The Vault of Poseidon

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The journey from the airport into Athens was laborious and time-consuming, but it was warmer than Geneva and Lea was able to wind down the window of the cab and enjoyed the breeze until Ryan complained about the engine fumes. She knew what Hawke’s response would be but he was on his way to the museum with Scarlet Sloane.

The taxi driver carelessly negotiated the gridlocked traffic and a couple of student demonstrations, slowly twisting into the ancient city and by the time they arrived at Demetriou’s apartment the sun was high and it almost felt like a summer’s day. She paid the driver and turned to look up at the white stucco façade of the apartment block. A few pots of red geraniums hung from one of the balconies above. It looked peaceful.

They climbed the steps and rang the bell. No one answered the door, but it took Sophie less than two minutes to break into the hall, and they were inside.

“This place is awesome!” Ryan said, marvelling at the bookshelves all around the expansive apartment. “There’s his computer,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Should I?”

“I see no reason why not,” Lea said. “We know Zaugg has an interest in Demetriou, and we know he’s not answering his phone. There’s no sign of him so either he’s at the museum or maybe Zaugg’s already got to him and we’re behind a step.”

“So let’s get going,” Sophie said.

“Agreed. Ryan — you get into the computer and Sophie can watch the door.”

Lea watched Ryan turn on the computer and connect up the MacBook. Sometimes she wondered what she had ever seen in him, but other times she remembered what it was, and this was one of those times. He was out of his depth, surrounded by ex-military or secret service, in a dangerous environment, and yet he stepped up to the mark and got stuck in.

“Have you found anything yet?” Sophie asked. “We need to hurry things along.”

“There’s everything in here — loads of published articles in what look like highly respected peer-reviewed journals to me — all on subjects like the origins of Persian pottery and even one here on the early Roman oil trade.”

“She means anything of use to us today, Ryan.”

“Oh, sorry. Yes, I think so. I’m in a private folder — pretty rudimentary security, actually, which took me less than a minute to crack — anyway, some of it looks like his original research — all the stuff you might expect — ancient Greece, antiquities, artifacts of various kinds and also a pile of stuff on Ancient Greek — the language itself.”

“That must be why Zaugg’s so keen to get his hands on him,” Lea said.

“You think?” Sophie said sarcastically.

Lea ignored it and leaned over Ryan’s shoulder, squinting at the Greek letters on the screen, unintelligible to her. She leaned closer and touched the screen gently with her index finger. “What’s that there — the one marked Fabula — it’s written in English.”

“It means fable, or legend in Latin,” Ryan replied.

“A good place to start then.”

Ryan clicked open the file.

“Shit — it’s all written in sodding Latin,” Lea said. “I thought it was going to be in English.”

“It’s his research into the Poseidon myth,” Ryan said, casually reading the Latin as if it were his own mother tongue.

“Anything else?” she asked, once again impressed with Ryan’s capacity to hold otherwise useless information in his head.

“Let’s see…” he said. “It starts off simple enough — positing that Poseidon was more than a mythological figure, and that consequently his trident was also real.”

“Not sure this is good news or not,” said Lea. She sighed. “We know all this. Isn’t there anything new?”

“Actually, yes — and this is weird.”

“What does it say?” Sophie asked. She walked to the window and peered outside into the street.

Ryan translated. “He writes something here about the number seven having some important part to play in all this — something to do with seven levels.”

“What’s the significance of the number seven?” Lea asked, casting a suspicious eye across the room to Sophie.

Ryan’s eyes crawled over the screen as fast as he could translate the Latin. “From Pythagoras onwards, the ancient Greeks were obsessed with numbers and numerology — and created something called isopsephy, where they attributed numeric value to letters and added them up to induce meaning,” he said.

“So?”

“The number seven represented mysticism and magic. Clearly the Ancients knew they had something of terrible power in their grasp and perhaps in deciding to hide it behind seven levels they were obviously hoping to protect themselves from the wrath of the gods — presumably Poseidon himself.”

“They thought that would protect them?”

“It’s not so silly,” Ryan said. “Using numbers in a divinatory way or a superstitious way like this was very common then. Even today some people are very superstitious when it comes to numbers — look at the way some people choose lottery numbers. The Ancients believed numbers were sacred, and that they formed a sort of bridge between mortals and the divine.”

