Devil of Delphi: A Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis Mystery (21 page)

“I’m not talking about giving you cash.”

“Then precisely what are you talking about?”

“My son is worried.”

“He should be.”

“This money is his inheritance.”

“Either way, by the end of today it will be someone else’s inheritance. But with my alternative he’ll at least have the chance to build up a new one.”

“He’s not concerned about the money, just that you may not be telling him the truth. He trusts Teacher, but doesn’t know you. He’s afraid the money will never get to Teacher, or that Teacher hasn’t agreed to let him live even if he pays.”

“Are you suggesting—?”

“That he needs the personal assurance of Teacher that payment of the money will end this once and for all.”

Kharon paused. “You want a meeting between your son and Teacher?”

“No, Tank realizes she’d never agree to that. He just wants to call her in your presence so she can vouch for you and tell him that all is forgiven once he pays.”

Kharon paused again. “And when will the payment be made?”

“The moment Teacher gives him those assurances, the funds will be transferred into her account.”

“Where are you proposing that we hold this meeting?”

“I thought the monastery would be an appropriate neutral venue.”

Kharon paused for a third time. “Do you have that pencil yet?”

“Why?”

“For the same reason I said before, to mark down the wire transfer instructions.”

“So we have a deal?”

“Yes.”

“Terrific. Okay, give me the instructions.”

Kharon gave them.

“So, when should I tell my son to expect you?”

“Just say ‘anytime.’ I assume his schedule is open.”

The father paused. “Yes, certainly. I’ll just tell him to expect you sometime today.” He told Kharon where Tank would be in the monastery.

“For sure. And one more thing.”

“Yes?”

“I do not like being surprised.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will, if I am.” He hung up the phone.

It all sounded reasonable, yet something about the conversation bothered Kharon. Tank’s father agreed to the fifty million far too quickly, without so much as a hint of negotiation. That didn’t sound like the father’s business style. Then again, it might have been Tank’s call if it truly were his inheritance. And Tank was probably literally scared to death at the possibility of losing this opportunity to save his life.

Yes, that sounded like something Tank would do. Kharon could hear him now:
Daddy, save me!

Those were words Kharon never had the opportunity to utter in his life. Nor had most of his friends. Which reminded him,
I better call Jacobi
.

He hadn’t heard from Jacobi in days, not since he asked him to make some decision about what Kharon should do about the motorcycle he’d borrowed from him. With all the heat connected to that bike, Kharon suggested he make it disappear. Jacobi hemmed and hawed about wasting such a beautiful BMW.

In their last conversation Kharon told him to make a simple yes or no decision. That was three days ago and still no word from him. He’d call him tomorrow, after he’d finished up this thing with Tank. It would be one glorious, fifty-million-euro, final run for the BMW, no matter what Jacobi decided.

“Just like him,” Kharon said aloud. “The poor guy can’t make a decision to save his life.”

He shook his head. “Sure glad mine isn’t in his hands.”

Chapter Twenty-five

“It’s Spiros, Chief.”

Andreas looked at the intercom. “My God, Maggie, that’s the third time he’s called today and it’s not even noon. What’s with him?”

“Do I really have to tell you?”

“No.”

“Did I detect a sigh?”

“Just put him through.”

Andreas forced himself to laugh before picking up the phone. It was Lila’s trick for making herself sound absolutely cheery whenever she had to speak with someone she dreaded.

“Spiros, how are you? Long time no talkie.”

“Why are you so happy? I’m being crucified in the press, you have me in constant fear for my life, my home’s a virtual prison, and you sound like you just won the lottery.”

“Look, I’ve told you twice already today that we don’t think you’re the target, but we also don’t want to take any chances.”

“Well, the press is killing me in any case. That damned father of Tank’s won’t let up. He’s making up stories about me tied into international crime rings, and demanding a Parliamentary investigation of me
and
the prime minister. I thought the son was bad. The father’s worse. And all you ever say to the press as my spokesman is, ‘Sorry, but we can’t comment on an ongoing investigation, no matter how unfounded the allegations you raise for comment.’ You’re just tightening the noose around my neck.”

“Let’s not lose sight of where this is headed. Media wounds heal; bullet wounds in the middle of the forehead do not.”

“How’s that supposed to comfort me? I thought you said I’m not a target.”

“I’m talking about the risks to Tank and his father.”

“And how are we going to know if your plan works?”

Good question
, thought Andreas. “When Tank turns up, dead or alive.”

