The Phoenix

by Sidney Sheldon

  ‘Maybe they were places from Athena’s past?’ Ella suggested.

  Nikkos shrugged. ‘Maybe. We don’t know. What we do know is that only Spyros or Athena ever used the letter brands, and Spyros is dead. We also know that Makis will have seen these photographs, of the boy on the beach. So the first phase of your mission will be to get close to him and gauge his reaction to those images. What has he said about them, and to whom? Was he surprised? Or did he know in advance they’d be published? Was he angry? Pleased?’

  Ella nodded. ‘OK. I can do that.’

  Nikkos pressed a pudgy finger onto the newspaper clipping, obscuring Makis Alexiadis’s handsome face. ‘Do not attempt to confront him. Under any circumstances. Do not compromise your cover. Find out anything you can about the pictures and about Athena’s connection to them, if there is one. Use your … you know, your brain thing … if you can.’ He pointed vaguely to his skull, just in case Ella had misunderstood. ‘Then return to Athens.’

  ‘Return to Athens?’ Ella raised an eyebrow. ‘Doesn’t Makis live here?’

  ‘Not in August he doesn’t,’ Nikkos replied. ‘Only fools and tourists stay in Athens in high summer. It’s far too hot,’ he explained, as if Ella hadn’t noticed. ‘Don’t worry. He stays at his villa on Mykonos. It’s very beautiful there and not so far. You will leave at the weekend.’

  ‘The weekend? Why not tomorrow?’ asked Ella.

  Nikkos chuckled. ‘You will understand when you read tonight’s package. It will take a short time to put together your cover. Your new identity. And then, yes, you must practice a little bit. It is not so easy, my dear. Becoming somebody else overnight.’

  That’s what I used to think, thought Ella. Before I met Gabriel.

  They agreed to leave the restaurant separately, with Nikkos going first to draw the car following him safely away from Ella.

  ‘You’re sure the police are still outside?’ he asked, paying the bill and leaving a fat wodge of cash as a tip.

  ‘Quite sure,’ said Ella. ‘I’ll be fine. I’ll stay here for twenty minutes and then go back and sleep. I’ll look at whatever documents you send over in the morning, I’m too tired tonight.’

  Kissing her on the cheek, Nikkos took his leave, being careful to give his disgruntled ex-lover’s table a wide berth.

  She was right about the cops. They followed him all the way home, but he made no attempt to shake them. After all, it was no secret where he lived, and he hadn’t done anything illegal – yet.

  Back in his modest Exarcheia apartment, Nikkos kicked off his shoes, poured himself a large ouzo and put a call in to the boss, as expected.

  ‘How did it go? How was she?’ Redmayne asked in his usual brusque, charmless manner.

  ‘She was fine.’ Nikkos rubbed his brow wearily. ‘She understands the objective. She agreed to go to Mykonos.’

  ‘She didn’t question it?’ Redmayne sounded surprised, but pleased.

  ‘No,’ said Nikkos. At that precise moment he couldn’t bring himself to say ‘sir’.

  ‘Did she have any questions?’

  ‘Not many,’ Nikkos lied. ‘She did ask about her parents, though. Whether I’d met them. What they were like.’

  ‘You deflected her, I trust?’ said Redmayne, a familiar note of threat returning to his voice.

  ‘Of course I did. What else could I do?’ retorted Nikkos, with more emotion than he’d intended, or than was probably wise. ‘Tell her the truth about how we threw Rachel Praeger to the wolves? Just like we’re doing now, to her daughter? I doubt Ella would have stayed to finish dinner if I’d said that.’

  ‘No one “threw” anyone anywhere,’ Mark Redmayne pronounced coldly. The edge to his voice was unmistakable now, sharp enough to cut through Nikkos’s alcohol-fueled haze. ‘Remember, I knew Rachel well. Very well.’

  Oh, I remember, Nikkos thought bitterly.

  ‘She was a committed agent who welcomed risk and fully understood what she was doing when she came to Greece,’ Redmayne went on.

  ‘Well her daughter isn’t,’ Nikkos replied stubbornly. ‘Ella is young, she’s naïve. I walked right into her hotel suite today. The door was unlocked and she was lying there asleep, out cold! Makis’s men could have slit her throat in seconds.’

  ‘Ella is a unique resource. She’s a weapon, a powerful weapon, and the time to use her is now,’ said Redmayne, as calmly collected as Nikkos was emotional. ‘We’re talking about Athena Petridis here. Are you forgetting who Athena is? What she does? She and her gang of monsters?’

  ‘No,’ Nikkos sank down wearily on his couch, rubbing his eyes. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘No, sir,’ Redmayne shot back.

  ‘No, sir,’ Nikkos replied dutifully. ‘I am not forgetting.’

  ‘So don’t you dare tell me it isn’t right to use Ella, to use every resource we’ve got. If Athena is still alive, still out there, then it is right. It’s essential.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘And if word ever reaches me that you’ve undermined this mission in any way – if you warn the girl, or give her information she doesn’t need that might jeopardize our success – there will be grave consequences. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I do.’

  ‘No one agent is bigger than The Group. No life is worth more than the mission,’ Redmayne barked. ‘Rachel Praeger understood that better than anyone.’

  Yeah, and look what happened to her! thought Nikkos. Aloud he confined himself to a respectful, ‘Sir’, and hung up.

  On one level, the boss was right. Ella Praeger had literally been created to serve The Group. You could argue that all she was doing now was fulfilling her destiny. And it wasn’t as if Ella herself was unwilling. Yet Nikkos still felt sick to his stomach. Because the fact remained that in a few days they would be sending an inexperienced child to Mykonos to spy on Big Mak Alexiadis. To ‘get close’ to a psychopath That was like throwing a kitten into a lion enclosure, and no amount of Redmayne’s self-justifying spin could make it otherwise.

  Nikkos tried to tell himself he was being too emotional. But he ended up needing a lot more to drink before he was able to fall asleep that night. And when he did, dreams of Rachel Praeger haunted him, her reproving face mingling with the sweet sound of her daughter’s voice. