Silver Page 16

  Skarda came up behind him, staring.

  The spiral path had led them onto a ledge that bordered the rim of a deep, wide chasm. April’s lamp showed that the ledge ran around to its other side, coming to a stop where it met a forest of knobbed stalactites of all sizes hanging down from the ceiling to join an equal number of stalagmites rising up from the cavern floor to form contorted hoodoo shapes.

  He pulled out the Stealth and checked the countdown: 00:31:12.

  Sweat broke out on his temples.

  Moving ahead in single file, they set out along the ledge, their lights stabbing ahead. To Skarda, the chasm looked bottomless, its depths sucking up his beam like a black hole. In front of him, Nathaniel was wobbling with indecisive steps, carefully placing one foot in front of the other on the path that at times was only a few inches wide, at others stretching out not even a couple of feet. His shoulder hugged the wall.

  He was slowing them down, but there was nothing to be done.

  Finally reaching the opposite side of the chasm, they came upon a natural vertical fissure that appeared to have been artificially widened and smoothed. One by one they slid through. At this point the atmosphere had become much cooler and heavy with moisture, and Skarda was finding it harder and harder to breathe normally.

  But any discomfort was banished from his mind as he stepped through the opening and out into a vast, dome-shaped gallery hung with massive stalactites. He raked his lamp across the chamber, angling it towards April’s, and the two beams met in the center of the cavern.

  Nathaniel gasped.

  They were staring at a vast circular area that had been chiseled out of the stone floor and painted a bright cobalt blue. From its outside circumference a red path spiraled toward its center, where the image of a quarter moon had been drawn and filled in with yellow. Arranged at intervals around the circle were stone blocks chiseled to support six-foot-tall silver double-axes and beside them, libation vessels decorated with snakes, spirals, and rosettes. On the eastern head of the circle a limestone altar rose up, surmounted by a pair of silver bull’s horns. On it was a silver statue of the Snake Goddess.

  Flashes of a brighter element shone out from the ancient, tarnished metal.

  Neosamarium.

  “The dancing floor!” Nathaniel exclaimed. His voice held a tinge of awe and he drew in a sharp breath. “This was where they would perform their ritual spiral dances to honor the Goddess!”

  Skarda swept his flash over the chamber. Toward the southern extent two more open pits yawned and next to these rose a gigantic flat-topped hill of limestone where the wall of the cavern had long ago shattered into a slope of tumbled boulders and chunks of rock, fanning out like a frozen stone waterfall. From the ceiling thickets of stalactites hung down like daggers.

  But then the cone of his beam caught something else. His hand froze.

  His heart pounding, he began to move the LED in a clockwise direction around the circumference of the gallery.

  From the solid rock side cells had been hewn at regular intervals.

  And from each flashed the bright sheen of neosamarium.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Rethymno Harbor

  FOR the third time Catherine Lake pressed “Send” and scowled. So far she hadn’t received a response from Solomon and time was growing short. Turner and Morgana didn’t know her plans, but now that she’d discovered their own collusion, she knew her life was in danger. They wanted the neosamarium for themselves, and that meant that she was only in the way.

  A sudden sense of weariness overpowered her. What could she do? She had no options. Her one escape attempt had failed and from now on, they’d be watching her like hawks. And she had no weapons.

  Powerless.

  The thought of it made her furious. To achieve her position she had worked and schemed and played the game relentlessly. Suddenly she was aware of her jaws grinding together. Adrenaline sparked through her bloodstream, reinvigorating her.

  Getting up, she looked out through the small porthole that showed her the edge of the breakwater and beyond it, the sheet of blackness that was the open sea.

  Another scowl puckered her face.

  Solomon had better get his act in gear if he wanted his cut of the action.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Kyrenia Mountains

  IN the first of the cells they found a woman’s skeleton lying on her back on a cut ledge, her body robed in silver foil, her hands and feet encased in silver sheaths, poured on in liquid form after her death. Through the yellow-and-black tarnish on the metal Skarda could see bright streaks and clots of neosamarium.

  The second cell held a similar occupant, as did the third. Following the circumference of the chamber, they reached the last cell at the count of thirteen.

  But they’d hadn’t seen a huge cache of silver.

  Skarda checked his Stealth: 00:07:03. Seven minutes to go. Turning, he cast his eyes desperately around the main chamber. A sick feeling rose in his throat, threatening to gag him. If the treasure wasn’t here, they’d lost—there was nowhere else to look in time.

  April swung around to Nathaniel. “This isn’t it. Think! If the silver’s here, we need to find it now!”

  The scholar smiled as if the answer should already be obvious. “East. Where the moon rises.”

