by Rob Jones
Under the water the temperature dropped fast, and the light faded as he went deeper. He felt the tugs on the rope as Zaugg’s men dragged him deeper beneath the keel. Luckily, Ryan and Sophie had sabotaged the engine and this meant the ship was stationary in the water.
Thanks to that, his weight would ensure he would likely miss most of the devastating barnacle plates, and all he had to do was avoid drowning. His SBS training had taught him to hold his lungs for longer than Grasso had presumably been left underwater, and he clung to that hope as the ropes tugged him roughly under the yacht.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Lea struggled against Zaugg’s grip as she watched several of his men run to their leader and inform him that the SAS man at the front of the Thalassa was dead.
Lea and the others knew they meant Sparky, a man with whom Hart had shared work and life for two decades. With Alexis also dead she had lost two close friends to Zaugg’s insanity. Lea saw the rage rise in her, but she fought it away out of a sense of self-preservation.
With Sparky dead, that left only the four of them, plus Chief, who was now being dragged up from below decks, badly beaten in the face and body.
“Sorry, boss,” he croaked up to Hart. “Overwhelming numbers. Twelve to one. I could have taken ten, I reckon, but not twelve.”
“Silence!” screamed Zaugg. He kicked Chief hard in the face and knocked him unconscious. “Even your SAS is no match for me.”
“You’ll pay for this, Zaugg,” Hart said, her voice cold and clipped.
“I think not. With your man Hawke currently drowning beneath the boat, all that remains is to execute the five of you and dump your bodies overboard.”
Zaugg walked toward the chopper which Baumann had fired up a few moments ago. The blades began slowly to whir and pick up speed until they were at full operating velocity, the rotors invisible now and pushing a powerful downdraft in Lea’s face.
Zaugg spoke with another person whom Lea presumed was Dietmar Grobel, a short, fat man who waddled away from the chopper and returned a few moments later with what unnervingly looked to her like a pack of C4 explosives. He secured them to the side of the yacht and the men climbed into the Bell.
“I bid you all farewell!” Zaugg shouted.
“I guess he changed his mind about shooting us then,” Ryan said.
Lea turned to him. “Don’t count your chickens yet.”
The chopper rose gently from the deck. It was blown to the side a little by the wind but Baumann corrected it before ascending fast into the bright blue sky and veering away from the yacht.
Lea pointed up. “We have to get off this boat. Look!”
The chopper turned in the sky and the side door swung open to reveal Grobel at the handles of an M60. Flames flashed from its muzzle as he strafed the side of the yacht.
“But we have to get Hawke!” said Ryan. As he spoke Chief began to regain consciousness. He rubbed his temple and spat some blood on the deck.
Ryan began heaving at Hawke’s rope, helped by Lea and Chief.
“It’s jammed!” Ryan shouted. Without saying another word he took a knife from one of Zaugg’s dead guards and jumped into the water, diving beneath the surface. Moments later he emerged, dragging Hawke behind him. The SBS man was slipping in and out of consciousness.
Behind them the M60 chattered away, peppering the deck.
“They’re aiming for the C4!” Hart shouted. “Everyone off the boat!”
Down in the water, Ryan cut at the nylon yachting rope which secured Hawke’s hands behind his back as everyone else leaped off the yacht and joined them.
Ryan hacked at the rope and released Hawke. As he did so, Hawke smiled for half a second but slipped into unconsciousness again. With seconds to spare the others hit the water and dived for cover as Ryan hauled Hawke back under the surface again, this time to protect him from the blast.
Lea went into the water the second the yacht went up in flames. The shockwave felt like a punch, but being underwater had protected them from the worst of the explosion as the yacht turned into a giant fireball. Through the distorted surface and the burning wreckage she watched as Zaugg’s chopper spun one-eighty and headed for the mainland.
*
When Hawke came back up for air, the bright blue Mediterranean sky was now black with the burning oil and wreckage of the Thalassa.
