by Jamie Smith
“I’m happy to be sharing in the secret with you, Elysia.”
During his second glass of the wine, as he took a sip, he deliberately put his glass down so that his hand would touch hers. He left his hand there so their little fingers were just faintly touching.
Nikita was no longer even aware of what she was talking about, and tried to refocus.
He noticed she had fallen silent and was looking at him and her finger shifted slightly so that it was on top of his own.
He was aware of his heartbeat quickening, as he felt awkward and excited simultaneously.
The sun was lower in the sky now, casting long shadows across the bar, and the cicadas were in full voice. Nikita gazed out at the view, which he’d taken little notice of until now. The sun hovered on the horizon, giving everything a golden glow. With the boats visible, bobbing gently on the water, and the mountains diving down into a long outcropping peppered with small red flowers, it was as if traced from a postcard.
“Thank you for bringing me here, Elysia. It’s unlike anywhere I’ve ever seen.”
He could think of nothing but their touching hands, and he gently wrapped his little finger around hers.
“Thank you for walking into my shop today; I think it was just about worth losing out on any customers this afternoon,” she chided. She moved her second finger under his.
Looking fixedly at the view, he swept his hand across hers, and squeezed it. She turned hers upside down so that the palms were facing, and laced her fingers into his.
He brought his gaze back round to her and they both looked at their hands and laughed awkwardly.
At that moment her grandfather appeared through the French doors, making his way towards them. Nikita quickly withdrew his hand. Elysia looked momentarily hurt before he nodded behind her towards the old man, who was tottering slowly towards them carrying a bottle of wine and a plate piled high with food. Nikita sighed to himself. So much time building towards holding hands only for it to be immediately taken away.
Theo laid the food and wine down and kissed Elysia on the head, before looking disparagingly at Nikita. They both thanked him as he muttered something in Greek and headed back in to the bar, teetering slightly as he made his way past the tables and chairs.
Looking at the food Nikita saw olives, flatbread, hummus, tomatoes and stuffed vine leaves.
“Well don’t just stare at it; we Greeks believe food is there to be enjoyed,” she said as she scooped up some hummus with a stuffed vine leaf. Nikita was fairly sure that was not how they were meant to be eaten but ‘when in Rome’, he thought and dived in.
Elysia went to open the second bottle of wine, but Nikita raised his hand. “I’d better not have any more to drink; I need a clear head for the evening ahead.”
“You presume a great deal, Nathan,” she said, arching an eyebrow.
“No, no you misunderstand,” he replied hastily. “I have to meet a business acquaintance this evening so I need a clear mind.”
“Oh… OK.”
“But by all means you enjoy some more wine. I’ll be sorry to have to leave,” he said, picking up some flatbread. It was warm and powdery in his hands.
She smiled unconvincingly, and he sensed a sudden tension between them but knew he needed to go.
“I don’t know what you’re used to, but I’m a bit different to other men.”
She laughed. “I don’t doubt it, Nathan.”
Finishing his glass of wine, he stood up.
“You’re leaving already?”
“I must,” he answered, his head already moving back to his mission.
She pouted slightly, looking even more beautiful for it. He leant down and kissed her on both cheeks, very slowly. Their cheeks rubbed softly against one another and he breathed deeply, taking in the smell that can only come from sun-warmed hair. Like warm bread, honeysuckle and fresh cut grass rolled into one.
He paused above her and she gazed up at him. He became keenly aware of the other patrons in the bar looking surreptitiously at him out of the corner of their eyes. Some were more obvious. He reluctantly moved away, and asked, “Can I see you again?”
“You want more wooden statuettes?” she asked archly.
“I meant can I see you again… like this.”
“Why?” She asked, again using that direct approach that he found so disarming.
He groaned inwardly. “Ah, because I… ah. Because some things in life feel worth pursuing.”
She looked at him impassively and he grimaced at his choice of words — unrecognisable from any version of himself he’d ever encountered to date.
“I can’t decide if you’re really this sweet and awkward, or just very, very smooth.”
“I’d like to think I’m pretty smooth.”
“I think it’s probably the former.”
“I see,” he said, not sure how to take it but aware that it wasn’t a dismissal. “So perhaps I could call into the shop again?”
“I can’t stop you.”
“Would you want to?” he asked.
“Come to the shop and find out would be my advice,” she said, smirking openly at him now.
“Do all Greek women make things this difficult for someone asking them out, or is it just you?”
She laughed that rich throaty laugh again that seemed to tickle the very air in front of her. “You have a safe journey home, Nathan.”
“Is to epanidìn,” he said, touching her on the shoulder gently as he walked past. See you soon.
The man in the straw hat was snoring gently with his head on the table, revealing a curious mark on his neck, and two empty bottles in front of him. Stepping past him, Nikita noticed the judging eyes from the local patrons were back on him again, although some of the eyes were now also resting on Elysia. But already his heart was cold and steeled to any sense of feelings as he began to play the night ahead through in his mind.
He had a plan, but it would not be easy.
