The Black Life

by Paul Johnston

  All the cameras were pointed at the façade of the Town Hall. Aron nodded to the anarchist coordinator and leaflets giving more details of the five men’s tainted backgrounds were thrown out, many of them floating beyond the podium to the media scrum.

  The old man smiled. His plan was almost complete. There was just one more element, the final act of remembrance.

  Mavros brushed the grey dust from his jacket. When he touched it, he realised some was grittier than the rest. He caught a glimpse of Aron Samuel on a third-floor balcony as the banners unfurled. The Greeks on the podium started shouting and shaking their fists, while the German who had been speaking looked up in astonishment. The press mob grabbed leaflets like hungry hyenas, mobile phones clamped to their ears. This was going to be a huge story. Then Yosif pushed past him and made for the lectern, throwing away his police cap. Calm amid the chaos, he pushed the German away and began to read out a list of names and ages. First were members of the Samuel family, then others who had perished on the way to or at Auschwitz. The electricity was cut, but Yosif kept going, projecting like an ancient orator. Every camera was on him. Mavros unexpectedly felt proud of what Aron’s son was doing.

  Then he looked to the front and saw Rachel climbing on to the platform. The police line had broken now, as officers ran into the building to seize the demonstrators. The man in Arab dress had initially been hustled towards the Town Hall doors, but when it became clear that the action wasn’t directed at him – the Development Minister was talking to him desperately, almost clawing his robes – he stepped forward, the security men rapidly regrouping around him.

  Rachel had both hands down her top. When they emerged, there was a black object in each one. Jesus, Mavros thought, moving forward, is she going to shoot him? There were two cracks in the general clamour and the bodyguards in front of the sheik went down, their arms and legs jerking. Tasers. Then the Arab’s head exploded in a mist of reddish grey, the sound of a shot following immediately. Now serious pandemonium broke out. Mavros followed Rachel as she reached the far end of the podium and pushed through the crowd, all of whose members were staring at the heap of bloodied white. She got to the northern barrier and dealt the policeman there a blow that laid him out, before hurdling the wooden horizontal. Mavros was about twenty metres behind her.

  Then a second shot ran out. Rachel turned. Mavros looked over his shoulder to see a body falling and then hitting the platform in front of the first dead man. Aron Samuel’s blood-spattered face was recognisable above the heads of the spectators.

  ‘No!’ Rachel screamed. ‘No!’

  Mavros caught up and put his arms round her. She fought him, but he pinned her arms to her body.

  ‘No,’ she moaned, as he pushed her up the street. ‘That wasn’t … part of the … mission.’ She tugged away from him. ‘That fucker Dan …’

  Mavros went after her. ‘Leave him. If he can kill your great-uncle, he can do the same to you. Where are you supposed to be?’

  She stared at him blankly and then came back to herself. ‘Corner of Baltadhorou and Venizelou Streets. I know the way.’

  Looking over his shoulder, Mavros saw that some of the press were still gathered around the podium. Given the fact that a sniper – Dan, if Rachel was to be believed – was in the vicinity, he reckoned that proved the media’s representatives were either devoted to their duty or crazy. Or both. He caught a glimpse of Yosif, his police jacket off, heading down a street on the other side of the road, another man with him. He hoped it was Isaak and that they would get away. They’d done the right thing to leave their father behind. His long life of vengeance was over. Perhaps Aron would have enjoyed the irony – that he had been killed at the only peaceful mission he’d carried out.

  Mavros had to run hard to keep up with Rachel. His lungs were straining by the time she stopped before the corner.

  ‘So this … is it?’ he said, panting. ‘Your bosses in Tel Aviv … will be pleased that the sheik’s down. I presume … he was some kind of terrorist.’

  Rachel looked him in the eye and then laughed. ‘I’m not Mossad, you idiot. Dan and I are CIA, though you’ll never be able to prove it.’

  The driver of the large 4x4 on the road ahead honked his horn.

  ‘And your great-uncle?’

