He muttered to himself. “But no one agreed with me. They were too busy looking for burial mounds under Karnıyarık Tepe in the Great Cemetery.”
Riley rolled the photographs carefully and tucked them in an inside pocket of his jacket. “Professor, may I have the key to your Post Office box? We will return the key and the contents of the box to you as soon as possible.”
Briggs pointed to a wooden key holder hanging next to the front door. “The key is in that. Bring it to me, would you?”
Riley did as he asked. The professor extracted the key and handed it to Briggs. “Do you have any idea what Professor Hobbs sent you?”
Briggs shook his head. “He didn’t say. He sent a text saying it was something I’d find of interest.”
Ellis and Thatcher walked in the front door. Thatcher caught Riley’s eye and shook his head.
“Professor, thank you,” Riley said. “I’m afraid we will need to extract you for your own safety. It shouldn’t be for too long, though.”
“Oh dear.” The professor hugged the cat close to his chest. “What about William?”
Riley looked thoughtful for a minute. “Yes, the cat can go with you.”
“Everything will be fine,” Abigail assured the professor. “I trust Riley with my life.”
“If you trust Riley with your life then why aren’t you dating him? You clearly think he’s a dashing young man.”
Thatcher boomed with laugher. Ellis rolled his eyes. Riley cleared his throat awkwardly, but when Abigail finally had the courage to look at him, he did look pleased with himself.
“Will my cat and I be going to a pleasant place?” the professor continued. “Maybe a place with roses? I do love roses.”
Riley stood. “You had best gather your things, Professor. You’ll be leaving soon.”
“I understand,” the Professor said as he left the sitting room, wheeled out by Ellis.
Riley made a call. He didn’t say much, but Abigail overhead him request they put a vase of roses in the house for the professor.
18
OXFORDSHIRE
“It’s a good thing that old professor lives in such a remote location,” the leader said to his men. “Remember, we need to take him alive and unharmed. We need him for backup in case the woman doesn’t lead us to the treasure.”
The agents were huddled in the heavily wooded landscape of the Chilterns.
“What about the agents sent to extract him?” Number Five asked him. “Do we need to take them alive too?”
The leader ground his teeth. “You ask stupid questions. Obviously, you don’t need to keep them alive. Why would you need to keep them alive? They don’t know anything of any use to us.”
“They know the location of at least one of RHTF’s safe houses,” the man said.
“So?” The leader jutted out his chin in a belligerent manner. “Does Vortex care where their safe houses are? No. Do we care where their safe houses are? No. We’re here to follow orders and that’s all. We’re here to get this professor and take him unharmed. Understood?”
“Yes.” Number Five appeared suitably chastened.
The leader shook his head. Vortex had informed him that the RHTF agents were on their way to Professor Briggs’s house. In fact they were no doubt speaking with him now. The leader idly wondered how Vortex had accessed the information. Maybe the professor had a Facebook page. Everybody did these days, it seemed. It certainly made all the intelligence agencies’ work a lot easier.
Now, with a broken leg and confined to a wheelchair, Professor Briggs wouldn’t be showing anybody any international locations. That meant he would be extracted and taken to a safe location. RHTF had already extracted Eymen Bulut’s widow, much to the leader’s irritation. And he hadn’t been able to get his hands on Murat either. That man had disappeared off the face of the earth, but given his trade in petty illegal weapons, the leader wasn’t surprised.
He wondered what sort of vehicle they would use to extract the professor. He hoped the other agents with the woman would go in a different direction, because he certainly didn’t want to deal with them. And he needed that woman out of harm’s way for the moment, so she could lead them to the Croesus treasure.
The leader’s eyes lit up as he thought of the vast repositories of treasure. He trembled with excitement. The treasure had to be worth billions of dollars. Vortex were paying him handsomely for this and promised him a bonus if he delivered the treasure.
And, the leader thought, he would give himself a nice bonus. Vortex would never know if some pieces of gold jewelry were missing from the treasure, given no one knew how much treasure was there in the first place.
Now all he had to do was make sure he got his hands on this professor. Apparently, the professor was old and feeble and unable to defend himself. That made the leader’s job easier. He figured there would be two people accompanying him and his men would outnumber them.
He looked around. “Don’t slacken off, any of you! Are you ready?”
The men all answered in the affirmative.
“Now remember, the professor can’t be harmed. He’s elderly and frail so whatever you do, don’t intimidate him. We don’t want to give him a heart attack. If he dies, we’ll have to answer to Vortex.” The leader gave an involuntary shudder.
“But won’t just the sight of us give him a heart attack?” Number Five asked.
The leader ground his teeth. Maybe in the mêlée he would shoot Number Five and report to Vortex that the RHTF agents had killed him. He smiled to himself and nodded, leaving Number Five’s question unanswered.
He looked at the tree lying across the road. He afforded himself a smug smile of satisfaction. There were two roads leading from the professor’s house. One road was a rarely used lane and that lane was where they now waited. He was betting the RHTF agents with the woman wouldn’t go this way. He certainly hoped not. If they did, it would ruin his entire plan.
