He looked down. Flames lit the scene below enough for him to let loose one last hail of lead down on the terrorists rushing the open gate. He took aim at the lead guy, the man closest to the gate. Amazingly—before he could fire, the guy’s head exploded. Then the second guy’s head disappeared as well. Then the third. This turned the tide. The attackers swung around and ran back toward their boats and vehicles.
His heart leaping with relief and joy, Adam looked toward the mainland, high up the mountain. Yes. Tiny flashes accompanied by faint, distant popping sounds. It had to be Tripnee.
Amazing sharp cookie that she was, after stopping the charge, she immediately took out the rocket launchers. This done, she went to work on the cars and boats, which began to explode and burst into flames. A pack of terrorists tried charging along the causeway back toward the mainland, intent on taking out this new shooter on the mountain. But the men leading this group started dropping like flies, turning the others back. Jihadis scrambled toward the remaining boats, cast off lines, and began motoring away. More boats burst into flame. Four sank. But two got away into the blustering night.
Chapter 25
Limenas Geraka
E cstatic to still be breathing, Adam drove the four-wheel motor bike down off Monemvasia. The howling meltemi felt invigorating. The sting of gnarly metal foot mounts gouging his bloody, throbbing feet was not only not a problem, it was totally okay. What did pain matter? He was alive.
As he maneuvered down steep switchbacks, Adam re-established radio contact with Tripnee and Sophia, and they made a plan. Tripnee would stay in place high up the mountain slope on the mainland ready to ward off any returning terrorists. Sophia would bring Dream Voyager in off the windswept Aegean to Monemvasia quay. Adam would meet the boat at the quay, help with the docking, and then dive down to the sunken terrorist’s wrecks to search for nukes and information.
The ancient iron gate lay twisted, battered, and far enough ajar for him to accelerate straight through and out along the causeway. But the road was blocked by the Helios’ shattered hulk. Testing the quad bike’s limits, he drove off the roadway down the boulder-strewn slope to the water’s edge. Here, timing his move between waves, he gunned the bike through foot-deep water, hoping to squeeze past the crumpled bow. The wheels spun at the halfway, deepest point, spewing seawater, going nowhere. Uh-oh. An extra big wave reared up, sweeping toward him. Finally, a moment before the wave hit, the tires caught, propelling the bike up the steep slope out of its reach.
Back up on the roadway, he stopped the bike and pulled himself up onto Helios. He hobbled through the wreck, leaving bloody footprints. As he suspected, the three prisoners he’d tied up were gone. Also gone were any additional laptops or documents. Too bad, they might have had intel crucial to rounding up the remaining nukes and maybe the whole jamaat.
Adam drove out onto the quay just as Sophia maneuvered Dream Voyager alongside. Incoming rollers kicked up by the howling meltemi whipped the boat up, down, and sideways, smashing it against the unyielding stone dock. Fortunately, Sophia had put out a full set of fenders, which cushioned the impact. Also, she’d coiled mooring lines on the starboard bow and stern. Forgetting his lacerated feet, Adam, watching for his chance, grabbed and secured the stern line to a bollard, then did the same with the bow line.
Adam climbed aboard Dream Voyager, lugging the laptop and three nukes. Sophia took one look at his blood-caked ankles and wrists and bloody feet, and made him sit down so she could clean and bandage his wounds. Again, something about her gaze, when their eyes met ever so briefly, made him look away.
“Are those two prisoners from Bora still aboard?”
“They got free and attacked me,” Sophia said in her matter of fact way. “I had to shoot ’em. Then I tied weights to the bodies, and rolled ’em overboard.”
Time to search the sunken boats. Adam pulled on his wet suit, mask, rebreather, headlamp, and, wincing, swim fins. First, he dove on the three boats sitting on the bottom adjacent to the quay. All three had exploded and been gutted by fire, leaving no useful clues. And despite an inch-by-inch search, he found no nukes.
The fourth boat, submerged a hundred yards from the quay, was a similar story—except for a still-intact waterproof case. Grabbing it, he swam for the surface and back to Dream Voyager.