“But does it give us any more clues?” Lea asked.

“She’s right, Ryan” Sophie said. “We need anything we can get our hands on.”

Ryan continued to scroll though the chunks of Latin on the screen.

“Not really — it’s just his thoughts on the subject which are surprisingly rambling, actually, and…” he slowed down and peered closer to the screen. “But this is odd.”

“What?” Lea and Sophie asked in perfect unison.

“He’s quoting Homer here, but I don’t recognize it. I’m not altogether up to date with Herodotus but I know my Homer. He’s from a much earlier period, of course.”

“Of course,” Lea said, smirking.

“But this isn’t right — Homer never wrote this, I’m convinced of it.”

“What does it say?” Lea asked, placing her hand on his shoulder. He looked up at her and smiled in return.

“Well, if my translation is correct it means — is that the ablative or locative declension?”

“We don’t have time for this, Ryan!” Lea said. “We have to make sure we get ahead of Zaugg. For all we know Demetriou has already told them everything.”

Ryan stared up at his ex-wife. “Do you want to translate it?”

“Sorry — I’m sorry, honestly.”

Ryan stared at the simple sentence again: “Take thine hands into the earth, and share the Victory of Theseus and Pallas.”

“What’s that, a riddle?”

“I think it must be. It certainly isn’t Homer.”

“Fantastic — I was never any good at word games.” Lea frowned.

“Perhaps if you could shoot it you would be of more use,” Ryan said with a smug smile.

“If I could shoot you I would be of even more use,” she said. “Something I should have done years ago,” she muttered under her breath. “I was never any good at word puzzles.”

“Luckily I was,” Ryan said. “Pallas is just another name for Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom and courage, so that bit’s easy.”

“Easy, he says!” said Lea. “I’ve never even heard of Pallas.”

“It all just seems too weird to be true,” he said, almost to himself. He stared at the screen. “Take thine hands into the earth, and share the Victory of Pallas.” He repeated the sentence again almost in a whisper. “The only thing I can think of in terms of Athena and a reference to victory is the contest she took part in with Poseidon.”

“Him again,” Lea said. “He seems to be popping up a lot these days.”

“We’re talking about a contest that took place long ago even relative to ancient Greece itself — far back in the time of the gods. The first king of Athens was called Cecrops. He was half man and half snake.”

“A lot of men are like that,” Lea said softly.

Ryan ignored her, his eyes fixed on the little cursor blinking at the end of Demetriou’s mysterious clue. “He decided he must find a deity for his subjects to worship, and he discovered that both Poseidon and Athena wanted to be their god, or goddess in her case. Poseidon and Athena were very ancient and powerful rivals, and they were on the cusp of going to war when Athena suggested they held a contest for the right to be worshipped by Cecrops and his subjects.”

“So not unlike two politicians fighting for the leadership of their party then?” Lea said.

“You’re not funny, Lea,” Ryan said, sighing. “Beautiful, but not funny.”

Lea looked at him from behind, unsure how to respond to such an obvious flirtation. She chose to ignore it and hope he moved on. He did.

“An enormous crowd gathered to watch the contest. It started with Poseidon — he was well known for his temper — he struck the earth with his trident. It broke the earth up and brought forth a spring, which became a flood, and that in turn became a body of water named the Sea of Erechtheus.”

“A good opening gambit, I would have thought.”

“Not really,” Ryan continued. “The people were overjoyed until they tasted the water, which was salty because Poseidon was the god of the sea. They weren’t happy.”

“Bummer,” said Lea. “Fifteen love to Athena then.”

“Athena’s approach was different. Instead of a dramatic event like the creation of a sea, she gently knelt on the ground and buried an unknown object in the earth. It grew quickly into an olive tree. The people loved it because it gave them olives for food, the oil for cooking and cleaning, and the wood for fires.”

“Game, set and match to Athena then?” said Lea.

“Indeed. Cecrops declared Athena the winner and named his city after her. She became their goddess and protected them and their city.”

“And Poseidon took all this like a gent?” Lea said.

“Not at all. He was enraged, and he flooded the Thriasian Plain and drowned half of the Attica Peninsula under seawater with his trident.”