CHAPTER 8
It had not been a good day for Maria Demopoulos. As maid to Josef Zurga, she’d already seen more than would be enough to turn her to God, had she not already been a devout member of the Greek Orthodox Church for all of her seventy-five years. But today he was in a foul mood. He had run out of wine which never meant a peaceful day at work for the members of his household at the lighthouse fort on the east coast of Skyros. The members of his household consisted of Maria, the butler Cato, and whichever whore he had flown in that week. Them, and the huge array of security guards and Alsatians that constantly rotated watch, surrounding the small complex. She shuffled down the corridor, with the note that had just been delivered clutched in her hand which looked more like a claw these days, the arthritis making the unfurling of her fingers ever harder.
As she reached the door to his bedroom, she heard a crash and saw Cato hurriedly leaving the room, an empty tray in his long-fingered hand and what looked like tzatziki dripping down his left shoulder.
“The old goat didn’t want lunch today, it seems,” he said calmly to Maria, his face fairly impassive. He was a tall man and extremely thin, with his black hair fluffed into a rakish side parting and a thick black beard, giving him the look of an upside-down broomstick. “Good luck,” he said, winking, forcing a scowl from Maria, before loping away down the corridor, looking all the while like he might tip over.
She breathed in and pushed open the door.
“What is it you want now? Can I not be left in some peace?” said Zurga in a heavy Russian accent as she entered his bedroom. A sallow faced man was sitting on the bed in underpants and an unbuttoned shirt, revealing a distended paunch. A thick rug of chest hair nearly connected at the neck with the hair of his unshaven face. Far from obese, he rather had the look of a fit and vital man gone slightly to seed, with soft edges and crumbly skin from too long spent overindulging and not enough time outside.
He pushed himself up, an empty bottle of wine rolling off the bed and clattering onto the floor, its fall br
oken by an array of debris surrounding the tiles around his bed.
Maria looked witheringly at him, paying his tone little heed. Her eyes scanned his bedside table which showed empty sachets of white powder. No wonder he was in a foul mood, out of both cocaine and wine.
“A letter delivered for you, Josef.”
“I told you to call me Mr Zurga. Give it to me.”
She tossed the note to him negligently and he snatched it up from the bed sheets and ripped open the manila envelope as she turned to leave the room.
His eyes quickly scanned the crumpled paper within, and then widened in fear.
“Tonight? TONIGHT?” he muttered to himself.
Maria turned back, her interest piqued.
“Who sent this? Talk fast, woman.”
Maria shrugged. “He didn’t give a name. I couldn’t even see his face because he was wearing a large straw hat.”
Josef leapt out of bed and rushed past her, his unbuttoned shirt flowing behind him.
“What is happening tonight? What did it say?” Maria called after him, but he ignored her.
She stooped down to pick up the note from the floor where it had fallen in Josef’s haste, to see what had caused his panic.
It said simply:
Tonight, with the wine comes the enemy. Get out
As he dashed up the corridor, he began shouting, “Guards! Guards!”
Cato appeared around the corner, his legs visible before his stringy body followed.
“What is it, Josef?”
“Why do none of my servants call me Mr Zurga!” Josef exclaimed, spittle flying slightly from his lips. “Where is my head of security?”
“I imagine he’s in the security tower… Mr Zurga,” he said. “What is it? What has happened?”
But again, Josef was off through the house in search of his head of security.
CHAPTER 9
Nikita’s head was attempting to play out every scenario. Denisov’s voice screaming, “Fear nothing, prepare for everything,” over the biting Russian winds rattling around his head like a mosquito he couldn’t swat away. Today he must turn the mosquito into his weapon.
He sat cross-legged on the floor of his hotel room, palms face down on his knees and his eyes closed, as he slowed his breathing and meditated on the plan for the night ahead. The Havana embassy had confirmed Kemran was their man in Skyros, and also confirmed that Giorgos was on Kemran’s payroll, while Klitchkov had confirmed the mission was a go. Nikita did not like so many people being involved. People were liabilities. Trust nobody but yourself, he thought to himself. He repeated it out loud, forcing the reminder to be vigilant into his head, wrapping itself around everything else.
He opened his eyes and surveyed the floor before him. Directly in front of him was Zurga’s file — blueprints of the fortress along with satellite images of the complex and an ordnance survey map of the surrounding hills. Either side of that were the weapons which Kemran had already left in his room by the time he returned to the apartment. It looked enough to start a small war.
He glanced at his watch. Twenty-one hundred hours. That gave him ninety minutes before the arrival of Giorgos for the wine delivery.
On the bed was an array of garments, all black, which he began to pull on. Kemran had left a Kevlar vest for him and he picked it up, weighing it in his hands. It was heavy and would limit his movement. He laid it back on the bed and stretched. He would need to be as mobile as possible for his plan to work. Without a vest, mobility became even more important.
Pulling on a heavy belt with a thick leather sheath at the hip, he picked up the hunting knife. A crueller looking weapon he had never seen. The eight-inch blade was serrated on both sides, leading to an evil curved hook at the tip. It looked akin to shark teeth, and was capable of similar levels of damage. He slid it into the sheath and moved onto the other weapons.
