Free The Balkan Escape (Short Story) by Steve Berry Page B

necessarily from him. He motioned to one of the other armed men and barked out some Russian. The man found a knife and cut the nylon bindings that held her arms behind her back.
    She rubbed away the soreness. “I appreciate that. They were tight.”
    “These men are not to be fooled,” he said. “They have a job and will do it. I need to know why you here.”
    She wondered if Sokolov’s task was to make her feel comfortable, vulnerable, to gain her trust. There was something about him she was drawn to, not the usual arrogance Russians seemed to project. More reserved. Likeable. She told herself to be careful and not say more than she should.
    To buy time, she studied the vault.
    Thracian kings and nobility were buried in underground temples called
heroons
. Usually either multichambered and rectangular or singular and circular with a domed roof, they served as places for ritual ceremonies to honor the deceased with funeral gifts. Until the early 20th century the entire culture had been practically unknown, and when Thorvaldsen offered her the chance, she’d been excited about the prospect of visiting one of their forgotten sanctuaries.
    But this tomb had obviously been looted. There was nothing here to find.
    And it was time for her to leave.
    She counted three tunnels leading out. One was the path back outside. Two more led deeper into the mountain. Mentally, she ticked off the distance between herself and the nearest exit. About fifteen paces. Straight line. Nothing in the way.
    She admired the frescoes again and marveled at the obvious lack of Greek influence. Thracians had enjoyed a rich culture, and, if not for their disunity, they could well have developed into a lasting civilization. Unfortunately, when they were Hellenized, the beards, tattoos, cloaks, boots, and hats that had distinguished them disappeared from both their lives and their art. The images here were from a time before that influence, showing them as they originally had been, not blue-eyed and red-haired as one observer incorrectly described, but dark-haired with features more common to Europeans.
    “Will you tell me why you here?” Sokolov asked again.
    “Please tell us,” a new voice said. “I want to know answer to that question.”
    Petar Varga entered the chamber.
    Today he was dressed in more stylish clothes, his dirty work overalls gone. He approached the spot where she and Sokolov stood, each step crunching loose gravel beneath his soles, his swagger that of a man in charge.
    “You can stick it up your ass,” she said.
    Varga’s arm swept up and the back of his hand smacked the side of her face. The blow jarred her, but she regained her balance and was about to pounce when Varga produced a pistol.
    “You’re tough with a gun,” she said. “How are you in a fight?”
    He laughed. “Not so good. I like advantage of you not knowing what I do.”
    She rubbed her cheek and her stinging jaw. He’d regret doing that. Just one opportunity, that’s all she’d need.
    “I hope last night show you we are not to be ignored,” Varga said. “Why you here?”
    She decided to play him, since it really didn’t matter what she said. “I came to find you.”
    Varga’s face twisted. “For who?”
    She turned away and stepped close to the altar where some fist-sized rocks lay scattered. The chamber was large for a Thracian tomb. Some research done a few days ago had revealed that, usually, the rectangular-type vaults consisted of three separate rooms, each rich in ornamentation with columns, friezes, and caryatids. This one, though, displayed only frescoes.
    Which was odd.
    She wondered if the other two exits led to more chambers or tunnels. Impossible to know for sure. Power cables snaked a path into the darkness of each. Unfortunately, she could not make it to the exit that she knew led to fresh air, because two armed men guarded it, one on each side.
    She lifted one of the stones and tested its weight.
    Plenty heavy.
    “What do you