CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

In the sky over Crete

September 22

Before dawn

Wade sat near the gurney Becca lay on, his hand on her wrist, and stared out the jet window into the darkness below.

After the grueling sequence of flights, they were finally minutes from setting down on Crete. The island straddled the water between Greece and Turkey, a sliver of land like the rim of a barely surfaced bowl sitting at the southern end of the Aegean Sea. It was now lit with clusters of light, one of which was a small airfield.

He closed his eyes and counted Becca’s pulse. It slowed, sped up, slowed again, but her breathing was steady. Julian sat across from him, his eyes glued to one of two monitors, while one of the doctors adjusted a single saline bag dripping fluid into her vein. Since Becca was off all other medications, there wasn’t much to do but watch her stillness.

“If this doesn’t work,” Wade said, “it’s the end of everything. Just so you know.”

Darrell tapped him on the shoulder. “Are you going to make it, bro?”

“Will any of us?” Lily said.

As they circled for their final approach, Lily, who had immersed herself in the history of Crete from two volumes picked up at an emergency stop at a Swiss bookstore, finished writing her notes in Wade’s notebook.

“Ears on me, everyone,” she said. “I think I’ve uncovered a new thread in the history of the Eternity Machine, and the thing is older than we think. First of all, huge ceremonies used to take place to celebrate the Minoan new year, which, guess what, wasn’t the same as ours. The Minoan calendar began, that’s right, at the autumnal equinox.”

“Whoa, Lily,” said Darrell.

“No kidding. But that isn’t even the good part,” she continued. “The main thing they used to worship at the new year was ‘a golden treasure of monstrous size.’ Not only that, there was a legend that the famous labyrinth, or maze, in King Minos’s palace was actually built to protect that treasure, with the Minotaur as its guard.”

Wade turned to her. “Golden treasure? So the astrolabe goes back to the time of King Minos?”

“Or even before,” she said. “But the best part? The palace and the whole civilization of King Minos was destroyed on the very day of their new year.”

“Whoa,” said Wade. “The ancient astrolabe exploded—that must be it.”

Darrell turned in his seat. “Then we flash forward a bunch of centuries, and Ptolemy discovers the treasure when he’s drawing maps of the Mediterranean islands, which he was famous for. But of course the machine is all wrecked. He tries to repair it, and can’t; but he writes about it. Flash forward another bunch of time, and Nicolaus reads what Ptolemy wrote and—boom!—he finds the machine, and because he’s a genius, he does fix it, and the rest is history! Or the future. Whichever.”

Wade felt his blood race. “It also answers another puzzle. The hole in the sky. The astrolabe creates some kind of super energy explosion—maybe the relics do this when they’re together—and that’s the energy that launches it. During King Minos’s time, something went wrong, and it blew up.”

Silva turned from his pilot’s seat. “There are some folks who say Crete is what’s left of Atlantis. Could be the same thing as what you’re talking about. A huge catastrophe. Anyway, we’ll be touching the ground in five minutes. Less. Check Becca and strap in.”

He landed the jet smoothly, and as they were taxiing briskly to the hangar, Julian got on and off his phone quickly. “I just talked to my dad. Naturally, I didn’t let on what we’re doing, but he says Roald will be here soon. We need to move fast.”

“We’re ready,” Wade said. “Silva, the plan?”

Silva pulled the jet to a hastily rented private hangar. “Go with your father when he comes. Julian and I’ll bring Becca to the dig site in the Hummer. Put the kidnapping on me, say I did it to confuse the Order. Just play dumb and stay free to do your part.”

“We will,” Darrell said. “We’re good at playing dumb.”

Silva smirked. “You’re anything but. Still, you’ve heard the expression ‘behind enemy lines’? Well, for this mission, everyone’s an enemy. Act cool, and we’ll get it done.”

Wade’s throat thickened. “Silva . . . we never knew about your brother. We . . . I . . .”

“Thanks. I appreciate it, and right back at you. Becca’ll be safe until you call for me. Use these tracking devices so I’ll know exactly where to find you. Now go.”

