The Mask of Atreus (20 page)

"We're going to the old city, right?"

"Acrocorinth," he said.

She had assumed that the Acrocorinth was the highest part of the ancient city, a rock escarpment on which the temple of Apollo stood, perhaps.

"Is it not inside?" she said, peering back through the window to the ruined town whose perimeter wall was fast receding as the taxi left the tourist traffic behind and had the road to itself.

"No," said the driver, leaning out of the window and pointing. "Up there."

Distantly poised on an almost vertical mountain crag hundreds of yards above them, looking down on the ancient city and the surrounding country, and barely visible at this distance in the glare of the sun, were jagged walls and towers. He turned and gave her a grin as the car began to labor. Deborah did not grin back. It was a long way up, and she sincerely doubted that the tourist coaches would go up there, even if they could make the climb. The road zigzagged its way up in a series of hairpin bends, and even so, the gradient seemed almost impossibly steep. She doubted there would be anyone else up there, especially under the hot afternoon sun. The taxi gears groaned and clanked, and for a second the engine seemed to have stalled altogether, but the driver revved 164

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it hard, and the car lurched forward, climbing slowly, inexorably toward the summit. It took them almost fifteen minutes to make the climb, and in that time they passed no other vehicles. Below them there had been farmland and the ubiquitous olive groves, but as they got higher, the orderly fields fell quickly away and were replaced by rough, sandy ground and occasional low and twisted trees, some pines, some ancient olives. It was bitterly harsh country, arid, exposed, and difficult to reach even with twenty-first-century technology. Clearly, she was not going to a city like that below, but to a fortress. As the first remnants of ramps and walls came into view, her guess was confirmed, but she was surprised to notice that these were not ancient Greek or Roman fortifications. They were brick and tile, Byzantine, perhaps, medieval. Some of them looked later still, remnants of Turkish occupation and war. It was the first such sign of those long hostilities which she had seen, and she wondered if the nationalistic fervor of the Greeks had effaced the rest. The taxi driver, unlike most of his compatriots which Deborah had encountered so far who were quick to volunteer insight and commentary on their nation's culture and history, said nothing. At the top, the car pulled into a large, dusty, and completely deserted parking lot and stopped, though the driver did not shut off the engine. She paid him, dismissing the expensive and cowardly impulse to ask him to wait. She was still well in advance of her appointment and could be here a while. The thought was not encouraging, but she got out, managing a smile and an
"Efharisto."
The driver grinned widely, looked around the barren, heat-blasted mountaintop, and shrugged expressively:
It's your funeral, tourist.
As he drove away, he put one hand out of the window in a kind of wave and watched her in the rearview mirror until she was out of sight.

Deborah turned to the moldering gatehouse with its high arch and walked slowly, warily up the long ramp into the 165

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fortress, pausing in the deep shade before proceeding into the blistering heat of the lower ramparts. She had only one bottle of water with her, and her cell phone didn't work outside the U.S. Suddenly she wondered how she was going to get down and hoped to God that Marcus would bring a car with him.

She could already tell that the Acrocorinth wasn't just a fortress. Some of the partially ruined buildings looked like chapels, some like mosques, presumably built on top of each other over the centuries as this impressive vantage was taken and retaken in a continual struggle to control the region. There was no doubting the strategic importance of the place. Climbing up onto one of the great fortified walls, with its casements for cannon and musket positions, Deborah could see right out, not just to the ancient city she had glimpsed before nestled at the mountain's foot, but out over the Corinthian gulf. From higher up the tier of walls and towers, she would be able to see east across the Saronic Gulf toward Athens. She stared up at the rising lines of battlements, shielding her eyes from the sun as she began to climb the path which meandered up through the ruined buildings and fortifications. There was no one around, and the air was thick with the shrill hum of crickets and grasshoppers, the drone winding up and down in pitch like an electric current coursing the air on waves of heat. The citadel, if that was what it was, was roughly concentric, with lines of inner defenses zigzagging crazily around the contours of the mountain. The top wasn't so much a peak as a ridgeline with a clearly defined square tower, almost a keep, looming over the parapeted stone walls and acres of unkempt, sun-scorched grass. She walked heavily, conscious of the sweat on her shoulders and face, feeling the weight of her shoes as she climbed. It was way too hot a day for this . . .

