The Matt Drake Series Books: 7-9 (The Matt Drake Series Boxset 2)

by David Leadbeater

  “You think?”

  “Yes. Everybody finds their way in end. She no different. She will return to you.”

  Drake struggled not to frown. “To me? You mean to us. To the team.”

  “I know what I mean.” Yorgi reached for a biscuit. “Let us dunk together!”

  Dahl closed his eyes in frustration.

  Drake threw a biscuit at him. “Hey, it’s better than slugging vodka.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  Alicia watched as Michael Crouch worked the problem from his own perspective. A respected and accomplished boss of more years than he cared to reveal, Crouch had more personal, influential contacts than a Saudi oil baron and more clout with the British authorities than the Treasury. But this setback was different; it required another skillset to solve. At heart the man had always been a treasure hunter, a mystery solver, and it was this flair and talent that he sought to utilize now.

  With Caitlyn he spoke of the gods, the Pandora angle, and how the Pythians might be trying to fit ancient mysteries together with an old plague and a terrifyingly modern plan. With most of Pandora’s story already told, Crouch and Caitlyn focused on the narratives and chronicles that intertwined with it.

  Alicia drifted over to what she thought of as the soldiers’ table. Healey and Russo were already there, sipping water and listening closely. Russo offered her a seat by kicking out a chair on the other side of the table.

  Alicia didn’t argue. After everything that all three teams had accomplished the realization that they were still on the verge of facing a man-made super-plague hit them all like a lightning bolt.

  “Heard from Lex?” Healey asked quietly.

  Alicia shook her head, attention still claimed by Crouch. “Nope. I’m not his mother, Zack. Let Lex do what the hell he wants. It’s up to Crouch if he gets back on the team.”

  Back in Vegas, Laid Back Lex had taken a red Ducati and departed in a hurry, an undisclosed seething anger possessing him, barely able to explain his motives for leaving. Alicia took it to mean he was sorting some issues—maybe one day she would be able to do the same.

  “So Zeus ordered Hephaestus to create Pandora and cast her upon the slopes of Mount Olympus. On her wedding day she was given a beautiful gift, a jar or box, and told never to open it. We all know what happened next. But later, even Homer made mention of Pandora in his famous Iliad, referencing Zeus’s palace where two urns stood, one filled with evil gifts and the other with good ones. Whomever received the mixed gifts would face both good and evil destinies, but whoever received only the evil gifts would be scorned, and quote: The hand of famine will pursue him to the ends of the world. That’s us. Mankind.”

  “Homer?” Alicia said. “Can we trust a man named Homer?”

  Crouch didn’t smile. “We owe Homer so much. It is through his poems that Mount Olympus was first identified as the seat of the gods. If you think about the effect that has had on all kinds of literature, interpretations, essays and theses ever since, you can begin to imagine the regard in which he is held.”

  Caitlyn flicked through page after page of notes, referencing the Internet and comparing every snippet of information with what they knew of the Pythians. The look on her face was not uplifting.

  Alicia turned her head to the laptop to watch the SPEAR team working over in London. Even now being apart from what she considered her key team, her family of actual friends, felt unreal, as if this new life were some kind of alternate dream. It was the most natural thing in the world to assume she would soon be back with them.

  But then what of Crouch? What of Russo and Healey and Caitlyn? Were they just to be pit stops along the road? I have to find a home. Through the experience of all her travels she was only now starting to realize that someone got it wrong—the road does not go ever on. Somewhere in life, unless you want to die alone, it simply must stop.

  Caitlyn turned to Crouch, a strange look on her face. “What if we’ve been going about this all wrong? I have an idea.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean we’re coming at our problem through ancient mysteries when we could do the total opposite.”

  “Which is?”

  “Modern technology.”

  Alicia saw Karin’s head swivel all the way across the English Channel. Komodo stood right behind her, blocking everyone else’s view. She couldn’t see Drake at all and missed the camaraderie they shared.

  “The Pythians we know,” Caitlyn said. “General Bill Stone. Miranda Le Brun. Nicholas Bell. Army, heiress, developer.”

