The Vengeance of the Tau by Jon Land Read Free Book Online Page B

something to grasp when McCracken tossed him forward with a final burst of strength.
    “Have a nice flight,” Blaine said as the little man’s snarling face disappeared toward the blue waters below.
    McCracken saw him hit with a spraying splash and nothing more. Still, he stayed on the platform for a brief time, as if expecting the dandy to rise. When he didn’t, McCracken moved off, anxious to open the manila envelope that was still in his pocket and learn what inside it could have caused all this.
    McCracken waited until he reached San Francisco International Airport before calling Sal Belamo from a private room in the American Airlines Admiral’s Club.
    “Why do I always hate hearing from you?” the pug-nosed ex-boxer greeted him.
    They had worked together on several occasions, although not so much recently since Sal had been appointed chief troubleshooter of the Gap, the organization Blaine had recently helped throw into a shambles. Belamo looked more like a cheap thug than the sharp operative he was, courtesy of an undistinguished boxing career that had left his face looking the worse for wear.
    “Because you’re jealous of my charm and good looks.”
    “You ask me, we spent too much time at the same salon, the both of us. What’s up?”
    “Need you to check on someone for me. Hired hand. Little guy with lots of martial arts in his background. …” McCracken provided as complete a description of the dandy as he could manage.
    “Don’t have to go to the computer for that one, McBalls. Guy’s name is Billy Griggs, alias Billy Boy. One deadly son of a bitch. Hand specialist in more ways than one.”
    “So I gathered.”
    “Yeah, Billy Boy’s ’bout as queer as a three-dollar bill plus change. You whack him?”
    “Sent him for a swim.”
    “Your sake, I hope he doesn’t come up for air.”
    “Five-hundred-foot dive off the Golden Gate.”
    “You ask me, don’t count him out until the fish eat his eyeballs. Like to hear what he did in ’Nam?”
    “Not really.”
    “Dressed himself up as a gook, little shit that he was, and took Charlie out from the inside that way. Got himself transferred to Special Forces and even they couldn’t deal with him. What I hear, he went home and accepted his medal in gook makeup and black pajamas … you make of that.”
    “Sorry I iced a war hero.”
    “Don’t cry yourself to sleep. Griggs’s nickname over there was ‘Charlie Cat’ on account of he had so many lives. Plenty have tried to put him down before. None been very successful.” Belamo paused. “So what’s next?”
    “You have someone meet me at Kennedy Airport with a passport complete with entry visa for Turkey.”
    “Turkey?”
    “Night flight to Istanbul, Sal.”
    McCracken had inspected the contents of the manila envelope in the backseat of the cab that had taken him to the airport. Just a single sheet of paper, obviously a photocopy of something larger that had been reduced to a more manageable size.
    It was a map, of all things!
    Judging by the poor print quality, the original must have been old and tattered. The photocopy included handwritten instructions in German scrawled in the blank space near the bottom to further supplement the map’s directions. The site was Turkey, specifically the southwestern part near the Aegean Sea known to be rich in archaeological treasures:
    Ephesus.

Chapter 6
    BENSON HAZELHURST’S JEEP had threatened to give out on at least three occasions and had finally quit two miles from the find.
    “Try it now, Daddy,” his daughter urged, pinching something with a pliers underneath the raised hood.
    Hazelhurst turned the key, and the jeep’s engine grumbled, then shook to life.
    “That’s got it,” Melissa said. She pulled out from under the hood and slammed it back into place.
    “What would I do without you, Daughter?”
    “Die of heat exposure, for starters. Want me to drive?”
    “No need. We’re almost there. Driving will occupy my mind. I don’t