The Icon

by Neil Olson

  Fotis returned his attention to the driver. He was sitting up in the backseat, holding his bloody chin, his free hand extended like a shield. He spoke quickly.

  “Wait, it’s a mistake. We tried to call them off.”

  “Who sent you?”

  “I work for him.” He gestured toward the dead man in the culvert.

  Fotis leaned into the soft leather, reached his right hand between the seats, and placed the gun muzzle against the driver’s knee. The young man flinched and moved his leg.

  “Be still,” Fotis said, gently. “First one knee, then the other, then I kill you. I won’t even ask you any more questions, so answer this one. Who sent you?”

  “I don’t know.” The driver was shaking, from shock or fear, Fotis didn’t care which. He took none of the satisfaction in this he once might have. “I only overheard a few things. Someone in New York, some Russian. I don’t know his name. I don’t even know your name.”

  “You don’t know anything, do you boy?”

  “That’s right.”

  It might even be true. Anyway, the information was sufficient. Of course, he had known that Karov might come after him. He just hadn’t expected it so soon, or on Greek soil.

  “Why do you say it was a mistake?”

  “The Russian, or whoever it was. He called it off half an hour ago. We couldn’t contact the others in time.”

  “The motorcycle men. Where are they?”

  “They were supposed to make sure someone saw them. Some cars coming the other way. Then vanish.”

  “So it would look like a November 17 assassination.”

  “I didn’t know the reason. I guess that’s right. Yes, of course that’s it.”

  Once, he would have devoted all his efforts to finding those men and punishing them. Now, it would have to wait, maybe forever. He did not even know if he had escaped this encounter yet. How badly was he hurt? How dangerous was the boy? Could he drive the Peugeot himself, or did he need the little bastard?

  “Where is your weapon?”

  “I don’t have one. I’m just the driver. All I was supposed to do is follow you.” The young man shook badly, teeth clattering, sure he was about to die. Fotis had seen older men expire from heart attacks in the same situation. A nice, clean death, especially useful in political executions. The boy’s heart was probably too strong for that. And too much fear would make him desperate.

  “I should kill you. I will not hesitate to do so if you make trouble, but I require your assistance. I need you to deliver a message to the man who ordered this. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Stay there.”

  It was impossible for Fotis not to expose himself to a swift blow as he crawled across the driver’s seat and out into the cool dusk, but the young man never stirred. The old man stood, slowly. Pain shot down his left leg, but it did not buckle. The left arm was largely numb. A sticky bulge arose just above his left eye, but his vision was only slightly impaired. One rib could be cracked. All in all, it was miraculous. He might be able to avoid a hospital completely. He let the cool mountain breeze wash him, and tried to keep from vomiting.

  The sun had gone behind the hills; the sky was still bright in a shallow arc to the west and blue, deepening to indigo, in the east. Captain Herakles would not wait forever. They must be fast. Fotis had the driver try to start the battered Mercury, and the engine turned over on the fourth attempt, coughing and sputtering miserably. Shocks gone, tires flat, it hammered and scraped its way across the road in reverse until it sat idling by the far ledge. Then Fotis made the young man load the bodies in: Taki behind the wheel, Mustache in back. Grisly work, covering the driver’s hands and jacket with blood and road grit. He washed his hands with a water bottle and threw the jacket over the ledge.

  Fotis leaned into the car and removed Mustache’s wallet, then placed his own bent fedora on the dead man’s head. Unwilling to part with a passport, he settled for tucking his box of Turkish cigarettes in the bloodied suit jacket. The gray mustache contributed nicely to the effect. Of course, the man was thirty years younger at least, but who knew, after the effects of a hundred-foot fall, it might fool someone, even briefly. He would take any small advantage he could get. Simple confusion would suffice.

  A moment’s hesitation as full dark took hold. Taki had not been quite dead when the driver checked on him before. What if he lived yet? His troubled sister’s only child. Fotis had never really liked the boy, but he had been loyal, and now the old man was gripped by a deep and unfamiliar sorrow. Something like loneliness. He knew that this feeling, like the fear, would thicken with time, but he had no energy for either emotion right now. There was just enough to do what must be done. If Taki was not dead he would be an empty husk, no good to anyone. Probably he was dead. Let it be so. Fotis signaled the driver.

  The young man grabbed the open door for balance, reached in, put the car in drive, hit the gas pedal with his right foot, and pivoted away on his left. The Mercury lurched, rolled, then teetered on the worn, dusty ledge, before tipping like a toy car. Then it was gone in a cloud of loose soil. They heard a thump, followed by a more decisive crunch far below. Fotis shuffled to the ledge and peered down into darkness. He could barely make out the car’s scraped, oily underside, like an exposed insect. There was no smoke and the gas tank had not ignited. Only at that moment did he see lights approaching from the west.

  He waved the driver into the Peugeot and got into the back himself.

  “Pull into that little lay-by ahead. No lights.”

