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eBook Category: Suspense/Thriller
eBook Description: Adam Pray's older brother, Julian, disappeared from his life when Adam was twelve years old. Now, years later, Adam gets a card from Julian asking him to meet on the island of Corfu, in the Mediterranean. Drawn by curiosity and a longing for reunion with the brother who was a childhood hero, Adam goes to Corfu, only to be pulled into a toxic waste scam. Pray's old nemesis, Terrence Parker, CIA, is behind the phony waste disposal operation. The CIA, through its asset, Globus Enterprises, has contracted, at top dollar, to clean up the waste at U.S. military bases throughout Europe. Globus simply dumps the waste into undersea caves throughout the Aegean Sea. He has hired Julian Pray, who has spent years in the area sailing a small ketch, to locate suitable caverns. Adam Pray finds himself caught in the crossfire between the renegade Parker, Colombian drug dealers, Fugger, the Israeli Mossad, a cop from Athens who won't take no for an answer, and a 3,000-year-old goddess with an attitude.

eBook Publisher: The Fiction Works, Published: http://www.fictionworks.com, 2004
Fictionwise Release Date: April 2004

This eBook is part of the following series:

• Paul Moomaw's Adam Pray Series

7 Reader Ratings:

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Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [268 KB] , ePub (EPUB) [202 KB] , Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [222 KB] , Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [801 KB] , Palm Doc (PDB) [250 KB] , Microsoft Reader (LIT) [240 KB] , Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [264 KB] , hiebook (KML) [591 KB] , Sony Reader (LRF) [299 KB] , iSilo (PDB) [206 KB] , Mobipocket (PRC) [258 KB] , Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [306 KB] , OEBFF Format (IMP) [339 KB]
Words: 79035
Reading time: 225-316 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

Crete, 1600 BC

The woman returns soundlessly, as always. Antipos the sculptor wheels from his window, where he has been watching two gulls fight over a tidbit of food. The afternoon light paints the stuccoed walls of the room, and gilds the sea.

"You're too quiet," he says. He reaches for the wine that rests on a shelf set into the wall, next to the small, stone lamp of olive oil that he keeps always lighted, and holds it to his lips, not bothering with a cup. He has finished half the jug. The woman makes him anxious, with her somber quietness, impenetrable eyes like dark blue stones, and her pale skin, beautiful but cold, like snow-covered Mount Ida.

As he replaces the jug, Antipos allows himself a lingering glance, from the corner of his eye, at the rest of her--the tiny waist, small, firm breasts that peek from her loose-fitting tunic top. A sacred honey bee of gold and silver on a chain of lapis beads nestles between the breasts. He wishes his lips could replace the bee. Her large hips and strong thighs move seductively under her layered skirt. Heat rises in his groin, then subsides, as he looks again at her cold, distant face.

"Is it ready?" she asks. Antipos nods. "Take me to it," she says.

Antipos picks up the lamp and crosses to the rocky staircase that leads below to his workshop. He pauses and holds out the lamp.

"Go ahead," he says.

The woman steps quickly across the floor and takes the lamp. Their hands brush, and Antipos again experiences desire. The woman gazes at him with a sliver of smile, as if she also feels the heat of his loins. She turns and descends the stairs. Antipos starts to follow, then crosses back to the shelf and retrieves the jug of wine. As he lifts it to his lips, the floor beneath him shakes, and he spills wine down his chin. A faint roar emerges from the stairs, as if the earth groans with its own movement. Clutching the jug, Antipos descends to the workroom.

The woman--he has never learned her name, nor that of the mistress who supplies the gold she has paid so far, with a promise of more when his work is complete--stands with her back to him, silhouetted in the glow of the small lamp. The work she has come to see, draped in linen, rests on a wooden table. Antipos stares at her soft outline,wishing he had the nerve to do more than look. He has seen fifty springs, has buried two wives and his only child, and has not lost his appetite for the sweet place women flaunt between their thighs.

