“Mexico?”
“No, New Mexico,” said Andreas.
“Let’s get out of here.”
Andreas laughed.
They’d just stepped off the narrow goat path leading back from the cave when Andreas caught a glimpse of a figure in the distance highlighted against the sky. It was coming toward them quickly. Andreas motioned for Kouros to move forward and downhill. Andreas went off at a similar angle up the mound, staying as low as he could so not to silhouette himself against the horizon. They’d keep whoever was coming between them.
The figure abruptly turned and headed up the hill toward Andreas. Andreas crouched beside a wall, and waited until the figure was ten feet away before standing up. “Fancy meeting you here.”
Trelos stumbled backwards. He seemed surprised and clutched his iPod to his chest. Andreas walked down to him as Kouros came up from below. They met on a narrow plateau, with Trelos in the middle.
“Rather late for you to be out and about here, wouldn’t you say?”
No answer.
“Oh, we’re back to that again. It’s not going to work this time. So start talking.” Andreas reached over and pulled the earphones off Trelos’ head.
Trelos stepped back as if trying to protect his iPod and Andreas leaned forward to grab it.
That was when Andreas heard the buzz fly past his head, the crack of a rifle shot, and the sound of Kouros stumbling back and falling against a wall behind him.
“ Yianni,” Andreas screamed. He grabbed Trelos by the throat and dragged him as a shield toward Kouros’ body. “Move from that spot and I’ll kill you myself.” He reached down, grabbed Kouros, and rolled with him over the wall. Andreas felt the bullet hit him in the side before he heard the sound of the shot.
“ Stop! Stop! What are you doing? This is wrong!” Trelos was screaming but Andreas didn’t look to see at what. He was too busy trying to find where the bullet had entered his buddy. Kouros’ forehead was covered in blood.
Andreas heard another shot, this one from a pistol. He grabbed the communicator and yelled, “ Tassos, what’s happening? Yianni’s been hit and we’re pinned down. Where are you? ”
No response.
Chapter Twenty-six
Andreas slid along the wall until he was between Kouros’ head and the shooter. He couldn’t see Kouros’ wound. All he saw was blood. He brought his flashlight close to Kouros’ head and, blocking the reflected light as best he could with his body, gently ran his fingers along his friend’s head until he found the wound: an ugly jagged cut high above the right temple. Andreas pressed his fingers against Kouros’ neck and felt for a pulse. He tore open the front of Kouros shirt. The bullet was caught in the vest.
Andreas dropped his head and said a prayer. That’s when he sensed the pain in his own side. It felt like a broken rib. He ran his right fingers along his vest and found a second bullet.
He wanted to look over the wall to see if Trelos was still there, but didn’t dare. The shooter was too good.
“Trelos, are you there?”
Nothing.
“ I said, ‘are you there?’”
Andreas heard a very weak, “Yes.”
“Who’s shooting at us?”
Andreas heard something, but couldn’t make it out.
“What?”
“He’s coming,” said Trelos.
Andreas spun around and crawled along the wall toward Trelos’ voice. Whoever was coming probably was focused on where Kouros went down. If he moved away from that spot he might be able to get off a shot before the shooter could target him again. It was his only choice. He couldn’t just sit there waiting. Instinctively Andreas drew in a deep breath to calm himself, but a sharp pain at the broken rib stopped him. Instead, he closed and opened his eyes, crossed himself, and prepared to shoot at the first human sound he heard.
They were footsteps, but erratic, of a person moving quickly from one place to another, as if stopping to hide or listen. Andreas waited until the sounds were directly in front of him before jerking his gun and head together above the wall to fire.
He didn’t.
“ Tassos! ”
Tassos slid over the wall and dropped down next to Andreas. He was out of breath. “Thank God you’re okay? Where’s Yianni?”
“Over there.” Andreas nodded toward Kouros. “He probably has a concussion from hitting his head on the wall. But his pulse is good. The vest likely saved his life.”
Tassos drew in and let out a deep breath. “I was up near the top of the mound where I could keep an eye on what was happening down by the cave. I watched you come back up and around to where you saw Trelos. We saw him at the same time so I didn’t need to warn you.”
“I tried to reach you on the two-way after I heard the pistol shot,” said Andreas.
“I couldn’t tell for sure where the first rifle shot came from but I knew it was below me and to the left. That’s when I turned off the two-way, so it wouldn’t give me away.”
Tassos paused to catch another breath. “I got as close as I could to where I thought the shooter was. When I saw the muzzle flash on the second shot, I knew where to go. It came from inside a cluster of boulders. The pistol shot you heard was mine.”
“You took out the shooter?”
Trelos sat down on the wall above them and stared up the hill.
“Not sure, I heard a scream but when I got there the shooter was gone. The rifle too. I found blood but no telling how bad the wound. My guess is the shooter is still out there. That’s why I didn’t try you on the two-way. Didn’t want to risk giving away your position.”
A groan came from Andreas’ side of the wall.
“Watch him,” said Andreas pointing at Trelos. He crawled over to Kouros.
“How are you feeling?”
“Like I rammed my head into a concrete wall.”
“Close. It was stone. Someone took a shot at me but the bullet missed when I leaned in toward Trelos. You caught it in the middle of your chest and it knocked you back to where you fell and hit your head on the wall.”
Kouros pushed himself up on his elbows. “Where’s Trelos?”
“Over there, sitting on the wall like he’s at a picnic watching butterflies.”
Kouros tried to get up.
“Hold on there, fella, you’ve taken quite a hit.”
“I’ve had worse.” Kouros stood up and stared at Trelos. “And given a lot worse.”
Andreas pulled Kouros back to the ground. “Careful, we haven’t found the shooter yet.”
Andreas looked at Trelos staring up the hill. “Who’s shooting at us?”
Trelos didn’t move.
“Did you hear me?”
Trelos nodded but said nothing.
“Asshole.” Kouros tried to lunge for him, but Andreas held him down.
Trelos shrugged. “I don’t care what you do to me. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Yianni, forget about him for now. We need better cover. Can you walk?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“How about that building down there?” Tassos pointed at a small concrete shed at the bottom of the hill, adjacent to the eastern edge of the mound and across the road from Trelos’ house.
“It’s windowless,” said Trelos without turning to look. “You’ll be trapped inside with no way out but the door. We built it on top of a streambed running out of the mound to bring power and ventilation into the Vriokastro.”
“Who’s ‘we’?” said Andreas.
“My sister and I.”
“What about your brother?” said Tassos.
“No, Petros never comes here anymore. Not since our parents died. He lives up on the mountain. He has no idea what we’ve done here.”
“Does he know how to get inside the mound?” said Tassos.
“Some of the ways, not all of them.”
“Like through the cave?” said Kouros.
“That’s one, but we rarely use it. Tourists kept coming there trying to find a way inside the mound. A few years ago a young American couple almost found the entrance.”
“What happened to them?” said Kouros.