Vulcan's Forge

Khania, Crete

Once an outpost of the mighty Venetian trading empire, the seaside town of Khania retains much of the influence of its renaissance benefactor. Though lacking the trademark canals of Venice, Khania can still fool even the most seasoned traveler into thinking he or she is on the Italian peninsula rather than the largest of the Greek islands. The calm Aegean spices the air of the resort town as breezes blow into the protected bay, past the stone lighthouse and domed mosque left over from the Turkish occupation. The cramped architecture of the port itself gives a person seated in one of the many quayside restaurants a feeling of contentment and belonging even as multitudes of tourists promenade by in arm-linked droves.

Khania sits nearly forty miles west of Crete’s capital, connected to it by a stretch of new highway dotted with beautiful beaches and luxury condominium developments catering to Germans and Scandinavians wishing to hide from winter’s fury. Because of the transitory nature of the population, no one paid heed to Khania’s newest arrival as he sipped a Scotch at an outdoor cafe, watching the tourists load themselves up like pack animals with souvenirs and mementos of their stay on Crete.

He was dressed in creamy linen pants and a silk polo shirt, his feet shod in soft leather moccasins. If tourists had taken the time to notice him, they would have assumed that he was just another rich German “getting away from it all.” They would have been dead wrong.

Ivan Kerikov had selected Khania with much care and deliberation. He knew that he was being hunted by the KGB, the CIA, and more importantly, Way Dong’s security forces, so any hiding place must have several avenues of escape. Khania’s transitory population almost guaranteed anonymity, while the island’s rugged interior offered thousands of hiding places. If things became desperate, Libya was only a ten-hour boat ride away.

Kerikov signaled his waiter for another drink and sat back contentedly in the cloth and steel tubing chair. He could think of no better place to sit and wait without fear of detection while still enjoying the amenities of civilization.

Before leaving Zurich, he’d managed to empty several KGB accounts held there for agents operating in the West. He had enough money to live on for at least a year.

The waiter brought his drink and Kerikov thanked him with a grunt.

A year would be all the time he needed to utilize the information locked away in a bank’s safe-deposit box near Sygtagma Square in Athens. That information, stolen from the archives of Department 7, would be worth millions to the right buyer, one eager for the power to bring America to her economic knees.