Stelios shuffled behind him. With a sharp intake of breath, Savva moved to the wardrobe across the room, took off his suit coat and pulled on a lightweight, black, zip-up sweater. He bent down and retrieved hiking boots from the bottom shelf.
"Go change," Savva told Stelios. As he kicked off his oxfords and laced up the boots, particles of dust fell to the floor in a quiet dance.
Savva tugged the laces tight and double knotted them. He rocked back and forth, turning once more to the window and the hills beyond. If he was right, and Lambros was where Savva suspected, there was no telling what the man might do.
"Ready, Sir."
Savva looked up to see Stelios; suit coat discarded for a grey Nike running jacket and dust-coated hiking boots on his feet.
"Have a couple uniforms wait at the trailhead: but no lights. If Lambros is up there I don't want to spook him. He's got all the advantage. He'll see us coming for ages."
"You really think he hiked all the way up there–this morning?"
"No, I think he's been up there all night." Savva breezed from the room.
* * *
Stelios careened the Saab to a stop at the trailhead; dust and rocks splattered the sides, pinging off the groaning metal, just as Savva hung up his phone. He cringed at the thought of the damage to the body of the car. Whatever had possessed him to let Stelios drive in the first place? He unlatched his seatbelt and peeked at Mt. Lepetimnos, a towering mass of rock, still shrouded in shadow though the sky had begun to lighten. The summit was out of sight, nut Savva imagined he could see a glint of color flashing. He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. Instead of thrill, there was only a dull ache in his chest. The end of this case would bring only misery.
Savva leaned against the hood and listened to Stelios root around in the boot of the Saab. A single cicada thrummed in the valley below, it's cry echoed off the quiet hillsides, it was ignorant of humanity, ignorant of its own mortality. Did Lambros hear the same cicada? Was he listening to the steady ticking down of his last hours of freedom? Had he seen the Saab and the trail of dust it had left for the last three miles? A bottle of water appeared–driving insects from his thoughts.
"It's better to go prepared, Sir," Stelios said as his fingers beat out a rapid rhythm on his thigh.
Savva nodded to the bulge of the pistol on Stelios' hip. "You're wearing it then?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Good, I don't think he'll give us any trouble, but you never know."
"What if he's not here?"
"We have officers stationed at the cottage. Uniforms are checking the ferries and the airport."
Stelios double locked the Saab, bent to check his laces, and turned to the trail. Savva followed, but the gravel twisted under his boots, knocking him off-balance. He fell into the passenger door. He recovered, pushing himself up straight and rubbing his shoulder. A crease appeared between Stelios' eyes.
Savva turned towards the mountain. "It'll be fine."
They walked in silence. When they reached a small promontory, Savva saw clouds of dust, which broadcasted the arrival of the uniformed officers he'd called in. Thankfully, they'd heeded his order and left off their lights but they were no use when they reached the summit. Lambros Iliadou would require finesse not brute strength.
For the first flat half kilometer, Savva bounced from rock to rock with apparent ease, he could think–he could plan outcomes to every possible scenario, which awaited them this fine summer's morning. Stelios trudged along behind, unspeaking; he didn't dare waste the energy which would be demanded later.
But as Savva stepped over a rotted log, worries amassed, like flies to a carcass. Worry that they might be too late. Worry that, for all his assuredness, Maria's father wouldn't be there when the reached the top. Worry for the life he was charged with protecting. His breath caught and his legs screamed. One moment the trail was flat and the next rose in a heavenly ascent. Savva groaned, set his feet on the next rock, and pulled himself up.
Savva forced his mind away from the burning in his legs and chest. He used a tree to hoist himself over another boulder. Stelios could hike at a much faster pace. He had six inches on Savva and a carried nearly 45 kilograms less. At least there wasn't the damned heat to contend with. His water bottle swung forward and smacked against his thigh. He shoved it out of the way and wiped his forehead with a dirt-stained hand.
"Just a moment, Sir," Stelios gasped.
