Santorini Caesars

by Jeffrey Siger

Terrific.

  Gentlemen, now that we have the Air Force on board, may I suggest we get the hell off this island? The weather’s only getting worse.

  “Okay, Chief, that’s it,” said Dimos.

  Andreas fluttered his lips.

  “Chief?”

  “Just thinking, give me a minute.”

  “Too bad we didn’t have the equipment we need to pick up what the two of them talked about on their ride back to the hotel last night,” said Dimos.

  “Hey, that reminds me,” said Francesco. “We still need to get into the hotel and pull out our equipment.”

  “Tassos’ nephew Christos will be back first thing tomorrow morning. It will be on a follow-up inspection, and we’ll pull it out then,” said Petro.

  “That hotel guy’s going to be pissed,” said Dimos.

  “Nah,” said Petro. “He’ll be in heaven, because he’ll be told the hotel’s getting a boosted rating, as long as the follow-up inspection confirms the original findings.”

  “Only one problem with that, guys,” said Francesco. “No boats or planes will be coming here tomorrow. Forget about Christos getting to Santorini in this weather. And if we don’t get off the island now, we’ll be stuck here for days waiting for him.”

  “He’s right,” said Dimos. “Can’t we yank the equipment out now? All the military guys are gone.”

  “There’s no way to pull that off without Tassos’ nephew setting up the cover story,” said Petro. “And even if we could somehow get him here today, can you imagine the suspicions it will raise having three public servants show up in this lousy weather on a Sunday and not be looking for a payoff?”

  “My wife’s going to kill me,” said Francesco.

  Petro cleared his throat. “If it’s okay with the chief, I’ll take Francesco’s place and work with Dimos, assuming it doesn’t require any special skills.”

  Francesco stifled a strange-sounding cough. “Uh, no it doesn’t.” More coughing. “And I can teach you what you need to know in five minutes. A piece of cake.” More coughing. “If it’s okay with the chief.”

  “Are you feeling okay, Francesco?” said Andreas.

  “Yes, just giddy at the thought of getting back to my wife.”

  “You’re so full of shit your eyes are brown, but whatever’s going on is fine with me as long as it’s okay with Dimos.”

  “Okay by me, Chief.”

  “Now that we have that settled, Petro, what’s your take on Retsos’ intentions?” Andreas looked at a pad he’d been scribbling on during the recording. “He used the words, ‘insane,’ ‘undermining our national defense,’ ‘misguided and wrong,’ and ‘do what we can to stop it,’ in talking about the national policy of our Prime Minister.”

  “If you’re asking whether I see it as coup d’état talk, I don’t. He’s just trying to convince a buddy to support him. They’re all of similar rank, so he couldn’t intimidate him, which left him to firing him up with words, by comparing the meeting with Prada to a ‘battle.’ It’s how military types talk.”

  “And they know how to play on each other’s ambitions,” said Dimos. “To me the clincher came when he pointed out the potential downside to the Air Force guy’s career, should his superior learn that his indecision cost his branch a share in the glory of a successful operation.”

  “Let’s hope your read on the colonel is right,” said Andreas, “because I sure as hell wouldn’t want to wake up some morning to learn a coup had been growing right under our noses and we missed it.”

  “Maybe we could eavesdrop on the meeting with Prada,” said Petro.

  “Depends on where they meet,” said Dimos. “But I doubt we’ll be able to do it.”

  “Besides, he’s too savvy a politician to say anything to them he wouldn’t want repeated across the military,” said Andreas.

  “My guess is the three of them don’t stand a chance of changing Prada’s mind,” said Petro.

  “Or, rather, helping us figure out what’s really on Prada’s mind,” said Andreas. “But you guys gave it your best shot and got us whatever info was out there.”

  “Does that mean it’s okay for me to leave now?”

  “Only if Petro is still firm on staying.”

  “Firm?” laughed Dimos.

  “Fuck you,” said Petro.

  Dimos and Francesco laughed.

