The Vault of Poseidon

CHAPTER TWENTY

Before Hawke and Scarlet could enter Demetriou’s apartment his neighbor came running into the street, hysterical and babbling in Greek. She was pointing at the upstairs apartment. Demetriou’s apartment.

“What’s going on, professor?” Hawke asked.

“She says some men came here today, to my apartment. She said they had guns. I see now you weren’t exaggerating when you said my life was in danger. Thank heavens I wasn't at home or they would have me. At least this way no one was hurt.”

Hawke and Scarlet shared a glance. “Yeah… about that.”

“What?”

“When we arrived in Athens we split into two groups,” Scarlet explained. “Joe and I went to the museum, while our friends came here.”

“So today you rifle through my office, shoot at me in the museum and now as if that were not all bad enough you have people break into my apartment and go through my personal belongings? You break into my computer!”

The old woman began talking again, this time much calmer, steadied by the professor’s reassuring hands on her arms.

Demetriou turned to Hawke and Scarlet, confused. “She says three people were taken away at gunpoint. I’m sorry — these must be your friends.”

Hawke sighed. Scarlet surveyed the street for anything that might offer them a lead.

The woman spoke once more and handed Demetriou a cell phone.

“It’s Lea’s.” Hawke took the phone. “I recognize the cover.”

He flipped the screensaver off to see a picture of Lea with a gun to her head. She was trying to look unfazed, but Hawke saw the same look in her eyes that he’d seen that night in New York when she started to talk about her past.

“That picture was taken up there in my study!” Demetriou said, suddenly much more nervous than usual. “I recognize my books…”

Scarlet stepped away to make a phone call, and returned a few moments later: “All right — they traced the origin of the call. They tried to mask it but this is the location.”

“Good work, Cairo,” Hawke said. “What are the coordinates?”

He typed them into his phone as she read them out, the two of them standing together, working together just like old times. “Well, that’s unexpected!” he said.

“What is it? They’re not in bloody Antarctica or something are they?”

“No, according to these coordinates, they’re in the middle of the Ionian Sea. Must be a boat.”

“You think?” Scarlet said. “It could be Zaugg’s secret underwater base.”

Hawke glanced at her and offered a fake smile. “The cheeky bastard’s holding them on a boat.”

“I’ll get on to Eden and find out if he knows anything else,” Scarlet said, putting the phone to her ear.

“So what does it all mean?” Demetriou asked, walking his neighbor to her door and reassuring her it was all over.

“It means we have to get my friends back before those turdwipes hurt them.”

“Sorry, but what is a turdwipe?”

“Just an expression, professor. I wouldn’t use it at an academic conference or anything like that if I were you.”

Inside Demetriou’s apartment, the professor asked to see the golden arcs again.

“I think there is more to this than the riddle,” he said, turning over the two halves in his hand.

“What do you mean?” Hawke asked.

“The riddle is a problem in itself — Beneath the Highest City, Where The Samian’s Sacred Work Shall Guide — The Kingdom Of The Eldest Is Where What You Seek Doth Hide — I don’t know what this means yet, not fully at least — but look at the way the golden arc fits together to form a perfect disc.”

Demetriou placed the two pieces together, forming a whole. “If you look closely, the two halves of the sun wheel in the center align to form a kind of circular ridge, and the cross inside it is raised from the base — here, look closely at it — also please note the outer edge is made of polished ivory, elephant’s I should imagine.”

Hawke took the golden fragments in his hands and Scarlet peered over his shoulder as he pushed them together.

“I see what you mean,” he said, “but what’s the significance?”

Demetriou shook his head doubtfully, as if he were unsure of his next words. “It’s making me think of a particular book in Homer’s The Odyssey, where Odysseus hides his magnificent treasure from the world in his great storeroom. In that story, Penelope takes a key with an ivory handle and uses it to open the door to Odysseus’s storeroom — the place where he stored his gold and iron.”

“You think this is some kind of key, don't you?”

“I do.”

“You mean not only is it telling us the way to Poseidon’s tomb, but it’s also the key to gain entry once we get there?” asked Scarlet.

“Exactly!” Demetriou’s eyes flashed as he stared at the golden arcs in Hawke’s hands. “I think it is not really a simple golden disc, but a key disguised as one. It is a key! A key to the legendary vault of Poseidon.”

“And all we have to do is work out where in the entire world it is,” Hawke said skeptically.

“This cannot be so hard,” said Demetriou dismissively. “It must surely be in Greece, and even then we can narrow it down again — let me look at that riddle once more.”

Hawke handed him what they now knew was a key, and took a deep breath as the professor took it in his hands and ran his fingers over the ancient inscription.

“Ah — the kingdom of the eldest!” Demetriou said, rising from his chair and pacing excitedly up and down his study.

