The Grecian Manifesto (5 page)

Chapter 7

Kiawah Island,
South Carolina

Sean had trouble believing what he’d just heard. He knew
that President Dawkins was an intelligent man, and in his career he had seen a
lot of unbelievable things. An ancient hunk of metal that could tell the
future, however, seemed a bit on the far-fetched side.

As if reading Sean’s thoughts, Dawkins spoke up. “I know
that is a little out there, but the numbers our scientists ran are pretty
accurate.”

Sean thought for a moment then raised a question. “If you
guys can predict the future based on the computer model, you wouldn’t need the
device. No one would. So, why bother with finding it?”

Dawkins smiled. “I knew you were smart, Sean. I’ve heard a
lot about you. Our tests are incomplete because much of the original
antikythera was damaged. We were only able run trials based on the few symbols
that were available.”

“Did you try completing the Greek alphabet and subbing
those letters in?” Sean asked, thinking that was the obvious solution.

“We did. It threw everything off. Some of the symbols that
were unreadable do not come from the standard Greek alphabet, or the ancient
one.” Sean thought they had probably tried that, but it was worth asking.
“Needless to say, a working version of the antikythera would be the most
valuable device on the planet. In the wrong hands, it could be incredibly
dangerous.”

That went without saying. Sean’s immediate thoughts went
to a dictator type, like the leader of North Korea, or even a terrorist
organization. With something like that in their possession, they could take
over the world in less than a year. Nations would crumble. Billions would die.
Sean could see the potential danger, but he still had doubts about whether or
not the thing was real, or even if there was another version of the relic still
out there.

“So, what is it that you want me to do, exactly?” he asked
after a few moments of silent contemplation.

“We need you to find the Eye of Zeus,” the president said
plainly. He leaned forward a little farther with his elbows still on his knees.

Sean laughed out loud for a split second. “No big deal.
Just find a three-thousand-year-old artifact with no idea where to start, and
no leads.” His comment brought him back to the questions about Adriana. She knew
more than any of the
m about the Eye of Zeus. She’d been
investigating it tirelessly. There was still something the president wasn’t
telling him. “Where is Adriana?”

John Dawkins looked Sean straight in the eyes, never
flinching, barely passing a glimpse of sympathy to him through the ether.
“She’s been kidnapped.”

The words struck Sean like a lead ball to the chest. Now
it made sense why he hadn’t heard from her in the last few days. He went over
their last conversation concerning where she was and something she was going to
investigate that day. Rome, if he remembered correctly. She’d been in Rome,
researching some ancient documents regarding the antikythera. Sean squinted
hard, hoping to recall the name of her hotel. Another question popped up in the
back of his mind, distracting him from his focus for a moment. Why had she been
in Rome searching for a Greek artifact?

He shook his head and refocused. Adriana was in trouble.
That was all that mattered. He had to find her. Her face appeared in his mind’s
eye for a moment: passionate, caring, and full of courage.

“You will have any resources you need,” Dawkins said,
pushing the conversation forward. “I know that this news probably hurts. She’s
your girlfriend, correct?”

Sean had never called her that. He just assumed that was
the case. “Yeah,” he said in a choked voice.

“Sean, I know this is troubling, and you have my deepest
sympathy. If it makes you feel better, we have reason to believe that she is
still alive. The man that took her wants information, information that Adriana
possesses. You’ll need to move fast, though. I don’t know how long Gikas will
keep her around if she doesn’t give him what he wants.”

The thought flicked at Sean’s heart. He’d been tortured
once. It was the worst thing he’d ever endured in his life. Fortunately, he had
escaped and made his way back to safety. He doubted Adriana would have the same
opportunity. He pictured her in a dark room, bound and gagged, undergoing
intense questioning. The idea tied his stomach in knots.

The president went on. “If you find the Eye of Zeus, Gikas
will bring Adriana to you.”

“Let me guess, you want me to work out a trade.”

Dawkins nodded. “You catch on fast.”

Sean knew how government types worked, even if they
weren’t really government types at their core. “Of course, I assume you won’t
be letting the antikythera get into the hands of kidnapper.”

“We will have men on standby. As soon as Gikas presents
her, they will move in.”

“That means you will need to be in a neutral place,”
Sean’s mind was already working.

“Precisely.”

“This is all working on a huge assumption, Mr. President.
What if I can’t find this artifact? It may not even exist.”

Dawkins stood up and clapped both hands on his thighs.
“Sometimes you have to have a little faith, Sean. I am putting my faith in you
that you’ll get the job done. We cannot let Dimitris Gikas get his hands on the
relic. It must be kept from him at all costs.”

“Sounds like you believe this thing does exist,” Sean said
with a hint of cynicism.

