The Grecian Manifesto (8 page)

Tommy and Agent Yarbrough’s heads poked out from one of
the lower platforms and stared down at the motionless body. A little pool of
blood was already starting to form around the head of the prostrate form. Tommy
looked back up at Sean. “Where’d he come from?”

“Third floor. Better be careful leaving the building.”
Sean answered as he bounded down the steps, two at a time. “I told him he could
leave if he wanted to.”

“Did he know you meant alive?”

“Guess not,” Sean said. “Let’s get the agent here to some
help. I just hope our ride is still waiting outside.”

Sean opened the exit door and entered the first floor hallway.
It was chaotic, filled with guests who were hurriedly heading toward the main
lobby and the front exit. The walls and carpet were soaked from the sprinklers,
drenching every person in the building. Sean turned to the right and began
heading in the direction of the rear of the hotel.

“The exit is this way,” Tommy tried to correct him.

“Yeah, but our ride is out back.”

Chapter 14

Corfu, Greece

The daylight still burned Dimitris’s eyes as he strolled
down the pathway toward the cliffs at the edge of his property. A gentle breeze
brushed through his hair, unable to move it due to the amount of product he
used on a daily basis. Two of his guards followed several paces behind. When
Gikas walked, he preferred to walk alone. Having people around him crowded his
personal space. Times like today called for a little extra space.

Niko Teridis had sealed his fate. Gikas had given the fat
man every opportunity to join the new regime that would soon take over all of
Greece. Such a union would have made Teridis a great deal of money, and the
risk was so low. Treason? It was a small price to pay to return the country to
its former greatness. When the government fell apart, who would enforce the law
anyway? There would be no one to accuse them of treason, and no one to
prosecute. Gikas had weighed the risks long ago, and found them minimal at
worst.

Teridis didn’t see it that way. That, or perhaps he wanted
to be the one pulling the strings. Gikas had known him for several years. Teridis
had always been stubborn, and constantly vying for a bigger piece of the pie.
He was no leader, though. Rumors were that he’d lost a fortune from the bad
business decisions he’d made in the past. His only redemption was that he’d
made a few brilliant ones that covered up the mistakes. Men like that were
already running Greece. If Niko Teridis was in charge, it would happen all over
again, probably worse. There would be a massive coup and civil war within the
first three years.

Men like Teridis could not lead.

Dimitris Gikas was certain he was the only man fit to
re-establish Greece as a world power. The rest of the men at the table were
sheep, willing to follow a strong, confident shepherd. Gikas was that shepherd.
Sometimes, however, a shepherd had to defend the flock against danger, even if
the threat was coming from within.

He made a sharp right on the stone path. The walkway led
away from the mansion, easing its way down the gentle slope toward the sea. He
made another turn as he reached a row of bushes and shrubs that lined the outer
edge of his property. Gikas stared down at the foamy waves crashing into the
rocks below. Those great stones had saved his family’s land many centuries
before. Enemy ships tried to bring their invasion force around the cliffs to
enter Greece from the east. High winds and ripping tides pulled the wooden
ships to their destruction, splintering the invaders’ boats into pieces and
drowning their men in the churning waters.

Up ahead, a small circle of stone benches and wooden
chairs surrounded a fire pit made from the grayish stones of the cliffs below.
Four of his men stood around one central figure who was on his knees with head
bowed low. The blubbery man’s breaths were coming in great heaves, a fact that
told Gikas his men had done a good job. The four guards took a simultaneous
step back as their employer approached. Gikas had loosened the black tie he’d
worn to the meeting and rolled up the white sleeves of his shirt as if he were
about to do some manual labor. He had no intention of doing any work himself.
Those days were gone. Now he had hired killers to do his dirty deeds.

Niko Teridis lifted his head as the bodyguards stepped
away. At first, he wondered why they were moving, but soon realized it wouldn’t
be to his benefit. His eyes were swollen and red, tears streaming from the
corners. There were cuts on his cheeks, and blood oozed from a gash on his lip.
His thick nose was bent at an awkward angle, also leaking dark-crimson liquid.

His eyes flared angrily at Gikas as he stepped into view.
“You have no idea what a mistake you have made this day, Dimitris. Hell will
rain down upon you. My supporters, my family, my friends will avenge this.”

Gikas smiled cynically and shook his head in a mocking
fashion. “I seriously doubt that, old friend. Most of your supporters now
support me and my efforts to establish a new monarchy. As for your family? They
will be easy enough to pick apart one by one.”