  “We’re checking into them all,” Karin said. “Known associates, movements, that kind of thing. So far they’re nothing short of squeaky. Maybe Interpol will learn something more.”

  Alicia found her thoughts returning to Beauregard. The man had raised her interest back in the UK, and not only for salacious reasons. A world-class assassin, he was an enigma. Who knew which side he was really on? Why does he help me? She had heard about men that could fight like him—as sinuous and deadly as toxic fog—but never come across one before. Indeed she had considered them an urban legend. Even Mai Kitano, herself a trained Ninja, taught by masters, could not move the way Beauregard moved. Where the hell do these people get their training?

  Yet another mystery.

  One that she’d like to uncover.

  Alicia felt a spicy smile forming on her lips, noticed Russo staring at her in horror and realized she was staring at him. Shit! She was giving that man all the wrong signals and for once, felt apologetic. Russo had her back and there was nothing a soldier like Alicia prized more.

  She switched her gaze. Caitlyn was still hypothesizing. The Pythians were public enemy number one and it surprised Alicia that the world’s security agencies hadn’t learned more by now. Then, of course, the Shadow Elite had operated quietly and with impunity for many years, pulling a string here and there when they had to. The Pythians were a different kettle of fish.

  Purposely brutal. Egotistical. Inhuman.

  Caitlyn tapped at her keyboard. “General Stone. The FBI had eyes on him until last night, DC time. Now, he’s vanished, but they’re positive he’s still in the States. No plane travel. Stone is the one we know is recognizable.”

  “Are you saying the Pythian HQ—so to speak—is within America?” Crouch asked.

  Caitlyn inclined her head. “I guess so. But that’s not where I’m heading.”

  Crouch took a call from Interpol. Armand Argento was added to the video feed, the screen now split into three. Alicia saw the Italian—who his friends apparently called the Jabbering Venetian—for the first time. Swarthy and dark, he had that lived-in look that characterized older, fitter men who looked after themselves. Well-dressed, well-groomed and highly confident, Alicia could see why most people trusted him.

  “I am here for you. I am here,” he told Crouch. “What do you need?”

  “Hold on.” Crouch focused on Caitlyn. “Get to the point.”

  “So forget Stone. Also, Nicholas Bell has vanished. No sightings within the US and no plane travel. Is this coincidence or are the Pythians gathering? Well, what if there’s another explanation?”

  Alicia liked Caitlyn’s train of thought so far. Although she had known the ex-MI6 girl for only a few weeks, Alicia already believed in her analytical talent. Though leaving MI6 under a blanket of uncertainty and with a recent undisclosed horrendous experience in her personal life, Caitlyn was willing to learn, willing to train hard and had withstood her torture at the hands of a Mexican gang superbly well.

  The dark-haired girl continued. “The third Pythian,” she said. “Miranda Le Brun.”

  “She’s been seen?” Karin asked.

  “Not exactly. But her private plane filed a flight plan several days ago. Maybe if Armand can request closed-circuit footage from Thessaloniki International Airport?”

  “I can do better than that,” Argento told them. “As Interpol associates itself closely with the Greek police, its chief of police and
the International Police Cooperation Division, I can access the feeds myself. It may take just a little time to allow for protocol.”

  Caitlyn spent the time double checking her information on Le Brun. Not an awful lot about the woman was known, she was married to a deceased oil billionaire, and rarely attended social functions but her various assets and known wealth was in the public domain. Flight plans were filed regularly as a matter of necessity, and air movement messages sent to the local civil aviation authority, in the case of the States this was the FAA, who kept detailed records. Caitlyn hadn’t needed a hacker to acquire the information; she had simply asked the Americans for it using the emergency code word attributed to the Pythian situation.

  “I am now in the system,” Argento said. “And my, my, amico mio, it is excellent quality. Most excellent. With zoom I can count the nose hairs, but never mind that. I am initiating facial recognition software and . . . bavoom we have our match. Today is . . . yes, and there we have it. Our Miranda bypassed customs but still went through the VIP desk three days ago . . .” Argento chatted on.

