Chapter Twenty-six
Andreas slid along the wall until he was between Kouros’ head and the shooter. He couldn’t see Kouros’ wound. All he saw was blood. He brought his flashlight close to Kouros’ head and, blocking the reflected light as best he could with his body, gently ran his fingers along his friend’s head until he found the wound: an ugly jagged cut high above the right temple. Andreas pressed his fingers against Kouros’ neck and felt for a pulse. He tore open the front of Kouros shirt. The bullet was caught in the vest.
Andreas dropped his head and said a prayer. That’s when he sensed the pain in his own side. It felt like a broken rib. He ran his right fingers along his vest and found a second bullet.
He wanted to look over the wall to see if Trelos was still there, but didn’t dare. The shooter was too good.
“Trelos, are you there?”
Nothing.
“ I said, ‘are you there?’”
Andreas heard a very weak, “Yes.”
“Who’s shooting at us?”
Andreas heard something, but couldn’t make it out.
“What?”
“He’s coming,” said Trelos.
Andreas spun around and crawled along the wall toward Trelos’ voice. Whoever was coming probably was focused on where Kouros went down. If he moved away from that spot he might be able to get off a shot before the shooter could target him again. It was his only choice. He couldn’t just sit there waiting. Instinctively Andreas drew in a deep breath to calm himself, but a sharp pain at the broken rib stopped him. Instead, he closed and opened his eyes, crossed himself, and prepared to shoot at the first human sound he heard.
They were footsteps, but erratic, of a person moving quickly from one place to another, as if stopping to hide or listen. Andreas waited until the sounds were directly in front of him before jerking his gun and head together above the wall to fire.
He didn’t.
“ Tassos! ”
Tassos slid over the wall and dropped down next to Andreas. He was out of breath. “Thank God you’re okay? Where’s Yianni?”
“Over there.” Andreas nodded toward Kouros. “He probably has a concussion from hitting his head on the wall. But his pulse is good. The vest likely saved his life.”
Tassos drew in and let out a deep breath. “I was up near the top of the mound where I could keep an eye on what was happening down by the cave. I watched you come back up and around to where you saw Trelos. We saw him at the same time so I didn’t need to warn you.”
“I tried to reach you on the two-way after I heard the pistol shot,” said Andreas.
“I couldn’t tell for sure where the first rifle shot came from but I knew it was below me and to the left. That’s when I turned off the two-way, so it wouldn’t give me away.”
Tassos paused to catch another breath. “I got as close as I could to where I thought the shooter was. When I saw the muzzle flash on the second shot, I knew where to go. It came from inside a cluster of boulders. The pistol shot you heard was mine.”
“You took out the shooter?”
Trelos sat down on the wall above them and stared up the hill.
“Not sure, I heard a scream but when I got there the shooter was gone. The rifle too. I found blood but no telling how bad the wound. My guess is the shooter is still out there. That’s why I didn’t try you on the two-way. Didn’t want to risk giving away your position.”
A groan came from Andreas’ side of the wall.
“Watch him,” said Andreas pointing at Trelos. He crawled over to Kouros.
“How are you feeling?”
“Like I rammed my head into a concrete wall.”
“Close. It was stone. Someone took a shot at me but the bullet missed when I leaned in toward Trelos. You caught it in the middle of your chest and it knocked you back to where you fell and hit your head on the wall.”
Kouros pushed himself up on his elbows. “Where’s Trelos?”
“Over there, sitting on the wall like he’s at a picnic watching butterflies.”
Kouros tried to get up.
“Hold on there, fella, you’ve taken quite a hit.”
“I’ve had worse.” Kouros stood up and stared at Trelos. “And given a lot worse.”
Andreas pulled Kouros back to the ground. “Careful, we haven’t found the shooter yet.”
Andreas looked at Trelos staring up the hill. “Who’s shooting at us?”
Trelos didn’t move.
“Did you hear me?”
Trelos nodded but said nothing.
“Asshole.” Kouros tried to lunge for him, but Andreas held him down.
Trelos shrugged. “I don’t care what you do to me. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Yianni, forget about him for now. We need better cover. Can you walk?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“How about that building down there?” Tassos pointed at a small concrete shed at the bottom of the hill, adjacent to the eastern edge of the mound and across the road from Trelos’ house.
“It’s windowless,” said Trelos without turning to look. “You’ll be trapped inside with no way out but the door. We built it on top of a streambed running out of the mound to bring power and ventilation into the Vriokastro.”
“Who’s ‘we’?” said Andreas.
“My sister and I.”
“What about your brother?” said Tassos.
“No, Petros never comes here anymore. Not since our parents died. He lives up on the mountain. He has no idea what we’ve done here.”
“Does he know how to get inside the mound?” said Tassos.
“Some of the ways, not all of them.”
“Like through the cave?” said Kouros.
“That’s one, but we rarely use it. Tourists kept coming there trying to find a way inside the mound. A few years ago a young American couple almost found the entrance.”
“What happened to them?” said Kouros.
“A storm came up and they drowned in the cave. That’s when I decided to seal off anything suggesting there might be something more than the front of the cave. I also mounted a camera so we could see whoever came inside. It looks like part of the stone roof. And I put in a sensor that sets off an alarm if something heavier than a goat stands in the alcove inside the cave.”
“Guess that’s how the shooter made us,” said Kouros.
“But that means the shooter had to be inside the mound when we were in the cave.” Andreas looked at Trelos. “Who else knows how to get inside?”
“No one but my brother and sister.”
“And anyone interested enough in your activities to have followed you,” said Andreas. “Sort of the same way you found the Foundation’s secret hiding places. By trailing Foundation employees.”
Trelos shrugged. “It’s all over now.”
“What I can’t figure out is how you managed to find your way inside all those places once you located them?” said Andreas.
“It wasn’t very difficult. Much of what I needed was in old records, mainly in the Archeological Museum just down Megalochari Avenue from Panagia Evangelistria. Those records were my roadmaps into most of the places. Getting into the others was like solving elaborate puzzles, and I like puzzles.”
