by Rob Jones
“Max!”
“Consider it a date.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Amy stamped on the accelerator pedal and forced the automatic gearbox to change down a gear. The George Washington Memorial Parkway was quiet tonight so she pushed it as much as she could, exceeding the fifty miles per hour speed limit by a long way and raising a curious eyebrow on Hunter’s face.
“You always drive like this?” he asked.
She shot him a glance, then turned back to the road. The sun was setting through the trees on their right and flashing like a strobe on her face. “Like what?”
“Like your arse is on fire and the only water’s at the end of this road?”
She left a long pause for effect. “There’s nothing wrong with my driving.”
“You’re doing seventy in a fifty.”
“It’s an emergency. Besides, I’m checking my mirrors and I haven’t see a traffic cop since Crystal City.”
“You mean a dinner emergency?”
Amy said nothing. The BMW coupé’s engine purred like a lioness as the gears changed up again and the revs dropped. Hunter glanced up through the windshield and tracked the path of a passenger jet on a glide slope descent into Ronald Reagan International Airport. The sun flashed orange on its silver hull as they left Potomac Yard and cruised into Alexandria.
As Amy stepped on the brake and slowed the car, he leaned over and checked the speed gauge. “Thank heaven for small mercies.”
“Huh?”
“The last thing we need tonight is a speeding ticket.”
She grinned and pulled off Washington Street onto Queen Street.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“What?” he said with more emphasis.
“You’re worse than Quinn.”
He was looking out at the historic red brick homes and trying hard not to respond to her. It failed. “I am not worse than Quinn.”
“Sure you are, Max. Who cares if we get a ticket?”
“It would have slowed us down.”
She laughed. “Didn’t you steal a car in Paris with Jodie?”
“It was an essential part of the mission.”
“Take it easy, Mr Morality,” she said. “We never got a ticket.”
“There’s always a next time, and if you ask me…” Before he could finish, Amy cut him off and pointed off to the left. “That’s the place right there. Parking lot looks full. Don’t worry, we can park here. It’s residential parking and we don’t have a permit, so this is a real illicit thrill for me, Max. We could get caught at any moment.”
He rolled his eyes. “Can we just get on and eat?”
She pulled in and cut the engine.
*
Still smiling from her little joke, Amy blipped the BMW’s locks and walked over to the restaurant in the last of the day’s light. As she walked into the building, a tall, lanky man saw her and smiled.
“Special Agent Fox!”
“How many times, Eduardo! Please, call me Amy.”
They shook hands with a friendly smile and Amy turned to Hunter with a look urging him to restrain his sense of humor. “This is Eduardo, the Maitre d’.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Eduardo said.
“Pleasure is all mine.”
“Please, Amy,” Eduardo said. “Follow me. I have saved your favorite table.”
*
When Hunter saw the menu, he almost fainted. Being more of a burger and fries man, the long list of exquisite meals involving beau oysters, Hamachi Crudo, bouillabaisse and Skate Grenobloise was a tad intimidating. Peering over the top of the daunting carte du jour, he saw Amy was having an entirely different experience.
“Check out the trout amandine,” she purred, eyes widening with hunger. “And the duck à l’orange looks pretty tempting, too. What do you think?”
Hunter checked around the table to see if anyone else was listening. Lowering his voice, he said, “I just found the Burger Américain down the bottom, so I think let’s do it.”
She rolled her eyes, but couldn’t resist a smile. “Really? You have all these amazing meals to choose from and that’s your pick? Come on, Max – my treat.”
“I’ll stick with the burger thanks, and I bet they think calling chips pommes frites means they can charge about ten times more for them as well.”
“Fries.”
“Chips.”
She gave him a withering glance. “The price is on the right of the menu.”
Hunter’s eyes stared at the figure. “Wait, is that in American dollars?”
“Sure is. What did you think it was?”
“I thought it was the chef’s waist measurement! And check out the price of the roasted scallops!”
“I’ll roast your scallops if you don’t keep your voice down. I know people in here.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
She sighed. “I’ll order.”
When the food arrived, Hunter picked up his burger and took a large bite. After savoring the high quality of the beef, he said, “What about Jim’s theory on the Creed maybe being involved?”
She shrugged. “Jim leans toward the wilder explanation. Always has done. If there’s one thing Mr Gates loves, it’s a good old-fashioned conspiracy theory.”
“The Creed are no conspiracy, Amy. You know that better than anyone.”
“That’s not exactly what I meant.” She took a sip of some wine, her eyes lighting up as the deep blackcurrant flavor rolled over her tongue. “The Creed are real, of course. What I mean is that Jim has never been a big fan of Occam’s Razor.”
“The belief that the simplest explanation for something is usually the most accurate?”
“You got it. Most people would look at what happened on board the Goa Express and look at the intel on Neverov and accept it, but not Jim. His mind goes straight to the sons of the Illuminati and Occam’s Razor goes right out the window. Man, this is great wine. You should try some.”
