The Minoan Cipher (A Matinicus “Matt” Hawkins Adventure Book 2) (42 page)

The Maze must have had its inspiration in the caves their ancestors called home tens of thousands of years ago. As perverted as Lily and her followers were, they had been the jealous guardians of rituals and language born at the dawn of civilization. Kalliste couldn’t wait to write a scientific paper. She almost laughed at her presumptuousness. Here she was, trying to make her way through a gigantic puzzle deep in the earth, followed by a couple of toothy monsters, and she had herself practically accepting a Nobel prize in science.

According to her map, she was practically halfway through the Maze, approaching the large rectangle where the bull’s head had been drawn on the scroll. Because of the size and location of the space, Kalliste assumed that it might be the bull court Lily said was no longer used. She would make quick time across the open space, and pick up a passageway on the other side.

The lighted tunnel jogged to the right and the left, then ended abruptly. There was nothing ahead but pitch-black darkness. Not a pinpoint of light. She brushed aside fears of falling into yawning pits. She would let her eyes get used to the darkness, allow her senses to take over and try to move ahead in a straight line. Keeping her hands extended until she encountered the wall indicated on the map, she would then grope her way along the surface until she found the opening for the passageway.

She turned to check on her companions. They had disappeared. They must have fallen silently back as she approached the bull court. They were hideous creatures, but it wasn’t their fault. They had been bred as killers by humans who were the real monsters.

She took a tentative step into the darkness, then another and another. She moved with more confidence with each step, thinking that this was what a blind person experienced every day of his or her life. The lack of sight heightened her other senses. Her nostrils picked up a musty, damp smell. From somewhere came the sickly-sweet scent of rotting meat. Her heartbeat ratcheted up at the prospect of stepping on a dead animal that may have wandered into the court, but she continued resolutely on, arms waving in front of her like the antennae on an insect.

After a few minutes passed, Kalliste guessed that she might be halfway across the court, which is when she heard the scuffling noise from directly in front of her. She stopped and listened. A different sound echoed in the darkness.

Clop-clop.

The noise sounded like hooves on stone.

Then came a snuffle and a snort. She was not alone. An animal was moving around the unlit court. She froze. Her mind was whirling. She didn’t know whether to make a dash for the opposite wall or turn back to the portal she had entered. The decision was made for her. The clopping moved around behind her, and when she turned, two blazing red eyes blinked on in the darkness.

She began to run.

CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

Chad stared at his ruined face in the mirror. He had come to think of the pale mass of scar tissue as a fleshy version of the blank canvas a portrait artist would put up on an easel. But this was different. The identity he was about to assume belonged to Salazar, the man he most hated in the world.

He began to mold Salazar’s face over his own, improving on the hastily-assembled features that had got him past Auroch security. Tinted contact lenses took care of the eye color. Make-up hid the edge of the skullcap covering his hair. He evened out the flesh he’d added to his cheeks and chin. When he finished the transformation, he tried to replicate the distinctive voice.

Salazar said Chad had the tone and the inflections, but his impersonation lacked depth. Chad was soft-spoken, a holdover from his Army days. Special Ops were trained to speak quietly on a mission. Chad still spoke in his drowsy, half-stoned surfer’s voice, but his acting school voice lessons had come in handy. He had a wide range and he could fit the tone to the disguise of the moment.

He went through a series of vocal exercises that raised his speaking voice to a mellow tenor. His dry enunciation was impeccable. Although his impression lacked the brilliance that was part of Salazar’s natural speech patterns, he came close. He could elevate his voice a few octaves without sounding too feminine. His speech was penetrating but not loud.

“Is this some sort of joke?” he asked himself, painting his question with amused scorn.

Not bad. It was as far as he could go without putting himself through the same surgical procedure that had turned Salazar into a freak. He could never replicate the large bones of the rib cage that gave Salazar the added lung capacity to squeeze his powerful voice through vocal cords the size of a child’s. Nor would he want it.

Chad would make his move at the rendezvous with Salazar. When the Mercedes pulled up at the log house, he would get out of the SUV and draw his pistol from its sock holster. He would shoot Salazar first, then tend to his men. Chad had practiced the attack in his hotel room. Four quick pulls of the trigger. Bang-bang-bang-bang.

Salazar’s men were pros. They wouldn’t stand there with Shoot Me signs around their necks. They would fight back. He might die. He didn’t care. Maybe it was the loss of his girlfriend. Or maybe he had come to terms with the destructive uselessness of his life. A peaceful feeling had come over his mind since his decision to kill Salazar. He would do so no matter the cost.

Chad’s phone chirped. Speak of the devil.

“The time has come,” Salazar said. “We’ll pick you up at your hotel in thirty minutes.”

Chad took a deep breath and expelled the words through his constricted larynx. “I’ll be ready, Mr. Salazar.”

There was silence at the other end of the line, then Salazar said, “You’ve been working at it, I see.”

“You told me I had the tone and inflections. Now do I have the depth?”

“That would never be possible, but it’s close enough for our purposes. Thirty minutes.”

Chad hung up. Being in Salazar’s skin was creepy enough. Speaking in his voice was even worse. He got into his black running suit and tucked his pistol into the sock holster. He pulled the baseball cap low over his face and laced up his sneakers. He used the stairs to get to the ground floor and crossed the busy lobby with his head down. Anyone giving him a second look would see only a man dressed as if he’d been using the hotel’s fitness center.

The Mercedes SUV picked him up at the curb exactly on time. Salazar wasn’t in the vehicle. The rear door opened, a man emerged and motioned for Chad to get inside next to another of Salazar’s thugs. The first man got in after Chad, sandwiching him between two sets of wide shoulders and hard thighs.

