Sean kept his hands out wide, maintaining his position. “Just used to it, I guess.” He turned his attention from his friend back to the rocky face of the island.
The stone cliff rose high above them to the plateau where they’d been just a few minutes before. Sean had noticed how much deeper the water was where they now floated from his view up on the island. Swimming in it now, he was intrigued by the odd drop on the sea floor. Usually, the area surrounding an island had a more gradual decline until it reached an underwater shelf, which would dramatically fall into the depths of the sea. Sean surveyed the jagged rock, searching it for a telling sign of what they had come to find.
“I’m going to get a little closer,” he said and took a few strokes toward the island.
“That’s fine,” Tommy said, still trying to catch his breath. “I’ll just wait here for the heart attack to kick in.”
“If you didn’t struggle so much and relaxed your swimming strokes, you would spend less energy and go a lot faster.”
Sean stopped about ten feet short of the rocks. His eyes scanned the surface again, studying it carefully. This had to be the place. He knew it. He just needed some kind of confirmation. Suddenly, his gaze froze on something that seemed out of place on such a rugged facade. He’d not noticed it before, but now that he was closer he could see it plain as day. The lettering had been carved into the stone to appear almost invisible, as if it were part of the natural formation of the island. Seeing it now, he realized how the word had been camouflaged. It couldn’t be seen from a distance much greater than twenty feet. He let out a grin as he stared at the word.
Inferus.
“Hey, Tommy,” he shouted back at his friend. “I think we found it.”
“What?” Tommy’s face curled into a frown as he desperately tried to stay afloat. “What do you mean we found it?”
Sean pointed up at the word chiseled into the stone. “This is the spot.” He looked down into the water where his feet were kicking at a smooth, constant pace. “I knew there was something funny about this spot. It has to be an underwater entrance cut into the base of the island.”
“Great!” Tommy said in mocking excitement. “Tell you what. Why don’t you go down and check it out, and I’ll stay here and wait.”
“Okay,” Sean said. He somersaulted over and disappeared head first, diving into the water.
When his feet disappeared, Tommy shook his head. “I was kidding,” he said to himself.
Thirty seconds went by, and he started to worry about Sean being down for so long. He watched as his friend maneuvered through the clear water, but it was difficult to see with the constant ripple of the sea. All he could make out was his friend’s blurry image below.
Ten seconds later, Sean reappeared on the surface and took in a huge gasp of air. He wiped away the water from his head and eyes and allowed a smile to pass over his face. “There’s a cave entrance down there,” he said proudly. “And the symbol of Julius Caesar is carved over top of it.”
“Are you serious?” Tommy asked excitedly. He’d forgotten his exhaustion and replaced it with enthusiasm. “I really wasn’t sure we would find anything.”
Sean cast a disappointed glance at his friend. “Haven’t you learned never to doubt me?”
“Not yet,” Tommy winked.
A low rumble from around the edge of the island caught their attention. They both shared a moment of concern. Sean paddled a few strokes out away from the island to get a better view of what was happening. The white yacht was trolling away from the small land mass. “Looks like whoever is in that yacht has seen enough. They’re leaving.”
“Probably just out for a little midday tour of the islands,” Tommy added.
“The good news for you is that we don’t have to go all the way around the island without our fins. Now we can go back and get them.”
Tommy squinted his eyes disapprovingly at Sean’s little barb. “You know what? That is good news. And if you don’t mind, I’m going to head back that way right now. You just hang out here with the sharks while I go back to the beach.” He started his wild flailing again as soon as he finished the sentence.
Sean laughed, though he wasn’t sure which was funnier, the sight of his friend swimming or the fact that he knew he was terrible at it. Not wanting to make Tommy feel worse about his technique than he already did, Sean waited for a few minutes before swimming toward the shore.
Several minutes later, the two had their fins attached and were stepping back into the water of the cove, heading for their boat.
“Will we be able to get into the cave with our scuba gear on?” Tommy asked, wading into the water with his fins.
“Yeah,” Sean nodded, walking awkwardly beside him. “It looks plenty big enough. We shouldn’t have any problems.”
Once they were in deep enough water, the two began paddling back in the direction of their boat, which was anchored in the peaceful waters of the cove. Tommy moved much faster now that he had his flippers on, letting his legs do most of the work. The two arrived at the back of their craft and pulled themselves up onto the back landing.
Sean removed the flippers and twisted his head to see where the yacht had gone. It had disappeared from view, leaving them alone in the cove, which was exactly what he preferred. The fewer eyes watching what they were doing, the better.
“I’ll pull up the anchor, and we can take the boat around to the other side. We can park it there and get our dive gear ready.”
Tommy finished taking off his watery footwear and stood up. “Good. I’m tired of all this swimming,” he said and then froze in place as if he’d seen a snake. He slowly raised his hands to shoulder height.
“What is it?” Sean asked, as he dropped his fins onto the aft deck. He didn’t need his friend to answer. His eyes followed Tommy’s to the cabin of the boat where three men had appeared from inside. Each one held a gun, aiming straight in the two Americans’ direction. “Or we could just do whatever these guys want.”
Chapter 48
“You cannot do this, Dimitris. People will starve to death in the streets. There will be anarchy. Please, I beg of you, do not do this.”
The man’s voice on the phone sounded like a hungry cat crying for a scrap of food at the end of a long day. Hardly becoming for a man of his position. The man on the other line was Petra Samaris, the prime minister of Greece. He’d been appointed by the president, whose role in government affairs was considered mostly ceremonial. It was Samaris who had led the charge during the economic downturn. He’d promised the people that he would lead them back to prosperity if given the time. Much like any other politician, it seemed Samaris was full of empty promises.
Now he had no other cards to play. He’d put everything out on the line and lost. Dimitris Gikas held all the power, and there wasn’t anything Samaris could do about it, a fact the prime minister was apparently aware of.
“Thousands of your fellow countrymen will die, Dimitris. How can you just sit by and let that happen while your stores are full of the food that can save them?” Samaris was near the point of sobbing. He must have known that if the people revolted, he would be the first to hang from the gallows’ noose.
Gikas had let the man talk for the last few minutes. He had but a moment to spare with the desperate leader. Ten minutes before, his men had informed Bourdon that they had taken control of Wyatt’s boat and were bringing it back to rendezvous with the yacht. Everything was going according to plan. Sure, there’d been a few kinks along the way, but that’s the way complex plans went. One had to be always willing to adjust, be flexible to anything that came along. Adaptation was one of Dimitris Gikas’s finest attributes.