by K. T. Tomb
Chapter Nine
It had happened a good bit just like she thought it would. Though Danna couldn’t have predicted what had actually played out, the reactions of the two men who had accompanied her had revealed their true character. Perk was already on a plane back to London and she was saddened by that a bit, but Edwin…oh, Edwin.
She couldn’t help smiling whenever she looked at him.
“You’ve survived then,” Taavi smiled as he examined the outside of the box that Danna had placed on his desk, but didn’t raise a hand to touch it.
“It won’t bite, you know,” she laughed.
“I take it this is one of the copies?” He raised an eyebrow as he asked the question. “I really don’t want to know how you know that.”
“It fell open in the struggle,” she replied, still smiling.
She glanced over at Edwin, replaying the way that he had pushed over the table and covered her body with his own to protect her. What had surprised and thrilled her even more, however, was the way that he’d scooped the pistol up from the floor and tucked it into his waistband.
“The struggle?” Taavi asked.
“It seems that someone else is currently interested in retrieving Pandora’s Box,” she replied.
“By any means necessary, I might add,” Edwin said.
“The question is, who and for what purpose?” Danna continued.
“To know the purpose, we would have to know who it was,” Taavi responded, unfolding his hands, turning them palms up and shrugging.
“He seemed to be speaking Russian and didn’t seem interested in the empty box,” Edwin commented.
Danna remained silent as she watched Taavi’s eyes turn toward Edwin. A half smile grew on his lips and she realized that he recognized the transition that had taken place in the quiet accountant. He nodded slowly and then frowned.
“Those two things combined are grave developments,” he responded. “If he is not interested in an empty Pandora’s Box—which in itself is extremely valuable—then that means he is only interested in the power that exists in the authentic box. If he spoke Russian, well…”
Edwin broke into the pause. “That makes our situation all the more urgent.”
“Precisely.”
“So, who do you think we’re dealing with?” Danna asked, already having run through a list of possibilities that made her shudder.
“I have some speculations,” he replied. “Unfortunately, none of them are good. I will make contact with my friends in the intelligence industry and give that information to you by this afternoon, tomorrow morning at the latest.”
There was a pause while Taavi measured the two of them for signs of faltering.
“Are you still in?” he asked in a low tone.
“We’re still in,” Danna replied.
Taavi shifted his eyes toward Edwin and then back to her; his question unspoken.
Danna nodded.
“What’s your next move?” Taavi asked.
“We’re going to start by relocating to Corinth,” Edwin responded. “We’ll need to be there in order to track down the leads in the 1990 robbery.”
Danna watched Taavi’s eyes shift toward Edwin. He’d intended the question for her and the both of them were pleasantly surprised by the fact that Edwin had taken the lead. Danna shrugged and smiled.
“Looks like we’re headed to Corinth.”
“Alright,” Taavi responded. “I’ll get that set up for you and hopefully have whatever intelligence I can dig up for you by the time you arrive there. Very solid job, the both of you, but please, do be careful. If any of my speculations are correct, there are some difficult times ahead of you.”
She and Edwin left Taavi’s office moments later and made their way out to the car that was waiting to take them back to their hotel. When they arrived, they wasted no time and started packing their luggage. In spite of the fact that Edwin was attempting to be his regular self, he had changed. He wasn’t necessarily comfortable with the change but acted more like a man who was intent on doing the job before him. She was thrilled by the transition, but it was also a bit unsettling.
“How are you?” she asked, drawing him out onto the balcony as they waited for the bellman to come up to their room for their luggage.
“I’m fine,” he replied.
She could see that he was holding back the truth from her.
“Tell me the truth, Edwin,” she pleaded.
“I was shot at last night,” he responded. “How do you think I am?”
“And you protected me from harm,” she added.
He grunted in response.
“We could call this off,” she replied.
“We most certainly cannot,” he answered.
“You don’t need to prove yourself to me, Edwin,” she whispered.
“Things have changed, Danna,” he responded.
“I know that you have a need to protect me—”
“There’s more at stake than that, now,” he began, but they were interrupted by a knock at the door.
With their luggage packed in the car for the hour drive to Corinth, Edwin placed the file folder on his lap and began discussing the 1990 robbery as though he was reviewing a client’s balance sheet. Danna dismissed the idea of asking him about the comment he made when they were on the balcony and focused her attention on the file along with him.
“The burglary had been the work of Anastasios Karahalios, his father and brother, both called Tryfonas, along with Ioannis Loris. Caught red-handed after they drew attention to themselves by selling five of the items at auction at Christie’s in New York, most of the rest of the items had been recovered in the home of Wilma Sabala, a friend of the younger Tryfonas, who resided in Miami,” Edwin read.
“All involved were arrested, charged and sentenced to up to 20 years in prison for their respective roles,” he continued to summarize. “Ninety-seven percent of the nearly 280 artifacts were recovered, but Pandora’s Box was not among those recovered.”