She lifted the glass to his lips but he held up his hand. “I’ll stick with the beer, thanks.”
“Have it your way.” She took another sip and giggled. “Great wine.”
“I take it I’m driving back tonight then?”
“Huh?”
“If I didn’t know you any better, I’d say you were getting a little tipsy, Special Agent Fox.”
Sharp eyes darted up to him and the faintest of scowls appeared on her face. “Who says you know me at all, Dr Hunter?”
“I thought our brave stand together against the Creed in the Arctic wastelands had put us on first name terms.”
Another shrug. “You started it with that Special Agent crap.”
“How strong is that wine?”
“How should I know?”
After a pause, Hunter checked no one could hear them and lowered his voice. “I hesitate to bring this up, but has Director Gates said anything to you about the Creed’s castle back in Bavaria?”
She paused and set down her fork. Asking him to clarify what he meant was unnecessary – ever since Gates’s debriefing at the end of the Atlantis mission, one detail had played on all their minds.
The pit full of broken, gnawed human bones found inside the castle’s dungeon.
She gently shook her head, partly in answer to his question, and partly to try and rid her mind of the terrifying visions his words had evoked.
“Nothing, no.”
A long silence. Then Hunter asked, quietly, “What do you think was down there?”
“I have absolutely no idea, Max. It gives me chills just to think about it.” She saw his expression change. “You have a theory, don’t you?”
He took a drink and leaned back in his chair. “As a matter of fact, I do.”
She sighed. “Wanna tell me about it?”
“Oh yeah, sure.”
He took another bite of the burger and looked right into her eyes. “You look beautiful tonight, by the way.”
“By the way of talking about the discovery of something that eats humans. Thanks.”
“Sorry. Timing never was my strong suit.”
She chuckled.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“No, what?”
“Suits aren’t your strong suit, either. Or ties.” She peered over the table at his tie with a grimace. “For crimes against fashion, I find you guilty on all counts.”
“What’s wrong with my tie?”
“Forget about it.”
He drank some beer and started to relax. “I’m sorry, all right?”
“You’re forgiven, and thanks, by the way. Now, wanna give me the low down on your little theory?”
“I’ll get straight to the point.”
She muttered under her breath. “I wish you would.”
“Have you ever read any Homer?”
“Not a word. I never read any classics at college. Not my thing.”
“No problem, here’s the bluffer’s guide. Homer’s most famous work is probably the Iliad, an epic poem written around three thousand years ago.”
“Topical, then.”
He gave her a look. She really was beautiful.
“You can laugh, but I think the ancient texts are just as relevant to us today as they ever were. In fact, I think they contain truths we have long ago forgotten.”
“I can believe it.”
“Anyway, in the Iliad is a reference to something I think might explain what they found in the castle’s dungeon. We think maybe it’s the earliest reference in the world to what I’m talking about.”
“I'm not liking the sound of this, Max.”
“Hear me out. The Iliad charts the fortunes of King Agamemnon and Achilles during the closing phases of the Trojan War, and involves lots of exciting sieges and fighting, but that’s not what we’re interested in.”
“We’re not?” She took another sip of wine.
“No, we’re interested in what is to be found lurking in the sixth scroll, line one hundred and two.”
“Whoa, that’s specific.”
“Hey, I read that thing all over again just so I could brief you on this. That’s above and beyond the call of duty.”
“You read the Iliad just to tell me that?”
“It’s called historical research, Special Agent Fox.”
“Tell me, do you have the scrolls tonight?”
“No, I always walk like this.”
She shook her head and tried to hide her smile behind the wine glass. “You may continue, Dr Hunter.”
“Gee, thanks. So, there are twenty-four scrolls making up the poem, and in the sixth one, Homer describes how Bellerophon, a famous hero in ancient Greek literature, arrived in Lycia and must destroy a goddess – that’s the word Homer uses. He describes a fire-breathing monster with the head of a lion, the tail of a serpent and the body of a goat. Guided by signs from heaven, Bellerophon destroyed her. Homer names this monster as the Chimaera.”
The smile faded from her face. “As in Chimera?”
“Exactly. This meal really is first class.”
“Max! How can you think about your stomach at a time like this?”
“At a time like what?”
“You just sat right there and told me you think the Creed are feeding people to some sort of mythical beast from the ancient world!”
“Oh yeah, that.”
She waved it away. “Ridiculous.”
“Why?”
“For one thing, how do you keep a thing like that secret for thousands of years?”
“How did they keep Atlantis secret for thousands of years?”
“Come on, Max.”
“Maybe it’s not thousands of years old. Maybe they have some sort of genetic engineering nightmare going on in a secret lab somewhere?”
“No way. This is crazy.”
“Is it, though? We know whatever killed those people in the castle doesn’t fit the description of any known animal, and we also know that as far as secret societies go, the Creed are about as ancient as you get. Maybe those myths and legends are not so fictional after all. Maybe Homer was describing a real event.”
“Ha! You said that Bellefonte guy killed it!”
