by Paul Moomaw
THE GODDESS UNDER ZAKROS
International Thriller
by Paul Moomaw
Kindle: 978-1-58124-297-3
ePub: 978-1-58124-548-6
©2012 by Paul Moomaw
Published 2012 by The Fiction Works
http://www.fictionworks.com
[email protected]
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission, except for brief quotations to books and critical reviews. This story is a work of fiction. Characters and events are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
About the Author
Prologue
CRETE 1600 BC
The woman returns soundlessly, as always. Antipos the sculptor wheels from his window, where he has been watching two gulls fight over a tidbit of food. The afternoon light paints the stuccoed walls of the room, and gilds the sea.
“You’re too quiet,” he says. He reaches for the wine that rests on a shelf set into the wall, next to the small, stone lamp of olive oil that he keeps always lighted, and holds it to his lips, not bothering with a cup. He has finished half the jug. The woman makes him anxious, with her somber quietness, impenetrable eyes like dark blue stones, and her pale skin, beautiful but cold, like snow-covered Mount Ida.
As he replaces the jug, Antipos allows himself a lingering glance, from the corner of his eye, at the rest of her—the tiny waist, small, firm breasts that peek from her loose-fitting tunic top. A sacred honey bee of gold and silver on a chain of lapis beads nestles between the breasts. He wishes his lips could replace the bee. Her large hips and strong thighs move seductively under her layered skirt. Heat rises in his groin, then subsides, as he looks again at her cold, distant face.
“Is it ready?” she asks. Antipos nods. “Take me to it,” she says.
Antipos picks up the lamp and crosses to the rocky staircase that leads below to his workshop. He pauses and holds out the lamp.
“Go ahead,” he says.
The woman steps quickly across the floor and takes the lamp. Their hands brush, and Antipos again experiences desire. The woman gazes at him with a sliver of smile, as if she also feels the heat of his loins. She turns and descends the stairs. Antipos starts to follow, then crosses back to the shelf and retrieves the jug of wine. As he lifts it to his lips, the floor beneath him shakes, and he spills wine down his chin. A faint roar emerges from the stairs, as if the earth groans with its own movement. Clutching the jug, Antipos descends to the workroom.
The woman—he has never learned her name, nor that of the mistress who supplies the gold she has paid so far, with a promise of more when his work is complete—stands with her back to him, silhouetted in the glow of the small lamp. The work she has come to see, draped in linen, rests on a wooden table. Antipos stares at her soft outline, wishing he had the nerve to do more than look. He has seen fifty springs, has buried two wives and his only child, and has not lost his appetite for the sweet place women flaunt between their thighs.
The earth quivers again, and a sound like the distant roar of a bull echoes off the raw limestone walls of the workshop. Antipos brushes past the girl and pulls the cloth away to reveal a statue, six hands high—a goddess, skin even paler than the woman’s. She sits in a gilded chair, bare from the waist up, nipples cupped in lapis, and wears a skirt much like the woman’s, but of gold. The statue’s left arm extends to one side, curving up at the elbow. A snake curls around it, from shoulder to wrist. The right arm projects straight ahead, and holds a bronze sword, with the gold and silver figures of two bulls and a dolphin worked into the blade, which Antipos has given an edge as keen as the many real weapons he has forged.
“The gold work is very fine,” the woman says.
Antipos nods, vaguely displeased. He knows the gold work is fine. But it means nothing. His pride lies in the ceramic of the skin and hair, applied in multiple, tedious layers, and fired with a subtle glaze that makes the seated goddess seem alive. No one ever notices the things that count, he thinks.
“She smiles,” the girl says.
“That was her idea,” Antipos replies. “I intended a more somber look. More fitting for a goddess, not that I know about goddesses. I tried the face three times, and three times she smiled, so I left it at that.” He steps to one side. “Touch it, if you like.”
The woman shakes her head and stares at the floor.
“You have to transport it for me.”
“Transport it where?”
“To the east. There is a place, a cave, above Zakros, above the beach. The sea makes a river there that runs inland, under the mountains. It passes through the bowels of a cave, and that is where my mistress commands that you place the goddess. She says you will find a shelf of rock, two men’s height above the floor of the cave. There the goddess will rest safely when the Achaeans come from the north with their sky gods.”
Antipos snorts. “The barbarians will never touch our island.”
“My lady does not share your confidence.”
The earth shakes again, and the bull-like roaring comes louder.
Antipos staggers slightly, and touches the statue for balance.
“You earth mother is restless tonight.”
“She will not be quiet until you have brought this to its home. And Crete will not know peace until this is done. My mistress has told me that.”
