‘Don’t worry about that.’ For the first time cat man seemed nervous, as if deciding whether or not to continue. ‘Okay, but you stay in front of me the entire way.’
‘We walk side-by-side until the pier.’
Cat man paused, then nodded. ‘Okay, but give me a minute.’ He walked over and said something to the waiter, then gave him ten euros and picked up a beat-up plastic fishing bucket next to the kitchen door. ‘Let’s go.’
‘What’s that for?’ asked the man.
‘For your fucking money.’
Zacharias wanted to say, ‘For the bait that hooked you.’ But that would have given away his ruse, and besides, he enjoyed being able to swear in public for a change.
He thought his idea of wearing workingman’s clothes was brilliant. No one would expect a monk to be dressed like that. Amazing how easy it was to convince that Little Saint Anna seaman to let him borrow some clothes so Zacharias the monk ‘could see what it was like to walk about this hard world in your shoes, my son.’ Everyone believed him, it was his gift.
Zacharias had picked up on the Russian within minutes of walking into the taverna, but it was as if he were invisible to the Russian. Zacharias smiled to himself. It was the stray cat touch that did it.
He knew the Russian ultimately would turn over the package for money, probably his own mother if the price were right. He was paying a lot more than he thought necessary, but there was no time to play out the negotiation game longer. He had to get the package and be back on the boat before it left for Daphni. He also didn’t like leaving the busy end of the harbor, but then again, he understood the man’s point. Each had to be wary of the other. It was the way of the jungle in which they lived.
The walk along the cobblestone road took less than ten minutes. No one seemed to be around. Of course not, it was Easter Sunday, everyone was home cooking and eating lamb. He stood where he could see anyone approach from any direction. ‘I’ll wait here,’ said Zacharias.
‘No problem,’ said the Russian, as he turned and slowly walked toward a military-style inflatable tied to the far end of the pier. Zacharias watched him jump into the boat, take something out from beneath the captain’s seat, and step back onto the pier. Zacharias didn’t see anyone else on the boat.
Good, he thought. No tricks. Zacharias opened his shirt and looked around to see if anyone was watching. Nobody. He pulled off the money belt and carefully arranged it in the bucket.
The Russian came back holding a canvas backpack. ‘It’s in here.’ He unzipped the bag and pointed at a plastic canister.
‘Open it,’ said Zacharias.
‘Here?’
‘Yes, here.’
‘Are you crazy?’
‘No, just careful. You see, my friend, too many times in the past I’ve done the same thing.’
The Russian smirked. ‘Do you think I’d not deliver what was promised?’
Zacharias smiled. ‘No, that’s not my concern. If you were foolish enough to defraud me, I’d hunt you down and every member of your family. And destroy you all.’ He almost hissed the last words and his eyes seemed to glow. ‘But as I said, that’s not my concern, that is yours. My only fear is that when I open the canister, there will be another surprise. One that will end my life. So, my friend, you open the canister.’
‘Fuck you.’
Zacharias held out the bucket. ‘Don’t you want this?’
‘Yeah, and I’m going to take it.’
Zacharias reached inside as the Russian grabbed for the bucket. The Russian came away with the bucket and Zacharias with the small pistol he’d hidden under the money belt. ‘Now, open the canister.’ Zacharias kept the gun trained on the center of the Russian’s chest.
The Russian paused, then let go of the bucket, reached into the backpack, and pulled out the canister. ‘Fine, if you want the whole world to see, here.’ He twisted off the cap. Nothing happened, and he held the canister out in front of him. ‘Well, do you want to look or should I ask some cop to take it out for you?’
Zacharias kept his eye and the gun on the Russian, but leaned in to take a quick, sideways peek at what was in the canister. It was a package bearing all the markings of dioxin. Zacharias smiled. ‘Good, we have a deal.’ At that moment, Zacharias heard a pop and his world suddenly went very dark and quiet.
23
‘How much longer are you going to take? Your daddy and I have things to do. We can’t keep waiting on you to show up. Come on out and see the world already.’ Lila was sitting in the passenger’s seat, talking to her belly.
