The Stone of Archimedes (24 page)

“What's wrong?” Toni asked.

“The Greeks I've been dealing with for days, those who have Sara Halsey Jones, were on their way here to turn the professor over to Petros Caras. We need to intercept.”

“Our mission is to get this yacht to Catania,” the SEAL said. “And to bring this Greek billionaire in for debriefing.” He put air quotes around that last word.

“Understood,” Jake said. “But I could use some extra firepower. Maybe some of the guns your men confiscated topside.”

“That I can do,” the SEAL said. He backed away from them and talked into his mic.

“What about me?” Svetla asked.

Jake knew nothing about this woman or her capabilities, other than the obvious ones. “You need to go with these SEALS and give them everything you've got on Petros Caras.”

Svetla raised her brows and smiled. “Gladly. I might need to be debriefed thoroughly by these men.”

Another SEAL showed up from the stern carrying two sub-machine guns with extra magazines. He also had a gray-haired man by the collar, his arms zip-stripped behind his back, and shoved the man into a bench seat along one wall. Jake took the guns and strapped them over his shoulders, shoving the magazines into his back pocket.

“Is this the famous Petros Caras?” Jake asked.

“That's him,” Svetla said, almost spitting out the words. Then she went into a diatribe of words in Greek as she moved closer to the man. Jake had no idea what she was saying, but the Greek looked both shocked and disappointed. When she punched the man in the face, the Navy SEALS all said “Wohh.” They were clearly impressed as the blood trickled from the man's mouth.

Jake put his hand on the Czech officer's shoulder. “Okay, you can have your way with the man after I get a little information from him.” He turned to the Greek and asked him where his men were right now, those who held Sara Halsey Jones.

The Greek licked the blood from his mouth. “So, you are Jake Adams. I thought you would be taller.”

“I get that a lot. Now answer my question. Where's that long-haired Yanni and his friends?”

“He will fuck you up,” Petros Caras said, trying out his best American English slang.

“Yeah, I know,” Jake said. “All you Greeks like it up the ass. So where is your butt buddy?”

He laughed under his breath. “You're too late. When these men started their attack, I told them to kill the American professor.”

“You're lying. You wouldn't do that without understanding what she found.” Jake was delaying just long enough for the SEAL Team to do their magic.

“And you know this for sure,” Petros Caras said.

“Yeah, I've known dirtbags like you my entire life. You think everything can be purchased. Everyone has a price. But you can't buy me. You can't buy these Navy SEALS. You owe the Agency your very existence. You survive only at their will.”

“I can buy the CIA.” The Greek spelled out the letters slowly.

Jake turned to the SEAL Team commander. “Have your men traced the call on the SAT phone?”

The SEAL man with the beard said, “Sure did. Thanks to your friend at the Agency. You must have friends in high places. It usually takes a lot longer than that. The coordinates have been given to your Italian friend out in the patrol boat. By the way, I like your ride.”

“All right,” Jake said. “I'm outta here.”

Toni grasped him by the arm before he left. “Jake. Just a minute.”

“Yeah.”

The two of them moved away from the others.

“We need to talk,” Toni said.

“I don't have time for this.”

“I mean later,” she said. “We never really talked after you lost. . .Anna.”

“I know. I didn't think you wanted to.”

“I'm ready now.”

“But I've got to get Sara Halsey Jones. I promised her brother.”

“After that,” she said, a tear at the corner of her right eye. “Be careful. I'll be at Sigonella.”

He nodded and left her there in the lounge of the billionaire's yacht. Something wasn't right with her. She never used to let missions like this get to her.

When Jake got to the stern of the yacht, he waved to Elisa on the patrol boat. She took this as a sign to power the boat forward. With great precision she shoved the bow of her boat within just a few feet of the larger craft. Jake jumped and landed onto the bow of the boat, his mind still on Toni behind him. As the patrol boat drifted back away from the yacht, Jake could see Toni with her crutches at the entrance to the rear lounge, her wistful gaze concentrating on him.

