by JC Ryan
“A Minotaur? Are you playing with me?” He turned an incredulous look on Sean. What he saw on Sean’s face must have convinced him they weren’t joking.
“Bah!” he said.
When Carter opened his mouth to insist it was all true, Theo waved him off. “A Greek word,” he explained. “It means I am shocked. Of course, I will set aside my work to help you. But it will still take several hours. Let me consult with one of my students who has done much of the mapping we have here. Why don’t you enjoy an afternoon coffee for an hour, and then return? I will have something for you then; perhaps a better estimate of when I will have final results.”
The last thing Carter wanted to do was cool his heels for an hour, but he was grateful the Greek was offering to put aside everything to work on his problem. He stood and took Theo’s offered hand in both of his, thanking him sincerely. Sean also shook the professor’s hand, and then they left, hopeful Theo would be able to help.
The time was past mid-afternoon, but a stroll along one of the main streets of the town revealed a sidewalk full of tables every few yards. People were drinking coffee and eating what looked like sweets while chattering away in a polyglot cacophony. Sean touched Carter’s elbow and indicated an empty table at one of them. They took the opportunity to sit down. A few moments later, a waiter approached and took their order for iced coffee. “Sketo, metrio, or gliko,” he asked. Both men looked at him with bewilderment.
“Surprise us,” Carter said. It was the waiter’s turn to look confused, but his brow was wrinkled for only a moment.
“And your dessert?”
Carter frowned again, but this time Sean answered. Pointing to something that looked a little like a muffin with dried fruit baked inside at the next table, he said “We’ll have that.”
“I didn’t want to get into the Minotaur thing,” Carter said, lowering his voice on the word Minotaur to avoid attracting unwanted attention from the tables around them.
“I know, but I agreed with your decision. He had to understand the urgency. I liked him,” he added.
“Me, too. I think he’s one of the good guys,” Carter replied. “I hope so, anyway. I’m going to be in enough trouble for revealing top secret info about the dolphins to him. If he lets it slip to someone else…”
“I’m sure he understood what you meant by top-secret.”
Just then, the server returned with their order. Carter looked at the frappé and muttered under his breath, “What the hell is this?”
Even so, the waiter heard him. “Your iced coffee, sir. I hope it is to your satisfaction. You did say to surprise you.” Turning to Sean, he said, “Flaouna, sir. An excellent choice.”
Carter looked at Sean and said, “Remind me not to tell anyone else to surprise me.” Then he tasted his frappé. His eyebrows rose. “Hey, that’s not bad.”
With a mouthful of flaouna, Sean answered, “This is better than not bad. Try some.”
Carter tried to relax, knowing that ‘trying’ and ‘relaxing’ were mutually exclusive. But he managed to enjoy a few bites of the dessert. He was just finishing his coffee when he felt the tingling on the back of his neck that meant someone was staring at him. He looked up quickly and scanned the faces around him. A tall, dark man who looked vaguely familiar dropped his eyes as Carter’s gaze got to him. Carter stared frankly for a moment, but the man walked away.
“What are you looking at?” Sean asked.
“That man… I think he was staring at me. He looks familiar.” Carter’s voice took on a puzzled note. “I can’t place him.”
“Probably nothing,” Sean said. “I’ve been texting my guys, and your A-Echelon team. No one has turned up anything about a couple of kids in the past twenty-four hours. You’d think someone would have seen.”
“Unless the kidnapper took them straight from the boat to the cave system,” Carter said. “I still think our best bet is the dolphins, or maybe Theo and his student. Has it been an hour?”
“Close enough,” Sean answered. “Let’s get back to him.”
As they walked purposefully back to Theo’s office, Carter’s phone rang, and he answered even though it wasn’t a familiar number.
“Dr. Devereux,” an Oxford-accented voice said. “I understand you’re vacationing on Crete. We’d like you to keep an eye out for one of the students we’re trying to track.”
