The Minoan Cipher (A Matinicus “Matt” Hawkins Adventure Book 2)

by Paul Kemprecos

  No reply. Vedrakis frowned. This wasn’t the friendly man he’d talked to on the telephone.

  Someone must have strayed through the gate he’d left open.

  “This site is closed,” he said, making no attempt to disguise his annoyance. “You’ll have to leave. Come back tomorrow when you can buy a ticket.”

  “When will Hawkins be here?” the man said in a deep, accented voice.

  The tone was menacing. This was no tourist. Vedrakis pondered his response. Maybe he could say he didn’t know who Hawkins was, but he sensed the man would know he’d be lying. He went for a half-truth.

  “I’m meeting Hawkins later at the museum in Heraklion,” Vedrakis said. “If you give me your name I’ll pass it on when I see him.”

  The man ignored the offer. He moved closer.

  “Give that to me,” he said.

  The disk had only cost a few Euros, but Vedrakis clutched it to his chest. The man took a couple of steps forward until he was close enough for Vedrakis to see that his head was shaved and painted blue. Three other figures dressed in black emerged in the dusky light and closed in from behind and both sides. Astonishment overcame his fear.

  They, too, had bald blue scalps. They wore identical jumpsuits snug to bodies that were narrow at the waist and wide at the shoulders. All four men had similar almond-shaped yellow eyes.

  He realized he had seen them before, but not in real life. Surrounding him were men who seemed to have jumped off the walls of a Minoan fresco.

  But these were not painted images. They were flesh and blood. And they were coming for him.

  Leonidas crossed the service road and ducked behind the unoccupied ticket booth. He studied the diagram of Gournia on the fence, then took a circuitous route that led to the top of the hill.

  Using bushes and rocks for cover, he made his way along the ridge until he came to the edge of the central plaza. He crossed the deserted open space and came to a boulder that stood at least ten feet high. He edged around the corner, only to pull back quickly.

  Leonidas had almost stumbled into the midst of the four weird-looking guys who were holding the arms and legs of a body. He recognized the shock of white hair and beard. Vedrakis. They tossed the body off a cliff as if it were a rag doll.

  Leonidas saw one of the men point at a car that had slowed at the entrance to the site and turned off the highway onto the access road.

  It had to be Hawkins. Rather than trying to make a run for it, the men spread apart. They were setting up an ambush. They would allow Hawkins to enter, then close in, cutting off any escape. He didn’t know who these weirdos were, but he’d have to babysit Hawkins if he hoped to use him to get to Salazar.

  Leonidas could be subtle but it wasn’t in his nature. He raised his pistol and squeezed the trigger. There was a soft thut and a puff of dust exploded from a waist-high rock next to one of the men who called out a warning and reached under his shirt.

  He pulled out a handgun; the other men followed his lead. They stood back to back, looking in four different directions for the source of the fire.

  Leonidas had moved a short distance from his original shooting position. He climbed some rocks to a position that was above the group and fired off two more rounds, aiming near the feet of his targets.

  The strangers realized that they were dangerously exposed. At a word from one, who must have been the leader, they ran across the plaza. Leonidas sent a couple more rounds whizzing over their heads. He didn’t want to kill them. He was trying to herd them off the site. He emptied his pistol and slid a fresh magazine in, then followed the trail of the killers to the brow of the hill. Four figures could be seen from this viewpoint running single file along the service road. He hoped they wouldn’t double-back or reconsider their escape.

  Shifting his attention to the base of the hill, Leonidas watched the Renault pull up directly behind the Land Rover.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The shadows were creeping across the mountain peaks when Hawkins and Abby arrived at Gournia. Parking behind a Land Rover near the entrance, they got out of the car. Hawkins noticed a parking sticker for the Heraklion museum on the windshield. Looking through the window of the locked vehicle, he spotted a briefcase on the passenger seat.

  “This is the professor’s car,” he said to Abby.

  They pushed the gate open and entered the site. They then walked past the ticket booth and turned onto a trail that ran along the base of the hill. After a short distance, they started up an ancient stairway leading to the ridge.

