“I am here for you. I am here,” he told Crouch. “What do you need?”
“Hold on.” Crouch focused on Caitlyn. “Get to the point.”
“So forget Stone. Also, Nicholas Bell has vanished. No sightings within the US and no plane travel. Is this coincidence or are the Pythians gathering? Well, what if there’s another explanation?”
Alicia liked Caitlyn’s train of thought so far. Although she had known the ex-MI6 girl for only a few weeks, Alicia already believed in her analytical talent. Though leaving MI6 under a blanket of uncertainty and with a recent undisclosed horrendous experience in her personal life, Caitlyn was willing to learn, willing to train hard and had withstood her torture at the hands of a Mexican gang superbly well.
The dark-haired girl continued. “The third Pythian,” she said. “Miranda Le Brun.”
“She’s been seen?” Karin asked.
“Not exactly. But her private plane filed a flight plan several days ago. Maybe if Armand can request closed-circuit footage from Thessaloniki International Airport?”
“I can do better than that,” Argento told them. “As Interpol associates itself closely with the Greek police, its chief of police and the International Police Cooperation Division, I can access the feeds myself. It may take just a little time to allow for protocol.”
Caitlyn spent the time double checking her information on Le Brun. Not an awful lot about the woman was known, she was married to a deceased oil billionaire, and rarely attended social functions but her various assets and known wealth was in the public domain. Flight plans were filed regularly as a matter of necessity, and air movement messages sent to the local civil aviation authority, in the case of the States this was the FAA, who kept detailed records. Caitlyn hadn’t needed a hacker to acquire the information; she had simply asked the Americans for it using the emergency code word attributed to the Pythian situation.
“I am now in the system,” Argento said. “And my, my, amico mio, it is excellent quality. Most excellent. With zoom I can count the nose hairs, but never mind that. I am initiating facial recognition software and… bavoom we have our match. Today is… yes, and there we have it. Our Miranda bypassed customs but still went through the VIP desk three days ago…” Argento chatted on.
Alicia struggled to keep up, trying to identify relevant information from the rambling. Now she was starting to understand why they called him the Jabbering Venetian.
“And she is with a man,” Argento exclaimed. “Who I know. But I will run the software again to be sure.”
Crouch leaned forward. “Who do you think it is?”
“Wait, wait. Yes, yes it is Nicholas Bell. The pair arrived together. So there you have it. Argento strikes again! We have a success.”
Crouch was even further ahead, and so it seemed was Karin Blake. At the same time they said, “Check Callan Dudley’s movements.”
Alicia felt a surge of adrenalin. If two Pythians arrived in Greece not three days ago then the motives could be manifold, from concealment to recruitment. If Dudley, the Irish mercenary, arrived around the same time it could only be for one reason.
Delivery of the sample he had escaped with.
Argento circumvented the search by running Dudley through his software. A low whistle underlined his surprise.
“Arrived in Greece very recently,” he said. “Flew into Larissa Airport, but that is of no matter since it is only sixty eight miles away. It is too much of a coincidence to be innocent, no?”
“Bloody right,” Crouch said. “It’s a lead and no mistake.”
Alicia watched Karin turn around in her seat, addressing someone in the background. “What do you think?” the young woman said. “We’re all played out here in London. Should we go?”
Hayden stepped into view. “We need more,” she said. “Why are they there? Where exactly did they go? Armand, try the traffic cams and see if they can be useful. I wonder if they even met at all.”
Now Drake appeared in camera shot. “Deeper investigation, love. That’s what we need here. We can’t all go shooting off to the same place. Who knows where we’ll be needed next? It’d take a pretty big goddamn reason to send us all running off to Greece.” He stopped, then added, “Even if we weren’t at war.”
Alicia experienced a trickle of disappointment but knew they were right. Both London and Paris were fairly central cities on a worldwide scale. It wouldn’t pay to race off on a fool’s errand or, quite possibly, a diversionary wild goose chase.
“I can tell you now that Le Brun and Bell entered a waiting car, alone, and that Dudley and two companions, probably mercenaries, took a rental. Do you see? We don’t have to track Dudley’s movements, just access the car rental firm’s records.”
“Eyes everywhere, huh?” Russo said with a little sarcasm.
“Would you rather prevent an average of five large-scale terrorist attacks a year or experience them?”
Russo remained silent, staring at nothing. Crouch busied himself with research whilst Argento worked.
“Why Greece?” he whispered to himself. “This bloody location is too much of a coincidence for me.”
Karin’s voice cane through the monitor. “Greece is an intersection,” she suggested. “Cunningly located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and Africa.” Her voice tailed off.
Crouch whistled. “That would mean it’s the perfect staging area for the secret factory.”
“And ties in with Pandora,” Drake added. “A Pythian jest, no doubt.”
“I still think there’s more,” Crouch mused.
“I have clearance,” Argento’s Italian tones broke in. “Just checking the records now.”
Alicia watched Crouch dip his head and become lost in thought. Caitlyn too, was brainstorming the problem, only she used a keyboard. Put them together and they were the brain of this ancient mystery solving team.
“In Greece you find the origins of democracy, western philosophy and literature,” he said, emphasizing the importance of the latter. “Political science and western drama. Alexander the Great conveyed many features of its civilization through his movements to the east as did the Roman Empire to the west. It also gave us the Olympic Games.”
“So it’s the center of the universe,” Alicia said with a little sass. “Or was.”
“All roads lead from Greece,” Russo intoned unnecessarily and with a dark look on his face. Alicia couldn’t help but laugh, only casting the shadow even further.
“You know you could debate this all day,” Argento cut in again. “And some do. Scholars. Academics. I used to have a history professor who could talk your ear off for hours. Literally chew it to the bone. But no, no, I digress. Luckily, our mercenaries can be tracked. These days, most agencies install a logger in their fleet of vehicles because it’s much cheaper than GPS. This means they aren’t manning a real-time view of the car but are logging its movements via an onboard computer that can be accessed at any future time. The car is currently stationary within the Mount Olympus National Park, and has been ever since its initial journey.”
“Inside the park?” Karin wondered. “Why?”
“It’s a huge place,” Crouch said. “Impossible to keep track of them out there. Ten thousand acres and that’s just the core. And, of course as we know despite a rangers’ best efforts, national parks aren’t the best policed areas in the world. And that’s down to funding, not the rangers.”
“So Dudley and pals wandered into the mountains,” Drake said. “With the samples. They have to be meeting someone, right? Can you track Le Brun and Bell that far?”