Following his directions, she took the south road. At the edge of Thira, a sign for Monolithos displayed an airplane symbol. Traffic thinned and the road narrowed and twisted, one S-curve after another along the hills, permitting barely sixty-four kilometers an hour. Forty miles per if she remembered correctly how to convert. A tossup which scared her more, the bad guys or driving these crazy roads.
Thomas kept watch behind them while he wolfed down his lunch. At her questioning look, he said, “Only taxis and a tour bus behind us.”
Before long they turned inland, the narrow roads no less winding through the rugged terrain. Beside the car, vines straggled among a stand of pines and then the vista opened before them.
Clusters of the white cube houses, vineyards, and olive trees splashed the green ridges. She imagined smelling the ripe tang of olives on the breeze. The glorious scenery kept her from paying too much attention to Thomas’s evident tension. Neither said much until they reached the airport.
“Find a place to park and I’ll phone Andres’s brother,” he said.
The International Airport of Santorini was a low-slung white building. A covered stairway climbed up from the road but a parking sign sent her around to the side.
She pulled in between two cars. “Guess I should leave the motor running.”
“You’re catching on.”
As he keyed in the number, she stared at the entrance’s open doorway but could see little of the shadowed interior.
“Andres gave me this number,” he said into the phone. “He said you’d know if the airport is safe.” He listened, face impassive. “Right. Too warm for a jacket. We’ll leave.”
“What?” Her pulse raced.
He lifted the Beretta from the glove box and laid it in his lap. “He says three men have been hanging around for an hour, watching the door. Theodoros doesn’t see two of them just now, but he thinks one carries a gun under his jacket.”
She gripped the wheel so hard a knuckle cracked. Her pulse kicked up a level but she refused to panic. Thomas would know what to do. Cleopatra Chandler would do her part.
He adjusted the passenger side mirror as they left the airport grounds. “Take the road south and double back.”
“What? What is it?”
“Maybe nothing. An old Jeep Wrangler drove out behind us.” He palmed the Beretta. His face turned to stone, his lips flat. “This Fiat Punto has less than a hundred horses but it should manage the curves better than the Jeep. Go as fast as the road allows.”
As she turned south, she glanced in the mirror. Could the two men she saw in the SUV be Centaur thugs? She prayed for more traffic. Witnesses. Vehicles had clogged the town of Thira but few other cars appeared out here in nowhere.
She accelerated but the bigger vehicle kept pace, about three car lengths behind. How could she stay ahead in this tiny car? She ripped the steering wheel to the right around the next hairpin. The Fiat hugged the curve, almost skimming the stone-wall guard rail. A horn blared as an approaching tour bus lumbered past.
When the Wrangler took the curve behind them, it rocked and fell back a little. But still too close. She could see the men’s broad faces, focused and grim.
Her next glimpse behind stole her breath. One guy leaned out of the open window. He aimed a large gun at them. Her heart climbed into her throat.
“Floor it!”
She gripped the wheel with clammy hands and stomped on the accelerator. The little Fiat’s engine whined in protest.
Gunshots cracked like small thunderbolts. Pops and thunks jolted the car’s rear end.
Chapter 13
“DUCK AS LOW as you can,” Thomas yelled. “Weave back and forth. Give them less of a target.”
“This is no snake,” she gritted between her teeth. “I’m driving a roller skate.”
The Wrangler inched closer. Fuck, they had major firepower, not just a small semi-auto like his Beretta. Judging from the pistol’s long barrel, maybe a Ruger rimfire auto.
With the Fiat swerving on the winding road, his aim would be worse than a one-eyed dog’s, but a few shots might force the other guys back farther.
The small engine screamed as they whipped around another switchback. The tires held traction.
He flicked off the safety and racked the slide. The fucking Wrangler was closer again. The big, shiny grille made a primo target. He fired three shots and ducked back inside.
More gunshots rang out. Only one bullet drilled into the Fiat’s rear. Aiming for the gas tank, he guessed. But his shots had backed them off, hindering the gunman’s aim.
“You okay, Cleo?”
