by Joseph Badal
John looked where Christo pointed and saw a man in his late twenties dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt. He wore a black, short-billed Greek fisherman’s cap. John nodded.
“He’s one of my best marksmen. A former Greek Army Special Forces member. He’ll go along with you. At the slightest sign of trouble he has orders to shoot first, ask questions later.” Christo then waved the man over to him.
“Stavros Zantsos, meet John Hammond.”
They shook hands and then Christo told the young officer to put his bag on board the Penelope.
After Zantsos walked away, Christo opened his car trunk. Inside were a small athletic bag, a large plastic tube, and an olive-drab metal box with military markings. He lifted the small gym bag and slung it over John’s shoulder. Then he handed over the plastic tube and the metal box. John was loaded down like a pack mule.
“I put a nine millimeter pistol in the bag,” he said. “If anyone ever asks where you got it, say you bought it on the black market from some guy who looked Turkish. This is not the United States where anyone can own a firearm. You’re breaking the law by having one in your possession and I’m breaking the law giving it to you. I only hope you won’t need it. You can return it to me when you get back from your little cruise.”
“Thank you, Christo. But, I doubt I’ll need a weapon. I mean, we’ll be out less than a mile from shore. Hell, you’ll be able to watch us from your office with a pair of binoculars.”
“Yes,” he responded, “but then so can the bad guys. Keep your eyes and ears open, my friend. I don’t know the name of the game we’re involved in here, but I do know it’s a dangerous one. Keep the pistol where it will be safe and out of view, but keep it handy.”
“What’s in the tube, Christo? A bazooka?”
“Don’t be a smart ass,” he said. “It’s the coastal charts you asked for. And the metal box contains the range finder you wanted. Don’t lose any of this stuff—especially that range finder. It would take years of my salary to replace it.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Josef groaned as he shifted in the front passenger seat.
“Your ankle bothering you?” Hans asked.
Josef grunted.
Hans chuckled. “If you weren’t such a klutz.” Then Hans laughed. “You really took a fall when you fell over that boulder.”
“Fuck you! At least I don’t look as though I’ve been in the ring with Mike Tyson.” Then Josef slapped his thigh and cursed. “Sonofabitch! I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before.”
Hans, a bandage on his forehead, one of his eyes blackened from hitting the steering wheel during the chase in the Peugeot, stared at Josef from behind the wheel of the new car they’d rented under assumed names and false ID. He gave Josef a querulous look, but waited for his partner to continue.
“The wife! Vangelos’s widow! Maybe she’s got a copy of the map . . . or knows something about the boat.”
Hans tapped out a beat on the steering wheel with his fingers while he thought about Josef’s comment. “We need to follow Hammond. The old woman probably doesn’t know a thing. It’s Hammond we need to stay with.” Hans knew Josef still harbored intense anger at Hammond. The man had knocked him down when they’d surprised him in his hotel room. Josef hadn’t expected it. Hans hadn’t let him forget it.
Josef shrugged. “Maybe so, but there’s no harm in finding out. He paused and looked through his binoculars at the fishing boat docked at the pier. The name Penelope was painted on its bow. We’ll follow this Penelope. If it drops anchor, we should go have a friendly visit with the old woman. We can’t do anything about Hammond and the rest of his crew until after dark anyway.”
MAY 6
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Diesel fumes darkened the air. The Penelope’s engine noise sounded like a ton of nuts and bolts dropped on a steel floor. Just when John was about to question the reasonableness of going out on a boat that sounded as though it was in the midst of its death throes, he heard the engine noise smooth out.
The 50-foot Penelope was a typical Greek fishing boat. Twelve-foot long metal arms rose from the deck on each side of the boat. Zoë explained they were motor-powered booms used to lower and raise fishing nets. A larger boom rose fifteen feet above the deck and then turned at a right angle into a twelve-foot horizontal extension. This was used to raise sponge harvests off the sea floor.
Nick Vangelos piloted the boat out of the harbor and into the Aegean. It took twenty minutes to skirt the headland that protected Vathi Harbor and an hour longer to begin the turn around the eastern end of the island on their clockwise course to Pythagorio. John thought he might have been able to enjoy the water and the view of the mountainous island if he hadn’t been so damned worried about when the men who had chased them might show up again.
Zoë and John joined Nick in the wheelhouse, while Officer Zantsos remained on the main deck. The cop already looked a little green around the gills.
“All right, little sister,” Nick said. “What are we doing and why am I involved?”
John listened while Zoë told Nick everything that had happened to them in the past week. When she got to the part about the two men that knocked John unconscious and put him in the hospital, Nick gave him a sympathetic look and patted his shoulder. When Zoë told how John had used their mother’s olive oil during the car chase, Nick laughed and slapped John on the back with bruising enthusiasm.
John got the impression that Zoë, who spoke to her brother in Greek that John couldn’t always keep up with, must have embellished his role in all of this. After she had finished, Nick looked at him with serious respect, shook his fist at him, and shouted, “Good job, John; you got balls.”
Balls, John thought. I’m so nervous about what the hell might happen next I think my testicles have shriveled to BBs.
