ATHENS, GREECE
EVA SAT ON THE EDGE OF THE SOILED MATTRESS, HUGGING herself to try to keep her body from losing heat. She needed to use the toilet, but she was holding off as long as she could, dreading the thought of doing it under the scrutiny of the guards. A guard she didn’t recognize opened the door to her cell.
“Someone from National Intelligence Service is here to question you,” he barked in Greek, then slammed the door shut.
She hadn’t decided yet what to tell the authorities. There was always the truth, but if she told them about the coins, the government would seize them and she knew it would only be a matter of time before they fell into corrupt hands. She hoped Taylor had understood her whispered message and would find the coins and get them out of the country.
She heard the clink of the door opening again and looked up, expecting to see a guard, but it was Jeremy.
“Where’s Taylor?” she asked.
He didn’t answer. “Where are the coins, Eva?”
Something wasn’t right. He was looking at her in a predatory way. She felt a shiver go through her and shook her head. “I told you, I don’t know.”
He leaned in closer to her and smiled. “I’m going to try to make this easy on you. Tell me and your end will be swift and relatively painless. Or we can do it the fun way, and I’ll torture you until you tell me. But make no mistake. You will talk. Everyone does.”
She shrank back. “What’s wrong with you? Why are you threatening me?”
He took a pouch from his pocket, unzipped it, and pulled out a pair of steel pliers.
“Guard!” she yelled.
Giving her a smug look, the man said, “They’re on break. Amazing what some people will do for a few thousand euros.”
Suddenly, he was on top of her, knocking Eva to the cold cement floor and pinning her beneath him. She tried to raise her arm to gouge him in the eyes, as she’d learned to do in her class, but she could hardly move. Grabbing her right hand, he squeezed the pliers around her thumb and twisted. White-hot pain filled her and she screamed again.
“Shut up,” he hissed. “Where did you hide the coins?” He moved to the next finger and squeezed again, sending waves of pain through her.
She was crying now. “Why are you doing this? I’m your aunt! Where’s Taylor?” She heard the click of a switchblade and felt the cold steel at her throat.
“Tell me or you die.” He pressed the blade harder against her neck.
“I’ll never tell you,” she spat at him. “Go to hell.”
Before she realized what was happening, he’d stabbed her in the eye. Pain like she’d never felt before engulfed her and she gasped through her sobs. “Stop!”
“Unless you want to be completely blind, tell me where they are.”
“I hid them.”
He held the blade over her other eye. “Where?”
The pain was so intense she began to black out.
He shook her. “Where are they?”
She thought fast through the searing pain. “Airport bathroom, the third stall in the toilet cistern . . .” There was no way she was shirking her duty now, after everything she’d been through, no matter how much it hurt.
“Was that so hard?” He laughed as he pressed the knife to her neck.
The last thing she felt was the blade sliding across her throat.