He picked up two KGB standard-issue Makarov semi-automatic pistols and smiled grimly to himself. Kemran had risen admirably to the challenge of making sure everything pointed to the KGB. The pistols were old and battered, but they would do. He put one in a shoulder holster and the other he tucked into the belt at the small of his back. Not his favourite place to keep a weapon, and Denisov certainly would not approve, but it was always good to have something extra up your sleeve. He clipped the grenades to a strap across his chest, the tranquillizer gun into a holster at his hip and slung the sniper over his back by the strap. He stretched and darted around the room, testing his flexibility and versatility while carrying his one-man army.
The Stechkin APB remained on the floor. He knew exactly the weight of that, and knew the destruction it would carry out. An old fabric army holdall sat next to it, laden with ammunition. He leant down and unloaded it, leaving only what he would need in there and no more.
At eleven p.m. he saw the lights of Giorgos’s truck come bouncing down the track. Little chance of catching anyone off guard in that dilapidated old thing. He would have to make do regardless. The lights shut off as the truck pulled to a stop at the bottom of the driveway to the hotel.
He sloped out of his room and walked slowly down the track, his right hand held out and stroking the pink flowers as he passed. He tore off a small handful as he walked, feeling the cool petals against his skin.
“A very bad choice if they are for luck,” Giorgos said, looking at the flowers still in Nikita’s hand.
Nikita’s face remained impassive as he stared down at the oleander petals that were bright pink, flecked with red.
Giorgos grunted and started the engine, the lights throwing shadows across the dusty track. “Let us deliver some wine,” he said grimly.
They clattered along the track that went through the valley before it wound up a hill. At the top they could see across a small valley to the hill ahead. The fortress was perched at the top, bathed in spotlights which lit up the boundary fences clearly.
“Time for you to get into the back,” Giorgos said to Nikita. “There are a lot of boxes to hide behind, and the guards do not look hard if I give them wine. Only the cheap wine though. Zurga refuses Greek wine, demanding only French piss.”
They stepped out of the truck, and walked round to the back, Giorgos opening the doors out. Nikita heard dogs barking across the valley and sighed. He did not look forward to the dogs.
“Careful with this piss; it is for the vlàka,” he swore, motioning to the boxes packed in near the door. Nikita climbed up and into the midst of the boxes.
“Do not wait for me afterwards Giorgos.”
The old Greek man nodded soberly, and went to close the doors. He paused and then said, “I meant what I said. Leave Elysia, she is not for this life. And good luck.” He shut the door before Nikita had a chance to reply.
Nikita sat down next to Zurga’s wine and braced himself for what was now nearly upon him. The engine started up again and the truck began rocking and swaying over the potholed track.
***
Giorgos was glad of the bone-shaking bumps and lack of suspension as they disguised the shaking of his hands. He could not stop thinking about the mass of weaponry adorning the strange dark-skinned man in the back. He had never expected anything like this when Kemran had first approached him; it just seemed like some easy money to paper over the cracks of his failing wine delivery service, to keep his eyes and ears open any time he entered the complex.
As he trundled up the hill, he heard the bang of a box of wine in the back. The shit better not be breaking my wine, he thought. As the trees and shrubs cleared, he rounded a corner and the road was bathed in spotlights. Barbed wire fencing two metres high surrounded the site, and visible about a hundred metres back from it was the stone building where Zurga resided.
As he slowly approached the gates, a huge guard approached the vehicle, leading an Alsatian the size of a small bear.
Giorgos swallowed nervously, and kept his hands firmly fixed on the steering wheel to avoid giving his nerves away. He tried not to think about th
e Jericho 941 pistol in his coat pocket, which he had no idea how to use. He wasn’t even sure if it was loaded.
The guard tapped on the window and he rolled it down. “What is your business?” the guard asked in heavily accented English.
Giorgos rolled his eyes. “The same as it is every time, Johann, to give your boss his piss.”
Johann was so tall that he had to stoop slightly to see into the truck, and his broad shoulders stretched wider than the width of the window. He looked like a mythological Viking, with high cheekbones, bearded face and blond hair. His face was expressionless as his pale blue eyes scanned Giorgos, taking in his white-knuckled hands on the wheel.
Giorgos could hear the dog panting. It did not help his nerves.
“Open it up,” said Johann, tapping his gun on the door frame and stepping back.
Giorgos climbed out and walked to the back of the truck, wondering what on earth Nathan had planned and wanting absolutely no part of it. The dog was uncomfortably close as he slowly opened the double doors, the saliva dripping over its huge teeth and onto his sandalled foot.
“You seem nervous, Giorgos,” said Johann, noticing a sheen of sweat across his brow.
“You try driving this piece of shit along these roads without sweating.”
Johann charged the cocking handle on his weapon and turned to face the door. A weapon even Giorgos recognised — an AK-47. The ultimate Russian assault rifle, used by mercenaries as much as the Soviets.
Opening the door, Giorgos was careful to keep to one side and moved backwards with the door to allow Nathan to pounce.
Nothing happened; there was only darkness.
Johann shone a torch around the cabin, showing only boxes, and then led his hound inside. Giorgos felt like his heart had stopped.
Again, nothing.