  The car from the west passed a few moments later, slowed somewhat where the Mercury had gone over, but then continued on. Fotis waited, and the wait nearly undid him. His aches reached him all at once, taking his breath away. Fatigue stunned his brain, he could think of nothing. He almost believed that none of it had happened, that the shaggy head before him was his nephew, and the Snake had merely been sleeping. A terrible, terrible dream. His hands shook, dampness was on his cheeks.

  “What now?” asked the young man quietly.

  The old man drew a wet, heavy breath.

  “You’re the driver. So drive.”

  PART THREE

  EPIROS, 1944

  T he trail was hard-packed earth, turning to stone, and Captain

  Elias could not locate footprints or other signs of recent use.

  He passed the tiny, burned-out village of Nikolaos, no more than a dozen scorched stone walls, on the largest of which some communist andarte had painted in large white letters: What have you done for the struggle today, Patriot? At Mary’s chapel, still well maintained, the path seemed to end, but the captain was able to pick it up again on the far side. It was indeed desolate ground, as Giorgios had said. High and rocky, no good for goats or planting. Only for God. The religious always claimed this sort of place.

  Gregori’s chapel was easily visible a hundred meters above, although at first Elias had mistaken it for a boulder. It was the color of the gray stones surrounding it, walls and dome having faded years ago. Only the dark rectangle of the entry gave the place away. A nearly indecipherable path ran up to it. There were no trees, just a large rock or two, very little cover. The slope fell away sharply to the left and right, so it was straight up. The captain’s only advantage was that the doorway faced directly into the just-risen sun, and the little dell in which he stood was still in shadow.

  Anger and the heedlessness of exhaustion drove him up the hill. He ignored the trail, using the rocks as he could, sliding left and right in no definite rhythm so as to make a poor target. Halfway up he heard a sharp crack, and a small stone jumped three meters to his left. Elias darted behind the last rock of any size between himself and the chapel. A wide miss; either Kosta was warning him, or something impaired his aim—perhaps he was injured? Elias drew his own pistol, rolled right and risked slipping down the steep slope, then scrambled toward the domed cell from a more oblique angle. He reached the structure’s northeast corner without drawi
ng more fire. Now what? He could race in, shooting, but that would deprive him of the answers he sought. He could try to bargain, but Kosta would never believe that he would spare his life. The pistol shot was his only clue. Some hesitation there.

  “Kosta, put down the gun, I’m coming in.”

  To his surprise, the captain heard two voices within, arguing softly but urgently. It might be his only opportunity. Three quick strides and in the door. He saw the figure in back first, a cringing monk in a cassock, then someone just inside the entry, crouched in the shadows, head turned away. Elias struck hard with the pistol butt, and the crouching figure dropped as the monk cried out.

  “Don’t hurt him, Captain, please.”

  Elias looked about as his eyes adjusted to the shadows. The chamber was small, no hiding places. It was just these two. The one at his feet now appeared to be a boy, ten or eleven, a pistol loosely clasped in his limp fingers. Ioannes, Kosta’s younger brother. Then the voice of the monk registered with him and Elias looked hard at the man.

  “Kosta.”

  He sat behind a small, crooked table. The cassock was really a long, loose shirt, beneath which stained, hasty bandages were visible. A pink discoloration ran up his neck and disfigured part of his face in a ghoulish whorl. The right eye was squeezed shut and leaking fluid, and much of his hair was gone. Only the left side of the face preserved that handsomeness that had so charmed women and men alike, until just a few hours before. An empty wine bottle was on the table before him, the last of its contents in the cup Kosta gripped with his left hand, while tiny bits of something, paper or cloth, were by his right.

  The icon leaned against the wall beside him, the two panels slightly split, but otherwise undamaged. Mother Mary’s eyes stared at the captain, seizing him with that dual power of judgment and forgiveness which Mikalis had always spoken of. It had soothed the priest. The captain felt only anger. All this for you, he thought, returning the painted stare. My brother, the old man, this young one, how many more over the years? A pagan goddess is all you are, demanding blood sacrifice. You should have burned. He lifted the pistol, as if to put out those damning eyes, but leveled it instead at his traitorous protégé.

  “Wait,” Kosta said quietly, his tone resigned. He placed one of the little scraps near his right hand in his mouth, took a gulp of wine. Administering his own sacrament. When he had swallowed, he leaned back in the chair and nodded. Elias resisted the impulse to simply squeeze the trigger. “Please don’t kill my brother,” Kosta added then. “He doesn’t know what is happening.”

  Elias glanced again at the prone child and Stamatis’ note suddenly made sense. Spare the boy. Not Kosta—he knew that life was forfeit—but the little one. How badly had he hurt him, Elias wondered. Why should he care? The boy had shot at him. The whole family was rotten.

  “Why is he here?”

  “I could not walk and carry the Holy Mother also.”

  “So your father sent the boy along. Why not your sister, too? Why not the whole family, if the prize is rich enough?”

  The other man said nothing.

  “You betrayed me,” Elias continued, without heat, as if discussing the weather. “Not a man trusted you but me.”

  “You sent me to do your dirty work, and I did it well.”

  There was a new defiance in the voice—or had it been there all along, buried, released now by the flames that had burned the body?

