Devil of Delphi: A Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis Mystery (22 page)

Chapter Twenty-six

Tank’s father looked at his watch. He’d told his son to stay put and not move until the men he’d hired came for him. That would be when Tank would make his call to Teacher, after the killer of his daughter had been quietly disposed of without a trace, and long before the monks emerged from their solitary, dusk-to-dawn prayer vigil and fasting for his daughter’s soul. Their unique commitment to remain confined to their cells in all-night individual prayer came in exchange for a generous donation from Tank’s father toward refurbishing the monastery’s most endangered treasures.

He looked at his watch again. The assassins he’d hired told him they’d found the perfect place along the corridor leading to the old cells. Sooner or later their target must pass that way, and when he did, they’d be waiting for him. With but a faint pop from their silenced weapons, he’d be dead. They’d told the father to relax, mentioned again how many times they’d done this sort of thing before, and assured him it would all be over soon.

That was six hours ago.

He poured himself a scotch and stared at his reflection in the sliding glass door leading from his office out to the pool. He’d decided to wait out the night’s events in Chalkidiki. He felt more secure there. At least he had before that asshole killer had shown up.

He looked at the telephone number on the piece of paper on his desk. It came with clear instructions: “Only call during the operation to abort or inform us that our lives are in danger.” He wondered whether Alexander the Great ever received similar instructions from those he’d delegated to execute his plans.

He put the scotch down on the desktop, muttered, “Enough of this macho, special operations bullshit,” picked up the phone, and dialed the number.

It rang five times. On the sixth ring he heard a whispering, obviously annoyed man. “I told you not to call during the operation.”

“Let me explain who’s calling. It’s the man who’s paying you a shitload of money to do something you repeatedly tell me you’ve done many times before.”

“This is not the time—”

The father’s voice rose. “Shut up and let me finish. The whole purpose of your ‘operation’ is evaporating. If my son doesn’t make a call soon telling someone that your target’s dead, either my son is dead or we’re out a hell of a lot of money. Neither one will keep you in my good graces.”

Pause.

“Did you hear me?”

“This guy’s good—”

“I know he is. That’s why I hired you.”

“We heard him arrive four and a half hours ago.”

“He’s there?”

“The bike is, so we assume he is.”

“Assume. As in you don’t know?”

“Affirmative on the bike.”

“I don’t care about the bike. What about the target?”

“We haven’t seen him.”

“Have you looked?”

“Sir, you don’t understand—”

“
Have you looked for him?
Just answer yes or no.”

“No, but it’s not that easy. It’s dangerous to hunt someone like him in a place like this.”

“Dangerous? You say ‘it’s dangerous?’ Of course it’s dangerous. If it wasn’t I’d have sent a
ya-ya
with an umbrella to beat him to death. Fuck, man! A grandmother would have more balls than you.”

“If worse comes to worst we’ll get him at sunrise.”

The father’s voice dropped to calm and flat. “That’s the first thing you’ve said in this conversation that I agree with completely.”

“Yes, at sunrise—”

“No the part about it being the very worst thing that could happen.”

The father’s voice remained perfectly measured and even. “At sunrise, many tired and very hungry monks will be running all over the place. Each one a potential witness to a murder no one is ever supposed to know happened. Though to be honest with you, from your current performance, I think that come sunrise, you’re the ones who’ll most likely be dead.”

The father cleared his throat. “Let me put it to you this way. Get off your asses and use your vaunted special operations military backgrounds and equipment to find this killer of my daughter on your terms, or wait until morning and be dead on his. End of story.”

Pause.

“Do you understand?”

A whispered, “Yes.”

“Good. Now get to work.”

The father hung up the phone and stared back out toward the pool.
Men like that need firm leadership
, he thought. He picked up his scotch, put his feet up on his desk, and leaned back in his chair.
They’re damn lucky I’m here for them
.

***

Kharon originally assumed they’d come dressed as monks, an obvious cover for assassins working in a monastery. But not now. Too much time had passed for that ploy to work, and whoever held this monastery under wraps had to know that. He’d not seen or heard a single monk since he arrived. If the monks were being held by force, he likely faced a lot of armed men. If by guile, not so many.

His eyes long ago adjusted to the dark, and he smiled at a cat dozing fifteen yards away, straight ahead to his left, at the southeast corner of the church atop a nearly seven-foot high wall.
Maybe they’ll come disguised as cats
.

