Labyrinth of the Minotaur Read online

  LABYRINTH OF THE MINOTAUR

  A Nick Caine Adventure #10

  by

  K.T. TOMB

  Created by

  J.R. Rain & Aiden James

  Acclaim for the authors:

  “Gripping, adventurous, and romantic—J.R. Rain’s The Lost Ark is a breakneck thriller that traces the thread of history from Biblical stories to current-day headlines. Be prepared to lose sleep!”

  —James Rollins, international bestselling author of Bloodline

  “Aiden James has written a deeply psychological, gripping tale that keeps the readers hooked from page one.”

  —Bookfinds on The Forgotten Eden

  “J.R. Rain delivers a blend of action and wit that always entertains. Quick with the one-liners, but his characters are fully fleshed out (even the undead ones) and you’ll come back again and again.”

  —Scott Nicholson, bestselling author of The Red Church

  “The intense writing style of Aiden James kept my eyes glued to the story and the pages seemed to fly by at warp speed. Twists, turns, and surprises pop up at random times to keep the reader off balance. It all blends together to create one of the best stories I have read all year.”

  —Huntress Reviews for The Devil’s Paradise

  The Nick Caine Adventures

  by J.R. Rain and Aiden James

  1. Temple of the Jaguar

  2. Treasure of the Deep

  3. Pyramid of the Gods

  by Aiden James

  4. Curse of the Druids

  5. Secret of the Loch

  6. River of the Damned

  by K.T. Tomb

  7. Map of the Masons

  8. Mountains of the Moon

  9. Order of the Cyclops

  10. Labyrinth of the Minotaur

  11. Blade of the Ripper

  Labyrinth of the Minotaur

  Copyright © 2017 by J.R. Rain and Aiden James

  All rights reserved.

  Ebook Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Reading Sample

  About the Author

  Labyrinth of the Minotaur

  Prologue

  “Knossos just can’t be it,” Silje said aloud.

  She noted that several people in the library had turned to look at her. She hadn’t realized that she’d spoken so loudly, but then, English people could be a bit more noise sensitive and stuffy than those in Norway. Of course, she was in the library of a pretty prestigious university in Leicester, England. She’d spent a great deal of time studying in universities all over Europe and found that only the French were worse. The French were worse in every way.

  “Are you okay, Miss Naess?” One of the assistants approached and spoke in a low tone. The placard at his desk when she’d first made her inquiry had said, “Henry Middleton.”

  “I’m fine,” she responded, pushing out her chair and wrinkling her brow. It was something that she did whenever she was concentrating very hard on something and was frustrated because the answer wouldn’t come.

  “You appear to be struggling with something,” Henry ventured.

  Silje could never be sure if any male had a true concern to help her or if they were just drawn to her because of the fact that her physical features might have landed her a job on the cover of Elle Magazine, if she was given to that sort of shallow attention. She needed help, so she took the help, which was being offered. How good it would be remained to be seen.

  “This is all you have on Knossos?”

  “All that we have here, but I can order something from one of the other universities in the consortium. Our university link in Athens would likely have what you want. If it’s available, I could get it here within two weeks.” Henry smiled and gave her a pretty good going over, for which she felt like she might need a cigarette afterward.

  She snorted. “Why wait two weeks if I can have it tomorrow? Today, if I hurried.”

  “I don’t think I could have it that quickly,” he replied, following her as she snatched up her bag and strode toward the exit. About halfway along, he realized that she wasn’t staying around for further assistance. He just froze in place and watched her.

  Silje glanced over her shoulder as she pushed the door open. She knew he’d been watching her retreat, particularly midway up her body. He turned away the moment he realized she’d caught him staring.

  “Jesus,” she breathed, shaking her head and pulling the door open.

  Out on the walk, she pulled her cell phone out of her bag and glanced at the time. Won’t get a flight today, but I might as well make a reservation for tomorrow. She pressed the speed dial button to the travel agency on her cell phone and waited for it to connect as she continued walking toward her rental in the parking lot near the library.

  After a couple of rings, a voice answered, rattling off the agency’s name that no one would have been able to decipher it and followed the greeting with, “How can I be of assistance?”

  “I need to speak to Hilda, please,” Silje responded.

  “She’s on another line at the moment. Do you want to hold?”

  “I will hold, but come back after a few minutes if she doesn’t end the call, I’ll leave a message,” Silje answered.

  “If you like, I can take the message down now. That way, if she doesn’t end the call soon, you can just disconnect the call,” the receptionist responded.

  “Okay. Let’s do that.”

  “What is your message?”

  “I need a flight out of Heathrow to Athens. Earliest available.”

  “Do you want her to check this evening or wait for a flight out tomorrow?”

