Silver

by Brian January

  Hefting water bottle again, the colonel scowled. “Negative. You heard what the woman said. It’s too dangerous.”

  Lake regarded him with distaste. “A macho guy like you, Craig? I thought you’d be used to putting your life on the line for your country.”

  Turner’s look was sour. His gun-barrel eyes bored into her. “I didn’t get to be a colonel by acting stupid. Skarda and Force are out there doing their job. Let them do it. Our number one priority is to recover that neosamarium before the Chinese cut us off. We wait. If Skarda and Force fail, then we’ll talk about Plan B.”

  Lake let her eyes close in frustration. Then she slumped back in her seat, her gaze still trained on the gunman, her mouth a thin, tight, determined line.

  FOURTEEN

  South of Aigos Nikolaos, Crete

  ENGULFED in the cool shadow of a mountain, Skarda felt a pall of depression enshroud him. He’d felt certain they’d been on the right track, that Blackpool’s secret cave was the hiding place of the neosamarium. Staring out the window, he struggled to fight off his mood.

  They were on the coast road, heading north toward Elounda, where huge clumps of pink and white oleanders vied for space with groves of stumpy olive trees and precipitous cliff walls plunged down to meet the sea. In the rear seat, Nathaniel was hunched over his laptop as usual, muttering to himself. Earlier Skarda had snatched a glimpse of him as April had braked the squealing tires and fought the wheel through a series sidewinding hairpin turns. His face was chalk-white. Clearly he wasn’t used to traveling on zigzagging mountain roads with no guardrails.

  Or driving with April.

  With an effort he shoved his mood aside. Depression wasn’t going to help them find the silver. “So what’s our next move?” he asked. “Nathaniel...?”

  The scholar’s head shot up. Then, when he saw the rocky drop-off of a steep cliff whizzing past, he ducked down out of sight.

  “I’ve been thinking about Miletus, actually. That’s in Anatolia...uh, Turkey. There’s an archaeologist here on the island—“

  He broke off as April’s voice cut through his like a razor blade.

  “Park.” Her eyes were on the rear view mirror. “Company.”

  Skarda twisted around, seeing a black M1115GR, a Greek-built, unarmored Humvee suddenly eating up the distance behind them.

  “Hang on!” she called out. Immediately she stomped on the gas pedal and the X5 leapt forward, seeming to take the next curve on two wheels.

  Nathaniel let out a yelp as he was thrown back against the seat.

  By now the Humvee was accelerating closer. April glanced in the mirror again, seeing what looked like a machine gun mounted on top of the cab. She shot a glance at Skarda. “They’ve got an HK GMG 40.”

  He knew what that was: a grenade-launching machine gun that could fire 40mm grenades at three-hundred fifty rounds per minute. “Greek military?”

  Tires screeched in protest as she manhandled the X5 around another curve. She shook her head, stealing another glance at the mirror. A man in a black sweatshirt was rising up out of the open top of the Humvee to man the GMG. “I don’t think so. I think it’s our friends from the villa. I told you Krell always has money behind him.”

  She wrenched the wheel and Skarda saw something streak past the right side of the SUV. A second later a cluster of boulders and an olive tree exploded in a burst of flame and black smoke.

  “Nathaniel!” she yelled. “Can you pull down the rear seat and get the gun case?”

  To their left, the edge of the road next to the cliffside blew apart in a shower of stone and asphalt, peppering the windshield of the X5.

  “—his name is Vasiliou. Brilliant man, really—“

  “Nathaniel! The M4!”

  Twisting around, Skarda saw the scholar’s face, now chalk white with fear, his eyes wide and staring. He was still talking, like an automaton that couldn’t be switched off.

  Vaulting over the seat, Skarda crawled next to him.

  “Stay there!” he ordered, his voice a whiplash. “Keep your head down!”

  Nathaniel’s eyes skittered toward him and he nodded. He ducked low, throwing his arms over his head.

  Skarda yanked down the rear seat and thrust himself through the opening to grab the gun case. Straightening, he raised his head for a glance behind them. The heavier Humvee was maintaining its distance, its thirty-seven inch tires gripping the road like claws. The X5 was lighter and faster, but April was forced to slow down too much to navigate the hairpins as the tires squealed in protest.

  But the hairpins were the only things that were saving them from the devastating power of the GMG.

  From the roof of the Humvee the gunman fired again, the grenades exploding on the shoulder of the cliff just as the X5 hurtled around it.

  “We can’t keep this up much longer!” April yelled. “They’re going to hit us!”

  Already Skarda had the case open and was assembling the carbine. He rammed in a magazine and powered down the rear window. Wind whipped at him.

  The Humvee sped closer—

  He could see the gunner aiming for another shot—

  “Hit the brakes!” he yelled.

  April stomped on the brake pedal. Instantly the distance between the two vehicles decreased.

