Silver

by Brian January

  A frown crossed his face. What was taking Martha so long? He wished she would hurry.

  Behind him a soft footfall brushed against the Persian carpet. He scowled as a sudden flash of anger swept over him. Martha knew better. She was always supposed to knock—

  He swung around, ready to reprimand her. But instead of the housekeeper he saw an exotic-looking woman with long dark hair standing at the door, staring at him with eyes that looked like open graves.

  The woman Krell had found!

  An electric current shot through him. He dove at his desk, yanking open a drawer and fumbling out his father’s Webley Revolver, thrusting the barrel in her direction. His hand shook. Sweat beaded up and trickled down his spine.

  But the woman just stood there, staring at him, not moving. With a start he realized she was wearing one of his robes.

  “Don’t move,” he commanded in as authoritative a voice as he could muster.

  The woman started toward him.

  “I’ll shoot.”

  The woman’s mouth moved in a smile, but there was no humor in her eyes. “Guns have to be maintained” she said.

  Grimacing, Solomon aimed and pulled the trigger.

  The hammer clicked. An hopelessly empty sound.

  He tried again. Again the hammer clicked uselessly.

  Striding forward, April ripped the pistol from Solomon’s hand and tossed it across the room. With the same motion she smashed his jaw with a vicious backhand.

  He screamed and fell forward, his elbows striking the desktop, sending jagged spikes of pain shooting into his brain. Then he toppled backward against the ornate chair and onto the floor. The gargoyles leered up at him with mocking stares.

  Tears filled his eyes as he looked up at her. “Please...I can’t stand pain.”

  “But you have no problem giving it. I know what you do to women here.”

  Her foot lashed out. One of his ribs cracked with a splintering sound. He shrieked.

  Reaching down, she hauled him to his feet. “We’re going to the vault.”

  Pain had shuttered his eyelids to slits. “That’s what you are? A thief?”

  She raised her hand. “The vault.”

  He cringed. Tears broke out and streamed down his face.

  ___

  Soft lights sprang on as Solomon pulled open the vault door. He waved a hand at the treasures lining the walls. “It’s all yours. I don’t care. Take what you want and leave.”

  Any trace of fight seemed to have deserted him. But his eyes darted around the steel walls, terrified.

  “Who hired you?” April asked.

  Solomon said nothing. He just stared at her in defiance.

  She took a step forward.

  “All right!” His voice cracked. “It was Senator Catherine Lake. She doesn’t want anyone to find the silver. That’s all I know.”

  Her eyes roved around the vault. Spotting the silver Snake Goddess statue, she pushed him forward, then shoved him so that he stumbled and crashed to the floor. She inspected the goddess. It was identical to the statues they’d found in Blackpool’s cave on Mt. Karfi.

  Except that this one bore streaks of a bright, shiny metal that gleamed with highlights from the overhead lights.

  Her black eyes bored into him. “Where did you get this?”

  Solomon said nothing. His black market contacts were his most precious secret.

  Again she started toward him. “You have no idea how much pain I can cause you.”

  “Cyprus,” he blurted out. “A looter found it.”

  “Where on Cyprus?”

  “I don’t know. Somewhere in the Kyrenia Mountains. That’s all I know.” Flecks of saliva beaded up on his lips. “Really.”

  For a long moment April regarded him with frigid eyes. Then she hefted the statue and headed for the open door.

  “What are you doing?” the little man cried out. “You’re just going to leave me here?”

  She didn’t answer. With the heel of her hand she smashed the emergency touch pad on the inside wall.

  “No one will find me! I’ll starve!” His voice lowered to a whimper. “Please...I can’t stand pain.”

  Without a word, she pushed the door shut.

  ___

  Sitting at Solomon’s desk, April dialed Skarda’s number on the Vertu. When he answered she said, “I’m in London. The silver is on Cyprus. Kyrenia Mountains. Contact Candy Man, tell him to have a jet waiting for me at Heathrow. I’ll be there in about five hours.”

  ___

  Waiting in his BMW on Kensington High Street, Krell watched April exit Solomon’s house and climb into a taxi. When she had disappeared, he got out of his car and walked to the entrance. The door was unlocked.

  He turned the knob and stepped inside.

  He found Martha first. Looking at her corpse without emotion, he strode down the corridor to the vault. Since Solomon had been nowhere else in the house, it was an even bet he was here. Maybe hiding, or maybe locked in by the woman who had killed Martha.

  At the vault door he called out. There was silence at first. Then he heard a faint, muffled voice from inside.

  Solomon.

  “I need the code,” Krell told him.

  Thirty seconds later he pulled open the vault door. The overhead lights glowed to life. Krell saw Solomon standing bent over, hanging on to one of the treasure racks, blinking at the sudden illumination.

  “Thank God!” Solomon yelped. “I thought—“

  Krell’s burned face was a taut sheet of hard planes. “Where did the woman go?”

