Weatherford wasn’t going to like it when he found out that MI6 might have someone dirty in their organization…or that STAT did.
Chapter 9
Greece
Harley sat in the darkened villa on the northeast edge of Kalambaka, eyeing Sawyer covertly, wondering how a guy could possibly look so unbelievably handsome. The scratches across his face he’d gotten in the scuffle with the vampire had completely healed, and she swore he was even better looking now than he’d been when they’d left the hotel to start their shift.
Reluctantly dragging her gaze away from his perfect face, she turned her attention to the big plate-glass window and the row of monitors lined up in front of it. The view outside the window was the front of the mountain on which the Monastery of the Holy Trinity sat, while the monitors displayed different video feeds from the various cameras they’d spent the day setting up around the perimeter of the place. Even at night, lit only by a series of work lights, the cliff-top collection of red sandstone buildings was breathtaking. Looking at something that had been around since before Columbus had taken a wrong turn and stumbled over the New World made Harley want to stare at it for hours on end. Or run up to explore for a while.
Then again, since the place was more than a mile away and towered hundreds of feet above the already-mountainous ground in addition to being currently occupied by an army of workers and security guards, maybe that might not be such a good idea. Which was a definite pity because the monastery looked like a fascinating place to visit. So instead, she’d sit here with Sawyer and watch the monitors to see if anything interesting happened. If they got lucky, maybe they’d catch sight of the bad guys delivering the kidnapped supernaturals for the upcoming auction.
She and Sawyer had flown into Athens yesterday along with the rest of their teammates, doing so in four small groups and staggering their arrival over a period of several hours. They’d all taken rental cars from different companies for the drive to the Meteora area and spread out over three different hotels scattered through Kalambaka and the smaller village of Kastraki, all in the hope of avoiding notice. Without being too obvious about it, Harley had made sure she was on the same flight and staying in the same hotel as Sawyer. The villa they’d selected as their surveillance outpost and operations center was one of the closest available homes to the Holy Trinity Monastery, positioned on an isolated back road with little traffic, so there’d be no one to see them come and go.
It hadn’t been that difficult to figure out which of the six active monasteries Boc and his crew were planning to use for the auction. The whole city of Kalambaka was buzzing with rumors about a production company—which was fake, of course—that had taken over the entirety of the huge Holy Trinity site to film a movie. Some people claimed it was for the follow-up Game of Thrones series, while others insisted it was for the next James Bond movie. There was word that hundreds of actors would be coming in over the next two days to film an extravagant party scene.
The monastery seemed like an over-the-top kind of place to hold an illegal auction, but Harley had to admit it was also brilliant. Boc and his traffickers could be seen hauling nearly anything up that mountain, and the locals would assume it was part of the movie set.
She glanced at one of the monitors on the backside of the mountain, watching a crane lift huge metal framework into position before a crew of workers clambered all over it.
“I can’t believe Boc is constructing an aerial tram to get the buyers to the top of the cliff,” she said. “That’s got to be ungodly expensive for a one-time use.”
Sawyer gazed out the window at the mountain and the buildings at its summit. “I guess if you expect people to come to your exotic supernatural auction and spend millions of dollars, it wouldn’t be a good idea to ask them to climb up the side of a mountain.”
“I suppose.” Harley frowned. “It still seems like a lot of money simply to put his buyers in the right mood.”
“I doubt he had to spend that much,” Sawyer said with a snort. “The locals are so thrilled with the idea of having a tram to the top of one of their monasteries, they’re probably paying for most of the construction cost themselves. The tourism boost the thing will bring will more than cover the cost.”
Harley prayed the locals who’d been part of this deal didn’t know the kind of people they were getting involved with or what Boc intended to do up there on top of that mountain.
“I read on the flight that there are a few monks in residence up there,” she said, glancing once again toward the monitors and all the people scurrying around up there. “Do you think they’re still alive?”
Sawyer considered that. “Probably, if only to maintain the facade for as long as possible. But after the auction is over? That, I don’t feel so good about.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
Which meant when they finally got up there, they were going to need to save not only the kidnapped supernaturals, but also a handful of monks. Without any backup.
Beside her, Sawyer went back to staring at the monitors, but from the expression on his face, it was obvious his mind was a million miles away. Considering the call Sawyer had gotten when they’d landed in Athens, she supposed he had good reason to be distracted.
“How did your teammates take the news when you told them what happened?” she asked quietly.
Sawyer leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his broad chest, a frown creasing his brow. “About as well as you’d expect. Erin is ready to say the hell with everything and head straight back to London. Rory agrees with her. And Elliott thinks we don’t have enough information to decide anything one way or the other. It doesn’t help that the local police still have no leads on who killed Sarah and Cedric.”
Weatherford had called while they were standing at the airport rental-car counter and even though Harley hadn’t been trying to listen in on their conversation, it was impossible to miss the man telling Sawyer that his former teammates, Sarah Parker and Cedric Abbot, were dead. Harley immediately recognized the names, even if it had taken a few seconds to remember them from the conversation they’d had back in Paris, when Sawyer had told her about the mission in Odessa and the two agents who’d decided to get out of the covert-ops world for good.
The former MI6 agents had been found dead in their home in Alberta, Canada, with their throats slit late last night. There’d been no signs of forced entry, much less a struggle or even defensive wounds. Weatherford said the attack had been so sudden, the couple didn’t even have time to realize what was happening.
“I knew Sarah and Cedric were a thing the moment I met them,” Sawyer said softly, not looking at her. “Even though they kept their relationship secret, everyone knew they were involved, so no one was surprised when they both decided to leave MI6. Everyone knew they had to quit if they truly wanted to be together. They got four years. I guess that counts for something.”