44
The leader of the Spartans was named Apollo. His name was derived from the ancient Laconian word apollymi, which meant “to destroy.” And that was how he viewed himself, as a destroyer. His entire life had been dedicated to the art of war. How to attack. How to defend. How to conquer. The lifestyle had been beaten into him when he was a boy, and now that he was in charge, he returned the favor to the next generation-just as his mentor had done for him.
That was how his village had survived. They followed the code of their ancestors.
When the police officers arrived, Apollo was waiting for them. He had watched their slow approach up the treacherous mountain road. It gave him more than enough time to tell the village to be on full alert. In this part of Greece, the local authorities rarely stopped by, and when they did, it was usually for a very specific reason. The last time was a month ago. The cops had been looking for two missing tourists who had gone camping in the Taygetos Mountains and hadn’t returned when they were supposed to. A couple of questions were asked, a flyer with their pictures was shown around, and the police departed soon after.
The whole process had taken less than fifteen minutes.
Apollo hoped for the same efficiency on their current visit.
“Hello,” George Pappas said in Greek. He knew the villagers preferred Laconian, their native tongue, but he wasn’t able to speak it. Neither could Manos or Constantinou.
Apollo wore sandals on his feet and a simple white tunic that hung to mid-thigh. He nodded at them but said nothing. He let his muscular physique and the coldness of his glare do his talking. One look from him stopped most men in their tracks.
“Sorry to disturb you,” Pappas said as he flashed his badge. “We were hoping you could help us with one of our cases.”
Apollo shrugged, refusing to say a word. Instead, he stared with unblinking eyes.
Somehow Pappas found the courage to return his stare. Not only did he have the backing of two armed officers, he was here on official Interpol business. That gave him the confidence he needed to stand up to this guy-even though he scared the hell out of Pappas.
“Stefan,” he said to Manos, “hand me the picture.”
Manos took a step forward, gave Pappas the surveillance photo from Metéora, and then took a quick step back. Meanwhile, Constantinou kept his hand on his gun and his head on a swivel.
Pappas studied the helmeted man in the photo and compared him with Apollo. No way were they the same person. Apollo was at least fifty pounds heavier with a much larger physique. Hell, his arms were nearly as thick as Pappas’s legs.
Side by side, Pappas and Apollo looked as if they belonged to two different species.
“We’re looking for the man in this picture. I’d appreciate if you could take a look.”
Apollo grabbed the photo, expecting it to be another missing tourist. Instead, the suspect in the photo was one of the soldiers that had accompanied him to Metéora.
This was not good. And very unexpected.
Apollo didn’t show surprise-he was too disciplined for that-but his mind started racing. How did the police have a photo from the monastery? What other evidence did they possess? Normally, he didn’t give much thought to the outside world, but on the eve of such an important mission, he knew he couldn’t afford any type of police interference.
He had to stop their inquiry before the cops had a chance to return to Spárti.
“Yes,” he said in fluent Greek. “I know the man. He is a troublemaker in our village. What has he done now?”
The response surprised Pappas. He was expecting to be stonewalled at every turn.
“I’m afraid I can’t say. Our investigation is still pending.”
Apollo nodded in understanding. “How can I help you?”
“Can you show us where he lives?”
“I can do better than that. I can bring him to you.”
Before Pappas could argue, Apollo called out to a few of his men who were lingering in the background, watching the proceedings unfold. When he spoke, his orders were in rapid Laconian. The language sounded similar to Greek, but there were enough differences that Pappas and the other officers weren’t sure what was being said, which made them uneasy.
Pappas immediately asked, “What did you say to them?”
“I said go get the troublemaker and bring him here.”
Pappas frowned. He knew more had been said. “Does the troublemaker have a name?”
“Of course. But you will need to ask him yourself. The code of my village prevents me from revealing his name. We have a code of silence.”
“What about your name? Are you allowed to tell me that?”
He nodded. “My name is Apollo. And yours?”