  About halfway to the top they heard shouts from a man standing at the base of the hill. He was waving both arms like a landing officer directing a plane on an aircraft carrier.

  In a booming voice, he shouted again, “Halloo. Wait up for a minute.”

  He lumbered up the stairway and was puffing like a steam locomotive when he got to where they stood.

  “Good afternoon. Thanks for waiting, folks,” he said. “Whoosh. Not used to all this exertion. Out of shape.”

  Abby and Hawkins exchanged glances at the statement of the obvious. “It’s a pretty steep climb,” she said.

  “Maybe not for a mountain goat.” He spoke in brief shouts, as if he were talking to someone who was hard of hearing. “Got delayed on my way out here. Almost missed the road. Saw the sign. Closed. Noticed the gate was open. Saw you up on the hill. Thought I’d see what’s going on. Is the site open or not?”

  “It’s closed to the public today,” Hawkins said.

  “Damn. I can’t come out from Rhethymon tomorrow. Reginald Pouty’s the name.” He extended a sweaty hand and showed them his top and bottom teeth in a horsey smile. “Would it be all right if I wandered around the place? I can leave a few Euros at the ticket booth. Wouldn’t want to be a freeloader.”

  Even as he shook hands with Pouty, Hawkins thought it was odd for the Englishman to show up out of nowhere. The attacks of the last few days had put him on alert. He would feel better if Pouty weren’t around and went to tell him to come back another time, but the Englishman was a looking off at a silver Mercedes traveling along the service road.

  He turned back and said, “I may do this another time. Winded. This site is a disappointing, if you ask me. Not as grand as the Palace at Knossos.”

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Pouty,” Hawkins said. He was glad to see him go.

  “Mutual.” The full mouth smile re-appeared. “Toodle pip.”

  Moving with more athleticism than he’d shown on the climb, he quickly descended the stairway and strode toward the gate.

  “Toodle pip,” Hawkins repeated in a stage British accent.

  Abby shook her head. “Mad dogs and Englishmen.”

  “Go out in the midday sun,” he said, finishing the Noel Coward lyric. “Since it’s not midday, we’d better get moving.”

  He continued across the plaza past the excavation pits. There was no sign of Vedrakis. They took turns calling his name.

  Abby stooped to examine some pieces of pottery left in a pit. Hawkins walked over to the brow of the hill. As he was about to climb onto a knob of rock for a better view, he looked down to make sure of his footing and saw the sun glinting off glass. He picked up a pair of broken eyeglass frames identical to the ones he had seen on the professor. Next to them was a fragment of pottery. He tucked both objects into his shirt pocket, then climbed onto the rock.

  On the other side of the outcropping was a gully, and at the bottom of the shallow ravine was the body of a man with white hair. He lay on his back, arms and legs bent in impossible angles. Vedrakis. Hawkins climbed down into the ravine, knelt by the body and placed his fingers on the professor’s neck. The skin was warm, but there was no pulse. The eyes were wide open in a death stare.

  Hawkins looked up at the outcropping silhouetted against the sky. Vedrakis could have slipped and fallen, but there was no sensible reason why he would have climbed onto the rock. The body was too far into the ravine to have fallen. He would have had to make
a running leap to land in his present position.

  Abby was calling his name. He gave the professor a last glance, then climbed back up. Abby had walked over to where she had last seen Hawkins and was surprised when he suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

  “Had me worried for a sec,” she said. “Where were you?”

  Putting his hand on her shoulder, he spoke in a soft voice, “Abby, I want you to listen to me. I found the professor. He’s dead. His body is at the bottom of the ravine behind me. I think he’s been murdered.”

  “Who—?”

  “Don’t know. I’m wondering if that English tourist might have something to do with it. We can talk after we get away from here.”

  Abby nodded. “I saw a path that will take us directly down to the gate.”