Time to get out of there. With the wind screaming, the sea surging, and the boat leaping erratically, Adam and Sophia powered north eleven miles. Driving upwind the whole way, they pounded straight into foam-spewing rollers up the Peloponnese coast to Limenas Geraka, a quaint little town nestled in a deep, hidden, wonderfully still fjord. Here they Med-moored alongside a half dozen other boats, and met Tripnee, who had traveled overland from her sniper’s aerie.
As night turned to day, Adam and Tripnee stretched out on the cockpit cushions while Sophia dug into the ship’s freezer and pantry to prepare and serve a downright fabulous meal of ribeye steak, sweet potatoes, and canned vegetables. Surprising and delightful.
The trio savored the quiet of the fjord. Exhausted but too wound up to sleep, they sipped wine and talked about their perilous previous twenty-four hours.
Tripnee said, “The boats that got away were the Al-Gazi ”
“The Al-Gazi,” Adam said. “was the big, austere karavoskara we saw at Finikas. I had a bad feeling about that boat.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
And the other boat?”
“Was The Crescent Moon. Get it? Symbol of Islam.” Tripnee turned to Sophia. “Did you fly drones onto the boats that got away?”
“No, the winds were too strong and erratic.”
Adam said, “The terrorists just lost a lot of people and boats. They have to be reeling and need to regroup. But my guess is they’ll be more determined than ever to use their two remaining nukes.”
Sophia nodded. “Can you imagine what just the two remaining bombs could do? One in New York and one in London?”
With renewed desperation to find the remaining nukes, they poured through the paper documents from the watertight case.
“I can’t read any of this stuff,” Adam said.
“Me, neither,” Tripnee said.
“It’s what they do,” Sophia said. “Everything is written in unreadable code.”
The three of them turned to contemplate the Helios laptop. What in hell was the password?
Struck by a thought, Adam said, “It can’t be,” but typed in “Allahu Akbar.” Amazingly, that was it. He scrolled through a seemingly endless list of the computer’s files, a treasure trove of information sure to bring down the Cyclops jamaat and save the lives of millions, maybe billions. Talk about euphoria, their spirits soared.
Sophia became especially animated. “Wow. I can’t believe you came up with the password.”
But it was so much information, it would take days, maybe weeks to go through it. Adam’s exhilaration gave way to a realization this was going take time, patience, and sustained alertness. Suddenly, his deep exhaustion caught up with him. Barely able to keep his eyes open, he stumbled below, stretched out, and instantly plunged into deep sleep.
He popped wide awake in the middle of the afternoon. His feet, wrists, and ankles were still on fire, but he felt refreshed and eager to begin pouring through the digital files. Careful not to disturb Tripnee, who was snoring softly, he limped into the salon where he found and opened the laptop.
Strange. Unbelievable. The computer’s files had disappeared. Completely. Maybe deleted by a security program? Clever, devious, and tech-savvy—how could these people be so determined to murder millions?
More resolved than ever, but increasingly frantic, Adam reached for the waterproof case. The coded material—and the laptop and phone from Deniz—would have to be hacked and deciphered by Admiral Jeppesen’s people back in Washington DC. But that would take time that they did not have. So, he continued studying the documents, determined to find some telltale clue, something, anything. He examined every scrap of paper, front and back, unti
l the salon table was covered with the coded documents, and the case sat empty.
Hmmm. Running his hands over the case’s inner lining, he felt a slight bulge. Getting a screwdriver, he pried up the lining bottom. Voilà. Adam found himself holding Greek Coast Guard registry papers for the sunken 74-foot terrorist motor-sailer ketch Crescent Moon and also a small card with a snippet of cryptic directions to a location on the island of Spetsai.
Chapter 26
Spetsai
T ripnee, yawning and stretching, sat down beside Adam at the salon table. After telling her the computer had mysteriously been wiped clean, Adam showed her the card and the boat’s registry papers.
“Interesting,” he said, “both point to the island of Spetsai, north of here.”
“The two boats that got away,” Tripnee said, “raced off in that direction.”
“That settles it. Next stop, Spetsai.”