  ___

  The opening was in the dark shadow of a massive cluster of stalagmites and spiraling hoodoos, an oblong-shaped doorway facing directly east and clearly hacked out or enlarged by the Minoans. Stepping through it, Skarda found himself on a downward-sloping ramp that eventually bottomed out into a wider, flat path that twisted to the left before straightening out again. Ahead, through a partial glimpse of the opposite opening, he could see more stalagmites and stalactites in the light of the others’ lamps.

  Glancing at the countdown, he started forward. Less than three minutes left.

  When he finally pushed through, an obstacle course of stalagmites blocked his way, their tips joined farther on by a thick forest of stalagmites. The air stank of something old and fetid.

  One minute—

  Threading his way through the barrier, he finally broke through into a vast lozenge-shaped cavern whose ochre-and-brown-colored walls glinted slick and bright with seeping water.

  And something else.

  Staring in wonder, he panned his light, only half-hearing Nathaniel’s gasps.

  Silver lay everywhere, stacked along the entire length of the chamber in piles from floor to ceiling: double-axes, bulls’ heads, plaques, ceremonial shields, bracelets, necklaces, plates, cups, Goddess figures, furniture, and thousands of bun-shaped ingots.

  And everywhere the bright highlights of neosamarium gleamed from out the darkness.

  “Oh, my God...yes! Yes!” The words tumbled out of Nathaniel’s mouth in a torrent of breath. He rushed forward.

  Skarda glanced at the Stealth: 00:00:13. Relief flooded through him. His eyes met April’s. They’d gotten lucky. They’d beaten the deadline, but now trouble was just starting. Lake had already proven herself false, and she had to be stopped. And Morgana was an unknown quantity. He had a gut-level hunch about her, that she was a woman of her word. But he couldn’t trust her without reservations. There was just too much money at stake.

  As if on cue, the smartphone chimed: a video conference call from the Alkmene.

  When Morgana’s stern face appeared on the screen, he didn’t wait for her to talk. He just aimed the camera at the treasure.

  Pulling the Stealth away, he fixed her with an icy stare. “We’ve done our part.”

  Her face had lit up in a grin. “I knew I could count on you. Send your GPS coordinates and I’ll be right there with my crew to pick it up.” Some of the mirth drained from her eyes. “Don’t worry. Someone will stay here to keep watch on the hostages, in case you’re planning on trying anything creative.”

  “How do I know you haven’t already killed them?”

  On the screen the angle of the scene shifted,
the camera now showing Turner sitting in a chair in the salon.

  Morgana’s face returned. “Good enough?”

  “Where’s Senator Lake?” he asked.

  “In her cabin.”

  “I want to see her.”

  In the background he could hear Turner’s voice. “She’s okay, Skarda. She’s asleep. I’ll vouch for this bitch.”

  “Be right there,” Morgana said sweetly.

  The screen went dark.

  Skarda locked eyes with April. “Could be she found out about Lake and killed her and they’ve got a gun to Turner’s head. Or she could be telling the truth. How do you want to play it?”

  Her shrug was expressive. “At least we know what Lake’s up to and that gives us a little advantage. Odds are she and Krell are going to try something. But for now we have no choice except to go along with the program.” She showed him a brutal smile. “When the hostages are safe, then it’s a different story.”

  THIRTY

  Rethymno Harbor

  HEARING footsteps in the hallway, Lake jerked the USB cable from the computer and shoved the cell phone into a drawer. Then she stood and faced the door.

  It was flung open with a bang. Morgana and Turner stood in the corridor, the armed guard behind them.

  Lake’s gaze swept across both of them. She could easily read the expression in Turner’s eyes: he was here for a showdown. Whether the two of them knew she had discovered their collusion or not, something had changed.

  And that something wasn’t going to be good for her.

  An icy talon clutched at her stomach. But she angrily willed it away. It was time for her own showdown. “So you’re a traitor to your country,” she snapped.

  For a moment, Turner’s gun-barrel eyes bored into her as realization dawned. Then he grunted out a laugh. “Money has no country.”

  Morgana moved up next to him, laying a sensual hand on his shoulder. “I told you she was smart, Colonel. She figured things out all by herself.”

  Turner didn’t answer. He just kept aiming his unwavering stare.

  But Morgana was having the time of her life. Her lips split open in a wide grin. “Skarda and Force found the silver.”

  Lake stiffened, her eyes narrowing with cold distrust. “Where?”

  Again the colonel laughed. “It shouldn’t make any difference to you. Your usefulness is over.”

  With that, his hand jerked out, grabbing Morgana’s cutlass—

  A second later the blade was sticking from the center of Lake’s chest.

  The senator’s eyes went wide. For a heartbeat she stared at Turner in disbelief.

  Then she sagged to the floor in a spreading pool of blood.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Kyrenia Mountains

  APRIL frowned. Her intuition was jangling.

