by Trevor Scott
“I don’t know of the lost text,” Sara said sincerely. “I’ve heard that there might be something out there, especially after the find in Istanbul a few years ago. But I have not found it. I only came to Siracusa because this was his home and where he died.”
The Greek swished his hair back behind his ears as he let out a heavy sigh. “These pictures on your camera tell a different story.” He slowly clicked through all the photos she had taken at the last catacomb. Luckily she had sent a set of the photos from Taormina to herself by e-mail. But she hadn’t been able to do the same with these last images.
“That’s nothing,” Sara said. “I was just taking photos of old tombs in the catacomb and only those with Greek writing, hoping to find something. . .interesting for my book. Being Greek, I’m sure you understand.”
Long hair let out a little grunt. “This is old Doric Greek. I don’t know anyone who understands this. Perhaps scholars in our country.”
She kept her mouth shut now, not wanting to let him know that she could read Doric.
“All right. I can send these photos to someone in Athens.”
He put the gag back onto her mouth, turned off the light, and left her alone again in the dark.
She held back tears again. Somehow she needed to find strength within herself to survive. Which shouldn’t have been a problem, she knew, since she was a Texan. But perhaps she had been coddled too much with money.
●
Zendo went back into the unfamiliar surroundings of the Mafia house they had been allowed to use. He sat down in the small living room next to Demetri, who was the only one of his men who had not been drinking heavily. Sitting across the room at the dining room table were Kyros, Niko and that other man whose name he never knew. Maybe he should have found the time to learn the guy’s name. No, he was a Cypriot anyway.
“How is our American professor?” Demetri asked.
He smiled and said, “She still thinks she has choices. It’s actually quite admirable.”
“Maybe she thinks her rich brother, the senator, will come and rescue her,” Demetri reasoned.
“Did you get through to Petros Caras?” Zendo had allowed his second in command to make the call to their boss while he talked with the woman.
“Still no word. The weather must be blocking the satellite signal.”
They had to assume the plan to pick them up in the morning here in Siracusa was still on, Zendo thought. Yet, after his last meeting with the boss in Messina, he wanted to shove the fact that they had been able to find the woman down the man’s throat. That man had forgotten from where he came. He had been a man of the people at one time just like them. Sure he had worked his way up to his current stature, but many had questioned how he had been able to do that, especially considering the man’s penchant for young men had not landed him in jail. But Petros Caras was a survivor. Despite his desires, the man never pursued those under eighteen.
“Are you all right, Zendo?” Demetri asked.
“Yes. Just thinking about what I’ll do with all the money we’ll make in the next few months.”
“I don’t even understand why Petros Caras needs this American woman.”
Zendo shrugged. “Me either. Sometimes it’s better not to ask.” He looked at the camera and tried to think of someone who could translate Doric Greek. Well, that could also wait. He would let Petros Caras find someone. Besides, he had a feeling that dick-loving billionaire would want to keep anything they found for himself.
●
The yacht was really rocking and rolling now as Toni tried her best to keep her equilibrium together as she lay on her bed. She wasn’t a great ocean passenger, especially on small craft. Although she had never taken a cruise, after this adventure she probably never would. At least the Tylenol with Codeine was working. Her right ankle still felt hot and swollen, like a tick on a Mississippi hound dog in July ready to explode from sucking too much blood.
She had fallen asleep and missed talking with Petros Caras, but now she was ready and he was probably nearly drunk enough to listen to her. At least that’s the briefing she’d gotten about the man—fill him with alcohol and then he would be pliable enough.
Toni was pissed off that she had lost her satellite phone. She really needed to check in. Glancing across the cabin she saw a pair of crutches leaning against the wall by the door. Her medic had been by while she slept. She twisted her body to the side of the bed and hopped with her left foot across the pitching deck until she got hold of the crutches. She had only used them one time in the past when she blew her knee while skiing the Alps.
Making her way out into the passageway, she worked her way toward the boisterous sounds of people ahead. Sounded like they were all a little drunk. When she rounded into the main lounge and bar area, she recognized the two men who had helped her get to her room, the medic, and Petros Caras. Sitting next to him was a lithe and elegant woman with striking Slavic features. She looked somewhat familiar to Toni. Also in the lounge was a bartender and another young man who seemed to be having a difficult time ferrying the drinks from the bar to those well on their way to inebriation.
“Ah, you got some rest,” Petros Caras said in English. “Please take a seat.” He tapped the leg of the medic sitting next to him and the man moved across the lounge to a leather bench seat.
Toni hobbled over and sat next to the Greek.
Petros Caras introduced those in the room, with the exception of the bartender and waiter. The woman he simply called Svetla. So Toni had been right. The woman was either Russian, Ukrainian or Czech. Then he said something in Greek to those around him and all but the woman, the waiter and the bartender left them alone.
“Would you like something to drink?” Petros Caras asked Toni.
She thought about the Codeine in her system and wasn’t sure that was a good idea. “Just a Seven Up or similar,” she said.
“I understand,” he said. “The ocean can take some time to get used to.”