“Oh, sure.” She hunched over the steering wheel, brows bunched, eyes wide, and her face as white as the few houses on the steep slopes around them. “I’m prepping for the Grand Prix next.”
A sign announced a crossroads, forcing everyone to slow. He glanced quickly at the map. “Don’t stop,” he said. “Hang a right. It’ll take us north.”
Cleo wrenched the wheel right at the intersection, barely missing a car at the crossroad. The screech of its tires faded in the din of the driver’s curses.
The chase continued, the Fiat barely staying ahead of the pursuing Wrangler. At the top of the next ridge, the gunman lobbed more shots. Another connected, shattering a taillight.
A box truck lumbered toward them, the uphill slope on his side. Cleo tackled the snaking course downward, the ridge’s switchbacks too tight for bullet-dodging maneuvers. She slowed into the next hairy curve, narrowed by a stone wall blocking a sheer drop.
“How do we get rid of those guys?”
The plea in her voice plunged a spear into his chest.
“Working on it. Hang on, Kyle Busch.” He turned and stitched a line of bullets across the SUV’s grille in a Hail Mary effort. Come on, come on, you bastard.
He ducked inside and released the spent magazine, replaced it with the spare.
An explosion louder than gunshots swung him around.
“Thomas, look. Oh my God!” She pumped the brakes and they stopped.
The Wrangler’s left front tire had blown. Shreds of black rubber scattered everywhere. Sparks fanned upward as the tire rim shrieked across the pavement. The disabled vehicle careened into the middle of the road.
The box truck took the inside curve wide. The driver swerved to avoid the Wrangler. The two vehicles slammed into each other sideways. Metal crunched and brakes squealed as they skidded together toward the stone wall.
The truck driver steered out of the skid. The Wrangler hit the wall. Rocked once, twice, hurtled over the wall and down the cliff. Metal exploded against rock like a bomb. Then silence.
“Those guys are done. Let’s get out of here.” He grabbed her arm as she started to open the door.
“But they...” Stark horror filled her eyes.
“Truck driver’s okay. He’s probably on his phone right now calling the cops. Nothing you can do. If they’re alive, playing Samaritan could get you kidnapped and me killed.” A sudden thought had him adding, “The truck driver too.”
She urged the tired Fiat on downhill.
When they reached the next intersection, she stared ahead with dogged determination. “So are we headed north?” she asked, each word carefully enunciated, her tone robotic.
He’d have to find a place to stop before she collapsed or went into shock. She’d had enough. “I wanted them to think we were. Take a left. We’ll find an inn or hotel in one of the beach towns.”
When a roadside bar appeared ahead, he didn’t have to suggest twice she pull over. The Fiat rolled to a stop in the shade of a leafy tree, likely planted by the bar owner to lend class to his spare establishment.
Thomas raced around and opened Cleo’s door. He hadn’t expected she’d have to test the Fiat’s mettle, if such a car had mettle. But Cleo did—out the wazoo. No cries or complaints, only sarcasm. He pulled her into his arms, her racing heartbeat reassuring against him. Trembling with the aftermath of horror, she wrapped her
arms around his waist and laid her head on his chest.
“Hang on, babe. It’s over.”
“My adrenaline tank’s empty and my knees are dizzy. You have to hold me up,” she murmured.
“My pleasure. You were damn amazing back there.”
“Dazed is more like it. Question. Who’s Kyle Busch?”
“A NASCAR champ, like you.”
“You did some fancy shooting yourself.”
He sighed. “I was aiming to hit the radiator.” When she chuckled, he knew she’d be okay. “We’ll find a place to stay and leave the island tomorrow.”
She leaned back and gazed up, fear stark in her green eyes. “If we don’t show up today, won’t they look for us at the airport tomorrow? This Zervas seems to have an unlimited number of cutthroats.”
“Not if we go with Plan B.”
She blinked. “There’s a Plan B?”
“Babe, there’s always a Plan B.”
***
Paris
“You made me wait long enough,” Lucas Del Rio said in street French to the man he knew only as Clodo, slang for tramp. One of his contacts in the Paris underground had suggested the man, who performed “errands” for anyone who could pay.