Savva pointed ahead where the trail leveled out for a few meters. They collapsed underneath a wild olive tree; feet pointed towards Mitilini. Savva guzzled water. He winced as the cold liquid hit his stomach. Stelios snuck an anxious glance upward. Their destination was no longer visible. A vein in Stelios' neck thumped wildly, and his thick hair hung limp around his flushed face. They regarded each other for a moment and turned away from the shade.
Moments after being set to work again, legs and lungs had forgotten their short rest, and burned with an unmitigated ferocity. The unwelcome sun sprang from the clutches of the sea. One moment the land was cool and the next heat waves rippled off the rocks. Savva flung his hand over his eyes. What he wouldn't do for a pair of sunglasses. Why hadn’t he thought to bring them? He glared heavenward, his eyebrows contracted into one thick line. Oh, God, cover the sun with a bit of cloud. But the sky remained obstinately blue, and the sun rose higher and higher.
Savva spun at the sound of pebbles bouncing to the valley below. Stelios grimaced, one leg splayed out, one hand in the dirt, his cheeks red. Savva didn’t joke but reached out to grab the younger man by the jacket, and hauling him to his feet. One misstep. It was in his wide eyes, in the firm grasp he maintained on Stelios' arm, in his thin lips.
At last they reached the last cliff face. A gust of wind tore across the island and whipped sand into the air. Savva blinked furiously and crept along. The palms of his hands came away red as he navigated the footholds. He hesitated at the final lip. Stelios tapped his shoulder, placating, as if to move him aside. But Savva shrugged it off, curled his fingers around the lip, bent his knees, jumped, and hoisted himself over.
CHAPTER TWENTY
"You found me then?"
Savva straightened up, brushed the dirt from his trousers, and glanced up. His breath hitched in his throat at the sight. Lambros Iliadou's back was to them, he stood on the edge, one hand stuffed into the pocket of his blue jacket. He rocked forward and back on his heels, like a vacillating skydiver. Savva licked his lips and put his hands behind his back. His eyes dropped to the object in Lambros' left hand. Dried blood wouldn't show up well against its dull-red or in the pockmarks, which littered its surface.
Stelios climbed up behind him. They stood, not fifteen feet from Lambros, and watched as his gaze drifted from them to the valley below, calculating the distance. Savva shut his eyes for one short moment and stepped forward. "I'm Captain Alexandros Savva and this is Lieutenant Booras. Private Kaikas is with your daughter."
Lambros shook his head. In the adrenaline fueled moment, Savva watched bits of dandruff floated down to coat the shoulders of Lambros’ jacket. He continued to rock on the edge, eyes closed, as deep breaths rattled his chest. Savva stepped forward again. Another cicada thrummed in an olive tree. Stelios crept around to Lambros' other side. They were short, desperately short, on time. If Lambros was left to his own thoughts they'd carry him right down to the valley floor.
"I've met you before," Savva said.
Lambros turned to face Savva. He was not a man overburdened nor concerned with the arrival of two policemen. His green eyes sat within a calm ordered face with high cheekbones. A healthy flush blossomed. He didn't have the rounded belly of middle age, but was trim, perhaps an indication of how much time he spent with his grandsons.
Lambros tapped the brick against his leg, leaving a fine trail of red dust on his pressed trousers. "At the hotel."
"Yes. I imagine you weren't expecting me."
"No, I wasn't. You walked right by as if I didn't exist."
"Of course," Lambros snapped. "I'd sent the American up there. I knew you'd be coming. I wasn't planning on being at the hotel, but Maria needed a shower fixed and she had one of the boys' football kits in her car. I spent the whole day waiting for you to come and pick me up. When you didn't … I went back to my life."
"What about your daughter? Where does she stand in this?"
Lambros' lip curled. He sneered. "What do you mean?"
"She called this morning to tell us you'd left last night and never returned. She's worried about you."
Lambros shook his head and kept on shaking his head. "It was for her own good." He stopped shaking and studied his hands, which were stained red. The fingers twitched. "But I couldn't stay. I couldn't watch her pain any longer."