Zoë spread out the copy of her father’s map on the boat’s instrument panel and pointed out the landmarks identified by four small circles, three on land, and one at sea.
After he studied the map for a couple minutes, Nick said, “I think that’s just outside the entrance to Pythagorio Harbor. It’s not so good for fishing, but Papa and I used to go there to find sponges along the reef. It’s not too deep.”
John asked Nick if he knew anything about the map or what his father might have been up to.
Nick’s face reddened. Then he sighed and closed his eyes. When he re-opened his eyes, he looked at John and then at Zoë. “I know Papa came to this side of the island in a smaller boat with an outboard motor. I thought it was nostalgia—Papa reverting to the simpler days of the past. He had recently mentioned that these big boats had taken the soul out of fishing.” Nick abruptly stopped and looked away. He swallowed and shook his head. “A few weeks ago, just before his sixty-fifth birthday, I teased Papa about being ‘as old as the gods.’ I reminded him we owned a big boat just like the ones he criticized, and he shouldn’t be so old-fashioned. He said he still wished things had not changed so much.”
Nick’s face seemed to have gone gray and his eyes were moist.
Zoë touched her brother’s arm while he gripped the spokes of the boat’s wooden wheel so tightly his knuckles went white. “You don’t think he went back to the old Pythagorio sponge beds to dive, do you?” she asked.
“I don’t know, Zoë. But you know how stubborn and proud Papa was. It wouldn’t surprise me if he had. To show me he could still do it.”
“Can you imagine a man his age taking a small boat all the way around the island?” Zoë said. “That must have taken hours. And then diving alone in the sea. Incredible!”
Zoë and John walked out onto the deck and left Nick alone to deal with his grief. They joined Zantsos in the bow and watched sea spray splash against the prow while the Penelope plunged forward through the Aegean. The young cop’s color had gone grayish green.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Hans stood in the motor launch’s bow and directed binoculars at the fishing boat as it plowed through the water a kilometer ahead. He saw activity up in the boat’s wheelhouse, but couldn’t make out who was there. He sat back down and looked at Josef. “Keep this distance. I don’t want them to get suspicious.”
“What’s the plan?” Josef asked, a scowl on his face. “I still say we should find Vangelos’s widow.”
“Give it a rest,” Hans said. “As soon as they drop anchor, we’ll go back to shore, drive to the Vangelos house, and talk to the old woman. Then we’ll wait until it’s dark and come back here. Maybe they’ll spend the night on the boat. If they do, they’ll probably have a lookout, but we can cut our engines and try to drift into the side of their boat. But, even if they hear us, we’re dealing with amateurs.”
Josef nodded. “That woman on the boat is good looking,” he said, a lascivious grin on his face. “After we take care of the men, maybe we can have a little fun. I haven’t been laid . . . .”
Hans looked back at his partner and smiled. He’d had the same thought. “A little relaxation would be nice, wouldn’t it?”
Josef rubbed his crotch, then reached in his pocket for a coin. “I’ll flip you for who goes first.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
They had barely arrived in Pythagorio Harbor when Zantsos weakly called to John and raised his radio set in the air. “Inspector Panagoulakos is holding for you,” he said.
“What’s up, Christo?” John said into the radio.
“I’ve been happier, my friend,” Christo responded.
He told John he’d learned the two men who had chased after Zoë and him were probably Swiss, rather than German. A clerk at one of the island’s hotels had provided names for men who fit John’s descriptions.
“Did you get their names?”
“Of course. But the Swiss authorities claim no such men exist. So, maybe they travelled to Greece under false Swiss passports. John, we know we’re dealing with professionals. They’ve just disappeared. Maybe they stole a car or took a boat, although none has been reported missing. Which could mean they didn’t have to steal one, or they used another set of false documents. They may have accomplices. We have no way to know if they’re aware of your location, but nothing would surprise me at this point. So be careful.”
When John told Zoë and Nick about the possible Swiss connection and that Christo thought the men were professionals, Nick’s face darkened and anger shone in his eyes. The need for revenge obviously fermented inside him.
“I don’t care if these men are professional killers,” he spat. “I won’t rest until they are dead.”
John knew the appetite for payback ran deep in the Greek culture. It was a common theme in mythology and literature. John felt suddenly uncomfortable being on the same boat with someone who reminded him of a ticking timebomb.
Nick anchored the Penelope a hundred yards offshore in Pythagorio Harbor, just when the wind suddenly picked up and kicked up waves that tossed the boat around. Nick set them all to work securing the boat. Outside the harbor walls, whitecaps danced on the Aegean. There would be no diving that day. So they raided the coolers for food and lounged on the rocking deck. Zoë and John each had a beer with their sandwiches, but they could not cajole Zantsos into drinking anything but water.
Nick was a wholly different story. He was highly agitated and wouldn’t sit down for more than a minute at a time. He paced the deck and guzzled one beer after another. By 8:00 p.m., Nick was three sheets to the wind. The drunker he got, the meaner he got. He began to joke about Zantsos’s seasickness and tried to get Zoë and John to bet how long it would be before the cop barfed again. The sicker Zantsos became, the more protective of him Zoë became. She applied a damp cloth to the cop’s forehead and scolded Nick. Once Zantsos started to throw up again, he spent the next hour bent over the side of the boat and dry heaved.