He knew he’d been unconscious, but for how long he wasn’t sure. He could smell the fuel on the surface of the sea, rank and nauseating. Then, he heard the cries of his friends as they scrambled in the water, trying to find anything to cling to. None of them except Hawke and Scarlet had the benefit of serious underwater training. Luckily, they had located the box of emergency equipment and flares.
He swam over to Ryan, pulling a piece of smashed door along under his arm. Ryan slipped under, but Hawke dived down and pulled him back up again. He hoisted him over the door fragment.
“Thanks, Joe,” he said, coughing sea water from his lungs.
“It's me who should be thanking you,” Hawke said.
“What for?”
“You saved my arse back there, so thanks Ryan.”
Ryan was speechless for a few seconds, half-drowned, and dazed with concussion as he bobbed up and down in the Ionian Sea. “Really, there’s no need to – hang on – you called me Ryan.”
“All right, calm down. We’re not getting a room or anything. I just said thanks.”
“Sorry.”
“Seriously though – thank you, Ryan. There’s more in there than I thought,” he said, tapping Ryan’s chest. “I owe you, mate.”
“So what do we do now, He-Man?” Lea shouted.
Scarlet laughed. “Yes he does look a bit like He-Man. We’d need to dress him in those silly little shorts for the full effect.”
Hawke sighed and rolled his eyes. “Even now, here, in the middle of the sea...”
“Where’s Chief?” Hart said, looking frantically around in the water.
After a short search, Sophie saw him, bobbing about in the water, face down. “I’m sorry,” she said.
There was silence for a few moments as they considered the destruction Zaugg had wrought since all this began, and all those who had died trying to stop him. Then Scarlet saw Ryan’s MacBook give up the ghost and sink slowly to the sea floor. “Hey boy – there goes your IQ.”
“At least mine’s heavy enough to sink,” Ryan said.
A long period passed when even Hawke began to get nervous about their chances of survival when Ryan perked up and craned his neck, protecting his eyes from the sun’s glare with his hands. “Look over there!” he shouted, clinging to the door for his life.
“It’s another boat!” Sophie said. “Thank God!” She lit a flare and fired it into the air.
“The sun shines on the righteous.” Hawke lit the second flare.
A few moments later a high-powered catamaran pulled smoothly alongside them.
“You need some help?”
The accent was French, southern by the sound of it, and the man who had spoken looked as close to a professional wrestler as you could get without the ring, the umpire and the popcorn. He had the thickest neck Hawke had ever seen, and that was saying something. The full effect was finished off with a shaved head and an enormous no-nonsense handlebar moustache.
“You took your bloody time,” Scarlet said, laughing.
The man offered a nonchalant Gallic shrug but made no reply.
“Everyone,” Scarlet said. “Meet Reaper. Reaper, meet everyone.”
“Ça va?” the man said, and roared with laughter as he lowered the boarding ladder into the water.
*
On board, they ate a meal of freshly caught sardines with a grilled avocado and tomato salad, all courtesy of the mysterious owner of the catamaran, before taking a few minutes to relax and regain their strength.
Hart made use of the communication system on board to organize a conference call between several concerned agencies, including Sir
Richard Eden, and a senior officer at the CIA. They were informed that Zaugg had gotten away with the full golden disc and had now dropped off the radar. Demetriou was back on shore and would meet them there where air transport was being arranged.
“Where the hell did you get a luxury catamaran from, Reap?” Scarlet asked.
“I am a resourceful guy,” he said, smiling. But that was all he said.
The others looked at her, shocked. Hawke was awaiting an explanation.
“When we were in Athens and we realized you’d been stupid enough to get yourselves caught,” Scarlet said, looking casually at Lea, who rolled her eyes in response, “we decided we needed some back-up. So Joe called the commodore in there,” she jabbed her thumb at the comms room, “while I thought about who I knew in this part of the world.”
“And the answer... c’est moi,” Reaper said with a broad smile.