  For a long moment, Solomon just stared at him, not comprehending the question. Krell’s pitiless gaze was turning his blood to ice, robbing him of whatever manhood he had managed to hang onto.

  Then he felt his mouth flop open and the words tumble out against his will. “Cyprus. The Kyrenia Mountains.”

  Without a word Krell stepped out of the vault and pushed the door closed, muffling Solomon’s frantic screams.

  BOOK THREE

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Nicosia, Cyprus

  WISPS of cloud flitted across the full moon as Skarda and Nathaniel watched the Hawker 800 private jet touch down on the tarmac at Ercan Airport and taxi to a stop. As soon as the clamshell door swung open and April appeared at the top of the airstairs, Nathaniel rushed at her, charging up the steps and throwing his arms around her.

  Flicking a glance at Skarda, she embraced the scholar briefly, then said, “We’ve got less than three hours. We have to get moving.”

  She shouldered past him, leaving him staring after her with his mouth hanging open. The boots she’d bought in London made thudding sounds on the concrete as she approached Skarda. In her right hand was a leather case.

  When she came up, he smiled. The set of her face was grim and determined, but warmth shone in her black eyes. She reached out and laid her palm on his cheek. He mirrored the gesture.

  A silent communication passed between them.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Still here. You?”

  He grinned. “Still beating up the Bad Guys.”

  But her face stayed somber. In broad strokes she filled him in on the events at the mansion in London. Then she added, “Catherine Lake hired Solomon to keep anyone from getting the silver. And he hired Krell.”

  Skarda frowned. “She must be making her own deal with the Chinese. Somehow we have to tell Turner.”

  “No chance of that with Morgana around.”

  “I guess we’re just going to have to wing it. But it might give us an edge when the crunch comes.”

  “Yeah.”

  Without another word she took off for the Land Rover Skarda had rented when he and Nathaniel had flown in from Izmir earlier in the evening. Nathaniel followed them like a lost puppy.

  Climbing into the driver’s seat, she set her case on the console and opened it.

  Inside was the silver Snake Goddess statue she’d taken from Solomon’s vault.


  Skarda let out a low whistle. Streaks of bright metal cascaded down the length of the tarnished Goddess. “Neosamarium,” he said.

  Nathaniel thrust himself forward from the rear seat, gawking. The sight of the statue made him forget about his hurt feelings.

  April turned the statue over. Inscribed close to the bottom edge was a tiny embossed oval seal and inside it, the depiction of a bare-breasted woman in a long, flounced skirt holding snakes in each hand. Above her head, a crescent moon rode the sky next to the labrys, the double-headed axe, and all around her stylized poppy flowers had been bunched along the edges of the oval.

  Nathaniel made a strangled sound of delight. “Ariadne’s seal again, just like on the plaque!”

  Skarda’s pulse quickened. Finally they were on the right track.

  Opening the TerraformSAT GPR image of Cyprus he’d downloaded, Skarda pointed to the western half of the Kyrenia mountain range that ran north of Nicosia, parallel to the coast of the island. “Okay...we’re here, in Nicosia, and this is the Kyrenia range, where Solomon said he bought the statue.” He tapped a finger on the gray satellite image. “These are the Pentadactylos Mountains, and just south of them, another peak.” Beneath his finger was an area of red, indicating a subterranean cave system. “It looks like there’s some kind of spiral formation under the ground at the base.”

  Nathaniel bobbed his head in excitement. “The spiral shape is the labyrinth, Ariadne’s dancing floor! According to Plutarch, the Cypriot historian Paeon recorded a cult of Aphrodite and a temple dedicated to her at Amathus, here on Cyprus, but this seems to have been overlaid on an earlier temple dedicated to Ariadne, showing the early Minoan presence on the island. According to one version of the Greek myth, Theseus left a pregnant Ariadne on Cyprus, where she died in childbirth. When Theseus returned, he ordered two cult images, one of bronze and one of silver, erected in her honor. The story could reflect a memory of the silver hoard and the silver Snake Goddess statue.

  “The Minoans might have seen Kyrenia as a good spot for one of their peak sanctuaries and if there’s a natural limestone cave system here, they could have used it as a tomb or a shrine.”

  “Or a place to hide the silver,” April said.

  ___

  From the straight road that cut north through the hardpan surface of the Mesaoria Plain the land gradually rose into undulating hummocks of limestone before it abruptly jutted into the jagged peaks of the Kyrenia Mountains. Here the road became a dirt track, almost indistinguishable from the surrounding rock and scrub, even in the light of the full moon.

  April downshifted as the track dipped down a steep slope into a shallow canyon whose sheer marble-veined walls glittered in the moonlight.

  “Look!” Nathaniel called out.

  He was pointing at a toothed peak that rose up at the far side of the canyon. At its tip the rock split apart into a natural notch and above it, the rising pale yellow moon bathed the chiseled landscape in its silvery reflected glow.

  “The horns of the lunar bull, just like on Mt. Karfi! This has to be the place!”