  A look of surprise flew across the gunner’s face and he hesitated—

  Skarda thrust himself out the window and fired the M4. The heavy slugs tore the man’s chest to bloody craters before the upper half of his body was thrown back against the roof, bouncing with the Humvee’s momentum. .

  April mashed the accelerator and the BMW leapt forward.

  Again Nathaniel yelped. A torrent of indistinguishable words flew from his lips.

  Skarda favored him with a quick grin. The poor guy had never experienced anything like this before. “Just stay down,” he told him in a deliberately calm voice. “We’ll make it.”

  But he knew the maneuver had bought them maybe half a minute while the Bad Guys replaced the dead gunner.

  And they wouldn’t fall for that one again.

  The X5 had surged ahead, snaking over the road, but now Skarda glanced back and saw the attackers rounding the edge of the cliff, zooming closer.

  A new gunner had already manned the GMG. The X5 rocked as a grenade exploded on the roadway just ahead of the front wheels. Hitting the brakes, April swerved, zigzagging through a cyclone of flying asphalt.

  Thrusting himself out the window again, Skarda triggered off a quick burst. But a second man had wedged himself through the opening in the Humvee’s roof.

  A man with an HK416.

  Muzzle flashes erupted from the HK’s barrel and a stream of bullets slashed at the speeding BMW, peppering the sheet metal with holes. Next to Skarda’s face the window exploded, spraying him with glass fragments. A dagger-like shard of glass drove itself into his jawline, missing the bone, but tearing away a triangular-shaped flap of skin from ear to mouth. He fought down an urge to scream as a searing spike of pain lanced through his nervous system. Blood spurted and gushed over his shirt.

  April’s eyes were in the mirror. “You okay?” she yelled out.

  “Keep driving!” He slapped his hand over the wound to staunch the blood. It seeped through his fingers. There was nothing else he could do about it now.

  He glanced through the windows, calculating their chances. On the left, the cliffsides formed an unbroken chain like a wall; on the right, the road ended where the edge of the island plummeted down to the sea far below.

  They were in a trap.

  But ahead the road was leveling out into a straightaway. April punched the gas and the X5 shot forward, eating up the asphalt, speeding through a gentle curve...

  Then suddenly she let out a self-satisfied laugh. Looking up, Skarda saw a turnout approaching ahead, a semi-circular build-out of the narrow road where slower vehicles could idle while the faster vehicles lined up behind them could move ahead.

  He grinned. He knew what she wa
s going to do.

  “Hang on!” he yelled at Nathaniel.

  With screeching tires she braked into the turnout, maneuvering the SUV around in a smoking turn until its nose was pointing in the opposite direction.

  Then she gunned the engine, rocketing forward—

  Just as the Humvee burst into view, the gunner’s mouth gaping open—

  The X5 was barreling straight toward him!

  Frantically he tried to adjust the aim of the grenade launcher.

  The X5 streaked closer—

  Now Skarda could clearly see the driver’s face, convulsed with surprise and shock.

  April hit the gas. At the last possible moment she stood on the brakes, the BMW’s all-wheel drive forcing the rear tires fractionally off the road. The millisecond they touched down again, she stomped on the accelerator and hauled hard on the wheel. Above the roar of the engine Skarda could hear the scream of the tortured tires as the X5 slithered around in a 180-degree spin, swinging around broadside to the Humvee in a cloud of burnt rubber smoke.

  She pounded the accelerator to the floor, ramming into the Humvee just as Skarda let loose with the M4, spraying the driver’s side with bullets. With a cry of terror, the gunner dropped out of sight. He fired again. The driver’s window exploded in a storm of flying glass and blood as the man’s head dissolved into a red mist.

  Again April plowed into the Humvee. Driverless, it was powerless to withstand her onslaught. The heavy truck rocked, then began to swerve in jerking motions, corkscrewing over the road. Again she crashed into it. Metal crunched and buckled. In a burst of smoke the Humvee’s front tires slammed against a boulder, causing it to slue around in a half-circle before it smashed broadside against a bigger pile of rocks at the edge of the cliff and tumbled over, out of sight.

  Slamming on the brakes, April yanked the transmission into reverse and brought the BMW in line with the road. She twisted around in her seat and looked at Skarda. “All right. Let’s see.”

  During the fight he’d taken his hand away from his wound to fire, but he’d put it back again. Now he pulled it away again, wincing at the sudden pain.

  Her eyes assessed the bloody damage. The wound was deep, glistening with raw flesh where the flap of skin hung open. The top half of his shirt was soaked in blood. His face was ashen and bled from numerous glass cuts. “It’s bad, Park. We’re going to have to get you to a hospital. Quickly. You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

  “I say no. We’ve lost too much time already.” But he could feel a slow lethargy creeping over him.

  She shook her head with firm decision. “Can’t be helped. We need you in one piece. We’ll make it.”

  Slowly Nathaniel lifted his head up, looking around and blinking. “Well,” he said. “That was exciting, now wasn’t it?”

  For a moment Skarda stared at April. Then they both burst out laughing.

