Kalliste tried to ignore her companions and concentrate on finding her way out. She made steady progress toward the center of the maze. She had to back out a couple of blind alleys. The foul-ups were more due to the slap-dash nature of the tablecloth map than her cartographic skills.
Despite her fear and anxiety, Kalliste couldn’t help but appreciate the ingenuity and labor that had gone into the construction of the Maze. Knossos was like child’s play compared to this network of tunnels. The passageways were at least twenty feet across and she estimated the ceilings that dripped with moisture were around ten feet high. Lily said that the Maze builders could trace their origins back to Neolithic times.
The Maze must have had its inspiration in the caves their ancestors called home tens of thousands of years ago. As perverted as Lily and her followers were, they had been the jealous guardians of rituals and language born at the dawn of civilization. Kalliste couldn’t wait to write a scientific paper. She almost laughed at her presumptuousness. Here she was, trying to make her way through a gigantic puzzle deep in the earth, followed by a couple of toothy monsters, and she had herself practically accepting a Nobel prize in science.
According to her map, she was practically halfway through the Maze, approaching the large rectangle where the bull’s head had been drawn on the scroll. Because of the size and location of the space, Kalliste assumed that it might be the bull court Lily said was no longer used. She would make quick time across the open space, and pick up a passageway on the other side.
The lighted tunnel jogged to the right and the left, then ended abruptly. There was nothing ahead but pitch-black darkness. Not a pinpoint of light. She brushed aside fears of falling into yawning pits. She would let her eyes get used to the darkness, allow her senses to take over and try to move ahead in a straight line. Keeping her hands extended until she encountered the wall indicated on the map, she would then grope her way along the surface until she found the opening for the passageway.
She turned to check on her companions. They had disappeared. They must have fallen silently back as she approached the bull court. They were hideous creatures, but it wasn’t their fault. They had been bred as killers by humans who were the real monsters.
She took a tentative step into the darkness, then another and another. She moved with more confidence with each step, thinking that this was what a blind person experienced every day of his or her life. The lack of sight heightened her other senses. Her nostrils picked up a musty, damp smell. From somewhere came the sickly-sweet scent of rotting meat. Her heartbeat ratcheted up at the prospect of stepping on a dead animal that may have wandered into the court, but she continued resolutely on, arms waving in front of her like the antennae on an insect.
After a few minutes passed, Kalliste guessed that she might be halfway across the court, which is when she heard the scuffling noise from directly in front of her. She stopped and listened. A different sound echoed in the darkness.
Clop-clop.
The noise sounded like hooves on stone.
Then came a snuffle and a snort. She was not alone. An animal was moving around the unlit court. She froze. Her mind was whirling. She didn’t know whether to make a dash for the opposite wall or turn back to the portal she had entered. The decision was made for her. The clopping moved around behind her, and when she turned, two blazing red eyes blinked on in the darkness.
She began to run.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
Chad stared at his ruined face in the mirror. He had come to think of the pale mass of scar tissue as a fleshy version of the blank canvas a portrait artist would put up on an easel. But this was different. The identity he was about to assume belonged to Salazar, the man he most hated in the world.
He began to mold Salazar’s face over his own, improving on the hastily-assembled features that had got him past Auroch security. Tinted contact lenses took care of the eye color. Make-up hid the edge of the skullcap covering his hair. He evened out the flesh he’d added to his cheeks and chin. When he finished the transformation, he tried to replicate the distinctive voice.
Salazar said Chad had the tone and the inflections, but his impersonation lacked depth. Chad was soft-spoken, a holdover from his Army days. Special Ops were trained to speak quietly on a mission. Chad still spoke in his drowsy, half-stoned surfer’s voice, but his acting school voice lessons had come in handy. He had a wide range and he could fit the tone to the disguise of the moment.
He went through a series of vocal exercises that raised his speaking voice to a mellow tenor. His dry enunciation was impeccable. Although his impression lacked the brilliance that was part of Salazar’s natural speech patterns, he came close. He could elevate his voice a few octaves without sounding too feminine. His speech was penetrating but not loud.
“Is this some sort of joke?” he asked himself, painting his question with amused scorn.
Not bad. It was as far as he could go without putting himself through the same surgical procedure that had turned Salazar into a freak. He could never replicate the large bones of the rib cage that gave Salazar the added lung capacity to squeeze his powerful voice through vocal cords the size of a child’s. Nor would he want it.
Chad would make his move at the rendezvous with Salazar. When the Mercedes pulled up at the log house, he would get out of the SUV and draw his pistol from its sock holster. He would shoot Salazar first, then tend to his men. Chad had practiced the attack in his hotel room. Four quick pulls of the trigger. Bang-bang-bang-bang.
Salazar’s men were pros. They wouldn’t stand there with Shoot Me signs around their necks. They would fight back. He might die. He didn’t care. Maybe it was the loss of his girlfriend. Or maybe he had come to terms with the destructive uselessness of his life. A peaceful feeling had come over his mind since his decision to kill Salazar. He would do so no matter the cost.
Chad’s phone chirped. Speak of the devil.
“The time has come,” Salazar said. “We’ll pick you up at your hotel in thirty minutes.”
Chad took a deep breath and expelled the words through his constricted larynx. “I’ll be ready, Mr. Salazar.”
There was silence at the other end of the line, then Salazar said, “You’ve been working at it, I see.”
“You told me I had the tone and inflections. Now do I have the depth?”
“That would never be possible, but it’s close enough for our purposes. Thirty minutes.”
Chad hung up. Being in Salazar’s skin was creepy enough. Speaking in his voice was even worse. He got into his black running suit and tucked his pistol into the sock holster. He pulled the baseball cap low over his face and laced up his sneakers. He used the stairs to get to the ground floor and crossed the busy lobby with his head down. Anyone giving him a second look would see only a man dressed as if he’d been using the hotel’s fitness center.
The Mercedes SUV picked him up at the curb exactly on time. Salazar wasn’t in the vehicle. The rear door opened, a man emerged and motioned for Chad to get inside next to another of Salazar’s thugs. The first man got in after Chad, sandwiching him between two sets of wide shoulders and hard thighs.
The driver was the man called Bruno. No one spoke on the ride out of the city and into the countryside along the same route they had taken on the earlier trip. When the SUV stopped in front of the log cabin, his seat companions muscled him out between them. As soon as Chad’s feet hit the ground, one man enveloped him from behind in a bear hug. His companion bent over and plucked the pistol from its holster.
He jabbed Chad between the shoulder blades with the gun.