Athens Affair, page 16
Demopoulos gave her a purely evil smile. “My old friend Louis wants what I want—the treasure. I have my spies watching his every move. I was arranging my own heist. Louis just happened to move on the scroll before I could, which made it easier for me by acquiring it from his thief.”
The older Demopoulos paced the floor of the living area, frowning heavily. “It was easy until you and your boyfriend tricked my son into bringing you into my home. Did you have to drug him?”
“I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I only want my son back,” Jasmine insisted. “Bertolli is holding him hostage until I bring him the scroll.”
“Yes. Yes. Your son.” He turned to face her. “Your boyfriend probably absconded with the scroll. If he knows of the treasure, he’ll keep it. If not, he could sell it on the black market for a lot of money. Now you have no scroll and no son.”
“My guy doesn’t care about the scroll,” Jasmine said. “He’s helping me free my son. He’s probably taking it to Bertolli as we speak.”
Demopoulos’s frown sank even lower. “If he trades the scroll for your son, he will have nothing with which to negotiate your freedom.”
Jasmine lifted her chin and stared at the Greek. “All the more reason to get to Bertolli before my man makes that trade.”
Demopoulos stared down at Jasmine, where she sat tied to the chair. A few seconds passed before the crime boss spun on his heels. “Take this woman to the SUV,” he said to the man with the bloody nose.
As the man approached her, he flipped out a switchblade knife and pressed it to her throat.
“No, you can’t kill her,” Demopoulos said. “Not until we have that scroll.”
The man with the knife snarled at Jasmine, walked around the chair and sliced through the ropes securing her wrists, nicking her with the sharp blade.
Jasmine bit down on her bottom lip to keep from crying out. She pushed to her feet and brought her hands in front of her.
He’d nicked the inside of her left wrist. Blood dripped from the cut.
She covered the wound with her other hand to stem the flow.
The bloody nose man grabbed her elbow and marched her toward the front door.
As she passed Demopoulos, he was on the phone, speaking low and fast.
Jasmine could swear she heard him say something about bringing an RPG. She suspected he was talking to a local who could sell him contraband weapons. Or he could have contacted one of his guys guarding his plane to bring whatever weapons he had on board.
But an RPG? She hoped the man wasn’t going to fire it at the house where her son was being held hostage.
The grip on her arm tightened as she was shoved out the door.
She glanced around. The only person she had to worry about was the man with the bloody nose. She didn’t see his other men.
Then again, they could be hiding in the shadows, ready to take her down should she try to escape.
Knowing it could be suicide, she spun to face the big man holding her elbow and kneed him in the crotch.
The man hunched over, groaning.
His fingers slipped just enough for Jasmine to jerk her arm free of his grip.
She tore out, racing past the SUV and out into the street.
She hadn’t gotten three yards before four men emerged from the shadows and converged on her.
Jasmine braced herself, ready to take on all four men.
They stood back as the man she’d just kneed in the groin marched into the center of them and grabbed her arms. She tried to break his grip by shooting her hands up through the gap between them.
The man wasn’t letting go.
She tried kicking him, but he held her at arm’s length away from him, his grip so tight it hurt.
He nodded toward the men standing around.
One of them approached and reached for her ankles.
Jasmine thrashed her legs, refusing to let him snag her ankles.
Another man hurried forward and grabbed her right leg. The other guy grabbed her left leg and yanked her feet out from under her.
They secured her legs with a zip tie and dropped her feet back to the ground.
Then, bloody nose guy let go of his grip on her arms, grabbed her wrist, and twisted it up behind her.
With her legs bound at the ankles, Jasmine could only spin around.
Between the three men, they secured her wrists behind her and tossed her belly down onto the back seat of the SUV.
She struggled to turn and sit upright, only managing to fall onto the floorboard in the process.
When Demopoulos joined her, he snorted softly. “You’re lucky they didn’t kill you.”
“A girl’s got to at least try to escape,” she muttered.
“I don’t know why you’d bother. I’m taking you to see your boyfriend. How that turns out is up to you and him. If he gives me the scroll, I’ll give you to him. If he’s already handed over the scroll to Bertolli, I’ll have all of you killed and take the scroll.”
Jasmine lay still on the floorboard. He was right; she didn’t need to fight him. Not if he was taking her exactly where she wanted to be.
Where she’d find her son and Ace—if he was carrying out his promise to free her son.
The driver pulled away from the small house and raced through the city streets.
At one point, he slowed to a stop.
Demopoulos got out, leaving the back door ajar.
They were in a parking lot. A car stood beside the SUV.
The back hatch opened on the SUV, and something was laid inside.
A shiver of fear rippled through Jasmine. As she shifted to get into a better position, her bonds brushed against something smooth and cool. Could it be the knife she’d dropped earlier?
She ran her fingers across the sharp edge.
It was. She almost cried with her relief.
Demopoulos shut the back door without getting in. The front passenger door opened. The Greek crime boss got in and murmured something to the driver. Then he leaned over the seat and stared down at Jasmine. “Soon, you’ll be reunited with your son. If not alive, then in death.”