  But the joke was lost on him. A somber expression shrouded his face. “This Krell person must really want us dead.”

  Wincing, Skarda nodded. “I think what he really wants is the silver. We’re just in his way.”

  His Stealth binged: a video feed from the Alkmene.

  Morgana’s face appeared on the screen. “Find it?”

  “No,” he answered.

  “Tsk, tsk.” She peered at his bloody face. “At least it looks like you’ve been having some fun.” Her eyes narrowed and grew colder. “Better get a move on. You’ve got a lot of people counting on you.”

  The screen went dead.

  April turned to Nathaniel. “What were you saying about an archaeologist here on Crete?”

  His face brightened. “Oh...yes! Dr. Alekos Vasiliou. Brilliant man! He’s currently working in an abandoned monastery in the middle of the island. Subsidized by the Cretan government. Nice set-up! He’s an expert on Minoan trade colonies, especially in Anatolia. I know he’s spent a lot of time at a dig at Miletus, near the western Turkish coast. I was just thinking, what if the Minoans carried the silver to one of their colonies for safekeeping? It might be worth our while to talk to him.”

  She shook her head in frustration. “I guess we’ve got nothing to lose.”

  FIFTEEN

  Rethymno Harbor

  BECAUSE the Alkmene was a pleasure yacht, there were only simple push locks on the inside faces of the stateroom doors. Lake knew that Morgana was counting on her armed crew to keep the boat secure.

  But it also meant that there was nothing to keep her in her cabin in the middle of the night.

  Her plan was simple: sneak out onto the dock, find a phone, and sneak back onto the yacht, all unobserved. Before going to sleep, she’d visualized a clock in her mind to wake her up at three A.M. Now here it was, 3:01, and she was crawling out of bed in total darkness.

  A minute later she’d put on the darkest clothes she could find in her wardrobe, already laid out: a pair of jeans and a forest green T-shirt. On her feet she wore a new pair of white Reeboks. It couldn’t be helped—the heels of any of the other shoes she’d brought along would have sounded like gunshots on the open deck.

  Groping her way to the door, she rotated the push lock and twisted the knob, easing the door open. Carefully she inched her head into the passageway. Low light from some indirect source showed her it was empty. Squeezing through the opening, she let the door close with a soft click and padded forward.

  The aft belowdecks area housed four guest staterooms with a companionway staircase at the forward end that spiraled up into the owner’s private mini-salon, and from there, up to the deck.

  Moving as quickly as she could to make no sound, she started up the companionway, the rasp of her breathing loud in her ears. She assumed there would be a guard at the bow, because that was where she’d glimpsed one before.

  But would there be others this late at night?

  Reaching the owner’s salon, she crept toward the sliding glass doors that led to the deck. Up here the full moon was filling the cabin with light, a welcome relief. At the door she paused, dropping low and looking out at the aft deck. But nothing was there except lounging chairs.

  Easing the door open, she stepped out into the warm, soggy night, a sudden change from the air-conditioned chill she’d been living in for the past few days. Lower now above the horizon, the moon was bathing the deck in full light, casting long shadows. Silently she cursed it, but there was nothing she could do.

  She moved forward.

  A quick scan showed no guards on deck or on the jetty. Creeping to the starboard rail, she climbed over, holding on to the bottom rung and extending her legs toward the water.

  She slipped under the bay with barely a splash. Swimming a little way underwater, she broke through to the surface, wiping the stinging salt water from her eyes. Ahead loomed the bouldered wall of the jetty; to her right, next to a brightly-painted fishing boat, a flat landing area was intersected by a flight of stone steps that led to the waterfront.

  As quietly as possible she hauled herself from the sea, pausing to let some of the water drain from her clothing. Then she started up the steps, hunching low.

  At the top, she stopped to raise her head up fractionally, letting her eyes rove left and right. Satisfied she was alone, she stood up and darted for the shadows of a warehouse building.

  A voice made her freeze.

  “Going somewhere?”

  Morgana stepped out of the shadows, wearing an oversized T-shirt and nothing else. Behind her Makris hovered, his QBZ in his hands.

  Wearily, Lake raised her hands and turned around.

  ___

  At the bottom of the companionway Morgana gave Lake a rough shove, making her stumble into the salon. With an angry scowl the senator glared at the pirate, struggling to keep from betraying the cold fear that gripped her like a vise.

  Footsteps sounded outside the room and Makris ushered Turner inside at gunpoint.

  Morgana glanced at them, then turned her attention to the woman in front of her. “I told you what would happen if
you tried to contact help,” she said. Her silver eyes had gelled into pools of frozen mercury.

  The senator said nothing.

  Turner stepped forward, his face red with belligerence.. “Leave her alone—“

  Morgana spun on him, her voice taut with the whiplash of authority. “Quiet.” Then she turned back to Lake. “Take your shirt off.”

  For a few heartbeats, the senator just stared at her, not comprehending. Then her face hardened into a mask of defiance. “No.”