It took Carter a moment to recognize the voice of the MI5 agent who’d been in charge of the murder investigation in London. “It’s not…” he started, but the other man overrode his words.
“Guy by the name of Ahab Bashar. He’s one of only two we haven’t interviewed yet. It’s a long shot, because he’s been on Crete for a couple of months. But we’d appreciate it if you could track him down and interview him.”
Carter started to explain that he was involved in something more important to him personally, but again the MI5 agent overrode him. “I’m texting you a photo of him. Get back to me as soon as you’ve talked to him.” The call ended with Carter still trying to explain the situation. Frustrated, he stared at the blank screen of his phone.
A few seconds later, a ping announced the arrival of a text message. Carter opened it and nearly stumbled over a curb when he saw the photo. It was the man who’d been staring at him. And then he recognized the name. He’d emailed the same man only this morning, asking for help with the location of the Labyrinth. And the man had answered he wasn’t still in the area. Why had he lied?
32
LIAM WOKE DISORIENTED again, but this time it took only a few minutes to remember. He got up, stumbled over two bottles of water and something else, and went to check on Beth. His eyes were adapted to the low bioluminescence now, so it took only a few seconds to find her, curled up on her jacket. She was unconscious, but he could feel her breath on his cheek when he placed it close to her mouth. Maybe she was just asleep.
He also went to check on the dolphin. It was lying in the net on its side, also asleep, it seemed. Liam reached out to touch its skin and withdrew his hand quickly when he felt how rough it was. He thought dolphins felt like rubber. That’s what Mom had told him. He had a feeling this one was sick. He scooped up water in his hands and tossed it onto the dolphin’s side. He thought it also needed to be underwater some of the time, but the net wouldn’t let it get below the surface of the water. He tossed some more water on it, and then he heard Beth calling him.
“I’m here. I think the guy was here. There are two bottles of water that weren’t here before. And something in a sack.”
“I’m thirsty, Liam.”
He walked over to the bottles he’d tripped over and picked one up, along with the sack. Inside it, he found two energy bars. “Here, Beth. Drink this. And this is food.” He handed her an energy bar.
“I don’t like those,” she objected, pushing away his hand that held the energy bar even as she reached for the bottle. She tried to open it but couldn’t.
Liam took the bottle and opened it for her. “Take just a small sip, Beth. I don’t know when or if he’ll be back. And you have to eat this whether you like it or not. Just a bite.”
“What if it’s poison?” she asked.
Liam thought about it for a moment. “I don’t think it is. If he wanted us dead, we’d already be dead. Go ahead and eat a bite. But save most of it in case he doesn’t come back soon.”
“You can have it. I don’t like it,” she repeated.
“Beth, listen. I’m in charge, and I say you have to eat. We don’t know how long it will take Dad to find us, and we don’t know when that guy will come back. So, quit being a baby and do what I say.”
He regretted it a minute later, when she jumped up and flew at him, her little fists pummeling him. “Ow, Beth, stop it!”
“I’m not a baby! Who said you were in charge?” she screamed.
Liam managed to catch her wrists and stop her from hitting him. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. Listen, you woke the dolphin up.”
He could hear a w
eak whistle coming from behind him. Beth stopped struggling and listened, too.
“Beth, I’m in charge because I’m the big brother. Dad would want me to take care of you.”
“Okay,” she said. “But quit being so bossy.”
“All right. Can I tell you something?”
“Okay,” she said.
“People can live a pretty long time without food,” he said, “But Ahote told me you have to have water. I want us to drink just a little bit, so if that guy doesn’t come back, we can live longer.” It made sense to him. He just hoped Beth would agree and cooperate.
“There’s a lot of water,” she said, pointing toward the river.
Liam hadn’t tasted the water, but he assumed it was salt water, since the dolphin was in it. He knew they shouldn’t drink salt water, but he couldn’t explain why to Beth, and she’d just proved she was stubborn. So, he thought of another excuse. “That dolphin is probably pooping in that water.”
“Ew,” she said. “Okay. I’ll save my water. But I still don’t want those yucky energy bars.”
