quickly? “Follow your heart,” she remembered her mom repeating to her several times as a young girl.

Four miles down PCH, the intercom chimed softly.

“Miss James?”

“Yes, Harris?”

“Mr. Renard is on the phone. He would like to speak to you.”

“Can you put the call on speakerphone back here?”

“Certainly, Miss James.”

“Amanda?” Luc’s normally resonant voice sounded a little strained, but it was crystal clear over the eight Blaupunkt speakers.

“Yes, Luc,” she replied.

“Everything okay? Is Harris taking good care of you? He’s new.”

“Oh, yes. Excellent. And this limo is awesome.”

“One of the latest models. State of the art. I had the Ferrari people deliver two of their stretched F1 360s last week. Anyway, I’m calling from the observation deck on the roof of Villa Colosseum. It was great meeting you, and I can’t wait to see you in Japan next week. We’ll have dinner together.”

Silence on Amanda’s end before she finally spoke.

“You’re making this very difficult for me. The offer is so generous and tempting, but I’m afraid I just can’t accept, Luc.” She wondered if she would ever tell Johnny what she’d just passed up, as she softly bit her lower lip.

Silence, on both ends of the phone.

“Amanda,” Luc finally murmured. “I don’t think you realize what a big mistake you’re about to make. It could be life altering. Please reconsider, I beg of you.”

“Your confidence in me is extremely flattering. But for now, at least, I see myself in archaeology, not in TV. I don’t know how to thank you, Luc. I’m sorry if this is a disappointment.”

At that moment, the limo accelerated and then swerved abruptly. Amanda lost her balance and found herself pressed hard into the corner of the backseat against the side of the door.

The speakerphone went silent. “Harris?” Amanda screamed, hoping he could hear her through the smoked glass partition.

“Yes, Miss James?” as the partition lowered.

“What was
that
?”

“Oh, nothing much. Just a careless truck driver.”

The partition rose again, giving Amanda her privacy back.

What Harris did not say was that, with pinpoint judgment, he had narrowly avoided a nasty collision with a Pacific Oil & Gas tanker. Just south of Malibu, the enormous vehicle had crossed the double yellow line and headed directly for the limo. Only Harris’s counterintuitive push on the gas pedal and his sudden veer to the right had avoided what would surely have been a fatal crash.

The limo sped onward, so Amanda was not to see what happened next. Trapped by its vector and momentum, the tanker plunged over the seafront cliff, falling 150 feet to the beach and bursting into an enormous fireball that mushroomed over 500 feet into the air and was visible for miles.

The speakerphone came back on.

“Is everything all right, Amanda?” said Luc, who heard her yelling and then speaking more softly to Harris.

She could hear a tumult of shouts and screams in the background.

“Yes, Luc. But what’s all that noise?”

“I think someone’s holding an illegal fireworks party near Malibu pier, and my guests are admiring the show. I’m sorry about your decision. I truly am. Have a good flight. Good-bye, Amanda.”

On the observation deck of Villa Colosseum, Luc Renard pocketed his Blackberry and surveyed the inky Pacific for several moments. Polberto politely ushered the muralist and the other distinguished guests off the deck and down to the main library to distract them from the burgeoning fireball in the distance. Retrieving his phone, Luc scrolled down through a list of numbers, selected one from Italy, and dialed.

“We have a problem,” he said. “You need to be at Fiumicino Airport tonight. I’ll call you in a couple of hours with the details.”

CHAPTER 5

Italy

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WE are beginning our initial descent to the Fiumicino Airport in Rome. Please check to see that your seat belts are securely fastened.”

The British Airways flight attendant’s crisp voice impinged on Amanda’s drowsy reverie about Plato swatting a fly, and she awoke with a start. Dead tired when she boarded in LA last night, she had slept for most of the flight to London. During the stopover there, all the passengers were required to deplane so that the aircraft could be serviced. So she had occupied herself in the lounge at Heathrow with a
New York Times
crossword she brought with her and a sudoku puzzle she found in the
Daily Telegraph
. The Saturday crossword, always the most difficult, was no match for Amanda; she polished it off in twenty minutes.