She paused midway up, where the path spread out into an open area with a flagged floor, and gazed back over the way 166

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she had come and the distant blue of the sea. And it was at that moment, as she put her hands on her hips and took a deep, steadying breath, that there was a sharp crack and a shower of stone fragments as the first bullet slammed into the masonry beside her.

CHAPTER 35

Deborah moved instinctively, but her first impulse was not so much to take cover as it was to wave and scream in fury. Unused to being shot at, she assumed this was some stupid mistake, that some idiot example of whatever the Greeks had in place of rednecks had decided to start blasting squirrels. She happened to be in the vicinity. The second shot thrummed past her ear and a piece of Byzantine tile on the wall at her back exploded.

What in the name of God . . . ?

Even as she dived low onto the stony ground, even as she rolled toward an irregular pile of rock which might once have been the corner of a building, even as she heard the third shot thud into the earth where she had been standing, part of her thought it was a mistake.

Disbelief and outrage coursed through her racing heart:
Nobody shoots at me!

Then there was a pause, a silent hole in the afternoon.
Keep still. Listen. Breathe
.

She waited, feeling the ache in her wrist and the scrape on her forearm. She had landed badly when she had thrown herself to the ground. Her hair was in her eyes, and the sweat was pricking out all over her so that the dust clung. This was insane. Even if she was being targeted deliberately, it had to be some lunatic, right? Some nutcase taking potshots at tourists. The alternative--that they were targeting her, Deborah Miller, specifically--was too unsettling to consider right now. She pushed the thought aside and flexed her wrist. Sprained, probably.

Where is he?

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It was the first useful thought she'd had. She glanced back to where she had walked in through the arch and up onto the rampart, seeing if she could find the bullet holes and deduce something of the shooter's trajectory. That was how to handle the situation, she thought, forcing some sort of rationality to battle the swelling tide of panic. Yes: logic, deduction, reason. These were the things she was good at. These were the things that would keep her alive . . .

God: will it come to that?

He must be up high,
she thought. It was the obvious vantage point that would give him the most effective field of fire. She peered up, trying to figure out what kind of arc he might be able to cover from the tower on the ridge. The fourth shot slammed into one of the rocks inches from her head, splitting it into three fragments, one of which caught her squarely in the temple. She hugged the earth, feeling the shock of impact and pain, wondering for a moment if the bullet had actually hit her. She put her hand up to the side of her head and felt the thick wetness of her own blood.
Not pumping out. Just superficial.

But it didn't feel superficial. For a second the world swam.
Concussion?

Perfect.

She forced herself to look around, moving only fractionally, trying not to draw his fire. She needed better cover. His fire. She assumed it was a man. Marcus? Who else knew she was here? Unless it was a random act aimed at whomever showed up . . .

She wished she could believe that, but no, those bullets, she thought, had her name on them. The cliched absurdity of the phrase was almost funny, a line from a film which she had strayed into by accident, one of those Hitchcock adventures like
North by Northwest
or
The 39 Steps
. She lay in the dust, feeling the sun on her skin and thinking these nonsense thoughts, and it was as if she was watching herself through a telescope or, more accurately, watching someone else, and hearing their thoughts like movie voice-over. 169

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Got to get out of here.

If she lay here all day, the shooter could come down and find her. In fact, he probably wouldn't have to. She had little cover, and if he moved a few yards from where he was, he would probably be able to see her clearly. She wouldn't know he had shifted till he got her in his sights and opened fire. But he wouldn't expect
her
to move. He would--surely--

expect her to play the rabbit which freezes so the predator's fix on its movement will be lost: it was half strategy, half terror, that motionlessness. That was what he would expect of her. So she had to run.

