Wrath of Poseidon

by Clive Cussler

  “The best,” she said as she glanced at her dive watch and saw it was after ten in the morning—which meant it was after midnight, his time. “Late night, I see.”

  “Trying to occupy my time as I pine away.”

  She laughed. “Sorry. I still can’t picture you as the pining type.”

  Dimitris cut the motor, then glanced at her, mouthing, “Ready.”

  She nodded, then to Sam, said, “While I’d love to stay and chat, this call’s actually being forwarded to my sat phone. A bit pricey on a translator’s budget.”

  “I’ll let you go, then. Happy mapping. May the treasure gods be smiling down upon you.”

  Her phone beeped as he ended the call. She slipped it into her backpack, smiling. The truth was that she’d thought about him, a lot. And she was still thinking about him as she and Dimitris prepared to make their first pass over the remains of the shipwreck, using a side-scan sonar. As soon as they let out the cable for the equipment, Dimitris switched the boat to autopilot. It kept the boat at a speed between three and four knots and was set up with a program that would establish survey lanes of about five hundred feet wide and two miles long, all while recording the data for later processing.

  According to Dimitris, trying to triangulate anything on the seafloor was a challenge. One day an artifact might be exposed, the next it was covered in sediment from shifting currents, storms, and even earthquakes, the latter being plentiful in the area. The sonar images would give them a good head start before the archeologists started the actual diving to search for and photograph any artifacts.

  Dimitris monitored the screen, pointing out various anomalies that appeared. “See all the amphorae?” The long, terra-cotta jars were scattered across the seafloor, some half buried in silt, most looking intact. “I have a friend who can look at them and tell you exactly from where they originated based on their shape and size or the stamp on some. We’ll send him a photo of one of these and he’ll know.”

  Remi was about to comment on how clear some of the images actually were when she heard an approaching vessel. Looking up, she saw two men sitting in a sleek, black speedboat, motoring toward them. “Friends of yours?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  Something about the way the broad-shouldered passenger braced himself while watching them bothered Remi. “I don’t like the looks of that.”

  “Definitely not.”

  As Dimitris reached for the throttle, the man stood. He aimed a semiautomatic weapon at them as their boat slowed alongside the Asteri. “Don’t move,” he shouted in Greek. “You,” he said to Dimitris. “Shut off the boat.”

  Remi froze, watching the gunman. Her father, a hobbyist competitive marksman, had introduced her to the sport at an early age, and along with it, gun safety. Which was why she immediately noticed the gunman rested his finger alongside the trigger guard, not on the actual trigger. That, and his stance, suggested military training, or at the very least someone who was well versed in firearms. That meant she and Dimitris were not likely to talk their way out of this.

  She eyed the distance to her tote on the seat, then held up her hands as Dimitris turned off the engine. The speedboat kept pace alongside as the Asteri came to a stop. As the vessel slowed, the sonar dropped to the bottom of the sea, dragging like an anchor. Remi pretended to stumble against the seat as the boat bobbed in the water. “Sorry,” she said in English, gripping the seat back to balance herself. “I’m still trying to get my sea legs.”

  The driver of the speedboat aimed his gun at them, while the other man holstered his weapon, and boarded the Asteri.

  Knowing she had just a few seconds, Remi leaned down, pulled the sat phone from the front pocket of her backpack, then pressed the last call received. Sam was half a world away, probably asleep by now.

  The kidnapper reached out, grabbed her by the arm, knocking the phone into her bag. Hoping he wasn’t going to kill her right there and then, she dug in her heels. “Can someone tell me what’s going on?”

  Whether or not the kidnappers understood English, she didn’t know, nor did she care. The boat driver spoke in rapid-fire Greek, too fast for Remi to catch most of what he was saying, other than the name “Fayez,” and “hurry.”

  Dimitris, standing stock-still, his arms raised, translated. “He wants us to get on their boat.”

