The Minoan Cipher

CHAPTER THIRTY

Hawkins swept his gaze around the waterfront and adjacent streets after the fisherman had dropped them off at the quay. He spotted the silver Mercedes almost immediately. They went over to inspect the car.

“This is it. I remember the license plate,” Abby said. “We’d better get going. That thing can catch the Renault before we’re halfway back to the airport.”

“Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Hawkins took Abby by the arm and guided her across the street. “Where are we going?” she said.

“To that mini-market’s wine section.”

“Are you crazy, Hawkins? Those guys could be here any minute, and you want to get a bottle of wine?”

“I never said anything about buying wine,” he said.

Inside the market Hawkins picked a corkscrew from a rack and made a twisting motion with his hand. Abby gave him a ‘now-I-get-it’ grin.

Back at the parking lot she leaned against the car, using her body to shield Hawkins, who knelt on his good knee and went to work on the Mercedes’ tires with the corkscrew. When they walked away, the shiny ride had four flats in the making.

Abby got behind the wheel of the Renault. They were headed for the highway when Hawkins answered the call from Kalliste. After they talked, he filled Abby in on the full conversation.

“I’ll text Cal and tell him to join us on Santorini,” he said. “We’ll try to get the device working there.”

“I’ll call my company pilot and say we’ll be at the airport in about five minutes.”

“You’d better allow an hour’s leeway. I want to swing by the archaeological museum.” He reached into his shirt pocket and held up the clay fragment from Gournia. “I’m hoping to find the jigsaw puzzle this fits into.”

Abby drove past the airport into Heraklion. They found a parking spot near the museum. Matt reluctantly checked his knapsack at the security desk and they made their way to the Minoan collection.

Hanging on the walls were the famous frescoes from Knossos. The colorful paintings were like a slide show of the past. Playful blue dolphins. The three fashionable Minoan ladies in the portrait known as, La Parisienne. Acrobats somersaulting over the back of a huge bull. A graceful female dancer.

“It was a beautiful civilization, wasn’t it?” Abby said, gazing at the painting of the regal kilted figure known as the Lilly Prince.

“It’s fascinating to contemplate what the world would be like now if they hadn’t vanished from the face of the earth.” Hawkins stopped in front of a display case and pointed at a small figurine. “But they had their sinister side, too.”

Inside the case was the small ceramic figure of a woman wearing a tall conical hat, long flounced skirt, an embroidered apron and a tight open bodice that exposed her breasts. In each hand she gripped a writhing snake. Her eyes were round and staring as if she were under a spell.

Abby said, “The Snake Goddess would have been a fearsome figure in real life.”

“I’d be more worried about her pets,” Hawkins said.

“Things aren’t all that they seem,” a voice said. “The snake was a symbol of fertility and renewal in ancient times.” The speaker of these words was a pleasant-faced, middle-aged woman dressed in a museum staff uniform. The badge on her blouse identified her as Maria Constatinos, a museum conservator.

“Thank you. That’s very interesting,” Abby said.

“Didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I heard your American accents. I studied at Boston University many years ago. I had a wonderful time, so I always go out of my way to speak to visitors from the U.S. Is there anything else I can show you?”

“We were hoping to see the Phaistos Disk,” Hawkins said.

“Of course. Everyone does.”

She led the way to a glass case that contained a round object covered with signs spiraling clockwise toward the center. Abby said, “It’s smaller than I thought it would be.”

“Many people say that. It’s just under six inches in diameter, made of fired clay. It dates back to the late Minoan Bronze Age, which would put it at the second millennium B.C., and was discovered in the palace at Phaistos in 1908. The size is deceiving. You’re looking at one of the world’s most intriguing archaeological mysteries.”

“Are those Linear A symbols?” Hawkins asked.

“Some people think they are, at least in part. But I’ll say this; whoever translates those little symbols will be the most famous person in the field of archaeology. I wish Dr. Vedrakis were here to talk to you. He’s our resident expert on the Phaistos Disk, but he’s off on a dig at a Minoan site. Perhaps another time.”

Hawkins and Abby exchanged glances. He was thinking that the only way they would see the professor is if they took a cruise on the Styx, the legendary river of the dead. “Thank you,” he said. “That would be nice.”

She said, “You may want to read the book that Professor Vedrakis wrote. It’s called The Minoan Enigma and is available in the gift shop.”

“Thank you. We’ll pick up a copy on the way out.”

Constatinos excused herself and went off to tend to her other duties. “That was damned eerie,” Abby said. “She’s going to feel awful when she learns about the professor. I wish we could tell someone.”

Hawkins remembered the body sprawled at the bottom of the cliff and felt a sense of guilt, but things were moving too fast. “I don’t like it any better than you do, Abby. But an interrogation room in the Heraklion police station is the last place we want to be.”

“I know,” she said with an angry shake of her head. “Well, at least you can tell me why we came here.”

Hawkins reached into his pocket for the clay shard he’d found next to the professor’s broken glasses and held it close to the glass. Several figures on the shard matched an area on the disk. A fish, a head, and a bare-breasted woman similar to the ceramic figuring holding the snakes.

“It’s a piece from the disk,” Abby said with wonderment in her voice.

He put the fragment back in his pocket. “I recognized the figures from the last time I was here. Since we’re looking at the real thing, and it’s not damaged in any way, the piece I found must have come from a replica.”

“Why would the professor bring a fake disk out to the site? Did he think we’d be able to decode that script with the device?”

“He was pretty excited. My guess is that he thought it might be worth a try. Mostly, he wanted to take a close look at the device before he confirmed that it was a translating machine. Too bad those jerks got to him before he could do that.”

“But he did confirm that’s exactly what it was, Matt. He had already concluded that the mechanism was a translator or he wouldn’t have brought the disk replica with him.”

Matt gave his skull a light knuckle rap and kissed Abby on the cheek.

“You are the smartest woman I know.”

She looked at her watch. “I’m smart enough to know we shouldn’t press our luck. Let’s get to the airport.”

Hawkins didn’t argue. They headed for the exit, stopping at the gift shop to buy a copy of the professor’s book and a replica of the disk. Hawkins retrieved the knapsack that contained the mechanism.

As they walked back to the car, Abby said, “I’ve been thinking about Kalliste’s scroll, wondering if it will help us unravel the mystery.”

“Which mystery?” Hawkins said with a shake of his head. “There seem to be an infinite number of them.”

The pensive smile vanished from Abby’s lips. “The one that keeps getting people killed.”