God, no . . .

Yes. It was the only way. She rolled into a crouch, trying to keep any weight off her wrist, straight up and into a dash, like a sprinter out of the blocks. She had taken four long strides before the first shot rang out. She didn't see where it fell, so she guessed it was behind her. Two more strides and she came to a wall, waist high, ragged with age. She vaulted it as the next bullet roared past, gouging her thigh on a shard of stone so badly that she fell into the coarse grass on the other side, crying out and clutching at it. Two more bullets slammed into the stone in rapid succession, then silence fell once more. How many shots had he fired? It didn't matter. She knew nothing about guns. Still, those last shots had seemed more like frustration. Maybe he had emptied the weapon deliberately and was now reloading while she was temporarily safe. Maybe this was the time to make another dash . . .
No! Stay here behind the wall. You're safe here.
But she knew her first thought was better. It was a gamble, but one that could get some crucial distance between herself and the gunman. She forced herself to stand up quickly and run another few yards down the path.

She had guessed right. She had covered twenty feet or more before the first shot came. It fell yards to her right, and she couldn't help grinning fiercely as she ran: rushed that one, didn't you? She kept going, cutting from side to side, leaping over the uneven ground without breaking stride, 170

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gazellelike. Her legs, her great long stilts, her stork pins, her gangly, flamingo, armpit-reaching, all-the-way-to-Canada legs paid in ten seconds for every insult and snide remark they had ever drawn in her direction. By the time the last shot came, she had got back down to the inner gatehouse. Unless her would-be assassin was moving very fast down the mountain, she was now invisible to him. But there was only one road down to the town. If he was to drive down after her, he could make up for his poor marksmanship. There had been no cars in the parking lot when she had arrived, she was almost sure of it. So either he had walked up, or been dropped off as she had, or there was a vehicle concealed somewhere out there. She weighed her options as she moved through the cool arch of the gatehouse and down the stone ramp to the parking lot.

Wait. Get your breath back. Maybe help will come if you
hide . . .

She saw no cars, nor anywhere one could be concealed. She thought furiously, made the decision, and began to run across the dusty lot and along the slow half spiral down the mountain. She would hug the mountainside so that he couldn't get a shot at her from above, and she would keep moving. It would take her a half hour to get to the town, maybe less if she could keep going, jittery, dehydrated, and exhausted as she already was. Her thigh was throbbing, but she hadn't developed a limp yet and could probably get halfway down before it started to really bother her. Maybe someone would pass, and she could hitch a ride . . . Just so long as--whether on foot or in some hidden car--

he wasn't faster than her. She picked up speed, letting the steady downward slope carry her forward till she was almost out of control, hurtling down the road with heavy, stumbling strides. Two minutes, and she was barely aware of the heat or the pain in her leg. Five minutes. Seven. Then she heard it: the distant mosquito whine of a small engine. There was a motorcycle coming down from the mountaintop.

CHAPTER 36

There was a good chance he hadn't been able to see her since she left the Acrocorinth, and that he could only guess how far down she had gotten. She looked around for a place to hide as the dentist-drill drone of the motorbike went up in pitch.
It's getting faster. Closer.

On the mountainside there was only a concrete drainage gully and then a steep retaining wall. On the other, lower side was the edge of an olive orchard, the trees gnarled and squat. She dashed across the road, ran twenty yards into the orchard, and flung herself facedown like she was stealing second base. Before the dust had settled she could hear the bike rounding the curve. He may have seen her run for cover. He only had to look carefully into the thin shade provided by the trees, and he would see her still.

Safe, or out?

She kept very still. The pitch of the engine had dropped a tone. It was slowing down.

She wanted to run, but then he would see her for sure. She forced herself to lie motionless
(the rabbit tactics after all)
, not even turning her head to see him until he pulled within her field of vision.