The Grecian Manifesto (28 page)

Tommy shined his flashlight
into the next room. It was a smaller, cube-shaped chamber. Bourdon motioned for
the two Americans to move forward. As the five lights illuminated the darkness,
a giant figure revealed itself in the shadows along the far wall. A massive
sculpture of Zeus sitting on a golden throne towered all the way to the
ceiling, nearly fifteen feet high. The statue held a lightning bolt in one hand
and a scepter in the other. A long flowing robe draped over the figure’s
shoulder and down past his waist, to his sandaled feet. His thick hair and
beard were meticulously detailed, as were the statue’s abdominal muscles,
biceps, and pectorals. The face of Zeus stared straight ahead, as if guarding
the doorway with his stern expression.

“You don’t think…” Tommy
started to ask, his voice echoing in the still silence of the chamber.

“No. It can’t be,” Sean said.

“Are you sure?”

“The fabled statue of Zeus by
Phidias was much larger than this one, and the records of it say that it was
still in Greece long after Julius Caesar died.”

“Oh yeah. I guess I didn’t
think about that.”

“Silence!” Bourdon ordered.
“Men, shine your light over there, to the right of the statue.”

The other four did as ordered
and redirected their flashlight beams to their right. Just in front of the
sculpture’s throne, a marble cube sat on the floor. On its top, a shiny, almost
gold-like object reflected some of the light back to the men.

It was the Eye of Zeus.

“That’s it,” Sean said with
more than a hint of relief. He started to inch his way forward when Bourdon’s
voice stopped him again.

“I think you’ve gone far
enough, Mr. Wyatt. You and your friend step over to the side right there.” He
waved his gun barrel in the direction he wanted the Americans to go. When they
had done what he requested, he spoke again. “Good. I can’t have you doing
something foolish like trying to destroy the device, now can I?”

“If we don’t get that thing
back to your boss, he’s going to kill Adriana,” Sean protested angrily. “So if
you’re going to grab it, hurry. We are running out of time.” He had glanced at
his watch again, seeing that he still had a good fifty minutes until his time
was up.

“That seems to be your problem,
not mine,” Bourdon said snidely. He switched his attention to the closest guard
and motioned toward the device with his free hand. “Lars, bring me the relic.
We’ll be taking that back to Mr. Gikas.”

The one named Lars did as
instructed and walked the remainder of the stone pathway to the foot of the
giant statue.

Bourdon watched out of the
corner of his eye as his subordinate carried out his command. “As for the two
of you,” he said to Sean and Tommy, “I believe my employer will no longer
require your services.”

“Gikas said that he would let
Tommy and Adriana go if I led you to the device. He gave his word.” Sean’s
argument bounced off the hard walls.

Bourdon shook his head. “True,
but I never gave mine. Goodbye, Mr. Wyatt.” He aimed the weapon at Sean’s head
and started to squeeze the trigger.

A sudden movement over by the
statue grabbed Bourdon’s attention, and he held back from firing for a split
second. The guard he had sent to grab the Eye of Zeus disappeared with a short
scream, followed by a splash. The sound of arms thrashing wildly in the water
resounded throughout the room. Suddenly, the man screamed out in profane agony
before it muted to a gurgle and then silence.

Northwestern Greece

In the confusion of the
startling event, Sean had finally gotten the window he needed. He leapt hard at
Bourdon, sinking his bare heel squarely into the man’s chest. The force of the
blow sent him crashing to the floor. His gun clanked loudly on the hard surface
a few feet from his hand.

Sean’s attack happened so fast
that the other guard didn’t have a chance to stop it, but now he had spun
around and was bearing down on the American with his gun. A second before he
could pull the trigger, Tommy launched an attack of his own. His fist snapped a
few inches behind where the man’s jaw was, sending him staggering backward.
While he lost his balance, the guard never lost his gun, and as he regained his
senses he began to raise it in Tommy’s direction. Tommy didn’t stop with one
punch, however. He brought his foot through the man’s wrist in a roundhouse
kick, sending the gun flying across the room into the shadows.

