'Just making sure it's secure,' said Andreas. 'Is there another way into the tunnel?'

'I guess, but you'll have to ask Tom. I'm not much for mines. I always preferred the sea myself — until my Anna insisted I take over her family's farm. But I brought her back to the sea when I built her church to Saint Nicholas, protector of sailors.' He was rambling off into reminiscences.

'I noticed the blue roof,' said Tassos.

That was a courteous way to cut him off, thought Andreas.

The man nodded, seemed to forget what he was saying, and hobbled toward the ladder. He bent over to pick up the lantern and started up the rungs. 'You done here?'

Andreas looked at Tassos and nodded. 'Yes, sir.'

Tassos stood by the ladder waiting for Vassili to reach the top rung and climb into the sanctuary. Instead, the man placed the lantern on the sanctuary floor and asked Andreas to hand him his dog. Andreas stared at the dog, which was staring at him, then looked at Tassos.

'Here, let me do that,' said Tassos, grinning. 'Vassili, since you built this church, maybe you can answer a question for me.'

'What is it?' He took the dog from Tassos, placed it on the floor, crawled off the ladder, and stood up.

Tassos started up the ladder. 'Is there anything you can think of that churches built to Saints Kiriake, Marina, Fanourios, and Calliope have in common that makes them different from churches built to Saints Nicholas, Barbara, Phillipos, and Spyridon?'

The old man didn't answer, just stood silently in the sanctuary seemingly waiting for Tassos and Andreas to join him. Finally he spoke. 'I wish I could help you, but I'm not a priest.'

'I'm not talking about the saints themselves. I'm talking about how the churches are built.'

'I know of no differences except of course for the icons.' He paused for a moment. 'Come to think of it, there might be a difference, but you'd have to check with the archbishop.'

He had Andreas' interest. 'What difference?'

'I'm not sure if a church has to be built with its front door facing the setting sun on its saint's name day. Though that's the way I built this one.' He waved his hand.

'What are you talking about? Everybody knows the front door has to face west so the sanctuary faces east.' Tassos sounded impatient.

Vassili shook his head. 'No, Tassos, the front door faces the setting sun.'

'What difference does that make?'

'I see you're not a sailor.' Vassili smiled. 'The sun doesn't set — or rise — in the same place all year. It sets along a line running from the northwest to the southwest depending on the season.'

'How does that answer Tassos' question about differences between the churches?' Andreas asked.

The man shrugged. 'I'm not sure it does, but if a church has to be built with its door facing the setting sun on its name day, the ones in one group face one way and the ones in the other another.'

Andreas was puzzled. 'Why?'

'The name days for Kiriake and the three saints you said with her all fall in summer — June, July, and August — when the sun sets to the northwest. The others have name days in November and December, when it sets to the southwest. That's about all I can think of. Hope it helps.'

If Andreas still had his gun in his hand, he'd have knocked himself out when he smacked his forehead. 'Of course! They all have name days falling in the heart of-'

Tassos finished Andreas' sentence. 'Tourist season!'

Andreas shook Vassili's hand hard enough to rock him. 'Thank you very much. You've been a great help,' he said, and raced out with Tassos right behind him — leaving the old man and his dog alone again in their church.

Andreas was running on pure adrenaline, his every muscle tense, every blood vessel pounding. He barely gave Tassos time to close the car door before spinning the tires in the dirt. He knew what this meant. Saint Kiriake's name day was July 7, the day after tomorrow. If they didn't find Annika Vanden Haag by then, she'd be dead. No doubt about it. Annika felt weaker than she could remember ever feeling. She must have been drugged. No other explanation made sense to her. She needed something to eat, something to drink, but was certain if she did, she'd be as good as dead.

She tried to get up. That was when she sensed how sore and raw she was down there, and vaguely what she'd just been through. Had she been raped? Instinctively she touched herself to feel for injury, then for fluids. She found no semen there; nor on her belly or thighs. It was a small but precious moment of relief.

What's this? On the outside of her right thigh she felt a swelling. She pressed at it and instantly realized what it was. Ever since childhood her body had reacted this way at the point of an injection. Now she panicked. She realized that whenever she slept he had open access to her body.

She knew she must stay awake to defend herself. It was her only chance at surviving. If she were going to die, she'd go out fighting. She knew her family was looking for her. They had to be. There was still hope someone would find her — if only she could stay awake. He'd first used prayer to survive his daily moments of childhood terror, later he developed other, more efficient means for coping with his past. He still practiced both, as his tributes could attest to, had any remained alive.

They were all tall and blond as his sister was — or would have been. He knew just what to say to gain their trust and bring his foreign tributes down into his world among the foreign gods — and what drug to use to control them. Like his tributes, he chose his drugs for a purpose: some drugs for sleep, some for giving pleasure to his gods, some for both. There was no problem finding whatever he needed on Mykonos, this island of open pleasure. All he required lay in the bag by his feet. He was prepared for anything.

16

Annika struggled against sleep. The music was soothing and the room warmer than she remembered. Suddenly it hit her; the bastard was piping in heat and music to keep her sleepy.

She smacked at her face with her good hand, but that only worked until the stinging passed; then she felt even sleepier. She thought of her family, but that flooded her with thoughts of how sad they'd be if they couldn't find her.

She needed something to occupy her mind, to keep her awake. She stood up and twisted her head for a few minutes, squatted through a set of deep knee bends, and did some warm-up stretches. Her hand wasn't hurting as much as before. Maybe it isn't broken after all, she thought, or maybe I'm just used to playing through pain. She didn't give a damn that she was naked before an audience. She had to prepare herself.

Her mind was on a brutal, bloody intramural soccer match during her freshman year at Yale. Two older assholes tried knocking her out after her first score. They were relentless but missed their chance; one lost two teeth and the other gained a broken leg while Annika scored two more goals and a 'don't-mess-with-me' reputation. But that was against adversaries she could see, could challenge with her strength. Now there was none to face but time, and the only victory was not to succumb to sleep.

And so she began: over and over she replayed every move, every feint, every pain, every score; she was determined to win again or die trying. He was running out of time.

About thirty feet down the tunnel from her cell was a heap of construction odds and ends. He rummaged through the mess until he found a length of beat-up garden hose and an almost finished roll of duct tape. He carried them back to a World War II-era gasoline generator used for powering light and ventilation. It vented to the outside through an old air shaft. He turned on a flashlight and turned off the generator.

He disconnected the vent pipe from the generator's exhaust and used the duct tape to secure the garden hose in its place. The exhaust connection was about twice the diameter of the hose but the duct tape gave it an airtight fit. Picking up the other end of the hose, he walked back to the cell wall, pulled on his night-vision goggles, and looked through one of the slots. Inside the cell, each slot was faced in the same smooth, painted stone that covered the rest of the inside walls. He'd built them to swing up and into the cell — like mail slots — so fingers pressing from inside would not find them.

She was jumping about naked in a determined little routine. He watched her silently. She kept repeating to

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