From beaches to booby-traps: Callie and Nick's peaceful Greek holiday becomes a full-on action adventure when their archaeologist parents are kidnapped. It's a race against time to reach a Mycenaean treasure fabulous enough to pay their ransom . . .

The road was narrow and separated from a terror-drop into the sea by only a low, and not very reassuring-looking metal barrier. Every so often Callie’s dad had to swerve to avoid fragments of rock that had rolled off the hillside and created obstacles on the worn tarmac.

As the jeep climbed the hill, the sun was setting over the sea like a crimson shield, and Mount Thelta glowed as if gilded in Greek gold.
KERLANG!
‘What was that?’ Callie twisted in her seat to stare up at the grey mountainside, thinking the jeep had been hit by a falling rock.
There was another bang, accompanied by a tooth-aching, grinding sound. This time it came from right beside Callie, and when she looked she could no longer
see the mountain. A scarlet red truck was side by side with their jeep, steering them towards the steel barrier.
‘He’s trying to force us over!’ Dad was fighting to keep the jeep on the road, while trying to accelerate away from the truck. Everyone else was transfixed by the barrier, which was inching closer and closer. If the barrier gave way, they would
drop to the sea and rocks fully half a kilometre below!
There was another loud BANG, and an ear-splitting SCREECH as the truck came into their side again.
The jeep lurched and glanced off the barrier at eighty kph. Callie’s dad swore loudly and her mum screamed – something Callie had never heard her do before. Nick was breathing so fast in terror that he sounded like a panting dog.
Callie gaped out of the window on her side of the jeep and found herself staring straight into the eyes of the truck driver. He was leaning across his cab to look down into their jeep, and had fastened his startlingly blue stare right on her.
‘It’s Glass Eye,’ murmured Callie.
‘Who?’ Callie’s mum twisted round.
‘He tried to kidnap me at the museum. He’s got a glass eye.’
‘Callie! Why didn’t you tell us?’
Callie dropped her gaze, but only as far as Glass Eye’s bare, wiry arm, and the tattoo of a lion’s head on his scrawny bicep: Lion Tattoo number two! There was no doubt then – he worked with Lion Tattoo One. And who was the head of the pride? Skatelios. He had to be. Hadn’t he said that Thelta could be a dangerous place?
‘LOOK!’ Their mum was pointing at the steel barrier a hundred metres ahead. There was an entire section missing! More than enough to send a jeep through.
‘He’s going to kill us!’ screamed Nick. He was on the side nearest the barrier – the side nearest the fall.
‘I’m going to try and lock the brakes!’ shouted their dad. ‘Get ready for it.’
Mum twisted round to look at Callie and Nick. ‘Jam yourselves in. Put your feet up against the front seats. NOW!’
Callie and Nick reacted immediately.
‘Ready?’ It was Callie’s dad.
‘We’re ready,’ yelled Callie, for all of them.
Mum gripped the handbrake lever and shouted, ‘DO IT!’ She yanked on the handbrake at the precise moment that Callie’s dad, almost standing up in his seat, threw all his weight onto the foot brake.
At any other time the jeep might have slewed into an irretrievable spin, but there was nowhere for it to swing, pinned solid as it was between the barrier and the truck. Instead it decelerated rapidly as brake-pad rubber gripped brake-disc metal. The jeep juddered. Steel could be heard buckling and tearing as the truck failed to slow and pitched ahead, careening in front of them.
Smoke spiralled from the truck’s tyres as Glass Eye jammed on the brakes.
The two scarred and battered vehicles came to a complete stop barely twenty metres apart – the jeep just before the gap in the barrier, the truck just past it.
Callie’s dad was ramming the gear stick into reverse to escape the way they had come. But Glass Eye seemed satisfied with his night’s work. With a clash of gears and the roar of a powerful engine, he drove away, clattering down the hill.
‘He’s going,’ gasped Nick unnecessarily.
We’re no good to Skatelios dead, thought Callie. He’ll never find King Akanon’s Treasury without the clay tablets. That was just a warning.