  “Do they want money?” she asked, wincing as Fayez dug his fingers into her arm. Glancing up at the sky, Remi wished it really was dark and said, “Where’s the North Star when you need it?”

  With a loss of patience, she was forced to board the speedboat behind Dimitris and his reply was covered by the sound of the motor’s roar as the vessel surged forward. They barely made it to the seats on the port side. Fayez, sitting across from them, rested his gun on his thigh as they sped off toward open sea.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Sam awoke the next morning to the sound of Blake unlocking the front door to his real estate office, then turning on the overhead lights. “Wakey, wakey!”

  “Wakey, wakey? What am I, five?” Sam covered his eyes against the glare of the fluorescents. “You’re early.”

  “Apparently not as early as you,” he said, dropping a fast-food bag on his desk. He gave a pointed look at Sam’s feet propped up on an empty, overturned trash can, and shook his head. “When I said you could use the office, I thought it was going to be an occasional thing.”

  “So did I.” Sam stretched, his shoulder muscles tight from the hours spent sleeping in the chair. “Maybe renting a room over a garage where budding rock stars live wasn’t the wisest move. I figured I’d come in, get some work done.”

  “You and your project,” he said, nodding at the paperwork Sam had spread across the desk, “both need a new apartment. And my office isn’t it.”

  “I’m looking. I swear.”

  “Not fast enough.” Blake pulled two breakfast sandwiches from the bag and tossed one to him. “Any chance you’re going to get all of that together in time for your investor meeting?”

  “That’s my goal,” he said as the scent of fried egg and bacon wafted up. “When that day comes, I’ll pay you back.”

  “Should you get rich, remember that I not only found your investors, I gave you office space and fed you so you could keep working on—I’m never going to remember the name of that thing.”

  “An argon laser scanner.”

  “Right. The fancy metal detector.”

  That thing, as Blake called it, was—if all turned out well—going to be Sam’s future. Originally, his intent was that it could possibly be used for mining operations, but as he worked on it the possibilities expanded, including archeological purposes. Some days he looked at the plans and felt he would never be ready—not that he was about to let that stop him.

  He bit into the sandwich, then checked his phone, surprised to see a voice mail from Remi not long after he’d called her last night. He played it, but all he could hear was the hum of what he presumed was a boat motor in the background. Clearly the call was unintentional. He heard someone saying, “He wants us to get on the boat.”

  Then after a few seconds, muffled by the sound of the boat, a woman’s voice said, “Do they want money?” He couldn’t be sure if it was Remi’s voice until he heard Remi asking, “Where’s the North Star when you need it?”

  Beyond that, he heard nothing but the rev of the engine. The call ended soon after. Curious and a bit shaken, he called her number, but it went straight to voice mail.

  “Blake,” he said. “What’s this sound like to you?” He played the message on speaker. “What does it sound like she’s saying?”

  “That Remi?”

  He nodded.

  “Sounds like she’s on someone’s yacht. So call her.”

  “Already did. No answer.”

  “But what did she say?”

  “Someth
ing about where’s the North Star when you need it.”

  “Stop getting all worked up,” Blake told him. “I’m sure it’s fine. It’s Greece, not some third world country.”

  Even so, he called again, trying to think of something witty to say about the North Star and leaving a message for her to get back to him.

  But he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. After all, he had told her the North Star would lead him to her. Two hours later, he called her again. This time, a man answered with something that sounded like “Yes sas.”

  “Is Remi there?”

  “No. Who is this?”

  “I’m a friend of hers. From California. She called me—”

  “You heard from her? When?”

  The urgency in his voice worried Sam. “Not directly. She left a strange message on my phone. I wanted to make sure nothing was wrong.”

  There was a long pause, then, “I wish I knew. Dimitris is with her. We found their boat but not them.” At least that’s what it sounded like. The man’s accent was so thick, Sam wasn’t quite sure.

  “To whom am I speaking?”

  “Nikos Papadopoulos. Dimitris is my son. You say Remi called you? What did she say?”