Teridis snarled. “You will not touch them! Stay away from
my family!”

“Well, that all depends on you, my dear Niko.” Gikas
raised an eyebrow and reached back to the guard closest to him. The man
produced a small roll of papers from his jacket and placed them in his boss’s
open palm.

“What is that?” Teridis’s eyes narrowed.

“It’s the paperwork for all your land, all your
businesses, basically everything you own in this world. You are going to sign
it over to me.”

Teridis let out a short laugh that was accompanied by a
reddish mist. Gikas’s men must have gone to work on the man’s lungs. “I will
never sign over such a thing to you. You can rot in hell, Dimitris.” He spat on
Gikas’s black Italian shoes.

Gikas took in a long deep breath. “Why did you do that?
These are the finest shoes the Italians can make. Now I’m going to have to get
them cleaned.”

One of the guards stepped forward to strike Teridis across
the face, but Gikas held up a hand, signaling him to stop. “No, my friend.
You’ve roughed him up enough, don’t you think?” The stout guard gave a quick
nod and retreated to his former spot.

Teridis appeared momentarily confused, but remained
unyielding. “You think I need your mercy, Dimitris? I need nothing from you.”

Gikas shrugged his head to the side. “You see, my old
friend, that is where I believe you are wrong. I believe there are actually
several people in your life that could benefit from my mercy.”

The comment caused Teridis to narrow his eyes a little
tighter.

“Your young wife, for instance. She might be interested in
a little mercy from me.”

Teridis had married a beautiful blonde woman who was nearly
half his age. He didn’t care about the reasons she married him, nor that
everyone in the region speculated about the oddly matched couple. He knew what
he liked, and he always took what he wanted. Deep down, though, she was just a
trophy to him. “Do as you please to her. She’s nothing but a whore. You
honestly believe that I care about what you do to a common prostitute?”

“Very well, Niko.”

From behind the tall bushes, two more men in black suits
appeared with a blonde woman. Her curly hair cascaded down to shoulders exposed
by the white-and-black polka-dotted dress she wore. The woman was blindfolded
and had a gag in her mouth. She tried to scream as the men ushered over to the
edge of the cliff, but the handkerchief did its job keeping her voice silent.

The men stopped at the precipice and awaited their
employer’s orders. Gikas looked over at the woman then back down at the fat man
on his knees by the fire pit. “Are you sure you don’t want to save her, Niko?
She’s quite breathtaking.”

Teridis’s eyes remained slits, unyielding to the test. His
silence said enough.

Gikas gave a quick nod and one of his guards yanked down
the gag, letting it dangle around the woman’s lithe neck. “Niko!” she screamed.
“Please, just give them whatever they want.” Her begging did little to change
the mind of the hardened man. “I’ll do anything. Please, just don’t kill me.”

“You think you can play games with me, Dimitris?” Teridis
gazed up at his captor. “I know full well that you will kill us all anyway. So
go ahead; do your worst. I will give you nothing.”

Gikas let out a sick laugh. “I thought you might say that.
Very well, say goodbye to your wife…or whore, rather.” He gave another nod to
one of the guards, who shoved the woman in the back, sending her over the
ledge. Her screams faded as she fell the several hundred feet to the waves and
rocks below. Gikas turned back to his prisoner. “Too late.” He put his hand to
his chin. “Now, I wonder who else I have to kill to get you to sign that
paper.” He waited for a moment to add dramatic effect. “Ah, yes. Your little
boy. That might do the trick.”

Teridis was already horrified that he’d just witnessed the
murder of his wife. Now, Gikas was threatening to take the life of his only
son, the heir to everything he’d built. Teridis had been a ruthless
businessman, a tyrant of industry. He’d had men killed before, and done far
worse than that, but in his heart, he had a soft place for his son. Niki was to
be the heir to the Teridis empire. Even though the boy was only seven years
old, he’d shown his father’s tenacity early on.

Gikas knew all of this, and it was time to apply pressure
on the place it would hurt Niko Teridis the most.

The prisoner looked up into Gikas’s eyes. For the first
time, there was desperation on the fat man’s face. “No,” he said, shaking his
head. “Not my son.”

“It doesn’t have to be this way, Niko. You can still save
your son’s life.” Gikas displayed a small, yet insincere expression of
compassion.

Another guard who had been hiding behind the bushes stepped
out holding a young boy. The brown-haired child was dressed in a T-shirt and
cargo shorts. He too wore a blindfold and had a handkerchief strapped across
his mouth.

