by Rob Jones
“Perhaps so,” Grudinin said. “But unfortunately, you will not be joining us on that journey.”
Samaras frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“My apologies, but I have my orders.”
When Grudinin drew his trusty Tokarev pistol from an appendix holster and aimed it at Samaras, the Greek archaeologist took a step back, horrified. His inherent trust had been betrayed. Neverov was even more shocked, raising his palms in a desperate plea to his superior not to do anything crazy.
“Sir!” he said. “What’s going on?”
“Orders from the Kremlin, Agent Neverov. Take a step back, please.”
“You can’t kill a man in—.”
The gun exploded in the small chamber, almost impossibly loud. The acrid smell of the smoke clawed at Neverov’s nostrils as Professor Samaras clutched his bleeding stomach and tumbled to the sandy ground. Reaching out with one hand in a desperate attempt to stop another shot, the ageing KGB colonel fired twice more into his head, killing him instantly.
“Out to the truck, Volodya.”
“I can’t believe you killed him.”
“Like I said, you have a lot to learn about this world. You think we want an academic bragging about this and writing papers on it? As of two minutes ago, this is the most important state secret we have. Tell the men to set more explosives. I want no evidence there was ever a passageway here, understand?”
Neverov mumbled a response and staggered out of the tunnel, still unable to believe what he had just seen. Scrambling up the slope back to the GAZ, he called out to Gubenko to bring more explosives. When Gubenko walked past him with his hands full of dynamite, neither man said a word. At the top of the gully, Lugovoy and Medinsky were packing the ancient statue into a steel box in the back of the GAZ.
When Neverov reached them, he leaned against the side of the truck and took a deep breath. Swigging warm water from a tin canteen, he watched Grudinin exit the passageway and walk back up the slope with Gubenko at his side. Then, when they were all gathered together, Grudinin ordered the tomb to be closed and Gubenko detonated the explosives, hiding the entrance forever.
Neverov wasn’t sure what he had witnessed here tonight, but he knew it was nothing good.
CHAPTER TWO
Present Day
Amy Fox awoke with a start.
Somewhere in the darkness her telephone was ringing. She reached out for the small lamp on her bedside table and switched it on, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the new light. Next job was to grab the phone and find out what was going on. She already knew from the ringtone that the caller was her boss, the former US Navy officer James Gates.
“Hello?” she was so drowsy she sounded like she’d been drugged.
“Up with the lark I see.”
She yawned loudly. “It’s five o’clock in the morning, Jim.”
“And I’ve already run ten miles, had a healthy low-fat high-fiber breakfast and got half the crap off my desk.”
“But what about when your family find out your secret identity as Superman?”
“My family already love that part of my life. My wife especially loves the red boots.”
Despite the early hour, Amy smiled and swung her legs out of bed. “I’m guessing this call isn’t about your wife’s strange taste in footwear,” she said, and then under her breath, “or men…”
“It certainly is not, Special Agent Fox. I’m calling to alert you to a possible situation we might have up in the Port of New York.”
A possible situation. That was Gates’s way of saying a large amount of shit was about to hit the fan in the biggest, ugliest way possible. She sighed. Another day, another dollar, right?
“So what’s up in New York, Jim?”
“You remember the briefing I gave you and the team when you finished the Atlantis mission?”
She felt her skin crawl as she recalled the image on the slide he had projected up onto the wall of the conference room. “How could I ever forget?”
“I have an update.”
“And?”
A slight hesitation. “Not over the phone. Can you get into the office?”
She checked her watch. “Give me a half hour.”
*
Gates was sipping a steaming black coffee when she walked into his office in FBI headquarters. He set it down on the desk and winced at her. “Damn it, that’s too hot. And thanks for getting in so fast.”
She threw her bag down on a spare chair. “I was intrigued.”
“Me too.”
“So what’s the story?”
He leaned back in his chair. “When I got in this morning I had a message to call a contact of mine in Amsterdam. It’s now half ten in the morning there. You know that time. It’s when you usually get out of bed.”
“A superhero with a sense of humor. Somebody pinch me.”
Gates smile but ignored the comment. “Pieter Klaver – that’s my Dutch contact, if you’ve been paying attention – told me that they just got some intel regarding a container ship called the Goa Express. It left the Port of Rotterdam six days ago, headed for New York City.”
“If you’re thinking of taking your wife on a cruise, I think she’ll be disappointed.”
“A junior employee with attitude. Somebody pinch me.”
“Hey, you’re talking to the Deputy Director of HARPA.”
“And as my deputy, you need to know that the Goa Express isn’t just bringing plastic junk into the United States. According to Pieter, the ship is being used by a gang of international smugglers to bring a small treasure trove of stolen relics into the country. Could be one of the biggest hauls we’ve seen.”
“And how is this connected to the slide you showed us?”
Gates paused before making his reply. “The strange statue of the eagle?”
“And more specifically, the message on it.”
