The Minoan Cipher (A Matinicus “Matt” Hawkins Adventure Book 2)

by Paul Kemprecos

  She unwrapped the tablecloth and held it under a sconce. Her heart fell as she saw that the diagram she’d hastily drawn was smeared from contact with the moist floor. But it was then that she realized a map of the Maze was constantly with her—carried around inside her head. She let her mind drift back through the years. She was a little girl again, sitting at a desk in her bedroom, studying the script and lines written on her grandfather’s scroll. She pictured the Maze and saw that the passageway she was standing in led to a stairway. Could this be the way out of the Labyrinth? Seemed logical.

  She pushed on and passed a number of portals. According to the map in her head, the doorways led to dead ends or would take her back the way she came. A few minutes of walking brought her to a set of steel doors. The Maze diagram indicated a big room on the other side of the doors. There was no handle or lock, but to the right of the doors, where the up-down button of an elevator would be located, was a green, glowing double-edged axe around six inches from top to bottom. Kalliste pressed her palm against it. Nothing happened. She stared at the axe, thinking it was identical to the medallion hanging around her neck. Of course! She leaned close and pressed the medallion against the weapon carved in stone. The doors silently slid open.

  Kalliste stepped through the portal and the doors shut behind her. The atmosphere was cool and dry. She detected the same type of cloying odor she’d smelled in newly-opened tombs that contained centuries-old air and desiccated bodies.

  The vast chamber was lined on all four sides by red and black columns that bowed out slightly in the middle, as was common to Minoan architecture. Panels decorated the wall spaces between the columns. She had seen similar scenes on the frescoes from Thera and Knossos depicting warships, battles and sacrificial processions.

  The smell of decay became even stronger. She kept going, drawn by her curiosity, and discovered the source of the odor, the mummified remains that rested on two parallel rows of stone platforms.

  She walked between the silent biers and saw that the corpses were adorned with jewelry made of gold and precious stones. Carved into the front of each platform was a sacred horn design. Since Minoan religion was matriarchal, Kalliste guessed that the mummies were probably high-ranking priestesses. She counted forty mummies in all, twenty on each side. At the end of the walkway that passed between the mummies was a stone altar surmounted by two swept-up horns.

  To either side of the altar was a cylindrical metal stand that held a double-edged axe. Kalliste gazed at the granite throne that sat on a raised dais behind the altar. A mummy sat upright in the throne. The skeleton and skull were held in place with thin metal straps. The teeth revealed by the fleshless lips set the mouth in a permanent grin. Ivory eyes stared out of the dead sockets. The mummy wore the traditional ruffled skirt of a Minoan priestess, but the breasts that would have been revealed by the open bodice were lost in the leathery folds that enveloped the protruding ribs.

  The mummy’s bony hands rested on the cranium of the skull that lay in her lap. The ragged hole in the crown suggested the skull’s owner had died a violent death. Kalliste wondered who the skull belonged to and why it had been given such an important placement. It was almost like a trophy. The thought hit her like a thunderbolt. Lily had said that an ancient priestess had vanquished King Minos before sailing to exile in Spain. Could she be looking at all that was left of her long-ago royal ancestor?

  Reality intruded. She was still in extreme danger. Once the alarm was raised, she’d be cornered in the Maze and dragged back to this evil place for the sacrifice. She was tantalizingly close to the exit stairway. No time to waste. Turning, she ran back between the silent rows of the ancient dead.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY

  A couple of seconds after Hawkins dove into the helicopter, it had lifted off the parking lot and flown over the harbor, leaving behind angry lovers whose romantic strolls along the seawall had been spoiled by the noisy intrusion.

  Calvin’s voice crackled over the headset Hawkins had slipped on after his dive into the helicopter.

  “Sorry about that messy extraction, Hawk. We were in a hurry. You okay?”

  Hawkins wiped the dust from his lips. “I’m fine. What’s going on?”

