Chapter Three #3
Up close, the building was almost indistinguishable from the rock face behind it. There was no signage of any kind. Or any windows, she realised with a jolt.
‘What are we doing here?’
‘We’re here to meet a man about a vase.’
Was he making a joke? She had assumed she would be sitting in on a business meeting. But Antaeus’s face hadn’t shifted into a smile, not even the taunting kind he typically reserved for her. Instead he looked serious, tense even. But why would he be tense about a vase?
Her question remained unasked. At that moment, the doors to the facility slid open, and they stepped inside.
Cassie had assumed the interior of the building would be as nondescript as the exterior, but the room she was standing in was more like the lobby of an expensive hotel.
The walls were matte-grey, and the floor was a polished black marble that reflected the minimalist lighting from the ceiling.
There was no art, no furniture save for a single sleek desk.
A woman in a tailored silk blouse was sitting behind the desk, a headset arcing gracefully over her ear.
A tall grey-haired man in a dark suit moved forward smoothly. ‘Kalós orísate ston Króko Kyrie Tsiárta.’
Antaeus shook his hand. ‘Kyrie Báros. Chaíromai pou sas xanavlépo. And this is Ms Appleton,’ he said, switching back to English smoothly.
He gave no explanation as to her identity or role. Because men like him didn’t offer explanations or excuses or apologies. Or mercy, she reminded herself as the grey-haired man turned to face her.
‘Ms Appleton.’ He inclined his head. ‘I am Vasilis Baros. I am the director of operations here at the Krokos facility. I hope your journey was uneventful.’
‘It was.’ Antaeus took an infinitesimal step forward, and instantly they were moving, his will an invisible spur he wielded to bend others to his wishes without so much as uttering a word.
‘Everything is ready for you, Mr Tsiartas. If you will follow me.’
Two men in dark suits stood like statues on either side of an elevator.
They had the physique of security guards, but they were more than that.
They were gatekeepers to another realm. As they approached, the two men turned as one and the man nearest slid a keycard into a panel on the wall.
The doors opened, and Cassie stepped into the elevator.
As Antaeus followed, she felt a shiver of dread that had nothing to do with the temperature.
There were no buttons, just a screen with a zero at the centre. As the doors closed, the director of operations said firmly, ‘The viewing vault.’
Instantly the elevator started to go down, the pressure building in her ears as they plummeted.
She remembered reading something about similar facilities being buried hundreds of feet below the surface.
But this felt like it was going deeper, to the buried bones of the building.
It felt like she was being swallowed whole, transported into the underworld. The thought made her breath catch.
‘How far down are we going?’
Mr Baros smiled. ‘Roughly thirteen hundred feet. Around a quarter of a mile.’
‘That’s so deep. How did you get the infrastructure down this far? Was this facility built into a natural formation?’
‘It was a mine. For silver first, I believe.’ Antaeus’s voice made her jump slightly. ‘Then magnesite.’
‘What happened to the mine?’
Antaeus shrugged. He was staring at the numeral-1 on the screen, his tension a palpable thing.
‘Changes in the global market. The discovery of other more easily accessible deposits elsewhere. Either would have made local mining operations economically unviable. That’s when it was converted into this facility. ’
Her eyes followed his to the screen. It said 2. ‘How many floors are there?’
The director of operations cleared his throat.
‘Four. The archives. They contain corporate and legal records. The vaults. They contain more sensitive documents, historical items, manuscripts, et cetera. The viewing vault. That’s where items are brought up for owners and potential buyers.
And then, finally, the strongroom. Which I think is self-explanatory. ’
It was.
As her imagination conjured up a labyrinthine, temperature-controlled, impenetrable resting place for the most priceless artefacts, she felt a faint floating sensation as the elevator’s descent bled away to a quivering stop. Seconds later, the doors opened.
The atmosphere was different here. Upstairs there was at least a connection with the outside world. Here the air was on the edge of being too cool. And this was simply the anteroom. There was another room, she realised as they approached a second set of doors flanked by two more men in dark suits.
Vasilis Baros pressed his hand against a panel on the wall, leaning in to allow his retina to be scanned. The thick doors slid open with a hydraulic hiss.
