The Stone of Archimedes (3 page)

Senator Halsey leaned across the table toward Maria. “The state department said he killed a man in Tunisia. The authorities there were holding him in some disgusting prison for the past week. What do you know about that?”

She finished her glass of wine and poured half a glass more for herself and topped off the senator's glass. Throughout the action, her eyes kept watch around the room. “I've heard the same thing. But this man doesn't kill someone unless they deserve it. The man he killed was a wanted international terrorist. A man who had killed the girlfriend of the man you just hired.”

“Shucks. Sounds like divine retribution to me. I'd like to meet this man.”

She laughed. “Only if he wants to meet you.”

“Where do we go from here?” the senator asked.

Maria sucked down the last of her wine and got up. “The trail went cold in Rome. Our guy will start there.” She started to leave and turned back. “Next time maybe you could buy dinner.”

With that she walked off and the senator watched every sway of her hips out the door, as did every other man in the restaurant. Halsey checked the wedding band on his left hand and considered taking it off the next time they met.

●

Santorini, Greece

High above the azure ocean in a stark white villa, Petros Caras sat on his balcony overlooking a 350-foot yacht, the blue and white colors matching the Greek flag that flowed in the soft breeze at the stern. It was his new expedition yacht, where he spent most of his time. He only came to his villa for meetings with those who did not deserve to step foot on his yacht, his real home. This villa, although ten thousand square feet of splendor and opulence, was a shell filled with expensive furniture and peopled, more than not, with the Euro-trash and nearly illiterate actors of Hollywood—all of whom seemed to want something from him, and mostly money and financing for their next project. But Petros Caras hated American movies. They meant nothing to him, other than pure investment. And they better deliver or they would never get another Euro from him.

Caras shifted his gaze from his yacht to the naked woman laying on the lounge chair a few feet from him. What was her name? No idea. She was Czech and that's all he needed to know. He only had sex with Slavic women, and only those who were real. So those American women with their fake boobs and even more fake disposition, would never find a way to his bed.

The Czech woman stood up and slipped on her high heels, bringing her lithe body to nearly six feet. She had been a super model in her youth, but was now in her mid-thirties, he couldn't remember exactly how old. Yet, she was still a striking figure. Gorgeous. She had seen the inside of his yacht on the trip from Italy last week.

“Petros,” she said, her lips in the perfect pout that all models could emulate, “you said you would take me to bed this afternoon. I'm horny.”

God he loved her accent. She spoke not a word of Greek, only her native Czech, Italian and some English. So to understand each other, they only spoke English.

“I have a meeting in five minutes,” Caras said, shrugging his shoulders.

“I need more than five minutes,” she whined.

“So do I. Go to the bedroom and wait for me. My meeting will take ten minutes, maybe less.”

She smiled and started for the double French doors, but then stopped, lowered her sun glasses, and said over her shoulder, “I could be finished by then.”

“We all have to make choices,” Caras said. “You can wait.”

She huffed and walked away as if still making her way down a runway in Milan.

Moments after the woman left, one of the villa staff members escorted in a man wearing a white linen suit, dark hair to his shoulders, and a tan behind three days growth of beard. Normally the man had his hair pulled back in a ponytail.

Zendo was the fixer for Petros Caras. At one time he had studied at the Greek Orthodox seminary in Athens, a profession that would have never suited the man. He was far too independent and lacked the discipline to follow any higher authority—with the exception of Petros Caras, who paid him quite nicely for his expertise. Zendo turned his military intelligence experience into a long career with the Hellenic Intelligence Service. He would have still been with that organization, but Petros Caras paid better.

“Have a seat, Zendo,” Caras said. Then he waived for his butler to close the door behind him and leave them alone.

Zendo sat on a chair near the stone wall, over which was a sheer drop of some one hundred feet to sharp rocks. Without thinking, he pulled his hair back and attached a rubber band at the base of his skull, making a perfect ponytail that most women would kill to have.