  “You guys have been locked up together for way too long,” said Andreas. He caught a glimpse of his son in the doorway and waved for him to come over. “As a matter of fact, so have I.”

  Tassaki’s face lit up in a smile as his father hung up the phone.

  “Christmastime, here we come!”

  ***

  Andreas held Tassaki’s hand as they crossed the street in front of their apartment building headed toward a break in the light-colored, low stone wall bordering the eastern edge of the National Gardens. Andreas thought a peaceful stroll to Syntagma along the Gardens’ pastoral central serpentine paths had a better chance of resurrecting his holiday mood than a crowded march along the Gardens’ northern border at busy Avenue Vasilisis Sofias.

  Tassaki let go of his father’s hand as soon as they entered the Gardens. Andreas let him run ahead knowing that his son came here practically every day with his mother or Marietta and likely knew this part of the Gardens better than he did. Andreas called out “left” or “right” when a path required a decision, and Tassaki promptly made the appropriate turn.

  Tassaki skirted by a well-dressed older woman walking in their direction. She smiled as she approached Andreas. “A handsome young man you have there.”

  Andreas smiled back. “Thank you.”

  Had Andreas’ mother heard the woman’s compliment, she’d be doing her puh-puh-puh spitting routine to ward off the evil eye that so many Greeks believed accompanied such praise to their children. He could see his father now, shaking his head and telling her to stop acting like a superstitious, village peasant woman. Her response was always the same. “I won’t because I am.”

  Andreas smiled again. He remembered his father and mother bringing him and his sister to Syntagma to see the Christmas Village. That was when he was about Tassaki’s age or possibly a couple of years older. His mother never brought them there after their father died.

  His father would have loved Tassaki. Family meant everything to him. It’s why he took his own life, thinking he was protecting his family. How he could have thought leaving his children fatherless….Andreas shook his head and let the thought drift away. He’d chased that rabbit for much of his life but no longer felt the need. There was nothing he could do about the past, and for damn sure he didn’t see martyrdom for himself as bettering his son’s life.

  Andreas first heard the shouting as they approached a grove of palm trees near the Gardens’ western entrance closest to Parliament. Just beyond the palm trees, a broad rectangular garden space punctuated by a sundial on a pedestal, stood surrounded by a marble-paved square abutting the entrance.

  No formal demonstrations had been announced for that afternoon in Syntagma, but with so many desperate people frustrated for so long, protestors of one persuasion or another could always be expected somewhere in the vicinity.

  Andreas yelled for Tassaki to stop and stepped up his pace to catch up with him. Just as Andreas did, a thin swarthy man dressed in dark pants and a light blue jacket came limping into the square carrying someone in his arms and looking frantically back over his shoulder.

  Andreas gripped Tassaki’s arm and pulled him behind him.

  “Dad, what—?”

  “Shhh. Be quiet and just do as I say.”

  “But, Daddy—”

  Tassaki’s protest was drowned out by the shouts of five black-clad men wielding axe handles storming into the square behind the limping man. “Keep away from our Christmas, you fucking mavro Muslims.
”

  One began beating his axe handle against the marble paving slabs in rhythm with the pace of their pursuit. The others joined in, beaters flushing a wild animal.

  “Miserable cowardly sons of bitches,” muttered Andreas.

  “What?”

  Andreas pointed. “Get behind that big palm tree and don’t move until I come for you.” He watched Tassaki run to the tree.

  “Please, please, someone please help us.”

  Andreas turned to see the man limping as fast as he could straight for him. “Please help us. Please…my son.” The terrified boy he held out in his arms looked to be about a year younger than Tassaki.

  The axe handles’ beat of clack, clack, clack against the marble grew louder. “We’re coming for you, mavros.”

  Andreas knew what he faced. Get involved and risk himself and his son, or let the beatings go on and explain to his son why he did nothing to help. Not really a choice.

  Andreas stepped forward to meet the limping man. “Get back to those palm trees.”