The leader shivered with the cold. He wasn’t partial to English winters, but at least it was the end of winter and it wasn’t snowing. Still, the bite to the air suggested it might sleet at any moment.
For all his skills, patience was not one of them. The leader hopped from foot to foot to stay warm while letting out a string of obscenities.
He was beginning to wonder whether the extraction teams had taken the professor on the other road, when he saw lights approaching. “Positions,” he called. “And don’t act until you make sure it’s them. We don’t want to shoot civilians and draw the attention of the local constabulary.” He added those words for Number Five’s benefit. The man really was an imbecile. Still, he wouldn’t have to worry about him much longer, one way or another.
The large van screeched to a halt when it rounded the corner and came upon the tree trunk lying across the road. The driver immediately threw the car into reverse, but someone shot out the tires.
The leader was furious. Hadn’t he just made a speech about identifying the occupants of the vehicle? He would lay odds Number Five was the culprit.
The four men ran to the car while the leader took cover by a beech tree. The windows were tinted and the leader was unable to see inside from his position.
The two front doors opened and he saw people roll out. The doors immediately shut and the lights flashed, signaling that the car had been knocked remotely.
The leader swore under his breath. Gunfire was exchanged and he dived behind the cover of the beech tree.
The leader ran for the back of the vehicle. He knew the agents were out of the vehicle firing on his men and his men were firing back. Nobody knew he was there. He figured he could gain entrance to the front of the van through the back doors.
He crept up behind the vehicle. He inserted the crowbar between the bars, then, bracing his foot against the door, he heaved with all his might. Despite the cold, sweat broke out on his forehead from the exertion. The doors opened a crack. With one more wrench of the crowbar, the doors flew open. The leader smiled to
himself as he climbed inside.
He was relieved to see the professor was unharmed. The elderly man was sitting, partly obscured by a green and blue tartan blanket, on a wheelchair secured to a bar behind him.
The professor lifted his head and reproduced a gun from under the blanket.
It took the leader a moment to realize that he’d been had. This was a decoy professor in a decoy vehicle. He’d been careless and had let his guard down. He had committed the cardinal sin—he had under-estimated his opposition. Now he was about to pay the price.
The gunfire stopped just as another vehicle arrived. The man pretending to be the professor jerked his gun at the leader, signaling him to move to the Chevrolet large-size van directly behind the van they were now in. The leader and his men were bundled unceremoniously into the back.
There was no sign of Number Five. Maybe he had run away.
The leader clenched his fists into balls.
19
OXFORDSHIRE
When the call came, Riley went into the kitchen to take it. He had stayed at the professor’s house to wait for the news. Otherwise, they would be en route to the post office, and he didn’t want Thatcher or Ellis to overhear the conversation with the extraction team. Apart from his professional duties, Abigail’s safety was foremost on his mind.
“Thanks,” he said into the phone before hanging up. His expression was grim. It was just as he had suspected, although the thought brought him no relief.
One problem presented itself: how was Vortex getting the information? Was it from Ellis or Thatcher—maybe both? How else would Vortex know their moves? Thankfully, he alone had known about the decoy extraction team.
The professor’s house clearly hadn’t been bugged because Vortex hadn’t known about the professor, not until Riley’s visit. Riley cast a glance around the kitchen. It didn’t seem as though the professor had entertained visitors lately. Piles of unwashed plates were stacked on the countertop, emitting the unpleasant odor of stale food waste. There were no pizza boxes or other signs of takeout. Riley wondered what the professor had been eating, until he noticed the trashcan was overflowing with half-eaten frozen meals, the uppermost ones spotted with mold. Ants circled the bowl of half-eaten cat food on the floor.
At least the professor was safe, and it had been the decoy vehicle that had been ambushed. Riley was glad the agents were unharmed. The RHTF team had apprehended four Vortex agents, but one had gotten away.
He shook his head. At least Professor Briggs was protected and on his way to the safe house where he would have a decent meal, maybe for the first time in weeks.
When Riley marched back into the living room, three pairs of eyes looked at him expectantly. “The vehicle en route to the safe house was ambushed.”
Abigail was at once horrified. “Is Professor Briggs all right?”
Riley hurried to reassure her. “He’s fine. Our agents had decided to have a decoy vehicle and that was the one that was ambushed.”
Abigail now looked thoroughly confused. “What do you mean?”
It was Ellis who answered for her. “I assume Briggs was taken in another direction to another vehicle. The Vortex agents chased the decoy vehicle thinking Professor Briggs was in it, whereas he was on his way to another location via another route.”
Riley gave a nod of affirmation. “That’s right. And he’s perfectly safe.”
Both Ellis and Thatcher frowned at Riley. There were barely perceptible frowns, but Riley recognized them for what they were. He was aware they knew he suspected either or both of them. If they were innocent, then the fact they were suspected wouldn’t go over well, but if they were guilty, they would be angry that Riley suspected them. It was a no-win situation.
“What do we do now?” Abigail asked.