Without warning, the little room screams and tilts, knocking Antipos flat. He tears his fingernails clinging to the limestone floor, his eyes squeezed shut in fear. Then the floor tilts back in the other direction. An eerie quiet replaces the roaring. Antipos opens his eyes. The statue, which miraculously has not fallen from its wooden perch, smiles serenely through a cloud of dust. The woman lies on her back next to a wall, her eyes closed, and her breast moving shallowly.
Antipos crawls to her.
“Are you hurt?” he asks. The woman does not respond. Cautiously, he touches her cheek with his knuckles. “Are you hurt?” he asks again, in a louder voice. Still she lies there.
Antipos backs away and squats, looking at her. Then, resisting an urge to look over his shoulder at the statue, he lifts the woman’s skirt toward her hips, marveling at the pale smoothness of her thighs, and the dark triangle of hair above th
em. He licks his lips, and touches the hair. It is soft, and curly. The woman moans. Antipos jerks his hand away, but then she is still again. Emboldened, he renews his touch, wrapping the soft tufts of hair around his fingers, unconsciously rubbing and stroking his own crotch with his other hand. Then he reaches for her with his mouth.
She twitches, and her eyes snap open.
“No!” she shouts, and staggers to her feet.
Antipos lunges for her, catches one ankle. The woman spins and kicks at him. She a frees her foot, but loses her balance, falls against the table, knocks it and the statue to the ground, and lands backwards on top of it. She gasps, and her mouth forms a small circle of surprise as her body arches rigidly, then sinks back again. She moans once, and is still.
Antipos rises to his feet and stares at her. The tip of the statue’s bronze sword peeks out, just below her right breast, gleaming dully in the dim light, and blood pools in the folds of her tunic. The bee lies askew across her other breast. Antipos hesitates, then reaches for it.
A thousand bulls roar, and the world spins. The roof of the workshop, which forms the stone floor of the room above, splits open, and Antipos has a moment to wonder at the sight of dark blue sky before a slab of stone crushes the life from him.
Chapter 1
The postcard, stained and battered from its passage through too many hands, boasted a cheaply reproduced aerial photo of an island, dark against a sea that sparkled golden in late afternoon sunlight. A single, huge mountain reared blackly from the land. The legend at the top of the picture was in Greek.
Nikos Argyros held the postcard at arm’s length, tilting it to catch the gray light that fought its way through the rain-spattered window of Argyros’ bar. The Bull of Minos had resisted the gentrification that crept, block by block, along Seattle’s waterfront. Small, dark, smelling faintly of wet wool and fish from the boatmen who gave the bar most of its business, its tables bore the scars of years of idle drinking, and the long, low windows were seldom very clean; but they offered a good view of Elliott Bay and the Sound beyond.
Argyros placed the card on the table. “That’s Samothraki,” he said. “It’s in the eastern Thracian Sea, off the coast of Turkey.” He tapped the photo with a strong, calloused forefinger. “The mountain is called Fengari, Mountain of the Moon. Poseidon sat on top of it to watch the Trojan war.” He turned the card over to read the message on the back, then handed it back to Adam Pray. “Who calls you Bubba?”
“My brother,” Pray said. He picked up the card. Julian’s writing hadn’t changed—still bold, slashing, with tall, oversized capital letters. A handwriting analyst had told Pray once that writing like that was a sign of someone who liked to make a splash, but who would leave others to mop up.
“Congratulations on your good fortune, Bubba,” it said. “Come spend it in Greece some day.”
“I didn’t know you had a brother,” Argyros said.
“I forget it myself, sometimes.” Pray turned the card over and stared again at the picture. He took a deep swallow of the aged Armenian brandy that Argyros had fished from its hiding place behind the bar, a special treat for special friends, he always said. Pray had achieved that status in the dark hours of a Sunday morning when he had stepped between Argyros and a Pike Place mugger.
“Better a neighbor near, than a brother far off,” Pray said. He sighed and stared out the window. “His name is Julian. He’s eight years older, and when I was a kid, he was my hero, the one who could do everything. He taught me how to hunt birds, how to surf cast, how to fight.” Pray touched the faint scar that curved down his cheek from the outer corner of his left eye. “All the things my father was too busy to teach. When I was ten, he left for college. Went to a school in Mexico City, and came back for visits in the summer. When I was twelve, he left for his junior year, and never came back.”
“Just vanished? Pouf?”
“Got into some trouble. I never knew exactly what. I’ve had maybe five or six cards in the years since, and once a telephone call from Chicago. That’s almost thirty years I’m talking about. I don’t think my parents ever got over it. I’m not sure I did either.”
“What kind of good fortune did you have, anyway?” Argyros asked.