“What about it?” asked Scarlet. “You know what it means?”

“Possibly. I’ve been thinking about this part of the riddle since we left the museum.” He reached for a book on one of his shelves and opened it on his desk at a certain page. “Look here — you will see that Poseidon had two immortal brothers, Zeus and Hades.”

“And?”

“And each was given control of part of the world by their father, the mighty Kronos, the leader of all the Titans. Zeus was given dominion over the sky, Poseidon, as we all know, power over the oceans, and Hades was made god of the underworld.”

“Ryan was talking about this earlier,” Hawke said. “Kronos is the aftershave guy.”

“I’m sorry?” Demetriou looked confused.

“Ignore him,” Scarlet said. “It’s the best way.”

“Anyway,” Demetriou continued, “Hades was the eldest of the three. I think the kingdom of the eldest refers to the underworld.”

“Oh, excellent,” Hawke said. “We’re literally going to hell.”

“No, well…” Demetriou searched for the English words. “I think we can take it as meaning simply underground — that when it says The Kingdom Of The Eldest Is Where What You Seek Doth Hide, it really means that the vault of Poseidon is underground.”

Hawke sighed. “I didn't think it would be in the sky, professor.”

“No, of course not, but Greece is famous for its tunnels and caves. If you ask me, then this riddle is telling us the vault is in a cave complex somewhere.”

“All right, we’re getting somewhere,” said Scarlet. “What about the rest of the riddle?”

Demetriou returned his eyes to what he now believed was a key. Beneath the Highest City, Where The Samian’s Sacred Work Shall Guide — The Kingdom Of The Eldest Is Where What You Seek Doth Hide. “Perhaps this reference to the highest city — the acropolis — refers to the acropolis here in Athens — I don't know! But if it does, then maybe the Hades reference means beneath it. There is a tunnel network deep beneath the Parthenon — I know this much.”

Hawke looked uneasy. “It’s just a stab in the dark, prof.”

“I’m sorry?”

Scarlet’s eyes flicked from Hawke to the professor. “He means you’re inference is tenuous.”

“I don't think so! Just look at the words, they speak for themselves.”

“You’re not looking at all of the words though,” Hawke said. “We’ve worked out the bit about the highest city, and the kingdom of the eldest, but what about the other bit — the section about the Samian’s sacred work?”

Demetriou sighed deeply, obviously deflated. “I know, this bit I do not understand.”

“And that bit could lead us somewhere totally different. Without understanding the whole riddle we would just be on a wild goose chase.”

“So get your thinking cap on, professor,” Scarlet said. “Meanwhile, I think we need to talk about Zaugg’s yacht and just what we’re going to do about getting our friends back.”

Hawke agreed, and they both starting making phone calls. Hawke had a powerful new contact in the form of Sir Richard Eden and no doubt Cairo Sloane could trawl her own urban underworld in search of assistance.

As they made their calls, Hawke noticed that once or twice his old SAS rival had caught his eye and kept the contact with him just a second too long than was normal.

He hadn’t seen her for so many years it was nice to be around an old friend, but to describe Scarlet Sloane as unpredictable was a gross understatement. Damaged goods was another phrase that sprang to mind. He hoped she wasn’t harboring any feelings for him.

Hawke first tried Eden but the line was blocked so he put through a call to his former commanding officer, the resourceful Olivia Hart.

He had worked under her when he was a sergeant and she was a lieutenant in the Royal Marines, but then she had her transfer request cleared and moved across to the Royal Navy. These days Olivia Hart was in the top brass and ran a highly covert sub-unit of the SBS referred to only as V Squadron.

“Not heard from you in a while,” Hart said.

“You love me really.”

“Seriously, Hawke. It’s been too long.”

“What can I say?”

“That you only call people up when you need to use them?”

“Don't be like that, Commander.”

“It’s Commodore now. I got promoted again.”

“You were always very good at that, as I recall.”

There was a pause. “What do you want, Joe?”

Her use of his first name put him at ease. “An early retirement in the Caribbean with my own private villa and an endless supply of banana daiquiries. How about you?”

“I’m a busy woman, Hawke.”

Back to Hawke, but he knew she was smiling.

“Listen, Olivia, I need some help.”

As he spoke, he watched Scarlet make her calls and chat into the phone, tracing her finger along the back of the sofa as she paced gently behind it, or twiddling her finger in Demetriou’s spider plant. Whoever she was speaking to she knew very well. Knowing her, she’d probably slept with whoever it was. Scarlet Sloane could be like that.

Now she was looking at him again, and then came that smile of hers. For a moment he felt something for her, but then he remembered who he was looking at. Cairo Sloane treated men in roughly the same way cats treat mice.

They ended their phone calls and looked at each other.

“All sorted,” they both said in unison, and offered each other a tentative smile.