The Minotaur's Hit List (Doc Minus Two Book I)

around for my bag but it was not there. That disturbed me as most of my money was in it, but I did not have time to stick around and curse at my bad luck. I ran through the fields towards the hills where I figured it would be easier to observe the area and find a village or a town I could go to. A distant house came into view, but I did not want to go there for fear that the shed belonged to its owner, and so he or she might be in on the kidnapping. Instead I ran to an olive grove that lay a half a mile away from the shed. Once among the trees, I felt safe. Hidden in the grove, I knew no one could see me from the shed, even if they did come back.

  It was good timing. They came back minutes after I reached the grove. I could hear a truck engine approaching and took a dive between two trees and lay on the ground observing the shed. The truck was light green, with a two-door cab and a covered bed. I could not recognize the make from that distance but it seemed like an old Japanese light truck. A plume of dark smoke trailed into the air as it came to a halt near the shed. Someone stepped out of it. I could not see much from a half a mile away. He was just a dot. But there was only one person; that much I could tell. It was either my abductor coming back or someone else driving his truck. The dot went behind the shed. He must have entered through the door, which was on the other side from me. He came out a moment later and began to walk from one side of the shed to the other. No doubt he was looking for me, maybe even with binoculars. I made sure I did not move a muscle. At this distance he would not be able to see a thing inside the grove, even with binoculars, unless I made a sudden move. It must have worked because after five minutes of scanning his surroundings the man entered the truck and made a U-turn and disappeared down the road.

  I got up. They knew I had escaped now. Whoever kidnapped me, who most likely was the person I saw coming back to the shed, must have been a low-ranking operative in the organization. Someone who either did not have a phone on him or who did not know who to call. It may have been a local, maybe the owner of the shed. I was lucky in that respect: a professional assassin would have known what to do with me. The assassins must have been too expensive to have them guard a cave without knowing whether or not the victim would show up. They did not know that I carried a false ID, either, or they would have been alerted that I had arrived in Crete, and would be better prepared. Doc Minus Two knew what he was doing when he gave it to me. I reached a hand inside my back pocket to feel the comforting texture of the passport and then froze in panic. It was not there.

  My abductor must have taken it when he was done tying me up. That explained a lot. They were guarding the cave, and they did suspect it was me who was sitting by the fence. But my abductor wanted to make sure given my strange appearance, and the false passport he found on me only served to confuse him further. That must have been why he left me at the shed: he drove away to show it to someone. They must have told him it was me despite the fake name, and he came back to deal with me per their instructions. The false passport may have bought me just enough time to save my life.

  But I knew I should not be complacent. Now they knew that I was in this country under the name of Ben Durand. I could not go back to the inn. They might be waiting for me there already. I could not leave the island, either, without that passport. I had my own ID but it was back in the hotel and too dangerous to use, anyway, and so for all intents and purposes I was without any usable identification. I had only a few dollars in local currency on me, and no possessions. A murderous organization was now closing in on me in an island where I had few places to hide, no friends, and not even the ability to speak to most of the inhabitants. I was a dead man.

  It was pointless to continue to the hills now and look for a nearby village. There was no place I could stay in and no point in finding transportation to the inn. I could go to the local police and tell them everything, but they would quickly learn of my whereabouts. The same would happen if I were to go to the American consulate. And of course there would be more of them by the cave now, so going there would be suicidal. I was free, but a prisoner nonetheless, and my days were numbered.

  But there is nothing like desperation to get your brain to reach into its furthest repositories and pull out a survival plan where none seemed to have existed a moment ago. For a split second, a first and last in my ordinary life, I was a genius. My plan, I thought, would not have shamed even a Hitchcock character. There was a way for me not only to survive, but to find out what was in that cave. I could see it now.

