by K. T. Tomb
“If you two are okay,” Kapnos said, “I’ll have one of the guys go back to the hotel with you and me and the other two will stay here and wait for the authorities.”
He emptied the contents of the box onto the hearth, reattached the hasp and then handed it to Danna. “We’ll play it off as a drug bust, but you’ll need this to give to Taavi.”
“Thanks, Adam,” Edwin commented.
“We might have had three bodies to explain if you hadn’t held them off ‘til we got here, huh?” he grinned, slapping Edwin on the back. Kapnos glanced at Danna and then spoke to him in a whisper. “You need to get her out of here.”
The man that Kapnos sent with them, Marcus, insisted on being behind the wheel, which was just fine with Edwin. As the adrenaline began to wear off, he was beginning to shake, though he wasn’t in nearly as bad of a state as Danna. In spite of his own struggles with what they had just endured, he preferred to hold her body against him as they rode silently in the back seat of the car.
He and Danna were escorted to their room and ushered inside. Marcus spent a minute making certain that the suite was empty and then nodded his head at the two of them. “I’ll be right outside the door,” he said, pulling it closed behind him.
“You okay, love?” Edwin asked.
He wasn’t prepared for what came.
“I’m so sorry, Edwin,” she sobbed, pressing her face into his chest, shaking as her emotion poured forth.
Edwin held her in silence and allowed her to let go of what she had held onto since they’d left Tryfonas’ house, possibly even before. He did not care about the passing of time while he held her and he didn’t even attempt to speak to her, he simply waited.
“I should never have agreed to this,” she mumbled into his chest after some time.
“I agreed to do it as well,” he replied.
“That would have been of little consolation if I’d gotten you killed,” she broke down as she barely forced those last words from her throat.
“You didn’t get me killed,” he responded, guiding her toward the sofa and holding her as he lowered her down onto it beside him.
“No, but I got Tryfonas killed,” she responded.
She hadn’t gotten him killed. Tryfonas had started the chain of events that led to his demise all on his own. The moment that he, his father, his brother and their friends had decided to break into the Corinthian Museum and steal the artifacts, the box had drawn evil into his life.
He took a breath and opened his mouth to point out those facts to her, but chose to hold his tongue.
Whereas he had been worried about her silence before, he had begun to worry about her inability to stop crying. He wasn’t sure which was worse.
“I’m sorry, I’m such a mess,” she said after a few moments, rising up from the sofa and drawing several tissues out of the box on the table.
Edwin smiled at her but said nothing. She wasn’t a mess. She was justified in letting go of her emotions. He wished that he was able to do the same, but the capacity simply wasn’t in him.
“I’m not such a tough, resourceful and vivacious tomb raider now, huh?” She attempted a smile.
“You’re just fine,” he replied. “It’s been a difficult night.”
“Difficult,” she repeated the word with a heavy sigh and then turned toward the balcony doors, which she opened and passed through.
Edwin, still seated on the sofa, watched her go, wishing he’d been able to come up with a word other than ‘difficult.’
Realizing that it was better not to leave her alone in such a vulnerable moment, he got up and followed behind her. He paused to lean against the doorjamb just outside the door, giving her space, but still being present.
“I was stupid and vulnerable,” she began without warning. “Tryfonas had a certain flair about him that drew me in.” She snorted and shook her head.
Edwin wasn’t sure how much he wanted to hear about her affair with Tryfonas, but he didn’t interrupt her.
“Of course that flair was covering up all sorts of lies. I should have known.”
Edwin didn’t need to speculate further. He’d watched Tryfonas closely enough to know what sort of man he had been.
“I guess it all finally caught up with him,” she said, spreading her arms toward him and beckoning him to come and hold her beside the balcony rail.
Edwin stepped forward, took her into his arms and stood quietly, holding her against him and feeling the salty breeze of the Gulf of Corinth on his face.
Chapter Fifteen
“This time I know that was the exact same couple that was in Athens,” Andriy bellowed. “Who are these people and why do they keep getting in the way? I want to know and I want to know now!”
“We will do the best we can, Andriy,” Cy responded.
“We lost Nicholi back there and everything is going to be traced back to us,” Andriy said.
Cy tried to remain calm in spite of Andriy’s temper raging out of control. He drove calmly, trying to avoid attracting any unnecessary attention. When he slowed in order to pull over to the curb in front of the safe house, he received another earful.
“Are you an idiot, Cy?” he screamed. “This safe house is the first place that they are going to look. Keep driving!”
“But we need the files and some of our equipment, Andriy,” Cy countered. “If those case files are found, they’ll be able to anticipate what we’re doing. We could walk right into a trap.”
“You have three minutes,” he snarled. “Make certain that you grab everything.”
Cy and Demitri hurried to gather everything they could in the space of three minutes or less. They returned in two and a half, but Andriy was not satisfied.
“You took your sweet time doing that. Are you trying to get us captured? If you are, let me know now,” he growled, jerking his pistol from his waistband and placing the muzzle against Cy’s head. “I can make it very easy for you to be found.”
