The Stone of Archimedes (20 page)

“How's the wireless here?” Jake asked.

She shrugged. “Considering the overall maintenance of this place, the wireless is quite good.”

“Could I use your laptop for a minute?”

Elisa got up from her chair and put her hand out toward her tiny computer. “It's all yours. I was going to take a shower anyway.” She smiled and went off to the bathroom.

Thinking about his gateway, Jake ran his password through his mind. Once he got into his system, he made sure he would not be traceable back to Elisa's IP address or any of his own. But who could he use? He would spoof a series of computers, from a library in Sydney to a nursing home in Michigan, on and on through ten different levels around the world. Then he quickly made his inquiry, finding the iPad for Professor Sara Halsey Jones. He knew the IP for that system from day one, but she had only turned on the device when they got to Taormina and then Siracusa. It took him just ten minutes to find the location and track it by GPS. Damn it. It was still on. Why didn't he think of this sooner?

The shower stopped and Jake looked toward the bathroom. He got off her laptop and deleted any trace of his use. In deep thought now, he paced back and forth in the small room, considering his next move. It was not easy to do an extraction with just two people, and he wasn't one hundred percent right now. Yet, he knew he couldn't wait. The yacht would come and pick up Sara, probably as early as the next morning. Even worse, perhaps, was the fact that the Greek would force her to show him the stone carved by Archimedes in the catacombs. The billionaire would likely steal it and have in enshrined at one of his mansions. It sounded like the guy was out of control and needed a good spanking. He only hoped the Agency would have the balls to follow through.

The door to the bathroom opened and Elisa came out completely naked, drying her long hair as she stopped five feet from Jake.

“What?” she asked. “Are you telling me a little bullet hole is going to stop you from taking advantage of this?” She spread her arms out.

He wasn't thinking that at all. He just knew they needed to do it quickly so they could track down Sara.

Stripping down without saying a word, Jake took command of the situation with ravishing speed. They went at it hard and fast. There would be time for slow and proper once this case was over and his body was healed.

Five minutes later Jake told her he'd found Sara's iPad and they gathered their gear to leave.

Laying on her side on the bed in the dark room, Sara could hear the muffled voices of her captors in the outer room. She was still bound like a hog with her hands behind her back at her ankles with plastic strips. She had long ago decided there was no way she could break the thick plastic straps that would only dig into her wrists deeper with each effort. Instead, she tried her best to keep her mind in the game.

She had been terrified when the men took her from the catacombs. The only reason she went toward the Greeks was to spare the other two, Jake and Elisa. They promised. But then she heard the shooting as the Greeks dragged her from the catacomb and she knew they had lied to her. Then they brought her to a small house on the outskirts of Siracusa, questioning her thoroughly. She thought they would do things to her sexually, but they had not. It seemed like they had orders not to harm her, which she had used to her advantage. Not by blatant disrespect or defiance, but through subtle actions.

A few hours ago they moved her from the first house to this three story house just a few blocks from the ocean in the old town. Before they left, though, she had figured out that Jake and Elisa had probably survived the attack, because an Italian man had come and argued with the Greeks about her. He said some of his men had been killed and he would make them pay, but not until he first let his men have sex with her until they could no longer do so. The Greeks had their orders and it had almost come to a shoot out.

Sara didn't know how much longer she could go without telling the men what they needed to know. And she had cried for the first time since she was a young girl. Something she never thought she would do again. She was stronger than that. Perhaps she could hold out. Because if she told these men anything, then the Greeks would just turn her over to the Italians.

Suddenly the door opened and a stream of light came in, through which came the main man she had dealt with, the one with the hair to his shoulders that she had dubbed Yanni. He closed the door behind him and clicked on a small lamp before taking a seat on the bed next to her.

“Are you ready to talk?” the man said in Greek. He pulled out her digital camera from his pocket and clicked it on.

She mumbled through the gag and he untied it from behind her head. “Thanks. I told you I'm just a college professor researching a book on Archimedes.” That was the truth, but it didn't tell the whole story now.

He looked like he wanted to punch her. “Eventually you will tell us what we need to know.”

“And what is that?”

“That you have discovered the lost text of Archimedes,” the Greek said. “This text is a national treasure of Greek civilization.”

She wished she had found something that impressive. But her discovery would still be written about in history books for some time. It could change the understanding the mathematics community had of the genesis of Calculus.

“I don't know of the lost text,” Sara said sincerely. “I've heard that there might be something out there, especially after the find in Istanbul a few years ago. But I have not found it. I only came to Siracusa because this was his home and where he died.”

The Greek swished his hair back behind his ears as he let out a heavy sigh. “These pictures on your camera tell a different story.” He slowly clicked through all the photos she had taken at the last catacomb. Luckily she had sent a set of the photos from Taormina to herself by e-mail. But she hadn't been able to do the same with these last images.

“That's nothing,” Sara said. “I was just taking photos of old tombs in the catacomb and only those with Greek writing, hoping to find something. . .interesting for my book. Being Greek, I'm sure you understand.”

Long hair let out a little grunt. “This is old Doric Greek. I don't know anyone who understands this. Perhaps scholars in our country.”

She kept her mouth shut now, not wanting to let him know that she could read Doric.

“All right. I can send these photos to someone in Athens.”

He put the gag back onto her mouth, turned off the light, and left her alone again in the dark.

She held back tears again. Somehow she needed to find strength within herself to survive. Which shouldn't have been a problem, she knew, since she was a Texan. But perhaps she had been coddled too much with money.

●

Zendo went back into the unfamiliar surroundings of the Mafia house they had been allowed to use. He sat down in the small living room next to Demetri, who was the only one of his men who had not been drinking heavily. Sitting across the room at the dining room table were Kyros, Niko and that other man whose name he never knew. Maybe he should have found the time to learn the guy's name. No, he was a Cypriot anyway.