“Nice guy.”

“And that’s the power that Zaugg wants to get his hands on.”

“And how do we know all this?”

“It’s a famous legend, and one of the places it was recorded was on the Temple of Athena up on the Acropolis in Athens, where it's carved into the stone for all time.”

“So what does this have to do with the clue on our vase?”

“Athena’s victory was gained by her planting of an olive tree, and the first part of Demetriou’s sentence tells us to place our hands into the earth to share her victory. I’d say the key to this is buried under an olive tree somewhere.”

“Excellent,” Lea said. “There are only a few hundred million of them in Greece.”

“This whole thing is like a Cretan Labyrinth!” Ryan said.

“What the hell is the Cretan Labyrinth?” she asked.

Ryan replied: “A seven-circuit maze system designed by Daedalus for King Minos son of Zeus. It was built to contain the Minotaur until Theseus could kill him.” He paused for long enough to make Lea turn and ask him if there was a problem.

“Er… well — I’m not sure,” was his reply. “Just looking a bit closer into the legend and there’s more and more talk of something called the nectar of the gods, but it says something here that I haven’t come across before.”

“What is it?”

“Something about ambrosia.”

“Ambrosia?” Lea asked. “Not the bloody custard?”

Ryan shook his head and sighed. “I used to find your ignorance attractive,” he said wearily. “A sort of Pygmalion thing, I suppose, but actually it’s really worrying.”

“Not the custard then?”

“No, not the sodding custard. Ambrosia was the nectar of the gods which is what many believed made them immortal. Demetriou’s research is indicating that it was not merely legendary but actually real.”

“This just gets better,” said Lea.

“It says here that the vault of Poseidon — and he’s citing a passage of Herodotus I don’t recognize, which is odd — but anyway, it says that the vault is real — which we know now thanks to the Ionian Texts — and that its location was recorded by the Vienna Painter and hidden in two vases, but it also makes these references to the divine nectar.”

“You’re telling me that Zaugg’s not really after the trident at all, but some kind of…”

“Immortality,” said Ryan, finishing her sentence.

“But this isn’t confirmed, right?”

“I guess not… it just looks like something this Demetriou has dug up on his travels around the internet. It's just to do with the legend of the gods’ ambrosia and how it mustn’t be touched by mortal man or…” he paused again.

“What, Ryan?”

“Sorry — just making sure my translation is good. This Demetriou is very articulate actually, if you look at how he…”

“Ryan!”

“Ah, sorry — anyway, it says here that if mortal man tries to control the power of the elixir of life the sky will turn to fire and all mankind will burn to death.”

“The sky will turn to fire?” Lea said. “And here I was frightened of the freaking trident. What does it mean?”

“Let’s hope we don’t find out,” said Sophie, who had walked over to the desk.

“Ryan, text that to Hawke will, you? If the goddamn sky’s going to set on fire I want Hawke to know about it in advance!”

“Sure thing.” Ryan tapped out the message.

“And Sophie, get back to that door and keep an eye out for…”

Suddenly the door burst open and they were faced with three armed men holding close-quarter Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns. Lea stared at the man in the middle with fear in her heart. It was Heinrich Baumann. She reached for her gun.

“Don’t even think about it,” he said in heavily accented English.

A voice deep inside her told her to do as she was told, and while she knew Ryan wouldn’t do anything stupid, she could only hope Sophie Durand would make the same play. She would be asking her why she never saw Baumann and his crew approaching the house later on, if she lived long enough to pose the question.

Baumann smirked as she handed over her Glock 17, and Sophie followed suit by handing the Beretta over a second later. Was that glance Sophie and Baumann shared a second too long, she wondered?

Baumann stared at Ryan Bale, who was slinking behind Demetriou’s Packard Bell.

“He’s not armed,” Lea said. “Ryan, show them you’re not armed. And move slowly, for God’s sake.”

Ryan did as he was told.

“Now you are all coming for a ride,” Baumann said.

“What do you want with us?” Lea asked, hoping with everything she had that Hawke had made it to the museum.

Baumann blinked his one working eye and smirked. She heard the tiny motors whining in his metal hand. “You don’t want to know.”