“We go way back to some dark days that would put you off your lunch if I were to describe them, but I knew he was down here so I gave him a call. I told him about the boat and its location but that we would meet him on the mainland.”
“Luckily for you guys I anticipated your incompetence and decided to borrow this catamaran, or you would all be dead and your man Zaugg would have the tomb and its treasures all to himself, no?”
They finished their meal, and Hawke and Scarlet joined Reaper who was steering the boat towards the mainland as fast as he could go. Thanks to the commodore’s phone call someone was arranging a chopper for them, but where they were going they had no idea.
“So what’s your real name?” Hawke asked.
Reaper clicked his tongue dismissively. “You can call me Reaper.”
“Reaper?”
“Oui. That is my name as far as you are concerned.”
Reaper checked the navigation system and looked back to the horizon. He lit up a cigarette.
Scarlet said: “Reaper is his codename. Please forgive him. He can be brusque sometimes.”
“What are we talking about here?” Hawke asked. “Former French Foreign Legion, now a merc?”
Scarlet arched an eyebrow in surprise. “Exactly. How did you know that?”
“Let’s just say I recognize the attitude.”
Reaper laughed. “Fine. I’m a former Foreign Legion man. 2REP section.”
“The infamous paratrooper section,” Hawke added with respect. “No doubt you’re none too fussy about your mission briefs since becoming a merc, either.”
“You think you’re better than me because…”
Then Ryan was shouting.
“Oh my God, I’ve got it!” He came running into the room holding a triangular serving dish full of green olives.
“Well stay away from me then,” purred Scarlet.
“No – the second clue – I think I have the answer. Look!”
He held the dish up in front of them.
“Have you been smoking coffee again, Ryan?” Scarlet said.
“No, look!” He set down the dish and swivelled an old laptop belonging to the catamaran’s owner so the others could see.
“When we were trapped in the hold on Zaugg’s yacht something kept on bothering me.”
“Me too,” said Lea. “They’re called cable-ties.”
“Not the cable-ties,” Ryan said. “What was bothering me was that weird cryptic reference to the Samian’s sacred place in the second clue – you remember?”
Hawke sat opposite him and bit into an apple. “Sure – Beneath the Highest City, Where The Samian’s Sacred Work Shall Guide – The Kingdom Of The Eldest Is Where What You Seek Doth Hide. What about it?”
“We all presumed that the highest city – the acropolis reference – was pointing us in the direction of the famous Acropolis in Athens, the one with the Parthenon where all the tourists go every year, right?”
The others listened as Ryan’s moment in the sun dawned. Sophie spoke to Reaper in rapid French before bumming one of his cigarettes and lighting up. She kicked back next to Ryan on the soft chair around the low table.
Ryan looked at her and they shared a glance before he continued with a smile on his face. “But there was that part about the Samian. It just didn’t make sense. Then, thanks to Zaugg I had time to think about it without access to the MacBook, and so I really thought about it, if you know what I mean.”
“Go on, boy.”
“Clearly the Samian is a reference to Pythagoras – I’m sure you all got that much, right?”
The others shared a glance, thought about it, but then Hawke said: “No, Ryan. Only you got that much. Please carry on, mate.”
“Pythagoras was also known as Pythagoras the Samian, for the simple reason that he came from the island of Samos, but that’s not important. What’s important is the reference about his sacred work.”
Reaper turned from the helm and spoke over his shoulder. “Triangles, no?”
Ryan was impressed. “Yes, exactly! Pythagoras is most famous for discovering and demonstrating the proof of what we now call the Pythagorean theorem – the mathematical law that states that the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides.”
“This is like being back in school, Ryan,” Scarlet said. “Only without the bikesheds. Do speed things up.”
“Sorry – anyway. That takes care of the reference about his work – clearly it is directing us to look at a triangle of some sort.”
“Like a monument?” Sophie asked, leaning into him.
“No, I don’t think so. Just listen for a second.” As he spoke, he typed something into Google Earth and the Mediterranean Sea spun into view. He zoomed in on Greece.
