by Rob Jones
Ryan stared up at his ex-wife. “Do you want to translate it?”
“Sorry – I’m sorry, honestly.”
Ryan stared at the simple sentence again: “Take thine hands into the earth, and share the Victory of Theseus and Pallas.”
“What’s that, a riddle?”
“I think it must be. It certainly isn’t Homer.”
“Fantastic – I was never any good at word games.” Lea frowned.
“Perhaps if you could shoot it you would be of more use,” Ryan said with a smug smile.
“If I could shoot you I would be of even more use,” she said. “Something I should have done years ago,” she muttered under her breath. “I was never any good at word puzzles.”
“Luckily I was,” Ryan said. “Pallas is just another name for Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom and courage, so that bit’s easy.”
“Easy, he says!” said Lea. “I’ve never even heard of Pallas.”
“It all just seems too weird to be true,” he said, almost to himself. He stared at the screen. “Take thine hands into the earth, and share the Victory of Pallas.” He repeated the sentence again almost in a whisper. “The only thing I can think of in terms of Athena and a reference to victory is the contest she took part in with Poseidon.”
“Him again,” Lea said. “He seems to be popping up a lot these days.”
“We’re talking about a contest that took place long ago even relative to ancient Greece itself – far back in the time of the gods. The first king of Athens was called Cecrops. He was half man and half snake.”
“A lot of men are like that,” Lea said softly.
Ryan ignored her, his eyes fixed on the little cursor blinking at the end of Demetriou’s mysterious clue. “He decided he must find a deity for his subjects to worship, and he discovered that both Poseidon and Athena wanted to be their god, or goddess in her case. Poseidon and Athena were very ancient and powerful rivals, and they were on the cusp of going to war when Athena suggested they held a contest for the right to be worshipped by Cecrops and his subjects.”
“So not unlike two politicians fighting for the leadership of their party then?” Lea said.
“You’re not funny, Lea,” Ryan said, sighing. “Beautiful, but not funny.”
Lea looked at him from behind, unsure how to respond to such an obvious flirtation. She chose to ignore it and hope he moved on. He did.
“An enormous crowd gathered to watch the contest. It started with Poseidon – he was well known for his temper – he struck the earth with his trident. It broke the earth up and brought forth a spring, which became a flood, and that in turn became a body of water named the Sea of Erechtheus.”
“A good opening gambit, I would have thought.”
“Not really,” Ryan continued. “The people were overjoyed until they tasted the water, which was salty because Poseidon was the god of the sea. They weren’t happy.”
“Bummer,” said Lea. “Fifteen love to Athena then.”
“Athena’s approach was different. Instead of a dramatic event like the creation of a sea, she gently knelt on the ground and buried an unknown object in the earth. It grew quickly into an olive tree. The people loved it because it gave them olives for food, the oil for cooking and cleaning, and the wood for fires.”
“Game, set and match to Athena then?” said Lea.
“Indeed. Cecrops declared Athena the winner and named his city after her. She became their goddess and protected them and their city.”
“And Poseidon took all this like a gent?” Lea said.
“Not at all. He was enraged, and he flooded the Thriasian Plain and drowned half of the Attica Peninsula under seawater with his trident.”
“Nice guy.”
“And that’s the power that Zaugg wants to get his hands on.”
“And how do we know all this?”
“It’s a famous legend, and one of the places it was recorded was on the Temple of Athena up on the Acropolis in Athens, where it's carved into the stone for all time.”
“So what does this have to do with the clue on our vase?”
“Athena’s victory was gained by her planting of an olive tree, and the first part of Demetriou’s sentence tells us to place our hands into the earth to share her victory. I’d say the key to this is buried under an olive tree somewhere.”
“Excellent,” Lea said. “There are only a few hundred million of them in Greece.”
“This whole thing is like a Cretan Labyrinth!” Ryan said.
“What the hell is the Cretan Labyrinth?” she asked.
Ryan replied: “A seven-circuit maze system designed by Daedalus for King Minos son of Zeus. It was built to contain the Minotaur until Theseus could kill him.” He paused for long enough to make Lea turn and ask him if there was a problem.
“Er... well – I’m not sure,” was his reply. “Just looking a bit closer into the legend and there’s more and more talk of something called the nectar of the gods, but it says something here that I haven’t come across before.”
“What is it?”
“Something about ambrosia.”
“Ambrosia?” Lea asked. “Not the bloody custard?”
Ryan shook his head and sighed. “I used to find your ignorance attractive,” he said wearily. “A sort of Pygmalion thing, I suppose, but actually it’s really worrying.”
“Not the custard then?”
“No, not the sodding custard. Ambrosia was the nectar of the gods which is what many believed made them immortal. Demetriou’s research is indicating that it was not merely legendary but actually real.”
“This just gets better,” said Lea.
“It says here that the vault of Poseidon – and he’s citing a passage of Herodotus I don’t recognize, which is odd – but anyway, it says that the vault is real – which we know now thanks to the Ionian Texts – and that its location was recorded by the Vienna Painter and hidden in two vases, but it also makes these references to the divine nectar.”