“Niki!” Teridis cried out and attempted to push himself
off the ground. One of the guards quickly shoved him back down on his face.
Tears began to stream from the prisoner’s eyes.

The guard holding the boy removed one hand from the
child’s shoulder and pulled the gag down. “Papa!” he screamed as soon as the
rag was removed. “Papa, what’s happening?”

“Nothing, Niki,” Teridis answered between sobs.
“Everything is going to be fine. Papa just has to do some business with these
men first.”

“I’m scared.”

Teridis shook his head. “You don’t have to be afraid, my
son. Everything is going to be all right.”

Gikas glanced at his captive with a questioning look. “So
we have a deal?”

The portly man was broken. The sight of his son being held
hostage was more than he could bear. It was the only point of humanity he had
left in a world of cruelty and desensitized emotion. Teridis could not let his
son die. He knew that Gikas would kill him. It was too late to save himself.
Now his concern was that Niki’s safety would be guaranteed.

“I will sign the papers,” Tiridus said, choking back the
tears. “But only if you guarantee not to harm my son. If you swear to me that
my son will be safe, I will give you everything.”

A gust of wind passed over the group as Gikas soaked in
the moment of triumph. “That’s better, Niko.” He took the papers and set them
down on a stone bench next to where Teridis knelt. One of his guards placed a
pen on top of the small stack. “I swear, I will not harm your son. Now sign the
documents before I change my mind.”

Teridis crawled over to the bench and picked up the pen.
He didn’t even bother to read what he was signing. His thick fingers hurriedly
scrawled his signature on the lines at the bottom of each page until he had
signed them all. Then, he defiantly slammed the pen down on the top page. “Now
let my son go.”

Gikas snatched up the papers and pored through them in
seconds, checking to make sure each one had been signed. Satisfied they met his
requirements, he passed them back to the guard. He turned his head back to the
guard holding the boy and motioned back in the direction of the bushes. “Put
him with the girl in the basement.”

“What?” Teridis asked, rage and confusion mingling in his
voice. “You promised you would let him go! We had a deal, Dimitris!”

Gikas had kept his calm long enough. He turned around
slowly and stared down at his portly rival. “The deal, Niko, was that I would
not harm your child, which I will honor. Letting your son go free, however, was
never part of the arrangement.”

Fury blazed in Teridis’s eyes amid tears and sweat. “You
lying, low life, crooked…”

“Monster?” Gikas interrupted. “You know, Niko, it doesn’t
matter how many words you try to use to describe me. I gave you a chance to
join me, and you refused. The first duty of any good king is to eliminate his
rivals. Since you turned away my generosity, you must be taken care of.”

Teridis stared up into his captor’s eyes. He wouldn’t beg
for mercy, though Gikas wouldn’t bet against it. The man had been a coward in
his business dealings. Why would anything change now?

“Well, my old friend, I suppose this is goodbye,” Gikas
said and turned away, nodding to his guards. “Time for you to join your wife.”

“No.” Teridis shook his head rapidly back and forth. “No.
Please, Dimitris. You don’t have to do this. You have everything I own. It’s
all yours now. Send me to exile. Please, I’m no threat to you now.” The pleas
for mercy would do him no good, and Gikas kept his back turned to the man.

The two guards behind the prisoner stepped forward and
grabbed the desperate man under his armpits, lifting him off the ground
surprisingly easily for a man of his girth. He struggled for a moment until one
of the muscular guards twisted his arm in an awkward angle. Teridis let out an
agonized howl and immediately ceased his struggle as the guards dragged him
toward the cliff.

“Dimitris! You coward! You won’t even look me in the face
while your goons do your dirty work for you. I’ll see you in Hades, Dimitris!”

Gikas put his head down for a moment as his guards stopped
at the ledge with the captive. He turned and gazed across the short span into
the questioning, horrified eyes of the man. The sound of the waves crashing
below reached a crescendo. “For old times’ sake, I’m going to do my own dirty
work this once, Niko.” He took a rapid step toward the men by the ledge and
brought his right leg up. The Italian shoe Niko had spit on struck him hard in
the chest, and the force of the blow sent him reeling over the edge. His
screams faded much like his wife’s as Gikas watched the blubbery body drop to
the jagged rocks below. The foamy water splashed over the body a second later,
and pulled it out to sea. Gikas spun around and began walking back down the
path to his home.