  Abby’s voice came through his earphones. “That ditzy blonde bombshell Lily Porter, or whatever her name is, works for Auroch Industries. She was setting you up.”

  “Hold on! How’d you know that?”

  “Molly discovered that Auroch owns the Hidden History media company. Lily has been playing a game the whole time.”

  “It all fits,” Hawkins said. “She was the one who contacted Kalliste with the offer to finance the dive. She knew the position of the shipwreck. She worked with Salazar to scuttle the project. Kalliste was kidnapped after she called Lily from Santorini.”

  “I don’t want to think about the plans she had for you,” Abby said.

  “Neither do I. Thanks for yanking me out of her clutches.”

  “Thank Molly. She tried to warn you. When you didn’t answer she called us.”

  “The phone was on airplane mode. How did you find me?”

  “The positioning app we put on our phones,” Calvin said. “We used it to track you down.”

  Hawkins shook his head in disgust. “Can’t believe I bought Lily’s phony story about the professor.”

  “The professor is real enough, but he’s nowhere near Cadiz,” Abby said. “Molly found out that he’s on an archeological dig in the Middle East.”

  “Ouch. I should have done the same thing. Lily used the photo of Kalliste like a bullfighter waving a red cape. That’s all I could think about, especially after she embellished it with the info on the gang of crazies holding Kalliste.”

  “She told you about her gang of crazies because it didn’t matter what you knew.”

  “Right again, Abby. Dead men tell no tales,” Hawkins said. “Especially gullible dead men. Lily’s been keeping Kalliste alive to lure me in with the scroll and translator. But with me out of reach, she’s got no reason to keep Kalliste alive. We’ve got to get to her.”

  “Way ahead of you, Hawk. I’ve set a course for the castle. Chopper’s loaded with all our gear. I’ll kick it up a notch and maybe we can shave off a few minutes.”

  “Put the pedal through the floor if you have to. With Lily on the warpath, there’s no margin for error.”

  “We’ve got to go over the mission schedule to reduce the possibility of error to zero,” Abby said, switching on the iPad that seemed to be an extension of her body. “I’ll start with the landing procedure.”

  The helicopter flew beyond the city, which curved along the harbor like a sparkling diamond tiara, and passed over the suburbs, then over open farmland, following the track of the earlier reconnaissance visit. As the helicopter reached the wind-swept plain Castilla La Mancha the lights of villages and houses became more scattered with each passing mile until they disappeared almost completely.

  Abby ticked off the mission’s time markers. When she finished the briefing, she said, “That’s the best I can do with limited intel. How does it sound?”

  The plan sounded good on paper, but Hawkins knew that even the best-planned SEAL operations ran into trouble. “Not bad. It might even work except for the exit plan.”

  “You haven’t filled me in on an exit plan,” Abby said.

  “That’s because we don’t have one. The best course will be to use an extraction route that’s different from the insertion. Everything depends on what we find once we get inside.”

  Hawkins knew that Abby didn’t like uncertainty, which was why they were not still married, so he wasn’t surprised when she said, “I know SEALs are adept at improvisation, but the lack of an escape plan worries me.”

  “We’ll be fine, Abby. Isn’t that right, Calvin?”

  “Hawk’s cool, Abby. This is nothing compared to Afghanland. Hoo-yah!” he said, giving the SEAL war cry.

  Abby shook her head and switched her iPad onto its GPS function
. After a glance at the screen, she said, “Coming up on the river, Calvin.”

  Calvin cut speed and brought the helicopter down in a long shallow angle toward a river that looked like a silver ribbon lying on black velvet. He leveled off about ten yards above the water and followed the winding path of the river. It was a wild and exhilarating experience, like a ride in a futuristic amusement park.

  Three miles from the castle, Calvin warned his passengers to prepare for a landing.

  “We’ll be on the ground in five minutes. I’ll try for a soft landing but it could get bumpy, so hold tight.”

  He brought the helicopter to a hover and made an angled descent to one side of the river. Hawkins leaned out a window. The landing lights illuminated what looked like a green carpet.