“You’re telling me that Zaugg’s not really after the trident at all, but some kind of…”
“Immortality,” said Ryan, finishing her sentence.
“But this isn’t confirmed, right?”
“I guess not… it just looks like something this Demetriou has dug up on his travels around the internet. It's just to do with the legend of the gods’ ambrosia and how it mustn’t be touched by mortal man or...” he paused again.
“What, Ryan?”
“Sorry – just making sure my translation is good. This Demetriou is very articulate actually, if you look at how he...”
“Ryan!”
“Ah, sorry – anyway, it says here that if mortal man tries to control the power of the elixir of life the sky will turn to fire and all mankind will burn to death.”
“The sky will turn to fire?” Lea said. “And here I was frightened of the freaking trident. What does it mean?”
“Let’s hope we don’t find out,” said Sophie, who had walked over to the desk.
“Ryan, text that to Hawke will, you? If the goddamn sky’s going to set on fire I want Hawke to know about it in advance!”
“Sure thing.” Ryan tapped out the message.
“And Sophie, get back to that door and keep an eye out for...”
Suddenly the door burst open and they were faced with three armed men holding close-quarter Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns. Lea stared at the man in the middle with fear in her heart. It was Heinrich Baumann. She reached for her gun.
“Don’t even think about it,” he said in heavily accented English.
A voice deep inside her told her to do as she was told, and while she knew Ryan wouldn’t do anything stupid, she could only hope Sophie Durand would make the same play. She would be asking her why she never saw Baumann and his crew approaching the house later on, if she lived long enough to pose the question.
Baumann smirked as she handed over her Glock 17, and Sophie followed suit by handing the Beretta ove
r a second later. Was that glance Sophie and Baumann shared a second too long, she wondered?
Baumann stared at Ryan Bale, who was slinking behind Demetriou’s Packard Bell.
“He’s not armed,” Lea said. “Ryan, show them you’re not armed. And move slowly, for God’s sake.”
Ryan did as he was told.
“Now you are all coming for a ride,” Baumann said.
“What do you want with us?” Lea asked, hoping with everything she had that Hawke had made it to the museum.
Baumann blinked his one working eye and smirked. She heard the tiny motors whining in his metal hand. “You don’t want to know.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The National Archaeological Museum in Athens is acknowledged as keeping one of the greatest collections of antiquities in the world, and is located in the center of the ancient city in the busy Exarcheia district.
A polished expansive floor of white marble tiles stretched away from Hawke and Scarlet as they stood in the main entrance and stared into the vast museum, every wing filled with relics and artifacts carefully divided into special collections for the public to enjoy.
They made their way behind the guide along a quiet corridor lined with offices of various members of staff until they reached the one belonging to Yannis Demetriou.
“Please, wait a moment,” the staff member said. “I’ll call the professor and tell him you’re here.”
They knew the professor wasn't there. They had already called both the university and the museum earlier and been told he was nowhere to be found. They were told it was most unlike him to be absent without explanation. They feared the worst, and quickly got into his office where they started work.
The small office was a temporary affair he was using while on sabbatical at the museum, and on his desk, among the clutter and piles of old journals was a single red rose in a glass vase. It needed some more water, Hawke thought.
It took him back to the day he had met Liz. He was standing on a platform at Paddington Station waiting for a train to take him back to his base on the coast, and she had walked up to him holding a single red rose.
“Are you Quentin?” she had asked.
“Sorry, no. My name’s Joe.”
“Ah…” she looked embarrassed.
“But I’ve always thought I could pull off the name Quentin if I tried.”
She laughed. “You look like a Quentin. That’s why I walked up to you and not that guy.” She gestured subtly to an old man in a greasy raincoat standing a few yards away.
“Whose name is obviously Marmaduke.”
Another laugh.
They talked for a few moments, and then they shared a coffee. Hawke learned her name was Elizabeth Compton, and that she worked as a translator in the Ministry of Defence. He learned her best friend had set her up on a blind date with a colleague named Quentin.
And she learned he was in the navy where he worked as a regular sailor. He couldn’t tell her the truth, not until he knew her much better. It was part of the job. He knew they would get married as soon as he realized they had both missed their trains.
“Joe!”
He was startled back in reality. It was Scarlet. “Earth calling Joe!”
“Sorry, I was lost in the past for a second.”
“Well, snap out of it and help me look for something that can help us out here, would you?”
He smiled, and began to go through Demetriou’s filing cabinet, taking less than ten seconds to tip it backwards and pop open the lock via the little hole on the base. Inside were hundreds of files all written in Greek. Hawke couldn’t read a word of it. French and Spanish yes, German maybe, but Greek, no.
“This is no good,” he said. “We’re not getting anywhere. For all we know Zaugg’s already got what he wants and Demetriou’s dead.”
“We have no choice,” Scarlet said sharply. “We have to keep looking. We can’t risk another innocent death.”
Another innocent death, Hawke thought.