During the layover, she had thought of calling Juan Carlos to tell him the flight was on schedule, until she realized that her first-generation iPhone wouldn’t work in Europe. Never mind, she was sure he’d be on time at the airport in Rome.

Night had fallen before she reboarded the plane for the flight’s second leg. She must have dropped off to sleep again.

During the final half hour before landing, she reviewed what little she knew so far. Juan Carlos had mentioned that the new site in Ercolano was near the Villa dei Papiri, the principal model for the Getty Villa in Malibu. Although the ancient structure remained unexcavated, enough was known about it to establish that this region, just outside the town walls, was the site for the seaside mansions of some of Herculaneum’s wealthiest citizens in ancient times. Juan Carlos had also spoken of a bronze door with inscriptions in several languages, including Chinese. “Now that,” Amanda thought, “is the real puzzle.”

She knew that Herculaneum’s ancient residents had possibly included Jews and Christians, so inscriptions in Hebrew and Aramaic, as well as Latin and Greek, would fit plausibly with the rest of the historical and archaeological record. But Chinese? How could that be explained?

Contact between Europe and China along the
Silk Road
had begun in the early third century BC, around the time of the first Chinese emperor. Could such ties have encompassed a small seaside town on the Bay of Naples? Depending on what the inscription said, the hypothesis would have to be entertained, at the very least.

Amanda absently doodled a few characters in Chinese on a paper napkin on her tray table. She had first learned the language when her family lived in Hong Kong in the early 1990s, a two-year stint for her father’s job. Before the British handover to China in 1997, Pacific Oil & Gas had built a big refinery there, and Roger James was placed in charge. While she was at UCLA, Amanda had taken several Chinese language courses, hoping she might go on an excavation there one day.

As the aircraft continued its descent, Amanda glanced out the window. Lights along the Italian coast signaled that the landing in Rome was not far off. Her thoughts turned to Juan Carlos and their sixteen-month romance. How much, if at all, had he changed over the years since she’d last seen him? In college, he’d been passionate about everything, from soccer to motorcycles to his fervent religious faith. Certainly there was nothing in their conversation this morning to suggest he’d become any less intense. She wondered if he’d found a steady girlfriend.

After passport control and customs, Amanda stepped outside the baggage claim. There was no sign of Juan Carlos, probably because the plane had arrived twenty minutes early. And, Amanda recalled, traffic in Rome, even this late at night, was notorious. Inside the airport it was sticky, even with the air conditioning, and Amanda decided to step outside and stand near the taxi line, perhaps saving Juan Carlos the trouble of parking while she enjoyed some fresh air.

As she exited the glass doors, Amanda saw a tall, uniformed man at the curb. He was holding a large placard stenciled with her name, A. James. “Did Juan Carlos get held up and send a chauffeured car for me?” Amanda wondered. But surely he would have notified British Airways and had her paged soon after arrival. As she was wondering whether to approach the driver, she felt a tap on her shoulder and heard her name. Turning around, she was caught up in an embrace and, almost immediately, kissed European-style on both cheeks.

“Amanda!” Juan Carlos exclaimed. “You’re really here! You look fantastic! I am so sorry, there was a bottleneck on the way, and I’m late. Scusi, per favore.”

His curly black hair was much longer now, Amanda noticed, but his rugged features and dazzling smile had not changed.

“Juan Carlos, don’t be silly! You’re not late. The plane was early. It’s wonderful to see you!”

“Let’s get going right away,” he said, scooping up her bag. “My car is about fifty meters down from here. I saw you as I pulled in, but the limos were lined up in front of me.”

Amanda and Juan Carlos strode briskly down the pavement to a small but powerful-looking sports car, parked with its hazard lights blinking. She was so glad to see him that she didn’t even mention the chauffeur with the placard. Probably just a coincidence, she told herself.

“Young lady,” Juan Carlos said gallantly as he opened the passenger door. “Step into my
bambino
!”

“What a gorgeous shade of red!” Amanda gushed as she slipped into the seat. “I’ve never seen a convertible like this in America. What is it?”

“Not many of these make it to the States. It’s a limited edition Alfa Romeo—the 8C Spider,” he replied as he shut her door and stowed her bags in the compact trunk space. “Some of the roads we’ll take down to Ercolano will show you what she can do.”

