by Nick Thacker
He straightened the car out and lined it up in the right lane once again. There was a bit of a pull to the left, and he assumed the undercarriage had received some sort of damaging blow, either to the alignment or the tie rod, but he wasn’t about to stop and check.
We’re alive, and we’re still moving, he thought. That’s good enough for now.
48
Ben
THE SUV CONTINUED ON AT its breakneck pace. Reggie kept an eye out for the police and their Interpol friend, but they were nearly at their destination and there was — so far — no police or Interpol in sight.
There were more switchbacks, but Ben took these slower, not wanting to risk the integrity of the truck frame any more than necessary.
They passed through the city near the end of the route, but they were still clear of any pursuers. At their exit, Ben pulled the SUV off the highway and then down toward the water in the distance. Julie had been right about the area — it seemed to be just a desolate road in the middle of nowhere, a church and its steeple the only structure in sight.
They passed a large behemoth of rock jutting upwards, blocking their view of the tiny church next to the ocean.
“Skaros Rock,” Julie said. “A popular tourist attraction.” Ben watched her zoom in on the map a bit more, waiting for connection to load and fill in the details. “And it looks like the road ends up there.”
Ben saw it. There was a sign, but he couldn’t make out any of the writing. It would be in Greek, anyway, but he assumed it was describing the area — Skaros Rock, the Theoskepasti, the hiking trails that led down to both. He slowed down, letting the bright headlights illuminate the area, including the sign.
And, next to the sign, a car.
“Is that —”
“That’s it,” Reggie said. “It’s got to be. Ben, we found it.”
The car they had been chasing was parked at the base of a small hill, right next to a large trailhead that seemed to wind around and up the backside of Skaros Rock, which loomed close by.
No lights were on in the lot or the car, and it was only by the light of their headlights they were able to see the two objects at all.
“That’s it,” Julie said,” but there’s no one there. I don’t see any people anywhere.”
She was right. Ben couldn’t see anything outside the beam of light from their brights, but he knew there wouldn’t be anyone hanging around anyway. Whomever had kidnapped Sarah wouldn’t be waiting around by their vehicle.
“They’re either up on the rock, down by the church, or they found another path that leads down to the water.”
“Pull up,” Reggie said. “Let’s get out and look around.”
“Sounds like it’s a bit of a hike down to the church. No roads or anything, and it’s about a 20-minute walk. Rocky and difficult to traverse at night.”
Ben saw she was reading a review of the site. Thank God for modern technology, he thought.
“What’s the call, then?” he asked. “They’re probably not taking a leisurely sightseeing excursion with Sarah, so I think Skaros Rock is out.”
“Right,” said Reggie. “And the church seems to be just that — a tiny chapel, used for services maybe, but mostly a tourist attraction now. I don’t even think there are any houses around.”
“So maybe they took her down to the shoreline?” Julie asked.
“Could be,” Reggie said. “Let’s at least head toward the church. Any trails that head to the water will probably start there, or at least we’ll pass them on the way.”
Ben nodded, guiding their vehicle into the lot over the bumpy, dirt-packed road. After their near-death car chase, the 15 km/hr speed they were traveling now felt downright slow, but Ben knew they were traveling about as fast as the car’s suspension on the dirt road would allow.
They reached the parking lot — two spaces next to each other that had been carved out of the flat dirt, one of which was occupied by the black sedan that had taken Sarah — and Ben parked. Julie and Reggie fell out of the vehicle before it had even stopped, and Reggie ran toward the path that headed downhill. Ben and Julie followed.
The path was indeed rocky, and Ben nearly lost his balance a few times as they navigated the dark, narrow trail. It turned and buckled back on itself a few times as it descended, and every now and then they could see the church’s steeple and dome roof poking out above the horizon.
Ben was no expert hiker, but he’d had more experience than most, thanks to his years spent at national parks. He’d spent most of his career before meeting Julie at Yellowstone National Park, with a brief stint at Rocky Mountain National Park, and then in Alaska at Denali, where he and Julie served together for a short spell before the CSO got off the ground.
In addition, all three were in great shape, thanks to Reggie’s constant harping on them to maintain their fitness and good eating habits. Ben even had an unspoken competition with Reggie, both men stubborn and competitive and wanting to outdo the other in just about everything.
Julie, for her part, was simply the type of person for which weight loss and fitness came naturally. She was a born athlete, with a physique to match, and though she hadn’t pursued sports during school and college, her body was as sharp as her mind.
The hike took them all of ten minutes, as they jogged down most of the hills, slowing only to take stock of the winding blind turns and to ensure they wouldn’t trip over anything.
As they neared the church at the bottom and slowed their pace a bit, Ben voiced the concern that had been growing in his mind. “We got down here all right, but it’ll take twice as long to get back up if we have to. If they didn’t come this way…”
He didn’t need to finish the thought.
“I’m with you,” Reggie said. “But I know we’re on the right track. That was their car, for sure. And there’s nothing out here but the rock, the church, and —”
He paused, staring down at something.
“Look,” he said. “Over here.”
