by Kim Baldwin
“Any idea where we are?” Melina asked.
“Not a clue. Obviously we need to get off this mountain, and that little road looks like the only clear way down. But they’ll be expecting us to follow it.”
“And if we don’t, we could wind up lost for days. I’m sure it gets pretty cold up here at night. So, what’s the plan?”
“I guess we just try to use it for a general sense of direction but keep out of sight as much as we can.” Ariadne pointed to a small ravine off to their left. “I bet we can get down and past the cabin if we take that—” She shushed when Melina suddenly clamped a hand on her arm. “What?”
Then she heard it, too. A distant motor, getting louder. They could hear the car long before they could see it. Both of them immediately shrank back into the trees, crouching behind some low brush.
A dark Jeep soon came into view on the two-track, spewing a cloud of dust into the air as its tires sought purchase on the steep, gravelly lane. Their kidnappers parked outside the cabin and leisurely made their way inside.
Ariadne knew they should start running in the opposite direction, farther up into the mountains to get as far away as possible as fast as they could, but they remained transfixed on the scene below to see what the men would do once they discovered their captives were gone. She was hoping they’d think they’d taken the road and go looking for them there.
Seconds after they’d gone in, both men came running back out again and immediately went to the back window they’d smashed. One crouched down and pointed to something, and then both men looked up in their direction.
“That’s not good,” Melina muttered under her breath.
They watched as one of the men returned to the car to get a rifle from the trunk, while the other pulled his handgun and started toward them, his gaze fixed to the ground as though he was tracking them.
As one, and without a word, Ariadne and Melina hurried away from the overlook, keeping low until they were sure they couldn’t be spotted from below. Then they started running for their lives, Ariadne in the lead and Melina struggling to keep up.
She had no idea where to go, which direction to take. She tried to keep to the densest growth of trees and the most uneven terrain, hoping it would help keep them from being spotted from a distance. When she was nearly out of breath, she saw a massive fallen tree they could hide behind, to rest for a minute. Melina seemed as grateful as she was for a moment’s respite.
“Do you think they can track us?” Melina asked once her breathing had calmed.
“Half the men I know are hunters,” she replied. “And we’re at a big disadvantage if either or both of them are familiar with this area. We could be heading to the edge of a cliff, for all we know. Come on, we have to keep moving.”
But just as she started to rise from their hiding place, they heard a distant shout. “Come on, ladies, it’s useless to run from us! There’s no place to go. Come out before you hurt yourselves.”
Ariadne’s heartbeat accelerated as she quickly ducked back down, out of sight. Stay put or run? She peered over the top of the log. She couldn’t see them, but perhaps they were just waiting somewhere, watching from behind trees for any sign of movement. Maybe the men had lost them and were just trying to get them to reveal themselves.
“Should we—?” Melina started to whisper, but Ariadne waved at her impatiently to be quiet.
She thought she’d heard something off to their left, but she couldn’t be certain. The dense undergrowth was too thick to see through. Then she heard it again, the unmistakable sound of a branch being snapped. At least one of the men was close. Too close. And he was working his way around their position to get behind them.
With an increasing sense of panic pervading her senses, Ariadne desperately searched for a way out. One man was to their left, and the other’s shouted directive had come from somewhere in front of them. Melina’s eyes were wide with fright as Ariadne gestured silently in the direction they needed to take, but she nodded that she understood.
Then they were running again, full out, and this time, they could clearly hear their pursuers chasing them, the nearest crashing through the brush not far behind, the other shouting at them to stop from a bit farther away.
A shot rang out, and almost simultaneously, Melina screamed from behind her and landed hard on the ground, face-first.
Ariadne ran to her. Blood was pouring from a bullet hole in Melina’s thigh, and her face was contorted in pain. “Shit, Mel. Stay with me!” In a panic, she put her hands over the wound, applying pressure to stop the bleeding, but it wasn’t working well. Blood seeped out from between her fingers.
“That was a stupid move,” said a voice from behind her. The tall kidnapper, his handgun still in his hand.
“Give me something to stop this bleeding!” she begged him. “Some cloth. Your shirt. And I need your belt!”
He seemed to consider this request for a couple of seconds before relenting. He pulled off his T-shirt and belt and tossed them to her as his friend caught up and joined them.
“Hurts so bad.” Melina moaned. “Am I dying?”
“No chance. Hell isn’t ready for you,” Ariadne replied as she tightened the belt around her makeshift dressing. It seemed to be working. The blood flow slowed considerably. “We need to get her to a hospital,” she told the men. “You’re not going to get a euro from my father if anything happens to either of us.”
The bald guy laughed and turned to his friend. “Still thinks she can call the shots.” Then he looked at Ariadne with a menacing glare. “You got it all wrong, honey. Unless he pays up, and fast, neither one of you is getting off this mountain.”