“We are ready to go,” Cy responded, swallowing the lump that clogged his throat and staring wide-eyed at Andriy. He was certain that, with the madman’s flaring temper, his life might be over at any moment.
“Drive,” Andriy snapped, thumbing the weapon’s safety back into place and withdrawing the gun from Cy’s temple. Instead of pushing the pistol back into his waistband, however, he kept it in his lap as though he was ready to carry out the execution of his driver at any moment.
“Demitri, do we have any intelligence assets who can find me some information on who that couple is?”
“We have a number of assets throughout Greece,” Demitri replied.
“I need information and I want it yesterday, understand?”
“I understand.”
“I need more men,” he demanded. “There were at least five people shooting at us. We were lucky we lost only one. Tell them to be in…” He scanned the file folder for several seconds becoming even more frustrated. “Where in the hell is this Olympia Archaeological Museum?”
“It is near Pyrgos,” Cy replied in a quiet tone, hoping that it would calm Andriy.
“Tell them to meet us in Pyrgos. Do we have a safe house in Pyrgos?”
“I think we do,” Demitri replied.
“You think we do? You need to know if we do. We cannot fail at this. We will bring this box to the Hammer or sacrifice our lives in the attempt.”
“Yes, sir,” Demitri and Cy responded.
Though he was frustrated that someone else was after the box, the box had been struck by a stray bullet and fallen open on the floor, proving it to be another fake. Otherwise, they might have been trapped inside the thief’s home. As it was, in spite of their loss, they had been able to escape, though Andriy was certain that he’d put a bullet through the heart of one of them before they got out.
Andriy took out the last case file and began to study it. The information was almost 40 years old and was, most likely, colder than the stare of the Hammer’s two bodyguards. Andriy shivered as
he recalled how death was present in their eyes and how those eyes followed him and gazed upon him the entire time that he had been in the chamber with the Hammer. Other than robbing another museum or two or perhaps a half dozen, the 1977 case file was his last option for finding the box. Before he did that, however, he needed to know who he was up against.
In the first house, the two had appeared to be simple tourists who had stumbled into the wrong neighborhood searching after some ancient knick-knack, but in the thief’s house, he had noticed, first, that the blubbering redhead wasn’t with them. Second, the woman was dark-skinned and had an extremely intelligent look about her, probably saving the lot of them by her quick reaction to his entrance; all but the thief, of course. Finally, the white man with the woman, who had protected her before, had started shooting at them from the floor behind the sofa. His shot had slowed Nicholi so that the team of men, who rushed in behind them, could finish him off.
Andriy had seen men like those who had stormed in on them before. There had been small units of the same sort of men like the Hammer’s two wolves all over Ukraine and in Russia. Wherever they went, death followed closely behind.
Their presence made him wonder a great deal about who the man and woman were. Certainly, they had an innocent appearance to them, but with that sort of support, they had to be assets of either the American or British.
“We have men on their way to Pyrgos,” Demitri announced from the back seat. “And our assets are looking into the man and woman that were in the thief’s house. Additionally, we have directions to the safe house in Pyrgos. We will be welcomed there and our accommodations supplied.”
“Good,” Andriy returned in a sharp tone. “We will not rest until we make some sort of sense of this file. The leads will be cold and we will need every bit of intelligence we can come up with if we are to track down this last lead.”
“Understood, Andriy.”
“Good,” he replied. He looked toward Cy whose eyes were focused straight ahead and avoiding any possibility of confrontation with Andriy. “How far to Pyrgos?”
“Approximately three hours,” Cy replied. “The area is mountainous and the paths require a slow, steady pace.”
“Demitri, if you are going to sleep, you better spend the next three hours doing it,” Andriy ordered, reclining his seat and attempting to rest as well. “There will be much to do when we arrive.”
Chapter Sixteen
“It was the same man,” Edwin said with certainty. “I recognized his voice. There were others with him. Two, I think, one of which I wounded and Kapnos’ men finished off.”
“There were three others with him,” Danna corrected.
Taavi sighed heavily. “This entire thing has gotten completely out of hand. There seems to be an unlimited supply of bad guys to help out whoever this guy is. Given what you have told me already, it is probably some of the pro-Russian operatives in Ukraine. There is a ton of political tension surrounding that area and it could set off an explosion at any time. My assumption is that LOKI is planning something that will provide the necessary spark to do just that. What’s obvious is that we are in way over our heads.”
“North Korea, Estonia, Ukraine, Syria, Venezuela, China and India,” Edwin started off. “In a way, with all of that going on, you can say that Pandora’s Box has already been opened.”
“Hmmm.” Taavi considered the comment for a long moment, and then made a sudden move to sit up and straighten some papers on his desk before clearing his throat to get back to business. “In any case, I believe it is best to pull you off of this case, Danna. It’s just become much too dangerous.”
Danna had to admit to herself that things had gone well beyond the usual discomforts and difficulties of the jobs that she’d done before. She was fearful for her life, but even more so for Edwin’s. Edwin had proven himself to be a very willing protector, but his luck was sure to run out at any moment. She couldn’t risk that.
