by K. T. Tomb
“Back up and find a place to park that is out of sight,” Andriy ordered.
Within minutes, the car was hidden and Andriy, Demitri and Cy were arming themselves to go in pursuit.
“Keep the woman alive until we have the box,” Andriy said in a breathy tone as he drew back the slide on his pistol, thumbed the safety and tucked the weapon in his waistband.
The other two nodded, following his lead.
Chapter Twenty-three
Danna hadn’t been overly supportive of Edwin’s idea to search for a ‘stone, pillar, temple or cave’ on the mountainside near Kryoneri.
Though she trusted Edwin and had never known him to be anything but steadily focused and infallibly logical, there was plenty of doubt in her mind about the ‘visitation’ he’d experienced with the old man.
The problem she faced by dismissing his story, however, was that they had no other leads to follow. If she was going to be totally honest, she had chased less solid hunches and seen results. Sometimes it paid to go with one’s gut, so she’d followed Edwin’s.
Danna was thoroughly enjoying their climb up the mountain, especially enjoying the vista of the valleys below and the scent of trees and foliage all around them. About halfway to the summit of the trail, they came to a fork in the path.
“Right or left?” she asked. It was highly likely that it didn’t matter. No doubt, both trails led to the same location and met again, either at another point around the slope or at the summit itself.
“Both,” Edwin replied.
The response was something of a surprise.
“Both?”
“I think it’s here,” Edwin answered. “I know it’s here. I can feel it.”
“Okay. So, you feel it, but do you really want to split up?”
Edwin turned a full circle, taking in the surrounding forest. Danna followed his lead, wondering what it was that he was looking for. She could hear birds twittering and squirrels chattering along with the sound of the wind rustling leaves and whistling through the boughs of the evergreens.
“Are you afraid of the squirrels, the birds or the ghostly moan of the wind?” he chuckled.
“Fine,” she said, pushing out her bottom lip. “If you don’t want to stroll through the woods with me, we’ll just split up.”
“It’s not that, love,” he responded. “I just thought we might cover more ground if we did. Besides, the trails probably rejoin on the other side of the slope or at the summit anyway.”
“You’re too easy sometimes.” She snapped her bottom lip back into her mouth and laughed while she wrapped her arms around him and playfully kissed all over his face. It was the first time that she’d been able to do such a thing since they’d left Bristol. “I am shocked though. My strong, handsome bodyguard is abandoning me in the woods.”
“You’re sure laying it on thick,” he muttered.
He loved it, but he always had to act grumpy and dignified whenever she teased him that way. It was all part of the game. Danna quickly snapped out of the playful tone, another part of the game and became serious again.
“You’re probably right about covering more ground and about the trails meeting up on the other side of the slope or the summit. So, what are we looking for again?”
“Stones…” he started, but she interrupted him.
“I know, love,” she laughed. “I’m just playing with you. You’re too easy sometimes. I’ll see you in a few.”
Edwin remained frozen in his tracks and shook his head as he watched her start out on the right trail.
Danna came to a place where the trail disappeared around a large boulder, looked back to see that he was still watching her and gave a little finger wave before she continued on.
The sights, the smells, the sounds and even the taste of the freshness around her were exhilarating. It reminded her of the camping trips that she’d taken as a little girl. They were few and far between, but she had always kept them as special memories.
She’d always wandered off on her own and discovered things that none of the rest of them had and she’d kept them secret. It was one of the reasons that she had become an archaeologist and one of the reasons that she hadn’t been afraid to go against tradition and venture out on her own. She had never looked back and had never regretted that decision.
She was surprised that Edwin had drawn her back to thoughts of family and family life. She had run from that particular form of bondage for a very long time and had successfully kept that particular idea as something out in the future. Since she had met Edwin, the future didn’t seem all that far away.
“Oh, you’ve got to stop that thinking, Danna,” she warned herself in a quiet voice. “Stay focused.”
Telling herself that didn’t eliminate the nagging feeling in her soul that her life was about to change, but it did cause her to look around her more diligently. Had she not, she might have missed the strangely shaped stone a dozen meters off the path in a narrow ravine that intersected the trail. Her eyes had been drawn to it because it wasn’t a natural part of her surroundings. As she drew nearer to it, her practiced eye noted that though it had been weathered over, perhaps, thousands of years, it had initially been shaped by tools.
When she got nearer to it, she stopped and looked around her. The stone was the only one of its kind, as far as she could tell. It must have been placed there on purpose.
“A stone,” she chirped. “All I need is a pillar, a temple and a cave and I’ll have a full set.” Delighted by her own sense of humor, she continued to follow the ravine, considering calling out to Edwin, but deciding that there wasn’t any sense of drawing him back to her if she didn’t find anything more substantial than a stone.
As she continued up the ravine, neither the pillar nor the temple revealed itself, but the opening to a small cave did. Holding back a giggle, she went to the entrance and peered in, hoping that there weren’t any vicious animals inside. There was only a pair of squirrels who were all too eager to abandon their nest to her. Leaves and twigs went flying as the two scurried from the firebox of an old fireplace.