  “Of course you did. Thieving and killing are in your blood. I gave you a purpose, and you betrayed me.”

  “Maybe I was being loyal to my family.”

  “A pig like your father cannot command loyalty. Loyalty! You bastard, why did you do that to Mikalis?”

  “He caught us with the icon.”

  “Your father was still in the church.”

  “He had trouble with the false wall.”

  “You told him where to find to it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Because you heard me give Müller the instructions.”

  “Yes, but they weren’t easy to follow. Then it took him time just to make a small hole. He thought he heard the Germans coming, so he started the fire, in front. The whole place was burning before he got at the Holy Mother.”

  “How did he get out?”

  “He meant to go by the rear door, but you and I and the others were already outside it by then. He heard the priest making noise, or else he would have run right into us.”

  “Why not use the crypt?”

  The burned face seemed to size the captain up, weighing words.

  “He tried. There was someone waiting there.”

  “Germans?”

  “No.”

  “Who?”

  “Can’t you guess?” Shifting in his chair, Kosta grimaced painfully. Whatever relief the wine had provided was fading. There was no morphine or anything else within reach that would stem the hurt of such burns. Then a lifetime of disfigurement. I will be doing him a favor, thought Elias.

  “Why did you have to kill him?”

  “I didn’t want to. I nearly had him turned around when my father came out of the crypt, with the painting. Mikalis understood at once. He fought my father for the icon. I tried to drag him off, but he began to shout. You must have heard him.”

  “We were shooting; we heard nothing. But that didn’t matter. He had seen what you were up to, so you had to kill him.”

  “The first blow was only to silence him.”

  “It is a vicious kind of wound, usually fatal.”

  “I had no time to think. Even then, he kept fighting. The flames were all around us. I had to strike him again. He fell down the stairs to the crypt, still cursing us.” Kosta’s gaze was almost reverent with the memory. “I thought he might live.”

  “He did not.”

  Kosta nodded, his expression as sad as if his own brother had died. What strange animals we are, thought Elias.

  “How did you get out?”

  “The fire was mostly out in front by then. We made a run for it, through the burning.”

  Images came to the captain, less like conjuration than memory. He saw the wall of flame, death on this side, survival on the other, but at a cost.

  “I pulled the counterpane off the altar and wrapped it around me,” Kosta continued. “Then I went first, my father just behind. There was a charred timber, and I fell.” His voice cracked. “My father…”

  “Left you.”

  “No, he tried to help me.”

  “He left you.” The scene unspooled in Elias’ mind, a vision, clear and absolute. “Worse. He ran over your fallen body to safety.”

  “No.” But the young man was overcome, shaking in grief and pain.

  “He is a dog, Kosta, who would kill his own child for gold.”

  “He pulled me from the flames.”

  “After. After he had placed the icon away from the fire.”

  “You saw?”

  “No. Who tended your burns?”

  “My aunt. She is a poor nurse, I think. The balm does no good. My flesh is fire.”

  “She had no time. Your father sent you away, so that he might stay behind and bargain. But he miscalculated.”

  “How is my father?”

  “Such burns take long to heal, Kosta. May never heal. Have you seen yourself?”

  “I have not tried to. I must be hideous. Ioannes will not look at me.”

  The boy groaned at the mention of his name, tried to sit up, bent, and vomited. Only then did Elias snatch up the heavy pistol by the child’s side. He was growing forgetful; he would soon make a serious mistake.

  “Look, my friend, your brother lives. For how long, I wonder?”

  “That is in your hands, Captain. I know how you and your master like to play God.”

  “What is between Dragoumis and your father?”

  Kosta only smiled, a lopsided leer with no heart in it.

  “Come now,” scoffed Elias. “Your father, at least, I understand. You have no reason to protect
Dragoumis. Every reason to tell me the truth.”

  “That is so, I suppose. Except for the pleasure of seeing you struggle in the dark. You two spend more time keeping secrets from one another than fighting. You are feeble men.”

  “You want to watch the boy die before you?”

  The burned man rocked in his chair, the agony of his dead flesh relentless now.

  “You will not kill him, I know you.”

  Elias looked at the child, who looked back with a stunned incomprehension. He would not kill Ioannes, though he had not been certain of that until Kosta spoke.

  “How is my father?”

  “Why should you care?”

  “He is still my father.”

  Perhaps this was the way. Kosta should have known that his father was dead by now, but every man had his blind spot. Elias looked for a place to sit, but there was no place.

  “The Snake has him. He will die, unless I intervene. Which I will not do unless you tell me precisely what happened back there.”

  “You know what happened. What do the details matter?”

  “What part did Dragoumis play?”

  “And how will that help my father? You would believe anything I told you now, me, a dying man. I could set the two of you against each other. To what end? What do I care?”

  “The men follow me. I can protect your father.”

  “They follow you, but they fear the Snake. They will not cross him. I do not think that you will cross him either.”

  “You think I fear him?”

  “No, my captain knows no fear. You are a slave to duty.” Kosta began to laugh, then flinched. “My God, it hurts. Why do you not shoot?”

  “Tell me what I ask, damn you, or I will make it hurt worse.”