  Alicia struggled to keep up, trying to identify relevant information from the rambling. Now she was starting to understand why they called him the Jabbering Venetian.

  “And she is with a man,” Argento exclaimed. “Who I know. But I will run the software again to be sure.”

  Crouch leaned forward. “Who do you think it is?”

  “Wait, wait. Yes, yes it is Nicholas Bell. The pair arrived together. So there you have it. Argento strikes again! We have a success.”

  Crouch was even further ahead, and so it seemed was Karin Blake. At the same time they said, “Check Callan Dudley’s movements.”

  Alicia felt a surge of adrenalin. If two Pythians arrived in Greece not three days ago then the motives could be manifold, from concealment to recruitment. If Dudley, the Irish mercenary, arrived around the same time it could only be for one reason.

  Delivery of the sample he had escaped with.

  Argento circumvented the search by running Dudley through his software. A low whistle underlined his surprise.

  “Arrived in Greece very recently,” he said. “Flew into Larissa Airport, but that is of no matter since it is only sixty eight miles away. It is too much of a coincidence to be innocent, no?”

  “Bloody right,” Crouch said. “It’s a lead and no mistake.”

  Alicia watched Karin turn around in her seat, addressing someone in the background. “What do you think?” the young woman said. “We’re all played out here in London. Should we go?”

  Hayden stepped into view. “We need more,” she said. “Why are they there? Where exactly did they go? Armand, try the traffic cams and see if they can be useful. I wonder if they even met at all.”

  Now Drake appeared in camera shot. “Deeper investigation, love. That’s what we need here. We can’t all go shooting off to the same place. Who knows where we’ll be needed next? It’d take a pretty big goddamn reason to send us all running off to Greece.” He stopped, then added, “Even if we weren’t at war.”

  Alicia experienced a trickle of disappointment but knew they were right. Both London and Paris were fairly central cities on a worldwide scale. It wouldn’t pay to race off on a fool’s errand or, quite possibly, a diversionary wild goose chase.

  “I can tell you now that Le Brun and Bell entered a waiting car, alone, and that Dudley and two companions, probably mercenaries, took a rental. Do you see? We don’t have to track Dudley’s movements, just access the car rental firm’s records.”

  “Eyes everywhere, huh?” Russo said with a little sarcasm.

  “Would you rather prevent an average of five large-scale terrorist attacks a year or experience them?”

  Russo remained silent, staring at nothing. Crouch busied himself with research whilst Argento worked.

  “Why Greece?” he whispered to himself. “This bloody location is too much of a coincidence for me.”

  Karin’s voice cane through the monitor. “Greece is an intersection,” she suggested. “Cunningly located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and Africa.” Her voice tailed off.

  Crouch whistled. “That would mean it’s the perfect staging area for the secret factory.”

  “And ties in with Pandora,” Drake added. “A Pythian jest, no doubt.”

  “I still think there’s more,” Crouch mused.

  “I have clearance,” Argento’s Italian tones broke in. “Just checking the records now.”

  Alicia watched Crouch dip his head and become lost in thought. Caitlyn too, was brainstorming the problem, only she used a keyboard. Put them together and they were the brain of this ancient mystery solving team.

  “In Greece you find the origins of democracy, western philosophy and literature,” he said, emphasizing the importance of the latter. “Political science and western drama. Alexander the Great conveyed many features of its civilization through his movements to the east as did the Roman Empire to the west. It also gave us the Olympic Games.”

  “So it’s the center of the universe,” Alicia said with a little sass. “Or was.”

  “All roads lead from Greece,” Russo intoned unnecessarily and with a dark look on his face. Alicia couldn’t help but laugh, only casting the shadow even further.

  “You know you could debate this all day,” Argento cut in again. “And some do. Scholars. Academics. I used to have a history professor who could talk your ear off for hours. Literally chew it to the bone. But no, no, I digress. Luckily, our mercenaries can be tracked. These days, most agencies install a logger in their fleet of vehicles because it’s much cheaper than GPS. This means they aren’t manning a real-time view of the car but are logging its movements via an onboard computer that can be accessed at any future time. The car is currently stationary within the Mount Olympus National Park, and has been ever since its initial journey.”

