He stepped aside. “Come right in. My name is Higgins.”
It wasn’t a hard accent for Calvin to pick up. “Aussie?”
“Good call. Melbourne. And you’re from southern U.S.?”
“New Orleans.”
“Great town. C’mon. Let’s get you fitted out.”
Their footsteps echoed across the concrete floor. Higgins pushed open a sliding door and led Calvin into a cramped space that functioned as a combined office and living quarters. Higgins told Calvin to take a seat in a folding chair, then plunked himself behind a metal desk and pecked away at the computer keyboard.
Calvin thought back to the plush surroundings where Broz conducted business.
“After Amsterdam, I expected an operation this size to be more elaborate.”
Higgins looked up from his work. “More here than meets the eye. Security cameras are everywhere. Even the street you drove in on is under surveillance. You were checked out before I opened the door. Facial recognition. Voice ID when you called. We’ve got personnel on hand 24/7, but they stay out of sight unless there’s trouble. Some of our guys are pretty scary and we don’t like to frighten legitimate customers.”
Calvin glanced at the cot in a corner, the refrigerator and the folding table. “Looks like you spend a lot of time here.”
“Twenty-four seven. Changing shifts is a big deal security-wise. Okay, here’s your order.” He printed a sheet of paper and handed it to Calvin to read.
Calvin read the list. “Looks okay. Got all the main stuff and the special order.”
Higgins got up from his chair, and with Calvin following, went out onto the warehouse floor and walked to a stack of corner shelves that was almost lost in the cavernous space. He explained that goods were stored in a central distribution center, and orders were shipped to the warehouse as needed. The warehouse was like a post office and he was Postmaster.
Higgins asked Calvin to help pull three wooden boxes off the shelf and set them on the floor. He pried the tops off so Calvin could check the contents against the order.
The first box contained two lines of SEAL underwater gear and paraphernalia. A second carton had the weaponry he had ordered. Calvin lifted a Spike missile out of the third box and hefted it in his hands.
“Cute,” he said.
“Potent, too,” Higgins said. “We pride ourselves on the latest technology. Launcher is under the other stuff.”
He replaced the cover, then he and Calvin loaded the boxes onto a dolly which they pushed to an overhanging door. Higgins opened the door and told Calvin to drive around back to the loading platform for a pick-up. They loaded the boxes in the trunk.
Higgins said the order would be billed to the numbered Swiss bank account Calvin had set up. All products had a thirty-day guarantee. The surveillance system would watch him leave and if anyone tailed him, personnel would take care of it. Once out of the three-kilometer safety zone he’d be on his own. Calvin didn’t know why he had ordered the Spike missile kit. He didn’t see any use for the weapon in the operation he and Hawkins contemplated, but he’d learned to expect the unexpected.
Heck, maybe he simply liked to make things go ‘boom.’
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Lily had been waiting for Hawkins at a sidewalk cafe near the Central Market. She saw him dodging the traffic as he crossed the street, popped up from her chair and waved her arms like a semaphore signalman. She was wearing a short purple leather skirt and matching jacket. When he walked over to her table, she wrapped her arms around him in a desperate hug.
“Thank you so much for coming,” she said. “I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t reached you. I’m practically falling apart with worry.”
Hawkins disentangled himself from her embrace and sat down. He put his cell phone on the table.
“Before you fall apart, can you tell me where you got this photo of Kalliste?”
Lily was taken aback by his abrupt tone and relentless gaze. Her face crumpled. She started to blather in an unbroken stream of words. Hawkins reached across the table and gave her hand a gentle squeeze.
Speaking in a soft tone, and with more deliberation, he said, “Sorry for snarling at you, Lily. Please tell me the whole story from the beginning. Take your time. Try to remember every detail.”
Lily smiled through her tears. “My specialty is fake television, Matt. I don’t do well with reality.”
The creatures menacing Kalliste were unlike any reality Hawkins could recall, but he kept his thoughts to himself. He signaled the waiter and ordered two coffees. Lily took a sip from her cup. Her eyes still brimmed with tears, but she had regained her composure.
“Kalliste called me from Santorini,” she said. “She was trying to translate an ancient scroll, using the device you brought up from the Minoan ship. She was very frustrated. The work was going slowly and she needed help.”
“Why call you rather than an expert in her field of study?” Hawkins said.
“I asked her the same question. Kalliste said the translation work was labor intensive. She could hurry things along if she had access to computer technology and wondered if Hidden History would foot the bill for technical services. I told her I’d ask my boss. He said no, because the project was too speculative.”
“More speculative than werewolves in Paris?”
“Paris was a proven formula. Dig out an old legend, throw in some movie clips, make it relevant with a hook that pulls the story into the present, and trot out pseudo-experts who drag up obscure historical tidbits to make the case. Paris had a series of unsolved mutilation murders. Probably the work of a sicko, but it fit the formula. Voila. The murders were the work of werewolves stalking the Left Bank.”
“Interesting,” Hawkins said. “But what does it have to do with Kalliste’s disappearance?”
Heaving a sigh, Lily said, “It goes back to research my team was doing on modern-day Druids.”
“The nuts who dress up in robes and prance around Stonehenge on the solstice?”
She nodded. “My researchers talked to an Oxford professor who had written books about secret societies. During the interview, he mentioned hearing about a cult much older than the Druids that went back to ancient Sumer. The cultists migrated to Crete and built the Minoan palace at Knossos.” She leaned forward on her elbows and lowered her voice. “Here’s what caught our attention, Matt. These folks are still around.”
“Around? As in, still alive and kicking?”
“Very much so.”
“How did the professor know about this society if it’s so secret?”
“The Oxford guy knew about it from a colleague in the anthropology department at the University of Cadiz. When I heard about the Minoan connection I thought about the shipwreck off the coast of Spain.” With excitement growing in her voice, she said, “If I could put this bunch of crazies together with Kalliste’s project, my tightwad boss would leap at the chance for an exclusive.”
“Is that what happened?”
“He was practically drooling when I gave him the pitch. I sent my team to see the professor in Cadiz. Big disappointment. He said the society was a harmless bunch of back-to-nature types. They got dressed up in funny costumes, made offerings to the earth goddess and had a big feast. My researchers were packing it up when the professor mentioned yet another group that made animal sacrifices to the earth goddess. And maybe more.”
“What did he mean by more?”
“He clammed up, even when we waved money under his nose. Said he had talked too much already. I wasn’t about to let the story go, so after Kalliste called from Santorini I went back to the professor and told him about her Linear A scroll and the translating device. I said I would give him exclusive access to the story. He’d be a star.”