by Jeff Gunhus
The ferry docked in silence, the tension among the monks palpable.
When the governor raised his hand toward Scott and strode out to meet him, there were audible sighs of relief behind him. Whatever the monks had gotten themselves into was still a secret. They scurried past the dignitaries, heads bent low.
“Welcome to Mount Athos, Mr. Roberts. I am Nikkos Panagides, civil governor,” the man in the suit said. “I’ve been instructed to help you in any way I can. May I introduce his Holiness, Father Gregorio, protos of Mount Athos.”
Scott shook hands with Panagides. He knew from the briefing that the civil governor was a member of the Greek Foreign Service, a representative of the secular government. Even though Mt. Athos was a semiautonomous state, it was still Greek territory. While the position was largely ceremonial, it was a coveted spot in a rising career for a politician seeking the support of the Greek Orthodox Church. The key to that support was to leave the monks alone and not interfere with matters. Judging from the scowl that faced Scott from Father Gregorio, Panagides was failing that basic concept.
The twenty monasteries on Mt. Athos each had an abbot who exerted nearly complete control over the monks in his care. Each of the twenty was part of the Holy Community, a governing council of elders that created a legislative body with elected protos at its head. With only the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople above him, the protos was not accustomed to being summoned, especially by the American government.
“Welcome to Mount Athos,” Father Gregorio said, speaking English. “Please tell me how I can assist you during your short visit.”
The man’s cold tone wasn’t lost on him. The men around him matched his attitude, none of them looking pleased to have him on their shore.
“There was a monk living here for the past twenty years,” Scott said. “He would have left a few months ago. Gone back out into the world. Does anyone match that description?”
Father Gregorio turned to Panagides, speaking Greek. “I have already answered this question on the telephone. You brought me here so I can answer again to this idiot in person?”
Scott kept a blank expression, not wanting Father Gregorio to know he could understand. He turned to Panagides. “What did he say? Does he know someone?”
“He asks whether you have a particular name? There are many monks in Mount Athos,” Panagides said.
“But you know every one of them,” Scott said. “That’s what you said over the phone.”
“Then you already know my answer,” Father Gregorio said, switching to English.
“I’d like to hear it from you, though.”
The men around Father Gregorio looked outraged at Scott’s tone, but the protos didn’t flinch at it. He seemed a hard man, someone Scott wasn’t going to underestimate.
“Mr. Panagides,” Father Gregorio said. “Please ask the ferry to remain here. Mr. Roberts will need a ride home soon. Come, Mr. Roberts. Let’s you and I walk alone.”
Panagides looked like he might object, but a single raised eyebrow from the old man and he seemed to think better of it. He gave a half bow and jogged to the ferry that was already readying to go. In a hundred and thirty square miles of rugged landscape of only men, the protos was the alpha. And it was clear he wanted Scott to know it.
He motioned for his entourage to stay where they were and walked toward the land. Scott followed.
“Men come,” Father Gregorio said. “Sometimes they go. At one time we numbered over seven thousand. Now we are just over two thousand. Men today are soft. They are weak.”
“But one who stayed for twenty years and then leaves? Surely that is rare.”
“Do you think the draw of the outside world grows less over time? That the devil relinquishes his hold on the hearts of men simply because of their age?”
Scott glanced over his shoulder. The father’s men followed at a safe distance. There was one of them, younger than the others, his beard still jet black, who moved differently. His eyes scanned the area. His arms swung out a bit wider, telling Scott he carried a weapon.
A bodyguard.
Scott felt foolish for not spotting him sooner. He’d let the idea of a religious enclave lull him into complacency.
“You always travel with an armed guard,” Scott asked, “or is that only since Scarvan showed his true colors to you?”
If he’d caught the old man off guard, he didn’t show it. “I don’t know a man named Scarvan. There has not been a man in Mount Athos under that name.”
“But men change their names once they come here,” Scott said. “Is that not true?”
Father Gregorio fingered the heavy silver cross hanging from his neck. “It is.”
Scott stopped and put his hand on the old priest’s arm. “I know the man I’m looking for lived here for the last twenty years.” It was a lie. Scott knew nothing of the sort. It was all a guess. A damn good one, but still a guess. Still, certainty had an effect on most people. “There’s no way you don’t know who he is.” Father Gregorio started to object but Scott raised his hand to stop him. “Jacobslav Scarvan is no ordinary man, Father. He’s a weapon. A killer unlike any you could imagine.”
“A killer like you, Mr. Roberts?” Father Gregorio asked.
Scott took a step away from the old man. “I don’t know where you get your information, but—”
“Why is it that people are never surprised at the power and reach of the Catholic Church, but they are shocked to discover we have our own eyes around the world? The Orthodox Church has two hundred and sixty million faithful. It wasn’t hard to find out who you really are.”
“If you know who I am, then you know I’d only be here if the situation was serious.”
“If you find this man you are looking for,” Father Gregorio said, “what do you intend to do with him?”
“Do you want my honest answer?”
“I do.”
“Twenty years ago, I shot him four times and watched him fall into the ocean in the middle of a storm,” Scott said. “Next time I see him, I’m going to finish the job.”
