‘We’re looking for a sea plane, a Catalina that flew out of Santorini a half hour ago.’
The pilot frowned as he listened and then replied, somewhat mystified.
‘I can’t be certain, but I think I heard a call sign identify themselves as a PBY about ten minutes ago on the approach frequency.’
Petrov leaned forward in his seat and his dark eyes focussed on the pilot as he produced a thick wad of American dollar bills and waved them near the pilot’s face.
‘I have two thousand dollars here for you if you can get us on the ground before that Catalina.’
The pilot looked around at Petrov and regarded him for a moment, and then he smiled in reply.
‘For that I’ll crash the damned plane if you want me to. You’d better strap in.’
Petrov moved back to his seat and fastened his belt as he heard the pilot contacting the airfield tower.
‘Naxos Information, pan–pan–pan, November Golf One Seven Niner, ten miles to the south at four thousand feet, QNH one zero two one, rough running engine and low fuel, request straight in approach onto active.’
Petrov heard the tower’s reply clearing the aircraft for an immediate approach as two other call signs near the airfield were ordered to reposition in the circuit and the overhead. Petrov immediately recognized the second registration as one that his men had learned of back in Oia, that of the Catalina.
The Baron 58 suddenly slowed and began descending rapidly as the pilot made a high speed dash for the runway now visible dead ahead on the island’s west coast. Petrov watched as the pilot waited until the last moment before drawing back the throttles and slowing the aircraft down, gradually extending his flaps one stage at a time and then finally the undercarriage, which whined down beneath them as the pilot called finals onto the runway.
Petrov leaned out of his window and saw a couple of miles to the east the big Catalina, still at one thousand feet altitude in the circuit and flying downwind as it awaited its chance to land. Petrov grinned in anticipation as he turned to his guard.
‘As soon as we’re down, arrange accommodation for us and our American guests, somewhere remote where we will not be disturbed. They won’t be leaving this island until we’re finished with them.’
The guard grinned as he got his cell phone ready, the aircraft turning off the main runway as Petrov leaned forward and handed the pilot the money.
‘How will you explain the fault?’ Petrov asked.
‘Carburettor icing,’ the pilot replied. ‘Mysteriously it appears to have cleared itself.’
The pilot shut down the engine and Petrov climbed out behind his men as they dispersed away from the Baron 58. Petrov turned and saw the Catalina’s landing lights shining brilliantly even in broad daylight as the aircraft touched down amid the trembling heat haze on the runway and slowed before it turned off the runway and taxied toward the parking area.
Petrov’s men fanned out near the airport terminal building, keeping their weapons out of sight but ensuring the nobody could leave the Catalina and make it to the terminal building without being spotted and intercepted. Petrov watched as the Catalina’s pilot taxied to an allotted parking space and applied the brakes, and moments later the clattering of the twin radial engines spluttered out and the big airplane sat in silence on the dispersal ramp as the pilot shut down the systems and vacated his seat.
Petrov strolled to the port side of the fuselage as the pilot opened a large side door and lowered a set of steps before he stepped out into the sunshine.
‘Captain,’ Petrov greeted him, ‘I am here to meet your passengers.’
The pilot was a tall, cranky looking man with slightly graying hair who could have been thirty or fifty years old, it was hard to tell. He peered down at Petrov as though he were examining something he had scraped off the sole of his boot.
‘We didn’t order an escort.’
An American, his voice rough with age. Petrov saw a middle–aged Asian woman step out of the aircraft, her long black hair tied back in a pony tail and her eyes hidden behind sunglasses as she moved to stand alongside the pilot.
‘Two Americans boarded this aircraft at Oia,’ Petrov smiled at them, trying to hide the rising impatience festering inside him.
‘That’s right,’ the pilot confirmed.
‘Where are they?’
‘They’re here,’ the pilot confirmed as he gestured to himself and the woman. ‘This is our airplane.’
Petrov clicked his fingers and four of his men hurried forward. ‘Search the airplane.’
‘Hey,’ the pilot snapped, ‘you can’t go in there.’
The four men ignored him as Petrov pulled up the corner of his shirt to reveal the pistol in its holster there.
‘I’m sure you won’t mind,’ he uttered with contempt.
The pilot shrugged without concern, and within moments Petrov’s men climbed back out of the aircraft and shook their heads.
‘She’s empty.’
Petrov struggled to contain his fury as he seethed at the pilot. ‘You took off from Oia and landed outside Thirasia before departing to here. Why would you land right again right after taking off?!’
‘Selfie,’ the pilot shrugged. ‘We’re touring, and the wife’s just crazy about taking pictures of everything.’
Petrov felt himself trembling with rage and was about to reach for his pistol and drag the pilot and the woman back into the airplane when the pilot gestured over his shoulder toward the terminal.
‘We’ve got an appointment booked with a customs official, if you’re done?’ he said.
Petrov glanced over his shoulder and saw an official in a blue shirt and black pants, and in the office right behind him was at least one police officer who would be armed and able to call back up to support him.
Petrov turned back to the pilot and then blinked in surprise as the tall American loomed up and glared down at him.
