The Minoan Cipher

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Salazar didn’t know who had put two Priors out of commission on Crete but he could have jumped for joy when he heard the news. The assassins who did the bidding of the Way would have to be eliminated if he were to carry out his plan, and that could have been a problem. One never knew where they were. They didn’t even have real names, except for the four cardinal directions.

With only two Priors remaining of the monastic order that had once protected the Maze, Lily found it necessary to call on Salazar to back up their mission to Santorini, where they would retrieve the translating device, kidnap Kalliste and kill Hawkins. He had said he would get right on it, speaking in the same subservient tone that the Salazar family had used with its masters since they had established their unholy alliance centuries before, but he could barely keep himself from gloating.

Salazar was determined to end that arrangement and, to do so, had secretly been building his power base. He had to be extremely careful, especially around Lily who had the ear of the High Priestess. Any hint that he was forming a private army to counter the Priors and the mercenaries who protected the priestess would have brought quick retribution from the Maze. He’d characterized the group of bodyguards he’d gathered around him as his personal security staff, the type needed to protect the CEO of a major corporation.

Lily reluctantly allowed Salazar to bring his men into the plan after he pointed out that a kidnapping in a crowded neighborhood would be tricky. Hawkins was a former Navy SEAL and had already eluded two attempts to kill him. Just using the Priors would put them at risk. Sunglasses covered their strange eyes, and the Greek fishermen’s caps hid their brightly-colored scalps, but not their wolfish features. The collarless Greek shirts they had bought in Thera added color to their otherwise funereal outfits. The result was slightly grotesque, and there was still something repellant and menacing about their appearance that would be imprinted in the memory of anyone who encountered them.

Salazar’s team had arrived separately. Some sharp-eyed taverna waiter or shop owner would remember the hard-faced men, with physiques like gorillas, wandering suspiciously around the narrow streets and alleys. Their polo shirts and shorts only emphasized their muscular arms and legs. But he had recruited the most elite of his mercenaries for this mission. They would be in and out before anyone put things together.

As he walked along under the hot Greek sun he reveled at the opportunity to unleash his more violent instincts. His career had come full circle. Here he was again managing a team of killers. Salazar had worked his way up the family criminal organization ladder as an enforcer and enjoyed the killing and maiming that went with the job.

He had ordered his men to spread out around the village until he located the house. Even with the address, Kalliste’s place was hard to find. He walked along a walled path above the jumble of houses that sprawled along the terraces of the caldera until he came to a small square with a fountain in the center. An elderly woman in a black dress was crossing the square. He asked where he could find the address.

She gave him a 14-karat smile and pointed to stairs that led down off the square. He thanked her and descended a stone-paved stairway to a house built into the cliff. He raised his camera and took pictures of the cliffs, but his mind was busy planning the assault.

Salazar approached the kidnapping of the Greek woman as he would a mining operation. Locate. Extract. Transport. Process. His men would knock on the door, burst in like a SWAT team, kill Hawkins and the Greek woman and procure the device. He had asked the Priors to cover the square to intercept anyone who escaped the assault.

He would summon the Priors down to take charge of Kalliste. His men would kill them and set fire to the house. Lily would be told that the device was destroyed in the fire. With no Priors to intimidate them, the Auroch corporate officers he’d been cultivating would come over to his side. He’d persuade them that Auroch no longer needed the Minoans and their mumbo-jumbo. With the High Priestess on her death bed, the time was ripe for a coup.

He was under no illusions. His ambitious plan was like an inverted pyramid. Success or failure depended on what happened in the next few hours.

Leonidas was having a hard time finding a coil of rope. Oia had no shortage of tavernas, jewelry and souvenir shops that sold refrigerator magnets of the Parthenon. But he was unable to find a good, old-fashioned hardware store. He would have given his right arm for a Home Depot. Coming to the mule path at the edge of the town, he looked out at the fishing boats tied up at the quay.

Suddenly inspired, he made his way down the switchbacks and headed to the nearest boat. The captain was too polite to ask why this crazy tourist wanted rope, and he dug out a fifty-foot coil of manila rope encrusted with dry seaweed, handed it over and gladly accepted the wad of bills. Leonidas asked if he had more. The fisherman dug out another coil. Leonidas hung the coils over his shoulder and caught a mule ride to the top of the path.

Back in his apartment, he attached one line to the balcony railing. It was about a thirty-foot drop to the cliff below. He tied knots in the rope at intervals. Not exactly a department store escalator, but it would have to do. Next he needed an escape route. Taking the second coil of rope with him, he left the apartment and followed a path along the rim of the caldera. The sun was setting, transforming the violet waters into a shimmering lake of silver, when he found what he was looking for.

Half an hour later he was back on the roof of his apartment. He stoked up the doobie he had scored from the German kids on the old kastro. After a few tokes of the high-powered cannabis a foolish grin came to his face. He took another drag, snuffed the joint and went back into the house. He pulled a chair up to a mirror and dug into his disguise kit.

As he peeled the tourist face off and begin to apply his new features over the scarred flesh, he was already praising himself that this would be one of the best make-up jobs he’d ever done.

Hell, maybe it would even earn him an Oscar.