“Thanks, Mr. Robsham. You’ve been a great help.”
“Wish I could do more. Hold on. There was one document that the museums weren’t interested in because it was written in Spanish. Luckily, Uncle Howard had left it with a colleague in Athens, so it wasn’t destroyed in the car crash. I had a Spanish translator look at it. Said it’s a real estate transaction going back to the 1400s. Sandwiched in between a couple of pages was a document written in another language as well. Odd script. Pictures, symbols and so forth.”
The comment about ‘script’ caught Hawkins attention.
“I’d love to see a copy. You never know.”
“I have a photo on my computer. I’ll send it to you via email.”
“That would be very kind of you.” He thanked Robsham for his trouble.
“Not at all. And thank you for reminding me what a wonderful character Howard was. Proud to be named after him.”
Hawkins said goodbye. As he hung up, he heard the house door open and shut. Abby walked across the terrace and sat down next to him. She stared off at the vast darkness of the caldera. “It’s just as beautiful even when you can’t see it. Did you sit out here with Kalliste?”
“A few times. Why do you ask?”
“You seemed to know your way around Kalliste’s house, especially the master bedroom.”
Hawkins chuckled. “I guess that’s pretty obvious, Abby.”
“More than obvious.”
“We were both in mourning. She had lost her husband. I’d turned into a gimp and had been tossed out on my butt by the Navy.”
“Did it help? Being here, I mean?”
“Yes. At the time.”
Abby was silent for a few seconds, then said, “You made a good choice. Kalliste is special. That’s more than obvious, too. Goodnight.”
She leaned across the table, kissed him on the cheek, then rose from her chair and went back into the house. Hawkins pondered the brief exchange. Abby always had a way of making his head spin. This time it was whirling like a top. He’d admitted to his ex-wife that he’d slept with another woman and she’d shown her approval with a kiss.
He went back into the house. Everyone else had turned in. Before stretching out on the sofa, he checked his electronic tablet. The email from Robsham had come through. He called up the attachment, skipped past the Spanish text and studied the lines of symbols. He immediately recognized the script as Minoan. He forwarded the attachment to Captain Santiago, asking him to take a look at the Spanish text and get back to him.
As he stretched out on the sofa, he thought about Abby again. What had he told Calvin? That their relationship was complicated. String theory is complicated. A Bach concerto is complicated. World peace is complicated. His relationship with Abby was just plain crazy.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
From the balcony of the house set into the cliff above Kalliste’s place, Leonidas had watched Hawkins and Abby sitting on the terrace and wondered what they had talked about. He missed having a real conversation with a beautiful woman. Isabel had filled a niche in his life, but she was more like the nubile females in bikinis who flocked around him back in his lazy drug-filled days as a surf bum. Damn. He wished he had a joint.
Putting the thought out of his mind, he concentrated on Hawkins. The guy had everything. Good looks, brains and babes. He was resourceful too. Leonidas had watched with amazement as Hawkins had coolly taken out that creep on the fortress island with nothing more than a sack full of rocks.
The technique worked so well Leonidas used a modified version on the second man in black. Leonidas was able to get above him. He pried loose a boulder the size of a football out of a wall and waited. The man came to the intersection below and started to climb. Leonidas popped up from behind the wall like a jack-in-the-box and dropped the rock on the man’s head. Quick, effective, practically silent except for the wet melon sound.
Leonidas had hurried back to the dock and lost himself in the crowd waiting for an incoming boat. Two men who looked like clones of the dead guys disembarked, brushed right by him and headed for the fortress.
On the way back to the mainland the ferry passed a police boat screaming out to the island with lights flashing. One or both bodies must have been found. He figured the local gendarmes would write it off as an accident. Back on land, Leonidas checked the parking lot. No other men in black, and Hawkins’s car was gone.
No big deal. He’d planted a location device on the car at the Minoan ruins. His phone app picked up the signal. He drove to the main highway, expecting Hawkins to turn off at the airport. Instead, the blinking blue dot representing the Renault continued into the city. He found the car parked near the museum.
He decided not to go in, seeing as that he was in his ‘Pouty’ outfit and Hawkins would spot him in a second. He quickly removed the positioning device from the bumper. It only took a few seconds to break into the car to retrieve the recorder he’d planted under the front seat. He locked the car, went back to the Suzuki and listened to the recording of the conversation.
He heard Hawkins say he planned to go to Santorini and jotted down the address Hawkins had given to Calvin over the phone. A short time later, Hawkins and Abby came out of the museum and got in their car. Leonidas was right behind them. Watching them drop their own car off and head for the airport, he then returned his own rental.
Now that he knew where their destination was, he took his time. He caught a taxi to the port and boarded the next ferry to Santorini. While most passengers were out on deck, he went into a restroom. When he emerged, Pouty had disappeared. Leonidas had on shorts, sandals, a T-shirt, and a Yankees baseball cap. In addition, he had sprouted a beard. He’d flipped from British tourist to American tourist. He was getting to like the garrulous Englishman, but he needed to blend in.
A few hours later the ferry landed at Thera and he took a bus to Oia. His first stop was the tourist office. The young woman at the desk marked the address of Kalliste’s house on a map. He strolled through the narrow alleyways until he came to a small square. He walked down the stairs from the square, past the house which overlooked the caldera. It would be hard to keep it under surveillance without being seen. He went back up the stairway and saw the rental sign on a house built into the cliff above Kalliste’s place. The landlord showed him a studio apartment that he immediately took, paying paid the man a week’s rent in cash.
Leonidas walked through the neighborhood, memorizing the streets and alleyways. As he strolled along, his nostrils picked up a familiar scent. He followed the smell to the Kastro and found a gathering of young Americans getting high on pot. He accepted their invitation to join the party. When they had smoked all their marijuana, he offered to buy a round of drinks at a taverna.
One round turned into others and they ended up closing the place down. As he stumbled home in the darkness he thought that it was a good thing he’d memorized the neighborhood. He took a few wrong turns, but made it safely back to his apartment and passed out.
Hawkins tossed and turned on a sofa that was too short to accommodate his long body. He gave up finally and checked his watch: Five o’clock. Throwing off the blanket, he rose from the sofa and pulled his clothes on. His friends were still in bed. He made coffee, sat at the table with his tablet and read the message from Captain Santiago. Apparently the captain couldn’t sleep either because the message had been sent only minutes earlier.
Dear Matt: Please get back to me immediately. I have done a partial translation. The document speaks of evil deeds.
He typed a reply.
What sort of evil deeds, Captain Santiago?