Jeffrey Siger - Murder in Mykonos

'If you keep driving like this there won't be anyone left to catch him.' Tassos had his hand braced against the roof. The SUV was careening back and forth maddeningly close to the edge every time it hit one of the deep ruts cutting across the road.

About a quarter-mile past the church the road turned to the right and plateaued for about thirty yards before starting downhill. Andreas slowed down slightly and pointed across his body with his right hand. 'Over there, see, that's where the tunnel comes out, down on the other side of that hill.' It was about a half-mile away, another brown hillside flecked with green and gray.

Andreas knew he had to drive faster if there was any chance of catching them. He drove the motorbike onto the crumbling, rusting pier. There was no choice. The police would be there any minute, he was sure of it. His eyes scanned the cove and its ridges for any sign of them — or anyone else. It was, as usual, gray and deserted everywhere he looked. Gray from the color of the barite once loaded onto ships from this spot and deserted because of its ugliness. Even Boy Scouts from their camp in the cove just to the west never hiked here. Too much beauty elsewhere to bother with this place. That's why he chose to hide the boat here last night. It was a gray, medium-sized Zodiac inflatable — a common summer sight in the Aegean.

He put the girl down on the pier next to a rope tied to the Zodiac and pulled on the line until the front of the boat was close enough to slide her onto the bow locker. She slumped forward, obviously still out of it — despite forty-five minutes of bouncing along with him on the motorbike through the tunnel's maze of debris. He'd built the maze and other, more menacing surprises, to discourage the curious from his business inside — such as moats and dens baited with food for attracting feral dogs. They'd worked — at least until today.

He knew his DNA would be all over the tunnel, but that was only part of what police would find to tie it all to him. One of them, at least, would piece it together.

He pushed the motorbike to the end of the pier but hesitated before letting it fall. Maybe he should tie her to it and dump them both? Why wait any longer?

He stood perfectly still holding the bike, then abruptly opened his fingers and watched it fall into the sea. No, it wasn't yet time.

He got into the boat, undid the line, and started the engine. Annika was in front of him, lying on her belly with her head turned forward at the windiest part of the boat. He couldn't see her face but would be able to tell if she moved.

As he headed east out of the cove he kept looking back to shore, expecting any moment to see the police. They were less than a quarter-mile away when Andreas sped into a blind, descending, right-hand curve. Just beyond his line of sight the right wheels hit another deep rut, but this one ran parallel to the road — not across it — and channeled the SUV's wheels as if set on tracks. Andreas jammed on the brakes and twisted the steering wheel hard to the left — the perfect scenario for a rollover. But it didn't roll over because the rut wouldn't let go, and no matter how hard Andreas braked or steered, the SUV kept sliding head-on into — or over — the hillside, depending on where the rut took them.

The killer wasn't the only lucky bastard that afternoon. At least that's what Tassos was calling him when the SUV finally stopped. They'd hit the hillside, but only hard enough to be bruised.

Andreas jumped out and looked at the damage. 'It's not that bad. We can push it back onto the road.'

'Only if I drive,' said Tassos.

Andreas was angry only with himself, but his tone didn't show it. 'This is serious, we have to get there now.'

'I know, that's why I'm driving,' Tassos repeated.

Andreas didn't object, just gestured for the others to help push. It took five minutes before they sufficiently untangled and dug out the mess around the front wheels to get the SUV back on the road. It took another five minutes of careful driving by Tassos — and cursing by Andreas to go faster — before they reached an utterly impassable road. The cove they wanted was at the end of it. Tassos turned off the engine. 'The rest of the way's on foot.'

'If he came this way, we'd have seen him,' said one of the cops.

'Unless he was able to make it back to the main road and swing east before we got here,' said Tassos.

'He'd have to be on a motorcycle to do that,' said the same cop.

Andreas gave him a sarcastic look and started running toward the cove. 'Stop all this bullshit and let's get down there.'

They'd parked just west of a cluster of deserted, one-story, gray concrete-slab buildings. About 150 feet to the west, on an adjacent hillside, was a mine-shaft entrance covered over with weather-battered boards and warning signs marked DANGER. Everywhere and everything was gray. The place looked abandoned to ghosts.

Tassos was moving more like a scurrying duck than a runner. 'That was the mining company's offices.' He pointed to the buildings. 'Looks sort of like someone nuked the place, doesn't it?'

The road was utterly unusable, so Andreas and the two younger cops led the way traversing the hillside, more sliding than running. They came to a narrow plateau covered with thousands of spent shotgun shells and pieces of broken black and blaze-orange ceramic. They kept running but Andreas yelled back to Tassos, 'What the hell is this?'

Tassos was panting. 'It's where locals do skeet and trap shooting' — he caught a breath — 'practicing for bird and rabbit hunting.' Again he paused. 'It's the only place deserted enough not to worry about hitting tourists sunbathing in the bushes.'

Just beyond the shooting range they met back up with the road and followed it for a few hundred feet between two hillsides. It looked like it was about to end at a cliff falling off into the sea. Instead, at the very edge of the cliff the road made an unexpected hairpin turn back onto the hill to the right and ran a steep two hundred yards straight down to the cove. Andreas stopped at the turn. You could see it all from there: the mine entrance, the beach, the pier, the sea.

'Looks like we're late again,' said Andreas.

'Maybe he's not here yet. Maybe he's still in the mine,' said one cop.

Andreas pointed to motorcycle tracks running from the mine to the pier. 'Maybe, but I doubt it.'

Tassos finally caught up to them. 'Looks to be something yellow in the water at the end of the pier.'

Andreas looked. 'I'll take the men down for a look around. Why don't you stay here and watch our backs for anyone who might come along.'

Tassos smiled. 'Thanks. I wasn't looking forward to hiking down there and back.'

Andreas winked and started down. The sunlight was blinding. Annika's eyes weren't used to it. She could sense the sea. Everything was moving faster now, not just jolts and vibration like before. She could feel the breeze growing stronger. Her face was right into the wind, but hard as she tried, she couldn't smell it, couldn't breathe through her nose. She tried to taste it. It was whipping its way between her lips, forcing her to breathe more deeply. It wasn't hard for Andreas to guess that whoever came out of the mine had been riding the motorbike now lying off the end of the pier; but where did he — hopefully they — go? The logical explanation was a boat, but that meant the killer had one waiting for him. Did that mean an accomplice? Maybe they'd walked to another car or bike nearby?

He told his men to search along the shore for footprints coming out of the water. Sure enough, they found a pair of man-sized sandal tracks on the end of the beach farthest from the road. Andreas told one man to stay by the mine entrance — just in case — while he and the other cop followed the tracks. They led along the shore, out of the cove and around to another small beach.