Cash Cassidy Adventures: The Complete 5-Book Series (Plus Bonus Novels)

by K. T. Tomb

  “Indeed, Chyna, by the way, cocky much?” she quipped as they took a seat by the window which overlooked the vast university grounds. The night was dark but the lawns and pathways were elegantly lit. “Why did you choose to mention the Minoan Mask?”

  “I can’t help it; its absence from the horde still baffles me. How could we have found every single piece from a list of over a hundred treasures and the only thing missing was that mask?”

  “Do you think there’s a story behind its disappearance, Chyna?”

  “No Lana, I’m sure there’s a story behind it.”

  Just then, Chyna caught a glimpse of a man hurrying into the exhibition hall. He looked very familiar but as she tried to get a better look at his face he vanished behind a group of people who stood talking in the doorway. She dismissed it and turned her attention back to Lana and their conversation.

  “Well, tell me what you know,” she pressed.

  Chyna put her drink down on the table between them and leaned forward. She took her Smartphone from her jacket pocket and swiped her code on the screen.

  Pointing to a map of the Grecian Sea, she said, “I think it’s here.”

  “That’s the middle of the ocean Chyna,” Lana scoffed. “Miles from Crete. How would that have happened?”

  “That’s the part we have to investigate, my friend. Do you remember the story of the Dorian Invasion? How Artemesia and her father invaded Crete even though Minos had agreed to their peace terms and married her?”

  “Vaguely, I’m not as up on my ancient Greek history as I used to be.”

  “She betrayed him because after the marriage he placed her among his wives and concubines instead of deposing his first wife Pelephone for her. She was a princess after all, how could he count her as a sixth wife? So she plotted with her father and they invaded Crete anyway but not before she stole all the treasure that Minos had not placed in the treasury and took them to sea with her aboard the ships that she commanded.”

  Chyna paused to sip her drink.

  “Go on,” Lana urged her.

  “Well Artemisia’s ships were pursued by a fleet from Heraklion and they engaged them in battle just south of Thira. I think that they lost their course either while fleeing or maybe they came upon a storm but they may have been lost or wrecked further north near Mikonos. In any case, the satellite imagery I found indicates a mass off the coast of Cesme, which I think is the ship bone yard of Artemesia’s fleet.”

  “Oh dear, Chyna. Have you told anyone else about this?”

  “Absolutely not, Lana, I’ve been waiting for the opportunity to speak to Professor Cartwright about it but everything has been revolving around the opening.”

  Lana nodded her head in agreement and lifted her glass from the table to make a quiet toast.

  “Well then here’s to our next adventure and prolonged stay in the Mediterranean.”

  “Cheers to that!” Chyna agreed; neither of them were looking happily at the prospect of returning to New York in the dead of winter. The state had been experiencing the most severe December weather on record for years.

  As the girls sipped their drinks and looked about the room, Chyna saw the man again. He darted quickly out of the exhibition hall and headed straight for the exit. Before he stepped through he turned to look around the room. Chyna almost dropped her glass as she stood quickly to meet his eyes. It was Ethan Doyle and he didn’t seem pleased to have been spotted. He ran out the door and into the night. Soon after Professor Cartwright came bursting from the hall. When he saw that Ethan had already gone, he turned and walked to where the girls were standing by the window seats.

  “Did you see him?”

  “I did, professor. Why was he here?”

  “That I don’t know,” he replied sadly. “What I do know is that he made off with the docket that was in front of the empty case we put up in honor of the Minoan Mask.”

  “Oh, that’s hardly a threat, it only had information in it that we intended for public knowledge anyway,” Chyna said, relieved and taking her seat again.

  “It’s true, but now he knows just as much as the rest of us do.”

  “Not exactly,” Lana chimed in, lifting her glass to her lips again.

  He looked at the two of them quizzically.

  “Professor Cartwright, I think you should have a seat with us,” Chyna said.

  As the last of the dawdling crowd began to leave the exhibition hall, Chyna summed up her story of speculation to the professor about the location of the mask. There was a look of utter amazement on his face as he slowly leaned back in the chair and put his hands into his pockets. He came up with a pack of Rothmans’ cigarettes in one and a shiny silver lighter in the other. Chyna knew from the time spent in Knossos that he only smoked when he was nervous or deep in thought, or both as was the case at that moment.

  As he lit the cigarette, he said, “Thank God the Greeks haven’t implemented any of those pesky anti-smoking laws as yet.”

  The girls laughed, indeed most Mediterranean and “Near East” countries had not yet done so.

  “Will this be the next expedition for Found History then, Chyna?” he asked.

  “Most certainly, Professor,” she replied, “and we were sort of hoping that you would come along with us. We both know you’re a venerated deep sea diver.”

  “That I am,” he said, smiling, “and I would be delighted to come along. I think we need another person in our little troupe though, someone with in-depth knowledge of the area, the customs and who can grease a few wheels for us if the need arises.”

  “Fariha!” both girls said in unison.

  The professor smiled and nodded his head.