Fifteen feet away, Bourdon had
scrambled off the floor, a snarled look on his face. “You should not have done
that,” he said threateningly to Sean.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I should have
let you just shoot me in the face, then?”

Bourdon pulled a knife out of
his utility belt and brandished it menacingly. “It would have been an easier
death than what you will receive now.”

“I’ve never done things the
easy way.”

Bourdon growled and lunged at
Sean with the tip of the knife, swinging it down across his body and then back
up. Each time he stabbed and swiped with the sharp edge, Sean dodged it. One
strike came particularly close to his stomach, causing him to arch his body
like a cat to miss the blade. Bourdon’s reaction was just as quick, slicing
through the air as he spun around trying to catch Sean across the neck, the
target rolling across the floor just clear of the attack.

Meanwhile, Tommy was in
mid-dance with the guard. The two men circled each other, around and around,
neither one willing to commit immediately to an assault. The guard had at least
a twenty-pound advantage over Tommy, and was clearly much stronger, but what
the man possessed in bulk, Tommy had in agility.

When the hulk of a man finally
stepped in to throw a jab, Tommy easily sidestepped it while grabbing the man’s
elbow and using his momentum against him. Falling forward, the man’s face ran
smack into Tommy’s elbow, instantly breaking his nose. It was a wound that
would have dropped a normal man. Unfortunately, the guard was no typical
combatant. He swung around angrily in a blood-infused rage and brought his fist
across Tommy’s face. The power of the roundhouse punch sent Tommy to the floor
in a haze of pain. He winced at his throbbing cheek but forced himself to stand
back up. Before he could manage it, the guard’s huge foot whipped up from the
floor and through Tommy’s chin. He nearly flipped over backward from the energy
of the strike, landing face down on the hard stone.

Sean saw his friend go down out
of the corner of his eye, but he couldn’t help him immediately. Bourdon lashed
out again with the knife, this time overcommitting his body in the lunge. Sean
used it against him and grabbed the man’s wrist that held the knife. He twisted
the arm around behind Bourdon’s back and yanked it up, nearly breaking the
bone. The knife dropped to the floor, but Bourdon deftly shifted his stance and
used Sean’s back as leverage to jump and roll behind him. Suddenly, Sean was on
the defensive with the enemy’s forearm wrapped around his neck. Bourdon
squeezed hard, closing off his opponent’s airway. Sean struggled, pulling at
the muscular arm, desperately trying to free his throat to draw in another
breath. He attempted to drop to his knee to throw Bourdon over his back, but
the move only tightened the man’s grip. Sean’s face reddened, swelling with the
strain. He only had another ten seconds or so before he would black out. With
the last ounce of strength he possessed, Sean reached back with his hands and
felt for the killer’s eyes. Bourdon twisted his face around violently,
resisting the move, but one thumb caught him right in the soft eye tissue. The
moment Sean felt it, he shoved his thumb deep into the man’s socket.

Bourdon let out a howling
scream, and both his arms let go of their death grip, moving his hands to the
now-bloody eye. Sean fell forward onto the floor, landing close to Tommy, who
struggled to grasp for consciousness. Sean gasped for air on his hands and
knees, trying to regain his bearings.

The guard had left Tommy on the
floor and walked over to the corner to retrieve his gun. Blood oozed freely
from the man’s nose as he bent down and picked it up. Bourdon recovered as
well, and stumbled over to where his own pistol lay on the stone surface. Sean
noticed all four of the men’s flashlights sat in a heap between him and Tommy.
His friend groaned and clutched at the floor, slowly coming out of the haze.

“Tommy,” Sean hissed.

“Yeah?”

“Cut the lights.”

“What?”

“Hurry. Cut the lights.”