The earth quivers again, and a sound like the distant roar of a bull echoes off the raw limestone walls of the workshop. Antipos brushes past the girl and pulls the cloth away to reveal a statue, six hands high--a goddess, skin even paler than the woman's. She sits in a gilded chair, bare from the waist up, nipples cupped in lapis, and wears a skirt much like the woman's, but of gold. The statue's left arm extends to one side, curving up at the elbow. A snake curls around it, from shoulder to wrist. The right arm projects straight ahead, and holds a bronze sword, with the gold and silver figures of two bulls and a dolphin worked into the blade, which Antipos has given an edge as keen as the many real weapons he has forged.

"The gold work is very fine," the woman says.

Antipos nods, vaguely displeased. He knows the gold work is fine. But it means nothing. His pride lies in the ceramic of the skin and hair, applied in multiple, tedious layers, and fired with a subtle glaze that makes the seated goddess seem alive. No one ever notices the things that count, he thinks.

"She smiles," the girl says.

"That was her idea," Antipos replies. "I intended a more somber look. More fitting for a goddess, not that I know about goddesses. I tried the face three times, and three times she smiled, so I left it at that." He steps to one side. "Touch it, if you like."

The woman shakes her head and stares at the floor.

"You have to transport it for me."

"Transport it where?"

"To the east. There is a place, a cave, above Zakros, above the beach. The sea makes a river there that runs inland, under the mountains. It passes through the bowels of a cave, and that is where my mistress commands that you place the goddess. She says you will find a shelf of rock, two men's height above the floor of the cave. There the goddess will rest safely when the Achaeans come from the north with their sky gods."

Antipos snorts. "The barbarians will never touch our island."

"My lady does not share your confidence."

The earth shakes again, and the bull-like roaring comes louder.

Antipos staggers slightly, and touches the statue for balance.

"You earth mother is restless tonight."

"She will not be quiet until you have brought this to its home. And Crete will not know peace until this is done. My mistress has told me that."

Without warning, the little room screams and tilts, knocking Antipos flat. He tears his fingernails clinging to the limestone floor, his eyes squeezed shut in fear. Then the floor tilts back in the other direction. An eerie quiet replaces the roaring. Antipos opens his eyes. The statue, which miraculously has not fallen from its wooden perch, smiles serenely through a cloud of dust. The woman lies on her back next to a wall, her eyes closed, and her breast moving shallowly.

Antipos crawls to her.

"Are you hurt?" he asks. The woman does not respond. Cautiously, he touches her cheek with his knuckles. "Are you hurt?" he asks again, in a louder voice. Still she lies there.

Antipos backs away and squats, looking at her. Then, resisting an urge to look over his shoulder at the statue, he lifts the woman's skirt toward her hips, marveling at the pale smoothness of her thighs, and the dark triangle of hair above them. He licks his lips, and touches the hair. It is soft, and curly. The woman moans. Antipos jerks his hand away, but then she is still again. He renews his touch, wrapping the soft tufts of hair around his fingers, unconsciously rubbing and stroking his own crotch with his other hand. Then he reaches for her with his mouth.

She twitches, and her eyes snap open.

"No!" she shouts,and staggers to her feet.

Antipos lunges for her, catches one ankle. The woman spins and kicks at him. She a frees her foot, but loses her balance, falls against the table, knocks it and the statue to the ground, and lands backwards on top of it. She gasps, and her mouth forms a small circle of surprise as her body arches rigidly, then sinks back again. She moans once, and is still.

Antipos rises to his feet and stares at her. The tip of the statue's bronze sword peeks out, just below her right breast, gleaming dully in the dim light, and blood pools in the folds of her tunic. The bee lies askew across her other breast. Antipos hesitates, then reaches for it.

A thousand bulls roar, and the world spins. The roof of the workshop, which forms the stone floor of the room above, splits open, and Antipos has a moment to wonder at the sight of dark blue sky before a slab of stone crushes the life from him.