  “Get out of our way, asshole,” said the pursuer closest to Andreas.

  Andreas pulled his ID out from under his shirt and held it up. “Police. Now back away.”

  The man laughed, “I’m a cop too, so fuck off and get out of our way.”

  Andreas shook his finger at the man. “That’s not going to happen.”

  The first man stopped about a meter in front of Andreas, an axe handle dangling by his right side. “No problem,” and he whipped the handle up and around in an arc aimed at Andreas’ head.

  Andreas dove headfirst at his attacker, butting him hard in the face with his forehead as his hand latched on to the man’s wrist and wrenched away the axe handle, followed by a nearly three-hundred-sixty-degree spin that ended with Andreas cracking the handle hard against the outside of the man’s knee, dropping him to the ground screaming in pain.

  A second man charged at Andreas wildly swinging another axe handle. Andreas used the one he’d taken from the first to block three predictable swings, execute a hard thrust of the handle butt to the center of the man’s chest, and deliver a golf-pro worthy drive to his balls, dropping him screaming next to his buddy.

  “Enough of this shit,” said Andreas, pulling out his gun. “The next fucker who comes at me is dead.” He pointed the gun at the man closest to him.

  “Hey, I’m a cop, too. No reason to get like this.”

  “Then you know the fucking drill,” said Andreas. “Drop your weapons and hit the ground, arms spread wide.”

  “Come on, we’re just doing what the people want us to do but the politicians won’t let us.”

  “I said, drop.”

  “Fine, we’ll let you and your mavro boyfriend go.”

  “This time,” added the man behind him.

  “Permit me to put this to you more directly. Either you drop to the ground now, or I start putting bullets in your knees that will have you down there crying alongside your buddies.” Andreas pointed his gun at the knee of the first man.

  The man dropped his axe handle and followed it to the ground.

  “Good, we’re making progress.” Andreas moved his aim to the knee of the man who’d chimed in. “What will it be, wiseass?”

  The man fell to the ground without saying a word, and the last would-be attacker spread-eagled on the stone without waiting to be told.

  “Good, now nobody moves until I tell you to.” Andreas pulled out his phone and called for backup, identifying himself as head of special crimes, and that he was holding five assailants at gunpoint. With that introduction it took less than than five minutes for riot police stationed at Parliament to get there.

  Andreas watched as the police handcuffed the five men on the ground. He told the squad leader, “I want copies of their IDs,” nodding at the prisoners. “Spread the word I’m taking this prosecution very personally, and make damn sure none of your prisoners gets lost on the way back to lockup. Understand, Sergeant…” he looked at the sergeant’s ID, “Apostolou?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Andreas patted him on the shoulder. “Good.”

  Andreas walked over to the man who’d taken the first swing at him. He crouched down. “I bet your knee hurts a lot.”

  “Fuck you, asshole.”

  “My, my, you Golden Dawn guys are all such talkers. But remember this the next time you think about joining your buddies in picking on some other defenseless soul. There just might be someone out there like me waiting to bust up your other knee.” Andreas pressed hard against the man’s injured knee as he pushed to his feet.

  The man screamed.

  Andreas turned and walked toward the grove of palm trees to find Tassaki. Andreas had no idea what he was going to say to his son. How could he possibly explain to a five-year-old what he’d just seen his father do?

  Andreas hadn’t looked toward the palm trees since he’d watched Tassaki race there to hide. Now, with the adrenaline fading, and thoughts of what could have happened taking over, all he wanted to do was find and hug his son. But he couldn’t see him. He saw the man he’d saved sitting on the ground staring at the rear of the big palm tree where his son should be, but no one else.

  Andreas burst into a run. “Where’s my son?”

  The man on the ground pointed at the tree.

  As Andreas drew closer he saw a foot protruding from the back of the trunk. But it wasn’t his son’s foot.

  Andreas heart skipped a beat. “Where is my son?” he shouted at the man.

  Again the man pointed at the tree.