“That’s part of it,” Toni said. “But your medic also gave me enough Codeine to kill a horse.”
“Right, right.”
Glancing at the Slavic woman and then back to the Greek, Toni said, “We need to talk.”
The woman took the hint and got up to leave.
“I’ll be along in a while,” the Greek said to her.
Not looking particularly happy about that prospect, the woman lifted her chin and left them, her gate like that of a runway model.
“Pretty girl,” Toni said.
“Yes, she is. You’ve got to love the Czech features.”
“What about these two?” Toni said, her eyes on the bartender and the waiter.
“Don’t worry about them. They only speak Greek. Stick to English and we’ll be fine.”
“Well, I can perhaps order a beer in Greek, so we have no other choice.” Toni thought about how brusque she wanted to come across. She knew that if you beat a horse it would eventually do as you ask, but it would never like you much. Or trust you. Maybe she would give this man some rope and see if he went with the flow or tried to hang himself.
“Tell me, Toni,” Petros Caras said, “what is so important that the Agency sends me such a high figure?”
She didn’t believe for a second that he knew anything about her or her current position. “We’ve got some strange intel that has traced back to you.”
“Oh?” He sucked down the last of his white wine and exchanged his glass with another handed to him.
“Most of the arms shipments have been coordinated,” she said, “but some have not. We are most concerned about your recent activities in Athens with the protesters. Not to mention in North Africa and Syria.” There was no reason to get to the most recent issue until the man knew about their general concerns.
“A man of influence must have his hobbies.”
“This goes beyond building ships in a bottle, Petros.” She’d heard he hated being spoken to by only his first name, so she needed to see how he w
ould react. The Greek physically cringed. Good.
“I have nothing to do with the Agency anymore,” he said with defiance.
Toni smiled with this opening. “The Agency decides when the game is over. Do you remember your own history? Your beginning? The Agency made that happen. Just as easily as we made you, we can also take all this away.”
He got to his feet as if ready to fight, his complexion changing from tan to red. “You little government peon. You come onto my yacht and threaten me?”
She leaned back into her chair, not intimidated in the least by this man. “This is not a threat, Petros. I’m telling you straight up in the most simple English so even you can understand it. . .you need to come in line or find yourself without all the finer things in life.”
He shook his right arm at her, his finger right at her face, “You don’t have the right to tell me this. I am a God among men. I have enough money to buy a thousand women like you. A million. You will get off my yacht and go back to your country and tell your boss that I will do as I like.”
“Sit down,” she said calmly.
“You don’t tell me what to do.” His finger was even closer to her face.
With one swift movement, Toni shoved one of her crutches up into the man’s balls, buckling him to the deck in excruciating pain. When the bartender reached for something behind the bar, Toni found her 9mm auto and pointed it at the man—the international language saying ‘stop now and live.’ Then she swished the gun from the bartender to the waiter and pointed toward the door, meaning get the hell out of there and leave them alone.
Petros Caras started to recover and said, “Why did you do that?”
“I told you. You can’t go rogue and expect not to get punished.”
“I’ll kill you!”
“No, you won’t. Because if anything happens to me, you’ll have the full weight of the Agency hunting you down and killing you.”
The Greek forced himself to his feet and settled back into his chair. “I can’t believe you hit me in the balls. Do you know how that feels?”
“I’ve heard. But no. I can’t say I know for sure.”
The two of them sat for a moment in silence, the yacht swaying them back and forth.
Toni broke the silence. “This affair with the American professor. Tell me about your interest in her.”
His eyes widened. “What woman?”
“Come on, Petros. You’re a terrible liar. You don’t think you can mess with the sister of a U.S. senator, a wealthy one at that, and not catch our attention.”
The Greek appeared to be considering his options. Finally, he said, “She has something I want.”
“Like what?” This was one thing the Agency had not properly briefed Toni on, since the man’s motive was still not known.
He hesitated and then released a breath and said, “An artifact of my Greek heritage.”
“Quit being so cryptic,” Toni demanded.
“I have to be. I’m not entirely certain of what she’s discovered. But I have contacts in the academic world, and they let me know that this professor Sara Halsey Jones was on to something important.”
“Such as?”
“Like the lost manuscripts of Archimedes.”
She didn’t know a lot about that man, other than what she learned in school. “You’re already worth billions. What more could you need?”
He shook his head vehemently, like a drunk who no longer controlled his neck muscles. “No, no, no. The find would be priceless. Well, everything can be priced. But this would be more important than money. It is a matter of Greek national pride. Archimedes has never gotten the recognition he deserves. Instead, Galileo and Newton and others have always been in the spotlight. This could be our chance to change history.”
“Then why not let the American professor do her work?”
“I can’t trust academia to get it right. They’ve covered up the truth for more than two thousand years.”
Toni guessed this guy had either lost his mind or was actually starting to believe in something other than himself.
“Well you need to leave this American professor alone,” she said. “Do you understand?”
Petros Caras simply stared at her. He could have been thinking, in deep meditation, or in a coma. “This is too important.”