“George.”
“George,” he said with a smirk. “Such a simple name. One without significance.”
Pappas shrugged off the insult. “We can’t all be named after gods.”
Apollo nodded. Most people didn’t deserve to be named after gods, as he had been.
“Tell me, George, what’s the worst pain you have ever felt in your life?”
“Excuse me?”
“Before you arrived, my friends and I were discussing the worst pain we have ever felt. I was wondering what your answer might be.”
Pappas glanced back at Manos and Constantinou, who were keeping a close eye on the perimeter. Because of the rocky terrain and the nearby trees, it was impossible to tell if anyone was out there. Just to be safe, the two officers unsnapped the straps that held their guns in their holsters. But not Pappas. He was being closely watched by Apollo, and he didn’t want to do anything that might be interpreted as aggressive behavior.
“That’s an awfully strange question. One that might be misconstrued as a threat.”
“A threat? That was not a threat,” he said with a laugh. “But this is a threat.” He moved one step closer. “We have you severely outnumbered. Lay down your weapons or you will have a new answer to my question about pain.”
The color instantly drained from Pappas’s face. There was no way he was going to surrender his weapon-especially since the odds were currently three against one. Still, there was something about Apollo’s words that resonated with truth. Pappas knew it wasn’t a bluff. He realized the man standing across from him was fully capable of making good on his threat.
Pappas said, “If I pull my gun, you’ll be the first to die.”
Apollo glared at him and gave him a one-word retort: “If.”
Before Pappas could react, Apollo slipped a small knife from the folds of his tunic and lunged forward. With a wicked slash, he sliced through the veins and tendons of Pappas’s right forearm, rendering his gun hand obsolete. Blood gushed from the open wound, spurting high into the air and splashing onto the dusty ground.
It reminded Apollo of the eight monks he had killed at Metéora.
Manos and Constantinou were stunned by the quick attack. They reached for their guns a second too late, as two Spartans crept up from behind. Each soldier carried a sword, and each sword hit its mark. The blade that struck Manos was raked across his back. The resulting wound started at his left scapula and ended at his right hip. Every muscle in between was severed, as were some of his ribs. He slumped to the dirt, gurgling, while his lungs filled with fluid.
Death was imminent.
But Constantinou wasn’t as lucky. The Spartan’s sword struck him flush above the elbow. A moment later, most of his arm fell to the ground beside him while he screamed out in agony. His fingers twitched for a few extra seconds like a spider that had been poisoned and was slowly waiting to die. He stared at it, disbelieving, unwilling to accept that his hand was no longer a part of him. As he stared, blood poured from the chunk of meat that hung below his shoulder.
“Bind his wound,” Apollo ordered. Then he pointed to Pappas. “Same with his.”
The Spartans disarmed the cops and tended to their wounds, making sure they didn’t die. At least not yet. Opportunities like this w
ere rare, and Apollo wanted to take full advantage-just as he had done with the missing tourists he had found camping near the village.
The best way to teach the boys was to give them a taste of blood.
They would butcher the cops, piece by piece, until everyone had a turn.
Like a lion teaching his young.
45
Jones lingered near the train platform, purposely standing still while he pretended to be confused. He turned around, pondered the blue sign above him, and then grimaced in frustration.
It was a beautiful job of acting, one that accomplished several things.
First of all, it stopped Kozlov in his tracks. There was no way the Russian was going to walk toward the blue line if Jones was still pondering the green. There was too great a risk of being spotted in the narrow hallway that connected the two platforms, or of being recognized later if Kozlov was forced to turn around and follow Jones back toward the other trains.
Secondly, it allowed Jones to glance down the corridor to see if Kozlov was still there. And he was. But the Russian played it smoothly, strolling over to a vending machine where he bought a copy of the local newspaper. Then he leaned against the wall and pretended to read the headlines while dozens of people poured off the escalators in front of him.