By the time the wind and waves subsided and the stars were out in all their glory, Nick had passed out in a deck chair, the young policeman had finally fallen asleep—from pure exhaustion—on a mat in the wheelhouse, and Zoë had retired to the captain’s quarters at the stern end of the boat. John half-carried, half-dragged Nick below to one of the bunk’s in the crew’s quarters on the bow side, then lay down on the another bunk.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The two Swiss parked their car at the bottom of the road up to the Vangelos house. They walked up the driveway until it turned to face the front door, then they stalked through the brush and approached the darkened house from the left side.
Hans crept up to an open window, its shutters propped open and secured by hooks fixed to the outside walls. He looked inside. It was dark and quiet. “Let’s go around to the front door and see if it’s locked,” he whispered.
At the front, Hans grasped the door handle and put his thumb on the latch. Carefully, slowly, he pressed down and felt the lever on the other side of the door lift. Thank God for low crime rates in small villages. No one probably ever locked their doors on Samos. He pushed inward and the door creak slightly as it opened easily. Open, unshuttered windows on both sides of the house allowed moonlight to cast a yellow glow on the interior. Hans stepped inside, looked over his shoulder at Josef, and pointed toward the open doorway at the far side of what appeared to be the living room. He led the way across the room to a bedroom.
They were on Layla Vangelos in seconds. Hans’s hand smothered her screams. The two men gagged her and bound her hand and foot to a straight-backed wooden chair. Then they closed the shutters in the bedroom and turned on the bedside lamp.
Josef asked the woman if she spoke German. She shook her head, eyes wide with fright. She whimpered.
“English?” Hans asked.
The woman nodded.
“Good!” he said, dragged over another chair, and sat down directly in front of the old woman. He removed the gag. “You answer my questions and you will live. If you lie to me or hold something back, I will slit your throat.” He pulled a knife from his pocket, released its six-inch blade, and held it in front of the woman’s face.
“What do you know about a boat called the Sabiya?”
Her eyes squinted in a confused look and she shook her head several times.
Hans pointed the tip of the knife blade at the spot between Layla’s eyes and hissed, “Don’t you dare lie to me!”
Layla’s face became animated—her eyes widened, her head whipped back and forth—and she moaned.
Hans continued. “Where did your husband find the boat?”
Again she appeared confused.
Hans had a gut feeling the old woman knew nothing about the boat. Her reactions were too genuine, uncontrived. He decided he’d ask one more question, then give it up and return to where the Penelope was moored.
“Tell me about the map your husband made.”
Again Layla shook her head, but this time Hans detected something in her eyes. She’d blinked. She knew something.
He put the blade of the knife against her forehead, sliced across her brow, and opened a wound that bled profusely over her eyebrows, into her eyes, down her nose, and over her cheeks. The curtain of blood flowed down her neck and over her chest. She moaned, then her eyes rolled up, and she sagged forward in the chair.
Josef put a hand against the side of her neck. “Scheiss!” he said, “I can’t find a pulse.” He placed his hand over her heart. Nothing! “I think she’s dead,” he declared. “She’s no use to us now. Let’s get out of here.”
Hans rose from his chair and followed Josef toward the front of the house. When he passed a credenza placed against a living room wall, he noticed several framed photographs arrayed across its surface. He scooped up one with the faces of the old fisherman and his wife, and three other adults.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Nick Vangelos’s wife, Ariana, loved
her mother-in-law, Layla, like her own mother. Since Petros had been murdered, she’d been particularly concerned about Layla’s welfare. Only fifty meters separated their two houses and she made a point to drop by several times a day. When her day was done—the children put to bed and the dinner dishes washed and put away—Ariana and Nick would talk about their days. But before she went to bed, Ariana always walked across to her mother-in-law’s house to make sure all was well.
Tonight, in the distance, Ariana saw a sliver of light peek from the bedroom shutters of Layla’s house. The light surprised her. It was well past the old woman’s bedtime. If Layla wasn’t asleep by 8:00, then there must be something wrong. Ariana’s heart did a flip-flop. I hope she remembered to take her medicine, she thought. The pills were the only thing that kept her arrhythmia in check. She untied her apron and tossed it on the kitchen counter. She quickly checked on her two sleeping children. Then she hurried from the house and ran across to Layla’s house.
The front door was ajar. Nobody locked their doors on Samos, but it was strange the door wasn’t closed. Ariana flipped on the light switch inside the door and illuminated the front rooms. Nothing! She called out, “Mama!” No response. She quickly moved to Layla’s bedroom and gasped at the sight of her bound and bloodied mother-in-law. The old woman’s face appeared blue.
MAY 7
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Nick snored like a rhinoceros in rut. The boat creaked while it rocked. Although the wind had dropped, it still made whistling sounds when it blew through the boat’s rigging. John got only fitful sleep that night. When he did drift off, his old dream repeated. As always, he woke up with the memory of the wide, startled eyes of the Taliban fighter staring at him and the .45 pistol he’d leveled at the spot between the man’s eyes.