Not if she could help it.
Jasmine gripped the knife behind her back and sawed as best she could at the zip tie.
The driver set the SUV in motion and drove a long way. Soon, the vehicle was climbing and maneuvering around tight curves.
All the while, Jasmine worked at breaking the zip tie binding her wrist. At last, it broke, and her hands were free.
She brought her knees up to her chin and worked on the zip tie around her ankles. She was able to break through it far easier.
Free from bondage, all she had to do was wait for Demopoulos to reach Bertolli and pray Bertolli hadn’t harmed her son. Better yet, she hoped Ace would get her son out before Demopoulos arrived with the RPG.
The SUV climbed up into the mountains and slowed to a stop.
Both the driver and Demopoulos got out, leaving the front doors open.
Jasmine sheathed her knife and dared to sit up to study her surroundings.
Demopoulos stood beside the man who’d thrown her into the SUV.
Another SUV was parked behind the one Jasmine was in. Four men stood beside it.
With these five men and Demopoulos, there were six men ready to storm Bertolli’s estate.
The man with the bloody nose raised an RPG to his shoulder.
Jasmine tensed. If she wanted to make a break for it, she should do it when he fired the rocket propelled grenade.
She climbed up onto the back seat and tested the door handle. It was locked again with the child safety lock.
While Demopoulos and his guys were all focusing on the RPG, Jasmine got ready to make her way to freedom.
The man with the RPG adjusted his position, aimed and fired toward a gate.
Jasmine crawled over the console.
A loud explosion sounded.
Jasmine slipped out the open door of the SUV, dropped to the ground and crawled on her hands and knees toward the side of the road. No one shouted or came running toward her.
She crept behind a bush, looked for the next shadow and launched herself toward it, running fast to put as much distance as she could between herself and Demopoulos’s men.
A shout sounded behind her, but she didn’t slow down.
When she looked back, the SUVs were moving toward a hole where the gate had been.
Jasmine lay low until the vehicles rolled into the compound.
She scanned the area where the SUVs had been parked, searching for anyone Demopoulos might have left behind.
Nothing moved.
Shouts sounded from inside the wall. Several bursts of gunfire echoed in the darkness.
Her heart hammering, Jasmine ran toward the gate, desperate to find Eli before he was caught between the two warring factions.
She eased up to the hole in the wall and peered around the ragged edges toward the house sitting on the hilltop.
Inside the compound, the SUV doors were open, and the vehicle appeared empty.
Jasmine darted through the opening and into the compound, clinging to what shadows she could as she made her way toward the house.
Where was Eli? Was Ace here? Had he gotten to Eli and moved him somewhere safe?
She had to know and had no way to contact Ace for confirmation.
Gunfire sounded from inside the house.
Her pulse was pounding so loud inside her ears that Jasmine could barely hear anything else.
She focused on calm, breathing in and out, until she was in control. Then she ran toward the house, coming at it from a side with a garden. She ran along the twisting path through bushes and flowers until she reached a set of French doors. A pile of broken slats and vines lay on the ground, partially blocking access to the door.
Jasmine twisted the handle. It was locked.
More gunfire sounded.
She glanced around, found a decorative stone about the size of a soccer ball and tossed it through the glass beside the handle. The sound of the crash coincided with more gunfire, muffling the sound of the splintering glass and the loud thump of the stone hitting the floor.
Footsteps sounded through the broken glass.
Jasmine ducked back a little and peered through the other glass panels on the door.
A man carrying a rifle stepped through the door at the opposite end of the room. He looked around, pointing his gun as he went. When he paused in front of the stone and looked at the broken window, Jasmine eased back, away from the door.
If the man came out, she’d launch herself at him, knock him down and take his weapon.
A shout from deeper inside the house made the man turn and run out of the room, back into the corridor.
Hunching low, Jasmine moved back to the door, reached her hand through the broken glass and twisted the deadbolt.
She carefully brought her arm back through the glass and pushed the door open.
Walking lightly over the broken glass, she hurried to the other side and peered around the doorframe into a hallway.
More gunfire sounded at the rear of the house.
Jasmine eased through the rooms nearest her, searching for any sign of her son and finding none.
With the fight going on toward the opposite end of the house, she headed for the staircase. A man lay crumpled at the base of the staircase, blood pooling beneath him, his eyes open, staring into space. Dead.
Jasmine’s stomach roiled. She hurried past the dead man and climbed the stairs to the second floor. She moved from one room to the next.
The first room she came to was directly over the one through which she’d entered the house. It was a small room with comfortable chairs and large picture windows—and no indication that her son was there.
She went through a door on the side of the sitting room and entered an office. A large desk sat in the middle of the room. Bookshelves lined the walls, along with glass cases containing ancient artifacts. The desk had a map of Egypt and its surrounding countries lying across the wooden surface.
The map and artifacts had to be Bertolli’s efforts thus far in locating the hidden treasure.
