Officer Rossolatos allowed Nancy and the others to listen in while Spiros confessed to opening the hotel safe, stealing the passports, and altering them.
“This is all your fault!” Spiros scowled at Nancy. “If you had not stuck your nose in this business, your friends would be safe. I knew you were going to be a threat when Dimitri told me you had been in my studio. That is why I tried to frighten you while you were swimming.”
“You were the man with the spear gun!” Nancy said as the pieces of the puzzle fell into place.
“Why didn’t you back off when you still had the chance?” Spiros asked her. “I warned you!”
“Nancy isn’t scared off by threats,” Bess said, coming to Nancy’s defense. Her eyes were red from crying.
But maybe this time I should have been, Nancy thought. She sank back in her chair, a sick feeling in her stomach. Spiros was right. If she had backed off, her friends’ lives wouldn’t be in jeopardy at this moment. What if the terrorists made good on their threat? Solving one case just wasn’t worth two precious lives.
Once Spiros’s statement was complete, Nancy, Bess, Zoe, and Mick were dismissed. “Thank you for your cooperation,” the police chief said in a matter-of-fact way. Nancy had the feeling that he didn’t understand how serious the situation was.
“What’s going to happen to my friends?” she asked him anxiously. It was almost four o’clock. Minutes were ticking by, and George and Kevin were still in the hands of the terrorists.
Officer Rossolatos intervened, speaking to his supervisor in Greek. Then Rossolatos turned to Nancy and said, “We will send an Interpol agent who matches your description to the cave. She will trade the forged passports for your friends. Of course, after the trade, a team of officers will surround the terrorists. The criminals will surrender—if they want to live.”
“And what if they refuse to release George and Kevin?” Nancy asked, blinking as her eyes filled with tears.
“Please,” said the officer. “You must trust us to handle it.”
That’s no answer! Nancy wanted to shriek. A wave of guilt washed over her as she thought about the terrible situation she had gotten her friends into. She wished the police would use her instead of a decoy, but she knew they would never agree to it.
Turning to Bess, she asked, “Do you still have my hat?” Nancy had given her orange cap to Bess before she and Mick rode off after the terrorists on Naxos.
“Sure,” Bess said. She was still carrying the tote bag she’d had on Naxos. She reached into it and pulled out Nancy’s fluorescent orange cap.
Nancy handed the hat to Officer Rossolatos. “I had this on when I first ran into the terrorists. The decoy might want to wear it.”
“Thank you,” he said. “We will contact you as soon as your friends are in our custody.”
“And there’s a six o’clock deadline!” Nancy stressed.
Rossolatos smiled reassuringly. “We will be there long before the deadline. Do not worry.”
How could she help but worry?
Nancy was surprised to find Theo coming out of an office when she, Zoe, and Mick walked into the hall. Immediately there was an exchange in Greek between Theo and Zoe. “Theo came in to make a report,” Zoe explained. “His boat was stolen from Mykonos’s harbor. A few of the fishermen saw two men boarding the Sea Star. From their description, it sounds as if the two male terrorists stole the Sea Star. One of the fishermen remembers seeing a red-haired woman board a smaller boat.”
“Was George with them?” Bess asked, but Theo didn’t know.
“Why did they take your boat,” Mick wondered, “when they had the other one?”
“Maybe they need a faster, larger boat than the one they’ve been using,” Nancy suggested.
She followed her friends outside into the late afternoon sunshine. The bright sky seemed to contrast sharply with the darkness of her mood.
“Maybe we should go back to the hotel and wait,” Zoe suggested bleakly.
“She’s right,” Bess said, wiping tears from her eyes. She couldn’t stop crying. “There’s really nothing else we can do.”