Will Adams - The Lost Labyrinth

'Nothing there?' echoed Mikhail. He turned to Knox with a frosty smile. 'Could you explain that to me, please.'

'They missed it,' said Knox. 'They must have missed it.'

'Of course.'

'It's there,' insisted Knox. 'Take me and I'll show you.'

'We looked everywhere,' said Boris. 'It's not there.'

'You lied to me,' said Mikhail, pushing Knox back down onto the floor of the van, switching around his grip on the knife, the better to cut rather than stab. 'I warned you what the penalty for lying would be.'

'I didn't lie,' insisted Knox. 'Your men missed it, that's all.'

'No,' stated Mikhail. 'You lied.'

'I thought the fleece mattered to you,' said Knox. 'Are you going to give it up so easily, just because your guys can't find the right fucking bush?'

'There is no right bush,' said Boris.

'Let me show you,' pleaded Knox. 'For Christ's sake, what harm can I do while I'm trussed up like this?'

Mikhail nodded, to himself more than to Knox. 'I want you to understand something,' he said. 'If you're lying to me, you'll die and the woman Nadya will die. You already know that. So let me add this: your girlfriend Gaille will die too.'

'No,' said Knox weakly.

'Yes,' said Mikhail. 'I'll find her and then I'll fuck her and then I'll kill her. You have my word on it.'

'She has nothing to do with this,' protested Knox.

'She does now,' stated Mikhail. 'You just made sure of it. Unless, of course, you want to change your mind and admit there is no key.'

A moment of silence, as Knox struggled against his fear; but the instinct for self-preservation was too strong for him. It seemed it hadn't been an aberration, him standing by while Augustin had been attacked; it was who he was. 'It's there,' he said. 'I swear it is.'

'Very well.' Mikhail turned to Davit. 'Untie his legs. Put your jacket over his shoulders. I don't want anyone seeing his cuffs.'

'Yes, sir.'

Mikhail and Boris got out and came round to the back, opened the doors. Davit kept his hand on Knox's shoulder as they climbed out. He was surprised that so much of the day had passed that dusk was already falling. All around them, lights were coming on. Mikhail pressed his knife hard into the soft flesh beneath Knox's ribcage, angled upwards at his heart. 'Don't even think about calling for help,' he warned. 'You'll be dead before you can fill your lungs.'

They walked along a narrow strip of grass between the parked vehicles and the waist-high hedge, the Georgians interposing themselves between Knox and the few people around. Not that they were looking his way, all too focused on their own business. A man kissed his sweetheart farewell. Another heaved suitcases into his boot. Mikhail kept his knife-tip pressed so hard against Knox's stomach that he could feel the blood trickling. And still he walked. All those documentaries he'd watched over the years, grainy footage of half-naked starving prisoners being herded into trees: it had bewildered and frustrated him that they'd gone so quiescently to their death. Fight, run, spit in their guards' faces. Something, anything. How much worse could it get? Now, here he was, doing the same. And, to make matters worse, he'd betrayed Gaille first, just for this wretched extra minute. The thought was brutal and bitter. His pace faltered, he drifted to a halt.

'Well?' asked Mikhail. 'Is this the place?'

The symbols chiselled into the various rocks matched clusters on the reverse of the Phaistos disc. There was no question. At least, the only question was what it signified. Gaille brooded on it for a minute or so, but without coming to any firm conclusions. Perhaps Iain would have some ideas. She set the disc aside, went back to the shelves, chose a folder at random from one of the many wire racks. It proved to contain photographs taken inside a cave, of several niches filled with crude votive offerings; pre-Minoan from the look of them, though she was no expert. A second folder chronicled the excavation of a pit perhaps a metre long by half a metre wide. It included standard archaeological photographs of various finds in situ, with a wooden ruler next to them to show scale, and a file-card with a date and reference number, presumably cross-referenced to the boxes.

She looked through several more of the folders, found one with pictures of the escarpment face. She was about to put it back when she noticed something incongruous, and so she took it into better light. Yes. There was a man in a dark shirt and jeans crouching in the dappled shade of a tree halfway up. She squinted more closely, but he was too distant from the camera to be recognisable. But one thing was clear: Petitier had been under surveillance, and he'd known himself to be. No wonder he'd got spooked. No wonder he'd tried to pre-empt discovery by coming clean.

She put the folder back. It seemed they were in date order, so she decided to start with the most recent. One of the first folders she opened contained another set of pictures of the man hunkering down, though in different clothes and on another part of the escarpment. But these were of a different order of clarity, focused and sharp, almost as though Petitier had been sufficiently spooked to invest in a telephoto lens. In the first shot, the intruder was looking through his field-glasses, so she couldn't see his face. But in the second his features were all too easily recognisable. Her legs went a little weak on her, she had to reach out for the shelving to steady herself.

It was Iain.

It wasn't premeditated. It wasn't planned. Something simply switched inside Zaal as he watched Mikhail and the others shepherding Knox along the verge, none of them even looking his way. Four million euros on the passenger seat. Four million! His mouth began to water and just like that he knew he was going to do it.

Nadya must have sensed it; there was exhortation in her eyes when he turned to her, willing him on. He gave her a sheepish grin, feeling something akin to gratitude. He let go of the belt so that it hung loose around her neck. 'Go on, then,' he said, unlocking the door for her.

'Good luck,' she said, shuffling along the seat, opening it.

'You too.' He turned on his ignition and his headlights, then waited until she was out before setting sedately off towards the exit, not wanting to draw attention to himself, willing Mikhail and the others to keep looking the other way long enough for him to complete his getaway.

He might have made it, too, had Nadya not begun to scream.

Mikhail read the truth in Knox's eyes. There was no key. There never had been. He felt the serene rage he often felt before a kill. He clamped his left hand over Knox's mouth to prevent noise, then drew back his knife-hand and was about to stab him when a woman behind him began to shriek. He turned to see Nadya screeching and pointing, while behind her a black Mercedes headed for the exit. Knowledge of Zaal's betrayal filled him instantly; he understood it all. Nadya paused to take in a deep breath, then screamed again. All around, people started looking towards her, then following her finger. Two security guards hurried from the main terminal building. For the shortest moment, Mikhail almost succumbed to the urge to kill Knox, just to release his anger; but the security guards were already too close. Personal experience had taught him that there was always a window of confusion in situations like these. The key was having the nerve to seize it. He turned the knife around so that its blade was flat against his wrist, then made as if he was tearing himself free and ran towards the guards, waving and pointing back at Boris, Davit and Knox. 'They've got guns,' he shrieked. 'They're armed. Terrorists! Terrorists!'