“I had an aunt, my father’s sister. She left me a bundle when she died.” Pray laughed. “She didn’t leave my father a penny. Said in her will he wouldn’t know what to do with it. He must have shit a brick, but he’s never said a word. I don’t expect he ever will. Strong men don’t cry, that’s my dad.”
Argyros shook his head. “That’s because he’s not a Greek,” he said. “Even Achilles cried.”
The snifter was empty again. Pray held it out. “Anyway, that’s why I can spend my time hanging out in high class places like this.”
Argyros laughed delightedly. “Right,” he said. “This is why I came to America, to make my fortune. And why not? I have the name for it. Argyros means silver.” He waved grandly at his surroundings. “Some fortune, ain’t it?” He refilled Pray’s glass. “You should take your brother up on his invitation.”
“No return address, you’ll notice.”
Argyros picked the card up, twisted it back and forth. “How do you suppose he even knew you got the money?”
Pray swiveled back and forth on his bar stool and laughed. “It never occurred to me to wonder about that.”
Argyros tapped himself on the forehead. “In here, he’s still the big brother that can do anything, ain’t he?” He took a drink. “I’ve got a kid brother, myself. We keep in touch better than you guys do. Family is important to a Greek. If you ever get to Greece, to Crete, pay him a visit. His name’s Milos. He has a sort of taverna and curio shop in Sitia, on the northeast coast. It’s called o psaras kondros, The Fat Fisherman, except he only fishes for tourists. He thinks he’s going to get rich some day, but Sitia’s just a dumpy little town. The tourists all go to Iraklio and Knossos, where the palaces and things are. All Sitia’s got is a rusty old steamer grounded in the harbor. It got shot all to shit during World War Two, and it’s still there.” He picked up the bottle and splashed more brandy into their glasses. “Might as well finish this off,” he said. “And if you go to Sitia, tell my brother I said give you a free drink of the best he’s got. He’s so tight, it will half kill him, but he’ll do t.”
“Just because you say so?”
Argyros cocked his head and stared at Pray.
“Sure,” he said. “We’re brothers.”
Rain sheeted the tall bay windows of Pray’s living room, blurring the soft Seattle greens and grays that spread below his perch high on Queen Anne Hill. A fire burned fitfully in the hearth, and Pray leaned against the mantel, enjoying the warmth on the back of his legs. The stereo played the throbbing rhythms of an Astor Piazzola piece, the one called Concierto para Bandoneon. It filled the room with a slow cascade of falling notes and tormented harmonies that whispered to Pray of wind, and rain, and three in the morning, and touched some inchoate sadness deep inside him, so that he could not tell whether it was the music or the postcard he held in his hand that created the pressure just behind his eyes.
Pray stared at the rain without seeing it, his mind drifting back to another day, another place.
It had rained on his seventh birthday, too, not a soft Seattle drizzle, but a hard, Atlantic Coast torrent. The birthday party was over, the guests gone. Pray and Julian crouched in the shoreline dune cave their parents didn’t know about and watched the rain, Pray feeling safe inside the sandy hole, because nothing bad could happen as long as Julian was there.
Julian had given Pray a blank sheet of paper to hold, saying, “Look, Adam, this is magic.” He had pulled out a cigarette lighter, an old Zippo he had found, with an Army Airborne eagle embossed on its side, and the dates “1950-1953” engraved below the patch. It was odd, Pray thought, how vividly he remembered the lighter. Julian had warmed the sheet of paper with the Zippo’s flame so that Pray could watch the magic appear—a drawing of a cl
own, and “Happy Birthday” in huge, block letters.
“Sweet childish days, that were as long as twenty days are now,” Pray murmured softly. He turned from the window. The line, from a poem whose title he did not remember, slipped automatically from his lips, a habit out of his own childhood, when a quote from Bartlett’s, memorized and explained, was for Pray and his brother, together with freshly scrubbed fingernails, a daily requirement for entree to the family dining room. They passed always through the same ritual. Their father, an FBI man who could not stop being one even at rest, would inspect the boys’ nails, one at a time, as if he were looking for contraband. Then he would sit back and listen to that day’s offering from Bartlett’s—only Bartlett’s; he accepted nothing else—looking stern and disapproving as he always did, even when he didn’t feel that way. At least, Pray supposed there must have been times when he didn’t.
On impulse, Pray stepped to a lamp and held this most recent message from Julian against the bulb. Sure enough, between the widely spaced lines of script, as the postcard warmed, other words appeared.
“Corfu. October 12. Golden Gull taverna at end of Nikoforos Theotokis Street. Come alone. Important.”
Pray laughed and tossed the note onto the table, watching the words fade again as the card cooled. It was like Julian—the drama of it, the haphazardness, and the expectation that Pray would drop everything and fly off to a Greek island.