His intelligence and persistence had been a great asset as well, but he was a little too naive when it came to dealing with the likes of the professionals they were facing; for that matter, so was she. The fact that she’d had to prep the pistol before Edwin could fire it was proof enough that Taavi was probably right.
They were in well over their heads.
Taavi watched her face for a reaction and waited for the response that he knew was coming. She glanced at Edwin, who was looking down at his hands and fiddling with his thumbs. She sighed heavily, not being used to accepting defeat, and opened her mouth to speak.
“We’ll finish the job,” Edwin announced, interrupting her before she could even form the words of concession on her lips.
Both she and Taavi looked at Edwin, but it was Taavi who spoke first.
“I appreciate your persistence, Mr. Douglas,” he began. “But you must not have been listening very closely to what we’ve been discussing. You are in competition with a billionaire and an organization, which clearly has extensive connections throughout Greece, as well as professional gunmen by the handful at their beck and call. It is likely that the two of you are being looked into as we speak and that there will be an attempt on your lives—”
“I understand all of that,” Edwin interrupted. “But there will be an attempt on our lives anyway. Running away and hiding will make no difference. You can’t push something like this under the rug and forget that it ever existed.”
“Yes, but—”
“Let me finish.” He looked up from examining his hands and leveled his gaze at Taavi.
Taavi spread his hands in surrender to the request and leaned back in his chair.
“You told us before that you believed that we were the only ones who were able to work out a way to solve this case. You said that, like Pandora, it was our innocent appearance that made it possible to surprise the forces of evil and use their over-confidence against them, just like in the mythological account.
“If that’s true, then for us to bow out now is the equivalent of, pardon the illustration, flipping the finger at the entire world and saying that our lives matter more than theirs. We’ll be hunted by these people regardless of where we are or what we do.”
He turned and looked at Danna with sad but determined eyes.
“If we’re going to die anyway, then we might as well make it count for something. We might as well die with Pandora’s Box safely hidden away from those who would use it for evil gain.”
There was a long pause while Taavi considered Edwin’s words. Danna couldn’t keep her eyes off of Edwin. She’d known from the very beginning that his quiet demeanor was a veil over a greater strength, but she would never have been able to predict what she had seen develop in him.
Though she regretted the fact that she sort of tricked him into the test by convincing him to join her and charming him into wanting to go out on an adventure with her, she couldn’t help rejoicing in the fact that he had met her challenge and gone well beyond her greatest expectations.
“I appreciate your sentiments, Mr. Douglas,” Taavi responded. “What you have added to these last two recoveries has, I have to admit, surprised me greatly. But this is not your call to make. I’m pulling the two of you off this case. I can’t, in good conscience, allow—”
“We’re staying on the case,” Danna interrupted.
“Neither is it your call to make, Danna,” he said. “It’s just too dangerous. This last case is flimsy at best. The leads are cold and finding any clue that will lead to recovering the box is a long shot. You’ll be sitting ducks for these people to attack at any moment. No, I can’t allow you continue and that’s final.”
Danna looked at Edwin and their eyes met. Without a single spoken word, they made an agreement between them. Danna knew that it made no difference who, what, why or how… he was determined to finish the job they’d come to do. His decision was made in that moment. She knew it as she watched him look back down at his hands and start fiddling with his thumbs again.
She in
haled deeply and let it out. “Fine, Taavi, you win. We’re off the case.”
“Now you’ve come to your senses, at last,” Taavi grinned. His face turned suddenly serious. “We’ve already made arrangements for your protection. Kapnos has a car waiting in the alley outside the back door. You can slip through the door and into the car without being seen and be transported to a secure location that even I don’t know about.”
“Fine,” Danna said, rising from her chair. “I guess this is goodbye, then?”
“I guess it is,” Taavi replied, standing as well. “You’re going to be very difficult to replace.”
Taavi turned toward Edwin, who had stood as well. “It has been a pleasure getting to know you as well, Mr. Douglas. The two of you find a good place to settle in together and enjoy your life together. You both deserve it.”
Chapter Seventeen
Earlier that morning, before their meeting with Taavi, Kapnos had come into the hotel suite to brief them on what had taken place at Tryfonas’ house after they’d left. When he’d finished the briefing, he’d smiled at Edwin and then tossed him a box of cartridges for the pistol.
“You probably need to reload,” he’d said.
Edwin had pulled the pistol out of his waistband. Putting it there had become a habit along with getting dressed in the morning. He looked at the weapon without any clue of how to put more bullets into it.
“Let me see that,” Kapnos had said, accepting the pistol from Edwin’s hand. Without being too obvious and embarrassing him, he’d turned the weapon into a position where Edwin could easily see the magazine release button, pressed it and caught the magazine as it dropped into his hand. Without another word, he opened the box of cartridges and began thumbing them into the magazine until it was full.
Edwin watched without comment, hearing Danna as she connected a call with Taavi to let him know when they would be coming into his office. He watched Kapnos slap the magazine back into the handle of the pistol, slowly pull back the slide, showing how the bullet was pulled from the magazine into the chamber. He showed him the safety and flipped it on and off with his thumb. He then pressed the magazine release, caught it in his hand and slid the slide back to eject the shell that was in the chamber.