The Lost Throne paj-7

by Chris Kuzneski

  To help with their cover, they stopped at a department store to buy some clothes. The designs and fabrics in Europe were much different from those in North America. That was one of the main reasons Americans stood out when they were traveling overseas. Language was number one. Knowledge (manners, laws, decorum, etc.) was number two. Clothes were number three. Years of experience had taught Payne and Jones how to deal with the first two issues. They knew a shopping spree could rectify the third.

  Payne was looking at shirts when his cell phone started to ring. The display screen read Restricted. Thoughts of Saint Petersburg quickly entered his head.

  “Allison?” Payne said.

  “Sorry, pal. Guess again.”

  The voice belonged to Randy Raskin, calling from the Pentagon.

  “Wait a second! You’re calling me? That might be a first.”

  “It’s been a whole day since you asked for a favor. I figured you were sick or something.”

  Payne smiled. “Nope. Just been traveling. Seeing some sights. Rescuing some damsels. You know, normal stuff.”

  “I figured as much, which is the reason for my call. Do you have computer access?”

  “We will for another hour. After that, no.”

  “I’m sending a link to D.J. Tell him to follow Panther protocols. He’ll know what to do.”

  “Okay,” said Payne as he grabbed the clothes he needed. “Anything else?”

  “That’s all for now. If you have any trouble, let me know.”

  Payne hung up and casually walked toward Jones, who was looking at pants on the other side of the store. “It’s time to roll.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ve got mail.”

  There was an Internet café less than a block away. Jones grabbed a computer in the back corner while Payne paid for an hour. He always used cash when on a mission. Never credit cards.

  To view Raskin’s message, Jones followed the Panther protocol, a simple procedure Raskin had designed for accessing data in a public place. Jones logged on to his office system in Pittsburgh, which was highly encrypted, and ran a program, called Panther, that blocked all monitoring software on the public terminal. It was an effective way to erase all trails to the Pentagon, and it prevented any files from being saved in a temporary folder on a public network.

  Once Jones was confident the computer was clean, he opened the e-mail:

  hey guys,

  i think you’ll like this-or maybe not. he doesn’t seem like

  a nice person. make sure you cover your tracks. i don’t want

  him coming after me. he’s scary.

  r.r.

  A few minutes later, they understood what Raskin was talking about when they viewed the file he had attached to the message. Sometime during the night, he had hacked into a Russian surveillance company and downloaded the security video of Richard Byrd’s murder. Actually, it was more than a murder. It was a cold-blooded execution, perpetrated by an assassin in a highly public venue. The type of wet work that was taught by the CIA, MI6, and other security agencies around the globe-including the old KGB.

  At least that was the opinion of Payne and Jones.

  The black-and-white footage was filmed from an elevated angle on the back porch of the Peterhof. It was a wide-angle shot, focusing on the banister above the main grotto, right where Richard Byrd was standing. Although the video was grainy, Payne and Jones were mesmerized by what they saw. The killer walked with precision. Never wasting energy or stopping to contemplate his next move. He approached Byrd, raised his gun, and fired. No hesitation. Never breaking stride. Totally professional. Then he tossed his weapon over the railing. It hit the water at the exact moment his victim tumbled into the fountain.

  The timing was so perfect, the body and the gun made a single splash.

  Payne and Jones replayed the video several times, looking for flaws in the killer’s technique. There were none. He never looked at the camera. He never ran or panicked. He never did anything to give away his identity. Even during the chaos that followed.

  Payne watched the execution one more time. “What do you think? Ex-Agency?”

  “Maybe. Or Russian mob. No one we want to tangle with-if we can help it.”

  “Famous last words.”

  Jones smirked. “I hope not.”

  Payne tapped the computer screen. “Do me a favor and keep it running for a bit. Allison said she witnessed the shooting. Maybe we can see her in the aftermath.”

  “Good idea.”

  They stared at the footage, focusing on the people in the background. Someone on the patio must have seen the body and screamed, because all of a sudden everyone started running. Everyone, that is, except for one female with long blond hair. As chaos erupted around her, she fell to her knees in front of the giant waterfall and wailed with grief. It was a sorrowful scene, one that tugged at their heartstrings and reaffirmed their decision to help her out.

  She looked so lost and confused and scared.

  No wonder she had been so emotional on the phone.

  “Keep it going,” Payne said. “I want to see what she’s made of.”

  Surprisingly, she cried for less than a minute. After that, she wiped her eyes, brushed the dirt off her knees, then walked away from the camera until she was no longer visible.

  One minute she was a crying mess, the next she was calm enough to escape.

  Jones stopped the video. “Impressive. She’s tougher than I thought.”

  Payne nodded in agreement. “Unfortunately, so is the shooter.”

  23

  The blue tapestry hung from the ceiling to the floor, covering most of the back wall in the monk’s chamber. Dial had orig inally thought it was there to add a splash of color to an otherwise dreary room. Then he noticed a color that didn’t belong. The color was red. It was smeared on a few of the golden tassels near the bottom right-hand corner of the tapestry-as if someone with bloody hands had grabbed it and pulled it away from the wall.

