As the platform continued rising, Blaine cast his eyes about for a weapon of some kind. The only thing he could see was one of the high-powered bridge-painting devices lying just beyond his grasp. McCracken willed the feeling back into his left hand. Breath bottlenecked in his throat, and his oxygen-starved brain denied him focus. He grappled desperately for the nozzle, but it remained barely out of reach.
With loss of consciousness only moments away, and the dandy’s grip forcing his head downward, Blaine now saw that the control box for the ascending platform was just beside his left foot. He kicked out toward it, aiming as best he could. The OFF button depressed beneath the pressure of his shoe, and the platform jolted to a halt, left to the whims of the wind.
The abrupt stop loosened the dandy’s grip enough to allow McCracken to sweep down and out with his hand. He located the paint hose and closed his hand on the control nozzle.
The dandy screamed again and wrenched Blaine’s neck to secure the last of his lock.
“What do you see, sweetie? Look at death and tell me what you see….”
All in the same motion, McCracken got the nozzle up behind him and activated it. Orange paint flew out and swallowed the little man’s eyes, particles of it splashing back against Blaine’s shirt. The dandy released his grip and wailed horribly, hands flailing about his face.
“Why don’t you tell me what it looks like?” Blaine asked. Then, as oxygen flowed back into his lungs, he smashed his adversary twice in the stomach and once in the face.
The little man launched a wild blow in response. When Blaine ducked under it, the blow’s momentum carried the dandy’s upper body over the safety rail that rimmed the platform. McCracken threw himself at the little man with all his force and power, angling his thrust upward. The impact pitched the dandy headlong over the rail, still flailing for something to grasp when McCracken tossed him forward with a final burst of strength.
“Have a nice flight,” Blaine said as the little man’s snarling face disappeared toward the blue waters below.
McCracken saw him hit with a spraying splash and nothing more. Still, he stayed on the platform for a brief time, as if expecting the dandy to rise. When he didn’t, McCracken moved off, anxious to open the manila envelope that was still in his pocket and learn what inside it could have caused all this.
McCracken waited until he reached San Francisco International Airport before calling Sal Belamo from a private room in the American Airlines Admiral’s Club.
“Why do I always hate hearing from you?” the pug-nosed ex-boxer greeted him.
They had worked together on several occasions, although not so much recently since Sal had been appointed chief troubleshooter of the Gap, the organization Blaine had recently helped throw into a shambles. Belamo looked more like a cheap thug than the sharp operative he was, courtesy of an undistinguished boxing career that had left his face looking the worse for wear.
“Because you’re jealous of my charm and good looks.”
“You ask me, we spent too much time at the same salon, the both of us. What’s up?”
“Need you to check on someone for me. Hired hand. Little guy with lots of martial arts in his background….” McCracken provided as complete a description of the dandy as he could manage.
“Don’t have to go to the computer for that one, McBalls. Guy’s name is Billy Griggs, alias Billy Boy. One deadly son of a bitch. Hand specialist in more ways than one.”
“So I gathered.”
“Yeah, Billy Boy’s ’bout as queer as a three-dollar bill plus change. You whack him?”
“Sent him for a swim.”
“Your sake, I hope he doesn’t come up for air.”
“Five-hundred-foot dive off the Golden Gate.”
“You ask me, don’t count him out until the fish eat his eyeballs. Like to hear what he did in ’Nam?”
“Not really.”
“Dressed himself up as a gook, little shit that he was, and took Charlie out from the inside that way. Got himself transferred to Special Forces and even they couldn’t deal with him. What I hear, he went home and accepted his medal in gook makeup and black pajamas … you make of that.”
“Sorry I iced a war hero.”
“Don’t cry yourself to sleep. Griggs’s nickname over there was ‘Charlie Cat’ on account of he had so many lives. Plenty have tried to put him down before. None been very successful.” Belamo paused. “So what’s next?”
“You have someone meet me at Kennedy Airport with a passport complete with entry visa for Turkey.”
“Turkey?”
“Night flight to Istanbul, Sal.”
McCracken had inspected the contents of the manila envelope in the backseat of the cab that had taken him to the airport. Just a single sheet of paper, obviously a photocopy of something larger that had been reduced to a more manageable size.
It was a map, of all things!
Judging by the poor print quality, the original must have been old and tattered. The photocopy included handwritten instructions in German scrawled in the blank space near the bottom to further supplement the map’s directions. The site was Turkey, specifically the southwestern part near the Aegean Sea known to be rich in archaeological treasures:
Ephesus.
Chapter 6
Benson Hazelhurst’s jeep had threatened to give out on at least three occasions and had finally quit two miles from the find.
“Try it now, Daddy,” his daughter urged, pinching something with a pliers underneath the raised hood.
Hazelhurst turned the key, and the jeep’s engine grumbled, then shook to life.
“That’s got it,” Melissa said. She pulled out from under the hood and slammed it back into place.
“What would I do without you, Daughter?”
“Die of heat exposure, for starters. Want me to drive?”
“No need. We’re almost there. Driving will occupy my mind. I don’t think I could endure this last stretch without something else to concentrate on.”
Melissa Hazelhurst closed the passenger door behind her and frowned.
“Speak your mind, Melly,” her father urged.
Benson Hazelhurst was almost seventy years old now, but he still had most of his hair and much of the muscle of his youth. Hazelhurst had married a much younger woman thirty years back, and they had wasted no time conceiving their only child. Melissa had inherited her father’s greenish-blue eyes, and her auburn hair was the same shade his had once been. She was tall enough to have been taken for a model on numerous occasions and in good enough shape to have been mistaken for a professional swimmer and runner. Melissa’s mother had died when she was four and she had been paired with her father ever since.
“I think you’re getting your hopes up,” she warned. “That’s all.”
Hazelhurst pulled back onto the road. “I’ve seen that frown before. You don’t believe it exists, do you?”
“No,” Melissa admitted.
“I see,” her father returned, obviously hurt.
“I want to,” she tried to explain. “I mean, I’ve tried. But every time I start to believe, something pulls me back.”
“Reason, perhaps?”
“Yes, reason.”
“Then what about the claims of the Phoenicians, the ancient Egyptians, the Persians, and the old priests? Different cultures that all described virtually the same thing, all searching for it at different times through history.”
“And never finding it.”
“Not to our knowledge, anyway.”
Melissa slid her arm to her father’s shoulder. He stiffened slightly at the touch. “Father, I’ve never questioned or doubted you before. I’m not sure I am now. It’s just that, well, I know how much this means to you and I don’t want to see you disappointed.”