Clodo looked the part. Greasy, unkempt hair brushed the collar of his stained blue jacket. He hunched over the tiny table and eyed Lucas’s beer bottle with small eyes, pale blue irises framed in a pink that matched the web of capillaries on his cheeks.
“I had to make sure nobody followed,” Clodo said, licking his lips. “He has eyes everywhere.”
Lucas didn’t have to ask who or why the worry. Anyone who betrayed or failed Zervas got no second chance.
When the bartender delivered a second Heineken to this table in the back of the bar, Lucas cocked an eyebrow at his informant. His scruffy companion ordered wine and looked around at the other patrons.
This side street near the Gare du Nord boasted no trendy cafes, only dreary shops, porno houses and this dingy bar smelling of frites and unidentifiable wine. He sipped his Heineken and watched people trickle in, a ragout of immigrants from France’s former colonies and non-Euro-Zone countries. Laborers, the unemployed, and some with the flat-eyed look of street toughs. None gave him or Clodo a second glance.
The other man fixed his watery gaze on Lucas. “Why do you want to know about the men working for this salaud?” A glass of dark red wine arrived and he downed half of it at a gulp.
“Not your affair. I’m not asking how you came by this information, n’est-ce pas?”
“D’ac.” Clodo lowered his raspy voice to a rough whisper. “There are two men he trusts, two who travel with him. One is his bodyguard, Otto Nedik. Ugly type like you. Big man with a scar down one cheek. Not sure which side.”
Lucas drank beer while he filed the description in his memory. “And the other?”
“Gerry Hawkins, a Brit.” Clodo’s shoulders folded inward. A man trying to be invisible. “Tall, thin as a pole. Wears glasses. Always has his nose in a computer. That’s all I know.” He held up his empty wine glass.
Lucas motioned to the bartender. When the wine came, he paid the tab.
Lucas questioned Clodo for a few more minutes but the snitch couldn’t come up with more. Or wouldn’t.
Lucas placed an envelope on the table. “The amount you asked for.”
Clodo hurried to stuff the envelope in his inside jacket pocket. He downed the rest of his wine and gripped the table’s edge as if ready to push away.
Lucas clamped down on his wrist. “I’m leaving now. Stay and order another wine. You have le fric to pay. If I see you on the street, you’ll regret calling me ugly.” He curved his mouth into what passed for a smile, twisting the scar tissue into more of a grimace.
The rubescent face lost all color. Clodo bobbed his head. “Pas de problème.”
At the door, Lucas looked back. The informant rubbed his wrist as he called to the bartender for another glass.
Outside, Lucas drew a deep breath, glad to be out of the stifling miasma. If Clodo had friends waiting to jump him, they’d likely to be at one of the Metro stops but they’d give up after an hour or so. Instead he headed to the Brasserie Flo, a restaurant he remembered from his last time in the dixième.
Watching his back, he took a circuitous route. On the bridge over the canal he paused and took out his phone. He had a text reply from an earlier call to Mimi’s mother. As he started to read, anticipation mixed with dread.
M MOVING ARMS, HEAD. MAY WAKE SOON. DRS HOPEFUL. ME TOO. TY.
He clutched the phone with both hands. Part of him wanted to be there when Marie opened her eyes. Part of him knew that was a bad idea. She wouldn’t know who the hell he was and his gorilla mug would scare her.
Still, he’d just spent twenty-four hours in the swill of Paris sewers and deserved a break. After he reported in, maybe he’d make a quick trip. Before she woke up. Just to see her condition for himself.
No answer from Thomas, so he left a voicemail. While he waited for Special Agent Jessica Hunt at the CTF headquarters to pick up, he checked out the scene around him. A pair of lovebirds kissing on the next bridge. People on the way home from work with baguettes and wine in their shopping bags. No sketchy guys with bulges in their pockets.
“Where’ve you been, Del Rio?” Hunt barked. “You were supposed to be tracking Marco Zervas.”