With Sophia still asleep in her cabin, Adam and Tripnee brought in the mooring lines, weighed anchor, and skimmed quietly out of the idyllic fjord. The wind remained strong on the open sea. Adam set a course toward Spetsai, sails close-hauled, across the mouth of the Gulf of Argolis, some thirty-two miles distant.
Sophia burst up the companionway and marched into the cockpit. “It’s too rough. The forecast shows fifty-knot meltemis strafing the Cyclades for the next three days.”
Tripnee turned to Adam. “Are you nuts? You know I hate sailing in that.”
Adam looked at Sophia with mild surprise. Then he said, “The Cyclades are eighty miles east of us. Here, we’re way over on the fringe of that weather system. And the farther north we sail, the closer we get to the Saronic Gulf around Athens, the more protected we’ll be from the wind.”
Only partially mollified, the women took up positions in the cockpit, sullenly eyeing the weather. Well, at least the two of them were bonding over something. But why did it have to be against him?
As they moved north, sure enough, the wind did gradually decrease. After a while, looking considerably more cheerful, Tripnee said, “It was in Spetsai and nearby Idra, that the Greek War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire first began in 1821. A big inspiration for the war was an extraordinary woman named Bouboulina, who commanded the Spetsiot fleet.”
Sophia frowned, hunched her shoulders and drew her knees up to her chest. “A terrible war.”
Undaunted, Tripnee continued, “Local legend, which I read about in your Greek Waters book, Adam, has it that Bouboulina was one gutsy woman. Without her, the Greeks never would have won. It was Bouboulina who destroyed the Turkish fleet at Navplion with fire ships.”
“Gotta like it,” Adam said.
“Not,” Sophia harrumphed.
Standing and strutting a bit, Tripnee said, “It goes to show that if you can skipper one ship, others may join you. And if you lead a fleet, you can forge a new future.”
“Okay,” Sophia said, “it does that.”
Spetsai came into view late in the afternoon. The hilly six- by four-mile island was dotted by a sparse pine forest.
Perhaps making an effort to be more sociable, Sophia said, “They made a big effort to plant all those trees, but neglected to water them. So, they’re barely alive.”
“Sounds like you know the island,” Adam said. “What else can you tell us?”
Sophia smiled broadly. “It’s an interesting place. The main harbor and town around on the far side are popular with tourists. One reason being no motor vehicles, except motorbikes, are allowed.”
“It wouldn’t be good to sail into the center of things,” mused Adam. “Better to anchor somewhere out of the way.”
A little after sunset, they dropped anchor in a small cove on the west side of Zoyioryia Bay, at the far northwest end of the island. Below deck, each filled a backpack with the particular tools matching their skill set. Then, in the twilight, they dug three mountain bikes out of a stern lazerette, loaded them into the dinghy, and motored to a sheltered beach. Dragging the skiff well up from the water, they pulled on their packs and carried the bikes up through the woods lining the shoreline to a road that, according to their map, circled the island.
An old man hummed by on a Vespa motor scooter.
Not knowing who to trust, and not wanting to alert their quarry, they chose not to ask directions. Instead, they set off on the bikes determined to figure out the card’s enigmatic directions with no help from locals.
Sophia lagged behind. Over their earpiece radios, she said, “A little card with the words, ‘Red gate west Spetsai’ isn’t enough to go on.”
“I dunno,” Adam said. “Why hide the card if it’s not important?”
“It’s definitely worth checking out,” Tripnee said.
Sophia’s silence spoke volumes, and she made no effort to catch up.
“Adam and I can handle this just fine,” Tripnee said. “We’ll meet you back at the boat.”
Sophia smoldered for a while, muttering, but then caught up.
“Hey,” Adam said, “we’re a team, remember?”
As the road followed the steep mountainous southern shoreline, it undulated up and down and snaked around bend after bend. Pedaling through the deepening twilight, they shined their headlamps on gate after gate, but none were red. Until, after several miles, there it was, a red gate. Seemed a little too simple, really. But, who knew?