  Careful not to contaminate the evidence, Dial lifted the tapestry and peered behind it. He hoped to find a message scrawled on the stone or something attached to the back of the Orthodox cross. But what he found was better. And much more surprising.

  “Holy shit,” he mumbled to himself.

  “What is it?” asked Andropoulos as he tried to peek over Dial’s shoulder.

  “You’ll see in a minute. Go close the door.”

  Andropoulos hustled across the room, glanced outside to make sure no one was coming, then quietly closed and locked the door. By the time he returned, Dial was standing in front of the tapestry, wondering how they could move it without damaging it. Eventually, he figured things out. The tapestry was hanging from two large hooks, one in each upper corner, that were drilled into the stone wall. All they had to do was remove the right corner from the right hook, fold the tapestry upon itself, and hang the right corner on top of the left corner. That way the tapestry would remain hanging, folded vertically, while dangling from the left-hand hook.

  Working in unison, the two of them carefully lifted the tapestry so it wouldn’t drag across the floor and hung it as Dial suggested. Then they stepped back and stared at their discovery.

  In the center of the stone wall there was a door.

  A secret door.

  One that looked hundreds of years old.

  Dial didn’t know why it was there or where it might lead, but he knew they had stumbled onto something special. Not only because the monks had gone out of their way to conceal it, but also because the door itself was more glorious than any door he had ever seen before. Intricately carved by a master craftsman, it depicted dozens of Greek soldiers fighting a foreign horde on the battlefield. Some used spears. Others held swords. But all of them fought with honor.

  Andropoulos moved closer to inspect the details, to appreciate the remarkable workmanship of his ancestors. He wanted to run his fingers across it, like a blind man reading Braille, just so he could touch a piece of history. That i
s, until he noticed the dried blood. It was just a small stain near the door’s handle, yet it brought him back to reality.

  He wasn’t a tourist in a museum. He was a cop at a crime scene.

  He said, “I found more blood. Just like the other door, it’s by the handle.”

  Dial crouched down to study the stain. “Strange. Very strange.”

  “How so?”

  “There’s blood on both doors yet nothing in between. You don’t see that very often. Normally, you’d see a visible blood trail on the floor.”

  Dial reached into his pocket and pulled out a clean tissue to open the door. He would have preferred latex gloves, but he was forced to improvise, since he didn’t have a pair.

  “Any theories?” Dial asked.

  “About what?”

  “The source of the blood.”

  Andropoulos shook his head. “Not really. What about you?”

  “I always have a theory. If I’m right, we’ll know in three seconds.”

  “What happens in three seconds?”

  “You’ll see,” he said cryptically. “Are you ready? Three . . . two . . . one . . . breathe.”

  Dial pushed the door forward and was instantly greeted by the stench of death. The smell, a mixture of blood and decaying flesh, caught Andropoulos completely off-guard. So much so, he started to gag the moment it hit his nostrils. But not Dial. He was expecting it. With the tissue, he covered his nose and mouth, then stepped inside the dark corridor.

  “Mmmmm, death,” he said with a wry smile. “Do you have a light?”

  Still coughing, Andropoulos handed him a tiny penlight that he kept clipped to his belt. Dial turned it on and shined the beam ahead, revealing a tunnel about ten feet long with a stone floor followed by a spiral staircase that faded downward from view. Creeping forward, Dial shined the light on the walls and the arched ceiling above him. Although it was made of stone, it was reinforced by several wooden planks-just like the one in the monk’s room.

  “How often does Greece have earthquakes?”

  Andropoulos cleared his throat. “Every year. They are small but very common.”

  Dial nodded in understanding as he continued to explore. “That might explain the wood. The monks who built this place were probably worried about cave-ins. Miners used to do the same thing in the Old West. The boards kept their shafts from collapsing.”

  “Where does it lead?”

  Dial shrugged as he stopped at the edge of the steps. “We’ll find out shortly.”

  He shined the light into the darkness below. The stairs curled to the right, then disappeared into the depths. Dial turned back and looked at the Greek. “Are you ready?”

  Andropoulos coughed again. The sound echoed throughout the corridor. “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Then stop your goddamn coughing and let’s get moving.”

  Dial eased down the staircase one step at a time, making sure each stair supported his weight before he moved on to the next one. Five steps. Then ten. Fifteen. Then twenty. Finally, after twenty-two steps, he reached the bottom. A few seconds later, he was joined by Andropoulos, who was no longer hacking-even though the stench was growing stronger.

  “This is interesting,” Dial mumbled to himself.

  The stone corridor opened into a rectangular chamber, approximately ten feet across and twenty feet long, with a slender archway in the back of the room. The left and right walls were lined with carved wooden shelves that were empty except for a pack of matches and a few cobwebs. The intricate craftsmanship of the shelves, which looked remarkably similar to the hidden door, suggested they had once been filled with something important. But neither of them knew what that might have been.

  Hoping to find out, Dial walked deeper into the room.

  Next to the shelves he spotted a decorative candleholder that resembled a menorah but only held five candles. It was made of metal and bolted securely to the left-hand wall.

  “Do me a favor,” Dial said, pointing toward the matches. “Light those candles.”

