Chapter 11: The Collective Noun For Archaeologists

"Bronze age societies became resourceful in the face of an external threat, combining their resources their resources to counter an enemy. This is what the Ship List in Homer's Iliad shows us." Bethany Howes's assertion at the start of her programme, "The Ships of the Mycenaeans" reminded viewers of just how modern some ancient societies were, or perhaps how primitive modern societies can be. Freddie had just finished watching it. He looked at this watch. It was time for a swim.

What Bethany had asserted to be true of the Achaeans was proving to be no less true of those on the island of Agoras itself. Freddie had found no difficulties in bringing together all his local resources, once he had decided what needed to be done.

While Freddie didn't really like calling on his island friends for help too often, they had been happy to respond. As a result, Freddie's response to the threat posed to his livelihood by the archaeologists ran through the island like the thread that Ariadne gave to Theseus as he headed off into the Labyrinth in pursuit of the Minotaur.

It wasn't a mythical silken thread, though, that was currently wound around Danni's wrists as she lay on the floor of the room she shared with Judy in one of the old white painted houses up behind the harbour. Danni's wrists were tied with a length of relatively modern one inch rope.

She was slowly recovering consciousness, her vision painfully coming into focus with the shape of her attacker's weapon, a stone replica of an Athenian owl, in front of her.

Gradually, she became aware of her predicament. Her arms wouldn't move; her wrists had been tied. Her legs wouldn't move either; there was something around her ankles. She could feel something in her mouth, cutting into the corners. She went to groan but whatever it was that was stuffing her mouth turned her moan into a garbled grunt. She shook her head, trying to clear the pain from the blow at the back of her neck. Her first thought was that this had been the same people that had attacked Judy, though she could not imagine why they would do this to her, here. She tried to wriggle free, twisting her arms, trying to loosen the ropes around her wrists.

"I shouldn't bother." She heard a voice from behind her and struggled to turn around to see where it was coming from. Andrea was sitting on the bed, looking down at her with a smile.

Danni's puzzled, "What?" came out as "Ghhart?"

"The ropes," Andrea said. "I don't think you will loosen them. I help my brothers with their sheep. They don't get loose, you won't either." Andrea picked up a pack of cigarettes, pulled one out and lit it. She picked up a book from Danni's bedside table and thumbed through it. "You like thrillers?" she said looking at the book's cover. "That's good. You're part of one." Ignoring Danni, she started reading the book.

Danni continued to struggle on the floor of her room. She was still wearing the bikini top and shorts that she had put on ready for a day's digging. As she struggled she realised that Andrea was watching her with an appreciative stare. "Harrungh," she grunted, kicking out at the bed.

"Not nice!" Andrea scolded, interpreting Danni's grunt as one of disapproval. "I can make things more difficult for you." She got up laid the book down on the bed and found some more rope from somewhere. Danni, not anxious to be more immobilised than she already was, tried to wriggle away but Andrea was soon beside her. "This will help," she said, threading the rope around her arms and tying it across and between Danni's tits. She used a further length to jerk Danni's elbows close together behind her back, forcing a squeal from behind the girl's gag and another to fix her knees together. She finished of her efforts by tying Danni's ankles to her wrists and then extending the same rope around her mouth over the cloth that gagged her so that her head was pulled back towards her elbows. "See, more difficult," said Andrea, as if it was some strange initiative test. "Now you stay still and quiet. We wait."

"Mmuunggh!" A quiet groan of discomfort was all that Danni could manage as Andrea turned back to reading her book.

Judy had turned up at Alexander's bar in the hope of meeting the others for breakfast. It was still quiet this early. There was no one else around but the bar was open, as always. She was sitting outside enjoying the warmth of the early morning sun. They were late. She wasn't worried. There would be time for a coffee, some bread and jam and maybe some eggs, before they needed to get started.

"Hey!" she heard Alexander call from inside, waving the handset of the phone. It must be Danni or Stacey, she thought, probably they've overslept. Why hadn't they tried her mobile?

Judy got up, pushed her sunglasses up over her forehead as she went in from the bright outside to the dark of the bar, and headed towards the phone. It took her some time for her eyes to get acclimatised to the light inside but when she picked up the phone there was no one there. Irritated she slammed the handset back down. As she did so a hand reached across her mouth and she felt herself being pulled backwards.

"Oh no! Not again!" was all she could think. Whoever had grabbed her had one hand around her waist and the other over her mouth. She could make no sound and her assailant was much stronger than she was, stronger even than the man that had attacked her at the hut. Whoever it was, they were pulling her down behind the bar, forcing her first to her knees and then to the floor.

