Flavia saw a huge billowing cloud spurting out of one of the mountains. It was hard to tell which mountain it was coming from, but it looked like the largest, Mount Vesuvius. The cloud was the shape of a very tall pine tree stretching way into the sky above, with branch-like arms of smoke.

  While Flavia was watching the cloud, the sky grew progressively darker in the space of seconds. Suddenly, ash fell from the sky.

  Flavia and Laelia froze on the spot, clutching each other. Within seconds, a thick black cloud of ash covered the whole sky. People appeared from nowhere, screaming and running around. In the space of five seconds, crowds of people running in terror surrounded the two young women.

  Laelia pulled Flavia into a doorway. “What is happening?”

  Flavia simply shook her head, too scared to speak. Panic overwhelmed her, and she was at a loss to understand what was happening. One thought, however, was foremost in her mind, to free Titus. “Laelia, run home and tell Mother to leave for Rome without me.”

  “Flavia, the Lady Augusta will not leave without you.” Laelia then let out a cry as a piece of burning ash landed on her arm. “Some of the ash is on fire.”

  Flavia held Laelia’s arm and looked at the small round burn spot on it. Just then, a broad sheet of flame lighted up the building opposite them. The debris now entirely blocked the rays of the sun. Within seconds, the whole area was thrown into total darkness.

  “Run, Laelia, run home. Now!” Flavia urged her.

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll be all right. Tell Mother I have left with Rufus. Run!”

  Flavia stepped onto the street behind, then immediately regretted her decision, as a panicked crowd carried her along. She tried hard to keep her footing, as she well knew that if she fell, she would likely be trampled to death.

  As far as Flavia could tell, the crowd was pressing her in the direction of the House of Gaius, so she didn’t fight to go in another direction. Vivid sheets of flame lit the way at intervals, but the ash was falling harder now, and some little pieces were alight, burning her skin.

  Rock and ash filled the air. Several times, she smelled burning ash on her head and the smell of her own singed hair. Although it was daytime, everything was blacker than night, apart from the frightening sheets of flame which came at intervals, providing the only light.

  Although she was utterly beside herself with sheer terror, Flavia’s one thought was to reach Titus. With some difficulty, and bruised by the bustling crowd, Flavia finally managed to reach the main entrance to the House of Gaius.

  The tremors by this stage had greatly increased in intensity, and when Flavia reached the wall, part of it collapsed, nearly crushing her. In fact, the whole front of the house seemed to have left its foundations, and was leaning toward her.

  Without thinking, Flavia ran inside, just as one of the columns lining the porch fell and slid right at her. She jumped sideways and then ducked as another column fell and exploded with a deafening crack. Visibility was somewhat better now, as flames were shooting high into the air out of the top of Mount Vesuvius, lighting the area. Flavia was unspeakably terrified at the sight, but it only served to spur her on to find Titus.

  The House of Gaius was on fire, whether from the fallen oil lamps or the ash, Flavia did not know. Thankfully, the house appeared deserted. Flavia looked around, wondering which direction to try. A young man ran out; Flavia caught him and shook him by the shoulders. “The dungeons, where are they?”

  The man stared straight ahead, desolate terror in his eyes.

  Flavia shook him again. “The dungeons?”

  The young man pointed behind him, before pulling away roughly and fleeing in a mad panic.

  Flavia was overtaken by a fit of coughing from the ash and little rocks but hurried in the direction that the man had pointed.

  It was raining heavily now, not raining with water, but raining heavily with soft gray ash and stinging, harsh, tiny stones of pumice. Flavia stopped to dust herself off and covered her face with a piece of her clothing. The ash and the pumice were one thing, but falling with them were sharp angular stones, some tiny, but some more than two inches in diameter, and while some were solid, some were alive with molten fire.