Amy’s words were spoken softly, but they had stirred a deep emotion in the two old friends. A silence fell over the small room as they recalled the terrible message delivered to them by the keramos clay eagle statue. Gates has found it on an earlier mission in Mexico and it had immediately concerned him. Painted so carefully onto the feathered belly of the bird of prey, the simple Koine Greek lettering and the image below it had chilled the blood in their veins.
And the last word of God will unleash the Apocalypse and strike terror into Man.
The letters were painted on the terracotta clay statue and protected behind a classic ancient Greek black glaze, just like the horrifying picture beneath it. A terrible explosion blasting out of a mountain and leaving a wasteland of burning olive trees and corpses in its devastating wake.
Gates broke the tense silence. “The eagle statue is a priceless historical artifact but mostly remained a mystery until Pieter contacted me. That’s when I decided to show you the slide and bring you inside the mission. I’m bringing this up now because vague chatter has turned into something real. Now, Pieter’s work has paid off, and some of the information he gave me leads me to think we might find something similar in the haul. Specifically, he mentioned a statue of an ox. Made of painted terracotta clay just like the eagle, same size, same colors, same sort of horrific picture and with similar lettering.”
“Is that as specific as Pieter gets?”
“Yes, but the intel is good. I trust him. Tell me, do you know how long it takes a container ship like the Goa Express to cross the Atlantic?”
“I’m guessing six days.”
“Then you win a cigar. It’s sailing into the Port of New York right now. That’s the good news – the bad news is that he thinks there might be someone else tracking it. He thinks maybe more smugglers are trying to steal it before it gets to its final destination.”
“That makes things more interesting.”
“And dangerous, so stay on top of this one.”
He got up from behind his desk. Amy had known him long enough to know this meant the meeting was over and she should get on w
ith the job. She took the hint, got up from her chair and smiled. “And what about Dr Hunter?”
He paused in front of her, no smile. “What about him?”
“Has he got the green light to join us on this mission or not?”
Gates shrugged. “He hasn’t formally requested to join HARPA, but then you already know that, right?”
“I know.”
“Then the answer is no.”
“But we could use him, Jim.”
Gates tipped his head to one side. “Then he has to climb down off his little high horse and request to join the team.”
She sighed. “He's not like that at all.”
A smile finally appeared on the director’s face. “Wait a minute, are you two seeing each other?”
She rubbed the back of her neck and glanced away.
“Question asked, question answered.”
“As a matter of fact, we might have spent some time together off the clock. Some meals, maybe. Gone to a few bars together. Anything wrong with that, Director Gates?”
He raised his palms. “Hey, what you choose to do in your spare time is your business. It still doesn’t get him into HARPA.”
She held in the sigh of frustration she felt building. “We need him.”
“Sounds like you need him, but the team is another thing. There are a lot of relic anoraks out there, Amy.”
“We wouldn’t have gotten to Atlantis without him, and I probably wouldn’t even be here today.”
Another long pause. “All right, if it makes it easier for his fragile eggshell ego, you can tell him I want him on board the team.”
Amy stood on her tiptoes and pecked Gates on the cheek. They went back a long way and were more like family than friends. “Thanks, Jim. I knew I could count on you.”
He blew out a breath. “It’s tough being the bigger man, but I can rise to the challenge.” He walked back across to his desk and pulled open the top drawer. “I have prepared a small briefing file on the Goa Express and what you can expect up there, including some possible detail on the artifacts. As I say, it looks like it might link up to the operation I did in Mexico and I don’t like it. I want you to read it and then gather the rest of the team. You can brief them on the plane on the way to New York.”
She hesitated.
“Is there a problem? Major Ego needs a separate briefing?”
She pursed her lips. “Not at all. I’d like to run this past Sal before the others.”
“Why?”
“He mentioned something to me a few days ago – said he was worried about something. I want to make sure everything’s okay.”
“Good call,” he said. “And good luck.”
*
Amy arranged to meet Sal Blanco on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial because it was halfway between his DC apartment and the FBI headquarters building. When she rounded the western end of the path running to its north, she saw her old friend leaning against one of its famous pillars with his hands in his pockets. He was looking out across the water, lost in thought, the wind gently lifting the lock of silver hair above his forehead.
“Hey stranger.”
He turned. “Amy, sorry. I was miles away.”
“I saw. Anything you want to talk to me about before we get to business?”
He shrugged. “Just the fears of an old man. Nothing for a young fighter like you to worry about.”
She paused, hoping he might say more. When the silence stretched, she knew any hopes she might have harbored regarding him opening up to her were dashed. She decided to change the subject.
“I just spoke to Jim an hour ago.”
“So your message said.” Blanco had returned his gaze to the tidal basin at the bottom of the steps. “Do I need to start packing for somewhere exotic?”
“Not sure,” she said. “He wants us to go to New York.”
“That’s a no then,” said the man from Brooklyn. “What’s the gig?”
“He wants us to intercept a container ship coming in from Rotterdam. Says he has intel it’s got a big haul of smuggled relics on board. One of the biggest ever, potentially.”