“How was Rome?” Caras asked.

Adjusting his sun glasses and trying not to make direct eye contact with this powerful man, Zendo said, “We lost the woman.”

“I guessed that much,” Caras surmised. “Otherwise you would have simply called for further instructions.” He gazed back to the ocean at his yacht, thinking he could just forget this whole affair. But that was the problem. He had all the money any one man could spend in dozens of lifetimes, but that which could not be reasonably purchased, those things that had value beyond what could be appraised, were even more cherished by Petros Caras. Which is why he began collecting items that no others would have, or could obtain. “What about those who came looking for her?”

Zendo smiled now. These were things he could control. “Athens and Rome can both be dangerous places.”

“Perhaps not as bad as New York or Houston,” Caras reasoned. He noticed a shift in disposition on Zendo's face, from his normal incertitude to something bordering on concern—a characteristic Caras had never seen on the man. “What's the matter?”

Clearing his throat, Zendo said, “I've heard they have hired a new man to find the American woman.”

“So.”

“So, this is not a simple cop like the others,” Zendo explained. “He's a dangerous man.”

Caras smiled. “Like you and your men?”

“I wish I had a dozen men like Jake Adams.”

“I've never heard of him.”

“You probably wouldn't have. He's former Air Force Intelligence, and then he worked for the CIA for years before opening his own security consulting firm in Austria.”

“And he's that good?”

Zendo nodded his head. “He once took down an entire Kurdish terrorist group single-handedly.”

Caras was impressed, which didn't happen often. He wondered if the American would consider finding his way into his bed. He might make this one exception to his anti-American aversion. “What do you suggest?”

Smiling, Zendo said, “I've already taken steps to see if my intel is correct. I sent two men to simply follow him.”

“Good plan. If he's as good as you say he is, you should be able to follow this Adams to the American woman.”

“That's the plan.”

“Good. Why don't you head back out and coordinate the effort personally.”

“Yes, sir.” Zendo took that as his sign to leave. He got up and smoothly strut away, his ponytail swishing side to side across his back like a metronome.

Sitting by himself now, Caras thought about this crazy American who could take down a terrorist group by himself. Now he would have to go upstairs and take that Czech woman, whatever her name was, from behind and consider the American spy as he did so.

●

Still naked, high heels kicked to the side of the bed through the balcony doors, Svetla Kalina had listened carefully to Petros Caras and his fixer discuss some woman who they sought. Her Greek was nearly native, since her maternal grandparents had spoken almost nothing else to her while she grew up in Prague. They even sent her off to spend her summers with her cousins on the island of Crete. This language knowledge was one of the reasons she had been chosen for this assignment. The other, of course, was the well-known fact that the billionaire Petros Caras had a special place in his heart for Slavic women. But she also got the feeling that he would prefer a man instead. And this was her first assignment that involved her actually sleeping with someone. Sure she had used her body to seduce suspects for the Czech Security Information Service (BIS), but she had never had to go this far. The BIS had been asked by some other world organization, she wasn't sure which one but she suspected the Americans, to get close to Petros Caras. She could get used to this life, the Santorini villa, the amazing yacht, the great food and drink, if it were not for her requirement to sleep with an old fat man. She had to put her mind in a special place when he entered her, trying her best to think of anyone but him as she faked multiple orgasms. Perhaps her only saving grace was the fact that he preferred to take her from behind, like he did with his male toys. Thank God he had a small penis, which she could barely feel inside her.

She heard movement from the chair scraping against the stone patio below, and she knew she needed to shift her mind to a dark place. Time to act, Svetla. She wasn't sure how long she could play this part, that of a stupid former super model. Well the model part was not a stretch, since she had actually been one until age twenty-five. It had to be real, since the BIS was sure Petros Caras would have done a background check on her, which he had done.

With quiet grace, she made her way to the bed and lay down seductively waiting for the billionaire to enter. Despite his bluster, this would all be over in less than five minutes. It took the man longer to get up the stairs than to finish in her.