Jasmine walked from that office back out into the hallway and entered the room beside it.
The massive bed in the center barely filled the huge room. There was a chaise lounge in one corner, a table and chair by the window and a long low dresser against a wall.
She hurried through to the adjoining bathroom with its marble tile floor, a free-standing tub and a shower.
It had to be the master suite. Not a place where he’d hold a little boy hostage.
Jasmine left the bathroom, crossed the bedroom and moved on to the next.
This door was locked.
How she wished she had her file to pick that lock. Instead, she looked around for a key. She ran her fingers over the top of the doorframe and felt something cool and hard.
The key.
She fit the key into the lock and turned it. The lock clicked, and she was able to open the door.
A sound close by made her step through the door and close it most of the way. When she turned, she found a much smaller room than the master suite. This one had a single bed pushed up against the wall. She crossed to it and found her son’s favorite blanket that had gone missing with her son. She dropped to her knees and looked under the bed, praying her boy was hiding there like he did when he had bad dreams.
Eli wasn’t there.
As she rose to her feet, she swallowed hard to keep from sobbing aloud as she clutched the blanket to her chest. She felt the bed. The sheets were still warm.
Where was Eli?
A noise outside in the hallway made her tiptoe toward the door and wait beside it.
Footsteps came closer and stopped in front of the door.
A man carrying a rifle pushed the door open with the barrel of his weapon. When he stepped inside, Jasmine didn’t move until he was fully through the door. Then she jumped him from behind, slung the blanket over his head and face and shoved him hard. At the same time, she hooked a foot in front of him.
He fell to the floor. His rifle clattered free, sliding across the wooden floor out of his reach.
The man lay still, out cold.
Jasmine leaped onto his back, yanked the blanket free from his head and used it to tie the man’s hands behind his back. She made sure to pull the knot tight enough he couldn’t easily free himself.
She grabbed the sheet off the bed and used it to tie the man’s ankles. If she wasn’t mistaken, it was the man whose nose she’d broken.
Jasmine grabbed the gun, pointed it at the man and hesitated. She wasn’t there to kill anyone. She was there to free her son.
She left the room, closed the door and turned the key in the lock. Then, she removed the key from the lock and stuffed it into her pocket.
Then she turned, not knowing where to go. Her son had been in that room recently, or the bed would have been cool to the touch.
She continued down the corridor toward the back of the house and the sound of men shouting at each other.
A set of double doors was opened wide, leading out onto a tiled patio larger than all of Jasmine’s apartment back in Tel Aviv.
Two bodies lay at odd angles in front of the door. Both men were dead.
Jasmine squatted down behind the bodies and looked out at the open doors.
The gray light of dawn had just begun to lighten the darkness.
Three men stood close to each other at the far end of the patio.
The one in the middle made Jasmine’s heart pinch hard in her chest.
Ace.
Demopoulos stood on one side, leveling a gun at Ace.
The other man had to be Bertolli. He, too, held a gun pointed at Ace.
Ace held his backpack out over the railing, his face tight and angry.
“If you try to shoot me or come another step closer, I will drop the copper scroll over the cliff,” Ace said. “I’ve seen it. It’s delicate and will not survive the landing.”
Bertolli held out his hand. “No, no. Do not destroy it,” he said in English, heavily laced with his Italian accent. “The scroll is the key.” In his other hand, he held a pistol. “Give it to me. I am the only one who can decipher its message.”
“No, you must give it to me,” Demopoulos said, also in heavily accented English. “If you do not, I will have your lover killed.”
“I don’t believe you have her,” Ace said. “I want proof of life.”
“If you give it to him,” Bertolli said, “I’ll kill Jasmine’s son.”
Ace shook his head. “You won’t. Because you don’t have him anymore.”
Bertolli frowned.
“He’s safely away from your compound.” He turned to Demopoulos. “I want proof that Jasmine is still alive, or this box hits the rocks below.”
“If you drop the scroll, we will shoot you,” Demopoulos said.
“If you’ve killed Jasmine, I won’t care. It took me four years to find her. If she dies, I have nothing left to live for. So, if you’re going to shoot me, I won’t give a rat’s ass. And I could care less about the copper scroll. It’s been nothing but trouble. It won’t break my heart to lose my grip on the box.”
Jasmine glanced at the other four men standing on either side of the patio, each representing their bosses. Each aiming at the one opposite them.
She dropped to the prone position, stretching out on her belly in the shadowy interior of the house. She laid the barrel of the rifle she’d confiscated over the body in front of her and pressed the stock to her shoulder.
They hadn’t spotted her yet, and, hopefully, they wouldn’t until after she did what she had to do.
Chapter 15
Ace held the backpack over the edge of the cliff. Demopoulos had yet to prove Jasmine was still alive.
To Ace, that made him think Demopoulos had already killed her or she’d escaped.
He prayed she’d escaped and wouldn’t come anywhere near this house. She’d find Dmytro and Fearghas and be reunited with her son.