  “Inside the park?” Karin wondered. “Why?”

  “It’s a huge place,” Crouch said. “Impossible to keep track of them out there. Ten thousand acres and that’s just the core. And, of course as we know despite a rangers’ best efforts, national parks aren’t the best policed areas in the world. And that’s down to funding, not the rangers.”

  “So Dudley and pals wandered into the mountains,” Drake said. “With the samples. They have to be meeting someone, right? Can you track Le Brun and Bell that far?”

  “No,” Argento said. “The traffic systems outside the cities are not so sophisticated. Yet.”

  “What about dwellings, as ridiculous as that sounds?” Dahl spoke up. “Maybe they hiked through the park to some private area—”

  “Dwellings?” Drake laughed. “You mean like a tree house?”

  “You know what I mean. Don’t be a knob.”

  Alicia found a wide grin stretching across her face as the camaraderie the two men shared lifted the tension in the room. Dahl, of course, pretended nothing had happened and rushed on.

  “Houses. Estates. Everything from mansions to caves.”

  Caitlyn clicked around the Internet. “Officially no mention of large caves has ever been made, which does not rule them out,” she said. “And sounds somewhat suspicious.”

  “The twelve Greek gods lived in the ‘folds of Olympus’,” Crouch said. “Its many fog-shrouded ravines. According to Homer they have their places there and prehistoric man chose to build dwellings at the foot of this wondrous peak. Pantheon, which today is called Mytikas, was their meeting place.” He stopped, thinking. “But surely not . . .”

  “While I can see Dudley and his friends making it up there,” Drake said. “I can hardly see Miranda Le Brun and half a dozen mad scientists completing the journey.”

  “Still,” Crouch said, “Olympus itself is the ‘meeting place’. Even in 1941 the Greek resistance found a hiding place there whilst battling the Germans.”

  “Trouble is,” Caitlyn said, “the whole of Olympus has been made an archaeological and historical place to preserve its gener
al topography.”

  “Still, towns surround it. Litochoro. Katerini. Dion. My hope is that these towns are more communities. Outsiders would be noticed immediately. That sends me back to the idea of a covert place where this factory could have been outfitted. Let’s face it, a factory like that, once you know the components you need, can be retrofitted in one trip. Scientists can be installed quickly too. Once invested, they would stay until the job was done . . .” he tailed off.

  Alicia stared at him. If it ever could be said a light bulb suddenly lit up someone’s eyes this was that moment.

  Crouch spun around, excitement surrounding him. “We have to go to Greece,” he said. “All of us. My God, of course, Mount Olympus is Pandora’s birthplace! It’s a given that they would base the factory there!”

  Silence followed in which everyone digested his deductions. Karin was the first to speak up. “But that doesn’t work inside a national park. I highly doubt you could supply even a small factory without somebody noticing. At the very least, the risk of being spotted would prevent you trying in the first place.”

  “Corruption,” the more experienced Crouch said with a bitter expression. “It’s hard to think of a worse sin that flew out of Pandora’s Box. I think we’re looking for an underground cave somewhere in the vicinity of Mount Olympus. Maybe just outside the national park,” he added as a consent to Karin.

  “And how would we find such a thing?” Healey asked.

  “Oh, I can think of several ways,” Dahl said. “It used to be one of my specialties.”

  Argento cleared his throat. “And I also have ideas. Let me implement those whilst you all get on your flights. Let me handle this. Time is the factor, my friends. Time. Get going. Now.”

  Alicia rose quickly, spurred on by the prospect of meeting up with the old team as much as finding the secret factory. “Move it, Russo. Healey.”

  The rugged man heaved his bulk upright. “Aren’t you gonna miss the Frenchy?” His eyes narrowed knowingly.

  “Beauregard? Ah, don’t worry that rock you call a head. I can always . . . grab him later.”