Ben stared at where Reggie was pointing. There was a patch of grass that had grown up over a stretch of flat land. The grass ended at the edge of a cliff, but Ben could see a section in the center of the patch that had been trampled by human feet. Even better, he could tell it had been trampled recently.
“That’s fresh, right?” Julie asked.
Ben and Reggie nodded, but Ben spoke. “Absolutely.” He walked closer to the patch of grass, taking out his phone and turning on the flashlight. He held it up and pointed it at the ground, in the spot where the grassy area met the rocky dirt path that led the rest of the way to the church. He moved the light around a bit, then knelt down to examine the ground. “There’s even the back of a boot print right here, where the grass starts.”
It was unmistakable. He wasn’t a trained tracker, but he’d spent a lot of time in the woods. Humans were unbelievably harsh on the natural world, especially when they were in a hurry and not necessarily worried about not leaving a trail. The boot print was the only one he found, but it was clear that whoever had moved through the grass toward the edge of the cliff was in enough of a hurry that they had stomped around on the long strands of grasses, creating a visible path as obvious as a crop circle in a field of corn.
Best of all, it didn’t look like a path made by only one person.
“That’s it,” Reggie said. “You guys check it out, and I’ll just run around the church real quick to make sure it’s empty.”
Ben nodded and looked up at him as he jogged away, toward the church. Only then did he take a real look at the place he was in, lit subtly in the dying light of the evening. It was everything he’d imagined a Mediterranean seaside chapel to be — whitewashed stone walls, blue-domed roofs. The chapel itself was made up of a few small buildings, built to connect to one another. The tallest of these was the one closest to the cliff’s edge, and it featured a domed top sitting on an octagonal base. Next to it, set a bit lower, were three bells. The chapel and church compound surrounding these
two prominent features was small, and Ben imagined a service inside its walls could host perhaps 30, possibly 40 people at most.
He noticed a few embers of light spilling off the rising moon gently cascading toward the church on the hill. This point of land, jutting out and reaching toward the small, shadowy island in the middle of the Santorini ocean, was a secluded spot, devoid of nearly all life. The rocky, tough terrain Ben was walking over would be difficult to work, so the area would have gone mostly unused for farming or ranching ever since the land sprung up millions of years ago from the mouth of the great volcano.
He saw Reggie disappear around the side of the church complex and decided to take a look at the path leading through the grass, to get a better view of the waterline down below. It was only a few hundred feet through the trampled line to the edge, but Ben stopped short when he got there and caught his breath. Julie was suddenly next to him, holding his arm.
The route down wasn’t a cliff, but it was close. The slope was dangerous and the trail went straight down, and it would be difficult to navigate even in daylight. Now, without flashlights or sunlight to help, he knew they’d be better off sliding down on their rear end. The straight part of the slope ended about thirty feet away, and twice as many feet down, before cutting a hard right angle to the left and disappearing out of view. Ben could only see water beyond that point, but he assumed the trail continued like that, turning back in on itself and dropping dozens of feet with each pass, the sections all parallel to the shoreline hundreds of feet below.
No way we get all the way down there in time, he thought. He knew Sarah and her captors probably hadn’t gotten through the Skaros Rock trail as fast as he, Reggie, and Julie had, but he also knew that they had a serious head start. On top of that, they knew where they were going.
“That’s… quite the trail,” Julie said. “Looks like it’s not even a public trail, but like a natural way down the side of the mountain.”
“No joke,” he replied. Please be in the church. Please, Reggie, find them hiding in the church so I don’t have to stumble down this mess.
At the same moment, he heard a faint engine noise. A gurgling and sputtering sound, followed by a gentle humming. He looked down at the water, squinting to help make out the details. A tiny outboard motor pushed a white boat, accented against the otherwise black depths of the dark ocean. The boat accelerated out into the bay, launched from some dock or boat slip he couldn’t see from this angle.
Crap, he thought. He didn’t need sunlight to know that a boat in this area meant only one thing. We’re going to have to go down there and check it out.
“Did you happen to notice any boat slips or public parks down on the waterline?”
Julie was already shaking her head. “Unfortunately not. That means the only reason there’s a boat hidden there is so that Sarah’s captors could get away without being spotted.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Ben said. “At least we know what we’re after, and where they’re headed now. That boat’s got to have Sarah on it, and the only thing in that direction is the island in the center of the bay.”
He focused on the boat and thought he could see three shapes — two larger men and a smaller woman — sitting in the boat. It was impossible to tell for sure, he knew, but he had a feeling the motorboat driver wasn’t just some hermit who lived in a cave beneath a cliff, out for a nighttime fishing trip with his two buddies.
He took a deep breath, turning around just as Reggie ran up to him. “No one’s inside,” he said. “Single room, empty.”
Ben nodded, pointing down at the boat, then at the path.
“Really?” Reggie said. “I was hoping it’d be a little easier than this.”
“At least we’ve got a little time to make a plan,” he said, pulling out his phone to call Mrs. E. “Maybe we can head back to town, get Mrs. E, and then see about getting that —”
“Wrong,” Julie said from behind them. He whirled around, noticing her beautiful petite figure standing a few feet away, outlined in the darkness by a bright blue-white pair of LED lights.