  April steered the 4x4 to the base of the mountain and braked to a halt. “Great. Now all we have to do is find the entrance.”

  Climbing out, Skarda went around to the rear of the Land Rover and opened the hatchback. Inside were two steel cases, an object wrapped in a blanket, and three backpacks.

  He cracked open one of the cases and grinned at April. A Barrett REC7 lay nestled inside. “One for you, one for me. Courtesy of Candy Man.”

  A smile cracked her lips. “Good.” She picked up the rifle and rammed home a magazine.

  Next he unwrapped the blanket, revealing the HK416 he had taken from Krell’s gunman. “We’ve got the rifles and two Sig Sauers, timer mines, and two knives for you in the packs.” He handed the rifle to her.

  Shouldering the packs and the rifles, they started for the mountain. As they walked closer, the ground began to rise, growing more rocky and contorted by dry gullies where low shrubs grew in dense patches. The air was filled with the shrill buzz of cicadas and the woodsy odor of cypress. Skarda glanced at Nathaniel. The scholar was having a hard time picking his way over the loose scree and uneven ground in the dark. His head was down and he was watching each step he took. But there was nothing to be done about it. At least if he started to fall, one of them could catch him.

  The bulk of the mountain loomed over their heads. Then, as they crossed into the deep shadow of its base, the light of the moon was suddenly cut off and the darkness became an almost solid pool of black with no discernible shapes or shadows.

  Skarda pulled his LED from his pack and switched it on, illuminating a field of broken shale spilling out from great slabs of tumbled, uprearing rock about twenty feet ahead. His beam swept right and left, revealing more boulders and stunted trees. But nothing that looked like the opening to a cave.

  “I’ll take the western side,” he said. “You two take the east.”

  He moved off.

  It was less than an hour to midnight when he found the entrance. He’d just scrambled up a slide of disintegrating limestone where two facing sandstone boulders formed a natural pathway when the lamp picked out a vertical split in the face of the mountain. Clearing away rocks and thick bushes, he saw that it was about six feet tall and shaped like a flattened diamond.

  He thrust his LED inside. “I think I found it!” he called out.

  The others hurried up beside him. “This better be it,” he said gravely. “We’ve got about forty-five minutes until the deadline.”

  Stabbing her own lamp into the fissure, April could see a man-made path hacked out of the natural stone. “There’s a path!” Gesturing a warning to wait, she crawled inside.

  Two minutes later she was back. “Looks like it’s safe. There’s a set of steps going down.”

  She disappeared back into the hole. Skarda nodded at Nathaniel to go next, then followed.

  Once he had squeezed inside the opening, he was forced to stoop low to accommodate his height, fighting off the wave of claustrophobia that instantly engulfed him. At least the passageway was short. The path twisted, widening a bit, and then he was free, stepping out into the open. Panning his lamp around, he saw that he was standing in a kind of antechamber whose triangular-shaped ceiling rose to a height of about fifteen feet, its angled walls slanting away into the darkness. At the opposite side of the chamber the black rectangle of a doorway etched a darker shape out of the gloom.

  And at its foot, shallow steps had been carved.

  April started down, with Nathaniel at her heels. Skarda took the rear. The staircase was narrow, its walls barely broad enough to clear the width of his shoulders. At first the steps slanted straight down, but soon they began to curl and twist. Clearly they’d been deliberately cut in the shape of a spiral. Ahead he could see the other two LED’s bobbing and flashing, but then they rounded a tight curve and were cut off from sight.

  A minute later he stepped out into what looked like a confined foyer in front of a another doorway framed by a post-and-lintel system of shaped rectangular dark-gray boulders. The stones were covered with flowing spirals and oblong-shaped labyrinths painted in bright red.

  “This is incredible!” Nathaniel said. His words tumbled out in excited gasps and spots of color stained his cheeks. “It’s possible that this place has been untouched for over thirty-five hundred years!”

  Stepping through the doorway, Skarda flashed the LED first right, then left. On the left was a solid wall; but to the right a narrow, low-ceilinged corridor swept away in a curved path, expanding into blackness beyond the white beam of his lamp. But he could see clearly that this was no natural formation: the circular path had deliberately been chiseled and smoothed by human hands.

  April led the way into the darkness. The top of the tunnel was low enough that Skarda had to stoop, and the closeness of the side walls seemed to crush him. A sudden flash of panic made his heart pound as another wave of claustrophobia swept ov
er him. Sweating, he steeled himself, concentrating on the hollow echoing sounds his boots made as they struck the flat stone floor and came back to his ears magnified.

  After a while he could sense the passageway curving to the left as it followed the spiral path of its course. At times the walls grew closer and the ceiling lower; at others it seemed like he was stepping into a larger cavern. Twice they had to stumble over heaps of shattered limestone blocks where the ceiling had eroded away and fallen to almost choke off the corridor. At last, he saw April halt, the light of her LED spearing ahead into the blackness. Then Nathaniel stopped, too.