“I’m a nice guy when you get to know me. Back to the Spikes. Who bought them?”
“I’ve had three buyers. Two governments wanted the missiles for harbor patrol boats. The third buyer was an independent contractor. The security company he gave as his reference said he had been in special operations in Iraq where he was wounded and got an early discharge.”
Broz checked his computer, jotted down the name of the security company, and shoved it across the desk. Calvin glanced at the paper before folding it and placing it into his pocket.
“You said he was independent, which means he no longer worked for the company.”
“That’s right. He had gone private. He told me he needed the missiles to protect his wealthy employer who lived on his yacht.”
“Did he say who that employer was?”
“Only that he could be a prime target for kidnapping. I left it at that.”
“How many missiles did he buy?”
“A set of four, plus the launcher of course.”
“He must have given you the name he used when he worked for the security contractor.”
“It’s Chad Williams. I don’t know what name he uses now.”
“How did he pay you?”
“The usual. Through a Swiss bank account.”
“Did he give you his address?”
“You’re not serious.”
“A shot in the dark. How did he take delivery?”
“All sales go through a distribution point in Croatia. My home country. From there the missiles were trucked over land to Cadiz, Spain. They were delivered to a warehouse to be picked up.”
“When was the last time you heard from him?”
“When he sat in that very chair and placed his order several weeks ago. Are we through here?”
“One last question.” Calvin looked around. “Where are the security cameras?”
Broz smiled. “You’re the security person. What do you think?”
“At the front door. In the lobby and elevator. In the reception area.”
“Not bad. You forgot the one behind the windmill painting.”
He went to his computer again and a moment later the printer on his desk spit out a photograph which he handed to Calvin.
“Good looking guy,” Calvin said. “This should do it.”
“Good. Then I expect our business is concluded.”
Calvin raised his palm. “Not quite.”
Broz listened to the last request and a smile crossed his face.
“I’m sure we can accommodate you, Mr. Hayes.”
Broz called in his receptionist and she escorted Calvin to the front door.
“Come again,” she said, sounding more like a retail clerk than part of a slightly sordid arms dealing operation.
Stepping out of the building he walked across the street, narrowly missing a collision with a bike. Calvin hailed a cab. He had a couple of hours before his flight back to Cadiz, and although Calvin was not above dealing with the shadowy world of arms dealing, he needed a strong dose of sunlight.
“Please take me to the Van Gogh Museum,” he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Kalliste sealed the last cardboard box and placed it on the stack of cartons. Movers would come in later to transport personal possessions from her office to her apartment. She glanced around the small space with sadness in her eyes. Earlier, she had said goodbye to her colleagues at the Hellenic Ministry of Culture. A few co-workers had whispered that they might soon be following her out the door.
She left the office key at the reception desk and stepped out of the ministry building. As Kalliste made her way along the busy sidewalk, her glum mood began to fade. She had a new sense of freedom in her step. She practically raced up the stairway and strode between the tall Ionic columns leading to the entrance of the Athens National Archaeological Museum.
The artifact Matt had salvaged before the Minoan ship was destroyed offered endless possibilities. Life and career, she knew, were about to become exciting indeed.
She made her way to a gallery that’d been set aside to exhibit the cargo of the ship that had sunk in a storm after striking a rock wall off the island of Antikythera. Sponge divers had found the wreck of an ancient Greek freighter around the turn of the century. The ship had carried bronze, marbles and jewelry. But the most amazing object found was a clock-like machine whose purpose had baffled scientists for years.
She stopped at a display case and gazed through the glass at the Antikythera device— a piece that’d been at the museum since 1901. At first, it was thought to be an astrolabe, a navigational instrument that allowed mariners to chart latitude position using the sun and stars. Not until technical advances such as X-ray and imaging did scientists piece together the fragments. They concluded that the corroded assembly of gears within a circular bronze framework was an analog computer that could track the cycles of the solar system. Dated to the second century B.C., it had been fashioned hundreds of years after the Minoan mechanism.
Kalliste wondered how Hawkins had made out with Professor Vedrakis. She left the Antikythera gallery and walked through the museum to the garden in the classical exhibition section. She found a bench in a quiet corner and called Hawkins on her cell phone.
He answered right away. “Hello, Kalliste. Sorry I haven’t called you. I had a few issues to deal with.”
“That’s all right, Matt. I’ve spent most of my day moving out of my office at the ministry. I assume you’ve been busy talking to Professor Vedrakis.”
There was a pause at the other end of the line, before Hawkins said, “Where are you now, Kalliste?”
“I’m in the garden at the Athens archaeological museum. Why do you ask?”
“I wanted to make sure that you were in a private setting. I’ve got bad news.”
“Don’t tell me. The professor told you that the device was nothing like we thought it was.”
“The professor didn’t have the chance to tell me anything, Kalliste. He’s dead. He died at Gournia, where we were supposed to meet.”
Kalliste’s smile vanished. “Dear God. I always told him he’d have a heart attack digging in the hot sun.”
“I wish it were that simple. The professor was murdered.”
Struggling to keep her composure, Kalliste glanced around the garden to make sure no one was near enough to pick up the conversation. Tears brimmed in her eyes. Speaking with a catch in her voice, she said, “I want to know what happened.”
Hawkins told her how he had found the professor’s body at the bottom of a ravine.
“What makes you think he was murdered? He could have fallen.”
“That was my first guess,” Hawkins said. “But there’s more to the story.”
Hawkins described how a car had followed them from the Minoan ruins to Spinalonga, saying only that they had managed to elude their pursuers at the old leper colony.
“The professor was a wonderful scholar and a gentleman,” she said. “There was no reason to kill him.”
“Someone apparently thought there was, Kalliste. It’s no coincidence that he was murdered just before he was going to meet with Abby and me. Any idea how word of our meeting got out so fast?”
“I can’t — oh… Matt.”
“What’s wrong?”
“It was me. I told someone at the ministry. I wanted to rub it in the faces of those bastards. Now, because of me, the professor is dead.”
“Don’t go there, Kalliste. You didn’t kill the professor. The creeps who tried to nail me are the guilty ones. Tell me who you talked to.”
“A fat pig named Papadokalos. He’s a bureaucrat in the ministry. Totally dishonest and unscrupulous. He’ll do anything for money.”