  ‘My father and I were genuinely trying to find him. Obviously my superiors wanted rid of him on foreign soil.’

  ‘So I’ve been working for the bastards who ran Greece for decades?’

  ‘Indirectly. But my father’s paying you.’ She grabbed his arm. ‘And he doesn’t know about my second job.’

  ‘I don’t want his money.’

  ‘Take it.’ She smiled with some warmth. ‘You’ll need it when the baby comes.’

  Then she kissed him on the cheek, ran to the open door and got into the vehicle. It drove into the night at speed.

  FORTY-TWO

  The Fat Man was lying in a room with two other men. He’d come round half an hour earlier, his head thundering as if a herd of mammoths was loose.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ a chirpy nurse said. ‘You’ll be all right. The doctor was worried your upper spine was injured, but it isn’t.’

  ‘Feels … like … it is.’

  ‘What happened?’ Her lips twitched. ‘You were found in the Ladies’ Room of the Electra Palace Hotel.’

  ‘Was I?’ He thought about that. ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘Oh yes, what?’

  ‘Someone hit me … from behind.’

  ‘In the Ladies’ Room? Come on, Mr Pandazopoulo. Don’t you remember anything else? Such as, what you were doing there.’

  ‘Er, no.’ But he did. That cow Rachel must have hit him with a fire extinguisher, but he wasn’t going to own up to that.

  ‘And what about these burns? You’ve been in the wars recently.’

  He closed his eyes and pretended to nod off. Shouts from the other patients made him open them again.

  ‘What a disgrace!’

  ‘Those fucking anarchists!’

  ‘Wait, that Arab was shot.’

  Yiorgos sat up and tried to focus on the small TV. He saw a large building with banners hanging from it, a crowd of people round the platform in front.

  ‘The second shooting victim has not yet been identified. Police have dismissed suggestions that Sheik bin Zayed’s assassination is related to the murder of the Jordanian Tareq Momani earlier in the week in Thessaloniki. Over twenty people have been arrested and are being held at police headquarters, though no one armed has yet been found.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ the Fat Man asked.

  He was told, three voices vying to inform and comment.

  ‘So,’ he said, holding a hand up, ‘a group of protesters poured ash over the VIPs, dropped banners and leaflets proclaiming the collaborationist and Nazi pasts of some of them—’

  ‘Though that lunatic Kalogirou wasn’t there.’

  ‘What do you mean lunatic? Makis is a good man.’

  Yiorgos sighed. If Mavros hadn’t been in the vicinity, he would be very surprised. The Jewish angle, with the man shouting out names and ages, proved that. He picked up his phone from the bedside table where it had been put and called his friend’s mobile. It went to voice mail. He left a message, saying where he was.

  The argument had got louder, with the youngest of the men raising his arm in a Nazi salute.

  ‘Fuck this,’ the Fat Man said, under his breath. He got up, clutching the back of his head, and looked in the wardrobe. His clothes were there. It took him several minutes to get dressed, his vision clouding and his legs unsteady.

  ‘Where are you going?’ said one of the arguers.

  ‘Out of this shit hole.’ Yiorgos looked at the youngest patient. ‘Come over here and do that salute, you cretin. I’ll break your fucking arm.’

  The air went out of the loudmouth and he sat down on his bed.

  ‘That’s more like it, Nazi jackass.’

  He managed to get down the passage withou
t being spotted. He was on the first floor, so he avoided the lift and took the stairs slowly. Then he was outside, the chill air making him button his coat. Now what?

  Back to the Electra Palace. Maybe Rachel tough girl Samuel was still there, though he knew it was a long shot. It was even less likely that Mavros would be there, but it was the only lead he had.

  The Fat Man hailed a cab and almost fell over after extending his arm. Maybe getting out of bed hadn’t been such a good idea after all.