The president didn’t hesitate. “I do. And for the sake of
your girlfriend, you should, too.”

He made a good point. Sean knew he was right, too. A plan
was already formulating in his brain. He would first need to find anything
Adriana might have left behind regarding her research on the antikythera. From
what he recalled, she constantly made backups of information she’d gleaned,
sometimes digital, sometimes as low-fi as handwritten notes on napkins.

Sean would need help too. He would need an all-access pass
to Europe. Getting his gun across borders wouldn’t be an issue, but if he got
caught with it he would need insurance that he wouldn’t be incarcerated. On top
of all that, there was one more thing Sean felt he needed.

“I’m going to need to bring someone else on to help me
with this,” he said after a few seconds of looking down at the floor silently.
He raised his eyes and met with the president’s.

Dawkins tapped his fingers on the antikythera files. “This
is highly classified information, Sean. We cannot let any of it get into the
hands of the public. I’m sure you can appreciate the sensitive nature of it.”

 
“The person
I’m talking about is used to working on delicate things like this, Mr.
President. I need him. He has an intricate knowledge of ancient languages, cultures,
and history. He’s also handy in a fight. I trust him like a brother.”

The president narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “What’s his
name?”

Sean smiled broadly. “My buddy from the IAA. Tommy
Schultz.”

Chapter 8

Corfu, Greece

Adriana lay on her side, staring out the lone window of
the wine cellar. The chilly room was almost pitch black save for the pale light
of the waning moon coming through the narrow window. A palm branch occasionally
waved across her view, blowing in the breeze that rolled up the hillside from
the sea.

The man who had abducted her had provided a military cot
for her to sleep on, with only a thin sheet to provide her warmth. She fought
to keep from shivering, knowing that two cameras were watching her at all times
from the corners of the room. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

She cursed herself for being careless enough to get
caught. The men had been waiting in her hotel room in Rome. She’d just returned
from a locker she’d secured at the train station. Leaving all the eggs in one
basket was something she’d avoided since getting into her sometimes-dangerous
line of work.

When one of the ambushers stepped out from behind the
door, grabbing her from behind, she’d dropped the locker key to the floor. As
she sidestepped the stocky attacker, she kicked the key under a leather club
chair in the corner with her left foot.

The man attempting to grab her took a knee to the groin as
she used his momentum against him and pulled him toward her. He dropped to the
ground instantly, moaning in agony. Unfortunately, there’d been a second man in
the room. She heard the hammer of the pistol pull back.

She’d had no choice but to surrender. The man with the gun
had been smart enough to keep his distance, but remain close enough that there
would be no chance of missing his target. A second later, she’d felt a small
prick on her thigh. The drugs worked fast, knocking her unconscious within a
minute. Adriana didn’t remember anything after that until she woke up on the
strange island.

She’d heard the man in charge speaking in Greek a few
times; his guards had done the same. Since there were only a few places where
that language was spoken, it was safe to assume she was somewhere in Greece.
The view of the Ionian Sea had confirmed that.

At first, she wondered if the men were human traffickers,
just looking to nab another young woman. It was soon apparent that selling sex
slaves was not the agenda of the men who held her. They were after the same
thing she was, a fact that almost scared her more than the other notion.

Adriana had been researching the Eye of Zeus for months.
Much of her knowledge regarding the relic came from an old book she’d
discovered, a journal handed down through the decades. The origin of the diary
was uncertain, at least at first. It had taken many hours of digging to
discover the place that it had called home.

The Benedictine Monastery of Santa Croce was located
in a region of Italy known as le Marche. Throughout the year, the place received
visitors, mostly tourists, wanting to see a working monastery. The construction
on the abbey was completed around A.D. 980, making it one of the oldest
operating monasteries in Europe. Adriana had admired the structure, as well as
its mountainous surroundings. The views from almost everywhere there were
nothing short of astounding.

The builders of the monastery had included special windows
in the scriptorium to allow light into the room throughout the day, thus
providing the monks with the means to work longer hours on their translations.

It was in that scriptorium where a monk had created
Adriana’s journal several hundred years prior. Giordano Bruno had been an
astronomer and historian in the early 1500s. His studies led him on a
fascinating journey through the annals of time, landing on a piece of history
he’d never been aware of before.

It seemed that the ancient Greeks had possessed a small
cache of relics they’d used during the prime of their empire. When Bruno had
discovered the history of the devices, fear filled his heart. The antikytheras were
mechanisms that had supposedly been created by the oracles of ancient Greece. Bruno
knew that if he documented the artifacts, and alluded to the manner in which
they were created, he could be accused of heresy. To cover his tracks, he wrote
everything in his journal in a language long forgotten to nearly everyone. Only
one other monk in the abbey could speak old Greek, and that monk was twenty
years Bruno’s senior.

