The Icon (22 page)

“That was good, pretending to fall. But next time, hit him in the balls, not the chest.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“We’ll call your grandfather now,” Sotir said. “He will be worried.”

“Thank you. For looking after me like that.”

Plastiris waved the comment off.

“We were slow, but it is good we were there. Do you know where your godfather is?”

“No. Not at the moment, anyway. But I have a fair guess where he’s going.”

On the switchback road that climbed to Veria, Fotis was sure they were being followed. Taki laughed. This isn’t America, Uncle, there is only one road. Which was true, more or less; only one major road—narrow and winding—penetrated the mountainous heart of Macedonia. Yet something about the white Peugeot troubled the old man, the half-obscured license plate, the way it kept a perfect distance, even when Fotis made Taki slow down. Greeks did not drive so carefully.

He had Taki pull the black Mercury over at his favorite chapel, first making sure that two other cars were parked by the food stand across the long bend of road, beyond which the ground fell away to a landscape of beige hills spotted with dark vegetation. Hot and barren as Lebanon; not like the green hills of Epiros. From its little rise, creamy white in the dying sun, the chapel looked out over everything, a rocky cliff rising steeply behind it. The Peugeot stopped also. The driver bought a stick of
souvlaki
and a beer for himself, but nothing for the older man with him. The driver ate slowly, wandering back and forth from the cliff edge to the car, never once looking in Fotis’ direction, yet tarrying.

The Snake seemed not to be looking either, but saw all in his usual sidelong fashion. He spent a full ten minutes examining the small church, shut up at the moment, standing inside the tiny vestibule, out of the sun, while Taki paced like a panther and checked his watch. The road could be dangerous after dark, but Fotis had his mind on other dangers. At length, the young driver got back into the white car and sped quickly out of sight. Perhaps a coincidence after all, Fotis thought, but he made Taki wait another ten minutes before proceeding.

In the backseat, feet set widely to brace himself against the endless turns, Fotis reviewed his documents. Three passports, Greek, Turkish, American. He had not traveled under a false passport in many years and probably did not need to now. He could have been out of the country hours ago on a commercial flight from Athens or Salonika, instead of getting carsick in these wretched hills. Yet there was too great a chance of being picked up by impatient American investigators in New York, or by their counterparts here. The fake ID might get him through, but his face was on file with every security bureau on both sides of the water, and if he was caught with a bad passport, his troubles would increase immeasurably. The Greeks especially would welcome a reason to prosecute him. Fotis sighed, then shook his head at the image of such an unlikely security net waiting to catch this tired old thief. The Greeks were too sloppy, and the Americans far too preoccupied with larger threats. Nevertheless, his caution had saved him more than once, and he did not see abandoning it this late in life.

The sun was low, and he regretted the delay, which would force Taki to navigate the winding road into the Kozani valley in twilight. Fotis would take a small plane from the airstrip outside Kozani, to Montenegro, or direct to Brindisi in Italy, whichever Taki’s friend Captain Herakles thought best. Then a commercial flight from Rome, on some unlikely airline, under the guise of a Turkish businessman. That should do the trick. It was about getting to Rome. He would have to trust the brave Captain Herakles, who probably had never been more than a sergeant. Herakles, how sweet. These poor fellows, in their forties or fifties now, with their secret codes and brotherhoods and their heroic
noms de guerre,
they longed for the old days. The days when their brig-andage might have had a patriotic justification, fighting Turkish overlords or the German occupation or even the communists. Instead they had the black market, smuggling goods and people, bribing officials, stockpiling weapons—for what? The closest to war they had come was Cyprus, when the idiot colonels had utterly failed to act. How Fotis could have fallen in with that group he no longer understood, and it had cost him his home-land. Andreas had been wiser than he on that matter.

He was drawn out of his reverie by the Mercury’s steady acceleration, dangerous in these turns, and he noted Taki’s tense hands on the wheel, his eyes shifting constantly to the rearview mirror.

“What?” Fotis demanded, twisting about in his seat.

“Motorcycle. Coming up quick.”

The old man heard the engine now—a deep, shifting growl—and just caught sight of a vehicle disappearing into the car’s blind spot. Then the road uncurled into a rare straightaway and they were suddenly
there,
right outside Fotis’ window, two helmeted figures pressed together on a large motorbike, the one in back pointing something.

The doors of the Mercury were steel-plated, thanks to Taki’s diligence. Bulletproof glass was harder to come by, and tinted glass only drew attention, so they were quite exposed. Instinct said to dive away from the window, but even across the seat he could be seen. Instead, Fotis moved the opposite way, sliding half into the footwell and pressing himself against the door, fedora knocked astray.

Both rear windows exploded together, the shot passing straight through, and the car lurched wildly as Taki ducked behind the wheel. A rain of glass fell on Fotis’ hat and coat. Large caliber, .45 maybe. Motorcycle. Was it
November 17,
a political assassination? It fit their style precisely, but they were a long way from Athens.