Then Sean’s odd request made
sense. Tommy quickly grabbed at two of the nearby flashlights as Sean did the
same. The guard in the corner had his weapon in hand and was stalking back to
his victims. Bourdon had likewise repossessed his gun and spun around as the Americans
simultaneously hit the switches on the lights.

The room was instantly cast
into pitch darkness. A shot rang out from where the guard had been standing,
sending the metal round pinging off the stone walls in a deadly ricochet.

“Don’t fire, you fool!” Bourdon
yelled in darkness. “You could kill both of us.”

The villains swiveled around in
one direction and then the other, trying to get any sort of bearing on their
prey. Sean flashed his light rapidly one time, momentarily giving away his
position, but the blink of light was so fast it did more to disorient the
killers than anything else. Bourdon and the guard both spun in the direction of
the light, but they were too slow. The guard scuffed one of his feet, again
giving away where he stood. Even a quiet sound like skin on stone echoed in the
cube room.

While Sean maneuvered silently
around behind where Bourdon stood, Tommy felt along the floor with his fingertips.
He’d seen the knife when Sean strobed his light. If he could get the blade, it
would give him a weapon at the very least.

Sean hit the switch on his
flashlight again, this time twice to amplify the strobe effect. Tommy saw the
direction his friend was moving. Sean was flanking the man in charge of the
operation. Tommy also saw something else in the momentary burst of light. The
knife was only a few inches away.

He carefully reached out his
hand and grasped the weapon, cautious not to let it make a noise that would
give away his position. He pushed himself up off the ground gradually, still wary
that the slightest sound could mean his end. Like a cat, Tommy padded toward
the last place he’d seen the guard standing with his gun. He hoped he
remembered correctly. The absolute darkness made moving around almost like
playing roulette.

Fortunately for Tommy, the
guard made a fatal mistake. Letting his fear get the better of him, he shouted
out a challenge to the elusive Americans. “Come out of the dark and fight like
men!” he shouted. “What kind of cowards hide like rats in the sewers?”

Bourdon wanted to yell at the
man to shut up, but he would have given away where he was standing. He knew
exactly the game the two Americans were playing, and he wasn’t about to let
them sneak up on him from behind. Inch by inch, he moved toward the last place
he’d seen in the light, over by the statue. The gentle splashing of water from
the hole his man had fallen into helped guide the way. No one could sneak up
behind him if he stood with the water to his back. If he played his cards
right, he could use the momentum from an attack against one of the two men and
send them into the water as well. Then the odds would be in his favor again.

Tommy could hear the guard’s
panicked breaths as he closed in on the terrified man. He could even hear the
guard moving the gun around from left to right, just above the quiet swishing
of the water fifteen feet away. Tommy deftly tiptoed around behind the man,
with the blade in hand, and closed the gap swiftly.

The guard never saw the attack
coming. Tommy pounced on the man from behind, wrapping his forearm around the
man’s jaw and quickly drawing the sharp edge of the knife across his neck.
Tommy made sure the blade sunk deep into the skin, cutting off the vital lines
that carried blood to the brain and heart.

The man gasped for a moment,
then gurgled loudly before firing off two shots with his gun. The bullets
ricocheted around the room, sending sparks off every wall. Tommy kicked the man
in the lower back, sending him toppling over onto his face. The dying guard’s
mouth could only let out a few more gulps of noise before he went completely
silent.

Bourdon knew the guard had made
a fatal mistake. He did not intend to do the same. After thirty seconds of
careful movement, he found himself with his heels on the edge of the water. The
Eye of Zeus would be right behind him, but without light he wouldn’t be able to
find a way to reach it. Just the same, now he was a badger in a corner. He
ducked down behind a column that marked the short path to the antikythera and
held his weapon in front of his chest. If anyone made a wrong move and got too
close, he wouldn’t miss from short range.