Adriana had found the book in an old bookstore in
Copenhagen on a corner of the Strøget, a pedestrian street in the heart of the
city. The storeowner explained that he had never encountered anyone able to
read the book, and was glad that someone who could actually read it had
wandered in.

Now, as she lay in the shadows of Dimitris Gikas’s wine
cellar, she wondered what was going to happen. She’d left Bruno’s journal in a
locker at the train station, along with something even more important. The
diary had led her to a chain of extremely old documents that dated back over
two thousand years to the time of Julius Caesar, and she believed that those
papers were the keys to finding the last resting place of the Eye of Zeus.

Adriana hoped the men who’d taken her had been in a hurry
to get out of the room. She figured that if they had discovered the key they
would have already asked her about it, or would have found the locker and the
contents within. Since they hadn’t mentioned it, that meant at least the
location of the mechanism was safe.

It was folly to hope for rescue. But there was no way to
let anyone know where she was. Her phone had been taken, probably when she was
unconscious, leaving her with no communication with the outside world. In her
most desperate moments, she envisioned fanciful scenarios in which Sean burst
into the cellar and took her away. She forced herself to focus on the
situation. Thinking about ridiculous things like that would only make her
predicament worse, and they were less than productive.

Adriana reminded herself that everyone slipped up from
time to time. She simply had to wait for one of the guards to make a mistake.
Even the tiniest of opportunities could be opened wide to a window of hope.

She closed her eyes and let exhaustion take over, trying
hard not to think about what the next day might hold.

Chapter 9

Atlanta, Georgia

At first, President Dawkins had been hesitant to let Sean
bring someone else on for the mission, but after getting his explanation as to who
Tommy was and why Sean needed him, the president had been willing to make an
exception. Dawkins knew of Tommy’s exploits as an international treasure
hunter, though Sean defended that insinuation.

“He’s not a treasure hunter, sir,” he’d said to the
president. “A lot of the world’s governments trust his agency to take care of
their priceless artifacts. He’s providing a good service at a premium price. He
doesn’t sell the things he finds. That’s what treasure hunters do.”

“Just make sure you keep a tight lid on this,” Dawkins had
said as Sean was leaving the hotel room.

Dawkins had given Sean full use of a small private jet,
which Sean was happy to accept. Even though Tommy had the IAA company plane,
Sean didn’t want his friend to have to use it if it wasn’t necessary. They’d be
harder to track this way.

Sean knew Tommy would be in town since the two had
exchanged a few text messages the previous morning. A new team, comprising Joe
and Helen McElroy, was carrying out the IAA’s current projects. Tommy had
brought the couple on after Sean retired, needing to fill a void in the
artifact recovery section. Joe had been instrumental in the discovery of Noah’s
ark, and Helen had helped take down the Biosure Corporation and its plot to
infect the planet with a new super virus. The two made for the most logical
replacement of Sean and were both happy to take the position. From what Sean
had gathered, they were somewhere in Denmark at the moment.

When the airplane door opened, Sean was glad to see Tommy
already there, waiting on the tarmac with two suitcases, a laptop bag, and a
ridiculous grin. He’d let his oak-brown hair get a little longer, now just past
the bottoms of his ears. He had on a white polo and khaki shorts, a common
staple for him in the throes of an Atlanta spring.

Sean descended the stairs, followed closely by Agent
Yarbrough. The president had insisted that Sean allow the Secret Service agent
to accompany him on the mission. Sean had resisted, but he knew the president
would have the final say. It also wouldn’t hurt to have another gun along for
the ride, though Sean hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

Tommy let go of the rolling suitcases and opened his arms
to give Sean a quick hug. Wyatt responded by slapping him on the shoulder, as
was his usual greeting.

“Good to see you again, my friend,” Sean said, grinning as
he slipped on his Oakley sunglasses.

“Likewise, buddy,” Tommy replied. “How are things with the
bait and tackle business?” He chuckled as he asked the question.

“Very funny. The surf and paddleboard shop is doing fine,
though it looks like I’m going to lose a few days of business.” He glanced back
over his shoulder at Yarbrough as if subtly blaming him for the occurrence.

“Who’s your friend?” Tommy asked and stepped forward with
a hand extended.

“Agent Gerald Yarbrough,” he answered for Sean.

Tommy was impressed. “You really weren’t kidding, huh. You
met the president?”

Sean rolled his eyes and shrugged, making like it wasn’t a
big deal. “It wasn’t my idea.”

“That is so cool. Is he on the plane?” Tommy asked,
sounding like a little boy.

Sean shook his head in disbelief. “No. He has his own
plane. And I’m pretty sure that he’s got better things to do than jet around
the globe with us.”

