The Minoan Cipher

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

Calvin was twelve minutes overdue at the airport and to Abby that was an eternity. She went to shoot him a text but hesitated. Headlights were approaching at a high rate of speed. As the lights neared, she saw that they belonged to a truck. Someone was waving madly out of the driver’s window. The truck screeched to a stop and the door flew open. Calvin leaped out, a bright smile on his face, strode across the tarmac and gave Abby a hug that squeezed every ounce of anger from her body.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “Had to swing by Captain Santiago’s to borrow the truck. Where’s Matt?”

“He got the call from Lily Porter and drove into Cadiz to meet her and the professor. He doesn’t expect it to amount to much.”

“Mission’s still on as far as I’m concerned. When I told the captain we were headed to La Mancha he quoted a bon voyage from Cervantes. It’s been whirling around in my skull all the way to the airport.”

“I’d love to hear it,” Abby said.

“I’ll give it a try,” Calvin said. “ ‘May you come back sound, wind and limb out of this dreadful hole which you are running into, once more to see the warm sun which you art now leaving.’ ”

Abby laughed. “I’ll be glad when we all see the warm sun again.”

Calvin gave her a thumb’s up. He went over to the back of the truck, unloaded some boxes and laid out the contents on the tarmac.

Abby brought out her iPad and went down the list with Calvin. Black dry suits. Draeger rebreather units. Night vision goggles. Six M67 “baseball” grenades. Two tear gas canisters. A pair of Heckler and Koch machine guns with sound suppressors. Ammunition magazines. Two limpet mines. Dive knives. A compact raft that could be inflated in seconds. And miscellaneous equipment, such as radios, medical kits and wire cutters.

She stopped next to a long bag. “Planning to get in a round of golf?”

“That’s gator repellant,” Calvin said with a straight face.

Abby was responsible for making sure Calvin and Hawkins weren’t encumbered by even an ounce of excess gear.

“Is it necessary for the success of the mission?”

Calvin smirked. “Might be. If we run into any gators.”

Abby sighed and shook her head.

This was going to be a long night.

While the equipment was being checked out at the airport, Hawkins was driving across the city to meet with Lily and her professor friend. He hoped the professor had information that would help, but no matter what he said, Hawkins was certain he and Calvin would have to penetrate the castle defenses.

A SEAL mission goes through a standard protocol that starts with a problem to be solved. The platoon comes up with one or more solutions, operations and intel are brought in to massage the plan, and it goes to the commander. Upon his okay, the platoon comes up with an action schedule and collects the resources needed to carry the mission out.

Hawkins was commander and team leader. Calvin was operations and Abby was intel. This simplified things. They could move faster without the usual back-and-forth and negotiations that went with a full-blown SEAL mission. As far as combat forces go, the team was pretty pitiful.

To be successful, a SEAL operation must follow a simple rule. Haul ass. Get in, accomplish the mission and get out. Combat should be avoided at all costs.

The objective was to rescue Kalliste. He had figured out the when. Damned soon. But not the where. Kalliste could be anywhere in the Maze. He pictured the Maze drawing on the scroll. His brain fluttered. A thought flew around inside his skull like a bird in a cage.

He glanced at his watch. Traffic was heavy because of an accident. He was running late for his appointment with Lily at the University of Cadiz campus, and this delayed him even further. All he could do was sit behind the steering wheel and fume.

The Cadiz campus was in the old city, clustered in a warren of narrow streets, squares and plazas bordered on the waterside by Caleta Beach and Genovese Park. In the daytime, it was a shady oasis of palms, topiary cut trees sculpted in the shape of giant corkscrews, duck pools and bubbling fountains. At night, much of the park was in darkness.

Lily waited in the shadows of an unlit area under some tall palms.

She had instructed Hawkins to leave his car in the lot next to the seawall, and make his way to the park. She would be watching for him. She would call his name and tell him that the professor was waiting with her. Then she would lead him to the place she had chosen as the killing ground. As they strolled under the trees, she would stop and whisper something pitiful like, “Oh Matt. I’m so glad you came.”

Then she would embrace him as she had at the café, draw the bronze dagger from her sleeve and drive the point up under his ribs. Hawkins was a big man, but she had dispatched thousand-pound sacrificial bulls with cold-blooded efficiency. She gripped the hilt of the dagger. At times of sacrifice, the dagger seemed to quiver with life. She was merely the instrument of the Mother Goddess who directed her hand.

The sea shimmered in the moonlight. It was a beautiful night. Soon she would add the sickly-sweet smell of blood to the fragrance of orange trees carried on the soft, warm breeze. When she had eliminated Hawkins, she would head back to the Maze where a new High Priestess would be born. Lily Porter, the vapid chattering woman whose role she had played for so long, would disappear forever.