The sport fishing boat sat nearly dead in the water, the light waves rocking them gently back and forth. Zendo wasn't sure what to do. He was the only one topside, standing before the wheel and instruments. He had always been a man who followed orders without question. But when Petros Caras told him to kill the American professor and throw her body overboard, he wasn't immediately inclined to do so. After all, this Sara Halsey Jones had discovered something in those catacombs of Siracusa that was worth something. He had heard of that Archimedes manuscript in Istanbul that had sold for millions of U.S. dollars at auction. Yet, it was really the desperation in the voice of his boss that bothered Zendo the most. Maybe the sound of automatic weapons in the background had also sealed his resolve to keep this woman alive for a while.

Demetri came up the ladder and said, “What do we do? What did Petros Caras tell you?”

It wasn't like he could tell Demetri the truth. The man had never not followed an order. Zendo tightened his jaw and said, “He left it up to us to get the information from her. The rendezvous is off for now. He wants us to take her back to the catacombs and get what she found.”

“Are you serious? Do you think she will do this?”

He had kept the woman safe because that's what Petros Caras had ordered him to do, but all that had changed now. “He said to make her talk. If she doesn't tell us the truth, then she is not worth keeping.” That was close enough to the truth. If he succeeded, he could keep whatever she had discovered for himself, since Petros Caras would think they had killed her. He would decide later if he needed to cut out his men from the final pay-off.

“So, let me get this straight. She will answer our questions or she will die?”

Zendo put his hand on the shoulder of his old friend and colleague. “That's right. Get a rope and the gaff hook.”

Smiling, Demetri went down the ladder to the back of the fishing boat.

Time to put on the act, Zendo thought. Sink or swim.

They hauled the American woman onto the deck and made a rope harness around her body. Then Niko took an end of the rope and dove into the water. He came up on the other side of the boat and handed his end to Kyros. Now they had the woman in a classic keel-haul attachment.

Zendo put his face right into hers and said, “You will tell us what we need to know, or you will die here in the ocean and we will cut you into chum and feed the sharks. Do you understand?”

Sara Halsey Jones was resolute but frightened. “All I have is knowledge,” she mumbled.

“See, we already understand each other,” Zendo said. “That's all I want is knowledge. Tell me what you found in the Siracusa catacombs.”

“It was nothing,” Sara declared.

Zendo sighed and shoved the woman, who flipped overboard into the ocean. She went under and came up coughing, obviously taking in salt water. She put her arms out and kicked to stay afloat. Zendo nodded to his man, who yanked on the rope from the other side of the boat, pulling the woman under water.

“A little faster Niko,” Zendo said. “Don't want her to drown just yet.”

A few seconds later and the woman surfaced on the other side of the fishing boat. She coughed out water again and tried to get her breath.

“Don't do this,” she said. “My family has money. They can pay you.”

Zendo leaned over the rail and said, “Do you really think we want your brother's money? This is about national pride, Sara.” He turned to his other man, Kyros, and the man whose name he didn't remember, who both pulled on the rope and hauled the professor back under water. This time Zendo slowed them down somewhat, and the woman tried to pull against their tension.

When the American woman surfaced, she was in much worse shape, having taken in more water and almost out of breath.

“We can do this all day,” Zendo told her. “Can you?”

They did this a few more times to soften her up, bringing her just about to the point of drowning and saving her each time by pulling her to fresh air. She was never really in danger, though, since every one of Zendo's men knew how to resuscitate her if they needed to.

Finally, out of breath and her resolve beaten back, Sara said, “All right. I'll tell you. Please, pull me aboard.”

Zendo's men looked at him for guidance. He shifted his head, meaning to pull her aboard, and they did just that, one man grasping her harness with the gaff hook and the other using the rope to bring her back onto the boat like a huge tuna. She flopped around on the wet deck trying to get herself out of the ropes. But the knots were wet. Kyros pulled his knife and cut her free with a couple of quick slices.