  “All clear for landing, Cal.”

  The helicopter settled onto the ground. Hawkins was out the door. He did a quick perimeter patrol through the waving grass then swept the river bank with the beam from a powerful electric torch. The chopper was solidly in place around twenty feet back from the river. He walked around in front of the helicopter and slashed his hand across his throat in a signal to cut power.

  The engine died and the rotors slowly spun to a halt. Abby and Calvin stepped out onto the knee-high grass. The helicopter had silenced the normal insect chorus and there was only the chuckle of river water. The air was heavy with the scent of muck.

  Hawkins led the way to the river bank. Calvin pulled up a handful of grass, tied it into a knot and tossed it into the water. Within seconds, the clump was swept beyond the range of the flashlight.

  “Strong current,” Calvin said. “That’s good news. Should push us right along going down. Not so good coming back against the current.”

  Abby had slung a CAR-15 over her shoulder and walked a short distance from the helicopter to peer through a pair of binoculars in the general direction of the castle. There was no sign that their landing had been detected.

  While Abby kept watch, Calvin and Hawkins unloaded the helicopter and placed the cases in a row. They used a foot pump to inflate the three-person polyurethane raft. Weighing thirty-three pounds, the nine-foot long Wing IBXS was similar to the model they had used in the SEALs. The raft had a payload of more than five hundred pounds and easily accommodated the weapons and other gear.

  They stripped down to their underwear and slipped on camouflage uniforms streaked with a pattern of black and dark green. Calvin tied a bandanna known as a “drive-on rag” around his bald scalp. Hawkins favored a floppy hat with a wide brim pinned up in front. Abby came over and said there was no sign of activity from the castle. She went over the inventory on her iPad and matched it with the gear.

  When she got to Calvin’s golf bag, she said, “Gator repellant.”

  “What did you say?” Hawkins said.

  “That’s what Calvin called it.”

  Calvin tapped his nose. “I’ve been smelling gators ever since I signed onto this gig. Figured they’d need special treatment.”

  Hawkins simply shrugged. His friend’s preparedness for unknown threats had saved their butts more than one time. If Calvin smelled gators, sure as hell there were gators. They loaded the gear into the inflatable. Hawkins glanced around at their remote surroundings and turned to Abby.

  “Ready to go. I don’t like leaving you alone out here.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Abby said. “Don’t forget, I volunteered for this mission.”

  “You never bargained for something as crazy as this, Abby.”

  “I never bargained for a lot of crazy things that have happened since I met you, Hawkins. Concentrate on getting Kalliste out safely. I know your schedule, so I’ll have a rough idea of your progress. One hour to the castle. One hour insertion. One hour extraction.”

  “If you don’t hear from us within an hour of our estimated exit time I want you to leave,” Hawkins said. “Call the number I gave you and talk to my Navy friend. He’s my old commanding officer. He’ll know what to do. When’s the last time you flew a chopper?”

  “Been a while. I’m rusty, but I can keep it in the air. Now get lost.”

  Abby gave Hawkins a hug and did the same with Calvin. They dragged the loaded inflatable and its cargo down to the water and got in. Hawkins pushed off with a paddle until the current grabbed the inflatable. Calvin started the electric outboard motor and the little raft picked up speed.

  “See you in three hours,” Hawkins called out.

  As he and Calvin got into the raft and pushed off, Abby said, “Forgot to tell you something.”

  “What’s that, Ab?”

  The current had caught the raft and was pulling into the stream when Abby cupped her hands to her mouth and called out.

  “Hoo-yah!”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  Lily had staggered out of Genovese Park onto the street and called the limousine waiting around the corner. She was coughing from the dust in her lungs when the Mercedes pulled up to the curb within thirty seconds, but she still managed to bark out an order.

  “Take me to the Auroch building. Quickly.”

  The chauffeur mashed the gas pedal. Lily raged as the big car sped across the city, running stop signs and cutting off other vehicles.