They pocketed the devices while Silva and Julian moved Becca into a nearby black Hummer and tore off down the tarmac. Moments later, Wade’s father drove up to the wide doors and stormed out. The greeting was brief and sharp.

“What happened at Davos? What did you do?”

“We were saying our good-byes,” Wade said, crying, though he hadn’t intended to. “Then Silva got word that the Order was closing in. He took Becca off to some safe house. We couldn’t do anything at all.”

“Her parents are going absolutely crazy wondering where she is!” his father shouted. “No one knows where Silva took her. You should have called me or your mother!”

“Radio silence,” Lily said. “Silva insisted on it. He said Galina’s got some kind of vendetta against Becca, and he needed to get her safe until the deadline’s over.”

It hurt Wade for them to lie so bald-facedly to his father, but maybe that was the thing about being a kid. Either you didn’t know when things were just too dangerous, or you didn’t know enough to let the danger stop you from doing them.

His father muttered to himself, shook his head, but didn’t say any more about it. “Into the car then. Sara is waiting for us. Where’s Julian?”

“He . . . had to file paperwork with the airport,” Darrell said. “He’ll join us soon.”

Wade’s father nodded once. “He’d better. We need everyone together now. No more skipping off. This is the end of it.” He took a breath. “Last night, Galina took over the NATO training center in northwestern Crete. The Brits are holding back while she excavates Knossos under the NATO flag.”

“We think she’s searching for the maze,” Darrell said, “the ancient labyrinth of the Minotaur that no one’s found so far. It’s somewhere in the ruins, and she’s going to find it.”

“If she hasn’t already,” Wade said. “Can we please get going?”

Twenty minutes later, their car slowed as they approached the hills surrounding the ruins. Sara came running over to them. She was in combat fatigues and a helmet with a night visor. She had an automatic rifle strapped over her shoulder. She hugged them.

“Thanks to Terence,” she said, “we have about fifty MI6 and MI5 agents. Papa Dean pulled some strings and got us a unit of mercenaries. We have a crack troop of Chechen fighters sent by Chief Inspector Yazinsky. Dennis is here from New York with his Marine friends. And Simon Tingle, of course. He’s out of his scooter now and packing a sidearm. You can’t keep him down.”

“Can we see the palace from here?” Wade said.

“Keep your heads down,” his father said. He brought them to the crest of the ridge.

Wade was awed by the strange beauty of the partly restored ruins. Looking from the mountaintop down on the expanse of the spotlit palace grounds, he watched Galina’s forces excavating an open court between the grand staircases.

“That would be where the golden treasure was,” Lily said, explaining what she had read. “It was said to have vanished when Knossos was destroyed.”

“Except it didn’t vanish,” Wade added. “The astrolabe was that treasure, and it caused the explosion that destroyed Knossos. The horrors of time travel go all the way back to the end of the Minoan culture.”

“In a little over twenty-four hours, we go in,” Roald said. “Until then, we wait and plan.”

That night, only hours now from the actual equinox, Wade found himself stepping away from the lights of the camp. He had gone over and over his own plan so many times, it now seemed either the most complex nonsense or a precision path to victory, though he could no longer tell which.

So he gave it up and fell back on what he knew.

The stars.

The night was clear, almost too clear. A million stars flamed and twinkled against the deep black, and, as if he had no control over it, the immensity of the sky fell over him.

This was Nicolaus’s sky, the very same, when centuries ago he had looked up.

Wade had loved the night ever since he was born. The vast array of stars sprinkled across the black. The extra-brilliant ones, the distant strings of fairy lights that signified faraway galaxies. His father had lovingly taught him everything he could about the greatness of the cosmos. Then when Wade was seven, his beloved uncle Henry had given him the antique star chart that sat in his backpack now, the chart that had in so many ways begun this adventure and sealed his destiny as a lover of the night sky.

And look what all that had led to.

This.

The end of the world.

Lily walked over to him. “What now, Wade?”