  ***

  Fariha Katsakis was a long time associate of Professor Cartwright’s. She had been among his student archaeology teams since her first year in his graduate program at the University of Aberdeen. When she graduated she had been immediately snapped up by the Greek Archaeological Service as a chief field agent. Whenever there was something of interest happening or the professor was on a dig in the region, Fariha did what she had to in order to be attached to the case. It had been Fariha whom Ethan had tried to assault in Knossos.

  As she took her seat around the table on the balcony of Chyna and Lana’s hotel suite, Fariha looked extremely excited.

  “It’s not often that I get invited to secret archaeology meetings,” she joked, smiling brightly.

  “It’s not often that we hold them,” Lana replied, smiling back.

  Chyna opened the door to let the professor in and they too took their seats. Lana unrolled the charts and opened the reference books to the marked pages.

  “Fariha, by now I know Cartwright has filled you in but I do hope he did so carefully. After seeing Ethan Doyle lurking around at the opening the other night, I’m not too convinced that we aren’t under surveillance.”

  The others looked at each other quizzically but Chyna remained as serious as a judge.

  “You’ve got to remember that Ethan had his own ideas about Artemesia’s ships and often told us that he was only on our dig to gain some credibility with his father so Ethan could convince him to fund the excavation that he really wanted to do; which was to hunt for the site of the Battle of the Heracleidae. Now Ethan assumes he knows as much as we do, but someone with as many resources as he does is bound to take out a few insurance plans and from what we know about him, he can be a ruthless son of a gun.”

  “Chyna, do you really think he could pose a serious threat to us?” Fariha asked skeptically.

  “You do remember what he tried to do to you in the field, right?”

  Fariha nodded silently.

  “This could become very dangerous, very quickly for any one of us. Be very cognizant of this, Fariha.”

  Her counterparts all nodded in agreement. Lana rose from the table to push the beverage cart out from the living room and invited everyone to make themselves the drink of their choice while they awaited the arrival of their lunch. Dr
inks in hand, they chose to lean over the charts on the table for the rest of their discussion, the shade from the huge potted palms on the balcony and the cool breeze made for a comfortable atmosphere to work in. Fariha produced more detailed digital maps of the coastline near Cesme and showed the group the shadowy formation on the ocean floor.

  “Of course, it could just be a coral bed, Chyna,” she mentioned. “But I think the water is too deep and cold right there for coral formations.”

  “That is why I suspect it’s what we are looking for, Fariha.”

  “So what’s our next move?” the professor asked Chyna.

  “We need to get ready to go to Turkey,” she replied. “Got any connections over there, Fariha?”

  “As a matter of fact, there’s a young archaeologist on the historical society board in Izmir that I can call. He should be able to get us any clearance we might need. Of course you know that in order to bargain for the possession of the Minoan Mask, should we find it, we would have to turn over and possibly agree to curate everything else that we find there.”

  “Of course, we would be excavating in Turkish maritime space so anything found legally belongs to them. All I’m interested in is the mask. It would be priceless to have it to complete our exhibit along with maybe Sir Evan’s cuneiform tablet of the labyrinth’s contents.”

  “Any luck with that, professor?” Lana pitched in.

  “I did manage to get in touch with the head of the museum that houses it in Heraklion, but I think it’s going to be a power struggle between the Athenian and the Cretian authorities. I can only hope that they will come to some agreement over it seeing it’s a bit disjointed from the Heraklion exhibit as it stands right now.”

  “That’s true,” agreed Fariha.

  Just then there was a knock at the door, their lunch had arrived. As Lana went to the door to let the room service waiter in, the rest of the group moved to fix themselves fresh drinks. None of them heard the closing of the sliding door on the balcony above them.

  ***

  Chyna awoke to the sound of her cell phone ringing. She snatched it up from the bedside table in her hotel room and looked at the clock, it was 3 A.M. Who could be calling at that hour of the morning?

  “Hello,” she said as she answered the phone. She didn’t even look at the caller ID.

  “Chyna,” said the professor, “I’m sorry to call at this hour but I’ve got to go back to Crete this morning. I left quite a few of my research papers and equipment there to be shipped back to Scotland but I think I’ll need them if we’re to go straight on to Turkey as we planned.”

  “Fair enough, Cartwright. When will you be back?”

  “I’d say tomorrow afternoon. Are you going to go ahead and make the travel arrangements?”

  “Sure am! The girls and I meet at 9 to finalize all the plans.”

  “Okay! Well, count me in and I’ll see you all tomorrow afternoon.”

  “See you then. Travel safely.”

  The call cut off before he could say another word in reply. It seemed strange but Chyna was too tired to think about it and went straight back to sleep.

  The girls heard nothing from Professor Cartwright the next day. All their attempts to reach his cell phone, his base camp in Heraklion and his hotel in Athens came up empty. The attendant in Heraklion said that he hadn’t seen Cartwright at all since they had left for Athens the month before. Chyna started to worry.

  “We can’t leave for Izmir without him,” she told the others. “What if something’s happened to him?”

  Lana walked into the living room and sat down with a grim look on her face.

  “He didn’t board his flight yesterday morning. He was booked on it, but the airline said he never made it onboard.”

  “Do you think he’s been kidnapped?” Fariha asked.