  This was not supposed to be this way, Hawkins should be lying in the park with the life’s blood flowing from his dying body.

  The scroll and translator device should be in her hands. It was obvious the helicopter’s arrival above her head was no coincidence, but she couldn’t understand it. How had anyone known where she and Hawkins would be?

  Lily was the classic psychopath. Charming and manipulative. But behind her brilliant smile was a cold-blooded being who was incapable of empathy. Adding to her murderous genetic heritage, the tutelage under the High Priestess, the drug-induced hallucinations at dozens of bloody rituals, her fealty to the Mother Goddess, and her immersion in the perverted religion that underpinned the Way of the Axe had drained every last human emotion from her body.

  Amid all this, she had retained her outward appearance of sanity. Until now. Forces beyond her control seemed to be battling for command of her mind and body. Voices clamored in her head. She was confused at first until it dawned on her what the cacophony was about. All the priestesses who’d ever lived were calling out from across the eons, the chorus of the dead telling her that soon she, too, would be one with the Mother Goddess. When Hawkins slipped from her grasp her fevered mind concluded that his impossible escape could only have been the will of the Mother Goddess. She was telling Lily that Hawkins was a worthless diversion. The only one the goddess truly wanted was Kalliste, descendant of King Minos.

  The Mercedes plunged into the garage under the Auroch tower. The elevator sped Lily to the roof. She got into the waiting helicopter, which lifted off and flew across the city to the airport. A company jet sat on the tarmac warming its engines. As soon as she was in her seat, the jet sped down the runway, quickly reached its cruising altitude and headed for La Mancha at more than six hundred miles an hour.

  Hawkins and Calvin were still floating down the river at around five knots when Lily’s plane landed on the airstrip near the castle. A waiting SUV driven by one of the crone’s guards transported her along the old road and through the main gate of the castle to the torch-lit courtyard. She stepped out of the SUV and walked across toward the Tripartite Shrine. She noticed a commotion in front of the entrance where her assistant priestesses were gathered around the Prior known as North.

  She stepped up to the senior priestess. “Why aren’t you preparing the Greek woman for the ceremony?” she demanded.

  The priestess reacted with a horrified expression.

  “We can’t,” she sobbed. “She’s dead.”

  A thunder cloud passed over Lily’s brow. She reached out and her long fingernails dug like talons into the young woman’s throat. The priestess tried to speak, but her face turned purple. She could barely breathe and would have died if not for the Prior.

&n
bsp; “She told me that the Daemons killed someone in the Maze,” he said. “I was about to investigate.”

  Lily released her grip. “Show me,” she said.

  Clutching her bleeding throat, the priestess led the way through the shrine entrance and down the stairway into the Maze, with Lily and the Prior close behind. They followed a convoluted route that took them to a tunnel near the king’s apartment where Kalliste had been held.

  The body of a woman lay on its side, face turned against a wall. The torso was a mass of shredded cloth and flesh. Having eaten their fill, the Daemons were curled up asleep near the body. In the dim light the woman’s hair looked a deep brown, the same shade as Kalliste’s. Lily knelt by the body and saw that the hair had been darkened by the blood pooling on the floor.

  “Turn her over,” Lily said.

  The Prior rolled the body onto its back. Lily stared at a face frozen in a mask of terror. “This is not the Greek. It is her attendant.”

  “I don’t understand,” the Prior said. “The hounds would not attack someone wearing the medallion.”

  “Look closer, Prior. Do you see the axe medallion?”

  The Prior got down on one knee. The woman’s throat was a mass of bloody flesh, but it was obvious the medallion was missing. He glanced at the Daemons. “Maybe it was torn off and swallowed.”

  “Very creative, Prior. But as you said, they would not attack, which means she was not wearing the protective pendant. The medallion was taken from her and she foolishly decided to leave the apartment without it. The Greek is still in the Maze. I want all exits guarded. Go through the tunnels one by one.”

  The Prior pulled a hand radio from his belt and barked a series of orders.