“Even act as a paid informant?”
“Yes. I have no doubt of that. I’m going to rip his heart out and step on it when I see him.”
“I’ll look forward to the stomping party but it will have to wait until we deal with more important matters.”
“You’re right of course, Matt. I have an ancient scroll written in Linear A. It could be important. Is the machine functional?”
“It will be when Calvin gets through with it. He’ll have this thing purring like a Swiss watch. We’ll need a quiet location to work without interruption.”
“I know just the place. Remember my house on Santorini?”
On the last night of the Kolumbo expedition she and Matt had celebrated at a taverna with a bottle of ouzo and wound up at the little marshmallow-shaped house perched on a cliff overlooking the volcanic caldera. He’d spent the night and nature had taken its course.
“The house will be perfect. I’ll ask Cal know to meet us there,” Hawkins said. “Leave Athens as quickly as possible. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going, and make sure that you’re not followed.”
“I’ll gather up a few things and take an island ferry. See you later today.” She sighed heavily. “I can’t get over Dr. Vedrakis, but I’m so glad that you are all right. Before I hang up, could you tell more about the men who murdered the professor?”
“They were dressed in black and they had wide shoulders and narrow waists. One of them was bald and his scalp had been painted blue. Don’t know about the others because they were wearing hats. Ring a bell?”
She sat there in stunned silence, then said, “I’m afraid it does, but it’s too fantastic.”
“Nothing about this day would surprise me. We’ll talk about it when I see you. Be careful, Kalliste.”
“You too, Matt.”
Hanging up, she went back into the museum, climbing to the Thera exhibition gallery located on the second floor. The room held artifacts excavated from the ancient city of Akrotiri on Santorini. She walked past the cases of vases and urns, the graceful paintings of swallows and ships, until she came to a fresco that depicted two boxers dressed in loincloths.
Kalliste stared at the painting as if in a trance. They had narrow waists and barrel chests; the scalps had been shaved and painted blue.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Hawkins swept his gaze around the waterfront and adjacent streets after the fisherman had dropped them off at the quay. He spotted the silver Mercedes almost immediately. They went over to inspect the car.
“This is it. I remember the license plate,” Abby said. “We’d better get going. That thing can catch the Renault before we’re halfway back to the airport.”
“Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Hawkins took Abby by the arm and guided her across the street. “Where are we going?” she said.
“To that mini-market’s wine section.”
“Are you crazy, Hawkins? Those guys could be here any minute, and you want to get a bottle of wine?”
“I never said anything about buying wine,” he said.
Inside the market Hawkins picked a corkscrew from a rack and made a twisting motion with his hand. Abby gave him a ‘now-I-get-it’ grin.
Back at the parking lot she leaned against the car, using her body to shield Hawkins, who knelt on his good knee and went to work on the Mercedes’ tires with the corkscrew. When they walked away, the shiny ride had four flats in the making.
Abby got behind the wheel of the Renault. They were headed for the highway when Hawkins answered the call from Kalliste. After they talked, he filled Abby in on the full conversation.
“I’ll text Cal and tell him to join us on Santorini,” he said. “We’ll try to get the device working there.”
“I’ll call my company pilot and say we’ll be at the airport in about five minutes.”
“You’d better allow an hour’s leeway. I want to swing by the archaeological museum.” He reached into his shirt pocket and held up the clay fragment from Gournia. “I’m hoping to find the jigsaw puzzle this fits into.”
Abby drove past the airport into Heraklion. They found a parking spot near the museum. Matt reluctantly checked his knapsack at the security desk and they made their way to the Minoan collection.
Hanging on the walls were the famous frescoes from Knossos. The colorful paintings were like a slide show of the past. Playful blue dolphins. The three fashionable Minoan ladies in the portrait known as, La Parisienne. Acrobats somersaulting over the back of a huge bull. A graceful female dancer.
“It was a beautiful civilization, wasn’t it?” Abby said, gazing at the painting of the regal kilted figure known as the Lilly Prince.
“It’s fascinating to contemplate what the world would be like now if they hadn’t vanished from the face of the earth.” Hawkins stopped in front of a display case and pointed at a small figurine. “But they had their sinister side, too.”
Inside the case was the small ceramic figure of a woman wearing a tall conical hat, long flounced skirt, an embroidered apron and a tight open bodice that exposed her breasts. In each hand she gripped a writhing snake. Her eyes were round and staring as if she were under a spell.
Abby said, “The Snake Goddess would have been a fearsome figure in real life.”
“I’d be more worried about her pets,” Hawkins said.
“Things aren’t all that they seem,” a voice said. “The snake was a symbol of fertility and renewal in ancient times.” The speaker of these words was a pleasant-faced, middle-aged woman dressed in a museum staff uniform. The badge on her blouse identified her as Maria Constatinos, a museum conservator.
“Thank you. That’s very interesting,” Abby said.
“Didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I heard your American accents. I studied at Boston University many years ago. I had a wonderful time, so I always go out of my way to speak to visitors from the U.S. Is there anything else I can show you?”
“We were hoping to see the Phaistos Disk,” Hawkins said.
“Of course. Everyone does.”
She led the way to a glass case that contained a round object covered with signs spiraling clockwise toward the center. Abby said, “It’s smaller than I thought it would be.”
“Many people say that. It’s just under six inches in diameter, made of fired clay. It dates back to the late Minoan Bronze Age, which would put it at the second millennium B.C., and was discovered in the palace at Phaistos in 1908. The size is deceiving. You’re looking at one of the world’s most intriguing archaeological mysteries.”
“Are those Linear A symbols?” Hawkins asked.
“Some people think they are, at least in part. But I’ll say this; whoever translates those little symbols will be the most famous person in the field of archaeology. I wish Dr. Vedrakis were here to talk to you. He’s our resident expert on the Phaistos Disk, but he’s off on a dig at a Minoan site. Perhaps another time.”
Hawkins and Abby exchanged glances. He was thinking that the only way they would see the professor is if they took a cruise on the Styx, the legendary river of the dead. “Thank you,” he said. “That would be nice.”
She said, “You may want to read the book that Professor Vedrakis wrote. It’s called The Minoan Enigma and is available in the gift shop.”
“Thank you. We’ll pick up a copy on the way out.”
Constatinos excused herself and went off to tend to her other duties. “That was damned eerie,” Abby said. “She’s going to feel awful when she learns about the professor. I wish we could tell someone.”
Hawkins remembered the body sprawled at the bottom of the cliff and felt a sense of guilt, but things were moving too fast. “I don’t like it any better than you do, Abby. But an interrogation room in the Heraklion police station is the last place we want to be.”