He whistled. “That’s quite a comment coming from the master of understatement.”
She laughed. “Just what I was thinking.”
Blanco kicked at a small stone chip in front of his boot and watched some tourists making their way across the water. For a long time, he had felt old and used up, but since working for Gates he’d experienced a new lease of life. While just about all of his old friends were settling down to an easy life and enjoying the soft pleasures of retirement, Blanco felt like he’d been given a second chance to make a difference.
“Any more detail on what we’re looking for?” he asked.
“A possible partner to the eagle statue we saw in the briefing room after the Atlantis mission.”
Blanco went quiet. “Ah.”
“Exactly, but this time it’s an ox. It’s possible the relic is Greek and Bible-era.”
“How does we know this?”
“It’s the specialty of the smuggler who Jim’s Dutch contact is tracking.”
“We have a name?”
She pulled out her phone and started thumbing through to her notes. “Sure, hang on.”
Blanco’s eyes crossed back to the water. A cold, gray vista and dark omen of the long, bitter winter to come. “You know, who the hell wants to take a paddle boat out when it’s this cold?”
She smiled. “Here – guy’s name is Boris Markovic, a Serbian relic smuggler with a record as long as your arm. Served time for a number of antiquity-related offenses in Turkey and Italy as well as his homeland. Former Serbian Army corporal and all-round tough guy.”
Blanco let out a weary laugh. “Okay, thanks.”
Amy decided to have another go at prising the quiet man’s mind open once again. “Sal, a few days ago you mentioned to me that you were worried about something.”
His head slumped down for a second. “Geez, not this. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“No, you were right to, but I can’t help if you don’t tell me. I hope that I’m more than your boss, Sal.”
“You are. You know you are.”
“So, speak to me. Is there something wrong?”
“Not with me, no. It’s a family thing that I thought maybe might stop me working for HARPA for a while, but it’s not going to be a problem. I swear.”
She wasn't convinced. “Are you sure you don’t want to tell me what’s going on?”
“I said it’s no problem.”
“All right, fine.”
He smiled and the old, unworried Sal was back. “So what now?”
“I call the rest of the team and we fly to New York.”
“I’ll go pack.”
CHAPTER THREE
Scheduled to touch down at JFK International Airport just before midday, the HARPA jet was making good time on the short flight from the nation’s capital to New York City. Twenty thousand feet over northern Maryland and still climbing, Amy popped open her seatbelt and unlocked her swivel chair. Turning to face the rest of the small team, the first thing she saw was the question on Max Hunter’s face.
“Max, go ahead.”
“Is it normal for things to move this fast for a simple smuggling operation?”
“No, but this time we’re under pressure. Our intel about the Goa Express is worrying and there’s a real danger the relics are being tracked by another group. They could intercept the ship and Markovich’s haul before we get there.”
Hunter shrugged. “So, have some local law enforcement step in and keep it safe in the meantime.”
“This has already been arranged,” she said patiently. “We’re not fools. New York FBI agents are already on site and keeping the ship under surveillance until we arrive. If Markovich tries to leave the ship with the goods, he’ll be stopped. If there’s any attempt to raid the vessel and steal the artifacts before we can get to it, their orders are to do all they
can to protect them. But it’s our job and ultimately our responsibility, so that’s why we’re on a plane.”
“Seems fair enough.”
“Imagine my relief,” she said sarcastically.
Hunter gave her a wink and a wry smile. “All right, all right. I was just saying.”
“He was just saying,” Lewis repeated. The former US Marine liked to banter with the team and had enjoyed working with them since finishing his history doctorate. Watching Amy and Hunter battle for supremacy was as good a pastime as any, even if they all knew who was going to win in the end.
Quinn glanced up from the glow of her laptop and scanned the faces of the team. Shrugging, the young goth repeated Lewis’s words, deadpan. “He was just saying.”
Before Jodie could add to it, Amy clapped her hands and brought her team to attention. “All right, settle down with the gags and let’s get to the briefing. We have a lot to get through and you need to know much more detail about what’s going on before we go in.”
“Sounds ominous,” Hunter said.
Amy returned his wink. “Then listen up, soldier.”
Hunter gave a mock salute. “Yes, ma’am.”
“As you all know, we’re on our way to New York to intercept a container ship. What you don’t know is that we think we might have an idea about one of the artifacts on board.”
“Ah,” Lewis said. “Another reason for the urgency?”
Amy nodded. It was good to know his mind was on the job and not on his new family. “Sure. What’s concerning Jim is a series of photographs his Rotterdam contact provided as part of the Dutch intel on the Goa Express smuggling operation. Most of the images are nothing more than the usual snapshots of artifacts and relics taken for auction catalogues or museum books.”
“But?” asked Jodie.
“But one of them – a partial shot of the top of a statue has raised some concerns due to its similarity with an object already seized by Director Gates.”
“Don’t tell me,” Quinn said. “The object in question is the statue Jim showed us in the briefing after the Atlantis mission?”