He stretched. He hadn’t done that in a while. He’d done isometrics to keep his muscles from cramping up, but not stretching. Stretching required noticeable movement that might give away his position. He wondered how people could possibly sit at desks all day without moving. Kharon shook his head.
I’m losing concentration, I’d better
—

He heard a sound. The cat had leaped off the wall onto the open ground in front of Kharon and disappeared up a stone pathway to Kharon’s right running along the south side of the Katholikon. He slid his right hand into the backpack and came out with a Heckler & Koch MP5K submachine gun, cocked and ready to fire. With his left he reached in for a grenade and crept carefully toward the corner of the church.

He stood two paces away from the corner when the same cat shot out of the same narrow pathway to Kharon’s right, racing straight away from the church, the Katholikon, and Kharon. Kharon paused only long enough to arm the grenade and, with his left hand, toss it up into the pathway vacated by the cat.

On the sound of the grenade hitting stone Kharon dropped to the ground, tightly shut his eyes, covered his ears, and waited for the flash and near stun-level noise. At the explosion, Kharon sprang to his feet and brought the muzzle of his submachine gun up over the edge of the wall, close by the corner of the church. Two men in body armor and dressed for nighttime military combat stood swinging Kalishnikov AK-74Ms in wild sprays of automatic fire, each blinded by their own night vision goggles from the flash grenade explosion.

Hugging close to the edge of the church, Kharon took careful aim and dropped each man with a shot to the head. The instant the second man fell, Kharon raced across the open ground to the southeast corner of the Katholikon. He listened. He heard nothing. Someone had to be out there. The grenade startled, not killed.

His choice of grenades had nothing to do with sparing life; Kharon simply wasn’t willing to chance harming the monastery unless left with no choice. He had frag grenades, but they risked driving shrapnel and shock waves into walls and windows, doing potentially serious harm to the place and its treasures. Nazi planes had failed at trying to destroy the monastery in 1943, and he wasn’t about to inadvertently accomplish what Hitler’s bombs had not.

The roar of a motorcycle thundered down the path at him, but not the bike. Whoever had been on the path must be fleeing on Kharon’s BMW. But there could be more.

He heard the clamor of running feet and voices shouting, all headed his way.

He hurried to his backpack and managed to put the MP5K away just as the first monk came upon him, flashlight in hand.

“Who are you?”

Kharon stood facing the monk, hands clenched and held tightly to his chest, his body shaking. “A very frightened pilgrim. I came here in search of a place to stay for the night and, finding no one, I came to sleep over there.” He pointed at the backpack on the wall.

Other monks now joined the first.

“What happened?” asked another.

“I don’t know,” said Kharon speaking rapidly, as if terrified. “I awoke to an explosion and a bright flash of light, then men dressed like soldiers,” he pointed toward the rear of the church, “started shooting at someone over there,” he pointed at the south side of the Katholikon, “who shot back and then must have run up that path,” he pointed again to the south side of the Katholikon, “because the next thing I heard was a motorcycle roaring away.” Kharon hadn’t stopped shaking.

“Yes, I heard the motorcycle, too. The defiler must have fled on it,” said an older monk, holding a candle. He put his arm around Kharon. “Relax, my son. Your ordeal is over.”

Kharon put his head on the monk’s shoulder and wept.

Another monk with a flashlight edged his way up onto the wall behind the church. “Oh, my Lord. There are two men back here. I think they are dead.” He crossed himself and said a prayer. The other monks did the same.

Kharon backed away from the older monk and sat on the wall next to his backpack.

“Who would dare commit such a sacrilege in our holy place?” said the older monk

“Yes, who?” asked the others.

Kharon was about to offer a suggestion, but wasn’t quite sure how to raise it.

“There can be only one answer,” said the monk with the flashlight. “The newcomer. It was his father who paid the abbot for all of us to remain in our cells in prayer through the night.”

Bingo
, thought Kharon.

A murmur of agreement came from the other monks.

“We must find the abbot, tell him what has happened, and have him deal with this heretic tonight.”

“Yes, tonight!” said another.

“Let us find this man of the devil and bring him to the abbot. His face will show his guilt.”

At that, the monks dispersed as quickly as they’d appeared. Kharon gathered up his backpack and quietly but quickly moved toward the northern gate fifty yards away. There was still the chance of an assassin hiding somewhere inside, or more likely outside, though at this point Kharon saw both risks as minimal. Still, he wanted to get away from here as fast as possible. So far, no one had suggested calling the police, and he did not want to be there when someone did.

He stopped by the gate and looked back at the church and Katholikon. He knew he couldn’t return. He wasn’t religious, and crossing himself meant nothing to him, but this place had been special to him for a very long time, and tonight it sheltered and saved him. He owed it a sign of respect.

