Silver

by Brian January

  Morgana grinned. But there was no sign of amusement in her eyes. “I like you, Senator. You’ve got balls.”

  The cutlass flashed. Lake’s soggy T-shirt parted from left shoulder to right hip. An angry line of red bloomed where the sword tip had just pierced her skin.

  Lake grimaced, clenching her teeth against the sudden pain. But she stood her ground, not taking her eyes off the pirate.

  With two flicks of the cutlass, the shirt dropped to the carpet. Three more flicks and the bra underneath followed it, exposing her bare breasts. Blood seeped down her ribcage and stomach.

  “Now,” Morgana asked, “which one of those do you like less?”

  Again Turner bulled forward. “Jesus, woman—“

  The pirate didn’t even look at him. “Makris.”

  Stepping forward, the Greek rammed the barrel of his rifle against the colonel’s spine.

  Turner froze.

  Lake’s heart battered her ribcage like a trapped animal, but her eyes were hard and flat. She drew in a tight breath. “Don’t be stupid. The OSR agents are going to demand proof of our safety before they hand the neosamarium over to you. If they find out you’ve harmed me in any way, then the deal’s off.”

  For a long moment, Morgana regarded her with a curious expression, and then a warm smile crept over her face. “As I said, Senator, you’ve got balls.”

  Then she took a quick step forward and punched her in the stomach. Lake doubled in half and the pirate rammed the hilt of the cutlass down on her head.

  She dropped to the floor with a solid thud.

  Morgana stared down at her. “Don’t ever disobey me again.”

  SIXTEEN

  Southwest of Sitia, Crete

  SKARDA slitted his eyes and squinted into the early morning sun. Through a break in the dense, swaying canopies of a grove of olive trees, he could make out a rough gravel path that climbed up a slope and twisted out of sight into a range of hills beyond. Here nature had piled up gigantic slabs of scrub-covered limestone into a disjointed layer cake of rock. Far to the east he could see a notch next to a small mountain that looked like it had had its top sheared off with a hacksaw.

  Because the X5 had been damaged in the attack on the coast road, he’d rented an Audi Q5 4x4 in Heraklion and they’d driven southwest from Sitia, through a barren, rocky landscape that put the coastal mountains at their backs. But at the other end of a vast plateau the land began to rear up again, first into foothills covered with phrygana and maquis, then into a range of low mountains stretching into the distance as if they’d been piled one on top of another. Once the road had run out, they’d left the SUV in the shade of plane tree, then started off on foot, each with a backpack containing climbing ropes and bottles of water. Because Greek soldiers were known to patrol these mountains, they’d left the M4 in the Audi, but they’d stowed the Sig Sauers in their packs, and April carried the Fusion Fulcrums as well.

  His injury had cost them precious time. The hospital in Heraklion had stocked no stores of his blood type, so they had to sit for hours while a special delivery was flown in from Athens. He ran his fingers over his jaw, feeling the strange contours where the skin had been stitched together. It ached with a dull, persistent throb. The wound had been deep, but a plastic surgeon had done a professional job of sewing it up. That was fine, but night had fallen before they’d left the hospital and now they’d been forced to wait until the next morning.

  He glanced at his Stealth: 18:11:10.

  In the lead, April had them moving west at a fast pace, heading up the gravel path. In a valley-like depression below Skarda could see the snaking course of a dried-up stream channel through the trees. Descending, they followed it. Listening to the chirps and calls of the birds and the droning hum of the bees all around him, he could imagine what life had been like here in ancient times, tied in so closely with the rhythms of nature, especially in a society organized around the principle of an all-encompassing Goddess. It must have been a paradise.

  “Gorge ahead!” April called back to them.

  Reaching her side, Skarda could see the opening to a valley studded with tumbled boulders, some square-cut, others sharp and jagged, like fangs or broken teeth. And soaring high above them rose the humped shoulders of two huge masses of limestone that pressed together to form a V-shaped slot at least a thousand feet high.

  “This guy sure picked some place to hang out,” he said.

  Through Candy Man, they’d located the archaeologist Nathaniel had suggested: Dr. Alekos Vasiliou. He was temporarily living here in the wilds of Crete in an abandoned monastery built into a series of ravines in the mountainside. Since the Cretan government owned the property, it allowed scholars, artists, and musicians to live and work here at no charge. Skarda had left both phone and e-mail messages for Vasiliou, but Nathaniel had pointed out that the man was notorious for not checking either means of contact.

  It took them almost an hour to make their way over the boulder-strewn floor of the gorge, where at times the spiraling walls narrowed to a point where they had to pass through in single file, slowing their progress. Even in the deep shadow of the rock walls the intense heat felt like a physical weight on Skarda’s shoulders and his mouth was dry and gritty from inhaling dust. Then from the confinement of the gorge they emerged into a wide valley blooming with lush grasses and wildflowers. On two sides the flat plateau climbed into sloping pine-and-cypress-covered hills that became ravine-scooped cliffs, and behind them, the jagged peaks of mountains falling away into the distance.