Some sort of cloth was over her mouth, she thought at first it was drugged as she gasped trying to catch her breath. In fact, it was just a wad of cloth being wedged into her mouth by her attacker to silence her cries. He held her down flat against the floor with a knee in her back while he fixed the cloth in her mouth with another strip pulled across it and then turned his attention to her wrists, wrenching them around behind her and dragging cords around them, with even more ferocity than that shown by the burglar at the hut. She groaned as the man pulled the cords from her wrists around her waist so that her hands were locked into the small of her back.

Her attacker rolled her over. To Judy's shock she saw it was Alexander and thought, at once, why was he doing this? Her puzzled reaction was cut off when Alexander grabbed her ankles and tied those together too. As he did so, she lurched back hitting her head against a shelf under the bar, knocking herself unconscious for what she assumed was a few moments. Alexander was unconcerned, he had taken the opportunity of her being out cold to finish tying her up; knotting cords around her knees and more around her chest, fixing her arms to her sides.

He examined his work critically before giving a satisfied nod. "Stay there," he ordered as he got to his feet and went to the front of the bar to shut up shop. Judy didn't think she had much choice.

At around the same time, Stacey was arriving at the Mermaid Café, hoping to meet up with Danni. To her annoyance, a delivery truck was almost blocking the road at the back of the Café and she was having to squeeze past between the side of the truck and the whitewashed wall of the café itself.

She got to the rear of the van and had to turn sideways to get past the van doors. It was as she cleared the back of the van that something was pulled down over her head and down below her waist. Suddenly everything was dark, she couldn't see at all. She felt herself being pulled backwards and before she could cry out a hand was clamped over her mouth. She tried to kick out as someone pulled ropes or a strap around her waist so that she couldn't shake herself free of the sack or whatever it was that was covering her. The hand came away from her mouth for moment but as she attempted to cry out a knotted rope was pushed between her lips and tied off around her head gagging her with the rough cloth of the sack forced back into her mouth. More ropes were pulled around her wrists and she felt legs grabbed as she was lifted, she assumed into the truck. She heard the doors slam shut as someone tied rope around her ankles and then the truck began to move. The whole thing had taken less than a minute and, with the streets so quiet so early in the day, Stacey knew it was very unlikely that anyone had seen her abduction. What was going on, she wondered, scared, as the van bounced off along the islands roads. Was it the Albanians again, imagining there was something of value to be got from the site after all?

Stacey wasn't the only one having an uncomfortable ride. Helen had been on her way down to the harbour, taking the short cut that she always used between the flat where she was staying and the road that lead to Alexander's bar. It was a favourite walk cutting around the back of an old shepherd's hut, through an olive grove and down between some ramshackle stone walls until the path emerged onto the road with a stunning view of the sea, the houses around the harbour and, across to the right, the valley where they were excavating. Helen had just reached the road. Parked across where the path came out was a car; one of the pale green Punto's that the police had said they were looking for. As Helen edged around the car, she saw Petros peering under the bonnet. She walked up to him to ask what the problem was, wondering if this was some sort of clue to the burglary at the site. She bent forward and said, "Hello."

As she did so Petros let loose a spray, directly into her face. Startled, coughing and spluttering from the effects of the gas, Helen had little opportunity to resist Petros as he grabbed her wrists, jerked them behind her and locked them together with handcuffs.

"Hey," she began to call, "what is — mummph." Her question was cut off as Petros slapped first one, then two, then three strips of tape across her lips. With the girl silenced he wrapped tape around her ankles and knees too. Peering around the car and making sure that there was still no one in sight he picked her up, carried her to the back and dumped her, unceremoniously, in the boot. After he'd fitted her in he pulled a cloth around her eyes as a blindfold and then taped that in place.

Pausing only to pick up Helen's back pack, tossing it into the cramped space of the tiny boot with her, Petros slammed the car's boot door shut and drove off with the helpless archaeologist, hummphing and trying to kick her way free.

The car journey didn't take that long. It was just as well, Helen felt herself bounced painfully against the inside of the boot as the Fiat bucked over the pot-holed roads of the island. She was almost dazed when the car stopped. A clunking sound and a breath of fresh air told her that the boot had been opened once again. She felt hands on her legs and at her shoulders and then felt herself being lifted from the boot. She tried kicking out at whoever was moving her but without success as she was lifted and hung across the shoulder of her captor. She was still kicking as he patted her backside. "No need, for that," she heard Petros say. "If you kick, I might drop you." That was sufficient to stop her struggles. After all, even if she got free of Petros, there's wasn't much she could do.