Kharon drew in and let out a deep breath, lifted his right hand to his forehead, “Thank you, Hosios Loukas,” saluted, and left.

Chapter Twenty-seven

Every monk in the monastery somehow found a way to pack into the abbot’s study. No one was going to miss this.

A broad-shouldered man with a salt and pepper beard and dressed in formal abbot’s garb sat in a tall back, Byzantine era chair, behind a Byzantine era desk, surrounded by Byzantine mosaic and icon masterpieces. Purposeful or not, the setting made clear the seminal importance of that time to this place, and the absolute power of the occupier of the abbot’s chair over the monastery’s affairs.

Tank sat directly across the desk from the abbot. Two monks stood beside Tank, one on either side.

“Do you know why you’re here?” asked the abbot in a soft voice.

“No. I was brought here in the middle of my all-night vigil praying for the soul of my sister by these two.” He pointed at the monks beside him.

“Did you ask them why?”

Tank hesitated. “No.”

The abbot nodded.

“I assumed it had something to do with the loud noises.”

The abbot nodded again. “And what led you to that conclusion?”

Tank shrugged. “It’s the only explanation I could think of.”

“And why were you in the crypt instead of in your cell as instructed?”

“In such a holy place I felt I could be closer to God than alone in my cell.”

The abbot’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Would you like to know about the loud noises?”

Tank shrugged. “Why not?”

The abbot leaned back. “Two men were murdered tonight inside our walls.”

Tank blinked. “Two?”

“Were you expecting more?”

“No.”

“Less?”

“No, no, I’m just surprised. Here, in a place of God—”

The abbot raised his hand. “Please, no more of that. Do you know who died?”

Tank crossed his legs. “How would I?”

“Perhaps you’ve seen them before?”

“I doubt it. I wouldn’t know such men.”

“Such men?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know the dead are not from among our own?”

Tank blanched. “You mean they killed monks?”

“Did you expect
them
to kill someone else?”

Tank uncrossed his legs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about two men, in full combat dress, equipped with night vision goggles and Kalashnikovs, each killed with a single shot
to the head.”
The abbot leaned forward and said in a firm, commanding voice, “Does that method of death sound familiar to you, sir?”

Tank crossed his arms over his chest. “I really don’t know what you mean by that. Why would I know? How would I know?”

“My brothers and I spent the night praying for the soul of your departed sister, killed by a bullet to her forehead, and you don’t know what I’m talking about?”

“I swear to—”

“Stop! You have lied to me at least three times since you sat in that chair, and invoked our Lord’s name twice in your subterfuge.
Do not
do it again.”

“I don’t have to sit here and take these accusations.”

The abbot nodded. “Brother Ilias,” he said to a monk by the door, “bring us his things.”

“You have no right to go through my property.”

The abbot waved for the monk to go. “I have no intention of going through your things. That is the sort of thing police do.”

“I have nothing to say to the police. I was in prayer when those men were killed.”

“Yes, I’m sure. Though I dread ever learning the object of your prayers.”

The abbot pushed back from his desk and rose up from his chair. He stood nearly six and a half feet tall. “Before finding my way to the Lord, men such as you sent me off to fight their battles. I swore I would never do service for their like again, only the Lord’s. And yet here I am, tricked into doing your and your father’s bidding, while you sat cowering in a corner by the tomb of our beloved Hosios Loukas, even as the two who now stand beside you came for you.”

The abbot came around the desk and stood directly in front of Tank. “You brought murder into the house of the Lord and for that you shall be punished.”

Tank tried to stand but the monks next to him held him down.

“Have no fear of us,” said the abbot. “We shall not judge or punish you. Yours and your father’s punishment awaits you outside our walls.”

Brother Ilias returned with a bag and held it out to the abbot.

“Thank you, Brother,” said the abbot, taking the bag and turning to Tank.

“Here is your property. Now leave.”

“What? I don’t want to leave.”

“But you are, and now.” He pushed the bag into Tank’s arms.

“My father paid you a lot of money.”

“And we said a lot of prayers.”

Tank looked from the abbot to the others, then back again. “I require sanctuary. I’ll be killed out there!”

The abbot placed hands the size of hams on Tank’s shoulders.

“And I shall pray for your soul. Now
leave
.”

***

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” muttered Tank to himself as he stumbled in the dark along the path toward the service area parking lot outside the north wall. “How could they have blown it? And so fucking badly. I’m a dead man.”

The explosion had scared him shitless. Nothing like that was supposed to happen. He knew it had to be Teacher’s man, the one who’d killed his sister in cold blood. And when he heard the pounding on the door of the crypt he’d tried to hide, certain he was about to die.