  “I don’t think she was talking to me. If that was your son with her, he said something about getting onto a boat. She asked if they wanted money.”

  There was a muffled sound as though Nikos was moving the phone, then a hurried conversation in Greek with someone else. A moment later, “Thank you. I’ll inform the police. I’ll call you once I hear something.”

  “Something wrong?” Blake asked once Sam disconnected.

  “It’s looking that way.” He stared at the phone, his mind spinning with possibilities, all of them bad.

  “She’s an American citizen. Won’t the FBI get involved?”

  “Maybe.” While he assumed that the Greek authorities would notify the U.S. that a citizen had been kidnapped, thereby triggering an investigation by the FBI, he couldn’t be certain. He did, however, know someone who would know—his friend Rubin Haywood, a CIA agent—and he immediately called him.

  They’d met almost seven years ago at Camp Peary, during covert operative training bootcamp. Sam was there as part of an experimental program as a DARPA engineer. DARPA’s belief was that it was in their best interest to give their top engineers the same real-world, hands-on training that the CIA agents received, which would allow them to design even better technology. As a result, Sam was trained in everything from hand-to-hand combat to bypassing complex alarm systems. While the training had been intense—and definitely worthwhile in its application to designing high-tech gadgets for the various national security agencies—after he left DARPA for civilian life, Sam doubted it was anything that he’d ever personally use.

  He was beginning to rethink that with each passing ring of the phone.

  Rube finally answered. “Tired of California already?”

  “I need your help.” Sam told him about the call from Remi’s phone and then his conversation with Nikos.

  “Forward that voice mail to me. I’ll get someone to translate it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And Sam? I know you can handle yourself out there, but officially, I’m telling you to stay out of Greece and let the government do its job. It’s possible there’s a logical explanation. Wait to hear what’s going on.”

  “Unofficially?”

  “Good luck and safe travels.”

  The moment Sam disconnected, he opened his laptop, searching for airline tickets.

  Blake leaned over, looking at Sam’s monitor, whistling at the price of the last-minute one-way ticket. He shook his head. “That’s a lot of money for a woman you just met.”

  “I didn’t just meet her.”

  “Oh, okay. Like, two whole weeks ago.”

  “A lifetime.”

  “Never. What about your investor meeting? That’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

  Blake was right. Sam looked at the jumble of paperwork covering the desk, thinking about all the years of work he’d put in just to get his argon laser to the point where he could finally present it as a viable idea. He hesitated at the thought he was possibly giving up what had been a dream of his for as long as he could remember—investors of that type didn’t come along every day.

  Then again, neither did women like Remi Longstreet.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Samos, Greece

  Life on the smaller Greek islands, Sam quickly discovered, ran at a much slower pace than anywhere else. He was lucky that he arrived in Samos after his flight from Athens in time to catch the one ferry that stopped off at Fourni, since there wasn’t another until two days later. He boarded behind a group of young men and women, all dressed for hiking, following them up the stairs to the outside deck, willing everyone to hurry and the boat to move.

  Finally, the ferry pulled out, and he leaned against the railing, the salt-tinged air blowing through his hair as the boat picked up speed. Had he been there as a tourist, he might have enjoyed the sight of the picturesque port of Pythagorio and the masts of the various sailing yachts moored within it. Above him, billowing white clouds in a blue sky accentuated the white houses terraced upon the hill, overlooking the water, where, farther out, several fishing boats headed in with the day’s catch. Sam, however, paid little attention. His mind was on his last conversation with Rube, whose preliminary investigation failed to turn up anything significant—other than confirming that Remi and her friend Dimitris were both missing. The Greek translator had only been able to pick out a few words on the voice recording, one of the men insisting that they needed to hurry. Another CIA analyst determined that the engine heard in the background belonged to a high-powered boat. They all agreed that a woman did say, “Where’s the North Star when you need it?”

  None of that was enough for anyone to confirm that a kidnapping had actually taken place, though they had notified the FBI’s International Violent Crimes Unit. According to Rube, Sam’s only recourse was to let the local authorities conduct their own investigation.