  Mavros was wrestling with his options. They were few. He was in a back street near the hotel, but he didn’t want to show his face there again. He was cold, dressed in a fake police uniform, without the jacket and cap, and without his own clothes, phone and wallet – they’d all been taken from him by Aron Samuel. So buying new clothes and phone, and changing his flight were out of the question. There was also the point that he was a wanted man – or would be soon, when the police started going through the videos and CCTV of the disastrous publicity event. That wasn’t even the worst of it. Dan was probably still on the loose and likely to be gunning for him. If he really was CIA, Mavros’s involvement with Rachel and his knowledge, limited as it was, of what had gone on would be embarrassing for the agency. He huddled further into the darkness, then made up his mind.

  There was a police station up the road from the hotel. He put his head down and walked quickly towards it.

  The officer at the door looked at his incomplete uniform. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded.

  ‘I need to talk to the man in charge of the Town Hall investigation – or rather, he needs to talk to me.’

  ‘And why’s that?’

  ‘Because I know who the shooter was.’

  After that, the wheels turned quickly. A quarter of an hour later, Mavros was in an interrogation room in the police headquarters building. An inspector had taken his personal details, then left him alone, declining his request for a phone call. Mavros was worried about Niki, as well as his family. He’d been out of touch for well over a day now.

  The door opened and Nikos Kriaras walked in.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Mavros asked.

  ‘The same goes for you.’ The brigadier, wearing a black suit, leaned over the table. ‘It had better be good.’

  ‘Are you in charge of the investigation into the shootings?’

  Kriaras sat down and eyed him dubiously. ‘I’m in charge of anything the minister wants. His colleagues who were at the scene are squabbling about who has jurisdiction. Let’s say I’m neutral. That appeals to the top men in Athens.’

  ‘Neutral?’ Mavros said, an eyebrow arching. ‘You’re the establishment’s pet Alsatian.’

  The policeman shrugged. ‘And you’re its pet hate. Start talking.’

  Mavros did as he was told, skimping only on Aron Samuel’s back story and his and Rachel’s discovery of Baruh Natzari’s body – it really did seem to have been suicide.

  ‘You realise that impersonating a police officer is a serious offence,’ the brigadier said.

  ‘So arrest me. But it won’t get you anywhere. I was forced into it and Yosif Samuel had a knife at my back all the time.’ Mavros looked at the hood-eyed cop. ‘Have you caught him and his brother?’

  ‘Would what you know of their abilities suggest that we have?’

  ‘No. What about Rachel and Dan? Are you going up against the CIA?’

  Nikos Kriaras was picking his nails. ‘Surely you didn’t believe her. Agency operatives don’t go around telling civilians who they are.’

  Mavros thought about that. ‘So they were Mossad after all?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Kriaras had a better poker face than most, but Mavros reckoned Rachel had told him the truth.

  ‘Tell me this, Alex. Did you have any idea that the sheik was going to be attacked?’

  ‘I didn’t even know there was a sheik involved until I saw him. Who was he, anyway?’

  ‘Mohammed bin Zayed, one of the Emirates’ richest men.’

  ‘Why would anyone want to shoot him? Don’t tell me. He was funding terrorist groups. Both the CIA and Mossad would have wanted him dead.’

  ‘Especially in another country.’

  ‘Did he have anything to do with Tareq Momani?’

  ‘Not that we know of. I doubt he’d have come if he had.’

  ‘True. Then again, rich men can’t resist the perfume of profit.’

  ‘You’re a fucking aphorist now?’

  ‘And the five men on the banners?’

  ‘They all have the backgrounds that Aron Samuel dug up.’

  ‘The German who was speaking when it all started looked pretty shocked.’

  Kriaras grinned. ‘Dieter Jahnel? Yes, his granddad was a piece of shit, but he seems to be a decent man. The sins of the fathers, eh?’

  Mavros had reached the stage of every conversation with Kriaras when his outrage could no longer be controlled.

  ‘You and your squalid friends sat back and let this happen, didn’t you? It suits the government and its backers for terrorists like Momani to be killed on Greek soil; they look good in the eyes of the so called civilised West. You wanted Aron Samuel dead as well. The Americans were applying pressure. They didn’t want to kill him in their own country because of the Jewish lobby, whereas Jews here are nothing.’