Maybe Teacher’s man was out there waiting for him? He spun around looking, but even though his eyes had adjusted to the dark, with only a sliver of moon in the sky and sunrise still hours away, he could barely see ten yards in front of his face.

No, he’s long gone by now
. Tank’s mind kept looping through alternatives as he moved toward the gravel parking area. No way Teacher’s guy would be hanging around waiting for the police to show up. Besides, he’d want to make a big show of taking out the son and the father at the same time. Messages like that were Teacher’s trademark.
Dramatic bitch
.

He wished he could get a message to his father about what had happened, but that would have to wait until he reached his SUV. The damn monks wouldn’t let him bring his mobile phone into the monastery. It had been a real pain in the ass coming up with excuses to get back to the SUV every time he wanted to use the phone. And they’d searched him for it each time he came back.
Bastards
.

Tank saw his black Range Rover off to the right.

“Finally, civilization.” He’d almost yelled the words.

Tank held the keys in his right hand and squeezed the unlock button on the remote. He heard a chirp and saw the interior lights go on inside. He paused. The lights would make him an easy target anywhere within ten yards of the vehicle.

He waited for the lights to go off before creeping toward the vehicle, scanning all around him as he did. He saw nothing. He heard nothing. He put down the bag he’d held in his left hand, gripped the driver side front door handle in that hand, yanked open the door, and leaped inside to turn off the interior lights just as they went on.

Once all was dark again, he leaned out to pick up the bag, tossed it on the floor in front of the dashboard on the passenger side, closed the door, started the engine, and sped away.

Tank’s mind raced as fast as the engine, but scattered, unfocused. Maybe the third mercenary hired by his father had actually killed Teacher’s man, and the reason the monks never found his body was because the mercenary had disposed of the body before they could find it. After all, that was the mission, and ex-military types were trained to put the mission ahead of everything else. At least that’s what he knew from the movies. He’d better call his father. He’d know.

Tank reached down and felt around in the compartment between the front seats for his phone. It wasn’t there. He glanced away from the road to look in the compartment and on the passenger seat. Nothing.

With his eyes still on the road, he leaned over to open the glove compartment in front of the passenger seat, in the process unintentionally turning the steering wheel clockwise enough for the right front wheel to strike a soccer ball size boulder at the edge of the road. The impact sent the car careening toward a steep hillside drop-off on the left. Tank struggled to maintain control, swerving the car back and forth until finally coming to a stop inches before tumbling off the road.

“Whew,” said Tank to himself aloud. He rested his right elbow on the steering wheel, and put his head in his hand.

“To spare us any more of that, is this what you’re looking for?” A hand holding Tank’s phone reached out to him from the backseat.

Instinctively, Tank drove his right elbow back in the direction of the voice. But the top of his arm hit the headrest before the elbow could find its mark, and when Tank swung around to carry the fight on into the backseat he faced a nine-millimeter pistol pointed at the middle of his forehead.

Tank froze, and stared into the eyes of his sister’s killer.

“You do know that I have absolutely no compunction about pulling this trigger. Though I must admit I’m not looking forward to the pain to my eardrums that comes with doing so in such a confined space. But, of course, you’ll never get to feel that pain.”

“Are you going to kill me like you did my sister?”

“If you make me.”

“I’ll pay you the money we were going to pay the three others.”

“If you mean the two I killed and one who ran away, I don’t think that could possibly be enough to cover all the trouble you’ve caused.”

“Give me the phone to call my father. He’ll make it worth your while.”

Kharon nodded. “You know, you just might be right about that.”

“Good, give me the phone.” Tank reached out his hand.

“No, no, no. I think this is the sort of discussion we must have face-to-face.”

“My father’s not anywhere around here.”

“So start driving.”

“I don’t know where he is. I need to call him to find out. Give me the phone.”

Kharon smiled. “If that’s the case, I suggest you pick up where you left off in the monastery.”

“What do you mean?”

“Praying, but in these prayers, ask for guidance on finding your way to your father here on earth, because if he isn’t where you’re taking me….” Kharon shrugged. “I’m sure that with all the time you recently spent in a monastery praying to your Lord in heaven, there’s no need for me to finish my thought.”

Kharon slid over on the backseat to just behind the driver seat. “I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be chauffeured around in one of these.”

Tank didn’t move, just kept staring at the barrel of the gun in Kharon’s hand.

Kharon leaned forward and pressed the gun barrel to Tank’s temple with his right hand. With his left hand he slid an ear plug into his own left ear, put his left forefinger into his right ear, and said, “Drive or die. Five seconds to decide…four…three…”