  It was simple. All I had to do was go to the local police, but say nothing about them. Instead, I would tell the cops that I was kidnapped at the entrance to the cave and managed to jump off the truck. I would ask them to come with me as I was sure the perpetrator was still in the cave area waiting for innocent tourists to rob. As we arrive near the cave I would ask them to show me the entrance, making up a story about the man emerging from inside the cave. I would then sneak in past the cops, forcing them to run after me into the cave. Now I would have my own dedicated — albeit unwilling — bodyguards. I would run straight for the a-corridor and see what it was that they were hiding. They would not dare shoot me with the local police behind me — especially as at this point there could not be many of the killers in there. Once I find out what it was they were hiding and share it with the police, there would be no further need to eliminate me. Whoever needed to stop them would act, and I would be off the hook, even if temporarily arrested.

  I had a smile on my face — something that five minutes earlier I could not have imagined ever entertaining again. I wished Doc Minus Two were there to witness this so that he would be forced to begrudgingly admire my plan. I began to march towards the hills when another idea struck me: why walk if I could ride? There was a bicycle in the shed. It did not have tires, but if I stuck to earthen paths it would not be so bad. No one would wait for me in the shed anymore. They would never dream that I would dare go back there. No person escaping his captors has ever willingly gone back to the place of his imprisonment.

  I ran back to the small wooden structure. The door was still open as I expected. I pulled the bike out. The seat was in tatters and the chain made a noise like ten chalks scraping against a blackboard in unison, but it was in working order. The ride was not smooth. The contraption rattled my bones even more than I had feared, but I felt free and near invincible, and for once cared little for physical comfort.

  A town came into view thirty minutes into the ride. Again small whitewashed houses and street vendors, but as I ventured further towards the center there appeared a few four and five story buildings. I asked a passerby, a middle aged man, where the police station was. He looked at me funny and I realized that I still had a few magazine pages sticking out of my shirt and that my fake goatee was half gone. The noisy, rusty bike with no tires served to complete the picture for him. I'm sure he wanted to point me to the nearest psychiatrist instead, but he was polite enough to give me the directions I requested.

  The police station was housed in a three-story building with many windows that looked achingly modern compared with the more traditional structures that surrounded it. Small cars and motorcycles parked next to it. I went in and approached the desk sergeant. He lifted his eyes off a piece of paper he was reading and looked at me and his mouth gaped open a little. He said something in Greek.

  I shook my head. "I don't speak the language. English?"

   He waved an arm in reluctant acceptance. "Yes, but not much."

  I came straight to the point. "I was abducted."

  "What?"

  "Kidnapped. Someone took me away against my will."

  He lifted a finger and pointed at me. There was a question mark on his face. "You here."

  "I managed to get away."

  "Oh. Good, good." His eyes went back to the paper he was reading and he swiveled away from me on his chair.

  I took a step closer. "No, not good. This is a crime. And they'll do it again, except next time whomever they abduct may not be so lucky. They prey on tourists."

>   He sighed and put the paper down and turned to me again. "Where they kidnap you?"

  "At the Labyrinth Cave. The Messara Cave."

  "Why you go there? You can't enter. Very dangerous."

  I nodded demonstratively. "I know. I didn't want to enter, just to see the entrance. And then someone jumped me from behind and tied me up and put a bag over my head." I used my arms to animate my story and that made him chuckle. "You have hair glued to your face," he said, pointing to my chin.

  I removed it with some embarrassment. "It’s part of my Minotaur custom. I wanted to take silly pictures with that. With the cave in the background."

  That did not seem to convince him and he eyed me suspiciously. "What he look like, man kidnap you?"

  "I don't know. I never had a chance to get a good look at him."

  He gave me a penetrating gaze. "How I know you not lie?"

  I used his disbelief to hurry the process along. "Because I can prove it. Come with me to the cave and I'll show you. I even know where he is, the man who attacked me. He came from inside the cave, and I have reason to believe he is still there, waiting for other tourists."

  He rose up in his chair and leaned towards me. "You said you never saw him."

  "Not