The driveway beyond the gate led down onto a promontory that jutted out into the Argolic Gulf. Getting out his night-vision goggles, Adam saw a stately white villa on the headland and, far below to the right and left, idyllic beaches lapped by gentle waves.
What’s that? The rumble of motorcycles. The trio scrambled to get their bicycles off the road behind a clump of bushes. They’d just ducked out of sight when a group of motorcyclists pulled up at the gate. Adam, peering through the foliage, recognized the beard, the straight black hair, the scowl of one of the men—it was Basham Bilel, captain of the Al-Gazi.
The bikers opened the gate, drove through, closed and locked it behind them, and continued down out onto the headland. But they did not go clear to the house. Instead, midway, they turned off on some sort of spur road, and dropped out of sight as they traversed across the steep mountainside.
“Fuck, shit, hell,” Tripnee blurted out. “Déja vu. I read about this place. This is Villa Yasemia. It’s the setting for The Magus. And it’s where John Fowles wrote the book.”
“Yeah? Amazing.”
Adam and Tripnee, with guns drawn and night-vision goggles in place, crossed the road, climbed over the gate, and followed the bikers. Sophia stayed behind, both as lookout and to deploy her drones.
The narrow spur trail was nearly invisible and would have been almost impossible to find if they had not seen the motorcycles turn onto it moments before. The hard rock surface showed no tire tracks that Adam could see. But Tripnee, drawing on her childhood experience tracking game with her Choinumni shaman father, intuitively, instinctively sussed out the path as it snaked across the steep slope. Abruptly, the trail ended in an expanse of smooth rock.
Studying the blank stone, Adam detected the edges, the outline, of a huge hidden door. Silently pointing it out to Tripnee, he motioned for them to withdraw. Fifty yards away, they hunkered down among boulders.
“It’s coming back to me,” Tripnee whispered. “In the novel, Fowles wrote about secret underground bunkers built here by the Nazis during World War II. I assumed they were fictitious. But they’re actually real.”
“Could be the gang’s main headquarters,” Adam whispered. “Might be enough intel here to round up the entire organization. And maybe the last two bombs.”
Tripnee was exultant and amped up, “At last. The nerve center. After all this effort. After you almost getting killed over and over. What a fucking ordeal. But this makes it all worth it.”
Adam smiled, nodding.
Tripnee kept on, “Finally. Our persistence has paid off. We’ve just found the whole shebang—including, I hope to God
, the last two bombs.”
“Trouble is,” Adam said, “how’re we gonna quietly get through that rock door? We’ve got to find a back entrance, another way in.”
Adam looked around for any drones, but saw none. Assuming their drone falconer teammate was listening in over her earpiece—and probably watching through a drone camera, he asked, “Sophia, are you tracking this? I think we’ve found a whole cave complex. Can you use a heat-sensing drone to find a ventilation tunnel or a back door or something?”
Oddly, there was no response.
Adam repeated his questions, but again there was only silence. Something was wrong. He and Tripnee started up the trail to check on Sophia.
KA-BLAAAAM
Behind them, a huge explosion blew the massive stone door clean away. Taking off their night goggles, they watched towering flames pour up from the opening, leaping forty and fifty feet into the night sky. As they backed away, more explosions deep in the cave complex shook the earth. The flames raged, growing in intensity. Then several smaller columns of flame rose up in the near distance around them. Probably the secondary entrances Adam had asked Sophia to find.
His heart sank. Another treasure trove of information lost. But was Sophia okay?
“Sophia, are you okay?”
They turned again to race back up the trail.
Suddenly, Sophia’s sweetly accented voice sounded in their earpieces, “I’m okay. Don’t worry about me. See if we can salvage anything from that cave hideout.”
Breathing a sigh of relief, Adam turned again to study the flames, but he and Tripnee were driven back by the intense heat, which seemed to only grow stronger and stronger.
Chapter 27
Baltiza Creek
A dam paced back and forth in Dream Voyager’s main salon, pondering the cave inferno and the erased laptop. “All that intel lost.”
Cyclops Conspiracy: An Adam Weldon Thriller Page 12