Chapter Twenty-five
Off Santorini Island, Greece
Next day
Lykourgos kept the heavy icon on his lap as he steered the Zodiac away from the Pegasus. Switch watched him caress the hard case absentmindedly, as though he wanted one last chance to call upon its healing powers, or perhaps he was asking the Virgin Mother to watch over Ariadne.
Switch checked her scuba tank one final time before donning her fins and mask. She wanted to be ready to slip over the side as soon as they caught first sight of the kidnappers’ boat.
TQ had chosen a location far enough from the coast and normal shipping lanes that there was no chance of running into other boat traffic. They were still a good distance from the GPS rendezvous point when she spotted a tiny speck on the horizon.
“Reduce your speed. That may be them,” she told Lykourgos, and he slowed enough for her to roll over the side and into the water. Clinging to one of the inflatable’s exterior ropes, she kept out of sight behind the dinghy as he towed her, while careful to avoid the outboard’s propeller.
“I see them,” Lykourgos said ten minutes later. He looked down at her and Switch gave him a thumbs-up.
She pressed the mic that was pinned against her ear by the rubber hood of the wetsuit. She’d planted a listening device under the dashboard and not on Lykourgos, just in case they checked him. Although Switch couldn’t fathom TQ might have given orders to kill someone with his high profile and the girls after her goons got the icon, she wanted to make sure everything went as planned.
Switch ducked down farther, leaving only her eyes exposed to view the situation from the rear of the Zodiac. She could see them now, too, in a small but fast-approaching skiff. One man stood on the boat with an automatic rifle pointed at Lykourgos while the other drove. Switch let go of the Zodiac and ducked completely under the water when they were still several yards away.
Lykourgos cut the engine about the same time, and Switch quickly caught up, hiding from view beneath the inflatable.
“Daddy!” she heard Ariadne yell.
Lykourgos didn’t reply, but soon afterward, the other boat stopped, too, and pulled up alongside the Zodiac.
“Where is it?” one of the men asked.
“Here,” Lykourgos replied.
“Let’s have it.”
He mus
t’ve been in the process of handing it over because both boats rocked.
Switch dove deeper until she couldn’t be seen from the surface and swam to the other boat.
“I want my daughter, now!”
One of the men laughed. “Move, bitches,” he said.
Taking advantage of the commotion the girls were causing to get from one boat to the other, Switch stuck a tracker to the bottom of the men’s boat and moved back beneath the Zodiac.
“Daddy!” Ariadne shouted.
“My God, what happened? What did they do to you?” Lykourgos sounded worried. “You’re bleeding.”
Switch’s breath caught. Was Ariadne hurt? She’d kill whoever had touched her. She couldn’t wait to surface and see what was going on.
Soon afterward, the kidnappers’ boat started to move away and quickly accelerated to maximum speed as though they were being chased.
“All clear, Alex,” she heard Lykourgos say.
Switch surfaced and found him and the two women looking down at her. She immediately focused in on Ariadne. “Are you hurt?” she asked as she pulled off her mask and threw it into the inflatable.
“N…No. What’s going on?” She looked from Switch to her father.
Lykourgos extended his arm to help Switch on board the Zodiac. “Alex is a private contractor,” he replied.
Ariadne and Melina gaped at her.
It was then she noticed the bloody bandage around Melina’s thigh. “Why don’t we talk about all that back on shore,” she said. “We need to get Melina to a hospital.”
“Privately contracted to do what?” Ariadne asked.
“I was hired to…” Switch unzipped her diving suit. “Why don’t you ask your father?”
Instead, both women continued to stare at her. It took a few seconds for Switch to realize they were looking at her chest. She’d unzipped down to her crotch, revealing her swimsuit. She followed their gaze and then looked over at Melina.
“Am I hallucinating, or does he have boobs?” Melina glanced from Switch to Ariadne, then back to Switch’s breasts. “Maybe it’s the fever. The infection’s gone to my head.”
“He is a she,” Ariadne said.
“You knew?” Melina looked like she’d seen cows fly.
“Yes. Though it’s becoming very clear that her gender wasn’t the only thing she lied about.”
“Now I understand why you’re crazy about—”
“Not now, Melina,” Ariadne said. “Can we just go?”
*
Colorado
“Jack’s gone,” Cassady Monroe said as soon as Monty answered the phone.
“I see.” He sat back in his armchair and switched off the news. “Since when?”
“I woke up and she was gone. She left a note saying she’d be back in a few days.”
“Didn’t say where?”
“Nothing.”
“I see.”
“What’s wrong with you?” Monroe sounded irritated. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t really know, but I’m sure she’s fine. She probably remembered she had to take care of something in New York.”
“There’s nothing there to take care of.” Her frustration was evident. “You don’t sound the least bit concerned.”
“Whatever she’s up to is something important to her. She’d never leave you, otherwise.”
“Then why not tell me?”
“Probably because it’s not important.”
“If I find out you’re keeping something from me, I’m going to be really mad.”
“Just give her a few days,” he said. “She probably needs some space to think.”
“Think about what?”