She got to her unsteady feet and said, “Thank you.” Then she coughed up some more water and almost puked.

“All right, Sara,” Zendo said. “Tell me what I want to know.”

Sara cast her eyes down as if considering her options. “You could search the catacombs for years and not find what I found. You need me to show you the way.”

Zendo had a feeling it might come to this. He had already looked at her photographs on her digital camera. But that had been no help. He could bring all of this to someone in Athens who could translate the Doric Greek, but that would take too much time. Yeah, he had no choice but to keep the woman alive. For now. “What is the significance of your find?”

Sara told them about the stone with the carvings that she suspected had been made by Archimedes himself, and how those carvings were a crude form of Calculus. None of them seemed too impressed, with the exception of Zendo, who knew he could make a hefty price from the stone of Archimedes.

●

Jake was in contact with his Agency friends as Elisa piloted the old Italian patrol boat toward their contact, which had been sitting dead in the water until just recently, when the Greeks must have pulled the anchor and headed to the north toward Sicily. But Jake and Elisa were closing on them now, with a visual ahead a few miles away.

“Can they outrun us?” Jake asked Elisa.

“I don't think so. That's a fishing boat used to bring tourists out deep sea fishing. It's not made for speed. We should overtake them in a few minutes.”

But that was the problem. Like a dog chasing a car, the dog never knew what to do once the car stopped. The Greeks would be able to shoot at them indiscriminately, while they could not really shoot back. They had only one chance, and that might take some luck.

Within a few minutes they were plowing through the wake of the fishing boat. Jake could now see a number of men on the stern and two higher up, one behind the wheel and the other, the one with hair past his shoulders flapping in the wind, looking at them through binoculars. When the man pointed at them, his men took up positions behind the gunwale at the stern.

Jake checked over the sub-machine guns he had gotten from the Greek billionaire's men, and he wondered if he could even take a shot without fear of hitting Sara Halsey Jones. Perhaps if they got close enough.

“Drive right up their ass,” Jake demanded. “At the last second veer to the right and come up alongside them. I should get a shot at the men that way without hitting Sara.”

“Where is she?”

“I can't see her. But we'll be close enough to maybe take out a couple of them.”

“Sounds good.” Elisa shoved the throttle forward and the patrol boat lunged ahead.

Jake hurried out to the port side of the boat and took a position behind the gunwale, his gun ready to fire. He had no idea how accurate the gun would be, though, having never fired it.

The patrol boat pulled up quickly within shooting range and Jake could now see two men peering over the back end. Then bullets started flying at them, hitting the bow and moving down the side of the boat as Elisa quickly turned to the right and came up alongside the other craft.

Jake ducked as low as he could, aimed at the two men, and sent a burst of bullets at them. Since they sat a bit higher in the water, Jake at least had the height advantage, being able to see down into their boat as he fired. One of the men slumped to the deck and the other stopped firing as bullets cascaded down toward him.

Suddenly the other boat turned right toward them and smashed into their side, sending Jake flying back onto the deck.

Elisa somehow maintained control, and vectored to the right away from them, lessening the impact somewhat. She powered up the boat even more now and turned back toward the fishing boat.

Jake got up and stuck his head inside. “Are you all right?” he asked Elisa.

“Yes. And you?”

“I'll live. Now get me closer again. I'm gonna try something.”

She nodded with determination and turned the wheel to the left.

Jake took his position again and waited until they closed in. This time he ignored the men in the back. There seemed to be two of them again, so someone must have come from below deck to take over for the man hit.

As they closed in on the fishing boat, bullets again hit the side of their boat. Jake guessed the craft could take a beating, especially from 9mm rounds. Instead of returning their fire, Jake aimed high and fired at the two men up in the pilot deck. The man with the long hair hit the deck and the one behind the wheel dropped when a few of Jake's rounds hit him. Now the fishing boat veered hard to the left as the dead man pulled the wheel that way when he fell.