He had ordered his men to spread out around the village until he located the house. Even with the address, Kalliste’s place was hard to find. He walked along a walled path above the jumble of houses that sprawled along the terraces of the caldera until he came to a small square with a fountain in the center. An elderly woman in a black dress was crossing the square. He asked where he could find the address.
She gave him a 14-karat smile and pointed to stairs that led down off the square. He thanked her and descended a stone-paved stairway to a house built into the cliff. He raised his camera and took pictures of the cliffs, but his mind was busy planning the assault.
Salazar approached the kidnapping of the Greek woman as he would a mining operation. Locate. Extract. Transport. Process. His men would knock on the door, burst in like a SWAT team, kill Hawkins and the Greek woman and procure the device. He had asked the Priors to cover the square to intercept anyone who escaped the assault.
He would summon the Priors down to take charge of Kalliste. His men would kill them and set fire to the house. Lily would be told that the device was destroyed in the fire. With no Priors to intimidate them, the Auroch corporate officers he’d been cultivating would come over to his side. He’d persuade them that Auroch no longer needed the Minoans and their mumbo-jumbo. With the High Priestess on her death bed, the time was ripe for a coup.
He was under no illusions. His ambitious plan was like an inverted pyramid. Success or failure depended on what happened in the next few hours.
Leonidas was having a hard time finding a coil of rope. Oia had no shortage of tavernas, jewelry and souvenir shops that sold refrigerator magnets of the Parthenon. But he was unable to find a good, old-fashioned hardware store. He would have given his right arm for a Home Depot. Coming to the mule path at the edge of the town, he looked out at the fishing boats tied up at the quay.
Suddenly inspired, he made his way down the switchbacks and headed to the nearest boat. The captain was too polite to ask why this crazy tourist wanted rope, and he dug out a fifty-foot coil of manila rope encrusted with dry seaweed, handed it over and gladly accepted the wad of bills. Leonidas asked if he had more. The fisherman dug out another coil. Leonidas hung the coils over his shoulder and caught a mule ride to the top of the path.
Back in his apartment, he attached one line to the balcony railing. It was about a thirty-foot drop to the cliff below. He tied knots in the rope at intervals. Not exactly a department store escalator, but it would have to do. Next he needed an escape route. Taking the second coil of rope with him, he left the apartment and followed a path along the rim of the caldera. The sun was setting, transforming the violet waters into a shimmering lake of silver, when he found what he was looking for.
Half an hour later he was back on the roof of his apartment. He stoked up the doobie he had scored from the German kids on the old kastro. After a few tokes of the high-powered cannabis a foolish grin came to his face. He took another drag, snuffed the joint and went back into the house. He pulled a chair up to a mirror and dug into his disguise kit.
As he peeled the tourist face off and begin to apply his new features over the scarred flesh, he was already praising himself that this would be one of the best make-up jobs he’d ever done.
Hell, maybe it would even earn him an Oscar.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Kalliste peered through a magnifying glass at the inked symbols on the vellum. To the left of the scroll was a thick lexicon of archaic Greek. On the other side was a yellow, legal-sized notepad filled with symbols and pictograms. Calvin sat patiently at the table waiting to give the handle another crank.
When she finally raised her head from her work, Kalliste had a weary, but triumphant smile on her face.
“Eureka,” she said. Her voice came out as a croak. “I’ve got it. Correction. I’ve got part of it, but I don’t know what I’ve got.”
She turned the pad around so Calvin could see what she had written below the word Minotaur. The first sentence of the scroll read:
“O my King as thou hast (commanded) thy humble protector of thy treasure(s) has (written) the story of thy greatness and wisdom.”
Calvin had listened to Kalliste’s sighs of frustration for the last hour. He tapped the notebook with his fingertip. “Looks like you’re getting somewhere.”
“After the first flush of victory with the Minotaur I thought I would quickly make progress, but this is the best I can do after hours of painstaking work. It reinforces my decision to seek outside money from the Hidden History channel for linguistics expertise. Maybe I should put this off until I know if that’s a possibility.”
Calvin tried to back her up. “That might not be a bad idea,” he said. “Why don’t we decide what we want to do after we go over the latest stuff?”
“A good idea. My brain is frazzled. Tell me what you think this means. The words in parenthesis are educated guesses.”
He read the sentence again. “Easy call. Our pal Minotaur worked for the king who ordered him to write his boss’s biography. Like anyone in that position, he’s gonna butter up the guy who signs his paycheck.”
“Very good, Calvin. As to the author?”
“He’s been given an important and sensitive job. That means he’s pretty close to the king. Maybe even a confidant.” He paused. “He describes himself as a protector, which may mean he’s military.” Calvin read the notebook again. “You’ve got treasures, plural. Is that a mistake?”
“It could be, but I’m pretty sure I got it right. There was more than one treasure. Based on the link to the Minotaur, I’m assuming this was the treasure of King Minos. He was one of the richest rulers in the world.”
Calvin shook his head. “Treasure could mean diamonds and gold. Land holdings and ships. The list could go on forever.”
“There’s something else you should see. Minotaur left another mystery.”
She turned vellum over. On the other side of the scroll was a diagram drawn with the same ink used for the text. “Do you know what this is, Calvin?”
“Looks like a maze.”
“Yes. Maybe the maze. When I was young I used to imagine myself in the Labyrinth I think I could navigate the network of passages with my eyes shut. This diagram must have been drawn by the person who calls himself the Minotaur. Looks like our work is just beginning,” she said.
“I heard from Matt while you had your nose in the scroll. The captain and his wife asked them to stay overnight. He and Abby will fly back tomorrow morning.”
“Maybe we’ll have something exciting to tell them. I relax best when I’m cooking. Why don’t we have dinner on the rooftop? The view will calm my inner turmoil.”
“Fine with me. I picked up some shrimp at the market.”
“Wonderful. I’ll whip up a shrimp and feta casserole.”
Kalliste rummaged through the refrigerator and discovered she was out of tomatoes.
“I’ll borrow some from the old yiayia who lives on the square,” Kalliste says. “She stays up late and watches reruns of Dallas on the television. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
Calvin volunteered to peel the shrimp and pop the wine.
Kalliste took a ceramic bowl from the cupboard, left the house and climbed the stairs to her neighbor’s. As she had predicted, the elderly woman was watching a Greek-speaking Larry Hagman on the small television set. She filled a bowl with tomatoes and went back to her program to watch J.R. Ewing plot against his brother Bobby.