The Lisbon Crossing Read Online Free PDF Page B

winding its way to the top of the rocky cliffs that rose vertically out of the Atlantic. It was quite a sight.
    We pulled up on the verge of a craggy headland jutting out into the open sea. Alberto yanked the hand brake and jumped out of the car.
    “From here we must walk a little,” he said. By the time I stepped into the sea air, he’d already clambered down a shallow bank and was heading out onto the cliffs.
    “This way, senhor!” He waved and shouted over the roar of the ocean crashing onto the rocks below. “I show you!” I slid down the incline and picked my way over the rocks until I reached the edge of the bluff, where Alberto was waiting for me.
    “O Boca do Inferno,” he said almost reverentially, pointing further up the peninsula toward an underwater cavern at the base of the formation. “The Mouth of Hell.”
    “How’d it get its name?” I asked.
    “Because, like hell, you can believe you are a safe distance away, but the current is too strong. Once it catch you, you no can get away. It pull you in.”
    “I know the feeling.”
    Alberto shrugged. “I think there are many unfortunate souls at the bottom of this place.”
    I scanned the water for any sign of Grimes’s car. I didn’t see anything at first, but then the sunlight glinted off some chrome trim near the cliff’s edge, and I could make out a taillight and the rear fender of a red car just under the surface of the churning waters. The vehicle had landed headfirst and stayed upright, lodged in the rocks. A hundred-foot drop from the road, it must’ve been quite a ride. No more than a couple of seconds, but it would’ve felt a lot longer sitting there watching your life flash before your eyes. It gave me the shivers.
    With nothing more to see, we headed back to the car. I noticed a villa overlooking the site from a larger promontory to the east. We must’ve passed it on our way, but the estate was hidden from the road by a dense cluster of pine trees. A relatively new building, three stories high, with dormer windows on a pitched roof, wooden shutters, and a wraparound porch, it looked like a white stucco version of a Cape Cod. A gated wall surrounded the compound, which included a garden and swimming pool that overlooked the sea, as well as threesmaller structures, probably a garage and a couple of guesthouses. There was something forlorn about the place, but I couldn’t say why. Maybe it was just the remote position.
    Alberto fired up the engine and we pulled away. It was late afternoon and the sun had dropped a few degrees, taking the heat out of the day. Lili would be wondering where the hell I was.
     
    I found her on the tennis court at the back of the hotel, serving up a junior diplomat from the U.S. Mission. His name was Richard Everett Allan Brewster III, which pretty much said it all. After Groton and the Yale debating society, he’d followed Brewster I and Brewster II into the State Department. At twenty-six, he was on top of the world, a real Brylcreem Boy with a mouthful of perfect white teeth and a great jawline, a guy who was going places and knew it. Lili was in the process of taking him apart.
    “I was starting to think that you’d run off with somebody else’s wife,” she said when she spotted me.
    “Just seeing the sights,” I said, and sat down on a bench facing the court. Lili stared down her opponent then wound up and sent her service wide. She looked at me like it was my fault.
    “Didn’t mean to break your concentration,” I deadpanned. She grunted and turned her attention back to the boy wonder, blowing her second serve by him with ease. I enjoyed watching Lili embarrass him for a while, then it got monotonous. The light was fading and I needed a drink when she finally aced him for game, set, and match.
    “I’m sorry you had to witness that,” Brewster puffed as he sauntered over to check me out.
    “You put up a good fight,” I lied.
    “Don’t get much time for tennis, I’m afraid.” He flashed