  Flavia had gone as far as she could go in the direction that the young man had pointed, but now a wall of rubble blocked her way. Flavia tried to remove some of the rubble, but her efforts were futile. She peered through a large crack that had opened up and by firelight saw iron bars lying on the ground, so figured that this must be Gaius’s private jail.

  The ground above the jail was piled so high with the mixture of ash and the burning stones that escape surely would have been impossible.

  “Titus!” Flavia cried, but there was no answer.

  She sank down on a big rock and sobbed helplessly, while the city died around her.

  24

  OPLONTIS / TORRE ANNUNZIATA

  THE PRESENT DAY

  The map lay on the small table between them, next to a plate of half eaten cookies.

  “It’s less than twenty minutes from Herculaneum if we take the road with tolls, the A3.”

  Abigail knew Riley always did his best to avoid tolls. She figured it was more anonymous that way. “How long with tolls?”

  “A little over twenty minutes.” He looked up from his guidebook. “It says Torre Annunziata is a city with a small port with shipyards, iron and steelworks, and it has an important rail center, as well as a thermal spa and a resort.”

  Abigail was surprised. “I had no idea it was so big.”

  Riley nodded. “It manufactures chemicals, firearms, and macaroni. At any rate, we should be able to lose anybody following us in a city of that size.”

  Abigail’s stomach muscles clenched. She had forgotten for a moment that Vortex agents were following them, waiting for them to lead them to the spear.

  Riley picked up the map and turned it around. “If we were driving from here to Pompeii and avoiding the A3, we would go through Torre Annunziata anyway, so the Vortex agents will have no idea that’s actually our destination.” He stared at the map a little harder. “Even if we took the A3, we’d turn off at Torre Annunziata. We’ll stop at a cafe there, and they’ll think we’re simply having a stopover.”

  “I didn’t think of that. Of course! The Villa Poppaea was very close to Pompeii, on the edges of it, really.”

  Without further discussion, they left the hotel. Abigail wondered if they were being followed. It made sense that they would be followed, only she hadn’t spotted anybody. Even Milo was conspicuous by his absence. She figured he was still in his room, his head in a book.

  As they drove along the narrow Corso Vittorio Emanuele III, Abigail looked up at the buildings on either side of the road. A motorbike zooming past startled her, its driver turning his head to look into the car. Abigail could not see the driver’s face through the black face shield. She turned her attention back to the narrow road, glad Riley was driving, with all the honking and frenetic activity.

  They turned onto the Corso Giuseppe Garibaldi which went past the Villa Poppaea and continued to the A3. “Hopefully, anybody following us will think we’re taking a circuitous route to Pompeii,” Riley said.

  He parked the car outside a cafe with an ice cream placard outside. The area did not look particularly attractive. Opposite the cafe entrance was an old garage door painted in brown and blue. Above it was a balcony on which somebody’s washing flapped in the cold breeze.

  Abigail tripped when her shoe caught in the cobbled pavers on the sidewalk. Riley’s arm shot out to steady her. A motorbike went past and parked a little further down the road in front of them. Surely, that wasn’t the same motorbike as before? They all look alike, Abigail told herself, as she silently chastised herself for being so anxious.

  While the café looked unattractive and uninviting from the outside, the interior was entirely delightful, apart from the loud music which made hearing difficult, if not impossible.

  Riley led Abigail into a courtyard surrounded by high brick walls and Sorrento lemon trees. It was cold, so nobody else was sitting outside, despite the fact that the tables were set.

  They sat against a wall which provided some respite from the cold. Abigail huddled into her coat and ordered the pasta alla Genovese, while Riley ordered the fresh local fish cooked in the oven with potatoes. They refused the wine and chose instead glasses of homemade lemoncello.

  “Have you seen anyone following us?” Abigail asked Riley in low tones.

  “Possibly only one motorbike rider.”

  Abigail gasped. “I thought I was letting my imagination run away! Do you mean the one who looked in the car?”

  Riley nodded.

  “How did you notice him?”

  “It’s my job.”