“So, you intend to kill him?”
“Yes,” Scott said.
Father Gregorio looked hard into his eyes, sizing him up. He saw a strength and resolve there he liked. “Good. That was the answer I wanted,” he said. “The answer I needed to hear. Come, there’s someone you must speak to. The journey is not far. Thales Mitsopoulos, my ‘armed guard’ as you called him, will take you there. Alone.”
“Who am I meeting with?” Scott said.
“The man who knows what this Scarvan has planned,” Father Gregorio said.
“How do you know this?” Scott asked.
“Because, Mr. Roberts,” the old monk said. “I believe he’s the one who told him exactly what to do.”
CHAPTER 21
Scarvan felt strong as he pulled his body through the warm ocean water. His daily swim had been no more than a few minutes of treading water when he’d started months ago. Back then, his gunshot wounds had healed on the surface, but the damage inside his body still left him in constant pain. The weeks spent in the old monk’s bed had atrophied his muscles and sapped his stamina so badly that the first trip down from the skete had been sitting in a sling while he was lowered by rope to the ground below.
But now things were different.
His muscle definition had returned. His lungs returned to what they once were, powerful bellows that allowed him to exercise for hours. The diet that he thought might slow his recovery had seemed to aid it. He’d been unhappy to learn the monks abstained from meat, only eating fish on rare occasions, and then only when spelled out specifically on their religious calendars.
As a nod of deference to his savior, Father Spiros, Scarvan attempted to follow the structured lifestyle of the old monk. It was an odd existence, but one of discipline and rules, something familiar to Scarvan. He’d been in some sort of military role since the day his mother had been killed in Serbia when he was only a child. The stree
ts of Belgrade had taught him how to scrape by and survive, giving him a mental toughness that had served him well through the years.
And he needed all that mental toughness now.
Betrayal.
The word endlessly rolled around in his head. Even when Father Spiros sat with him and talked of God and the punishments he had in store for the world, his mind wandered toward the question he couldn’t let go.
How many people had known?
Who had been part of the plan to destroy him?
It wasn’t about hurt feelings, although he allowed himself to feel sadness about the people he’d trusted that had let him down. Belchik being the worst of the lot.
No, the mental game of guessing the extent of the betrayal was all about creating the list of the people on who he needed to exact his revenge.
Once he healed.
After he killed the two monks who had saved him.
As he pulled his clothes back on, he felt a twinge of regret at the thought. Without Father Spiros, he would surely be dead. A decaying corpse on the beach, his eyes plucked and devoured by birds, his flesh consumed by crabs and insects.
Father Spiros and Misha, the young monk who helped carry his body to the skete on the first day. Couldn’t forget about Misha.
The young monk didn’t like him. Didn’t like the way Father Spiros fawned over his new guest, especially when the old man spoke of him as if he were an answer to a prayer only he knew. Scarvan read it as jealousy, and that was an emotion that caused men to do foolish things. He didn’t like that.
Whenever Scarvan left the skete, Misha was with him. On Father Spiros’s instructions to help if needed, but clearly to watch him with the suspicion reserved for any predator invited into your home.
Scarvan wasn’t certain what to do with the young monk. Certainly, he had to die along with the old man, but the question was how long could he afford to let him live.
He had his uses. It was Misha who had persuaded Father Spiros to adopt a cover story that explained the sudden appearance of his new guest. Scarvan was given the name Apostoli and it was quietly leaked that he’d arrived from the Petkovica monastery in Serbia on Father Spiros’s invitation, to recuperate from poor health. The story had been necessary. It was a small community. Even though Father Spiros lived as an anchoritic hermit, far away from anyone else, he was still technically part of the cenobitic community of the Xenophontos monastery and under the jurisdiction of the abbot there.
Not only that, but Father Spiros had a following among many of the younger monks who sought him out, disturbing his solitude in a way other hermits would never allow. Some had moved to cells nearby, creating an informal skete, or collection of hermitages.
But Father Spiros enjoyed the visits. These were young men with deep-born dissatisfaction with the outside world. They’d come to Mt. Athos not so much because they’d turned toward God but because they’d turned away from the world. Father Spiros’s brand of orthodoxy fit these men well. He promised them theosis, a union with God. His teachings were filled with absolutes and certainty. And the promise of radical change that would benefit only the most devout. It was how disciples were created.
These young men were not much different from those Scarvan had trained over the years, some as soldiers, others as agents. Many as nothing more than terrorists who served Moscow’s cause of the day.
Disillusioned with the world, they were hungry to follow something. After the boredom of a monk’s life settled on them, the violent prophecies of Father Spiros were like a beckoning call.
Still, even though he liked the old man and owed him his life, killing him was a necessity. He and Misha alone knew the truth of how he’d been discovered. It was a loose end that needed to be wrapped up.
“Apostoli,” Misha called out from the rocks behind him, using his new cover name. “Come, it’s time to return.”
