Will Adams - The Lost Labyrinth

The noises started up again next door, making it impossible to think. He left the way he'd come in, through the gate and a little way down the street, then called Charissa on his mobile and filled her in on his day so far, on Nergadze and Nadya and now Antonius. 'Good grief!' she muttered when he'd finished. 'Things certainly happen around you, don't they?'

'I think I'm beginning to see it,' he told her. 'Your brother-in-law emailed photographs of the seals to a lot of people, including Antonius. He must have deciphered them himself and realised the implication. He's been struggling for money. I mean really struggling. So he tried to find people who'd pay for the information. Unfortunately, he went to a family called the Nergadzes.'

'This man you met earlier?'

'He's one of them, yes.'

'And you think they murdered him?'

'There has to be a chance.'

'Good Christ!' muttered Charissa.

'Will you call the police for me?' he asked. 'I don't fancy having to explain another death to them. And you'd better let Nico know too. Antonius was his friend.'

'I'll take care of it,' she promised. 'And look after yourself.'

'You know it,' he assured her.

The escarpment wall was so steep that Gaille felt queasy even where the path was relatively wide and the footing secure. But it wasn't all like that. Several sections were so treacherous with shale that she had to get down onto her backside and slide across. They came across a goat lying down on its haunches. It seemed to be sleeping, except for the trickle of blood from its mouth, the flies settling on it that scattered in a cloud as they approached. It did little for her confidence that even goats could fall and kill themselves on these cliffs. She looked squeamishly away as she stepped over it. But even that was nothing like as bad as when they came across a shrub growing sideways out of a crevice in the cliff-face, blocking most of the path. Iain simply grabbed it and swung himself around, as if oblivious to the toe-curling drop yawning beneath him. 'Piece of piss,' he assured her. 'You'll be fine.'

'I can't,' she said.

'Of course you can,' he said. 'If it will take me with my pack on, it'll take you for sure.'

'There has to be another path,' she said. 'Petitier can't have brought a mule down this.'

'Well, this is the path we're on.' He reached out for her. 'Here. I won't let you fall, I promise.'

She hesitated a moment more, then reached out and took his hand. His skin was dry and rough, but his grip was strong and reassuring. She took hold of the shrub with her other hand and swung herself around to the other side.

His eyes twinkled as he let her go. 'See,' he said.

'I just don't like heights. That's all.'

'I know.' He looked at the path ahead. 'But we'd better push on. This is taking longer than I thought.'

'I'm doing my best.'

'I know you are.' He turned and marched on down. The going thankfully grew easier. The sun nuzzled the western hills as they reached the foot of the escarpment; daylight subsided into dusk. They passed through a thin fringe of walnut trees out into the fertile heart of the plateau, fields separated by tumbledown stone walls, mottled by moss and lichen: vines, barley, tomatoes, groves of orange and lemon trees with their lush green leaves and young fruit glittering like exquisite jewels. Her legs were almost done, however, so it was an immense relief when, through the gathering darkness, she glimpsed the house ahead.

The dog came out of nowhere. It must have been asleep until they were almost upon it. But then it sprang to its feet and charged, a huge black-and-tawny German shepherd hurtling across the broken ground, its eyes fixed upon her. Iain didn't hesitate, he simply turned and fled, leaving Gaille to face it all by herself. She gave a piercing shriek of terror and threw up her arms to protect her throat and face as it bunched its muscles and leapt at her with open slavering jaws.

Night had fallen in Athens. The beautiful people had come out onto the streets. Pretty girls chattered into fashionably thin mobiles, while young men in leather jackets sat astride their fat motorbikes and roared their engines in approval, like bull moose in the rutting season.

Knox grabbed a chicken gyros at a fast-food restaurant and ate it standing up at one of their tables, hot juices trickling down his chin and forearm. What now? He dared not visit Augustin, lest the Nergadzes or the police be waiting; but he needed to let Claire know what had been going on, and find out the latest about his French friend too. He called the hospital, was put through to intensive care. 'He's still asleep,' Claire told him, when she came to the phone. 'But that's as expected. They've put him into a coma to stop the brain swelling. It's helped, I think. And his scans aren't as bad as they might have been. No fragments in his brain tissue, which is the main thing, so no immediate need for surgery.'

'That's terrific,' said Knox.

'He's not better yet,' she warned, trying to tamp down her own hopes, as well as his.

'Maybe not. But it's where getting better begins.'

'I suppose.'

'Listen, Claire,' he said. 'There's some stuff you need to know.' He told her about Gaille flying to Crete, about his talk, about Antonius, Nadya and the Nergadzes. He warned her to be vigilant, and not to leave the hospital unless she had to.

She seemed a little stunned when he was finished, as though she hadn't realised the world was still spinning outside the ICU. 'Daniel,' she said. 'I said some things last night…'

'Forget it.'

'I was upset. I didn't really mean anything.'

'I know that.'

'You won't tell Augustin, will you? When he recovers, I mean?'

'Of course not.'

'Only he'd never forgive me.'

'Are you kidding me, Claire? He'd forgive you anything. Besides, you were right. I should have been quicker. It was just such a blur, you know? I couldn't believe it was happening.'

'I know.'

He felt better once he'd finished the call. Energised. But to what purpose? He needed to sit down and think things through, make assessments and plans. His hotel was out. Nergadze knew he was staying there. He'd seen a 24-hour Internet cafe earlier, lit up like an amusement arcade, war noises pouring out, computer-gamers saving their electronic worlds. He walked back to it, took a booth in the shadows from which he could keep an eye on the door, then brought up a browser and began researching the Nergadzes. The more he learned, the more dismayed he grew. Their power, their obscene wealth, their flagrant flouting of the law. Pictures of them outside their castle and their Tbilisi mansion, boarding their private jet, arriving by helicopter upon their super-yacht.

But while Ilya and several other Nergadze men were very public figures, Nadya was right about how elusive Mikhail was. It was for a lack of better ideas that he decided to play around with alternate spellings. To his surprise, when he tried 'Michael Nergadse', he got a major pay-off, hundreds of links to Florida newspapers and blogs reporting on a recent tragedy. Arrest in missing schoolgirl case

A 29-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the disappearance of Fort Lauderdale schoolgirl Connie Ford. The 13-year-old, who hasn't been heard from for over six weeks, was last seen waiting for a bus in Oakland Park.

The arrested man, Michael Nergadse, is a native of the Republic of Georgia. He has been studying for an MBA at Florida State University for better than two years, though fellow students claim not to have seen him for weeks. Nergadse is also being linked with a separate incident earlier on that same day, when he is believed to have tried to persuade a different schoolgirl into his car, but drove off when a passing DHL courier noticed her distress and stopped to ask if she needed help. Missing schoolgirl case: suspect released