‘You’ve got a problem with me, Ivan, let’s sort it out with him right now. Otherwise, you’re done here, agreed?’
Petrov fumed in impotent silence and then mastered his anger and stood aside to let the American through. As the pilot passed by, Petrov heard a cell phone’s camera click and he saw the woman snap him as she passed by before tucking her cell phone back into her bag.
Petrov whirled to the nearest of his men and barked an order.
‘They’re still on Thirasia! Get back there and find out where they went!’
***
XXXVI
St Kilda Island,
British Isles
( Two days later )
A brutal wind gusted in over endless slate grey waves flecked with white rollers that marched relentlessly in from the west as Ethan leaned into the gale and forged his way up a bleak hillside. Rain splattered his coat and stung the raw skin of his face as he squinted at a tiny map in one hand and a compass in the other.
‘This is insane.’
Lopez’s voice was almost torn away by the buffeting gale as Ethan paused and glanced over his shoulder at the endless ocean stretching away into a horizon consumed by hazy veils of rain. In his time he had served variously as a United States Marine and a journalist in some of the most dangerous and remote places on earth, and seen things that even now he struggled to believe let alone understand. But right now, he could not ever recall feeling so completely isolated.
The island on which they trekked was located forty or so miles from Harris, part of an island chain off the coast of the United Kingdom known as the Outer Hebrides. Scotland was a full one hundred miles away and the island itself had been deserted for close to a century, abandoned by hardy islanders who were simply unable to cope with the brutality of life this far from the rest of humanity.
‘I’m not going to disagree,’ Ethan replied finally as Lopez struggled up to his side. ‘Greece was a hell of a lot more inviting.’
Lopez stared at the barren, windswept cliffs nearby, the highest in the entire United Kingdom.
‘I can’t believe anybody ever actually chose to live in this hell hole.’
A gust of wind blasted rain across her face and she flinched away, wiping it off angrily as Ethan checked the map again and shook his head.
‘None of this makes any sense,’ he said. ‘If there’s any evidence left on this island of what we’re looking for I’m guessing it’s long gone.’
He lowered the map and shoved it into his pocket.
‘We’ve been at this for six whole days now and we’ve come up with nothing,’ Lopez muttered as they started clambering back down the hillside. ‘Come on, admit it, we’re chasing rainbows here.’
Ethan stopped on the side of the bleak hill, the wind buffeting the hardy grasses as the clouds scudded low over the immense slate gray ocean. Above, brief rays of sunshine broke through the cloud cover and drifted in shimmering veils, lighting the turbulent seas in pools of glittering light. The scene was as beautiful as it was desolate, and the sensation of hopelessness that crept upon him now matched the vista perfectly. They were out of options, out of time, out of money and out of leads. The fresco in Santorini had led them here to this bleak isle off the coast of Scotland, in search of a cryptic clue penned by a Greek Mariner, who may or may not have reached this spot several thousand years ago, and might or might not have identified a piece of evidence, that might possibly or possibly not send them on another leg of a journey toward a city that existed only in legend and perhaps only in myth.
Ethan sat down on the hillside.
‘I can see why nobody has ever found the damned place.’
Lopez flopped down alongside him on the damp grass and they sat together staring out over the dramatic panorama.
‘Did you ever think it would come to this?’ she asked him as another squall of driving rain pummelled them, the drops rattling against their jackets. ‘That this would all end with us sitting wet–assed on a hillside in Scotland with no friends and no money, looking around for something that probably isn’t here?’
Ethan shrugged. ‘I guess it’s as fitting an end as any other.’
‘That’s defeatist.’
‘It’s realistic,’ Ethan replied. ‘We’ve gone over the figures a hundred times and we’re sitting right on top of whatever damned clue it is that Pytheas said was here. We’ve walked this hill and every other over and over again and we’ve found nothing and even if we had, what the hell would we do with it? We can’t announce it to the world without exposing ourselves to Petrov and his men, who will no doubt do what they can to ensure we end up taking a swim wearing concrete flippers, and that’s if our own government don’t lock us up first in some foreign prison and toss the keys.’ Ethan sighed and shook his head. ‘We just don’t have any plays left.’
Lopez realized that in all of the years they had worked together, across all of the countries, in the face of all the incredible things that they had seen, she had never seen Ethan Warner defeated. The realization shocked her but it also flooded her with an unexpected relief, that perhaps now they really could consider giving it all up. Maybe they could just head out into the wild again, back to Indonesia and spend the rest of their days soaking up rays and catching dinner by pole and line. People didn’t need money so much out there, on some remote island where the only taxes were those demanded by nature herself.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ she said finally, and grabbed Ethan’s arm to heave him to his feet.
They trudged together back the way they had come. As Ethan descended the hillside he could see various ruins scattered about alongside the few tracks that wound their way across the bleak hills. Many were ancient cleits, stone huts dotted around the valley into which they were descending, known to the long–gone locals as Village Bay. The dome–shaped structures were constructed of flat boulders with a cap of turf on the top, enabling the wind to pass through the cavities in the wall but keeping the rain out. Used for storage, they were known to have existed on the island since prehistoric times, and Ethan figured that perhaps some of those ancient people might have witnessed Pytheas’s trireme visit this bleak spot of land amid the Atlantic’s wild rollers. What had caused the Greeks to leave the warmth and light of Akrotiri to travel north to this bleak and inhospitable corner of the world could only have been a treasure like that of Atlantis, but Ethan was beginning to wish they’d just turned around and headed back the way they had come.