“Listen, I’ll try giving her a call. See if I can find out where she is.”
“Let me know ASAP.”
“Of course.”
“You’d better not be hiding something from me.”
“Stop worrying,” he said calmly. “She knows what she’s doing.”
“You’re freaking me out, Monty. She knows what she’s doing about what?”
“She’s crazy about you, Cassady. She’d never do anything to jeopardize what you have.”
“Just let me know if you hear something.”
“Same goes for you,” Monty replied before he disconnected.
Joanna walked into the living room with tea and biscuits. “What was that all about?”
“Cassady is looking for Jaclyn,” he replied.
“You mean she’s disappeared again?” With a worried frown, she set the tray on the table in front of him.
“It would appear so.”
Joanna sat in the armchair across from him. “What’s going on, Montgomery?” She crossed her arms over her chest like she always did when she demanded an explanation. “You know where she is, don’t you?”
“I do, indeed.”
“Did she tell you she was leaving? Where she was going?”
“No.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, speak up.”
“I told her TQ was in Greece.”
Joanna looked shocked. “Why in the world would you do that?”
“Because she will never be truly happy or safe until that woman is dead.”
“But we have people on it. Ops perfectly capable of taking her down. They’re so close to finding her.”
“Jaclyn needs to do it,” he replied quietly. “It’ll haunt her if she doesn’t, and she has enough haunting her as it is.”
“But that woman is crazy. You’ve sent her straight into the lion’s den.”
“Jaclyn knows what she’s doing. I need her to get this last obstacle out of the way so she can concentrate on her future.”
“Let me get this straight,” Joanna replied, looking at him as though she barely knew him. “You deliberately told her about TQ so that she could go after her and get it out of her system?”
“Like I said…” Monty sipped his tea slowly and set it back on the table. “I need her to be ready. No loose ends, no grudges.”
“Ready for what?”
“To face the future.” Monty stared at the Rocky Mountains outside the large picture window. “Ready to decide for the future of others.”
*
Fira, Santorini Island, Greece
“And?” Switch asked as she approached Allegro at the harbor’s café.
“You just missed them. They tied up and left without the icon.” Allegro had been tracking the kidnappers’ boat from ashore and so was waiting for them when they pulled into the marina at Fira.
“Are you sure?”
“They took off empty-handed. I was just about to go check the boat. See if they left it there to pick up later.”
“They’d never risk that.”
“I’m going to check anyway, as soon as they go. They’re still hanging out by the car.”
Switch sat down and stared out at the sea. “Doesn’t make sense.”
“Who knows what the hell that crazy bitch has put them up to.”
“The girls are fine, by the way. Melina got shot in the leg, but she’ll be okay.”
“And how’s your favorite girl doing?” Allegro asked.
“Who?”
“You know who I’m talking about.”
“She’s not my girl, and we hardly had a chance to talk. I dropped them off at the hospital and changed in the car, then drove straight here.”
“So, I guess you won’t be seeing her again. I mean, Lykourgos no longer has the icon, so…”
“Yeah.” Alex took a deep breath. With everything that had been going on that day, she hadn’t stopped to consider that after the exchange, she’d be out of Ariadne’s life for good. “I guess you’re right.” The realization hurt like hell.
They remained silent, but Switch couldn’t let go of the fact that TQ’s men would be callous enough to leave the icon on the boat. Unless, of course… “Hand me the transponder,” she said impatiently.
“What for?” Allegro opened her rucksack and pulle
d it out. “What’s—”
Switch grabbed it and turned it on. They both watched as the green beam scanned circles on the monitor.
“What are you looking for?” Allegro asked.
“There.” Switch pointed to the screen. In addition to the small blip nearby that marked the boat’s location, the device was picking up another signal far offshore. “They placed a tracker of their own on the icon and dumped it in the sea.”
“To pick up later.”
“Just in case Lykourgos hadn’t kept his promise and police were waiting for them.”
“But why didn’t I see it earlier when I was tracking the boat?” Allegro asked. “I never got two signals.”
“They activated it after they realized the coast was clear. My guess is, they won’t be diving for it until dark.”
Allegro consulted her watch. “It’s going to be a long wait.”
“They’re going to lead us straight to TQ.”
“Monty’s going to shit a rainbow.”
Chapter Twenty-six
Ariadne was grateful her father’s status and influence allowed them to circumvent the usual official inquiries that were required when doctors treated patients with bullet wounds. Melina had been spared police questioning after her father spoke with the hospital administrator, quietly explaining the embarrassment he wanted to avoid over the “unfortunate hunting accident.”
He’d taken the further step of having a rental car delivered so he could drive them all himself to the marina, where Manos would be waiting with a Zodiac. And just in case any hospital personnel might have tipped off the press, they exited through a staff-only door that led to the rear employee parking area.
“I’ve made a career out of avoiding cellulite only to end up with a scar on my thigh,” Melina complained as Ariadne helped her from the wheelchair into the big sedan.