Liam wisely decided not to argue. Maybe she’d eat it when she got hungry enough.
“We should see if there’s any way out of here,” Beth said.
Once again, Liam called on the knowledge Ahote had given him. “Ahote says if you’re lost, you should stay where you are, so someone can find you.” He would have said more, but nothing Ahote had taught him had prepared him for this kind of being lost. There were no trees, and they’d already been both upstream and downstream to see if they could follow the river.
In both directions, it flowed out of and into cracks that didn’t have any way to pass except to swim. Liam might have tried it on his own, but he wasn’t sure how far the river went, and he didn’t think Beth could make it very far. The best thing to do, he was certain, was wait for Dad to find them, and try to fight the bad guy if he started to hurt them.
“I have an idea, Beth. Let’s make a pile of rocks to throw at the bad guy if he gets mean.”
“He’s already mean,” Beth pointed out with perfect logic.
“Well, I mean if he starts to hurt us.”
Beth started crying. “I don’t want him to hurt us,” she wailed.
“That’s why we need the rocks. Come on, let’s find some you can throw and pile them up,” Liam wheedled. If he could keep Beth busy, maybe she wouldn’t be so scared.
Liam thought about everything Ahote had taught him. If he only had a shovel, maybe he could dig a trap for the bad guy. And if he had some sticks and a knife, he could whittle a sharp point. As he turned over every bit of woods lore he knew, he understood that they were virtually defenseless. It was up to him to think of a way for them to help themselves, since they weren’t in the woods.
While Beth gathered a pile of small stones her little hands could grasp, Liam started looking for bigger ones, and a way to gain an advantage over an adult. There weren’t many choices.
While he was thinking about it and piling up his own, slightly larger, stones, Beth whispered to him. “Liam, I think Akela is here.”
Beth had named Keeva’s female pup Akela, after a wolf in Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book. It didn’t matter to Beth that Akela was a male wolf. She liked the name, she said, and the little wolf had learned to respond to it. Beth and the pup had bonded, and everyone considered Akela hers, though of course no one owned the wolves.
The hairs on Liam’s neck stood up, and he looked around involuntarily, though he knew it was impossible. “What makes you say that, Beth?” he asked quietly.
“I can feel her,” Beth answered. “But I can’t see her.”
Liam remembered the time in captivity with his mom better than most kids his age would remember events from half his lifetime ago. He and his mom had only each other and Liu when Beth was born, but his mom talked about Keeva often. He thought maybe she and Keeva talked like the dolphins talked to each other across the miles.
“You can feel her in your head?” he asked, struggling to make his question understandable for his little sister, but designed to give him information he could use.
“Kind of.” She placed her hand over her heart. “And here.”
Relief flooded through Liam. He was right! The wolf pup was reassuring Beth, like Keeva had reassured his mom five years ago. “Beth, think about where we are. Think about how dark it is, and the river running through here, and the dolphin. Push the thought to Akela.”
Somehow, the wolf pup would get word to his mom, and she’d get word to his dad. It had to help. He wished he had the same bond with the male. He loved Jeha with all his heart, but the dog wasn’t a wolf. He didn’t think she had any special powers. Liam believed the wolves did. They’d helped his mom in captivity, and they’d warned them all when the Russian guys had attacked the camp.
For the first time since they’d been captured, Liam truly believed they’d be rescued. He saw Beth sitting with her fists clenched and her eyes shut tight and went to her. “What are you doing?”
“I’m pushing my thoughts to Akela, like you said.”
Liam felt a rush of affection for his prickly little sister. He put his arms around her and gave her a squeeze.
“Ew, quit it,” she said, making him laugh.
Just to tease her, he squeezed her again. That earned him a sharp little fist in his ribs, and he backed off. He grew serious again. They still needed to prepare for the bad guy coming back. “Okay, keep gathering rocks, Beth. You can think while you gather.”