“You don’t understand. I can control only so much of the equation.” She didn’t want to mention the fact that Jake Adams would eat this guy for a light snack if the Greek didn’t shut down his men.
He smiled. “You mean Jake Adams?”
With Jake’s name spoken aloud, the Greek’s men returned to the lounge. But this time they were all armed with automatic weapons. Toni had no choice but to turn over her gun. “You’re making a big mistake.”
“Adams is already dead,” Petros Caras sneered. “I will drop you off in Sicily in the morning, assuming you don’t resist and try something stupid.”
This man was crazy, she thought, if he even contemplated taking on the entire Central Intelligence Agency. Was Jake dead? She was sure she would sense it, and she felt nothing now. Maybe it was just that she was now truly over the man.
The Greek men hauled her back to her room and locked the door from the outside. She was slipping. She hadn’t even noticed the locking mechanism on the outside of the door.
23
Moving quietly through the dark, the wind blowing rain against their faces, Jake and Elisa made their way through the alley leading up to a house on the outskirts of Siracusa. Jake had been able to pinpoint this house as the last location of the iPad owned by Sara Halsey Jones.
Jake stopped Elisa with a hand to her arm. “I saw movement on the second level,” he whispered.
She nodded and mumbled, “I can’t officially be here. I’ll lose my job.”
They had discussed this on the short drive from their motel in Augusta to Siracusa. He knew she was right, and he couldn’t ask her to give up her employment for a case he was working.
“All right. Go back to the car and bring it around to the front and wait for my signal.”
“What will that be?” she wanted to know.
“I don’t know. Hopefully I’ll be the one dragging Sara from the house as a bunch of guys shoot at me. Anything short of that and you get the hell out of here. I’ll make my way back to the motel. Understand?”
She agreed with a slight nod.
With that she took off into the darkness and Jake turned back toward the house. He had no intel whatsoever on this place. So, there were only a finite number of options. Knock on the door, kick in the door, break in quietly through the door or a window, or make some noise and draw someone outside. But only one option seemed to resonate with him.
Slowly he stepped toward the back door, the rain soaking his hair and dripping down to his face. He kept his gun in its holster for now. Once he reached the door he could hear music inside and guessed someone was having a good time. Quietly he tested the door lever with his gloved hand. It wasn’t locked. Now he pulled his gun and held it at the side of his leg as he gently swung the door open and moved inside to a small country kitchen.
A light shone in from the living room where the music was blaring, some version of Italian heavy metal, with the singer screaming like a banshee.
As Jake swiftly entered the living room, the two men there startled and then went for their guns. Jake shot the first man in his right shoulder, knocking him back against the white leather sofa, his blood splattering against the couch and the white wall and the man grasping his wound with his free hand.
The other man froze, his hand just a few feet from his gun. Jake shook his head and the man backed into his lounge chair.
“What do you want?” the unharmed man asked in Italian.
Jake answered in English. “If you do what I say, you just might live. Where’s the woman?”
“What woman?”
So the guy understood English. Good. “Let’s not play stupid, although in your case it might not
be an act. Where is she?”
“We don’t know about a woman,” the wounded one said through clenched teeth.
Moving around the room, his gun shifting from one man to the next as he walked, Jake pointed to an iPad on the coffee table. “That’s her iPad.”
“We found it,” said the one without a bullet in him.
“Right. It fell off the back of a truck. Where is she?”
Jake picked up the iPad and turned it on, his eyes still on the two Italians. He checked out a few folders on the desktop and found the pictures Sara had taken.
“We don’t have the woman,” bullet-free said.
“She was here, though.”
Neither said a word now. That was his answer. Damn it. They had already moved her. That’s what he might have done.
The one with a bullet in him looked faint.
“Where did the Greeks take her?”
“I don’t know.”
Jake moved over and collected the two guns from in front of the men. He put his back into its holster. There wasn’t a man alive who wanted to get shot with their own gun. But he needed to make this guy talk and knew that it wasn’t always easy to make it happen. Moving closer to the Italian, Jake swung swiftly and smacked the guy on the side of his head, knocking him out. Then he checked on the wounded one. The blood was already starting to clot. His bullet had smashed through the top of the guy’s shoulder shattering his socket, but the wound wouldn’t kill the guy. So Jake looked around and found some plastic zip strips. Yeah, they had brought Sara here. In less than a minute he had the two of them tied up. Then he dragged the one without the bullet wound into the kitchen.
He turned on a burner on the gas stove and then took two large knives from a wooden block and set the blades into the flame. Searching through the cupboards, he found a bottle of rubbing alcohol. Then he poured a cup of water and splashed it across the man’s face.
One way or another this guy would talk.
Fifteen minutes later and Jake was back out in the rain walking around the block toward the front, keeping his eyes open for the Fiat and Elisa. He always felt somewhat guilty making someone talk. He’d been on the receiving end of that kind of conversation, and it was always a game with no real ending. You could twist a guy’s dick off and get total crap for intel. Or you could deceive the guy and get everything you wanted to know. The first way was quicker, though.