Headlights.
Their Interpol pursuant, followed by three police cars, pulled onto the dirt road and started down it toward the church.
“Crap again,” Ben said. “This is ridiculous.”
49
Julie
JULIE’S EYES WATERED FROM the crisp, salty breeze that rose from the sea and into her face. She had turned back to the bay to try to spot the boat, noticing that it was, in fact, headed right toward the small mound in the center of the round island of Santorini.
She hadn’t had a chance to read about the tiny island, but she knew it was called Nea Kameni, and was a volcano that had most recently erupted in the 1950s. It was uninhabited and save for a park and a few tourist spots, nothing of note was on the rock.
In other words, if Sarah’s captors were trying to take Sarah somewhere out of the way, secluded, or away from prying eyes, the volcanic mound would be a perfect choice.
And, she saw now, the boat had launched from a point off the coast of Santorini that would make the trip across the stretch of sea much shorter.
She turned back around and saw silhouettes of people — at least six of them — running toward them. It would take them at least ten minutes to get down, as it had her group, but they would be on them shortly after that.
And there’s nowhere else to go, she thought.
“Do we head down?” Julie asked.
Ben was on his phone, working hard on a text message, but Reggie responded immediately. “We have to,” Reggie said. “Ten minutes and they’re here. And I’d bet with that stunt Ben pulled back on the road they’re not going to be willing to hang out for a nice chat.”
“The stunt I pulled?” Ben asked.
“You were driving,” Reggie said.
“You didn’t offer any better ideas!”
“Boys, I suggest we figure out who’s at fault for hitting a police car and breaking through an obvious law enforcement roadblock later.”
“Don’t forget speeding and reckless driving,” Reggie said.
“Right,” Julie answered. “Point is, what do we do now?”
“We go get Sarah,” Reggie said.
“But there’s no way there’s another boat down there,” Ben said. “It’s not a dock or a park — there’s nothing down there but caves and deep water.”
“And unless you can swim faster than a speedboat, I don’t think it’s a good choice right now.”
Reggie’s face started to flush, and Julie could tell he was starting to get panicky again. She’d never seen him like this — the man was usually the epitome of cool. Collected, calm, and always smiling. Now, on the edge of a cliff, feeling Sarah’s safe retrieval slipping away from him, she could tell he was not himself.
He looked both of them in the eye. “I’m not going to sit here and let myself get arrested in a foreign country.”
Ben held up a hand. “We’re not saying that, buddy. We’re just suggesting that maybe they —”
“What do you think they’re going to do?” Reggie asked, nearly yelling. “Ask us nicely to stop running away? We’re implicated now, man! For all we know, they think we’re behind it all.”
“Stop, Reggie,” Ben said. “It’s going to be —”
“It’s not going to be fine, Ben! They’re coming for us, and Sarah’s gone! They may not shoot at us, but they sure as hell aren’t going to let us get back to the hotel and regroup.”
“I know they’re not going to shoot at us, Reggie. We didn’t do anything —”
A gunshot, followed by two more, sounded in the air in front of them, fighting against the crashing waves reaching their ears from far below.
“They’re shooting at us?” Julie’s voice was high-pitched, frantic, not believing. They’re shooting at us.
“Get down!” Reggie shouted. Julie ducked one way with Ben and Reggie ran the opposite direction. Julie pushed against Ben, getting
him moving, and the pair headed toward a boulder near the edge of the grass, close to the start of the downward slope that led to the cliff.
Two more gunshots rang out, one of the rounds buzzing over their heads.
Is that the police or the Interpol guy? she wondered. Or both?
Soon after the shots, Julie heard a man’s voice call out in English. “Hold your fire,” he yelled.
She turned to her fiancé. “What now?” Julie asked. “Seriously, Ben? Why are they shooting at us?”
“I don’t know,” he snapped. “We didn’t do anything. I get that they’re pissed about their car, but I didn’t think it was a crime worth killing over. You think this the typical MO of Greek law enforcement? Shoot first, ask questions later?”
Julie tried to calm herself down. “Okay, okay. Let’s think about this. Maybe they were warning shots or something, something to scare us into not doing anything stupid.”
“I’d say shooting at innocent civilians is already pretty stupid, Jules. We’re well past the ‘line of stupidity.’”
“They’re probably just on edge,” she said. “The terrorist attack in Athens, the economic crisis they’re all suffering from. Still, we don’t know for sure. I think we should —”
Ben’s phone dinged, and his screen lit up. She saw that a text message had come in, and Ben was silently reading it. She sat up straighter to look over his shoulder, risking her head coming into plain view over the top of the boulder.
It was from Mrs. E. At first, she couldn’t see what it said, and then when she could she couldn’t understand what the context was.
What’s she talking about?
Ben looked up at her, just as two more shots smacked against the ground. They sounded much louder — much closer — than Julie cared to admit.
Maybe they are shooting at us, she thought.