They’d been through the generalities of the case a number of times before. They’d even considered the fact that all of those who had been part of the robbery had served their prison terms and might know the location of the final stolen items.
“The police would have certainly asked them what had happened to those remaining items, don’t you think?” Danna asked.
“If they did, they either didn’t know or they lied,” Edwin commented. “I’d go with the latter.”
“Why do you say that?” Danna asked.
“I don’t, but since Tryfonas Junior is currently residing in Corinth, that is the best place to start, don’t you think?”
Chapter Ten
Danna pressed the speaker button on the phone and Taavi’s voice filled the living room of their hotel suite in Corinth.
“I’m afraid that I don’t have good news to report,” he said.
Edwin sucked in a breath and held it, expecting the worst.
“My intelligence sources have learned from Mossad agents about some interest by a secretive and powerful organization based in Geneva concerning the Box. They believe that the move to retrieve it comes from a man known as the Hammer. He is the very wealthy billionaire, Peter Isaac, who founded the organization called the League of Knowledge Integration, or LOKI. They are highly involved in artificial intelligence, as well as a number of other ventures connected to the cryptocurrency world. They are suspected to be behind the unrest in Ukraine as well as other hot spots around the world, which is why they have caught the attention of Israeli intelligence.”
Edwin let the breath out of his lungs with tremendous force. It wasn’t exactly what he’d suspected and his intestines began to tie themselves into a knot once more. He wanted out and he wanted out badly. He was well in over his head. He had taken the gun from the dead man at that horrible house the night before, but he had no real training with the thing. With confirmation that they were facing someone from a rebel force who wanted the box as well,
he knew that neither he nor Danna belonged in the game any longer.
“LOKI. You mean, like, the Norse god of chaos?” Danna repeated the name and then asked the question.
“Not that the acronym is the most important part of their objective, but yes,” Taavi answered.
“Chaos. That is unsettling.”
“And I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted out. In fact, it’s probably the wisest choice,” Taavi replied.
Edwin sensed some hesitation in Taavi’s tone.
“But?” he asked.
“Neither Mossad, our own country’s intelligence, MI6 or the CIA have been able to get anyone to talk. At this point—and I can’t believe that I’m saying this—the two of you are more likely to be able to get the job done than anyone else.”
“That’s certainly hard to believe,” Edwin snorted. “We’re hardly the counter-intelligence-espionage types required for this sort of thing.”
“That’s actually the reason,” Taavi responded. “You’re not that type at all. You’re quite the opposite.”
No one spoke for several seconds and then Taavi continued.
“The reason Zeus put Pandora in charge of the box was because she had the innocent appearance of a human instead of that of a god or demigod. It was because of that innocence that the evil spirits surrounded her in an attempt to possess her, only to discover that she wasn’t entirely defenseless. She opened up her box and they were suddenly trapped inside. I can’t think of any other two people that are more innocent-looking than the pair of you.”
“I can’t think of a better way for the pair of us to get killed,” Edwin objected. He hated sounding like he was afraid. That wasn’t the manly image that he wanted to portray for Danna, but there was a point when being manly crossed over into boldfaced stupidity. He supposed they’d reached that point.
“I would have to agree,” Taavi said. “That’s why I would not be at all disappointed if you said no.”
“We’ll do it,” Danna blurted out.
Edwin turned toward her and stared with his jaw dropping toward his chest. Had she really said what he thought she’d said? He started to form an objection, but it was interrupted by a knock on the door of the suite. Edwin glanced toward the door and then back at Danna.
“I thought you might say that,” Taavi said. “So, I’ve sent you a little gift.”
Not sure of what was on the other side of the door, Edwin put his hand on the grip of the pistol in his waistband and moved toward the door. He stayed back from the jamb and called out.
“Who is it?”
“Mr. Marinos sent us,” came the reply through the door.
Edwin glanced at the phone, expecting an answer.
“That should be your gift now,” Taavi replied.
Cautiously, with one hand still on the pistol grip, Edwin opened the door.
A man with dangerous, pale eyes peered in at him and said two words in the form of a question, “Mr. Douglas?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Adam Kapnos. Mr. Marinos sent my team,” the man replied.
“Adam Kapnos,” Edwin called out toward the phone.
“That’s him,” Taavi responded.
“You’re a cautious man, Mr. Douglas,” Adam smiled. “I like that, but can we come in?”
Edwin let out a breath and relaxed his grip on the pistol as he pulled the door open and allowed Adam Kapnos and three other men who had the same, cold, steady look in their eyes as their leader.
“So what are you carrying?” Kapnos grinned.
“Carrying?” Edwin asked.
“In your waistband?” he asked.
“A pistol,” Edwin answered. “I don’t know much else about it.”
Kapnos shook his head and laughed and then called out to the phone as he walked toward it. “You’re right, Taavi. Innocent… like a baby tiger.”
“I trust you have the documents they need?” Taavi asked.
“Marcus,” he said, nodding toward one of the three men who had followed him into the room. The man produced a very thick file and dropped it on the table beside the phone. Its weight made a heavy thud on the table.
