He turned to the back seat and tried to console Niko with a morose expression. But the man had just lost his cousin in a shoot out. “Are you all right?” Demetri asked. It was a stupid question to ask someone in grief, but they still had a job to do here.
Niko tightened his jaw reflexively and said, “I will be when I kill that man, Jake Adams. You must let me do it.”
“I have no problem with that,” said Demetri. “But first we have to get our orders from Zendo.”
Maybe they had acted out of order, but at least they had gotten something from the professor before Niko had twisted too hard on the guitar string and taken the man’s life. He only hoped Zendo would forgive their mistake and realize they were closer than ever to finding this American woman. Demetri also wanted to make sure that other man with them, the man whose name they didn’t know, would not tell Zendo what had happened before he got a chance to explain himself. Maybe he should have gone to the baggage area instead of sending that man to retrieve Zendo. But Niko was ready to fly off and find Adams to kill him, and Demetri needed to stay with him to talk him off the ledge.
Looking back toward the terminal, he finally saw Zendo followed closely by the nameless man carrying a small bag and heading toward them. The boss seemed to have a reasonable disposition.
Getting out quickly to greet his boss, Demetri gave up his front seat for the boss and then he put nameless in the center back and he filed into the back seat behind the driver.
The car pulled out slowly toward the airport exit.
“Did you find the professor?” Zendo asked, not even turning to look at him.
“The American woman?” Demetri said. “No, but we know where she’s going.”
Zendo turned to him and said, “I meant the Malta professor. And why are we one man down?” He looked at the other two in the back and continued, “Niko, where’s your cousin?”
Almost crying now, Niko explained what had happened at the apartment, including how Jake Adams had caught them just as they were leaving, murdering his cousin.
Zendo looked confused. “Why was he the only one left at the apartment? Didn’t I always teach you to have a partner?”
Demetri took this one. “It was a mistake, Zendo. I left him there to make sure we had not left any trace of our visit.” He had still not mentioned the death of the professor, but he needed to soon or there would be hell to pay for the omission when he did find out. Now he explained the incident with the Malta professor, including the information obtained first to soften the blow of the man’s death.
Stroking his long hair behind his ear, Zendo finally said, “I would have probably told you to kill the man anyway. But you should have waited for me so I could make sure the man told us everything he knew.”
Letting out a sigh of relief, Demetri said, “I don’t think he was in any position to lie to us. I trust what he told us.” He went on to explain what the Malta professor had been doing with the American woman.
“Tell me at least one of you happened to hit Jake Adams,” Zendo said, hopeful.
Demetri shrugged, “We have no way of knowing. But that man is crazy. He came running at as like a maniac firing his gun. He didn’t seem to care if he got shot.”
Zendo shook his head and smiled. “I heard that about him. And I did warn you. Now, let’s get down to the ferry terminal. Are you sure she will take the ferry?”
“Yes,” Demetri said. “The Malta professor said she was traveling with cash and didn’t trust airline manifests.”
“So she knows we’re after her. How much of a lead does she have.”
“Not much. The professor said she had just been at his apartment before we showed up.”
Zendo nodded. “Good. Then she might still be here in Malta.”
Sara Halsey Jones stood outside against the ferry’s rail on the upper deck in the darkness, the relative cool from the summer night sending a slight chill through her body as the fading lights from Malta slowly dissipated on the horizon behind them.
But her chill, she was sure, had more to do with what she had just experienced at the University of Malta history professor’s apartment. The two of them had just finished discussing her quest for the lost Histories of the Greek historian Polybius. Her work in Italy, Greece and Istanbul had led her to Malta and now full circle back to Italy. Well, Sicily. She knew that most Sicilians still didn’t consider their island a part of the boot of Italy. And as an historian she knew well their beef and felt some sympathy for them. After all, they had been part of Magna Graecia, Greek settlements, before the Roman Republic finally took over in the third century BC.
She thought about the professor and hoped he was all right. Some of the men that came to the door she was sure she recognized from her time in Venice and Istanbul. One could have been the man that detained the American who had inexplicably contacted her in Athens, asking her if she was in fact Sara Halsey Jones — a strange and creepy man with a New York accent. How and why was an American calling her by name at a coffee shop in Athens? That was her first sign that her adventure collecting data on an obscure Greek historian had somehow raised concerns with someone. From that day forward she had done her best to stay off the grid, only using her passport when absolutely necessary. Which was a good reason to travel by ferry and train, where they might check out her passport but not report her passage to the government. Security was much less strict on these forms of transportation.
Sara had also come to change her appearance with each new location. Now she appeared like a widow in morning, dressed in all black with a scarf covering her hair, which she had started to put up on her head in a bun. Maybe she would cut it in Sicily. But how long could she keep running from these men? And why were they after her in the first place? These questions had haunted her for the past couple of weeks as she gathered information. Yet, she was the only one who really knew her true research target. If she discovered what she thought she would, she would write a book and hope to change the entire historical record of this entire region. Perhaps that was too strong. If nothing else, though, she would bring forth a more complete understanding of a truly remarkable man.
Hearing a noise behind her, she startled and a chill ran through her again, a common occurrence recently. But it was just a young couple in their early twenties coming to the upper deck for the romantic ambiance — something which she had not really experienced since her undergraduate college days. Perhaps she had spent too much time with her nose in the books to really live life. Now she was living life but fearing for it as well. And why? She had no clue.
If anything happened to the professor in Malta she would be sick with anguish. He was a nice man. She even thought he might desire a sexual relationship with her that night. How long had it been for her? She would need an abacus to calculate that. Well, the professor was a Frenchman, so he would have probably hit on just about anyone, she guessed. It was no indication of her desirability. Maybe she was beginning to not trust anyone, which is why she never told the Malta professor where she would go next. He had given her a few different possible locations for her to search, and she had enthusiastically settled on one in Sicily, although not the one she really planned to pursue. No, she had given the French Malta professor the wrong place she would go next. Since all of his suggestions had been in Sicily, anyone pursuing her would know that much. But they would not know the precise location. She had told the professor her next stop would be Messina, but her real destination was Taormina, the beautiful former Greek city on the cliffs overlooking the Ionian Sea. Although she had never been there before, she had seen many wonderful pictures and a documentary on television. But she wouldn’t be there long, she thought, since her only concern there was to confirm something she already speculated to be true. First, though, she would take this night ferry to Catania, Sicily, and then hop a train in the early morning to Taormina.