“Ignore him,” Scarlet said. “It’s the best way.”
“Anyway,” Demetriou continued, “Hades was the eldest of the three. I think the kingdom of the eldest refers to the underworld.”
“Oh, excellent,” Hawke said. “We’re literally going to hell.”
“No, well…” Demetriou searched for the English words. “I think we can take it as meaning simply underground — that when it says The Kingdom Of The Eldest Is Where What You Seek Doth Hide, it really means that the vault of Poseidon is underground.”
Hawke sighed. “I didn't think it would be in the sky, professor.”
“No, of course not, but Greece is famous for its tunnels and caves. If you ask me, then this riddle is telling us the vault is in a cave complex somewhere.”
“All right, we’re getting somewhere,” said Scarlet. “What about the rest of the riddle?”
Demetriou returned his eyes to what he now believed was a key. Beneath the Highest City, Where The Samian’s Sacred Work Shall Guide — The Kingdom Of The Eldest Is Where What You Seek Doth Hide. “Perhaps this reference to the highest city — the acropolis — refers to the acropolis here in Athens — I don't know! But if it does, then maybe the Hades reference means beneath it. There is a tunnel network deep beneath the Parthenon — I know this much.”
Hawke looked uneasy. “It’s just a stab in the dark, prof.”
“I’m sorry?”
Scarlet’s eyes flicked from Hawke to the professor. “He means you’re inference is tenuous.”
“I don't think so! Just look at the words, they speak for themselves.”
“You’re not looking at all of the words though,” Hawke said. “We’ve worked out the bit about the highest city, and the kingdom of the eldest, but what about the other bit — the section about the Samian’s sacred work?”
Demetriou sighed deeply, obviously deflated. “I know, this bit I do not understand.”
“And that bit could lead us somewhere totally different. Without understanding the whole riddle we would just be on a wild goose chase.”
“So get your thinking cap on, professor,” Scarlet said. “Meanwhile, I think we need to talk about Zaugg’s yacht and just what we’re going to do about getting our friends back.”
Hawke agreed, and they both starting making phone calls. Hawke had a powerful new contact in the form of Sir Richard Eden and no doubt Cairo Sloane could trawl her own urban underworld in search of assistance.
As they made their calls, Hawke noticed that once or twice his old SAS rival had caught his eye and kept the contact with him just a second too long than was normal.
He hadn’t seen her for so many years it was nice to be around an old friend, but to describe Scarlet Sloane as unpredictable was a gross understatement. Damaged goods was another phrase that sprang to mind. He hoped she wasn’t harboring any feelings for him.
Hawke first tried Eden but the line was blocked so he put through a call to his former commanding officer, the resourceful Olivia Hart.
He had worked under her when he was a sergeant and she was a lieutenant in the Royal Marines, but then she had her transfer request cleared and moved across to the Royal Navy. These days Olivia Hart was in the top brass and ran a highly covert sub-unit of the SBS referred to only as V Squadron.
“Not heard from you in a while,” Hart said.
“You love me really.”
“Seriously, Hawke. It’s been too long.”
“What can I say?”
“That you only call people up when you need to use them?”
“Don't be like that, Commander.”
“It’s Commodore now. I got promoted again.”
“You were always very good at that, as I recall.”
There was a pause. “What do you want, Joe?”
Her use of his first name put him at ease. “An early retirement in the Caribbean with my own private villa and an endless supply of banana daiquiries. How about you?”
“I’m a busy woman, Hawke.”
Back to Hawke, but he knew she was smiling.
“Listen, Olivia, I need some help.”
As he spoke, he watched Scarlet make her calls and chat into the phone, tracing her finger along the back of the sofa as she paced gently behind it, or twiddling her finger in Demetriou’s spider plant. Whoever she was speaking to she knew very well. Knowing her, she’d probably slept with whoever it was. Scarlet Sloane could be like that.
Now she was looking at him again, and then came that smile of hers. For a moment he felt something for her, but then he remembered who he was looking at. Cairo Sloane treated men in roughly the same way cats treat mice.
They ended their phone calls and looked at each other.
“All sorted,” they both said in unison, and offered each other a tentative smile.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Lea and the others watched silently as someone rattled the lock of the hold door. Moments later the door swung open to reveal Baumann and two more thugs standing in the light and holding Uzis.
“It’s time,” Baumann said.
Lea’s eyes widened as she realized what he was talking about. Zaugg was going to hold good to his word and start executing them.
“Untie them!” he ordered. One of the men scuttled forward and cut off the cable-ties which were securing them to the inside of the hull.
“Now get up!” he shouted.
“What are they doing, Lea?” Ryan asked.
“They’re going to kill us,” Sophie said, her voice soft in the semi-darkness of the hold.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” said Ryan. “I haven’t even finished my Big Bang boxset. They can't kill me!”
“Believe it,” said Sophie. “It's the only way you have any hope of surviving.”
The men chatted casually in Swiss-German as they walked them through the yacht to the front deck, submachine gun muzzles jabbing in the smalls of their backs.
“Ouch!” Sophie said, doubling over.
“What’s the matter?” said Lea, concerned.
“My stomach — it’s… ouch!”
“Was ist das Problem?” hissed Baumann. “Move!”
Sophie fell to her knees clutching tightly at her sides. She began to sob.
Baumann sighed and flicked his cigarette over the side of the yacht. “I count to five and you get up, or I shoot you where you kneel. One.”
“I can't — it’s the pain, my baby…”
The other man looked at Baumann concerned. He shouldered his submachine gun and reached down to help Sophie.
In a flash she spun around, tiger-punched him the throat and stabbed him in the neck with the knife she had stolen from Zaugg’s table.
Without a pause she snatched his HK416 in one fluid movement and as part of the same action she continued spinning around. She fired a savage burst of fire from the submachine gun and struck the third man with a line of bullets from his groin to his shoulder. He dropped his gun and crashed over the side of the boat.
Baumann’s commando training kicked in immediately as he instinctively dived for cover behind a lifeboat, but the other man was slower, and Sophie’s bullets tore a line of holes in his chest and pummelled him over the rail into the sea below.
Half a second later, Sophie snatched the first man’s gun from the deck and tossed it to Lea, who straight away checked it was loaded and raised it ready to fire.
“Lea, behind you!” Sophie gasped as two more men, also armed with submachine guns, appeared at the top of the stairs and began firing bursts in formation as they snaked their way down to the lower deck.
Lea spun around, gun raised. She aimed and fired. Her single shot struck the leading man in the throat and the force of it spun him around in a shower of arterial blood which sprayed up the side of the white yacht. He tottered over the rail and crashed into the top of the foulweather gear locker with a sickening crunch.