  “I’m going to take a look outside,” she told Skarda. Checking the magazine of her Barrett, she took off at a trot.

  A few minutes ticked past before she reappeared. “Chopper,” she said. “Krell. Six men.” She picked up the HK416 and slung it over her shoulder.

  “Think they know we’re here?”

  “They have to. Krell must have talked to Solomon.”

  Skarda glanced at Nathaniel. The scholar had sunk to his knees, his head bent low to inspect the silver treasures. It was a bad situation. He was a non-combatant in a closed trap with only one way out. They’d have to find a safe place to stash him before Krell worked his way into the treasure cavern.

  With increasing anxiety he surveyed the chamber. To the west the walls of the cavern were flat and unbroken. Nowhere to hide. But at the far eastern end a huge hump of rock was covered with flowstone formations that looked like fingers of dripping ice cream. Sprinting for it, he found a pocket-like scoop in the wall behind one of the folds—big enough for Nathaniel to crouch in hiding.

  It would have to do.

  ___

  They waited in absolute darkness. Skarda lay with his belly pressed against a carpet of loose rock, the muzzle of the Barrett resting on a flat table of stone. He could feel the adrenaline buzzing through his veins, making his index finger twitch spasmodically inside the trigger guard. The darkness was eerie and getting to his nerves. But the total silence was even worse.

  Silence—except for the steady thudding of his heart in his ears.

  Willing his mind to a blank slate, he wiped his hand on his shirt and resumed his wait.

  Beside him April lay motionless, as if she had petrified into part of the rock herself. Even her breathing made no sound. They were in the middle chamber, high up on the hill of crumbled limestone, directly above the yawning holes of the open pits in the chamber floor. Before she’d doused her LED, she’d carefully aimed her own Barrett at a spot on the ceiling in front of her, and now the rifle was rock-steady in her hands.

  A sound came to Skarda’s ears. It was insignificant and faint, like the movement of some small animal running across the cavern floor. But it was there. He froze in position, waiting.

  Another sound: the scuff of leather against stone. Someone was stepping into the gallery. The noise was as loud as a gunshot in Skarda’s ears. Uselessly he strained his eyes, trying to see shapes in the darkness. For Krell’s men it would be different. He had little doubt they were wearing IRI night vision goggles with built-in infrared illuminators that would allow them to see in total darkness.

  But they’d be looking for their enemies on the ground, not next to the ceiling...

  Another footfall, followed by another.

  Silently he counted down the remaining seconds of a full minute—

  Then April’s rifle stuttered into spurts of flame, the clink of the ejected casings followed by the sharp cracks of shattering stone.

  And then screams—

  She’d set her aim on the heavy stalactites on the ceiling above the entrance opening. Torn from their bases, the needle-like points of the limestone spears had found their targets.

  He twitched his finger and the Barrett jolted against its rocky perch as he let go with a burst into the darkness.

  From below rifles erupted with strobelike flashes. In front of him the rock shattered into a shower of razor-edged chips, spraying his face and shoulders with stinging shrapnel.

  He shrank back, feeling rivulets of blood well up and trickle down the skin of his cheek.

  April’s lips found his ear. “Okay?”

  He nodded, knowing she could feel the movement.

  Dropping back, they scrambled to another position, their feet dislodging cascades of stones. They were at the opposite end of the chamber from the dancing floor and wanted to keep the fight here, so as not to damage the precious artifacts.

  The thin green lines of laser sights lanced through the blackness, crisscrossing each other in geometric patterns. Metal-jacketed slugs flew over their heads and ricocheted off rocks, touching off sparks.

  Then, in a sudden burst of light, the gallery lit up as if it had spontaneously exploded into fire—

  Skarda jerked his head away, willing his eyes to adjust. Then he crawled forward and risked a glance down.

  A dark-haired man with a flamethrower was standing at the base of the slope, spraying the rocks with a lethal stream of brightly-burning napalm. The raw stink of gasoline assaulted Skarda’s nostrils as a black cloud ballooned up to spread out along the cave ceiling.

  The flamethrower operator shifted position, jerking the trigger again, aiming higher this time. A ball of flame rolled up at Skarda and April, making them scurry back, their lungs searing.

  Now there was no way for them to return fire—

  She motioned for him to go left. His boots scrabbling on the loose rock, he scrambled away, heading for the shelter of an overhanging boulder. Crawling up to it, he scuttled forward until he could look down into the cavern below. Converging napalm trails burned fiercely, belching out oily smoke and casting flickering shadows. In the eerie glow he could see a man on his back near the oval-shaped entrance, his midsecti
on pierced by a fallen stalactite. Next to him, a second man sat slumped against the wall, his feet out in front of him, a stone spear sprouting from his neck. Pools of bright red blood reflected the flames.