  Nikos Kriaras, as ever at such times, wore a look suggesting his personal honour had been impugned. ‘We couldn’t have guessed what he was going to do or that there was a killer on his tail. You said yourself that Rachel didn’t know.’

  ‘Of course she didn’t know. They, you, all the corrupt fuckers in the world used her like I was used.’

  ‘Rachel Samuel is no innocent. The indications are that she and the agent called Dan killed Momani. Not only that, they Tasered the Russians that were protecting him.’

  ‘Russians? You’re kidding. What is this, Cold War Number Two Central?’

  ‘The weather is getting wintery. By the way, Makis Kalogirou is in hospital. Someone carved swastikas all over his face. I don’t suppose you know anything about that.’

  ‘You don’t suppose correctly. Though that piece of shit deserves all he gets.’ Mavros stood up. ‘Which reminds me. Who burned the Fat Man’s house down?’

  ‘Why are you asking me?’

  The silence that ensued was not golden.

  ‘All right. We think the Athens branch of the Phoenix Rises did it.’

  ‘To get me out of Thessaloniki?’

  Kriaras shrugged. ‘Who knows how those people’s minds work?’

  ‘You.’

  Again, the brigadier looked insulted. ‘Oh, by the way, you do know that your overgrown friend is up here?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He called me this morning, convinced Kalogirou had you. I was able to tell him that wasn’t the case.’

  ‘You and your little Nazi friend.’

  ‘Grow up. Anyway, I had a tag put on Pandazopoulos’s name and, lo and behold, he was on a flight that landed in the early afternoon. Obviously you haven’t seen him.’

  ‘No. Can I call Niki? She’ll be going out of her mind.’

  ‘I thought she already had.’

  ‘Fuck you.’

  ‘I don’t know why I help you,’ Kriaras said, sliding his phone across the table.

  ‘Because you couldn’t do your job without me.’

  Kriaras showed no sign of getting up, so Mavros called Niki in front of him.

  The Fat Man had been refused entry to the Electra Palace by a pair of granite-faced doormen.

  ‘Lackeys of the rich!’ he shouted from the square. ‘Oppressors of the people!’

  ‘Gut bucket of a pervert!’ one of them called back. ‘Dress up in drag the next time you want to use the Ladies.’

  Yiorgos felt his balance go and staggered to a bench. He sat there for some time, feeling far from well. Then his phone rang.

  ‘It’s me. I hear you’re in Thessaloniki.’

  ‘Alex
? Are you … all right?’

  ‘Apart from having just been forcibly put in a police car going to the airport, yes.’

  ‘Can you pick … pick me up?’

  ‘You sound awful.’

  The Fat Man heard partially muffled talking.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Outside that hotel you were staying in.’

  Mavros relayed the location. ‘What are you doing there?’

  ‘I … I don’t know.’

  ‘Christ, Yiorgo, you’re scaring me. Do you need an ambulance?’

  ‘No! No … I just want to meet up … with you and go home … go back to Athens.’

  ‘We’ll be there in a few minutes.’

  The Fat Man started to inhale deeply. He stood up, holding on to the top of the bench, then forced himself to walk to the road. Sweat bloomed all over his body and he wiped his face with a handkerchief. It felt like steel fingers were squeezing the back of his neck.

  An unmarked car pulled up and the back door opened. Yiorgos stumbled over and almost fell on top of Mavros. He was pushed gently into an upright position.

  ‘You shouldn’t have travelled,’ Mavros said. ‘It was too soon.’

  ‘No … I ate a bad pizza.’

  ‘Only one?’

  ‘Very … funny. What happened … to your face? Quite an … improvement.’

  ‘I hope he isn’t going to throw up,’ said the plain-clothed officer in the passenger seat.

  ‘I’ll be … OK.’ The Fat Man glared at his friend. ‘What are you doing in a cop uniform?’