  Silje considered the question a moment. She really didn’t want a red-eye. Spinnaker could wait a few hours longer. “Tomorrow will be fine.”

  “Okay, and does Hilda have all of your information on file?”

  “She does.”

  “This is?”

  “I’m sorry, I suppose you will need a name. Naess, Silje Naess.”

  “Okay, Miss Naess. I will forward this information to Hilda. Is there anything you’d like to add?”

  “Have her order me a car and put me up for…” Silje considered the time she might need in Athens. “Let’s make it for three days and we’ll see where it goes from there.”

  “Okay, Miss Naess, flight to Athens, Greece with lodging and a rental. I’ll forward this information to her. Will that be all?”

  Silje was nearing the parking lot and her car and really didn’t feel like sitting in the car and waiting for Hilda to answer her phone.

  “Change of plans. Instead of holding for her, just have her make the arrangements, charge it to Spinnaker and then fax the detail
s to my hotel in London.”

  “I assume that she booked the hotel and knows where you are?”

  “You are correct.”

  “Very well, Miss Naess. I will put the message through to her right now. I’m sure she’ll get on it the moment she ends the call she’s on.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Thank you, Miss Naess.”

  The call disconnected and Silje’s mind switched back to the research issue she’d just run into. She’d hoped to get a little bit of preliminary information before heading to Greece. Spinnaker wanted an initial report before going forward with the project. It wasn’t an unusual request. She’d already been in Scotland and was going to pass through London back to New York when Spinnaker’s newest request came in.

  Silje had started working for Spinnaker six months before. It wasn’t too bad, really. She didn’t get to keep what she found, but she also didn’t have to pay her own expenses, worry about where her next job was going to come from, or any legal red tape with foreign governments. The pay wasn’t bad either. In some ways, it was an archeologist’s dream job.

  Silje walked across the parking lot, focused on the rental car, she took the keys from her bag. She pushed the button, and heard the high-pitched whistle of the alarm disarming. At the same instant, she heard quick footsteps behind her. Before she could turn, something heavy struck her and she felt herself begin to fall as blackness came over her.

  Chapter One

  “Tell me what we’re looking for again?” Ishi asked.

  “You’re playing with me, right?” Nick responded. Ishi had always been on top of things before, but since they’d quit working for Project Golden Eye and gone back to doing what they’d been doing before, his Tawankan partner hadn’t been himself.

  “You said, a box or a bag or something French-looking,” Ishi responded. “There are a lot of things that are French-looking. A French maid, a French fry, French toast, a French tickler, even Napoleon’s ass was probably French-looking.”

  “For your information, French toast and French fries originated in Canada, you don’t even know what a French tickler is, we’re looking for Napoleon’s face and not his ass and a French maid would get you in trouble with Nat.”

  “I told you to leave that alone,” he growled. He stopped, turned and glared at Nick.

  Nick had hit on a sore subject, though he didn’t have any details to know why it was sore. A week or so before, everything had been fine, but once they’d crossed over the border into Panama, Ishi had started acting strangely.

  “Sorry.” Nick held up his hands in surrender.

  Nick Caine and Ishimi Cuyamel had terminated employment with Project Golden Eye when they’d discovered that its leader had been using them to gather up powerful relics that would put him in a position of world domination. Along with the resurrected Marie DaVinci and the Galvan sisters, Cat and Nat, they’d uncovered the plot and brought it to a close. It had been frighteningly close to being their permanent termination.

  Nick, having given his heart away to both Marie and Cat, had been left in an extremely difficult situation. Rather than make a choice, he fled. After a few weeks of soaking up the sun, they got bored. The first thing on Nick’s list of things to do was to recover a treasure he’d heard about. Whether the treasure was real or not was inconsequential; the thrill of the chase was what really mattered.

  “Let’s go through this again,” Nick said after a few minutes. He found a boulder, sat down on it, and looked out over the mountains and valleys spread out in front of them. “Before the U.S. took over building the canal, an attempt at building it had been made by the French. More specifically, by a man named Lesseps.

  “A great deal of money was spent by the French without ever completing the project. Part of the reason behind that failure was the fact that the project bled money. Nearly everyone was skimming a little off of the top. According to the information I have, no one had his grimy mitts in the till more than Lesseps, but he was smart about it. What he took each time went unnoticed because he filched 100 franc coins.”

  “So, we’re looking for some French dude’s coin collection?”

  “You can put it that way if you like, but this is like no other coin collection. These are gold coins with a bareheaded Napoleon on them. A single coin is worth between two and five grand.”

  “So, we’re talking a couple million dollars in gold coins?”

  “Let’s do the math,” Nick began. “If Lesseps really did filch a million francs and bring them up here to hide them, then how many coins are we looking for?”

  “Ten thousand.”