Remember, Svetla, enthusiasm and seduction, but don't over-act.

The sun was nearly to the horizon of the Mediterranean Sea off the stern of the Grimaldi ferry from the Tunisian capital to Trapani on the island of Sicily.

Jake Adams stood on the top deck watching the blue wake capped off with white as they skimmed along on the quiet sea. He glanced to the south and could see the rocky Sicilian coast as the waning sun shone off the white rocks, giving them a fire-like glow. He knew this serenity wouldn't last. It never did.

After the state department man sprung him from the hellish Tunisian prison, he had quickly recovered a bag he had hidden at the Tunis Carthage International Airport, which contained some clothes, another passport, more fake credentials, and, most importantly, cash. He was old school, where cash was king.

Before Rob Pierce, the cultural affairs officer, would set him free to find the American woman, he had insisted Jake check his e-mail on his phone, which contained all the information he would need, in theory, to conduct his investigation, including photographs of Sara Halsey Jones, the two men who had first gone after her, along with a briefing on the woman that included everything anyone would want to know about anyone, from social security numbers and credit card numbers to her proclivity for various specialty foods and wines. Knowing she had been married, Jake had asked Pierce about the former husband. Perhaps he was involved with her disappearance. Not likely. The ex-husband had died of cancer at the young age of thirty, a rare blood cancer not unlike leukemia.

Christ, the woman could be anywhere. Rob Pierce had also decided that Jake couldn't fly out of Tunisia, which was just fine with Jake. He preferred traveling by boat, train or car anyway—places he could still carry a gun without much difficulty. In fact, he felt naked now without his gun. Especially since he discovered a tail about an hour ago—a man in his early thirties with black hair and dressed with a too-big shirt hanging over his white Chinos. Based on the man's black boots, his overall physique, and his demeanor, the man was either from law enforcement, the intelligence service, or former military. It usually took one to know one.

Which is why Jake came out onto the upper deck. Not many people were outside. But there was his shadow. Now he had to find the man's friend. When there was one there was always two. The key was to not let the man know that Jake knew he was being watched.

Considering his options, Jake decided on the direct approach. He slowly strolled along the deck toward the man, who was trying his best not to get caught staring.

What language? Jake stopped a few respectable feet from the man and asked in Italian, “Do you happen to have a cigarette?” Jake didn't smoke, but it would make the man reach for the pack of cigarettes he could see in his left front pocket.

The man smiled and reached with his right hand. As he did this, Jake grasped the man's left wrist, twisted it back placing torque on the man's shoulder and then shoved the man's chest into the metal and wood railing. Then with a quick strike, Jake punched the man in his right kidney buckling his knees and taking his breath away. As the man slumped to his knees, Jake found the guy's gun at the small of his back, pulling it holster and all from the man's belt and clipping it to his own. While he was back there, Jake found the man's wallet and he flipped it open to view the guy's driver's license. Interesting. Athens, Greece.

Jake glanced around and then saw something he had not noticed—a surveillance camera up high on a post. Two actually. One aimed to the bow and the other to the stern. He had been considering whether to throw the man overboard, but someone would see the body fall and call in a man overboard. And it wasn't like he could interrogate the guy right here. No time and not likely to produce the desired results. He checked his watch. Nearly ten p.m. The ferry would soon be getting into Trapani. He could feel the engines starting to slow.

He had just one choice, since this guy's friend had to be somewhere close. Still twisting the Greek's arm, but the man on his knees and starting to recover, Jake shoved his knee swiftly into the man's back, slamming his face into the rail and knocking him out. Jake let the man settle to the deck and he casually walked off toward the down ladder.

As he reached the bottom of the stairs, Jake nearly ran into another man. He could have been the brother of the man he just encounter on the deck, and his eyes widened with recognition when he saw Jake. Always more than one, Jake thought.