  The trail led down, past some Minoan tombs, then around to the front of the ticket booth. Hawkins handed his backpack to Abby and asked her to start the Renault’s engine. He found a rock the size of a cabbage and smashed a hole in the passenger window of the Land Rover. Reaching in, he quickly unlocked the door and grabbed the briefcase.

  Sliding into the passenger seat beside Abby, Hawkins buckled up and placed the briefcase on his lap.

  “Maybe there’s something in here that explains why the professor is dead. I’ll check it out while you drive.”

  Abby dropped the transmission into low and accelerated, then spun the car around in a cloud of dust and headed back to the highway.

  “Nice move,” Hawkins said in admiration.

  “I learned the reverse spin-out on the first day of my evasive driving course.” They were coming up on the highway.

  “Where to?” she said.

  Hawkins had driven the coastal road on his last visit to Crete and knew that the mountainous countryside to the east had more goats than people.

  “Go back to Heraklion. We need to tell the police about the professor.”

  Abby kicked the Renault up to seventy miles per hour. Traffic was light; they would be back in the city in less than an hour. Hawkins pushed the latch on the unlocked briefcase, reached inside and came out with the rubbings. He held a sheet of paper up for Abby to see.

  “The professor said he was bringing along some Minoan inscriptions.”

  Abby glanced at the rows of script, then back to the rearview mirror.

  “I think we’re being followed,” she said in a neutral voice. “Dark silver Mercedes. Like the one that went by when we were standing at the top of the hill. Been behind us for five miles.”

  “Can you see the driver?”

  “Uh-uh. Tinted windows. Every time I pass, change lanes or speed up, it does the same. They’ve stayed back just far enough to keep me in sight.”

  “Slow down and see what happens.”

  She took her foot off the gas and glanced in the mirror. “They’ve slowed down too.”

  She pulled over to the side of the road. The Mercedes did the same. “Any idea who they are and what they want?”

  “Worst case scenario is they had something to do with the professor’s death.”

  “What’s the best case scenario?”

  “There is none.” He gave her a tight smile. “Sorry. SEAL graveyard humor.”

  “Pardon me if I don’t double over in laughter. What should we do?”

  “We could keep on going to Heraklion and snag the first cop we see, but the E75 has isolated stretches. They could do a drive-by or run us off the road. We’re coming up on a big resort town. We might be able to lose ourselves in the crowds.”

  Abby pulled back onto the highway and the Mercedes followed. Several miles further, she turned off. They attempted to lose their pursuers in Aghios Nikolaos, but the driver of the Mercedes stuck with them like glue.

  “This isn’t working,” Hawkins said. “I’ve got an idea. Might be risky, and it depends on luck, timing and improvisation.”

  “A typical SEAL op, in other words.”

  “In a way. Remember when we were having our marital issues, how we talked about getting away on a cruise so we could talk things through?”

  A sad smile came to her lips. “I also remember that things were too far gone by then. One of us would have jumped or thrown the other overboard. Why do you ask?”

  “I think it’s time to take that cruise.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The island of Spinalonga rises from the emerald waters of the Gulf of Mirabello off the bustling town of Elounda like the shell of a giant stone turtle. Venice fortified the island in the 1500s to guard the entrance to a wide harbor. The next occupants were the Ottoman Turks. When they left, the island became a leper colony, making it the perfect place to hide a clandestine radio during the German occupation. After World War II, Aristotle Onassis wanted to build a casino on the island, but he was stymied by the formidable ranks of the Greek bureaucracy.

  On his last visit to Crete Hawkins had wandered the narrow streets and alleyways, climbed the looming battlements and wondered how life must have been for the soldiers, the lepers and caregivers who made the forbidding pile of rock their home.

  After leaving the highway, he had directed Abby along a high road that offered sweeping views of the bay and mountains before descending into Elounda. Hawkins asked Abby to pull the Renault into a public lot next to the marina and the harbor side tavernas. Instead of following them, the Mercedes circled like a prowling tiger, then disappeared around a corner.