  “And ten thousand times five thousand…”

  “Fifty million? It’s really here?”

  “Unless my French is pretty bad, I think the reference ‘deuxième soeur of the trois sœurs’ means the second sister of these three mountain peaks.” Nick waved his hand toward the main peak and the smaller peak, they were on the slope of the second tallest of the group.

  “Okay, so we have to turn over every rock here until we find a box or whatever French-looking thing that has ten thousand gold coins in it?”

  “I’ve got a little bit better description than that. Come on.” Nick got up from the rock and started up the trail. It really didn’t matter what they found, it was good to be out on a mountainside with a fresh breeze in his face and not beholden to anyone.

  They were on the second largest of the cluster of three peaks in western Panama. The largest of the peaks was Volcan Baru. It was a volcano that had remained dormant for five hundred years, but was on a list of the most likely dormant volcanoes to blow their top since 2006, when a cluster of earthquakes in the area started some fresh concerns about its dormancy.

  Volcan Baru’s crater created a low basin between the second sister—which they were on—and the higher peak of Baru, which was about four hundred feet higher. A little more than five hundred feet lower and to the east of Baru was another peak that nearly made it up to 11,000 feet; the third sister.

  Even from the summit of the shorter peak, Nick and Ishi were able to see both oceans to the north and south of the Isthmus of Panama.

  “Pretty cool, huh?”

  “Beats the hell out of people chasing you and wanting to kill you,” Ishi replied.

  “At this point, I don’t care if there are any gold coins or not,” Nick replied, taking in a deep breath of fresh air.

  “So, you just made this whole thing up in order to go climb the second tallest peak in Panama?” Ishi’s eyes narrowed as he spoke.

  “No,” Nick snorted. He smacked Ishi in the chest with the back of his hand and then started walking toward a rim above a sheer drop of about five hundred feet. “This way.”

  When he reached the rim, Nick walked along it, stopping every few strides to look over the edge. He stopped, tossed down his pack and started taking out his rappelling equipment.

  “Down there?” Ishi asked. He’d been on plenty of sheer cliffs with Nick before, but he wasn’t sure how Nick knew exactly where to look. Nick had a way of keeping some parts to himself, because he enjoyed the thrill of letting Ishi in on his cleverness.

  “Do you know the French words for nose and eyes?” Nick asked as he buckled his rappelling harness in place.

  “Nez and yeux,” Ishi grinned. He enjoyed the shocked look on Nick’s face. Nick wasn’t the only one who knew a little French.

  “Very good.” He recovered quickly from his shock and continued. “Unless I’m mistaken, that outcropping of rock right there would be the nez of the deuxième soeur. To the right and slightly above it should be her right yeux.”

  “L'œil droit,” Ishi corrected. He had a few surprises of his own.

  “What?”

  “The right eye,” he replied, buckling his rappelling harness into place.

  “Anyway, the right eye is a cave and—”

  “Yeah. I got it.”

  They set their anchor and attached the rope. Ishi leaned back on it will all
of his weight and pulled, testing to make sure that it would hold. He slipped on his pack, clipped onto the rappelling line and backed up to the ledge. “And I do know what a French tickler is,” he said before leaping back into the air and dropping from Nick’s view.

  Chapter Two

  “Let’s move this pile of rocks and see what we find,” Nick suggested.

  “Since when do we go into a cave searching for a treasure and our strategy is to ‘move this pile of rocks and see what we find’?” Ishi replied, using his best impersonation of Nick, which wasn’t too bad. They’d been together long enough to have things like that down.

  “Since… do you see anywhere else to look?” Nick responded.

  “I think we’re just wasting our time. There are no gold coins. You just found something to keep us busy. We’ll move all these rocks and still find nothing.”

  “Are you complaining?”

  “No.”

  “It sure sounds like you’re complaining.”

  “I’m not complaining.”

  “So, help me move these rocks.”

  Ishi helped Nick move the rocks. As they got half of the pile moved, they noticed an opening behind it.

  “See there? An opening,” Nick laughed in triumph.

  “So, it’s an opening. You have seven of them on your head and I’d just as soon one of them remained closed.”

  “Like this one?” Nick mocked, staring at Ishi with his left eye closed. “Or would you prefer this one?”

  Ishi ignored him and kept moving rocks. He was grumpy because he and Natalia had had a disagreement. The disagreement was over what Nick was doing to her sister, Cat. Just like always, he’d been forced into defending his partner and friend. Well, actually, Nick was more like a brother.

  Indirectly, it was Nick’s fault, but what could Ishi do about it? When it got right down to it, the trip after Lesseps’ treasure was exactly what he’d needed; what they’d both needed, even if it was a complete wash. As he thought it through, he decided that he should just let it go. The only person it seemed to be bugging was himself.