Jones flipped through his menu, searching for some of his favorite dishes: roasted pork loin a la Cubana, sliced eye round of beef stuffed with chorizo, and paella a la Valencia-a mixture of clams, chicken, pork, shrimp, scallops, and rice. Meanwhile, Payne looked for lighter fare, settling on a pressed Cuban sandwich with a cup of Spanish bean soup.
The waiter came over to take their orders, but before they could speak, Payne’s phone started to buzz. All three of them stared as it vibrated wildly, bumping against an empty plate, which made a loud pinging sound. It was so loud that other diners turned and stared.
“Sorry about that,” Payne apologized. Bad cell-phone manners were a pet peeve of his, and he had just violated one of his major commandments.
Without looking at the screen, he turned off the power and put it in his pocket.
And that’s where it stayed for the next few hours as precious time ticked away.
Payne gave it no thought until their return trip to the hotel. Hoping to kill time while Jones left a donation inside Little St. Mary’s, Payne turned on his phone and waited for it to get a signal.
Several hungry pelicans sat on a nearby railing, begging for hand-outs from the dozen fishermen who fished off the pier. A young boy felt sorry for the birds and tossed them some bait. Within seconds, five more pelicans swooped out of the sky and landed by their friends. All of them squawking for attention.
Smiling at the scene, Payne glanced at his screen and was surprised by the summary.
Seventeen missed calls. Three voice mails. One text message.
Damn. Something was wrong.
All of his friends knew he was a reluctant cell phone user, only carrying it for emergencies. Therefore getting seventeen calls was a big deal. Especially in one day.
Worried, he clicked through his options until he reached the list of missed calls. He scrolled through the numbers, looking for the source, but the same message appeared over and over.
Seventeen calls, seventeen restricted numbers.
“Shit,” he mumbled to himself, realizing what that meant. It was probably the government.
They were the masters of the blocked call. Always trying to conceal their identity.
The only question was, who? Payne had done consulting work for the Pentagon and every branch of the armed service, not to mention the FBI, CIA, and NSA. Of course, if those agencies were trying to reach him, they wouldn’t call seventeen times. They’d stalk him quietly and throw him into the back of a white van.
No, if he had to guess, he would have said the Air Force.
Not only was MacDill an Air Force base, it had also paid for his trip to Florida. Maybe the generals wanted to get one more lecture out of him before he returned home.
“What’s up?” Jones asked as he left the restroom. “Did your phone break again?”
“I wish. I had seventeen missed calls. All of them blocked.”
“Fucking government.”
“What about you? Any calls?”
Jones checked his phone. “Nope.
“That’s strange.”
“Tell me about it. I’m used to booty calls, day and night.”
He laughed. “I was referring to MacDill, not McLovin.”
“What time did they start?”
Payne scrolled through his screen. “Let’s see. First call was 3:59 A.M. Damn. Maybe my cell phone woke me after all. I could’ve sworn it was the room phone.”
“Any messages?”
He nodded. “Three voice, one text.”
“Start with the text. You can read it now.”
The device looked tiny in his massive hands, yet somehow Payne clicked the appropriate buttons, dancing from screen to screen. The text was tough to read in the Florida sun, forcing him to shield the glare. But in time, he was able to read the message.
It was straightforward and unsigned.
The type of message that no one wants to receive.
4
The stranger stood on the edge of the cliff and gasped at what he saw. Massive rock pillars sprang out of the earth like giant stone fingers, each of them rising several hundred feet from the valley below. Yet somehow the natural beauty of the scenery paled in comparison with the architectural wonder of Meteora, a site that hovered in the heavens like the throne of God.
He heard footsteps behind him but refused to shift his gaze from the Monastery of the Holy Trinity as the sun slipped behind the Pindus Mountains to the west.
Marcus Andropoulos, the man who approached, spoke with a local accent. “The monks who built this place climbed the rock with their bare hands, then refused to leave until construction was finished. They stayed on top for many months, lifting supplies by rope during the day and sleeping in a cave at night.”
The stranger said nothing, still admiring the view.
Andropoulos stepped closer, tentative. “Eventually, they built retractable wooden ladders that reached the crops they had planted in the fields below. Grapes, corn, potatoes. They even had sheep and cattle.”
The stranger tried to picture the ladders. They must have stretched for a quarter of a mile.
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” said the Greek. “My name is Marcus Andropoulos.”
“Nick Dial,” he said over his shoulder.
“You’re an American, no? Are you a tourist?”
Dial shook his head. “What does Meteora mean?”
“It is a local word. It means ‘suspended in air.’ Originally there were twenty-four monasteries on the surrounding peaks. Many were destroyed during World War Two. Now only six remain.”
“How old is this one?”
“Fifteenth-century,” he answered, still trying to figure out who Dial was and why he was there. “Are you with the media?”
Dial laughed. “Definitely not. I can’t stand those guys.”
Andropoulos paused, thinking things through. If Dial wasn’t a journalist, how did he get past all the officers on the main road? “In that case, I think you need to leave.”
“Because I hate the media? That seems kind of harsh.”
“No, because this area is restricted. Didn’t you see the signs?”
Dial turned and stared at the man who was trying to throw him out.
Andropoulos was young and lanky, dressed in a cheap suit that was two sizes too small. His hands and wrists hung three inches beyond his sleeves-as though he had recently grown and didn’t have enough money to get a new wardrobe. Or visit a tailor. Or get a haircut. Because his head was covered with dark curly hair that went over his ears and the back of his neck. Like a Greek Afro.
Dial said, “You seem to know a lot about this place. Are you a tour guide or something?”
Andropoulos reached into his pocket and pulled out his badge. “I am definitely
Dial smirked, then refocused his attention on the monastery. In this light its beige walls appeared to be glowing. Almost like amber. It was truly a remarkable sight.
“Please, Nick. Don’t make me tell you again. It’s time to leave.”
But Dial wasn’t ready. He picked up a pebble and tossed it over the edge. It fell for several seconds yet never made a sound, swallowed by the chasm below. He whistled, impressed.
In all his years, he had never worked in such a difficult location.
Simply put, this crime scene was going to be a bitch.
