‘Wow, I honestly don’t know. Sports aren’t my thing at all.’ She turned around and waved at Cobb. ‘Honey, which game did you care about again?’
Cobb didn’t have to pretend or lie. In the chaos of the past few days, he hadn’t found the time to check any weekend scores from the NFL. ‘The Steelers.’
‘The Steelers,’ Sarah repeated.
Manjani, who had much better things to do than to check scores for tourists, begrudgingly typed in the data and quickly found the result. ‘Pittsburgh won, 31-3.’
‘Yes!’ Cobb replied with a fist pump. ‘Thanks.’
Sarah lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘Thank you so much. You just made his day — and mine. Maybe he’ll shut up now and enjoy himself.’
Manjani reluctantly cracked a smile.
‘I hate to push my luck,’ she said when she spotted an opening, ‘but do you know if there’s anything good to see around here? Besides the water, of course. We’re going to see enough of that while we’re sailing around the islands.’
Manjani stared at her quizzically.
His body was rigid and defensive, but his expression was soft.
Sarah wondered if he was actually thankful for the company.
‘Yes,’ he eventually said. ‘There’s a monastery on the eastern side of the island, not far. Near Chora. It’s built into the cliffs. Simply beautiful.’ He looked at her jeans. ‘You will need a long skirt. Women are not permitted to be dressed like this.’
She smiled. ‘Lucky for me, I brought one. My friends told me that it wouldn’t be tropical this time of year, so I brought plenty of long sleeves for the cool nights.’
Manjani nodded his approval. In the summer months, the temperature in the Greek Islands was typically in the low-to-mid-eighties. But in November, the temperature regularly dropped below sixty degrees.
‘Does this monastery have a name?’ she asked.
‘It is known as the Monastery of Panagia Hozoviotissa.’
‘Wow. Try to say that three times fast.’
He smiled. ‘It’s a mouthful, I know. It’s even worse in Greek.’
‘Wait! That was in English?’
‘Yes,’ he said with a laugh. This time, it wasn’t forced or stilted. After a rocky start, he seemed to be loosening up. ‘So, what brings you to Amorgos?’
Sarah stepped closer, placing her hand on an empty chair at Manjani’s table. ‘We’ve been meaning to do something like this for a while. We talked about Paris, or maybe Hong Kong, but then I saw the Greek Islands on a travel site. Beautiful scenery, friendly people, and really affordable in the off season. The plan is to bop around the Aegean for a couple of weeks, take in the sights, and eat as much baklava as I can.’
‘Sounds like a tasty plan to me.’
She laughed and pointed at the empty chair, asking for permission to join him. He considered the request for an unnaturally long time before he smiled warmly and closed his laptop, as if to say his computer could wait until later. It was obvious that he trusted her enough to chat for a bit but not enough to see what he was working on.
Still, his frosty demeanor was melting.
She eased into the seat. ‘Do you have any suggestions on what to see? We checked out the Acropolis in Athens before we caught our boat. That place was amazing. It’s, like, there’s American history — and then there’s Greek history. They’re, like, two completely different things. One’s modern and the other one’s ancient.’
‘I’m afraid I’m not much for history. At least not anymore.’
‘Really? I find that surprising.’
‘You do? Why’s that?’ he laughed.
She calmly placed her hand on his. ‘I was told differently.’
His smile withered. ‘By whom?’
‘Your old friend, Petr Ulster.’
She saw a flash of fear in his eyes and a lump catch in his throat. Then she noticed his muscles tense as he tried to pull away. With a few simple words, she had triggered his most primal instincts: fight or flight?
Manjani, who was unarmed, was too old for fisticuffs.
But he was very tempted to run.
She subtly shook her head. ‘You have nothing to fear. Not from us.’
He stared at her. ‘Then why have you come?’
Instead of answering, she leaned forward in her chair. She had only known Manjani for a few minutes, but it was long enough to get a feel for him. Her years of experience had revealed a lot about the man, and she needed to trust her skills.
She could see the guilt in his eyes.
He felt responsible for his team’s slaughter.
‘Dr Manjani,’ she whispered, ‘if you want to walk away, we’re not going to chase you. Honestly, we won’t. We’ll leave the island and disappear forever. But just so you know: you are the only person on the planet who can save our friend.’
‘Your friend? What do you mean?’
She pulled a folded copy of his map from her pocket and showed it to him. ‘Your map told us where to start, but we need to know more if we’re going to find her.’
‘Who?’ he demanded. ‘Who are you talking about?’
‘While we were exploring the tunnels underneath the city, our friend — our historian — was abducted by the men who attacked your team. To have any chance of finding her, we need to know what happened in the desert and how you got away.’
It was obvious that Manjani didn’t want to talk, much less think, about the details of the slaughter, and yet the guilt he felt was so pronounced it kept him glued to his chair, as if the bodies of the victims weighed him down. ‘And if I help you, what are you going to do about it?’
‘We’re going to save her and kill them.’
Her answer caught him off guard.
So much so, he needed a moment to think.
Manjani stared at his map as a wave of emotions crashed into him like the water against the rocks below. Somehow, someway, he knew that he would eventually be found on the tiny island of Amorgos, but he had always assumed it would be by the shadow priests of Amun, not a couple of Americans who were searching for them.
If not for the danger, the irony would be delicious.
‘Not here,’ Manjani said as he threw money on the table to pay his tab. Then he tucked his computer under his arm. ‘Come with me.’
60
Jasmine sat in the center of the dungeon floor staring at the ancient door. The mere sight of it had once lifted her spirits, but now it taunted her. For all she knew, it was the only thing standing between her and freedom.
After spotting the body in the corner of her cell, she had gone back to her exploration of the room. The heavy chain attached to the shackles around her ankles had kept her from investigating the entire space, but she was determined to scour every inch that she could reach. Hindered by the lack of light, she had felt her way around the edges of the chamber until she found the door. The smooth texture of the wooden slab had been easy to distinguish from the rough masonry of the wall.
Finally, she had found the handle.
For a moment, it had given her hope.
Though the keyhole presented a much different challenge than the barrel locks of the handcuffs in the desert hut, Sarah had explained the function of tumblers in great detail during Jasmine’s training. By no means was she ready to take on Fort Knox, but she understood the basics of what she needed to do. With enough time and a healthy dose of luck, Jasmine was sure she could unlock the door.
If, and only if, she found something that resembled a lock pick.
So far, that had proven to be a difficult task.
Comically, it wasn’t until sometime later that she had faced the larger issue at hand. Even if she had been able to open the door, she was still chained to the wall. And the shackles around her ankles had no locks to pick — they were solid rings of iron that had been hammered into place.