Andreas smiled and patted the object of Lila’s conversation with his right hand, never taking his eyes off the road or his left hand off the steering wheel. ‘I like spending this time together.’
‘Try strapping a bowling ball to your belly and lugging it around 24/7 and see how much you like it.’
Andreas laughed. ‘Hey, the doctor just told us everything is perfect, the baby should be here by the weekend, and not to worry. Besides, I’m sticking to you like glue until it’s time.’
Lila smiled. ‘I’m glad you are.’ She leaned over and kissed his cheek. ‘So, do you want to go dancing? I mean, it’s only Thursday. We have at least a day or so.’
He knew she was teasing. ‘Yeah, sure. But why don’t we start out with lunch in Kolonaki? After all, it’s the fashionable place to be in Athens, and who’s more fashionable than my baby’s mommy?’
‘Oh you sweet-talking guy, if you hadn’t already knocked me up I’d let you do it all over again.’
‘I think I still remember how.’
‘Glad one of us does.’
He laughed. ‘Okay, where to?’
‘Our usual hangout.’
‘Home?’
‘Just not up for the social scene.’
‘No problem. I’ll drop you off in front and park the car in the garage.’
‘Thanks, I’m not up for the walk.’
Andreas patted her hand. He knew she wouldn’t want to go out. They hadn’t been out since Easter Sunday and probably wouldn’t have gone out today if it weren’t for her doctor’s appointment. Lila described what they were doing as ‘nesting.’ Whatever it was, he liked it. And home also was the safest possible place for them to be. Their street running past the Presidential Palace was filled with police and military types protecting the powerful in and out of government who lived there. Their building itself was a modern-day fortress with automatic shut-downs and security devices designed to foil even the most aggressive kidnappers, today’s scourge of the wealthy.
The K-garage was only a few blocks from the apartment. It was where you parked when you couldn’t find a place on the street. If Andreas were in a police car he’d park anywhere, but this was Lila’s car and she kept it safely parked in the garage in a reserved space. He pulled up in front of the apartment building. It was on the left side of a one-way street, so he had to park with the driver’s side at the curb. A black, American-made Chevrolet Suburban with deeply tinted windows was parked just beyond the building’s entrance on the same side of the street.
‘Wait until I come around before opening your door. Some idiot on a motorbike might run into it.’ Andreas jumped out and walked around the front of the car. He glanced into the Suburban. The light coming through the windshield allowed him to make out three men inside, two in front, one in the back. The engine was running.
Must be waiting for someone, he thought. Andreas smiled. Cop force of habit, stay alert, stay alive. Live in condition yellow. Green is in your mother’s womb, red is in the heat of an all-out battle, and yellow is every other moment of a cop’s life. He opened Lila’s door and walked her to the curb. He heard a buzz. It was the sound you heard when someone opened a vehicle door with the motor running.
‘I’ll say goodbye here. See you upstairs.’ Andreas kissed her on the cheek, his peripheral vision on the Suburban.
‘Is everything okay?’ Lila asked.
‘Perfect, I just want to put the c
ar away and get back home to you. I don’t like leaving you and junior alone.’
‘Don’t worry, we’ll be fine.’ She kissed him and walked toward the entrance.
He stood angled by the driver’s door of the car so that he could see Lila and the Suburban. He waited until she was inside the building. Something wasn’t right about the Suburban. Its warning buzzer still was blaring yet no one had stepped out.
Andreas got into the car, turned on the engine, and slowly pulled away from the curb. He inched up alongside the Suburban as if he were planning to stop beside the still partially open door. But just before reaching that door, Andreas floored the gas pedal and his car shot up the street toward the corner. In his rearview mirror he watched as the door yanked shut and the Suburban lurched away from the curb. Definitely not right. He reached for his phone and pressed the code for ‘officer needs assistance.’ Thank God for GPS.