“Fair enough,” Tommy surrendered.

Sean took one of the suitcases and hefted it up the steps
to the cabin of the plane. It was similar in size to the G5 the IAA flew, but
the interior was decorated very differently. Dark wood furnishings and tanned
leather seats complemented the richly adorned walls.

Once everyone was aboard, the flight attendant closed the
cabin door, and the engines whined, pushing the plane along the tarmac. Tommy
sat across from Sean and Yarbrough, and crossed a leg over one knee.

“Where’s Adriana?” Tommy asked abruptly, completely
unaware of what had transpired.

Sean hadn’t told him over the phone what was going on. He
preferred to tell his friend in person. “She’s been kidnapped, Tommy.”

The words caused Tommy to scrunch his face, not sure if
Sean was joking around or serious. “What?” He stared at Sean, searching for a
crack in the armor. There was none. Sean’s eyes told the truth.

Yarbrough cut into the conversation. “We believe she was
abducted within the last forty-eight hours. The man responsible for this is one
of the most powerful people in Greece. His name is Dimitris Gikas.”

Tommy shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’m a little confused.
If you know where she is and who has her, why haven’t you gotten her out of
there yet?”

“It’s…delicate,” Yarbrough said in response.

“Delicate?”

“She is not a citizen of the United States. You have to
understand that we cannot just go into a man’s private property with guns
blazing and attempt a rescue. There are politics to consider.” Yarbrough’s
answer didn’t seem to help curb Tommy’s frustration.

He held back his next question as the plane suddenly
accelerated down the runway and began to lift off the ground. It tilted to the
right and straightened out, still climbing at a dramatic angle.

“How do you even know this Gikas has her? Where did you
get that little tidbit of information?” Tommy asked finally.

“We’ve had our eyes on Gikas for some time now. As one of
the wealthiest, most ambitious men in the country, he is a likely candidate to
become their new leader if the government breaks down. The president believes
that Gikas is helping fuel the government collapse from within. We know he was
formerly involved with organized crime in Athens, but now everything seems to
be legitimate.”

“Seems to be?”

Yarbrough folded his hands and put his elbows on his knees
as he leaned forward. “Let’s just say that Dimitris Gikas always gets what he
wants, even if someone else doesn’t want to give it to him.”

Tommy seemed to accept the information for the moment, but
was still troubled. “Okay, so we can’t go after Adriana. What are we going to
do?”

Sean had been listening quietly to the exchange and
finally interjected. “I told you on the phone that we were heading to Rome to
look for the Eye of Zeus.”

Tommy nodded. “That’s the thing Adriana was looking for,
right? The antikythera?”

“Yeah. As it turns out, this Gikas character is looking
for it too. And you’re not going to believe why.”

Tommy raised a curious eyebrow. “Try me. You and I have
seen enough to believe almost anything.”

Valid point, Sean thought. “The Eye of Zeus wasn’t just a
navigational device. Gikas believes that it could actually tell the future,
based on celestial positions in relation to where the device was on Earth.”

For a few moments, the only noise in the cabin was the low
hum of the jet engines outside the plane. Tommy considered what Sean had said
and leaned back in his chair.

“Okay,” he said after a long breath. “So, this device can
tell the future.” Tommy sounded skeptical. “I could see why someone who wants
to take control of a country would want to have something like that. Any idea
where it is?”

Sean and Yarbrough passed each other an uncertain glance.
It was Sean who answered. “No. We don’t even know if we have any leads. The
only thing I could find was the hotel Adriana was staying in and her room
number. I just hope she left something behind that the kidnappers may have
missed.”

Tommy stared at Sean blankly. “You mean we don’t have the
slightest clue as to where this Eye of Zeus thing might be, haven’t got a
single lead, and we’re flying halfway across the world on the slight
possibility that we might find a breadcrumb?” He tried not to sound
incredulous, but it was hard not to.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much it,” Sean shrugged. He was
trying to be as calm as possible, but the truth was that inside he was worried
about Adriana.

Tommy could tell his friend was upset, despite trying to
hide behind his usual carefree mask. “I’m sure she’s fine, buddy. Don’t worry.
We’ll find her. Knowing Adriana, I’d be more worried about the guys who took
her.” He laughed at the thought, and Sean had a quick chuckle too. Yarbrough
didn’t get the joke and remained his usual stoic self. “So, I guess the plan is
find a clue, recover the relic, draw out the bad guys, offer to swap said relic
for the girl, and then kill them all.”

Sean’s face darkened. “Exactly.”

“Well,” Tommy hit the recline button on the side of his
chair and eased the seat back, “sounds like you’re coming out of retirement.”