This room felt less like a vault and more like a tomb. A very secure, sophisticated tomb. This time the guards accompanied them.
A woman was waiting inside.
‘Kaliméra. My name is Xanthi,’ she said in softly spoken, fluent English.
‘I will be showing you the artefact today.’ Smiling politely, she stepped to one side, and Cassie saw a large, two-handled vase on a plinth.
The lights were softer here, presumably in deference to the antiquity of the artefact. Still, she breathed in sharply.
It was magnificent. Black figures silhouetted against the vibrant reddish clay seemed almost to move.
There was a snake writhing at the base of a tree and a helmeted man reaching out for a shimmering gold object hanging from one of the branches.
They were crisply outlined as if they had been painted that morning.
‘Is that the Golden Fleece?’ she said slowly.
Xanthi nodded, and now her smile softened. ‘It is. It is Jason presenting the Golden Fleece to his uncle, Pelias.’ She pointed to an aged man sitting on a throne. ‘It is an exceptional piece.’
Antaeus clearly thought so too. There was a flicker of genuine awe in his eyes, and he was leaning forward, drinking in every detail.
‘It is very beautiful and very rare,’ Xanthi continued. ‘This particular krater—’
‘Krater…?’ Cassie frowned.
Xanthi nodded. ‘A krater was a specific kind of vessel used for mixing wine with water. In ancient Greece, it was considered a social faux pas to drink wine undiluted. These vases would have been a decorative centrepiece at a symposium, an all-male drinking party. Water was poured in from a hydria—a water jug—and the mixture was then served to guests using a smaller ladle or cup.’
She was not just offering up fun facts. This was a sales pitch, Cassie thought. And Antaeus was a prospective buyer.
Xanthi turned towards the vase. ‘This piece has been meticulously cared for and passed down through the most discerning private collectors. Few pieces from the Archaic period capture such a pivotal mythological moment with this level of clarity. Astonishing, isn’t it, to think that it’s over two thousand four hundred years old? ’
Antaeus breathed out softly. Two thousand four hundred years’ worth of history, myth and artistic mastery. That alone made it priceless. But for him it carried a different value.
The story of Jason and the Argonauts was one that resonated with him on a deeply personal level.
Like Andreas, Jason’s father, Aeson, had been betrayed, not by his business partner but by his brother, Pelias.
He had been imprisoned while Pelias lived as a king, having taken the throne from his brother.
To free his father, Jason had agreed to find the Golden Fleece. He had succeeded, and Aeson had been avenged.
Antaeus felt his chest tighten. Like Jason, he had committed to a lifelong quest to right a wrong, to avenge his father.
Because why should Andreas have to bear the burden of guilt alone?
Henry had been a part of it. But a compulsive liar like him knew that any lie, in this case fraud, required a built-in exit strategy. So from day one he had covered his tracks, positioning himself as a victim, not a partner in crime.
Xanthi picked up a pair of pristine white gloves. ‘Would you like me to show you the makers’ marks?’
‘Yes.’ He paused. ‘Actually, could I hold it? I know you have protocols, but—’
In the hair-fine pause that followed his question, Antaeus let his gaze move to where the director of operations stood in respectful silence. As Antaeus knew he would, Baros stepped forward smoothly. ‘We do. But I’m happy to make an exception on this occasion.’
‘Of course.’ Xanthi nodded. She held out the gloves. ‘If I could ask you to support the krater from beneath the foot and below the handles. And please avoid touching the painted scenes.’
Antaeus pulled on the gloves and picked up the vase.
It was heavy, not just physically but with the weight of the mythological story that so mirrored his own.
Beside him, he felt Cassie’s gaze on the side of his face, and his body tensed.
His father’s betrayal and imprisonment were wounds that had defined his life.
This should be a solemn, almost sacred moment.
And yet he had brought her here, the daughter of the very man who had inflicted those wounds.
Back in New York, he’d needed more than that panicked expression on her face to settle his grievance.
He needed Cassie’s life to be as uncomfortable and precarious as his had felt for so long.
For her to feel that same sense of powerlessness and injustice.