The Emperor Awakes (51 page)

CHAPTER 52

Limassol, Cyprus
Present day

The next morning, Katerina was having a quick coffee for breakfast and some toast. Vasilis had spent the night there for extra security. She had a lovely time with her parents the previous evening.

Her mother’s food was as delicious and finger-licking as ever and conversation flowed easily, which was surprising considering the cloud weighing heavily on everybody’s mind, the cloud that had Giorgos’ name splashed across it. She knew her parents put on a brave face for her sake, even though they were eaten with worry about her brother’s fate.

Katerina was accompanied in her breakfast by the television in the background, set on low volume. Katerina’s eye fell on the screen as it was showing the latest news. Suddenly the toast stopped on approach to Katerina’s mouth for another much-desired bite and floated mid-air. She leaned forward to pick up the remote control and raise the volume on the television.

“We have unconfirmed reports that businessman Andros Markantaskis and his wife Anna have disappeared. Police sources believe them to have been kidnapped during the night.”

Katerina spat out her last bite and ran to find Vasilis who was having a shower and listening to the news on the radio. He immediately rinsed himself in seconds and jumped out grabbing a towel and running out of the bathroom towards the kitchen dripping water all the way.

He almost collided with Katerina as he was reaching the entrance hall, a wet slippery trail running away from him like fuel that was in danger of being ignited. They both started speaking at once. Then Vasilis stopped and let Katerina go ahead.

‘Vasilis, it’s my parents. Just now on the news. They are missing.’

‘I know. I just heard it on the radio. It looks to me suspiciously similar to the other disappearances, or kidnappings I suppose we should call them now.’

Katerina was visibly distraught, but her usual practical self took over.

‘How could the media have found out so quickly? I believe that our original theory is correct. There’s no doubt now that the media are being deliberately fed this information. Do you realise that you, Elli, Iraklios, my grandmother and I are the only ones left? We need to go to my parents’ house before the police and the media get there, and see if we can find any clues as to what happened.

‘It is likely that the media, and perhaps the police as well, have had a head start on us, so they may be there already. And many of those who had not been forewarned, but who just heard the news will be congregating there to get their healthy dose of excitement and gossip. We need to hurry.’

Vasilis was speaking as he turned and headed towards the guest bedroom. ‘I’m coming with you. Give me five minutes to get dressed.’

‘I need five minutes myself.’ Katerina rushed to her bedroom.

Within exactly five minutes they were getting into the car on the ten-minute short drive to her parents’ house. When they parked outside eight minutes later and got out of the car they could see nothing suspicious from the outside.

Katerina took out the keys and unlocked the front door. She wondered about her parents’ hired help and whether any of them were there. She and Vasilis stood in the entrance hall, but heard only silence. Katerina moved to the living room, which was the room nearest to her.

She saw no sign of a struggle or a search. Everything seemed to be in its place. Then she went into her father’s study. At first glance it all seemed normal, until she noticed the letter opener on the floor and she saw her mother’s bag on the side table. Then she saw the door to her father’s safe hanging open.

With Vasilis they had a quick look round the study. She was about to move away from her father’s desk when she felt as if there was something there she saw but didn’t quite properly register and should go back for another look.

She looked at her father’s desk again and then she saw it. It was easy to miss. It was a scribble on a small notepad with detachable sheets near the corner of the desk close to the bookcase. It was in her father’s hand-writing.

There was the date of the previous day and the time 11.24 p.m. Underneath there was only one word: “Iraklios”. Vasilis had joined her and they looked at each other not knowing what to make of it at first. And then it hit them both at the same time and they said it almost in unison. ‘The traitor.’

They checked the rest of the house, but found nothing out of place or any other obvious clues. Vasilis was struggling to remember something that had been bothering him. Then it came to him. “Better safe than sorry”, he thought. He saw Katerina about to say something and he shushed her with his finger and indicated the front door. When they were outside he told her they could now speak.

‘I want to have the house checked for bugs. I’ll call my mother’s team.’

‘Vasilis, I don’t think there is any hope of finding out where my parents are, so I think we need to get to the castle. We should avoid Iraklios at all costs and try to warn the others when we see them. I was about to say we can do as much as we can without the others, but we can’t, can we?’

Vasilis nodded in agreement. ‘No, we can’t. There wouldn’t be any point to even attempt it. Remember the scroll. We will need the three icons. We will need to establish which ones are the two original Likureian icons. We will need the Emperor’s ring, a phial of Iakovos’ blood and Eleni’s dismembered body from Cappadocia. We will also need to figure out that structure and the traps.

‘We’ll need your brother and the others for that. I think I have an idea where they may be and I know how to get there. You are coming with me, because I think you will be of great help. Unless you object, I can also use you as bait to create a distraction.’ Vasilis paused, waiting for Katerina’s consent. She nodded her acceptance.

‘I will do whatever is necessary.’

Vasilis gave her an outline of the plan he had just devised.

‘We will not be going in alone. But first we need to pass by my mother’s house. I must tell you that we will be going to Le Mirabel, the Ruinands’ underwater city in Marathon Bay, North of Athens in Greece. For a while, recently, I was deliberately planted by my mother as a spy, and I got to know the place very well.

‘I have installed an extensive network of bugs recording practically everything going on in there and monitored from the specially set-up centre at my mother’s house. From there we can listen in on current and recent developments before we prepare our plan for the rescue.

