The Minoan Cipher

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

From the balcony of the house set into the cliff above Kalliste’s place, Leonidas had watched Hawkins and Abby sitting on the terrace and wondered what they had talked about. He missed having a real conversation with a beautiful woman. Isabel had filled a niche in his life, but she was more like the nubile females in bikinis who flocked around him back in his lazy drug-filled days as a surf bum. Damn. He wished he had a joint.

Putting the thought out of his mind, he concentrated on Hawkins. The guy had everything. Good looks, brains and babes. He was resourceful too. Leonidas had watched with amazement as Hawkins had coolly taken out that creep on the fortress island with nothing more than a sack full of rocks.

The technique worked so well Leonidas used a modified version on the second man in black. Leonidas was able to get above him. He pried loose a boulder the size of a football out of a wall and waited. The man came to the intersection below and started to climb. Leonidas popped up from behind the wall like a jack-in-the-box and dropped the rock on the man’s head. Quick, effective, practically silent except for the wet melon sound.

Leonidas had hurried back to the dock and lost himself in the crowd waiting for an incoming boat. Two men who looked like clones of the dead guys disembarked, brushed right by him and headed for the fortress.

On the way back to the mainland the ferry passed a police boat screaming out to the island with lights flashing. One or both bodies must have been found. He figured the local gendarmes would write it off as an accident. Back on land, Leonidas checked the parking lot. No other men in black, and Hawkins’s car was gone.

No big deal. He’d planted a location device on the car at the Minoan ruins. His phone app picked up the signal. He drove to the main highway, expecting Hawkins to turn off at the airport. Instead, the blinking blue dot representing the Renault continued into the city. He found the car parked near the museum.

He decided not to go in, seeing as that he was in his ‘Pouty’ outfit and Hawkins would spot him in a second. He quickly removed the positioning device from the bumper. It only took a few seconds to break into the car to retrieve the recorder he’d planted under the front seat. He locked the car, went back to the Suzuki and listened to the recording of the conversation.

He heard Hawkins say he planned to go to Santorini and jotted down the address Hawkins had given to Calvin over the phone. A short time later, Hawkins and Abby came out of the museum and got in their car. Leonidas was right behind them. Watching them drop their own car off and head for the airport, he then returned his own rental.

Now that he knew where their destination was, he took his time. He caught a taxi to the port and boarded the next ferry to Santorini. While most passengers were out on deck, he went into a restroom. When he emerged, Pouty had disappeared. Leonidas had on shorts, sandals, a T-shirt, and a Yankees baseball cap. In addition, he had sprouted a beard. He’d flipped from British tourist to American tourist. He was getting to like the garrulous Englishman, but he needed to blend in.

A few hours later the ferry landed at Thera and he took a bus to Oia. His first stop was the tourist office. The young woman at the desk marked the address of Kalliste’s house on a map. He strolled through the narrow alleyways until he came to a small square. He walked down the stairs from the square, past the house which overlooked the caldera. It would be hard to keep it under surveillance without being seen. He went back up the stairway and saw the rental sign on a house built into the cliff above Kalliste’s place. The landlord showed him a studio apartment that he immediately took, paying paid the man a week’s rent in cash.

Leonidas walked through the neighborhood, memorizing the streets and alleyways. As he strolled along, his nostrils picked up a familiar scent. He followed the smell to the Kastro and found a gathering of young Americans getting high on pot. He accepted their invitation to join the party. When they had smoked all their marijuana, he offered to buy a round of drinks at a taverna.

One round turned into others and they ended up closing the place down. As he stumbled home in the darkness he thought that it was a good thing he’d memorized the neighborhood. He took a few wrong turns, but made it safely back to his apartment and passed out.

Hawkins tossed and turned on a sofa that was too short to accommodate his long body. He gave up finally and checked his watch: Five o’clock. Throwing off the blanket, he rose from the sofa and pulled his clothes on. His friends were still in bed. He made coffee, sat at the table with his tablet and read the message from Captain Santiago. Apparently the captain couldn’t sleep either because the message had been sent only minutes earlier.

He typed a reply.

Hawkins wrote that he’d come to Spain as soon as he could. He pondered the captain’s message. Even after his boat sank under him the captain had displayed a calm that was almost uncanny. Yet the centuries-old parchment had spooked him. Hawkins climbed to the upstairs bedroom and knocked softly. Abby came to the door fully dressed. She and Kalliste had smelled the brewing coffee and were about to come down.

Calvin was up as well. When the group was together again, Hawkins showed them the message.

“Damn,” Abby said. “Wish I had held onto the Gulfstream.” She checked commercial flights on her phone. “If we leave within the next ten minutes we can catch a flight to Frankfurt. Forty-five minute layover and we can hop a plane to Cadiz. We’ll be there in time for lunch.”

Kalliste called a taxi. They threw their toothbrushes and a change of clothes into their bags. Within minutes, they headed out the door on the way to the main square where the cab would pick them up.

A few hundred feet away, Leonidas heard someone speaking English in the quiet of the morning.

He parted the curtains of his hangover fog, got out of bed — still wearing his rumpled clothes — and staggered to the front window just in time to see Hawkins and Abby disappear around the corner. They were carrying bags, which told him that they weren’t simply going for a walk around town. He pictured himself chasing after them but decided against it. His wig had fallen off, revealing his scarred scalp. Then the waves of nausea churning in his stomach sent him running for the bathroom sink.