33
MACKENZIE PACED AS she talked with Irene on the phone. She was wild with worry, but her plans to get to Greece had been temporarily scuttled because of a Category Five hurricane racing up the East Coast. Airports up and down the coast were closed, and driving would have been impractical. Though they were safe on Freydis, miles inland, the same could not be said for anywhere she could reach with the transportation she had available.
Carter wasn’t okay with her going, anyway, citing the danger if they were all located within a couple hundred miles of each other. Until they understood for certain why the children had been taken, he didn’t want her nearby, though he understood her anguish.
“Wait for confirmation this is related to Carmen’s disappearance,” he’d insisted.
“What else could it be?” she’d countered.
“It could be random.”
“You don’t believe that, and neither do I,” she stated with passion. “And thank Heaven it is related. The alternative would be too much to bear.”
Carter had been silent for a few seconds. “You’re right.”
Now, Irene had no better ideas. “Mackenzie, try not to worry. Our best people and Sean’s best people are on it. Sean himself is on it. Soon they’ll get the ransom demand, and then we’ll be in a better position to do something. Meanwhile, don’t make yourself crazy just because you can’t travel. Go to the lab and work on your project. You’ll feel better if you keep your mind occupied with something else.”
Mackenzie wondered if Irene would be so calm if it were her kids. Then she chastised herself for the unkind thought. Irene was right. She should check in at the lab.
Minutes later, she was talking with the veterinarian again about Methuselah’s behavior. She’d waved off his questions about news of the children with a shake of her head and gesture that indicated she didn’t want to talk about it. So, he’d launched into a report that the old rat had stopped pushing the others away from the food dishes and off the exercise wheel.
“What do you make of it?” she asked.
“It’s hard to say. Maybe the behavior was just him being grumpy about his surgery,” the vet answered. “Or maybe we assumed too much about where the missing nanobot lodged, or that it was the cause. Maybe it was lodged in his brain but has since migrated. We simply can’t make any assumptions.”
“I agree. But we can do some experiments. Maybe you should implant respirocytes in a different subject’s brain and see if the behavior re
peats.”
“I’d hate…”
“I know you would,” she interrupted. “But this is critical. I’m afraid I’ll have to insist. In fact, do it today. I’d like to see the results before I leave, if possible. And I’m leaving as soon as this storm lets me.”
He nodded sadly. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll do it.”
Mackenzie felt terrible as she left the veterinary lab. She didn’t like to be overbearing, but she simply had to get the vet’s cooperation or replace him. And she was too kind-hearted to be willing to fire him. In a way, she reflected, it was the same weakness he had. She couldn’t think of it as a character flaw. Kindness and compassion for animals couldn’t be wrong – just misguided in this case.
The following morning, she got up with eagerness to check the weather. Her mood deflated as she saw it would be another twenty-four hours at least before she could get a flight to Greece. And if the hurricane didn’t make landfall soon and lose momentum, it was going to tear all the way up the coast, potentially doing great damage to the airports along with everything else.
She called Carter, but her call went to voice mail. He must be underwater or underground already, she realized. With a seven-hour time difference, it was afternoon in Greece. She called her parents and interrupted their lunch. Her mom said it wasn’t a problem. Neither of them was hungry anyway. After a few minutes, she ended the call. No news from Greece was disheartening.
Restless, Mackenzie decided to go for a walk, taking the satellite phone with her in case there was a call while she was in one of the areas of the ranch where cell phone reception was spotty because of the terrain. She headed toward her favorite spot in the woods, a small clearing where she’d first made contact with the wolves. Half a mile into her walk, Keeva joined her, with the pups following and Loki ranging several yards behind or beside them, on constant lookout for threats to his family.
Keeva walked close to her, almost leaning on her. To Mackenzie’s surprise, the female pup that Beth had claimed was just as close on the other side. Mackenzie strode confidently, knowing the wolves would not trip her. When they reached the clearing, she sat on a fallen log, and Keeva sat on her haunches, now leaning against her firmly. Once again, the female pup surprised her by climbing into her lap.