Out of the corner of his eye, Savva caught a glimpse of Stelios sneaking to a boulder. Stelios moved adroitly, hardly displacing a single pebble, but he could've made as much racket as an elephant for the attention Lambros spared him. His eyes were fixed on a point over Savva's shoulder. For him the world had disappeared. Lambros wiped his nose with the back of his hand.
Savva said robustly, "I'm sure it's been a shock for Maria."
"I was protecting her. I've done it all my life. She needed protecting. With her good looks, she'd get taken advantage of. I didn't say anything when she came home with the baby. I didn't care that she was unmarried and pregnant. Most fathers would've beat her senseless. But not me. Maria was home. She was safe. I could take care of both of them, and I did. She didn't say a word about who the father was."
Savva inched forward. A stick cracked under his foot with all the force of a gunshot. "I'm sure she was grateful for your help."
Lambros squinted. His eyes were reduced to slits. The hand that held the brick twitched. Savva stepped back with a meek grimace. The air crackled with electricity. A heavy breeze cut across the mountain top, fluttering the olive tree leaves, breaking off tops of the scraggly grasses, snapping the linen of Lambros' shirt.
"Tell me what happened in Athens."
Lambros rubbed the back of his neck and glanced heavenward. "I thought I'd buried all of it. I thought I'd made peace with what had happened all those years ago. But when I saw him ... Matthias, it was as if it was yesterday. The memories came back ... and with it other things as well. Maria and I moved to Athens because I'd started a transport business: people, food, and supplies. My friend Yorgos and I planned to expand it to the islands in a year or two. It was only a matter of time before tourism picked up on the quieter islands and we wanted to be the first choice for transport. Yorgos had the money to invest, and I had lived around boats my whole life.
"We bought a building. We found our first client. Of course it was something, they," he spat out the word, "were already heavily involved in. But we thought, naively, we'd be ignored. We were a virtual nonentity. I didn't know Taras Papatonis worked for them. He knew me from Lesvos. I ran into him at a bar one night. He asked me why I was in Athens and, foolishly, I told him."
Lambros sunk to the ground and hovered on the balls of his feet. He cradled his head in his free hand. When he spoke, the words fell like boulders from his lips.
“Taras’ bosses told him to pressure us to pay for the honor of their 'protection'. We politely declined. Taras went on his way. The next week he came again–with company. I was in the back room with Yorgos' wife. I can remember a spreadsheet of figures on the table before us. Something was thrown against a wall and we froze. I'll never forget the look on her face. There was a small pane of glass in the door … I crept toward it …
"Do you know what terror is, Captain? Terror is when your soul crumbles. Terror is an earthquake of fear. Terror is fear frozen. Terror isn't any sort of action. It's watching a thug and his son walk into a room with guns. You should run out to confront them, but instead you hug the wall as if it'll protect you. Terror was watching Yorgos block the way to us. Terror was hearing Taras scream and upend and table. Terror was watching the boy pull the trigger. My soul died. Every thought, every muscle, shut off. I knew we would die; Yorgos' wife and I, and my poor beautiful daughter would be alone." Lambros shook, his body convulsed in the pain of the image before his eyes. He teetered as a gust of wind tore the dust around his feet.
Savva bit his lip. He studied the ground, stepped over a rock, and closer to Lambros' convulsing form. "And then what happened?"
Lambros glowered at Savva; eyes as dead and flat as a shark's. "Taras pulled his son by the scruff of the neck to the phone on the wall. He called someone. I couldn't hear. I knew who would come–their cleaners. I searched blindly for a weapon. But all I found was a brick, a leftover from the renovations, nothing that would protect us in a fight. I picked it up.
"Yorgos' wife hauled me out through the back. She knew what was coming. Huge tracks of tears rolled down her eyes as we slunk from the building, into the alley, and ran away. I still had the brick in my hand."
"Then?"
"We were safe. I got Maria and we never went back."
"Of course," Savva crooned.
Lambros plowed on. "But I knew who they were and I kept the brick."