The only question was, what to do until the cavalry arrived? Heading to the garage was a no-no. He’d be cornered there. Being stuck in traffic along the way wasn’t a much better alternative. Only one thing to do. ‘Lila, please forgive me.’ He said the words aloud, as if to give himself courage, then slammed on the brakes, threw the car into reverse and sped backwards straight at the Suburban. The Suburban jerked to a stop. Andreas didn’t. Thank God Lila’s car was built to take a rear-end collision.
Andreas jumped out of the car with his gun drawn. The Suburban’s driver door opened and a man in shirt and tie started yelling in heavily accented Greek, ‘Stop! Stop! Are you crazy?’
‘Damn well fucking better believe I am. Face down, in the street now.’
The driver hesitated and Andreas locked his elbows in the shooting position for a headshot. The man dropped to the pavement instantly. ‘You, in the passenger seat. Slide out this way, keep your hands where I can see them.’
The man slid across the seat slowly, deliberately. Police cars were arriving from both directions, and military types from around the palace were racing toward them with M-16s at the ready. Andreas had pulled his police ID out of his shirt and was yelling loudly, ‘I’M A COP.’ He did not want to go down in friendly fire. As the second man stepped onto the street, Andreas yelled at him to drop to the pavement.
Andreas stared. He knew this man. ‘Sergey?’ Andreas did not lower his gun.
The rear door opened and out stepped a silver-haired man in an impeccably tailored Italian suit. ‘Need I drop to the pavement, too, my son?’
‘Not sure yet. What are you doing here?’
By now, police were everywhere and the military was aiming at everyone. ‘I don’t think this is the appropriate environment for the conversation I’ve come to have with you.’
Andreas realized he still had his gun pointed at the two on the ground. He said to one uniformed cop, ‘Search those two,’ and to another, ‘Check the vehicle.’ He gestured to one of the men with an M-16 to keep it locked on the two on the ground, then holstered his weapon.
He stared at the Protos. ‘I have a place to talk, but just you and me, not your boys.’
‘Chief, this one is carrying.’ The cop was pointing to Sergey.
Not surprised, thought Andreas. ‘What about the other one?’
‘Clean.’
‘This is clean, too,’ said a cop getting out of the Suburban.
‘Hold these two cuffed in a cruiser until the—’ Andreas stopped himself. ‘Until this gentleman and I come back. Everybody else, thanks, and you can go now.’
He turned to the Protos. ‘Why all this cloak and dagger, engine running, open the door but don’t get out dramatics?’
The Protos shrugged. ‘Your office said you were on vacation, and your doorman said you were out but probably would be back sometime after lunch. I decided to wait for you here, and the driver kept the engine running for the air conditioner. You came back earlier than we expected and when we realized it was you, Sergey started to get out but I told him to wait until you were inside the building. I wanted our meeting to be private. I didn’t want to start a conversation on the street, but you surprised me when you sent your wife inside alone and drove off.’
Andreas shook his head. ‘All you had to do was return one of my calls. It would have saved me one hell of an explanation to my—’ he paused again, ‘to Lila about why I rammed her car into yours.’
The Protos smiled. ‘Your explanation actually may be more difficult to make than the one I’ve come to deliver to you. Come, my son, lead the way and I shall explain many things.’
* * *
They were sitting in Lila’s study, looking out toward the Acropolis. Andreas, the Protos, and Lila.
‘My son, I’m not sure this is appropriate for a woman to hear.’
‘Your Holiness, in your house I respect your ways, in my home I must ask that you respect mine.’
‘As you wish.’ The Protos drew in and let out a deep breath. ‘I do not know where to begin. Not because I haven’t thought of what I am about to tell you, but because I don’t know where the beginning is.’ He nodded for a moment, just staring out the window. ‘Vassilis was my dearest friend, going back to our days in school. He tried to warn me about the scourge we faced.’ He turned to Andreas. ‘But you know all of that.’ He let out another breath.
‘The scourge is gone, or so it seems. He left his monastery Sunday morning, the moment its doors opened, and took a boat to Ouranoupolis. He borrowed a seaman’s clothes, left the man with all that linked him to life as a monk, and has not been seen since.’