Sean heard Tommy take down the
other guard. For a high-end mercenary, the man clearly didn’t realize he was
making too much noise, although that was often the case with big men. Moving
around the position Bourdon had been in, Sean refocused his thoughts on the
last man standing. If he was Gikas’s righthand man, he probably had a great
deal of experience in all kinds of situations. Sean doubted the man would be
stupid enough to stand around and wait to be killed. He knew it was a gambler’s
spot; that he would have to risk moving through the darkness and bumping into
someone instead of staying put.

Sean reached the place where
he’d last seen his quarry, or at least close to it, and found that his
assumptions had been correct. Gikas’s man had moved somewhere else. But where?
Sean’s mind rapidly ran through the possibilities. He would need to get
somewhere he could protect himself and not be flanked from behind. That meant
either a corner, or maybe by the water where the other guard had fallen in.
Sean doubted the man had found his way to the exit. If that were the case,
there would likely have been a splash of some kind as the man’s feet hit the
water. No, he was still in the cubed chamber. Sean considered the options. He
wished he could communicate with Tommy, but that was out of the question. That
brought up another dangerous possibility. He and Tommy could take each other
out with friendly fire. Sean winced at the thought. His cheek still hurt from
the fight, but it was the least of his concerns. He had to find Gikas’s lead
man.

He wouldn’t be in a corner,
Sean decided. It would be too obvious. Sean put himself in Bourdon’s shoes. If
it were him, he’d go to the least likely place an attacker would think he’d be.
Over by the water, near the Eye of Zeus, was a perfect place to hide and an excellent
place to take out an assailant attacking from the front. Sean pictured the man
hiding behind a short stone column, waiting with his gun at the ready. To make
absolutely sure, he flashed his light one more time.

No one was in the corners, but
in the instant the light burst through the room, he could see Tommy standing in
the center over the dead guard. A second of relief pulsed through him, though
he’d figured his friend had come out ahead. More importantly, he knew where
Bourdon was hiding.

“Tommy,” he said into the dark.
“You okay?”

“Yeah,” Tommy answered
reluctantly. For a split second, he wondered why Sean would risk giving away
his position to the enemy. Another split second brought about a higher
knowledge of how his friend operated. Sean wouldn’t have done it without a
plan. “I’m good. Though I can’t say the same for the guard.”

“I didn’t see the other guy,”
Sean said in a whisper, projecting his voice toward the far wall near the
entrance. “Let’s check out the main chamber. He may have gone back in there to
grab his tank and goggles for an escape.”

“Good call,” Tommy said in a
hushed tone.

Sean had no intention of going
back into the other room. He shifted stealthily around to the column, using his
toes to feel his way around on the floor and one hand in front of his body to
find what he was looking for. When his fingers touched the smooth stone pillar,
he froze in place. If he had guessed correctly, Bourdon would be hiding just on
the other side, waiting to fire his weapon.

Bourdon crouched on the floor,
ready to kill whoever risked coming too close. He’d never been nervous about
anything in his life. His military training in the Balkans had eradicated any
sense of anxiety he had left from childhood. Now, however, there was a
hesitancy in his throat as he swallowed, keeping his breathing even and low so as
not to alert the Americans of his position.

The conversation between the
two friends may have been a decoy to try to draw him out. Bourdon was no fool.
Even if the Americans made their way back to the water in the other room, he
was going to stay put.

His finger tensed on the
trigger as he drew in another slow breath.

Something crashed hard into his
jaw, sending him tumbling head over heels backward. He fired off a desperate
shot, but the bullet pinged harmlessly off the ceiling and floor. The ground
gave way to a brief moment of air before he felt the water smack against his
back. Bourdon kicked his feet hard and swung his arms violently, forsaking his
weapon in the process of trying to stay afloat in the death trap. He felt
something rub against his foot for a second. It was smooth and rubbery. Next,
it rubbed against the calf of his other leg. A terrible feeling of dread filled
Bourdon’s heart just before he felt the first teeth sink deep into his thigh.