“Alive won’t help me. Neither will dead as long as the father is still breathing.”

“Uh, Spiros, I know you didn’t mean what you just seemed to have said.”

“What?”

“That you wanted Tank and his father dead.”

“Are you nuts? Of course not. Do you think someone’s recording this call? Great, more anxieties! Now I have to worry that everything I say in my own office will be playing on the evening news.”

“Get a grip. This is going to come to a head in a matter of days, not weeks. Trust me on that.”

“Why should I?”

“Because I’m the only one you can.”

Silence.

“Now, just relax. I can’t guarantee the outcome, but I can guarantee we’re trying our best.”

Spiros cleared his throat and spoke softly, just above a whisper. “I really can’t take much more of this. Honestly, Andreas, I can’t.”

“I know. Just try your best to hold on a bit longer. Something’s going to break. I just feel it.”

“Okay. But you’ll let me know as soon as something happens, right?”

“Absolutely.”

“Thank you. Bye.”

Andreas blew through his lips as he hung up the phone. What he didn’t tell Spiros was how really bad things would get for him if Tank’s father succeeded in getting to Kharon. If he killed him, both the father and the son would think themselves invincible and do whatever it took to destroy Spiros and resurrect Tank’s public image.

Andreas had no doubt that Teacher ultimately would find some way to end both their lives, but by then Spiros would be long gone.

Andreas winced at his thought. He’d meant Spiros would be driven from office, but he’d had the more morbid thought, and couldn’t unthink it.

Andreas crossed himself.
Poor soul.

***

Eight miles east of Arachova, Kharon turned south off the main road out of Delphi toward the village of Distomo, where he would turn east toward the neighboring village of Steiri.

Distomo
, thought Kharon. A place of execution, of massacre, where for two hours on June 10, 1944, Nazi SS troops went door-to-door, murdering two hundred fourteen civilians, bayonetting babies in their cribs, beheading the local priest. Slaughter haunted this place to its very bones.

A mile beyond Steiri, the road took a sharp left, but Kharon continued straight onto a well-paved two-lane road. The BMW wound along hillsides covered in fir, cedar, myrtle, arbutus, and pine, high above a broad green valley filled with cultivated olives, almonds, and patches of grape, all running off toward distant limestone mountain slopes. It was a far different world from the struggling, melancholy farm communities he’d just passed through. Here, not a hint of modern times was to be seen anywhere along the mile-and-a-half run up to Monastery Hosios Loukas’ hillside perch on a western slope of Mount Helicon.

Kharon loved coming here at sunset as just another anonymous pilgrim, when shadows were long and light practiced its magic upon the monastery’s rusty earth tone architectural jags and juts, contours and edges. Out here, at this time of day, he’d lose track not only of time, but of centuries.

But not this sunset. This was not a time for dreaming. The great beauty of hallowed places such as this did not cleanse them of their haunting secret intrigues, betrayals, and bloodshed; accommodations to the times through which they passed that allowed them to flourish while others vanished from the earth. He would not allow himself to become part of that history. At least not tonight. Or so he hoped.

***

Tank sat alone beneath the Katholicon in the Crypt of Saint Barbara, the monastery’s oldest church, a place of peace, quiet, and massive stone pillars supporting the dome of the Katholikon above it. The tomb of Saint Loukas lay against the crypt’s northern wall beneath an oil lamp kept burning for ten centuries by monks devoted to his memory. Soon the lamp’s faint glimmer would be Tank’s only light, but he’d find no comfort in the remains of Saint Loukas. They were removed in 1011 and now resided beneath their own perpetually burning oil lamp in a glass-enclosed casket off the passageway between the church and Katholikon.

The monastery had closed at six to tourists and no monks would be coming down to the crypt tonight. His father had made sure of that. Nor would Kharon expect to find Tank there. It was the perfect place to wait out the next step in his father’s plan, safely away from what was about to happen. Tank smiled as he crossed himself.

His father was right. The plan depended on Kharon dying before Tank spoke to Teacher. Tank could not ask for Teacher’s word, then betray her by killing her messenger. That would dishonor her in a way she would never forgive. No, Kharon must die before the call.

Then it would be Tank’s turn to get in the game. He’d call her, being sure to sound mournful and sad over what just happened. He’d explain how her messenger turned into a raging madman, demanding more than they’d agreed to pay, drawing a weapon in a place of God, and forcing Tank’s people to defend his life in self-defense.