“Sounds like there is a lot of information there,” Taavi responded. “Danna, Edwin, I’ll leave you with Mr. Kapnos and his team. Adam, keep me informed.”
“I will,” Kapnos said, before disconnecting the call and turning toward Edwin, who had moved up beside Danna.
Edwin intended to ask her why she had made such a rash decision but hadn’t yet had the opportunity to do so. His chance wasn’t going to arrive any time soon, he discovered over the next few hours as he, Danna, Kapnos and his team began to pour through the documents in the file and discussed their discoveries.
There was some comfort in the fact that there were three of the most dangerous-looking men he’d ever seen in the hotel suite with them. He also had to admit that he was caught up in the excitement and danger of the situation; though there was still that nagging in the back of his mind that he and Danna were way in over their heads.
After several hours of discussion and an overwhelming mountain of information to sift through, Edwin was forced to sit back, block out the sound of their voices, close his eyes and try to make out the forest amidst the individual trees. As an accountant, he often times received a cluttered box of statements and receipts to make sense of. This experience became an enormous asset and he began to unravel the tangled threads of information.
Because he had isolated himself and had become so quiet, the others had stopped talking and started glancing at him and then each other with silent questions. All eyes eventually directed their unspoken questions toward Danna.
Edwin started to laugh. It began with a low chuckle at first and then came out with a little more force as he stood up.
“This is hilarious, Danna.”
“Would you like to share it with me, love?”
“We’ve sorted through this mountain of information and our best bet still boils down to a conversation with Tryfonas Karahalios, Junior, just like we’d already planned. In fact, I think he might have the thing sitting on his mantel.”
Chapter Eleven
“There were others trying to find the box as well,” Andriy groused when they were back in Cy’s car.
Cy had laid down a streak of rubber as he accelerated away from the curb and down the street. He had no intention of sticking around and having a discussion about a box that was obviously one of the copies, especially after the Greek police were called in.
“What little I saw of them, they appeared to just be some people who were looking to buy a black market artifact,” he replied to Andriy, chuckling softly. “That little scene probably cured them of that ill-advised idea.”
Andriy allowed himself a brief smile.
“You’re probably right. Did you see the red-headed one wetting himself and moaning like a cheap whore?”
“I barely got a look at the other two who were hiding behind the table,” Cy joined in.
Andriy turned serious in the same time that it takes a switch to turn on a light. “I should have slaughtered them all. The pigs!”
There was a long pause while each was consumed by his own replaying of the events.
“We are no closer to our objective than when we started, however,” Andriy said with a tense voice. “The box was a fake. How many boxes will we go through before we find the right one?”
Cy recognized it as a rhetorical question and didn’t respond. Besides, the sudden transition that Andriy made from laughter to the desire to kill was a little bit unsettling. “We will study the next case and come up with a new plan.”
The thought of a hot shower and another good night’s sleep filled his mind before they’d even arrived back at the house. He was irritated with himself for being so weak. I’m a soldier, for God’s sake. I should have more self-control.
In spite of the angry thoughts concerning his weakness, he slipped into the shower and stood under the hot water when they a
rrived back at the safe house. He justified it by telling himself that it was better to be well rested and clear-headed in order to complete his mission, something a shower and rest would help him achieve.
He was even more disgusted with himself when he awakened with the sun the following morning. Shit! I was supposed to be up hours ago. Angrily, he drew Cy out of bed and led him to the table where he spread out the case file from the 1990 robbery of the museum in Corinth.
“What do you know about Corinth?” he snarled.
“We have some friends there,” Cy replied. “We will have a safe place with them.”
“We will need to go there and we need to leave now. I have already wasted too much time by allowing myself to become weak. We should have left for Corinth last night.”
“As you wish, Andriy,” Cy replied. “I will gather what we need.”
“Gather yourself and these case files. That is all we need,” he snapped, snatching the door open and all but dragging Cy out of the house by his ear.
The thought of failure and the consequences that would come with it didn’t appeal to Andriy. He had heard the rumors about the Hammer and was not eager to find out if they were true.
Ninety minutes after dragging Cy out the door, they were tapping on the door of the safe house in Corinth.
“Cy,” a cheerful voice greeted him as the door was pulled open.
“Demitri,” Cy said, stepping out of the way and motioning toward Andriy. “This is Andriy. He is on a special mission from Geneva. The orders come from the top.”
“It is a pleasure to welcome you into this home,” he said, bowing slightly.
“Yeah, thanks,” Andriy responded.
Andriy was led into the house and introduced to another resident called Nicholi, and then asked for the table to be cleared so they could go straight to work.
“We have no time to waste,” he began. “We need to know where to find the box that was stolen from the museum in Corinth in the year 1990. This box is said to have thousands of spirits, for lack of a better word, trapped inside of it. The Hammer wants this box added to his collection and I don’t doubt that it will be a part of a new move that is about to be put into motion in Ukraine. You’ve heard of genies, right?”