He led them down one of the gravel walks on the shady side of the building. They walked slowly to accommodate Erik’s halting gait. There, under an oak tree, sat Griffin in a wheelchair.
“Oh, my goddess!” Cassie ran forward and threw her arms around her teammate. She felt a flood of relief at the sight of him.
Griffin winced happily and wrapped an arm around her shoulder “Perhaps I should allow myself to get shot more often.”
Erik wasn’t far behind though he chose to be less demonstrative in his greeting. He limped over and patted Griffin on the back. “It’s good to see you, man. We thought you were a goner.”
“Can you walk?” Cassie asked worriedly. “You’re not paralyzed, are you?”
“No,” the scrivener replied. “The wheelchair is just to keep me from straining and pulling apart the stitches in my abdomen. “Please, sit,” he indicated a bench a few yards away.
Iker rolled the invalid over to the spot, so they could all talk together. The Police Superintendent remained standing by Griffin’s chair while Cassie and Erik took seats on the bench facing him.
The pythia scowled intently at the Brit. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“I beg your pardon?” Griffin was taken aback.
“Throwing yourself at Hunt that way was suicide!”
‘And yet I’m still breathing,” the scrivener joked weakly.
“She’s right, Grif.” Erik agreed. “You should never have pulled a stunt like that. It was way too risky.”
“Of the three of us, you’re the least impulsive. You always think things through,” Cassie reproached him. “So, I repeat the question. What the hell was going through your head?”
The scrivener sighed. “Honestly, I thought the game was up. Hunt was about to close in, and there was nowhere left for us to run. It occurred to me that if I could spring out at him and catch him off guard, I might at least knock the torch out of his hand. In the ensuing confusion, that might buy us a little time to beat him unconscious.”
“That would have been a great plan,” Erik said sarcastically,” if he hadn’t been carrying a gun.”
“In the darkness in the cave, I rather hoped his aim would be off,” the scrivener said ruefully.
“At point blank range while you were wrestling him to the ground?” the security coordinator countered. “You’re lucky he didn’t shoot you right through the heart.”
While the two men were speaking, Cassie stood up, walked over to Griffin and gave him a silent hug.
“I say, I quite like all the attention I’m getting today,” the scrivener chuckled.
Cassie sat back down and regarded him solemnly. “What you did was the most amazing thing ever.”
“Hardly,” the scrivener demurred. “When I think about Erik leaping off a mountain or you facing down a pack of armed thieves, I’d have to go a long way merely to catch up.”
“Throwing yourself on a grenade for the team trumps what we did.” Erik shook his head in wonderment. “That was hardcore, man.”
“I guess it’s official,” Cassie said resignedly.
“What is?” Erik and Griffin both looked at her in puzzlement.
“Since we started this treasure hunt, each of us has gotten the chance to do something colossally stupid and / or incredibly brave.”
“Since you’re giving me a choice of adjectives, I’ll take ‘incredibly brave,’” Griffin quipped.
Looking first at Iker and then at Griffin, the pythia said, “Tell us what happened after you got shot. Iker disappeared, and we didn’t know if you were going to make it.”
The sentinel replied first. “I had gone out to check the trail that leads from the other side of the summit. The fog was very bad, and I could not see below. By the time I returned, your adversaries were already entering the cave. I was cut off and could not warn you. That was when I called for some of my men to hurry to the mountain.”
“Our cell phones didn’t work up there,” Cassie said.
“Fortunately, mine does,” Iker replied. “I did not know whether the thieves would take the bait and go quietly or whether they would discover you inside. I did not want to take chances. Then I heard the shot, and I believed something bad had happened. I thought I might frighten them off by shouting. With the echoes in the cave, it might sound to them like many people were approaching. I had to wait outside until I knew they were clear of the mountaintop, but I could hear you inside saying that your friend had been hurt. That is when I called for a medical team.”
“They sure got there fast,” Cassie said.
“Why didn’t you come inside once the cops arrived? They took us into custody.” Erik sounded vaguely reproachful.
“There was no time,” Iker replied. “I had to follow your enemies to make sure I would not lose track of them once they reached the bottom of the mountain. I told my people to take you into custody for your own protection.”
“What for?” Cassie protested. “They practically accused us of murder.”
Iker sighed. “We could not hold you without charging you with something, and I had no time to explain to my men what was happening.”
“You’d think when I dropped your name to the cop who interrogated me that he might have stopped bullying us.”
Iker smiled. “He would not have known who you meant. Among the Ertzaintza, I have a different name.”
“There was good reason to keep you both out of harm’s way,” Griffin interjected. “Shortly after I regained consciousness, I was informed that Hunt and Daniel were still in the county.”
“Why would they hang around?” Cassie asked in surprise. “They got the relic and thought you were dead.”
“Apparently Hunt is of a suspicious nature,” Griffin countered. “He may have noticed that the ambulance carried me to an emergency room and not an undertaker’s parlor. Iker thought that he might try to visit me in hospital.”
“Visit?” Erik echoed skeptically.
“I was certain that if this man Hunt found his victim alive, he would not leave him that way,” Iker said softly. “He feared Griffin would be