  Not that he was about to stand by and do nothing. Sam was glad to know Dimitris’s father felt the same. He’d already started his own search and welcomed Sam’s offer to help.

  “Excuse me?”

  Sam looked up to see a blond-haired woman from the tourist group standing beside him. She tried asking a question in halting Greek.

  “American,” he said.

  “Sorry. I figured you were a local. The backpack.” She nodded at the bag slung over his shoulder.

  Sam nodded toward a small carry-on tucked under a bench. “Quick trip,” he said.

  “Have you been to Fourni before?”

  “My first time.”

  “Oh. Well, I guess that means you don’t know the best place to eat lunch once we arrive.”

  “Sadly, no.”

  She held out her hand. “Emma,” she said, then cocked her head at the man on her right. “My husband, Geoff. With a G.”

  “Nice to meet you,” he said, shaking her hand. “Sam. With an S.”

  She smiled, then moved to the railing, next to him, taking in the view. A few minutes later, her husband joined them, pointing to a large yacht floating in open water between the islands. “Someone important,” he said, lowering his sunglasses and looking out over the rims.

  “And rich,” Emma replied. She pointed to a smaller yacht in the distance. “If we win the lotto, that’s the type of boat I want. Much more manageable.”

  “That little thing? No. Definitely the big one,” Geoff said. He nodded to a long, black speedboat. “What do you suppose that costs?”

  Sam glanced up as the sleek Omega 41 zipped past, then pulled up to the superyacht. “About four, five hundred thousand dollars.”

  Emma laughed. “Sorry,
Geoff. You’ll have to win the lotto twice at that price. Guess it comes as a set.”

  Sam listened with half an ear as the couple discussed other vessels they’d buy with their imagined lotto winnings. His mind, however, was solely on Remi Longstreet and the odd call from her phone, hoping it was all one big misunderstanding. Surely they’d joke about it when he got there, she pointing out the fact he didn’t speak Greek, and how could he ever have imagined anything was wrong?

  His hopes for an alternate reality were dashed when the ferry docked an hour later. Emma and Geoff waved goodbye as they followed their group down the ramp. As the crowd thinned, Sam noticed a man wearing a blue ball cap, standing off to one side on the dock. Recognizing the logo on his hat as being from the Fourni Underwater Archeological Preservation Society, Sam approached. “Nikos?”

  The gray-haired man gave a grim smile. “Sam Fargo?” They shook hands. “Do you have luggage?”

  He held up his backpack. “Just the carry-on. I travel light.”

  “Thank you so much for coming out. Still, I don’t know what good it’ll do,” he said, his thick accent much easier to understand in person. “The port police assure me they’re doing everything they can. Remi’s parents have been in touch with the FBI. Beyond that . . .”

  “Have the police told you anything more?”

  “No, nothing. That’s why I worry. Their belief is that my son and Remi may have fallen off the boat, or perhaps went diving. But their dive gear is back at the office. And Dimitris would never dive without someone on the boat. He is very experienced.”

  Sam, hoping for a miracle, asked, “What do you think happened?”

  “I don’t know.” He drew his gaze from the water, his dark eyes troubled. “If they were kidnapped for ransom, surely they would’ve made a demand by now?”

  “Possibly,” Sam said. “In the meantime, maybe we’ll see something that stands out to help the police with their investigation.”

  Nikos gave a doubtful nod as they walked from the port, past the group of people lined up waiting to board the ferry. He led Sam up a narrow street paved with gray flagstones. It was lined on either side with mulberry trees, their trunks painted white to guard against the harsh summer sun. The Fourni Underwater Archeological Preservation Society was located about halfway up the street on the right. At the office, Nikos led Sam into a room with a table and several chairs set around it. A large map of Fourni was tacked on the wall. “Can I get you anything to eat or drink? We have nothing here, but we can go to one of the cafés.”