The day after their wedding they flew to Hanoi. Their honeymoon was supposed to be four weeks long, taking in the Imperial City in Vietnam, Angkor Wat in Cambodia and the Grand Palace in Thailand before spending a week on a beach on Ko Samui. It was going to be the start of their lives together.
They had only been in Hanoi one day when it happened.
Liz stepped inside the bar to buy two bottles of beer and returned with one in each hand, smiling. She set them down and took a picture of Hawke. He picked up the camera and took one of the two of them together. The original selfie.
And then they arrived.
Two people on a moped. A driver and an assassin, both wearing helmets.
They turned the corner, no different to any of the other few dozen mopeds flying around, but as they drove past the bar they slowed for a second. The assassin on the back pulled what looked to Hawke like an old Chinese PLA CF05 submachine gun from a satchel slung over the shoulder and fired very deliberately in the direction of Hawke and Liz.
They were fish in a barrel, but his reaction was lightning. He tipped up the metal table to use as a shield, sending beer bottles and peanuts flying into the air as bullets sprayed up the wall behind them, smashing all the windows and blasting holes out of the flimsy door. People screamed and ran for their lives.
And then he saw Liz, on the pavement, blood running through her t-shirt, streaming from her mouth. It was as fast and simple as that to take someone’s life, he thought.
Hawke gently shook his head at the memory – his way of trying to rub it out. He had learned to suppress the bad memories that haunt people’s lives as a young man. He had joined the marines as a way of getting out into the world and proving himself, of getting away from his mess of a life. But he knew in his heart that you never got rid of a memory like that of Liz dying in his arms. That was here to stay, a permanent ghost.
At first he had tried to console himself with the idea of savage revenge, of tracking down the scumbag that had tried to kill him and instead murdered his wife, but then even that tiny shred of hope was broken when his former CO, Commander Olivia Hart, had told him the hitman was Alfredo Lazaro, a Cuban mercenary hired by an unknown agency to take Hawke out of the game permanently.
Hart claimed to have been given the intel directly by the Secretary of Defense himself. She also told him Lazaro had been killed a few days later in a strip club in the Patpong district of Bangkok in a raid orchestrated by Thai Special Forces. That was the last anyone ever talked about it and his old life went up in smoke.
“For God’s sake what is the matter with you?”
Scarlet again. This time her face suggested he should definitely stop daydreaming about the past.
“Sorry. What have you found?” he asked.
“There’s someone coming,” she whispered. She gently closed the door and stepped back into the office. “He’ll be here in just a few seconds.”
“Who is it?”
“Funnily enough, Joe, it's Zeus himself, and he wants to know why you’re such an arse.”
Hawke opened his mouth to reply, but closed it a second later when the door opened.
“What is going on in here?”
A short, dark-haired man with a thick moustache was standing in the door. He looked at them for a short moment and then spoke again: “Who are you people, and why are you in my office?”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“You’re Professor Yannis Demetriou?” Hawke asked.
“Of course, and this is my office. Now I ask again – who are you and why are you here?”
Hawke and Scarlet shared a quick glance before returning their eyes to Demetriou. He looked pretty upset that they had broken in to his personal space and were going through his files. Hawke guessed he wouldn’t exactly be over the moon about Ryan trawling through his home computer back at his apartment.
“We thought you’d been kidnapped,” Scarlet said.
“Kidnapped?” snapped Demetriou. “What are you talking about?
There was an emergency at my sister’s house. What is going on here?!”
“I think we need to start again,” Hawke said.
They explained everything they knew about the vault of Poseidon, Hugo Zaugg and even their encounters with Kaspar Vetsch back in New York and Geneva. Eventually, Demetriou calmed down, and asked a member of the museum staff to bring them coffee.
“It’s good finally to meet someone who doesn’t think we’re crazy,” said Scarlet.
Demetriou smiled. “Poseidon’s tomb – or as the ancient writers often called it, the Vault of Poseidon – is a crazy concept in most people’s eyes, but not in mine. I have always had an open mind, and never stopped believing in the existence of the tomb.”
“I still can’t get my head around the fact that Poseidon was real,” Hawke said. “I thought he was a god.”
“But the two terms are not mutually exclusive,” Demetriou replied. “How do we know what god is? How do we know he has not walked among us? This is what Christians teach, after all, so why is is not possible to extend such a thought to the ancient gods?”
“It still sounds like a load of tripe to me,” Scarlet said. “I’m just here to shoot people.”
“No! Our modern Western minds are programmed to see polytheism as an antiquated concept, but the principle is the same. There is no reason why Poseidon, Thor, Mars or any of the other gods could not have been real and walked the earth! Today in Greece we even have the phenomenon of dodekatheism, an attempt to revive the worship of these ancient gods!”
“But gods are immortal,” Hawke said flatly, still finding it hard to accept he was really having this conversation. “And if they are immortal, then why are they not alive today?”
“This depends on your understanding of immortality. It could refer simply to the memory of them living on forever, as history shows has happened. Or, it could mean they are immortal in the spirit world. Others would argue that immortality does not mean one cannot be killed, merely that one would live forever if left unharmed.”