He nearly choked to hear the question. “Whatever it is, it happens soon.”

Except soon couldn’t come soon enough. The minutes ticked so slowly it felt like time had stopped. The hours between midnight and two crawled like a man dying of thirst in a desert.

Then, finally, a half-dozen Range Rovers drew up to their camp. Julian bounced out of the first one, giving the kids a quick nod of his head, then Wade’s father called the kids over.

“Finally, all here,” he said. “The equinox is three hours away. According to all Nicolaus’s and Hans’s—Carlo’s—documents, there isn’t more than an hour in which the hole in the sky is visible, that is, traversable.”

“She’s going to try to retrieve the cargo from wherever it is,” Wade said. “I’m convinced that’s what this is all about. Albrecht’s cargo. Whatever and whenever it is, Galina’s going for it.”

“I agree,” Sara said. “But when the hole closes, that’s it. We need to know that. Galina will mount her deadliest defense—and by that I mean offense—very soon. But not too soon. She’ll want the chaos of battle to shield her launch.”

Terence nodded grimly. “MI6 has timed the assault on the Cyprus tanker at precisely when Galina is busiest here, or we risk her detonating the underwater devices. Special forces are ready, including black ops teams from Britain, Germany, France, and Turkey, and Navy SEALs from the US, all under overall MI6 leadership. Over a thousand troops are waiting for our signal to push in, both here and on the tanker.”

Wade stole a glance at Darrell and Lily. “How many troops do you think they have defending the launch site? That’s where it all happens. In the core of the labyrinth. The center of the maze.”

“Thousands,” Terence said. He pointed with his scope before handing it to Wade. “It’s Galina’s most heavily guarded position. There’ll be no way in without a full-scale attack.”

“Which is why you kids will stay far back from the ridge,” Roald said firmly. “I don’t want you getting any nearer. You hear me?”

“Loud and clear,” said Lily.

Leaving them, Roald took up a position high on the ridge with Sara and Terence.

“This is insane; you realize that,” Julian said soberly. “We could be sliced to ribbons before we get anywhere near the maze, to say nothing of the risk to Becca.”

“Unless you’ve been studying the legends of Minos,” Wade said.

“Thanks to me and the books I bought in Switzerland,” Lily added. She opened one to a detailed archaeological drawing from the early-twentieth century. “I found this last night while we were waiting. The archaeologist who excavated Knossos, Sir Arthur Evans, made a map of the entire site; but he skimped a bit on the outer edges, thinking the Minotaur’s labyrinth was in the center of the palace. He was right, yes, but the maze was so much larger than Evans or anyone thought. In fact, its passages run all the way to the perimeter of the palace grounds. Look here.”

Lily ran her finger around the edge of the map and stopped at what appeared to be a cave located in a narrow valley between two hills. “It’s at least half a mile from the center. Galina’s troops aren’t anywhere near this section of the ruins. With time and enough cover, we can get in there.”

Darrell breathed in. “So . . . are we ready?”

Julian nodded once. “I know my part. Keep your folks and my dad occupied. Lie to them if I have to, to keep them focused on Galina and not on you.”

“You’re a true friend, thanks.” Wade went over to one of the MI6 trucks. In the rear were six steel boxes housing the relics they had managed to obtain: Vela, Triangulum, Corvus, Lyra, Sagitta, and Corona. He, Lily, and Darrell each slipped two carefully into backpacks. Wade scanned the extra stashes of weapons and glanced up at the ridge. His parents were eyeing the distant ruins. He took up a large pistol. It was black and heavy with an extra-long ammunition clip.

“Wade, don’t,” said Lily. “You can’t.”

“Bro, I couldn’t use the one I had in Cuba,” Darrell said. “Those things are evil.”

“I know. I know.” Wade put down the large pistol and slid a small handgun off the table and into the pocket of his cargo pants. “Just in case.” Then he took several hand-sized explosive devices and removed the tiny tracking device Silva had given him.

He turned it on, and clipped it on his belt.

“Let’s go.”