“How is our American professor?” Demetri asked.

He smiled and said, “She still thinks she has choices. It's actually quite admirable.”

“Maybe she thinks her rich brother, the senator, will come and rescue her,” Demetri reasoned.

“Did you get through to Petros Caras?” Zendo had allowed his second in command to make the call to their boss while he talked with the woman.

“Still no word. The weather must be blocking the satellite signal.”

They had to assume the plan to pick them up in the morning here in Siracusa was still on, Zendo thought. Yet, after his last meeting with the boss in Messina, he wanted to shove the fact that they had been able to find the woman down the man's throat. That man had forgotten from where he came. He had been a man of the people at one time just like them. Sure he had worked his way up to his current stature, but many had questioned how he had been able to do that, especially considering the man's penchant for young men had not landed him in jail. But Petros Caras was a survivor. Despite his desires, the man never pursued those under eighteen.

“Are you all right, Zendo?” Demetri asked.

“Yes. Just thinking about what I'll do with all the money we'll make in the next few months.”

“I don't even understand why Petros Caras needs this American woman.”

Zendo shrugged. “Me either. Sometimes it's better not to ask.” He looked at the camera and tried to think of someone who could translate Doric Greek. Well, that could also wait. He would let Petros Caras find someone. Besides, he had a feeling that dick-loving billionaire would want to keep anything they found for himself.

●

The yacht was really rocking and rolling now as Toni tried her best to keep her equilibrium together as she lay on her bed. She wasn't a great ocean passenger, especially on small craft. Although she had never taken a cruise, after this adventure she probably never would. At least the Tylenol with Codeine was working. Her right ankle still felt hot and swollen, like a tick on a Mississippi hound dog in July ready to explode from sucking too much blood.

She had fallen asleep and missed talking with Petros Caras, but now she was ready and he was probably nearly drunk enough to listen to her. At least that's the briefing she'd gotten about the man—fill him with alcohol and then he would be pliable enough.

Toni was pissed off that she had lost her satellite phone. She really needed to check in. Glancing across the cabin she saw a pair of crutches leaning against the wall by the door. Her medic had been by while she slept. She twisted her body to the side of the bed and hopped with her left foot across the pitching deck until she got hold of the crutches. She had only used them one time in the past when she blew her knee while skiing the Alps.

Making her way out into the passageway, she worked her way toward the boisterous sounds of people ahead. Sounded like they were all a little drunk. When she rounded into the main lounge and bar area, she recognized the two men who had helped her get to her room, the medic, and Petros Caras. Sitting next to him was a lithe and elegant woman with striking Slavic features. She looked somewhat familiar to Toni. Also in the lounge was a bartender and another young man who seemed to be having a difficult time ferrying the drinks from the bar to those well on their way to inebriation.

“Ah, you got some rest,” Petros Caras said in English. “Please take a seat.” He tapped the leg of the medic sitting next to him and the man moved across the lounge to a leather bench seat.

Toni hobbled over and sat next to the Greek.

Petros Caras introduced those in the room, with the exception of the bartender and waiter. The woman he simply called Svetla. So Toni had been right. The woman was either Russian, Ukrainian or Czech. Then he said something in Greek to those around him and all but the woman, the waiter and the bartender left them alone.

“Would you like something to drink?” Petros Caras asked Toni.

She thought about the Codeine in her system and wasn't sure that was a good idea. “Just a Seven Up or similar,” she said.

“I understand,” he said. “The ocean can take some time to get used to.”

“That's part of it,” Toni said. “But your medic also gave me enough Codeine to kill a horse.”

“Right, right.”

Glancing at the Slavic woman and then back to the Greek, Toni said, “We need to talk.”

The woman took the hint and got up to leave.

“I'll be along in a while,” the Greek said to her.

Not looking particularly happy about that prospect, the woman lifted her chin and left them, her gate like that of a runway model.

“Pretty girl,” Toni said.

“Yes, she is. You've got to love the Czech features.”

“What about these two?” Toni said, her eyes on the bartender and the waiter.

“Don't worry about them. They only speak Greek. Stick to English and we'll be fine.”

“Well, I can perhaps order a beer in Greek, so we have no other choice.” Toni thought about how brusque she wanted to come across. She knew that if you beat a horse it would eventually do as you ask, but it would never like you much. Or trust you. Maybe she would give this man some rope and see if he went with the flow or tried to hang himself.

“Tell me, Toni,” Petros Caras said, “what is so important that the Agency sends me such a high figure?”

She didn't believe for a second that he knew anything about her or her current position. “We've got some strange intel that has traced back to you.”

“Oh?” He sucked down the last of his white wine and exchanged his glass with another handed to him.

“Most of the arms shipments have been coordinated,” she said, “but some have not. We are most concerned about your recent activities in Athens with the protesters. Not to mention in North Africa and Syria.” There was no reason to get to the most recent issue until the man knew about their general concerns.

“A man of influence must have his hobbies.”

“This goes beyond building ships in a bottle, Petros.” She'd heard he hated being spoken to by only his first name, so she needed to see how he would react. The Greek physically cringed. Good.

“I have nothing to do with the Agency anymore,” he said with defiance.

Toni smiled with this opening. “The Agency decides when the game is over. Do you remember your own history? Your beginning? The Agency made that happen. Just as easily as we made you, we can also take all this away.”

He got to his feet as if ready to fight, his complexion changing from tan to red. “You little government peon. You come onto my yacht and threaten me?”

She leaned back into her chair, not intimidated in the least by this man. “This is not a threat, Petros. I'm telling you straight up in the most simple English so even you can understand it. . .you need to come in line or find yourself without all the finer things in life.”