  They left the Renault in the parking lot. Hawkins hid the professor’s briefcase under the seat but he carried the backpack that held the device. They bought tickets to Spinalonga, boarded a high-prow wooden boat with a couple of dozen other passengers and sat on benches along the starboard side.

  The boat eased out of its slip, and Hawkins got up and went to the stern. His eyes scanned the marina; two figures caught his attention because unlike other tourists strolling along the dock, they were running. They dashed up to the empty slip and stared at the departing boat. They were tall and thin, dressed in black running suits. Denim floppy-brimmed hats were pulled down low over their foreheads.

  Training, combat experience and instinct combined to set off a loud alarm inside his head. Hawkins knew without a doubt that he was looking at the professor’s killers.

  He ambled back to his seat and leaned close to Abby’s ear. “I saw two guys on the dock. My guess is that they’re the ones in the silver Mercedes.”

  “Did they see you?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  She looked toward the purple mountains across the bay and let out a deep sigh. “Beautiful, isn’t it, Matt? Someday we’ll have to do this when we don’t have murderers dogging our footsteps.”

  “It’s a date,” Hawkins said. “Sorry, Abby. First things first.”

  “Yes, I know. Sterile cockpit. What next?”

  “They’ll find another boat to take them to the island. We’ll have time before they get there. We’ll try to hire a private boat to take us back to the mainland. There were a few fishermen hanging around last time I was here. We’ll leave those guys high and dry on the big rock.”

  “And if we don’t find transportation?”

  “We take this boat back. They follow. We get to the mainland first and lose them with your fancy driving.”

  “Pretty thin, Hawkins, but it will have to do.”

  Minutes later they stepped off the landing dock and merged with the crowd of sightseers milling around below the bastion. The huge curved fortifications had gun emplacements for the cannons that once guarded one end of the island. A couple of private power boats were anchored near the dock. Hawkins started walking towards them, but another tour boat was about to land. The vessel had an upper deck. Leaning on the rail looking down on him were the two men he had seen at the marina.

  Hawkins grabbed Abby by the arm and guided her behind a souvenir kiosk.

  “Change in plans,” he said. “Check out the two guys in black on the top deck of that boat. Don’t be too obvious.”

&nbs
p; She peered around the corner of the kiosk. “I see them.”

  “Good. Stand near those tour groups until the men in black are out of sight. Then head over to those anchored boats, wave a wad of Euros, and line up a ride to the mainland.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll lose our pals in the fortress and circle back.”

  She stared at the approaching boat. “Do you think that will work?”

  “If that’s a nice way of asking whether my gimp leg will slow me down, don’t worry.”

  “I never meant it that way. I was talking about the backpack slowing you down. Why do you have to be so damn sensitive?”

  “Sorry. To answer your question, I can handle it. We can have a sensitivity session later over glasses of ouzo.”

  She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Go! And for God sakes, be careful.”

  Hawkins strode toward the entrance to the fortress where he paused to look back. The boat was almost at the dock. The two men had moved to the bow of the lower deck where they’d be the first to disembark. Hawkins stood in full view until one of the men pointed in his direction. Satisfied they had sighted him, he followed an alleyway through a tunnel to the old town—several small buildings the Ottoman Turks had constructed for residences and markets. Following a path that ran along the perimeter of the island he passed a French tour group and walked by an old mosque that had been used as an infirmary. Staying on the path would gain him nothing. His pursuers would catch up, jam a gun in his back and point him to a quiet place where he could be disposed of with a knife to the ribs.

  Near the old city gate, he left the path and climbed a set of steep steps that ran between two high walls. The backpack seemed heavier with each step. He would never admit it to Abby, but the stiffness of his bum right leg did slow him down.

  He doubled back toward the ferry landing but that plan was soon dashed. Someone in black was climbing the hill ahead in an effort to cut him off. They must have anticipated his move.

  Hawkins climbed another level. His haste, combined with the burden of the backpack and his bad leg, threw his balance off. He tripped and his knee came down hard on a stone step. Struggling to his feet, he tried to ignore the pain stabbing in his bruised kneecap.