  Built into a cleft on the southern cliff was the monastery. Even at this vantage point Skarda could see that the quarried stones that made up the ancient ochre-colored walls, stacked on top of one another like a mastaba, were crumbling. Here and there aqueduct-like trestles spanned the gap over mini-gorges, and what looked like a medieval castle moat bridge crossed a deeper chasm that ran parallel to the entrance.

  Another hour passed before they climbed to the main bridge. Nathaniel’s shirt was drenched in sweat and his curly hair matted. But to his credit, he didn’t slow their progress or complain, even when the exertion of the climb caused his lungs to heave and his breath to come in ragged gasps. On another mission, they would have stopped to rest, but now time was their enemy. When Nathaniel had run out of water, Skarda had given him his last bottle, and they’d continued on.

  They found Alekos Vasiliou seated behind a computer monitor in a cramped office at the apex of a stone staircase that lead to the top floor of the main building. He was a ruddy-faced man in his fifties with square-framed glasses and a dollop of gray hair that swirled across the top of his head like solidified frosting.

  Skarda knocked on the open door. Vasiliou looked up, startled to see visitors in this remote location. He lowered his head and regarded them over the frames of his glasses.

  “Pos—“ he started in Greek before switching to English. “Yes? Are you lost?” It didn’t seem to have occurred to him that people appearing out of nowhere might want to do him harm.

  “We’re sorry to bother you, Dr. Vasiliou,” Skarda said, “but we’ve come a long way to ask for your help. I’m Park Skarda and this is April Force. We’re with the OSR, an American security agency. And this is Nathaniel Bennett.”

  For a moment Vasiliou looked lost. Then he brightened considerably. “Nathaniel Bennett! I know that name! I just read your article on the Taweret statue found at Knossos. Fascinating!”

  Bobbing his head enthusiastically, Nathaniel started to open his mouth to respond, but Skarda forestalled him with a show of his palm. “Again, you’ll have to pardon us, but we’re very short on time.”

  Vasiliou caught the tone in his voice and regarded him attentively.

  “We’re looking for the hoard of silver the Therans carried away before the eruption,” Skarda went on. “Nathaniel thinks it might have been taken to one of the Minoan colonies.”

  The archaeologist made noises of agreement, nodding to himself. “It’s possibl
e...”

  Pulling out his Stealth, Skarda showed him the images of Blackpool’s silver plaque.

  “I believe I’ve identified the Minoan word for silver,” Nathaniel said. “But of course there’s no way of knowing what the plaque refers to—or even if it has anything to do with the silver hoard at all. However, we did locate the cave where Dr. Blackpool made this find and it seems to have been dedicated to Ariadne, the Snake Goddess.”

  Still nodding, Vasiliou studied the images and smiled. “One of the advantages of working in a place like this is having the time to explore a building with such history. This monastery was abandoned about four hundred years ago due to persistent attacks by Turkish pirates. In the wine cellar I found a secret vault, so to speak, containing a number of books secreted away by the monks before they fled, and with them, a number of MMIIIA pottery shards and some clay tablets inscribed with Linear A. I turned these over to the government, but I photographed them, of course. Here...I’ll show you.”

  Turning back to his computer, he tapped a few keys and accessed the images of the find.

  Nathaniel’s face lit up as he bent down to study them.

  Vasiliou looked up at Skarda. “Now here’s the one that might interest you.” He tapped a key and the photograph of a small rectangular plaque appeared on the screen.

  It was made of tarnished silver, with bright metallic streaks running over its surface.

  Skarda whistled.

  Nathaniel’s head bobbed up and down. He was looking at the inscription on the face of the plaque. “There’s SA-RA-PU again! And PI!”

  The older man nodded. “SA-RA-PU has to be silver.” He picked up a pencil and pointed to a section of the plaque. “This to me looks like MI-LA-DA.” He glanced quizzically at Nathaniel. “Miletus, perhaps?”

  “Yes...yes! ‘Milawanda’ was the Hittite word for Miletus! They have to be connected linguistically!” He turned toward Skarda and April. “Remember what I said? Miletus was an ancient port city on the western coast of Anatolia.”

  “And,” Vasiliou added, “recently-found artifacts prove that it was an early Bronze Age Minoan colony, settled by at least 1900 BCE and probably earlier, then later settled by speakers of Hittite/Luwian in the fourteenth century.”

  “Another link between Hittite and Linear A!”

  Skarda saw where Vasiliou was leading. “So a colony, safe from the volcano, would be a good place to take the silver.”

  “Exactly! And look here—here is the identical Snake Goddess stamp as on your plaque. Today on the plain where Miletus is located are a number of Greek and Roman temples. I’ve spent some time excavating there. One, which has only recently been excavated, was an early Greek temple dedicated to the goddess Aphrodite, whose cult was more primitively linked with Ariadne. In fact, there’s a kylix—a drinking cup—by the fifth-century BCE Greek vase painter Aison that depicts Aphrodite helping Theseus to kill the Minotaur instead of Ariadne. So it’s quite possible that the Therans took the silver to a cult center like this, when it was still dedicated to Ariadne.”