Tank thought the story a bit weak, but his father assured him a hard-headed businesswoman like Teacher need not be convinced, only sufficiently appeased to justify taking the money they’d offer her to allow them to go in peace. Of course, the money would now be substantially less, but that was only fair, seeing as her messenger had just tried to kill the very basis of their bargain.

Yes, his father had no doubt that once Kharon was eliminated, and a face-saving excuse offered to Teacher, all would be resolved through a simple, straightforward financial negotiation for a far less costly sum than what the bitch had been demanding.

***

Kharon faced a path he’d walked many times before, one leading down from the visitors’ parking lot to the monastery’s south entrance. He’d always found purpose in his few minutes’ stroll along the broad, terraced steps of marble blocks set as randomly as tiles, gazing out upon the peaceful valley and hillsides, and inhaling scents of wild lavender, clematis, and daffodils. It served as a passage from the isolated reality of his life to a place of tranquility shared with souls from a thousand years past.

But this evening Kharon’s thoughts focused on another sort of passage: One that involved negotiating two hundred yards of wide open space safe from those who might possess less tranquil intentions in their minds and perhaps a sniper rifle or more in their hands. And he had good reason to think someone might be out there.

So he did not park, but raced his motorcycle down one hundred yards of thirty terraced marble steps, spun into a switchback turn for another fifty-yard run of steps, and raced the final fifty yards across an open terrace to a skidding stop by a stone domed pylon close by the entrance to the church and Katholikon. He’d apologize to the monks later.

No one within earshot could have missed the distinctive roar of the big BMW’s dual exhausts reverberating off the walls. Nor the eerie sudden absence of sound the moment he’d turned off the engine. Yet he heard no shouts or running footsteps, only the wind through the trees, and he saw no more than a cat cowering off in a corner away from the unexpected intruder.

Where is everyone
?

The instructions from Tank’s father had been for Kharon to meet Tank in the old cells up above the west facing entrance to the church. Kharon scanned every window, doorway, and roof he could see. No one. The courtyard surrounded him with hiding places: On the ground stood doorways, latticed windows, and walls dropping down and rising up; turrets, a dome, and the roofs on which they sat loomed above him; and in between rose four to five stories of windows, nooks, and crannies, each offering a different clear angle on him for a marksman.

I am the proverbial sitting duck,
he thought. So he did just that: he sat. But around the back, in the shadows, on a block of stone protruding from the rear wall of the Katholikon, in a tiny cove-like spot a few feet from where the church and Katholikon abutted each other. Dirt ground, a view of what could be coming from the north entrance of the monastery fifty yards away, and a bit of cover from the sides offered him options for dealing with what might be out there. He put his backpack down beside him, stretched, and focused on the hunt—but as the hunted, not the hunter. They would have to come to him.

After all, it was Tank who’d invited him.

Two hours passed without the sight or sound of a human soul. He sat quietly in total darkness, calmly identifying each sound as friendly, waiting for the first one he’d know meant something else.

Two more hours passed. Still nothing. Kharon appreciated patience as a great virtue in the hunter. But in the hunted it accounted for far more; it meant the difference between living and dying. And so he sat, with his back flat against the east wall of the Crypt of Saint Barbara.

***

What is taking so long? Why has no one come for me?
Tank knew hours had passed, but not how many. The monks did not allow him a phone or a watch.
Damn them.
He’d paced the floor a thousand times.
Quiet as a tomb
kept running through his mind. He wanted to get out. He wanted to know what was happening. The only window in the crypt sat in the rear, east wall of the Katholicon, beyond the altar, covered in grillwork, and draped over with a dark curtain. He’d listened for a sound at the window but heard nothing. It seemed as soundproof as the walls.

No wonder. He’d heard that the crypt had once been used to house psychopaths. The monks would chain them to its stone pillars until cured of their madness.

I’ll go just as mad if someone doesn’t show up soon.

Tank thought to look out the window in case someone might be out there. Maybe his father’s men had forgotten about him? He shook his head. He knew his curiosity was getting the better of him. He’d do better to relax. If he drew back the curtain to look out, dim as the light from the oil lamp might be, it would draw the immediate attention of anyone out there. If seen by one of his father’s men, he’d have hell to pay to his father for not sitting tight as ordered. If seen by the only other possible person out there interested in him, it could mean a bullet in his head.

He toyed with putting out the lamp, but decided ending a thousand years of light just to peek out a window risked too much bad karma, even for him. So, he resigned himself to playing it safe and waiting for someone to come for him.

Then he paced some more.