The CIA man looked down at his briefing notes, flicking a few pages to get to the right section. “They were last seen in the Citadel during the fire fight with the Special Ops team. After that I had US Air Force Space Command re-task satellites and track them west across the Zagros Mountains and into northern Iraq. We lost them on the Iraqi-Turkish border.”
Faulkner leaned forward and fixed his eyes on Murphy. “You lost them?”
Murphy returned the stare, unfazed. “They might officially be a terror group, Mr President, but they also happen to be pretty much the best Special Ops team in the world right now. The range of skills across the team is impressive, and yes, we lost them. But we’ll find them again. You were in the CIA a long time, sir. You know how this works.”
Faulkner wasn’t placated. “I know how it works if they find Tartarus, Wilson. If they find Tartarus then we’re looking at one great big fucking hornet’s nest the likes of which we have never seen before.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Please tell me you at least have a vague idea where they are.”
He nodded and one corner of his mouth turned up with a shade of doubt. “We think they’re en route to Crete right now, but they might have already moved on. I have a special task force on this, Mr President. They can run but they can’t hide. Not from us.”
“What assets have we got out there?”
“The USS Abraham Lincoln is in the eastern Med as we speak. The Captain’s running a number of V-22 Ospreys on search patterns all over that part of the world. They’re as good as dead, sir.”
Faulkner gave a distracted nod. “And what about Agent Cougar?”
“She’s on their tail, too. She checked in a few hours ago.”
“Where is she?”
He shrugged. “No one knows.”
“No one knows?”
“That’s how she works. It’s why she’s so good at what she does.”
“But she’s on it?”
A nod.
“Good.” Faulkner now leaned forward and dropped his cigar down in the ashtray. A column of pungent blue smoke twisted up in front of his lined face.
“Listen very carefully to me, all of you. The ECHO team are just as Mr Murphy here describes. The Chinese assassin is as ruthless as they come and probably the greatest practitioner of martial arts on the planet. The French legionnaire is a force of nature of his own making and has mercenary contacts all over the world. The English SAS officer is even more dangerous. She could shoot the diamond off an ace card while doing a backwards somersault. The nerd can hack any system he chooses and to call him a polymath is an understatement.”
In the silence he had created, he lifted his cigar and leaned back in his chair. “The Irish woman, Donovan — there’s something motivating that woman that scares even me. She is the driving force at the heart of ECHO and she just won’t stay down.” He sucked on the cigar and savored the smoke. “And as for Hawke, that son of a bitch has more grit than a snowplough. Ladies and gentlemen, we underestimate ECHO at our peril.”
Murphy broke the silence. “We’ll get them, sir.”
Faulkner spun around in his leather chair and stared out across the sunny lawn. Raising the cigar to his mouth he spoke only one word.
“Dismissed.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
By the time Reaper pulled out of Heraklion Airport and cruised the SUV through the Cretan capital, the sun was sinking in the west and everyone was feeling the cuts and bruises from the fighting in Budapest. Looking out across the dusty hills rolling away to the island’s north, Lea yawned and pushed back into her seat, determined not to fall asleep again.
Later, when she woke, Reaper was pulling into a gravel parking lot at the base of Mount Ida.
“Rise and shine, sleepyhead,” Lexi said.
She looked out of the window and took in the expansive view stretching away from the mountain’s slopes. In the east, the moon was starting to rise over the island. “Wow.”
“Double wow,” said Zeke.
Lexi lowered her sunglasses. “It’s bigger than I thought it would be.”
Ryan stretched his arms and yawned. “The times I’ve heard that.”
Now Scarlet lowered her sunglasses and stared right into his eyes. “You mean when girls discover your ego?”
“Now, now,” Ryan said. “Just because you can’t have me doesn’t mean to say I’m off the market.” He unbuckled his seatbelt and cracked open his door. “If you think that’s amazing wait till you see the cave.”
Glancing at the dashboard clock, Hawke wondered where in the world Dimitrov and Kashala were. The smart money was on right here, but there was no sign of anyone except a handful of tourists. They wound down a track in the distance on their way back from the cave’s entrance. Almost dark now, they would probably be the last visitors of the day.
“Let’s do it,” he said at last. “The clock’s ticking.”
They emerged into a hot, dry evening and slowly made their way toward the cave up the same gravel track carved into the slope above the small parking lot. Passing the tourists, they exchanged friendly nods and smiles and then found themselves at their destination.
Ryan stepped off the path, his face now shaded from the moon’s silver light by the cave’s marble overhang. Raising his arms, he said in a loud, theatrical boom, “I give you the Idaean Cave!”
“Thanks for that.” Scarlet pushed past him into the cave. “Berk.”
Empty of tourists as they had speculated, they stepped down into the cave and made their way along a path, passing below some impressive stalactites until they reached the first of three cavernous compartments. A dark, black pool of water beside the path receded into the darkness and gave the place a muted, dangerous atmosphere. “We go through here,” Ryan said. “And then two more until we reach the sanctuary.”
“The sanctuary?” Lea asked.
He sighed and lifted his arms in the air in a show of despair. “Does anyone listen to anything I say in my briefings?”
“On and off,” Scarlet said coolly. “They can go on a bit.”
“The cave sanctuary is the most sacred place in the whole mountain. It’s where Orpheus was buried.”
Lexi peered into the gloom. “And you’re sure about that?”
“Of course I’m sure,” he said. “I know everything about this place.”
“And how deep is that water?”
“Apart from that. I don’t know how deep the water is.”
As they moved through the compartments, Ryan continued his guided tour. “For those who are interested, and Cairo too, the name of the Idaean Cave is derived from dea, as in goddess,” he said more seriously. “Mainstream history tells us that people have worshipped here since the Minoans, but now we know old Orpheus is buried here we know its story goes back way further than that.”
“All hail the walking wiki,” Scarlet mumbled.
Ryan ignored her. “Even though it’s a natural phenomenon, it’s actually a cave sanctuary with the same level of importance as all the most famous ancient Greek temples,” he continued. “And it acquired that significance due to its close connection to the birth of Zeus, the father of all the gods.”
“What close connection?” Lexi asked.
Nikolai answered, cutting Ryan off. “His birthplace. This place is also called the Cave of Zeus. This is where he was raised by the Titaness Rhea, the daughter of the earth goddess Gaia. Votive seals were left here by worshippers.”
Ryan raised an eyebrow. “Impressive.”
“I guess this sort of thing is on the Athanatoi syllabus?” Lea said.
The Russian nodded. “You could say that. To the Athanatoi, remember, this is real history, and these are real living beings. This place was used by oracles, including the Oracle, a very long time ago.”