"Do you know what happened to Taras?"
"He died."
"Did you have anything to do with that?"
"No." Lambros' eyes went dark and his top lip twitched. "I wish I had. He was evil."
Savva glanced at Stelios, waiting in the shadows, his hand resting on his hip. "Where did you kill Matthias?"
Lambros waved at a bit of flat ground next to Savva's feet. "You're standing on it."
"How?" When Lambros didn't answer Savva tried another track. "Why'd he have to die?"
"He killed Yorgos. He was mafía."
"He was a boy. It was his father who forced him."
"It doesn't matter. He killed Yorgos."
"He was thirteen. Not much older than your grandsons."
Lambros shook his head as though getting rid of a pesky fly. "He seduced my daughter and was going to take her away from me where I couldn't protect her."
"He didn't seduce her."
Lambros took a step along the ridge. A pebble shot over and out of sight. "I followed Maria one night. The boys were staying overnight at a friend's house. Maria said she was going to go out with some old school friends. But there was something in her eyes I'd never seen before. She drove out to the cottage. I hid and watched her walk up to the door. There I saw him come out. After a moment, it dawned on me who he was. He looked just like his father. Maria kissed him and kept kissing him until they fell back into the cottage …”
Lambros stopped abruptly, as though he couldn't manage to say what had come next, what he'd seen with his eyes glued to the bedroom window. "I snapped. The flaccid man snapped. I drove home and found the old brick. I'd saved it. It was always in the back of my mind like a talisman. The next day, I waited until Maria left for work and the boys were playing football with friends. Then I went back to the cottage.
"He answered the door, frowning like I was an errant postman he wasn't expecting. I told him who I was and that I knew about Maria. Of course he didn't know me, he didn't see me the night he shot Yorgos. He invited me inside. We had coffee. I said we should go for a walk. He was the one who suggested this place. I had to do it right away. He couldn't have time to tell Maria that I knew about them."
"And then?”
"I hit him. He was the first one up; he helped me over, and then turned to admire the view. I hit him–oh, three or four times. He never turned around. I couldn't see his face. I regret that. I watched him shoot Yorgos. I saw the blood pooling from his body. He took a long time to die. I didn't know that. I thought when you cracked the skull it was over. But I waited until his heart stopped."
"Why? You could have called us when you realized who he was."
"He was taking Maria away
. There wasn't time for your lot."
Savva inched forward and held out a placating hand. "He loved her. She wanted to go with him."
"No he didn't," Lambros spat. "He wanted to possess her like every other man. Like your Lieutenant here who drove her home. All they've ever wanted is her body and what it can do for theirs."
Savva shook his head. "No. He'd loved her for years. Don't you know who he was?"
Lambros face mottled with a mixture pain, anger, and ferocity. Rocks skittered under his shifting feet. He sneered at Savva. "Of course I do. He's a menace that I removed."
"He was your grandsons' father. DNA testing confirmed it. Maria did as well." Lambros shook his head violently, but Savva plowed on. "She met him in Athens two years before his father died. He was completely honest about his past and what he'd done. Matthias left it all behind when he found out Maria was pregnant."
"You're lying."
"Lambros, ask Maria yourself. Let her tell you how much she loved him. Let your grandchildren tell you about their father and the trips they took. Let them tell you about the aurora borealis in Norway."
Lambros moved forward so the tips of his worn boots hung over the edge. Savva put out his hand in warning. "Lambros, what are you doing? Are you going to leave Maria and the boys alone? They need you."
"I've done what I came to do. I don't want to go to jail. I can't face those boys."
The rocks skittered. Stelios left the boulder and inched forward. The sun glinted off his handgun’s metal barrel. Savva waved Stelios back and inched toward Lambros. He raised his hand tentatively. "You know she wouldn't want that. You can't leave her alone. A good father never abandon his children."
Lambros stopped shaking. His hands laid flat against his thighs. "I'm not a good father."
"There's always time to change, Lambros, there's always time to make amends, but you can't do it if you're gone."
A Solitary Reaper Page 27