  “Why would they only have one person following us?”

  Riley shook his head. “They could have any number of people following us. It’s unlikely we’d spot them all. They’re good at what they do.”

  “What if they’re all on that other case? The one that’s using up a lot of RHTF agents.”

  “It’s entirely possible. I haven’t noticed any cars following us, and usually I get a vibe, a sensation.”

  Abigail took a sip of lemoncello and thought it over. “What do we do now?”

  “After we eat, we slip out the back way,” Riley said. “Whoever is following us will no doubt know we intend to do that, but still, the odds are better than slipping out the front. And sometimes, there are two back ways out.”

  “And then we’ll head straight to our destination?” Abigail didn’t want to mention the Villa Poppaea in public even though nobody appeared to be in earshot.

  Riley nodded. “There’s a café opposite it.”

  “Imagine that!” Abigail thought of the Villa Poppaea being so close to modern life. It didn’t seem right somehow, but she couldn’t articulate why, even to herself.

  When the waiter returned, Riley stood up and took him aside, by one of the lemon trees. Abigail watched as Riley handed him some cash. The waiter nodded his head vigorously.

  Riley signaled to Abigail. The waiter took them to a back room at the restaurant. At first, Abigail wondered why. The room appeared to be used for storage and possibly was rarely used, as it smelled musty and damp. It took her a moment or two to notice the window. Riley thanked the waiter, who promptly left. Riley opened the window and looked out, and then held out his hand to Abigail.

  He helped her through the window and then jumped out onto the pavement behind her, before carefully shutting the window. “This way,” he whispered. He took her hand and they walked briskly away from the back of the restaurant. They hurried down a side road and then turned into another side road.

  “It was lucky that there was another way out,” Abigail said. “Did you have any trouble getting him to let us out that way?”

  Riley chuckled. “No, I paid him handsomely for it. I told him your husband was looking for us.”

  Abigail raised her eyebrows. “Oh!” Her cheeks flushed hot. She would have said more, but they turned the corner and came upon a taxi letting somebody out. Riley hurried across and jumped in the back seat. Abigail was only a few paces behind him.

  Riley gave an address Abigail hadn’t heard before. She assumed it was near the Villa Poppaea.

  To her surprise, the taxi came to a stop only two or so minutes later. Riley paid him cash and then held the door open for Abigail. They walked straight into a café. As they did so, Abigail caught a glimpse of archaeological ruins over her shoulder.

  This must be the Villa Poppaea! Her stomach flipped with delight. If only she could be there on vacation having a good look around, but she decided she would come back one day. However, she would do it in the tourist season in summer, when the winds were blowing in the other direction. She knew she would not be able to overcome her irrational fear of volcanoes, but at least if there was a Plinian eruption, she would be safe visiting Pompeii, Herculaneum, or Oplontis in summer.

  This café was strikingly modern and nothing like the restaurant in which they had just been. This one had brightly painted gloss white walls, and the furniture appeared to be made from recycled pallet timber. The chairs were bright yellow plastic, and the tablecloths were red with white spots. The room was one big rectangle with no nooks or crannies. If anybody looked through the windows at the narrow entrance, they would see them, but Abigail supposed there was no alternative. Once more, she reminded herself that Riley knew what he was doing.

  Still, she could not resist one question. “Shouldn’t we press our time advantage and go straight there?” Abigail said as soon as they took a table at the back of the café.

  “I’d like to see if anybody comes looking for us,” Riley said.

  “But how could anybody have followed us here?” Abigail countered. “Nobody could possibly know we found a way out of that window.”

  Riley frowned. “Assumptions can get you killed in this business. We’ll sit here for a while, and I’ll see if anybody looks in at us.”

  They ordered a cappuccino each. Riley also ordered some sfogliatelle for them both.

  The sfogliatelle arrived in no time. They were puff pastries that looked like croissants in the shape of shells, and from experience, Abigail knew they could contain various types of fillings. This one had a custard mixture with candied orange peels.