The motorcycle roared ahead to avoid getting squeezed in a turn, and Fotis could see no more, but imagined the passenger twisting about on the seat, trying to get off another shot. He heard Taki fumbling with the glove box, swearing under his breath. Wind whipped through the car. Fotis was calm. Later, if he lived, he would be frightened, but he was calm now.

“Taki,” he tried to shout, his lungs compressed by his contorted position. “Pull over, make them come back at us.” His nephew would have a clear shot from a stationary position then, and the steel door for cover. If the idiot could get the damn glove box open.

The wind swept his words away, and Taki accelerated. Trying to run them down, which would not work. Fotis struggled to get back up in the seat, while the muffled ring of shots sounded ahead of them. One, two, three. There was the punching crack of safety glass as the windshield turned white, and Taki’s head snapped back, spraying the roof with blood.

Fotis grabbed the headrest before him as the car decelerated rapidly, and used the sudden shift in momentum to launch himself between the front seats. He could see nothing, but pulled the wheel right, away from the hundred-foot drop to boulders and the rusted remains of carelessly piloted vehicles, and toward the upward slope of the hill. The lesser of two evils. A slight uphill grade slowed the car’s motion further before it left the road, banging hard into a shallow culvert and coming up immediately against the slope. Loose dirt and rocks rattled down over the hood and roof. The engine died.

Fotis found himself looking up at the blood-spattered roof, his torso crammed beneath the dashboard, feet sprawled across the passenger seat, with no memory of how he had arrived there. The left side of his face stung, and there was a ringing in his ear, as if he had been slapped hard. He could not feel his left arm. The right one seemed to be working. His feet moved, but there was pain somewhere in his legs, or—God forbid it—his hip. None of it mattered greatly, as he was sure to be shot where he lay. He could make out Taki’s still form draped over the steering wheel, could smell blood and the sharp stink of frightened men.

Strangely, nothing happened at once. It was a full minute before he heard a car engine, and dared to hope that a passerby might have run off the assassins. Generally, these fellows were not well paid enough to make it worth killing bystanders. Then he remembered the Peugeot. Voices approached, loud and nervous. Fotis felt their anxiety in his fingertips. Despite the late hour, another car might come by at any moment. It had been unsporting of him not to go over the cliff, to make their job harder like this. They half-circled the Mercury as if it might bite them, unable to get at the passenger door because of the slope, unable to see through the splintered windows. On impulse, Fotis reached up and popped the glove compartment. The nine-millimeter tumbled out and struck him in the head. He cursed, but gripped the pistol firmly and felt the annoying adrenal rush of returning hope. He had been ready to give it all up a few moments before. What was wrong with that? Why must he fight so hard to keep hold of this miserable, threadbare life? It was not a question for the moment. Without his left hand free, he could not make sure that the first round was chambered, so he would have to go on faith.

Someone pulled at the driver’s door, finally wrenching it open a few feet. Fotis could not see clearly, but could sense whoever it was checking on Taki, noting the upside-down form in the passenger seat.

“Dead?” a voice asked from several meters away.

“Very close,” returned a younger voice, halfway inside the car. Tight, barely controlled, had never seen a head wound before, no doubt. “Now what the hell are we going to tell them?”

“What about the other one?”

“I can’t see, he’s on the floor. There’s blood everywhere. Holy Mother, what a mess.”

“Pull the driver out.” The older voice was close at hand now.

“He’s wedged in pretty tight.”

“Get out of the way, I’ll do it. Go in the back, and over the seat.”

Now the older one was wrestling with Taki’s bulky frame while the younger one fought with the rear door. Fotis shifted his torso and realized that some feeling had come back into the left arm. With great discomfort, he pulled himself partway back onto the passenger seat, just as Taki was dragged out into the road, and as the younger one freed the back door. The Peugeot driver, definitely. He saw Fotis now, oddly arranged across both seats, bent over the gun as if he were holding his ribs. The Snake let out a pitiful moan, only half faked.

“He’s alive,” the young one shouted, leaning forward between the seats.

Closer. There. Fotis swung the pistol up as fast and hard as he could manage, catching the young man beneath the chin with a tooth-snapping blow, sending him reeling onto the backseat. Then he shifted his attention to the open driver’s door.

The older man, a hollow-eyed, mustachioed brute in a dark suit, dropped Taki’s body and reached inside his jacket.

“Do not,” Fotis commanded, the nine-millimeter leveled at him. He would have shot both of them without warning but for the fact that they had not tried to kill him at once. They might be government, Andreas’ men, anyone. Too slowly, the big oaf pulled a blocky .45 from his shoulder holster and took aim. Fotis fired twice, then a third time as the man fell, every shot hitting. The sound was less deafening than he expected. Nice weapon; easy trigger, very little recoil. He had not used a gun in years, had thought himself beyond that place in his life. Mustache rolled heavily into the culvert and was still. The smell of cordite filled the car.

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.