Ethan led the way down toward an old house near Village Bay that had been restored by enthusiastic volunteers who travelled to the islands during the summer months. Along with a small military radar post on one of the island’s far flung corners they represented the only visitors to this lonely island, and even they evacuated during the winter months due to the storms that could envelop the island for weeks on end.
Lopez virtually kicked the door open as they reached the building and charged inside as Ethan closed it behind him to shut out the gales. Lopez wasted no time in dousing firewood in the hearth with kerosene and lighting it. A crackling fire roared into life and illuminated the building’s shadowy interior as Ethan hauled off his thick winter coat and gloves and warmed his hands in the glow of the fire.
‘That’s enough, Ethan, I’m done with this place and this whole caper,’ Lopez said as she warmed her own hands alongside him. ‘First flight out, use what identifications we have left to head east into Asia and then we just vanish into thin air. Everyone else has either been arrested or disappeared, and we’ll be next if we hang around here much longer.’
She fluttered her hands demonstratively like butterflies fluttering into eternity. Ethan smiled and thought about it, and then about his parents and sister, the government holding them somewhere and Petrov and his people perhaps searching them out one day in the future as leverage against them. He sighed and closed his eyes, weary of the burden on his shoulders.
‘If we run, we will never truly leave all of this behind.’
Lopez scowled angrily. ‘This isn’t our responsibility. We didn’t bring all of this upon ourselves, it’s the greed of others that drives this whole circus: Majestic Twelve, the administration, the wars and the secrets. It’s all about the damned money, so why don’t we hand the lot back to them and let them fight over it? With luck, they’ll annihilate each other and remove themselves from the equation.’
Ethan stared into the flames of the fire, watched them coil and writhe like demons trapped in Hades, and in an instant he realized that once again Lopez was right. All these years, all of the investigations had all been about pursuing those who wanted power and money, and to keep it all for themselves.
‘You’re right,’ he said finally.
‘I am?’
‘I’m done with this,’ Ethan said and promptly stood up, Lopez getting to her feet beside him. ‘I’m done with all of it.’
Ethan turned to Lopez and grabbed her by the shoulders, the flames lighting half of his face in a dancing light while the other half was consumed by shadow.
‘We give them exactly what they want. Garrett is still out there, and he’s only acting as the custodian of the billions that the Russians and everybody else are so keen to get their grubby little hands on. Let’s bring it all into one place and ensure that they’re all there too, and then let them destroy themselves fighting for it.’
Lopez smiled nervously. ‘That’s what we were trying to avoid, right? A military clash between Russia and America?’
‘We don’t pit the countries against each other, Nicola. We send the people involved up against each other. We draw them into something and then we hit them hard.’
‘Trouble is that Garrett won’t just hand over the billions, he’ll see it as us giving up the fight, or worse getting him tied into it. You’ve seen what the Russian courts do to billionaires who challenge the Kremlin – what’s to say our administration won’t do the same to him? He’s not going to openly admit his involvement in this.’
Ethan knew that she was right and that Garrett, brought into their fight due to the murder of
his father in Montana so many years before at the hands of Majestic Twelve, had no reason to further risk the fortune he had made since in trying to find Atlantis.
Atlantis. Ethan now hated the word more than anything in the world. The search had in a short period of time cost them everything, and for what? The right to piss off some of the most dangerous, spiteful and self–centered people the human race had ever seen? Ethan wished that he had stayed where they were in Indonesia, and for once done not the “right” thing but instead what he had needed to do for a long time and put himself first. He looked down at Lopez. Them first.
‘If we can find it, Atlantis, how do we get the Russians down there?’ he asked.
Lopez shrugged. ‘Petrov won’t be hard to find. We just call him down there and make a deal. Accounts, reassurances, something to cover our backs before we meet.’
Ethan nodded. That, of course, would be the location of the money and perhaps the ancient city itself. He sighed again, withered by the helplessness of the situation.
‘I guess we go with handing them the money and letting them fight over it then,’ he said finally. ‘Let’s face it, Atlantis isn’t going to walk in here and help us, is it?’
A knock sounded at the heavy door, and Ethan’s heart flipped in his chest as he reached for a Berretta 9mm pistol tucked into his jacket. Lopez pulled her own weapon out as they eased their way to the door. Lopez covered Ethan as he reached out and then yanked the door open and aimed out into the gloomy half darkness.
A woman stood before him, her long blonde hair tucked into her hood and a bright smile on her face that was only slightly withered by the sight of a pistol aimed at her.
‘Lovely,’ Lucy Morgan greeted them as she reached out and pushed Ethan’s gun down. ‘Haven’t you found the final codex for Atlantis yet? You’re practically standing on top of it.’
The Atlantis Codex (Warner & Lopez Book 7) Page 24