  Abigail thought this spy business was going to make her put on weight. Still, if she hadn’t put on weight from all the Amish cooking her landlady always gave her, she was probably safe. It was all right for the Amish—they needed all those carbs as they worked so hard, but apart from her daily jog, the majority of her physical work came from tapping away at her keyboard.

  Abigail was halfway through her cappuccino when she saw Riley tense. “What is it?”

  “It’s our friend on the motorbike. He was out front, looking into the café. Stay here.” With that, he walked to the front of the café and slipped outside.

  By the time he came back, Abigail had finished her cappuccino. “Did you catch him?”

  Riley sat down and shook his head. “Not a sign of him.”

  “Are you sure it was the same guy?”

  “I can’t be certain, but it’s a strong possibility.”

  “What do we do now?”

  “We’ll take a cab back to the other restaurant and get my car. We’ll need it anyway if we find what we’re looking for, as we’ll need to take it with us.”

  Abigail nodded. She figured that had been Riley’s plan all along. “But won’t whoever is following us know we were headed for the Villa Poppaea?”

  Riley shook his head. “They might think we want them to think that. They might think we came here as a decoy and that we were actually heading for Pompeii.”

  Abigail’s head was spinning. She wondered how spies ever kept everything straight in their minds, second-guessing and plotting the way that they did.

  When they finished their meal, Riley paid. He asked the waiter to call a taxi.

  Soon, they were in a taxi for the short distance back to Riley’s car. They wasted no time getting into the car, both looking around for the motorbike and its rider.

  Riley drove away, but not the way the taxi had gone in the first place.

  Abigail looked out the back window the whole time. “I can’t see any motorbikes,” she said.

  Riley simply nodded and kept driving.

  In no time at all, they were back at the Villa Poppaea. Riley drove past it and turned down a side street where he parked between two white cars that looked like his. Abigail went to get out of the car, but Riley caught her arm. “Don’t get out yet. Let’s sit and wait and see if the motorbike guy comes past.”

  Riley and Abigail stared out the window for a good five minutes. She was just about to ask Riley if they could now get out, when a motorbike went past them. It looked like the same one they had seen before, a man dressed all in black with a black face shield.

  “How did he find us?” Abigail asked.

  “That’s the million-dollar question. Quick, out of the car!”

  Abigail jumped out of the car. Riley grabbed her hand. They ran down the streets, twisting and turning into side streets as they went. Abigail was glad that she had been jogging every morning but figured she needed to do more. They kept running until they came to the Villa Poppaea. They passed two tourists coming up the steps, but otherwise there was no one around.

  “Just walk now,” Riley said. “That way, we won’t look suspicious from a distance.”

  “Why did we get out of the car?” Abigail asked. “Why didn’t we drive away again?”

  “Because he would have expected us to drive away again,” Riley said. “Besides, he had just ridden away, and we knew for a fact he didn’t have eyes on us at that very moment, so that was the perfect time to make our move.”

  “What if he follows us here?

  “He most likely will.”

  That statement did nothing to quell the sinking feeling in the pit of Abigail’s stomach or the dread chill of apprehension that ran up her spine.

  25

  OPLONTIS

  THE PRESENT DAY

  Abigail paused at the top of the steep steps leading down to the Villa Poppaea. She looked at the massive wall of ash beside her. “Although I know that Pompeii was buried under masses of ash, seeing it like this really makes it come alive.”

  Riley readily agreed. “It really does.” He gestured below them. “I’m glad there are barely any tourists today.”

  Abigail paused to turn to him. “I don’t know if Oplontis is as popular as Pompeii itself. You know, this was once an incredibly luxurious and sprawling villa perched high on a cliff overlooking the sea, and now it’s in the middle of busy modern life, overlooked by apartment homes.”

  Riley chuckled. “The juxtaposition of the ancient villa with the modern buildings is entirely incongruous.”