Sliding behind the wheel, he smiled at his passenger. “Now, please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle and fasten your seat belt!”

With a push of the start button and a tap on the gas pedal, the engine screamed like a horde of banshees, turning the heads of nearly everyone in the passenger loading area.

“Still a show-off, I see,” she teased, playfully pretending to plug her ears. Juan Carlos merely shrugged and eased the Alfa away from the curb.

***

It was after midnight. As they cruised through the suburbs of Rome, Juan Carlos filled Amanda in on the plan.

“It’s about a two-and-a-half-hour drive. It’s late and you must be tired. Otherwise, we could stop in Piazza Navona for a gelato and some people watching.”

“Let’s go direct, if you don’t mind. We won’t even get there until nearly three in the morning.” Amanda recalled her twenty-hour day in California before departure.

“
De acuerdo
. We’ll go straight to Silvio’s place in Ercolano. Of course, he’s invited you to stay with us there. Now tell me about your life in California. You know, being together again makes me realize how much I’ve missed you. It’s amazing that the scavi have been responsible for this reunion. Are you still enjoying the Getty work?”

“Yes, I love the job. I can’t say the same for my boss, but the work is great. And I feel the same way about our reunion, Johnny. You know, I’ll always be grateful for your help when my dad died. You rescued me, but it took me quite a while to get my emotional footing. I’ve always felt guilty about the missed phone calls and closing myself off from you and the world. And then you left to join Real Madrid…”

There was a brief pause as Johnny wove through the traffic.

“Real Madrid was a good ride. I could never have afforded these wheels without my signing bonus. But I’ve decided my knee injury did me a favor. The team schedule is relentless. Don’t get me wrong, being a celebrity is fantastic. I enjoyed those years, but I’m happy to be back in archaeology.”

Amanda couldn’t help but think of Luc Renard, and her own crack at celebrity. She decided not to bring it up, instead delving into what was really on her mind.

“Well, now that you’re done with soccer, have you decided to settle down?”

“Oh, I’m still playing the field, at least a little bit. How about you?”

“My best friends are my papyri,” she joked. “And Plato, of course.”

They exchanged glances with a grin.

They were now on the
autostrada
. With no speed limit that any Italian driver took seriously, Juan Carlos opened up the throttle. Amanda sneaked a glance at the speedometer needle, which hovered at the 160-kilometers-per-hour mark. One hundred miles an hour—and other motorists were still passing them! Amanda allowed her mind to wander as Johnny inserted an Italian pop CD and drove into the night.

***

It was nearing two a.m. when blinking caution lights alerted them to a motorway mishap. With a sigh, Juan Carlos braked steadily, and the Alfa soon slowed to a crawl. It looked as if the entire autostrada had been shut down in their southerly direction.

“Where are we?”

“Just north of Caserta,” he replied. “It’s not too far to Naples and Ercolano. But I think they’ve shut down the road. Maybe the rain caused a big accident earlier tonight.” Multicar pileups were more than occasional on Italy’s major roads.

True enough, all traffic was being diverted at the Caserta exit. Even at this late hour, the line of cars was considerable.

“We’re probably being diverted to Nola. Then we can take another side road back to the A1 and continue on the direct route. Here, take a look.”

Juan Carlos switched on the car’s GPS. She saw that to get to the E841 to Nola, they would have to make a number of turns on local streets.

It was then that he noticed the headlights.

He murmured, “That’s funny.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know this area very well. To save time, I’m taking a shortcut to get to the main road. But every time I make a turn, this guy behind me does the same thing. I’m almost certain we’re being followed.”

“Maybe he knows the same shortcut?”

“Not likely. I think we may have the Camorra on our hands.”

“The Camorra?”

“They’re the mob, the Neapolitan
cosa nostra
,” he said softly, not wanting to alarm her. “Lately there’s been an outbreak of carjackings. They go for luxury sports vehicles like the 8C. There’s an international market, all over Europe. It’s often easier to carjack a vehicle with a high-tech alarm system than to steal it off the street. They tried it with this car once before, in fact.”