“So I had the triangle part kind of sorted, but that left the bit about sacred and it was driving me crazy. Seeing that dish just now brought it altogether – the triangle and so on, and that is when the reference to the sacred finally made sense.”
“Still not following you, mate.” Hawke grabbed a second apple from the bowl. The catamaran bobbed gently up and down as it cut effortlessly through the waves.
“The ancient Greeks were famous for their love of geometry, and they achieved amazing things that we don’t even think about today. One of these things is called the Sacred Triangle and it's right here - look.”
He used the path facility on Google Earth to draw out a perfect isosceles triangle over the Greek islands and mainland.
“I’m connecting three points on this map. If you look closely you’ll see they are the Acropolis in Athens, the Temple of Aphaea on the island of Aigina to the southwest and the Temple of Poseidon at Sounion at the southernmost tip of the Attica peninsula. These three places were built to form a perfect isosceles triangle across the earth.”
“So not a monument,” Sophie whispered, “but a shape on the earth itself.”
“Exactly!”
Hawke peered into the screen, his apple-munching gradually taking second place to the revelation before him. “That’s actually amazing.”
“I’ll say it is,” said Lea, subconsciously taking hold of Hawke’s harm, causing Scarlet to raise an eyebrow.
“So next I started thinking what was the relevance of the triangle. It couldn’t be a coincidence or a mistake – it was just too perfect. So I gave it some more thought and realized that perhaps the lines of the triangle were pointing to something. I drew lines from the Temple of Poseidon to the Acropolis but found nothing that made any sense, and again from Aphaea’s temple to the Acropolis but again couldn’t find anything that stood out.”
“But then?”
“But then I drew a line from Poseidon’s temple to Aphaea’s temple and found two things straight away – the line connects both temples with the Temple of Isis in the east on Delos...”
“So we need to go to Delos?” Hart said, staring wide-eyed at the screen.
“No – I don't think so. The line also connects perfectly with another location – pointing very clearly and perfectly to Sami, on Kefalonia, the biggest island in
the Ionian Sea. I think The Samian’s Sacred Work Shall Guide means follow the southern line of the triangle to Kefalonia – to Sami.”
“Does Sami have anything to do with the Samian?” Hawke asked.
Ryan shook his head. “Coincidence.”
“That’s confusing.”
“To you maybe...” Ryan stopped and apologized. Hawke laughed, his admiration for Ryan Bale growing by the minute.
Hawke replied: “But how can you be sure it’s pointing us there and not to the Temple of Isis on Delos?”
“Because of the reference to the acropolis in the first clue.”
“Still not with you.”
“Just outside Sami, on Kefalonia, is a famous acropolis.”
For a few seconds there was only the sound of waves as the catamaran moved through the water, and everyone considered Ryan’s logic.
“If you break it down - Beneath the Highest City, Where The Samian’s Sacred Work Shall Guide – The Kingdom Of The Eldest Is Where What You Seek Doth Hide – it’s actually rather simple. It means “Under the acropolis at Sami, on Kefalonia, there’s some kind of underground complex – Hades, the eldest brother – and that is where we’re going to find the vault of Poseidon.”
More silence, and then Hawke spoke: “Somebody get this lad a beer. We’re going to Kefalonia.”
“First,” Reaper said. “I suggest you get some sleep. It’s going to take a couple of hours to get to the mainland, and we know Zaugg has a head start on us, but there’s no way he’ll attempt to access the tomb without more men. When he left the Thalassa he was down to a handful.”
“What happens when we get to the mainland?” Lea asked.
Hart spoke: “I’ve made some calls and organized the chopper that brought us to the Thalassa. Demetriou is waiting for us there with more men. Now we know we’re going to Kefalonia it’s just a matter of getting there as fast as possible.”
Ryan and Sophie disappeared below decks while Lea sat next to Hawke on the front deck. It was a long sail, and the sun was bright.