“I know I did, but how many lions are there in the world? Maybe this chimera creature the Creed are keeping alive with human chum is just one of many, or the last survivor of an ancient breed of creatures now gone from our world.”
“Human chum?”
“It just sort of popped into my head.”
“Can we change the subject?”
“Sure. Any news on the fire lance that Jim Gates made disappear into thin air?”
“He didn’t make it disappear into thin air, Max. It was transferred to a secure location for comprehensive analysis. We both know it could potentially be the most powerful weapon on earth, or at least somewhere right up at the top of the league of destruction. It’s important to keep it locked up.”
“I can’t argue with that, but what about the Atlantis site?”
“Not this again.”
“It should be a UNESCO site and any excavation work there should be supervised by UNESCO archaeologists.”
“Don’t tell me, led by Dr Max Hunter?”
“I’m the most qualified person to do it, so why not?”
“Because the US Government has decreed otherwise and sent a military special ops team to protect the site.”
Hunter sighed. “It’s the most important discovery in world history, Amy, and apart from a handful of senior people at UNESCO and the US Government, no one knows about it.”
“And that’s the way it’s going to stay, at least for now. You want other nations up there, getting hold of weapons like the fire lance? You want terrorists up there?”
“Fine. We can agree to disagree.”
“No,” she said flatly. “You’re wrong.”
“You’re a tough woman, Amy Fox.”
Amy finished her wine and gave him the vaguest hint of a smile. “C’mon. Let’s get back to the city. We have a flight first thing tomorrow morning.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Vladimir Neverov didn’t take his eyes off the old man. The professor of Greek antiquity had been studying the ancient ox statue for an hour, carefully scratching away layers of the chipped black glazing and muttering to himself as he scratched down notes on his pad.
Neverov sighed but he knew these things took time. The former KGB officer was a man of great experience, a man who had spent three decades searching for what was now in his grasp. No point rushing the last few critical moments that would finally lead him to his destiny.
“Are you sure this is the right one?”
He turned and saw his old friend and colleague Lugovoy at his side. The big man from Volgograd had led a tough life and had the hard, leathery face to prove it. Two tired, angry eyes stared out at the world from a battered face, criss-crossed with knife-fight scars and other legacies from a life of bad luck and even worse choices.
“It’s the right one, Vasya. I would know it anywhere. Don’t you remember?”
Lugovoy’s eyed momentarily flicked to Gubenko, over in the corner. He was eating an apple with a flick-knife, stopping for a second to spit some chewy skin on the floor. Disgusting, he knew, but that was Gubenko. Turning back to Neverov, he shrugged. “Time travels at different speeds for different people, Vova.”
Neverov gave a shallow, absent-minded nod and drank some vodka; looking at Lugovoy’s face, he guessed his old friend’s theory was right. “I remember,” he said quietly, still staring at the statue in the professor’s experienced hands.
And he did. That terrifying night all those years ago. He was still a young man, back then, driving through the Egyptian night to Mount Sinai. If he closed his eyes it was almost as good as being there all over again. Old Colonel Grudinin sat beside him, moaning about the mission and arguing with the Greek archaeologist he later shot dead in cold blood.
Grudinin w
as long gone now, of course. He died in the early nineties not long after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Drank himself to death in his dacha out in Peredelkino and found face-down on the carpet with an empty bottle of vodka in his hand.
And a note in his pocket.
A note addressed to Vladimir Neverov, sealed tight and marked confidential.
A note that changed the entire course of young Vova’s life.
But that was a long time ago, Neverov thought with a sigh. Nearly thirty years and he had changed from a young man full of optimism to an old, bitter wreck determined to find what Grudinin had told him about in the note, no matter what the cost.
“All I remember was the uncomfortable drive,” Medinsky said, knocking him from his thoughts.
Two of the Spetsnaz men, Turgenev and Yahontov, grumbled something about old timers and walked outside for a smoke.
“All I remember were the explosions,” said Gubenko. “I like explosions. You should have let me blow up the Goa Express when we raided it. Imagine it sinking in the bay.”
Neverov ignored him and he went back to his apple. He sighed again and checked his watch. It had already taken too long to track down a specialist prepared to work in such unorthodox circumstances, which in this case meant a cheap motel on the Belt Parkway just north of JFK International Airport. Most archaeologists, even retired ones, it turned out, had been reluctant to meet a group of anonymous Russians and authenticate a relic of dubious provenance, as one professor from Connecticut had put it. But the money they were paying had bought someone with gambling debts, and that someone was Dr Earl Crozer.
“Well?” Neverov said. “You've been looking at it for hours.”
The old man from New Haven paused a beat, blinked and turned to him. “You want me to get this right?”
“How much longer?”
An old KGB habit he couldn’t break – always answer a question with another question.
“Ten minutes and you will have the entire translation.”
“And what about your man in the FSB?” Neverov asked Lugovoy. “Do we have the name of the smuggler in Beirut?”
“Nearly. Like the statue, these things take time. Wheels have to be greased.”
