The Lost Temple by Tom Harper Read Free Book Online Page A

bursts of gunfire were still keeping the garrison distracted. At the bottom of the furthest tower he found a rope ladder. With a quick scramble he was up it, standing on the rampart and looking out on a moonlit sea. Just off the rocks, where the wall met the waves, thirty men sat huddled in a motor launch.
    “Down we go.” A rope dangled from one of the ancient battlements. Grant took hold of it, swung himself out and slid down—so fast he burned his palms on the coarse rope. Two steps on the slippery rock and he was looking down into the boat. Another step and an almost headlong plunge, and he was sprawled in the bilge. He heard a thud from nearby as the Irgun commander jumped down. Then the big engine opened up and Grant was tipped back as the launch gathered speed over the calm sea. No one spoke. Every man was tensed, waiting for bullets to rip apart the open boat. But none came.
    Grant pulled himself up and managed to squeeze on to the bench that ran along the side of the boat. After about a quarter of an hour one of his companions lit a match, and a few moments later the boat was alive with glowing cigarettes and whispered jubilation. Grant picked his way aft and found the Irgun commander. “Where are we going?”
    “We have a cargo ship waiting off shore. She’ll take us up the coast to Tire.” He opened his hands. “After that, wherever you want.”
    Grant thought for a moment. Muir’s visit had planted an idea in his mind—though he had never expected to be able to act on it so quickly. He took a drag on his cigarette and blew smoke into the moonlight. “Can you get me to Crete?”

 
     
     
     

C HAPTER 3
    Archanes, Crete. Two weeks later
    The locals called the mountain the Face of Zeus. It towered over the village and its surrounding vineyards, a high fist of rock clenched against the sky. In prehistoric times the bull-worshipping Minoans had built a shrine on its summit; thousands of years later a small, whitewashed church had replaced the shrine, but every August the villagers still made their pilgrimage up the slopes to take offerings to the sanctuary. Even the comings and goings of gods could not change the island’s routine.
    At about eleven o’clock on that April morning, any god looking down would have seen the old bus rattle into the town square and discharge a gaggle of passengers—mostly farmers returning from the market. Many drifted toward the
kaphenion
to continue their arguments and gossip over coffee, but one walked in the opposite direction and turned down the narrow lane that led up toward the foot of the mountain. No one paid him much attention, though everyone noticed him. They had grown used to strangers passing through their village, ever since the Germans came. Hard experience had taught it was always safest to ignore them.
    Grant walked to the edge of the village, where the lane became a track running between apple orchards. The ground rose to meet the mountain and there, just where cultivatedfields gave way to rock and wild grass, a stone house stood. Hens pecked around a rusty grape press in the front garden and bundles of unplanted vines leaned against the wall, but the shutters were freshly painted and a thin trail of smoke rose from the chimney. At the side of the house the first leaves were beginning to appear on the small grove of apricot trees.
    Grant stood there for a moment, watching, then let himself through the gate and walked softly up the stairs to the front door which—as usual with Greek village houses—was on the first floor. He didn’t knock; instead, he whistled a few bars of a mournful Greek marching song.
    The wind coming off the mountain snatched the notes from his lips and whisked them away. Wildflowers rustled in the breeze. A loose shutter banged against the wall. Afraid that his hat might blow away, Grant took it off and tucked it under his arm. He’d bought it in haste at the bazaar in Alexandria, three days earlier, and the band was a little