He pictured the FBI special agent standing, not sitting, at her desk. In her fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair and skin the color of pecans, she’d be scowling and tapping her foot. Hunt was tough and smart and no nonsense. She had to be to rise to her stature in that man’s world. Hard to believe but he’d heard she was a grandmother of five. Not that he knew anything about grandmothers. He’d never known his.
“Nice to hear your voice too, Special Agent.” Grinning, he ambled in the direction of the restaurant. The fine woman walking ahead of him had red hair that reminded him of Marie. “I’ve been doing just that. Zervas may have changed his appearance and name, new passport. I have the names and descriptions of his fellow travelers.” He relayed Clodo’s information. “If they haven’t changed their looks and passports, you might be able to find him by tracking them.”
“Not me, Del Rio. You. The rest of us are working our butts off trying to find out what Ahmed Yousef is up to. I want you in here tonight to start checking flight and customs records. Got it?”
Shit. No time off for good behavior. “Roger that.”
***
Santorini Island
Behind the small hotel sloped an expanse of gardens and vineyards, sprinkled with houses and outbuildings, barely visible against the mauve and coral dusk sliding into indigo. The breeze carried the scent of unidentifiable flowers and the Aegean. The landscape bore the evidence of the volcanic eruptions that had formed the island thousands of years in the past. In this hideaway, hard to imagine that violence, and the violence of the afternoon. Cleo wished for her watercolors. She’d sketch the scene if she could trust her hands not to shake.
She cocked her head. Through the open French doors came the splashes and thumps of a big man trying to wash in a shower stall too narrow even for her. She smiled, then closed her eyes, picturing Thomas’s powerful body lathered with soapsuds— all that firm male flesh, all those muscles, smooth and slippery—
Stop it. She had to curb her fantasies. She wasn’t Cleopatra of the Nile and he wasn’t Mark Antony. Hanging onto that fantasy— or her teenage one about him— would only crumble her resolve to protect her heart. Her long shower had given her needed time alone to think. When Thomas joined her out here, she had questions for him.
Too antsy to sit in one of the cushioned chairs, she remained standing at the balcony half-wall, formed of the same white-painted stucco as the rest of the inn.
After the crash that had killed or seriously injured the second team of creeps Zervas sent after her, Thomas called Andres. Armed with a new plan he had yet to share with her, Thomas drove them to a beach
resort town and this secluded boutique hotel, managed by the taxi driver’s aunt and uncle.
Over a glass of the island’s excellent white wine, she’d carried out her part of their bargain. René’s last words provided little clue but Thomas seemed jazzed.
“Melon,” then “Pomp” or “Pope.” She couldn’t be sure which. And “Ladder.”
In spite of her fears and the trauma of the big chase, she’d eaten all of the dining room’s simple dinner, a vegetable stew served with crusty bread and a dish of local olives. Now if she could only keep it all in her jittery stomach.
Thomas had told her she’d carried on like a soldier today. Maybe a raw recruit, not a battle-hardened soldier like him. She wouldn’t tell him she used a mind escape to make it through. Or that she was out here trembling.
A bare foot slapped on the cement behind her. She jerked, turned, eyes wide.
“Whoa, Cleo, it’s just me.” Dressed in jeans, he stood there, arms outstretched. In the open placket of his green polo, dark hairs glistened, still damp from his shower.
Dammit, I knew that. “I’m an idiot. I don’t want to be such a chicken.” She spun back to the scenery so he wouldn’t see the flush heating her cheeks.
When his arms came around her, she leaned against his solid chest. He smelled of the inn’s soap and her shampoo. His strong embrace that promised protection and strength felt so good, she had to be careful not to be dependent. Vulnerable. Any man, but especially a man like Thomas would take control and never give it back.
“You’re safe in the hotel.” The warmth of his breath in her hair rippled down her spine. “Zervas and his minions don’t know where we’re staying.”
“A criminal like that must know how to trace credit and debit cards.”
“Not the ones I’m using. DSF keeps a European account under a separate corporate name so expenses don’t involve transfer fees and currency exchange rate problems. The arrangement allows anonymity for clandestine work. Like Lucas with the CTF.”
Cleopatra's Necklace (Devlin Security Force Book 3) Page 12