  Andropoulos did what he was told, and soon darkness was replaced with flickering light. On the opposite wall, he noticed a second candleholder, identical to the first, and lit those candles as well. Suddenly, the room was bright enough for Dial to turn off the penlight.

  “What is this place?” Andropoulos asked after blowing out the match.

  Dial shrugged. “It looks like a document archive. At least it was at one time.”

  Andropoulos ran his finger along one of the shelves. It was coated with a thick layer of dust. “Whatever used to be here was taken long before the massacre.”

  Dial nodded in agreement. “Speaking of the massacre . . .”

  The phrase hung in the air as Dial crept through the archway in the back of the chamber. It led to a second room half the size of the archive but far more important. Not only because it contained a stone altar, but also because it was the source of the horrible smell.

  24

  The candlelight from the first room barely penetrated the sec ond, forcing Dial to turn on the penlight once again. He shone the narrow beam on the stone altar that stood against the rear wall. Seven sets of eyes stared back at him. All of them vacant. All of them human.

  Dial recoiled at the sight, if only for an instant.

  “Jesus,” he said to himself.

  From the moment he had seen the blood on the hidden door, Dial expected to find the monks’ heads inside the tunnel, a theory that was supported by the stench of rotting flesh. But he hadn’t expected to find them like this. The heads were neatly stacked in a pyramid. Four in the bottom row, two in the middle, and one on top. Dried blood held it all together like papier-mâché.

  Andropoulos walked into the room. “You called?”

  Looking over Dial’s shoulder, Andropoulos saw the gruesome scene and instantly gagged. All the color rushed from his face, leaving his cheeks pale. Dry heaves were soon to follow.

  Dial turned around to make sure the Greek was all right. Several seconds passed before he spoke. “For the record, I said ‘Jesus,’ not ‘Marcus.’”

  Andropoulos kept coughing while trying to apologize. “Sorry . . . I’m sorry.”

  “No need to apologize. I gagged a little, too.”

  The Greek leaned forward with his hands on his knees. “Yes, but-”

  “No buts. There’s no reason to be embarrassed. Everyone has moments like this. And I mean everyone. Hell, I had several when I was a rookie. Trust me, I saw some things that could make a billy goat puke. . . . Not to say you’re going to puke. Because that would be bad.”

  “No, sir, I won’t puke.”

  “Glad to hear it.” Dial patted him on his back. “It smells bad enough already.”

  Andropoulos smiled at the comment. Not a huge grin, but one that signaled he was going to be all right. Dial gave him a moment to regain his composure, then handed him a tissue.

  “Wipe your eyes, blow your nose, or whatever you need to do. When you’re done, I’ll be back here, looking for more heads.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Dial nodded and returned to work, focusing on the altar room instead of his assistant. Deep down inside, he knew that’s what Andropoulos needed. He didn’t need attention. He needed space. And Dial gave him plenty. He figured the young cop would return when he was ready. And if he didn’t return soon, he wasn’t nearly as tough as Dial thought he was.

  But Andropoulos didn’t disappoint him. Less than five minutes later he was standing in the back room, right next to Dial. And this time there were no signs of discomfort. No coughing. No hacking. No dry heaves. The color had even returned to his face. Somehow the kid had steadied himself without stepping outside for a breath of fresh air. To Dial, that was more impressive than someone with an iron stomach who wouldn’t have gagged in the first place.

  It showed that Andropoulos had character. That he could overcome setbacks. That he wouldn’t let his shortcomings keep him down.

  And strangely, D
ial felt a hint of paternal pride.

  “Look over there,” he said as he pointed to several garbage bags in the corner. The interiors of the bags were covered in blood, as was the floor in front of the altar. “I’m guessing they stuffed the heads inside the bags and carried them down here for their little display.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “To send a message. You don’t lug a bag of heads around if you aren’t sending a message.”

  “To us?” Andropoulos asked.

  “Definitely not. If they wanted us to find it, they would’ve left a blood trail.”

  To prove his point, Dial walked through the archway and shined the light on the floor in front of the empty shelves. As expected, there was no sign of blood outside the altar room.

  “No,” he surmised, “they used plastic bags to conceal this location. They wanted someone to find the heads-someone who knew about this place-but not us.”

  “Someone like Nicolas?”

  Dial shrugged. It was a fair question, but one he didn’t have an answer for quite yet. Not this early in the investigation. To change the topic, he said, “Any thoughts on the pyramid?”

  “Actually, sir, I was going to ask you the exact same thing.”

  “I told you, I always have a theory. But I’m more concerned with yours.” Dial handed him the penlight and told him to take a closer look. “Let me know if you find anything.”

  Andropoulos gulped and leaned closer to examine the heads. Although decomposition had started-which was the source of the horrible smell-they still had their hair and skin and looked remarkably lifelike. Expressions of horror were frozen on their faces like Hallow een masks, as if they still felt the sting of the Spartan’s sword. To Andropoulos, one head stood out among the others. It was someone he recognized the moment he set foot in the room.

  “The man on top is the abbot,” he said.

  “Really? What about the others?”

  “Sorry. I don’t know the others. Just the abbot.”