The driver was the man called Bruno. No one spoke on the ride out of the city and into the countryside along the same route they had taken on the earlier trip. When the SUV stopped in front of the log cabin, his seat companions muscled him out between them. As soon as Chad’s feet hit the ground, one man enveloped him from behind in a bear hug. His companion bent over and plucked the pistol from its holster.

He jabbed Chad between the shoulder blades with the gun.

“Get moving,” he growled.

Salazar’s gorillas dragged him up the stairs and into the log cabin. Salazar was waiting in the living room. His man handed him the pistol. Salazar glanced at the gun, then tossed it into the cold fireplace.

“You won’t need your little toy for this mission,” Salazar said. There was derision rather than anger in his manner.

Chad decided to bluff it out. “No one said I couldn’t bring along some insurance.”

“True, but it would simply complicate matters.”

“You’re the boss, Mr. Salazar.” He turned to Bruno and gave him a lop-sided grin. “Must be getting careless. How’d you make me?”

“No-brainer. Your piece got picked up by a metal detector built into the framework of the front door. It’s got a link to my cell phone.”

Chad remembered the call Bruno had taken on the first visit to the cabin.

Forcing a chuckle, he said, “Guess things have changed a lot since my Special Ops days.”

“Guess they have,” Bruno said with a sneer lacing his voice.

Salazar raised his hand to signal an end to the discussion, then moved closer to Chad, examining him from a foot away like an entomologist studying a rare insect.

“Not bad at all,” he murmured. “The hairline is barely discernible. The eye color is almost right. What do you think, Bruno?”

“Dead ringer,” Bruno said.

Salazar stretched his lips in a wide smile. “Give me another demonstration of your vocal talents.”

Chad barked, “Why did you come here? Did you think I’d be amused by your antics?”

Salazar wrapped his arm around the shoulders of his body double and guided him to the door. “Now let’s put your skills to a real test.”

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

Calvin was twelve minutes overdue at the airport and to Abby that was an eternity. She went to shoot him a text but hesitated. Headlights were approaching at a high rate of speed. As the lights neared, she saw that they belonged to a truck. Someone was waving madly out of the driver’s window. The truck screeched to a stop and the door flew open. Calvin leaped out, a bright smile on his face, strode across the tarmac and gave Abby a hug that squeezed every ounce of anger from her body.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “Had to swing by Captain Santiago’s to borrow the truck. Where’s Matt?”

“He got the call from Lily Porter and drove into Cadiz to meet her and the professor. He doesn’t expect it to amount to much.”

“Mission’s still on as far as I’m concerned. When I told the captain we were headed to
La Mancha
he quoted a bon voyage from Cervantes. It’s been whirling around in my skull all the way to the airport.”

“I’d love to hear it,” Abby said.

“I’ll give it a try,” Calvin said. “ ‘May you come back sound, wind and limb out of this dreadful hole which you are running into, once more to see the warm sun which you art now leaving.’ ”

Abby laughed. “I’ll be glad when we
all
see the warm sun again.”

Calvin gave her a thumb’s up. He went over to the back of the truck, unloaded some boxes and laid out the contents on the tarmac.

Abby brought out her iPad and went down the list with Calvin. Black dry suits. Draeger rebreather units. Night vision goggles. Six M67 “baseball” grenades. Two tear gas canisters. A pair of Heckler and Koch machine guns with sound suppressors. Ammunition magazines. Two limpet mines. Dive knives. A compact raft that could be inflated in seconds. And miscellaneous equipment, such as radios, medical kits and wire cutters.

She stopped next to a long bag. “Planning to get in a round of golf?”

“That’s gator repellant,” Calvin said with a straight face.

Abby was responsible for making sure Calvin and Hawkins weren’t encumbered by even an ounce of excess gear.

“Is it necessary for the success of the mission?”

Calvin smirked. “Might be. If we run into any gators.”

Abby sighed and shook her head.

This was going to be a long night.

While the equipment was being checked out at the airport, Hawkins was driving across the city to meet with Lily and her professor friend. He hoped the professor had information that would help, but no matter what he said, Hawkins was certain he and Calvin would have to penetrate the castle defenses.

A SEAL mission goes through a standard protocol that starts with a problem to be solved. The platoon comes up with one or more solutions, operations and intel are brought in to massage the plan, and it goes to the commander. Upon his okay, the platoon comes up with an action schedule and collects the resources needed to carry the mission out.

Hawkins was commander and team leader. Calvin was operations and Abby was intel. This simplified things. They could move faster without the usual back-and-forth and negotiations that went with a full-blown SEAL mission. As far as combat forces go, the team was pretty pitiful.

To be successful, a SEAL operation must follow a simple rule.
Haul ass
. Get in, accomplish the mission and get out. Combat should be avoided at all costs.

The objective was to rescue Kalliste. He had figured out the
when
. Damned soon. But not the
where
. Kalliste could be anywhere in the Maze. He pictured the Maze drawing on the scroll. His brain fluttered. A thought flew around inside his skull like a bird in a cage.

He glanced at his watch. Traffic was heavy because of an accident. He was running late for his appointment with Lily at the University of Cadiz campus, and this delayed him even further. All he could do was sit behind the steering wheel and fume.

The Cadiz campus was in the old city, clustered in a warren of narrow streets, squares and plazas bordered on the waterside by Caleta Beach and Genovese Park. In the daytime, it was a shady oasis of palms, topiary cut trees sculpted in the shape of giant corkscrews, duck pools and bubbling fountains. At night, much of the park was in darkness.

Lily waited in the shadows of an unlit area under some tall palms.