“We take the key and go to the post office,” Riley said. “And I’m not going to say the name of the post office aloud just in case there is some kind of surveillance device on us.”
Abigail yawned widely and stretched. Riley’s heart went out to her. He was tired, so he couldn’t imagine how tired a civilian must be. He didn’t like to put her through this, but time was running out. He couldn’t risk Vortex agents reaching the post office before he did.
And it seemed the Vortex agents had been ahead of them every step of the way.
Riley drove around in a circular route to the post office. He kept checking the maps app on his phone. He didn’t want to use the GPS in the car because that would alert Thatcher and Ellis to their destination.
Finally, when Riley was satisfied he wasn’t being followed, he drove to the little village post office.
It was dark and the street was deserted. Riley stepped out of the car and looked around. He couldn’t see anyone, but what’s more, he didn’t feel anyone in the vicinity. Years as an agent had honed his intuitive skills. He opened the door for Abigail, held out his hand, and said, “Let’s go.” He could have opened the post office box, but he didn’t want to leave Abigail alone with Thatcher and Ellis. He also didn’t want to risk Abigail going anywhere alone.
Abigail opened the post office box without difficulty. Riley sighed with relief. So far, so good.
“Back to the car,” he said, still looking around the street.
When they got back in the car, Riley left the engine running. “Open it now.”
Abigail took some time to open the package, given that it was well wrapped. When she looked inside, she gasped.
“What is it?” Thatcher asked from the back seat.
“I don’t think it’s anything that can help us.”
“Why don’t you tell us and let us be the judge of that.” Ellis still had the same snarky tone.
Abigail pulled out a book and handed it to Riley. “It’s a book of Greek translations of sixth century Lydian ostraca. It was written over a hundred years ago, so the information isn’t up to date.”
“A wild goose chase then,” Ellis grunted from the back seat.
Riley handed the book back to Abigail and drove away, after punching an address into the GPS.
“What now?” Ellis asked him.
“I know we have to get to Sardis in a hurry, but no one as yet knows the location. I doubt Vortex know as much as we do. We’ll need some sleep. We’ll stay in a hotel tonight.”
His words received no argument. Abigail sighed with relief. She had been running on adrenaline, but now the very mention of sleep made her realize just how much she needed it. Her nerves were on edge and she was exhausted. She probably needed to sleep for a week but a night’s sleep was all she was going to get. Still, she was grateful for that.
Abigail dozed off a few times and awoke when she hit her head on the side of the car. It was too dark now to see the scenery. She only realized she had slept when the car stopped.
Riley got out of the car. Abigail looked around at the Bed and Breakfast in the quaint little village. The others got out of the car, so she followed suit.
Riley took everyone’s suitcases out of the trunk. “We should split up,” he said to Ellis and Thatcher. “You two stay here and Abigail and I will book into a B&B around the corner.”
“Are you going to take the car?” Thatcher asked.
“You guys won’t need it?”
They both shook their heads. Riley put Abigail’s and his suitcases back in the trunk. “I’ll meet you back here in the morning at seven,” he said.
They drove around the corner and Riley parked the car. Abigail looked out the window at a big sign, ‘White Stag Bed and Breakfast.’ It looked nice enough, but she really didn’t care. She would have been happy to sleep in the car at that point.
Riley took the luggage out of the trunk once more. “We’re catching a taxi,” he told her. “We’re going to the next village. It’s just a precaution.”
Abigail thought that a little strange, but she didn’t say anything. Sleep was uppermost on her mind. “How far to the next village?”
“It’s probably about thirty minutes o
r so.” He leaned closer to her and said in low tones, “I can’t be certain there isn’t a tracking device on that car.”
They walked the short distance to a local pub and sat at a table while Riley called a taxi. “It’ll be here in five minutes,” he told her.
The rest was a blur. Abigail could barely keep her eyes open. The very act of staying awake became a physical effort for her. She tried to focus on the traditional English pub interior: the low ceilings, the rough wooden beams, the whitewashed walls, but the lazy drone of conversation lulled her to sleep.
The taxi deposited them in at a Bed and Breakfast in a sleepy village. The sign outside announced there were vacancies.
Riley took Abigail by the arm, escorted her in, and asked the lady who met them in the lobby if they had a vacancy for two rooms.
The friendly woman was most accommodating. “Americans, are you? Well, I’ll have to take your passports. Not that I think you’re criminals or anything, but it’s the law.” She chuckled.
“That’s perfectly all right,” Riley said. “We’ll be leaving before seven in the morning.”
“That’s fine. The first breakfast is served at six. Do you have any allergies or food preferences?”
“No. Riley looked at Abigail. She shook her head.
“Here’s the breakfast menu. If you could just fill out the forms and drop them in this box here.” She tapped a large wooden box with a slot in the top. “We can have a nice cooked breakfast ready for you at six.”
Riley paid and thanked the woman, who smiled before disappearing through a side door. Abigail was sitting on a chair by the reception desk, already dropping off to sleep.
“What would you like for breakfast?” Riley asked her.
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