Finally, and most important, Jones’s acting bought him the extra time that he needed. The truth was that Jones did not want to take the train that had just pulled into the station. It had arrived too soon. For his plan to work, he needed to miss this train and catch the next one, which would be arriving in roughly five minutes.
That was the only way that everything would be in place.
So Jones kept acting like a tourist. He scratched his head in confusion, asked a few people if they spoke English, and listened to the train as it pulled out behind him. Once it was gone, he slipped into the blue station, where he waited to spring his trap.
As far as Kozlov was concerned, there was no reason to hurry. He knew Jones couldn’t go very far. This wasn’t like the subway system in New York City, where vagrants were able to sneak into the tunnels for warmth or drugs. The local Metro had been built during the Cold War and had been designed to double as a bomb shelter capable of saving thousands of lives.
With that in mind, Saint Petersburg took its security very seriously. Heavy blast doors protected the exits. Tunnels were monitored via closed-circuit television. Photography was banned throughout the subway-in order to prevent advanced surveillance for terrorist attacks. And uniformed officers roamed the corridors, searching for trouble.
So he wasn’t the least bit worried about Jones slipping away.
Furthermore, Kozlov guessed that every camera in the tunnel was currently focused on Jones. Not because he was black, but because he was carrying three bags and fidgeting like a criminal. In fact, Kozlov was surprised that Jones hadn’t been stopped or questioned already.
Because in Moscow, he probably would have been arrested.
This wasn’t the first time that Jones had used this maneuver in a subway. From his experience, he knew the key was in the execution. If he timed things perfectly, he would walk away free. No doubt about it. Plus, his shadow wouldn’t even know what hit him.
He glanced at his watch as he strolled along the concrete platform, passing several thick pillars that supported the roof above him. While waiting for the train, Jones made sure that he could be seen at all times. This wasn’t about hiding. This was about timing.
Kozlov strolled into the terminal as the train roared into the station. The loud squeal of brakes reminded him of the tortured screams of some of his previous victims.
Men, women, children-he didn’t care as long as the money was right.
Several commuters stood behind a black line on the floor, waiting for the train to come to a complete stop. Kozlov eyed them suspiciously, searching for the man he was tracking. Then he saw him. Jones was waiting near the back of the pack, about halfway down the platform. A look of confusion filled his face, as if he was still unsure if this was the train that he wanted.
This made Kozlov leery. Maybe Jones wasn’t going to board the blue line after all.
The mechanical doors sprang open, and a few passengers stepped out. All of them walked in an orderly fashion along the edge of the platform, staying clear of the waiting commuters. It was Russian discipline at its finest, remnants of the Soviet days, when citizens had been forced to stand in lines for just about everything. Once the passengers had cleared the area, all the commuters entered the train en masse.
Everyone except two people.
Jones and Kozlov.
Both of them stood there, trying to decide what to do.
Suddenly, Kozlov had no choice. He had to enter the train. That didn’t mean he had to stay on it, but he had to leave the platform or else Jones would spot him-if he hadn’t already.
Cursing to himself, Kozlov stepped aboard. He didn’t sit down as all the other passengers did. Instead, he lingered inside the doorway, watching Jones out of the corner of his eye, trying to see what he was going to do before the train pulled away. If Jones entered the train, Kozlov would take a seat and try to blend in with all the other commuters who filled the car; if not, Kozlov would have to jump off the train-even if it blew his cover.
Of course, Jones knew this. He knew he was forcing Kozlov’s hand, which is exactly what he wanted to do. He had lured Kozlov onto the train. Now he had to keep him there.
And the way he would do it was ingenious.
Jones stepped across the black line on the floor and tentatively approached the train, as if he were still making a decision. The bags he carried were starting to get heavy. They weighed him down and limited his mobility. The doors were about to close, so he climbed aboard.