  Skarda glanced at April. She’d been hanging back, her face rigid. He knew the look—her intuition was jangling.

  A moment later he saw her wheel around to the open door, and then she was racing toward him as something hot and metallic whizzed past his ear.

  For half a second he didn’t recognize what it was.

  Then he leapt forward, dragging Nathaniel and Vasiliou toward the shelter of the desk. In his peripheral vision he saw April clearing the open space—

  The air was filled with the sound of muffled pops: bullets shot through suppressors.

  Shoving the scholars out of sight, Skarda spun around to see three men in black aiming Glock 22 pistols in his direction. Then April dove at him, hauling him to the floor as bullets cracked around them, chewing up the desk and walls in a hail of splinters.

  They were in a box: only one way out and that was a kill zone.

  Freeing the Sig Sauer from her pack, April squeezed off two shots, hitting the lead man in the chest. He staggered back, then slid down against the door jamb. The other two men backed out of sight.

  Seconds later a black, apple-shaped object flew into the room, rolling toward them.

  “Grenade! Down!” she yelled.

  Five seconds—

  With blinding speed April reached into her pack, grabbing the WASP knife by the hilt, triggering the CO2 cartridge and letting it fly. It made one revolution in the air, then the tip struck the grenade as the compressed gas jetted out at 850 psi, driving the bomb back through the open door as though someone had jerked it by a string.

  Skarda heard a sharp muffled yell in the outer corridor, followed by the whump of an explosion and the shatter of breaking glass. Already April was on her feet, sprinting for the open doorway. Acrid smoke boiled into the room.

  A moment later she reappeared, giving him a quick nod.

  Rising up, Skarda helped Vasiliou to his feet. Spots of color stained the man’s cheeks and his eyes glittered with excitement. “There was a time,” he said proudly, “when I was an officer in the Anoteri Stratiotiki Dioikisi Esoterikon ke Nison, the Supreme Military Command of the Interior and Islands. This brings back old memories.”

  With a whimper Nathaniel crawled out from under the desk, his face white.

  “They probably have friends,” April said. “Dr. Vasiliou, I think you should come with us—“

  From outside the walls came the muted chop-chop of rotor blades.

  She broke off and sprinted for the door.

  “Is there another way out of here beside the main entrance?” Skarda asked.

  Vasiliou nodded, his eyes still shining. “There is a tunnel through the wine cellar that leads to some of the storehouses in back. But I’ve never taken it. I’m not sure if it isn’t blocked.”

  April returned. “Eurocopter,” she said to Skarda. “It’s got to be Krell, plus two more men that I could see. HK416’s.”

  “There’s a way out through the wine cellar,” he told her.

  It took her a split second to deliberate. “Nathaniel, Dr. Vasiliou—head for the wine cellar. Park and I will bring up the rear. Nathaniel—get him out of here.”

  A thought struck Skarda. “Wait—Dr. Vasiliou...do you still have your rifle from your time in the Army?”

  The man beamed. “ I kept my M1 Garand sniper rifle. It is in the closet over there.”

  “Do you have any rounds for it?”

  “A few. Plus the telescopic sight.”

  “Do you mind if we use it?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Okay,” April said. “Park, take the rifle and get up on the roof. I’m going to commandeer that chopper.”

  Vasiliou puffed out his chest. “I can shoot.”

  She shot him a quick grin. “I’ll bet you can. But it’s not fair to put you in harm’s way. Nathaniel—get going. Those men are coming.”

  Without another word she disappeared through the doorway.

  ___

  Inside the chopper Krell ripped back the cabin door with a sinewy hand and jumped out, his heavy boots hitting the rocky ground with a satisfying thud. The pilot had set the helicopter down on a flat plane of rock to the north of the main monastery structures. Ahead of Krell’s position his two men were fanning out right and left. Each carried an HK416, as did he.

  Catching up to them, he spoke in low tones, his words sharp and honed. “I want these people dead.”

  Both men nodded and moved off toward the entrance of the monastery.

  ___

  From the back of the closet Skarda pulled out the Garand, wrapped in a gray polyester gun sock. It was an M1C, an old gun, the ancestor of the M14, probably received as surplus from the U. S. military. In a box beside it were the M84 telescopic sight and two en bloc clips, each loaded with eight .30-06 Springfield rounds.

  But it looked like Vasiliou had kept it in good shape.

  Hunting around for a towel, he began to wipe off the gu
n oil.

  Then he headed for the roof.

  ___

  The first two men hit the top of the stairs, weapons first. The taller of them halted up and swore sharply. The hallway was a shambles, strewn with splintered wood, shattered glass, and the mangled bodies of the men blown apart by the grenade blast. Wisps of smoke still clung in the air.

  He whispered into his throat mic. “Eberle and Booth dead up here.”

  Krell’s flat, dead voice came back in both their ears. “Roger that.”

  The men moved cautiously ahead, squinting through the smoke. Ahead of them a window stood cracked open. The tall man stopped and motioned to his partner to check it out.