‘I have also made contacts with local Ruinands inside the city who are my additional eyes and ears there. Once we have formulated our plan I’ll get word in to them to help us. Their assistance would be crucial to this mission.’

CHAPTER 53

Le Mirabel (Ruinand underwater city)
Marathon Bay, Greece
Present day

John Halland came round and tried to get his bearings. He struggled to get his head around what happened to him. His head was hurting. Still unsure of himself and his sanity, he woke up to survey his venerable prison.

He felt this unfamiliar space suffocating him and it wasn’t because of the shackles that had appeared on his legs and arms. He was desperate to scratch at the heart of the claustrophobic feeling that clutched at his throat and flowed down all the way to his lungs and squeezed his heart in its fist.

The place was bathed in almost total darkness. He could not make out any windows. He could only just about see what appeared to be solid walls. But however much he had tried he could not make out the total size of his prison cell.

Somehow it did not feel that small, though, in spite of the feeling of being trapped that his shackles and isolation gave him. He decided to conduct a simple test. He shouted. The echo travelled far and bounced around, hurting his ears and making the whole of him shake and, in combination with his chains, vibrate painfully.

He thought about repeating it until his chains and his body vibrated with the same resonance and came into sync and his shackles snapped. It was a wonderful idea in theory, but most likely impossible to put into practice.

The space sounded larger than he thought at first sight. He tried to get up and walk, but the chains resisted and pulled violently, straining and cutting into his wrists and legs and throwing him back down in agony.

There should be an opening somewhere, as the air smelled fresh and he could feel a welcoming breeze that offered some relief to his hangover-like head which felt about to explode. He thought that maybe his shouting would, hopefully, have invited a reaction by his captors, whose identity he did not know, and they would have paid him a visit.

It all happened so quickly in New York, that by the time he realised what had happened, he was already being knocked unconscious and it was too late to do anything about it, assuming he could. He waited, straining his ears to pick up a sound, but nothing happened. Nobody came in.

In his clouded and mushy mind everything was a blur. He suddenly recalled the dream he had so long ago now. He had no idea it would turn out to be a vision of his future. The only thing he knew was that he should think of something, anything, to extricate himself from this predicament.

He was staring intently at a point a few paces away from him, lost in his thoughts, when, as his eyes began to adjust to the dim light, he realised that he was looking at a strange lump. He focused his eyes further at that lump that at first glance looked like a sack of something or other.

Then he noticed that the lump was moving rhythmically up and down. Then it hit him. The lump was breathing. For a terrifying second he feared it might have been a large animal, a dog or something vicious, placed in there by his captors to guard him and keep him terrified and subdued.

But no, it was another human being, another “inmate”. He studied his fellow cellmate from a safe distance. It wasn’t out of caution. He had no choice really as he couldn’t move closer. The lump or body seemed slumped in an awkward position, as if thrown away as waste from an abattoir.

As John Halland was going in and out of consciousness, images and sounds came and went, people manhandling him, probably his captors, whispering and pointing. He caught a name: Giorgos … James. He was too confused to connect the name with the Giorgos he had met recently in James Calvell’s office.

He thought about his captors. What could he remember about them? How many were there? What did they look like? What did they sound like? What did they do? How far back could he go to remember, to make sense of what had happened to him. He looked again at the living dead lump near him and wondered what happened to that poor soul.

Where was he? Was it the underwater city he saw in another of his dreams? The name that crept into his mind was Le Mirabel, but he did not know where that came from, how he knew this. He looked back at his dreams that had troubled him for some time now.

He remembered another name, Aristo, and then another, that of an intimidating but gentle woman, Elli was it? Names flew off his mind like a trickle of a river starting at the source and then gaining volume and force as it flowed on its way to the sea, by then a growing unstoppable torrent.

It was names he did not recognise. Apart from “Valchern Corporation”. That was a familiar name. He had heard of that powerful company, its tentacles spread all over the globe, and its interest in the funding of archaeological expeditions, and not any old expeditions for that matter. All had a common theme: Byzantine relics and artefacts.

And there were rumours of the organisation’s famed collection of antiquities, relics, artefacts and other valuable objects, that not even the greatest museums of this world could rival. But they remained mere rumours. He had found no-one who had seen the collection to confirm its existence and provide details on its contents.

The lump stirred again. Suddenly he heard voices and they were coming closer. Then he saw a light approaching. He heard a noise at the far end of the room, a key turning, a bolt being removed. Then there was the echo of a light switch being flicked on and a bright light overhead flooded the space.

He could see that it was a huge cavernous space made of stone, coral and crystal. So those were the blinking lights he caught see from time to time. He could now get a better look of the lump near him. For the lump seemed to have woken up as if from the dead and sat cross-legged looking around dazed.

John could just about see that it was not an animal, but a man he didn’t recognise. The man’s face was badly bruised. He looked despondent and tortured, as if he had been through hell and back. The poor guy looked like a tramp dressed in rags, like a large-sized doll, lifeless and limp and dirty as if he had been doused by a bucket of mud or manure.

The man’s chest heaved and bounced up and down as if he was in the throes of an anxiety attack. Who was he? Then it came to him. It was difficult to tell at first who was hiding under all the layers of mucky make-up. But when he concentrated hard he saw that it was Giorgos, the archaeologist and friend of James. James … where was he, he wondered? Had something happened to him?

If he, John, was here captive, surely James must have been taken too? Perhaps James was also here. And with Giorgos here as well, there was only one explanation, one thing they had in common: the icon and the ring and that business with the last Byzantine Emperor.