Though from an archaeological standpoint, it wasn’t a particularly profound discovery, it was an interesting one for Danna. The fireplace had likely been built by a shepherd or a goatherd to stay warm and to cook his supper in the shallow shelter that the cave provided. Much of the chimney—which really only served to send the smoke to the ceiling of the cave where it could drift out on its own—had collapsed, but the hearth and the firebox were in still in decent shape. As she examined them more closely, they were in too good of shape.
“Someone has kept this in repair,” she muttered under her breath. As she moved closer to examine it, she couldn’t help remembering doing something similar in Tryfonas’ home. “You don’t think?”
Danna squatted and started running her fingers over the stone until she came to something that was a little off. “No way!” she exclaimed, pulling the first stone loose and then discovering that others were coming with it. After removing a few more, she couldn’t believe what she saw. She’d found it. She’d actually found it. She drew the box from the opening and set it on top of the hearth.
There was no doubt in her mind when she saw the box that she’d found the real one and not one of the copies. Edwin had been right. The moment she made the admission, she heard the sound of someone coming up behind her and froze in the next instant when she heard the Arabic accent of the voice.
“Well, now, what do we have here?”
Chapter Twenty-four
The trail that Edwin had been following around the slope had forked again, but it had done so in a rather odd manner. The main trail that he was on continued around the slope, but the other seemed to double back and slope upward like a switchback. “A trail to the summit, maybe?” he mumbled aloud.
He considered his options only a moment. He had theorized about the ruins of a temple altar on the mountain. If he was correct, then what he was looking for was more likely to be fo
und on the summit than along the slope. He took the switchback trail, assuming that it would help him to the top of the mountain more quickly.
A real puzzle began to emerge for him a few minutes later, however, when he noticed that the trail had only gone over a rise that trailed out like a small ridge perpendicular to the slope of the mountain. On the other side of the rise, the trail began to descend. If he continued to follow it, he would probably intersect the trail that Danna was on. “Why not?” he breathed as a smile spread across his face. “I’ll surprise her and get her back for that little game she played on me earlier.”
He hurried along the trail with devilish thoughts of how he was going to hide in the brush beside the trail and jump out at her. He could barely contain his mirth as he hurried along, keeping an eye out for Danna. And then he heard something that made him stop suddenly and remain very still. Had he heard a voice? More specifically, had he heard a male voice?
It was possible that their driver had gotten bored, followed along up the trail and caught up with Danna, but the man hadn’t been all that eager to do anything but roll the windows down and lie back in the reclined front seat of the car. He waited a little longer and began to realize that he heard two distinct male voices and he also thought he detected an accent.
Was it possible that they’d been discovered and followed?
“Jesus,” he said under his breath, reaching for the pistol, drawing it out, pulling back the slide and setting the safety. With the weapon in his hand, he crept forward as quickly as he could, but with caution. There was no sense in announcing that he was coming.
As he continued forward on the trail, the voices became more distinct. There were three voices. Two of them, he recognized very well; Danna’s and that of the terrorist. There was no way that the man figured out what he had figured out. They had to have been followed. Inwardly, he cursed himself for having been so careless; outwardly, he began to grind his teeth and creep toward the sound of the voices.
“We’ll just sit right here and use you as bait to draw in your accountant friend,” the voice of the terrorist said. “I don’t want any loose ends.”
“The accountant thing is just a cover. He’s a trained agent and you won’t even know that he’s here until it’s already too late,” Edwin heard Danna reply.
“That’s why my two friends are out there in the brush hiding and waiting for him,” the terrorist chuckled. “Besides, I think you are lying.”
Edwin crouched and scanned the woods around him. There were two others waiting for him. His only chance was to see them before they saw him. He was in well over his head. He barely knew how to fill the magazine and put a shell in the chamber, let alone shoot a man. However, he had no choice in the matter. He cleared his mind and focused. Danna’s life depended on him.
“I’m not lying,” Edwin heard Danna reply.
“The look in your eyes tells me something different.”
The moments ticked off painfully slow as Edwin crept forward. He could tell that he was very close, but he hadn’t caught sight of Danna, terrorist or either of the other two that were out there waiting for him.
Edwin used the thick trunk of a tall tree to shield himself in the direction he heard the voices coming from and continued forward, keeping a lookout for the others. He still couldn’t make out their positions.
When he reached the tree, he leaned against it, studied his surroundings and then peered around the base of the trunk cautiously. The terrorist came into his vision, but Danna did not.
Edwin considered the situation for a moment. The civilized thing to do was to point his weapon at the terrorist and announce himself. That’s what they always did in the movies, right? That was proper protocol. It was stupid.
He was alone against three men, two of whom he could not see. If he stepped into the open and announced himself, one of the hidden men would kill him. He might not even be able to aim well enough to hit the first man and might die anyway. His heart thundered in his chest as he thought about what he was about to do.