‘I assume you’re talking about Zacharias,’ said Andreas.
The Protos nodded.
‘Has he fled or is he dead?’
The Protos shrugged. ‘I have no idea. As long as he does not return we are blessed.’
‘What about all those people he butchered in the Balkans?’ It was Lila.
‘His ultimate judgment is in the hands of God.’
Andreas hoped Lila would let the subject drop. He knew she had strong feelings on the subject of war criminals. Lila looked down at her nails and said nothing.
‘So, Your Holiness, what does all this have to do with me?’
The Protos nodded. ‘You were our savior.’
Andreas looked at Lila, then back at the Protos. ‘That’s a bit much, isn’t it?’
The Protos shook his head. ‘No.’ He looked back out the window. ‘When I realized who was behind this—’
‘Why can’t you just say his real name, or at least call him Zacharias?’ Lila sounded testy.
‘Because, my child, that name was a monk’s name and this was not a monk in spirit, heart, or soul. He does not deserve to be addressed or spoken of with the same words as revere the memory of a man such as Kalogeros Vassilis. I cannot say his name and never shall. He destroyed much and came close to destroying all.’
‘All?’ Lila’s tone hadn’t changed.
‘If who he was, and what he had done, became public, it would have inflicted irreparable wounds on the church.’
‘You mean on the church’s current leaders.’ Lila wouldn’t stop.
‘I mean on the institution of the church. Its leaders did nothing wrong. We did not know his past, we saw a man gifted in bringing men together, working tirelessly without seeking glory, fame, or recognition for himself.’ He paused. ‘Our error was that we never saw the devil among us. Only Vassilis recognized the false prophet.’ His head sank to his chest. ‘And he died trying to warn us.’
The Protos looked up at Andreas. ‘When I realized what he was I knew we were not equipped to deal with someone of such horrible, ruthless cunning without dooming ourselves openly before the world. He had created a network of followers across our Holy Mountain more loyal to him than to their abbots, and in some cases the abbots themselves had fallen to him. It was an infection we could not treat until rid of the source. That was when I reached a decision. You were the only one who could free us of this scourge, but only if you believed you were being forced to let him escape
, that the power of the government - and the church - would allow him to go on, that there would be no justice for his crimes.’ He paused. ‘You have a thirst for vengeance and an ability to achieve it that I do not.’
Lila’s face was livid. ‘What you’re saying is that you used your influence to shut down the investigation to make it seem nothing would be done to Zacharias, just so you could deceive my … my unborn child’s father into risking his life to go after someone you wanted out of the way? Make him your own personal avenging angel? Or would you rather continue with your “savior” … ?’ She was glaring, but let the sentence trail off.
The Protos stared at Lila. His face was sad. ‘I don’t see it that way. I see your unborn child’s father as slaying the dragon of Satan. Something no one without sin could have done.’
Andreas wanted desperately to lighten the tone. ‘Now you’re calling me a sinner. I preferred the other titles.’ He said it with a smile.
The Protos forced a smile. ‘You live in a world foreign to me, foreign to many both in and out of the church. We must rely upon others to protect us from the evil of that world, and to serve as judge when necessary - rendering the harshest of judgments at times, because it is the fair judgment and one that must be made. That is why I turned to you. To be our shield and our sword.’
‘Sounds like a speech to the Crusaders,’ Lila mumbled under her breath.
If the Protos heard her, he didn’t react. ‘Please, believe me when I say I am not here to do anything more than thank you for saving our church from certain tragedy, and for bringing the killers of my close friend to justice. I live amid a world that many think is …’ he seemed to be searching for a word, ‘unsoiled.’
Lila perked up, but did not interrupt.
‘Whether or not I agree is not important, only that I realize no one from that world could have done what you did.’
‘That was an interesting and, I must say, unusual word choice, Your Holiness,’ said Lila.
The Protos smiled at her. ‘I’d thought you might grasp its meaning. You’re a very smart woman.’
An Aegean Prophecy Page 23