One car ahead, Kozlov grinned with satisfaction. He had been watching Jones through the window and felt a huge sense of relief when he got on the train. If Jones had remained on the platform, there was no doubt in Kozlov’s mind that he would have been spotted. Now, he didn’t have to worry about that until he was ready to make his move. He could follow Jones to the northern suburbs, steal his three bags, and silence him forever.
But Jones wasn’t about to let that happen. He waited inside the doors until a recorded voice blared over the train’s speaker system. The announcement was in Russian, but Jones knew what it meant: the train was getting ready to leave the station. He had heard the exact same announcement five minutes earlier while he was waiting for the previous train to depart.
The message came first, followed by the closing doors, and then the train pulled away.
The announcement was the sign he had been waiting for.
Jones took a giant step backward onto the platform. His stride was long enough that he left the train in one quick motion. At the exact same moment, a loud voice could be heard from the corridor that led back to the escalators. Someone was yelling in English.
“Wait! Hold the train!” the voice demanded.
Suddenly, Kozlov didn’t know what to do. He had watched Jones slip off of the train, but the shouting made him think, if only for a second, that the police were coming after the man he was following. And that momentary delay cost him. Once it dawned on him that it wasn’t the cops, he tried stepping off the train. But before he could set one foot on the platform, he spotted a giant blur heading straight for him. A tall, muscular man sprinted full-speed toward the door that Kozlov was exiting.
“Watch out!” the man screamed as he dipped his shoulder and bar reled into Kozlov, knocking him backward with the force of a small car. Kozlov slammed into the back wall, clanging his head against a metal support before he slumped to the floor.
Meanwhile, Payne towered above him, trying not to smile.
Leaning forward, he looked into Kozlov’s dazed eyes. “Man, I am so sorry! I was trying to catch the train. Didn’t you hear me yelling?”
The doors closed behind him with a clang, followed by the roar of the engine as they pulled away fr
om the station. Payne glanced over his shoulder and spotted his best friend on the platform. Allison was back there, too, waiting for Jones to escort her to safety.
“Seriously,” Payne continued, “I feel like such an idiot. First I went over to the green line, then I ran back to the blue-”
Kozlov blinked a few times, trying to shake out the cobwebs.
“Sorry. I’m sure you don’t want to hear any of this.” Payne grabbed the Russian by his suit and tried to help him up. “Here. Let me give you a hand.”
Kozlov cursed loudly at Payne and tried to push him away, but he wasn’t strong enough to budge him very far. It was like trying to shove an oak tree.
The surrounding passengers stared with amusement.
Stuff like this rarely happened on the Metro.
Payne shook his head in mock disgust. He had no idea what the Russian had said to him but knew it wasn’t pleasant. “Fine! I can take a hint. You don’t want my help. But you didn’t have to be rude about it. What did I ever do to you?”
46
Despite being free of his shadow, Jones knew there was more work to be done. He and Allison were still several blocks away from their suite at the Palace Hotel, and there was always a chance that Kozlov wasn’t working alone. Jones also realized they had to steer clear of all the cops and soldiers who might want to chat with the black man and the gorgeous blonde.
Other than that, they were home free.
“Take this,” Jones whispered as he handed Allison her computer. “It will look better if we’re both carrying bags.”
She slung the thick strap over her shoulder. “Where to now?”
“Back to the hotel. You need to look through Byrd’s things.”
“What about Jon?” she asked, concerned.
“Don’t worry about Jon. He can take care of himself. My job is to worry about you.”
They turned down the central corridor, which was getting more and more crowded. Rush hour would be starting soon, and when it did, the Metro would be packed with people.
Moving through the crowds, Jones kept his head on a swivel, watching everyone around him. He searched for faces that looked the least bit familiar and stares that lasted a little too long. As they walked, he noticed several security cameras along the ceiling. He had seen the same thing in the lobby and near the train platform. But so far, no one had pestered him about his race. It was a pleasant surprise. He was expecting to be hassled everywhere he went.
The Lost Throne paj-7 Page 23