It’s simple, right? You point the gun like you’re pointing your finger and you squeeze the trigger. Just do it, Ed. With his motivational speech over, he thumbed the safety off, remembering that lesson from the last time he’d fired the pistol. He counted to three and came around the base of the tree pointing toward the terrorist in the ravine below him and pulling the trigger.
Once, twice, three times, four times, he squeezed the trigger. He saw the terrorist draw his pistol from behind his back and turn it in his direction and then he saw him go down. At the same instant, he heard the buzzing sound that he’d heard in Tryfonas’ house zipping around him from his right. He turned and saw a man with his weapon leveled at him and felt something hit his shoulder with incredible force.
The force of the round hitting Edwin saved his life, turning him out of the line of the man’s next shot. Instinctively, Edwin turned his gun in the direction of the man and emptied his entire magazine in his direction. Moments after it had begun, the thundering of weapons ceased and Edwin heard Danna’s sobbing voice call out to him softly from under the tree trunk where he lay.
“Edwin?”
“I’m right here, love,” he replied. “Just stay put until I come down there. I still haven’t found the third guy.”
Chapter Twenty-five
It was beyond his wildest speculation how he had survived the gunfight on the mountain above Kryoneri. Edwin was wounded, but he had survived.
More astounded by the fact that he had put down two of the gunmen and never caught sight of the third, was the vision that greeted him when he struggled to a point where he could descend into the ravine. Sitting upon the hearth of an ancient stone fireplace with the terrorist’s pistol in her hands was the woman that he loved more than life itself. Beside her was a box just like the other two that he’d seen, but something about that one told him it was the real thing.
“You’re hurt,” she said, scrambling toward him, ignoring everything else.
“It burns like the devil,” he replied, gritting his teeth. In her presence, he relaxed a little bit and shrugged his shoulder into a position so that he could examine his wound. The blood on his shirt didn’t look good at all, but he tried to remain steady. They weren’t out of it yet.
“It looks like it just went through a part of the muscle on the outside of your shoulder,” Danna said, taking a closer inspection of his wound. “I can probably bandage it up with a piece of a clean shirt or something and stop the bleeding.”
“We can’t worry about that right now, love,” he grunted. “We’ve got to grab that box and get out of here before that other gunman comes along.”
“I never saw another gunman,” Danna replied.
“That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t exist,” Edwin countered.
The other gunman did exist, but Danna and Edwin never saw him. Before the two stepped out of the cave to begin their descent, Demitri had scrambled back down to the car that had brought him, Cy and Andriy up onto the mountain. Without concern for the condition of his comrades, Demitri had started the engine, turned the car around and started back down the hill with plans to return to Athens and make himself disappear.
Danna and Edwin made it down to their own waiting car, found the driver asleep, slipped the box into a canvas bag and slid it into the back seat beside Danna. Edwin threw his discarded jacket over his shoulder to cover the wound before shaking the driver awake. The man sat up, having no idea that his passengers had done anything but taken a short stroll on the mountain. He started up the car, turned it around and started back down the way they came.
With the last of his cash, Edwin gave the driver more than enough Euros to compensate for their day’s outing as well as enough to convince him to drive them to Andravida Airport in Pyrgos. With the canvas bag in his hand, Danna by his side and a decent bandaging job on his shoulder, an entirely different Edwin Douglas stepped up to the ticket counter of Argos Airlines.
“Two
tickets for London, Heathrow,” he told the ticket agent.
“You’ll have to be routed through either Athens or Rome, sir,” the agent replied.
“Rome,” he replied, glancing down at Danna. He could tell by her expression that she felt the same way that he did about getting the hell out of Greece.
Using his credit card, the tickets were purchased for a flight that was to depart within the hour, which was great news to both of them. They had the box in the canvas bag and knew that they would not be safe as long as there was any possibility of bumping into anyone who knew or recognized them.
They had both been very cautious and kept very close watch around them during that last critical hour, so it was an enormous surprise when someone sat down in the seat behind Edwin and to his left and then asked a question in a familiar voice.
“What are you carrying?”
“Kapnos?”
“Don’t turn around, Ed,” he said in a low tone. “You either, Danna.”
“But weren’t you…”
“Not hardly. I could say the same about you two, you know. I don’t know how you got out of it, but I’m glad you did.”
Edwin told how he and Danna had turned down the hallway just as Marcus opened the door and before the bomb exploded and then how they’d gotten out of Athens. He didn’t tell him anything else.
“You found the box, then?”
Edwin shrugged. It was an unseen response, but Kapnos heard it.
“Hey, Ed, I know you have it. I can tell by the way you two have been acting since you got here.”
“You’ve been watching us?”
“You bet I have. You two aren’t out of this yet.”
“We know.”
“Officially, I should ask you to leave that canvas bag right where it is, walk away and let me carry an artifact of Greece back to its rightful owners,” he said.
“Officially,” Edwin repeated.
“What I want you to do instead is to take that cursed thing somewhere where no one will ever look for it or find it, put it inside the deepest rocky hole you can find, fill that hole with C4 and blow it to hell.”