  “Daddy, shh. You’ll frighten Ibrahim.”

  Andreas stopped running just short of the tree. He walked around it and found his son sitting with his back up against the trunk, and his arm around the four-year-old boy.

  “See, Ibrahim, I told you my daddy would protect us from those bad men. That’s what my daddy does.”

  The other boy rested his head against Tassaki’s shoulder and stared at Andreas.

  Not sure what to say, Andreas simply smiled.

  The boy looked at his father, who nodded and said, “Yes, we’re safe, thanks to this man.”

  The boy smiled back at Andreas.

  Andreas fought back tears.

  “Sir,” said the man as he stood up. “My son and I owe you our lives.”

  Andreas shook his head. “There’s no need to say that.”

  “Yes there is. Especially these days. We live in fear.”

  Andreas wanted to change the subject. He already had more than enough to explain to his son, no need to get into the rampant racial tensions. “Where are you from?”

  “Pakistan.”

  “You speak very good Greek. And obviously so does your son.”

  “He was born here. I have lived here since before the Olympics in 2004.”

  All at once, Andreas felt terribly ashamed. “I’m sorry for what happened.”

  “There is no reason for you to apologize. You stood up to those trying to harm us.”

  “But many of my countrymen do not.”

  “Yes, I know,” said the man.

  Andreas swallowed hard. “Are you okay? You were limping before.”

  “It is an old injury.”

  “I see.”

  “From another run-in with people of that sort.”

  “Do you need to see a doctor?”

  The man smiled. “I am a doctor. But of Engineering. Or at least I was in Pakistan. Now I work nights in a hotel in Omonia.”

  Andreas stared at the ground, thinking about how rough an immigrant battleground that once elegant part of Athens had become.

  The man shrugged. “At least it’s a job.”

  Andreas nodded.

  “Daddy, can we go see the tree now?”

  Andreas had completely forgotte
n about Christmas. “I don’t think your friend and his father are up for that right now.”

  “No, Daddy, Ibrahim wants to go. I was telling him stories about the kallikantzaroi and how we might find some in the Christmas Village.”

  “Kallikantzaroi?” said Ibrahim’s father.

  Andreas smiled. “They’re kind of hard to explain but to the superstitious they’re half-beast, half human, bad-spirited gremlins who slip into your house through a chimney during the twelve-day period from Christmas to Epiphany to wreak havoc and mischief in your home.”

  “Compared to what we’ve just been through that sounds like fun,” said the father. “Would you like to see them, Ibrahim?”

  Ibrahim nodded.

  The father said softly to Andreas, “I think it’s important to quickly put these sorts of traumatic experiences behind you. Otherwise you become afraid to live your life. And I don’t want that for my son.”

  “You’re a very brave man,” said Andreas.

  “I have to be, for him.”

  Neither man spoke for a moment.

  “But it is your son who’s made the difference in Ibrahim’s life today. He sat with him the entire time you were fighting, keeping him from seeing any of it, reassuring him that you would keep us all safe.”

  Andreas was certain he was blushing, and at any moment would be crying.

  “And he was right.”

  Andreas coughed. “Thank you, but we’ve got to hurry if we want to be able to spend time in Syntagma while it’s still light out.”

  Tassaki and Ibrahim stood up and started walking toward the entrance.

  Andreas and the other father hurried to catch up with their sons.

  Andreas wondered how Lila would react to what happened. He felt he had no choice than to intervene, but as a mother, Lila might feel differently. Though he doubted it. For sure she’d be as proud as he was at how their son had comforted the frightened younger child, and likely even more relieved than Andreas that Tassaki hadn’t seen his father fight.

  “By the way,” said the man, “I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but in addition to everything else, your son is a very handsome young man.”

  Andreas froze for an instant, recalling the woman they’d passed in the Gardens at what seemed an eternity ago. “Yes, thank you, I have heard that before.” Andreas turned his head slightly away from the man and spit out under his breath, “Puh, puh, puh.”