Scarvan shook the water from his head and squeezed the beard he’d grown since he’d come there. An orthodox priest without a beard was a problem. Fortunately, his Serbian heritage ensured growing a beard wasn’t an issue. Wild curls hung far below his chin. The fact it was flecked with gray was another reminder to Scarvan that his best days were behind him.
This sense of mortality was new to him. He didn’t find it surprising, given how close to death he’d come. But he’d flirted with that dark edge before and it hadn’t affected him like it had this time. He found himself taking stock of his existence, overly self-conscious that there were more years behind him than ahead.
And then there were the dreams.
He’d chalked it up to the environment. The constant prayers by the two monks. The reading from the Bible by candle in the evenings. The Book of Revelations was the favorite.
Who wouldn’t have nightmares hearing that every night?
In moments of weakness, he entertained the thought of staying on Mt. Athos. Becoming the man he pretended to be. Apostoli. An Orthodox man of God. Living his days in repentance.
But the idea would pass, replaced by rage against those who’d betrayed him.
Misha walked toward him, balancing on the jumble of boulders that made the shoreline. He wasn’t the most graceful person, nor the most gifted mentally from what Scarvan could tell. But he was dutifully dedicated to Father Spiros.
“Father Spiros will wonder what’s taking so long,” he said. “You know how he worries about you.”
Scarvan caught the man’s disapproval in his voice. “You don’t much care for me, do you, Misha?” he asked.
The monk didn’t look taken off guard by the direct question. “No, I don’t.”
Scarvan laughed, not expecting such a direct answer. “Why is that? What have I done to earn your displeasure?”
Misha stepped closer. He appeared ready for this conversation, the thoughts lined up and ready to pour out. “We know nothing about you. Nothing besides the lies you’ve told us.”
“What lies?”
The monk’s face turned red, like he might explode. “You’ve said you don’t know how you ended up on the beach. That you don’t know how you were shot. Four times. That’s no accident.”
“Father Spiros believes I have amnesia,” Scarvan said. “Brought on by trauma.”
“Bullshit,” Misha shouted.
Scarvan laughed out loud. If Misha had been a few steps closer he would have slapped the man on the back. “There, now you’re talking like a man.”
“You’re a nonbeliever. A liar. And, for all we know . . . a murderer. Wanted by the police. Or someone else. Perhaps they are looking for you right now. Perhaps it would be better if you were found.”
Scarvan closed his eyes and turned his face toward the sun, relishing the heat on his skin. He brought his left hand to the side of his neck and felt his pulse. Quicker than he wanted. All in expectation of what was about to happen.
He was out of practice.
A few calming breaths, and his heartbeat slowed.
When he opened his eyes, something must have changed in them because Misha blanched. He stumbled backward, twisting an ankle.
“I could be wrong,” he said. “Probably wrong. What do I know?”
Scarvan stepped toward the young monk. Not quickly. Just the way a great cat crawls through the grass toward its prey.
“Father Spiros knows I’m here,” Misha said. “He’s expecting us. Both of us.”
“Who did you tell about me?” Scarvan said.
“No one,” Misha said, his voice cracking.
“There was someone,” he said, jumping to the next boulder, closing the distance between them. “Tell me who.”
“I swore an oath to Father Spiros!” Misha cried. “I told no one. I swear it.”
“Do you swear to God?” Scarva asked. “On the damnation of your soul?”
Misha squared his shoulders, as if sensing how he answered the question had the gravest of consequences for him. “I swear to God that I’ve told no one about you.”
Scarvan jumped one
last time so that the two of them shared space on the same large rock.
He looked into Misha’s eyes, searching, wondering.
“You know what?” he said. “I believe you.”
Misha’s blew out a sigh of relief, his shoulders dropping low as the tension released.
With explosive speed, Scarvan grabbed the young monk by the side of the head. He wrenched it sideways as he jumped, using the downslope to launch them both into the air.
Misha’s skull hit the edge of the rock first, Scarvan adding his own weight to what gravity could have done alone.
A crack filled the air as Misha’s head caved in.
Scarvan held the man’s head firmly against the rock as his legs twitched and kicked from residual electrical impulses. The body didn’t yet know what Scarvan had known the second Misha had given voice to the idea that people were searching for him.
The monk was already dead.
The act of smashing his head against the rocks was only a formality.
Blood blossomed around the wound, turning the rock dark and shiny.
He had to resist the impulse to raise the monk’s head and smash it back down again. As satisfying as it would be, as much as he craved the release, he was smarter than that. A single injury and the explanation that poor, awkward Misha had tripped on his own feet and freakishly bashed his head on the rocks was plausible. But a person didn’t repeatedly slam their heads against a rock until bone and brain spilled everywhere.
Scarvan stood, feeling the same satisfaction as after ejaculating. No, this was better than sex. It meant more. It brought him to life.
He turned his face back toward the sun and closed his eyes. He placed his hand to his neck and felt the steady pulse there, barely elevated despite the euphoria washing through him.
When he opened his eyes, he was surprised to see Father Spiros standing no more than twenty yards from him, in the shade of the rock cliff rising above. The old man walked toward him, steadier on his feet than Misha had ever been, looking like an ancient goat picking his way over the boulders.