Marjorie Thelen - The Forty Column Castle

“I have a feeling,” I said, “the authorities know exactly what we are doing, that they haven’t picked me up because you are one of them. You have been lying double time all along.”

He shrugged and smiled wearily. “I could use some sleep and a shower and shave.” He rubbed his hand over the stubble on his face. “How about you?”

I smiled at him. “What hotel this time?” The grit in my eyes was the size of boulders, and my dress was all over wrinkles. “I could use some freshening up myself.”

He helped me up. “You pick the place. How about we crash, and when we’ve slept it off, I’ll tell you what we’re going to do to find Berengaria’s jewels.”

“Isn’t someone watching the airport for the American couple?” I asked, playing my hunch.

“No one is watching the airport. They’ve escaped to the Turkish side. That’s how they smuggle the goods for their terrorist friends. They’ll be back. While we’re waiting, let’s get some sleep.”

“Sounds heavenly to me.”

We ended up in a modest, clean establishment after stopping to buy me yet another outfit of shorts, top, and undies.

“You mind if I make a call?” I asked.

We had not turned on any lights. The curtains were closed, creating a false, cool dimness. He was lying on the bed naked after a shower and could barely keep his eyes open.

“Don’t call Yannis. Don’t bring him into this. I know you want to protect him. I’m hoping no one has figured out the connection and gone by his house and done something stupid.”

“You mean someone would?”

“I said I hoped no one would but if you want to protect him, don’t call. Yes, he’ll be worried, but your aunt knows you are okay. At least we know she’s okay.”

“Right.” I put down the receiver.

I stood under the shower head for a long time, the lukewarm liquid splashing over me, feeling the water slide over my body, wishing it could wash away all the bad memories. By the time I collapsed beside him on the bed, he was snoring softly.

I glanced at the clock. Nine A.M.

In the far recesses of my sleep encrusted brain I heard a click. I opened my eyes to a dark room. The clicking sound came again. Zach was not on the bed. I scanned the room. The time must have been close to sundown because dim light outlined the floral pattern in the curtains that covered the windows. I shifted up on one elbow and wished I had put something on to sleep in. I hated the thought of facing a new crisis in the buff.

Damn Zachariah Lamont if he had skipped out on me again. I searched for my shorts and top and in the process saw with a leaden heart that Zach’s things were gone.

The clicking sound came again.

I pulled on shorts and top and listened. The sound was coming from the door. It sounded like someone was in the hall outside my door, trying to pick the lock. I couldn’t see if the deadbolt was on. On more careful scrutiny I found there was no deadbolt, just a simple hotel door with a button lock on the door handle. I couldn’t remember locking it.

As carefully as a tomcat backing away from a bigger tom, I picked up my purse, found my sandals and tiptoed to the window. At least we were on the ground level this time. As I was trying to crank open the window wide enough to crawl through, the door swung open.

“Don’t move.”

The voice was female, low, hard.

I froze.

The light from the hall outlined the figure of a tall woman with a gun in her raised hand.

“Who are you?” I managed to get out of my constricted throat.

“I ask the questions,” she said and motioned with the gun toward the center of the room. “Over there.”

I held up my hands, I didn’t know why, maybe I had seen too many Westerns. Maybe I wanted to show her I was unarmed.

“Where’s Lamont?”

“He was gone when I awoke.”

“Deserted you, did he?”

I shrugged and tried not to bristle at the ugly broad. “Move toward the door.”

The gun spoke louder than the thousand protests I wanted to make.

“There’s a blue Maruti outside. You are going to get into it without any trouble. I’ll be right behind you and remember I have a gun.”

I nodded.

Outside the last light of sunset turned the air to rose and gold. The battered old Maruti stood at the curb. I got into the passenger seat in the front, the one the dark skinned driver indicated with his hand. The motor was running. The woman climbed in the back. She was broad hipped, clad in baggy jeans and a blue blouse knotted over an unbecoming belly. Her stringy, brown hair was caught back in a scarf. Her tan was the kind that made the face leathery.

My hopes turned to stone. There was no sign of the blue SUV Honda in the parking lot. My situation brought to mind the saying seduced and abandoned. Somehow it wasn’t funny.

We took off down the highway, away from Pafos, onto the road north to Polis. We turned west onto the road to the Tombs of the Kings. My claustrophobia went into overdrive. I had been in the tombs before or rather I had waited outside while my companions explored the dark and gloomy interiors. The tombs encompassed seven different groups of underground tombs dating from the third century BC and were thought to be the burial place of Roman noblemen. I had a feeling I might be exploring them tonight.

We bumped over the road to the tombs as the last of the tourists drove past us, going in the opposite direction, taking my hopes with them. I tried to study the profile of the driver with my peripheral vision. He was small and had the seat up close to the steering wheel which he clasped with large knuckled hands. He had to be the one who had been watching us all along. There was no top to this old Jeep style vehicle. The bangs of his military hair cut stood up in the wind. His clothes were unremarkable and frayed on the cuffs. He looked like the street people that I had seen on my trips to Jerusalem. Would that he were not a suicide bomber.

In some ways I didn’t care where they were taking me. None of it could be good. Zach was gone. Again. Maybe to protect me, maybe to give me the freedom he wanted me to have. I wondered what Miss America in the back seat wanted with me. If she had the jewels like Zach thought, maybe she needed me dead. On the other hand if she didn’t have the jewels and if she hadn’t caught Zach, I might be the ticket she used to get them. I hoped her methods didn’t involve anything with razor blades or electricity.

The setting for the tombs was another spectacular performance by the Cyprus Great Views Department. From the cliffs where the tombs were carved out of rock, you could stand on top and look out to sea. The tombs themselves were built around courtyards with colonnades and open to the sky. You stood on the rocks that made up the roofs and looked down into them or walked down steps that led to a labyrinth of holes and niches that served as the tombs. A person could get lost in those passageways.

The driver jerked the Maruti to a halt, and the woman jumped out.

“Move.” She pulled open my door and motioned for me to exit. “Wait here,” she said to the driver. “If anyone comes and questions you, you’re watching the sunset.

My heart sank into the tombs. I looked around for help of any kind. No guard to be seen, only cars driving away, leaving me with a mad woman.

“Hurry,” the woman said and gave me a nudge toward the most isolated of the tombs. I started walking, trying not to stumble on the uneven rock surfaces.

“Down those stairs and don’t try anything funny. I have the gun, and I will use it.”

Reluctantly, I started down the remains of a stairway into a hole in the ground. Nausea started in my gut and rose into my chest like black bile, bitter and unrelenting. Panic I could no longer keep at bay. From behind me the beam of light from her flashlight illuminated the stairs that the darkness enclosed. I yelped as a fluttery creature exited the black hole.