  “I’m not sure what to think, Fariha,” She replied, then turning to Lana she asked, “Did you make contact with his students, the rest of the dig team from Knossos?”

  “I did, the day before yesterday. They were supposed to pack up the base camp and be on a flight into Athens for a debriefing this morning. I haven’t heard from them though.”

  Chyna felt crestfallen. She put her head in her hands for a minute then said.

  “Check their flight, Lana. See if they left Heraklion and if they arrived in Athens. See if they made it to the hotel and then if you can get them on the phone.”

  “Right away, boss lady.”

  Turning to Fariha, Chyna said, “I told you this could get dangerous.”

  As it turned out, the team left Crete and arrived the night before in Athens. What happened to them after that was the mystery. No one at the hotel had seen them and their rooms were never checked into. The baggage claim clerk remembered the strange group of foreigners and even showed Lana the receipts he had collected from them for their checked luggage but the trail went cold there at the ground transportation concourse. They seemed to have disappeared off the face of the Earth, just like the professor.

  “Lana, pack our things quickly. We’re leaving.” Chyna announced.

  She pulled her laptop out of her bag and quickly booked them a hotel room across town, right across the street from the U.S. Embassy. Then she turned to Fariha.

  “Do you have your bags in the car?”

  “Yes, I came ready to leave. I was hoping Cartwright was already here.”

  “Good. You’re coming with us. Give me your cell phone.”

  Fariha looked puzzled and she hesitantly took her phone from her pocket and handed it to Chyna. She opened the phone and removed the SIM and Media cards then threw it to the ground and stepped on it. Fariha gasped in horror.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if we’ve been bugged so now we have to be more careful and take some extreme precautions.”

  Chyna went into her bedroom to retrieve the contents of the room safe. She took her motorcycle jacket from the hanger it was on, slid it over her shoulders and entered the digital code. She pulled out two small black cases and a tiny tool kit which she set on the table before them. Lana joined them at the table. From the first kit she took out a Blackberry® and placed Fariha’s electronic chips inside it.

  “Military grade security,” She said as she handed it to Fariha. “No one can track that GPS unless they work for the C.I.A. and as soon as it’s activated they will know to place a full security block on it.”

  “Aren’t you changing yours as well?’ she asked.

  “We don’t need to,” Lana said smiling. “We’re always flying under the radar. Precautions.”

  “I am going to sweep our phones for external bugging devices though. Just in case someone decided to get smart.”

  Chyna pulled a tiny device from the tool kit and ran it several times over both her and Lana’s phones. They were clean. From the second bag, Chyna took out a SIG Sauer®M-11 pistol and unceremoniously loaded it. She placed it on the table and stood to strap the holster to her left shoulder, then holstered the gun. She took her firearms license, a spare clip of bullets and a wad of cash from the bag and placed them in the inside pocket of the sporty leather jacket she wore.

  “Y’all ready?” she asked both women as she picked up her things from the table and stood.

  Chapter Two

  They arrived at the hotel under the cover of night, bypassing security and were let up to their penthouse rooms by way of private elevator from the exclusive underground parking lot.

  Lana and Fariha were amazed that Chyna had found such secure lodging almost instantaneously that morning but Lana less so that Fariha. She knew how resourceful her boss was and even more so, how well connected. When they alighted from the elevator they were ushered straight into a living room by two bodyguards in black suits who had already swept the suite for bugs and intruders. One would remain stationed inside the elevator while the other manned the private parking bay and the elevator doors.

  When they had left, Chyna turned to the others and said, “Well ladies, let’s
get down to business.”

  She rolled out two corkboards from the storage closet in the entryway and positioned them side by side in front of the living room windows, essentially blocking the view in and also protecting any information they would have spread out on the table or pinned up for study. Lana pinned up Fariha’s more detailed satellite image of the supposed wreck site on one board and the photos of all the missing members of their team on the other.

  “When is Oscar going to get here?” she asked Chyna.

  “He should be here within the hour,” she replied, checking her watch.

  “Who’s Oscar?” Fariha asked, pouring herself a glass of Coke from the refrigerator.

  “He’s our tech guy from Found History,” Lana replied.

  “We are hoping that since the kidnapper didn’t have the opportunity or the technology to bug Lana’s and my phones, that he hasn’t thought to use the GPS feature to locate us and therefore won’t expect us to use it to locate the professor.”

  “We’re pretty good with computers and that stuff but since we might be dealing with international espionage here, we didn’t want to take any risks so we called in the big guns.” Lana added.

  “I’m impressed,” Fariha said. “I’m thinking of sending in my resume and application to Found History now. The professor was right; archaeology isn’t as boring as everybody thinks.”

  The girls laughed, but their light-hearted moment was cut short by the sharp ringing of Chyna’s cell phone. She dug into her pocket and answered. It was John Lightyear, the exhibition curator at the University of Athens.

  “Hi John,” she said. “What’s going on?”

  “Chyna, I really don’t know how to tell you this but I just got word from the university administration that the students from Professor Cartwright’s team never made it to their hotel or back to their office this morning.”

  “Yes John,” she said softly, “we know. They went missing yesterday, right from the airport. That’s where their trail went cold.”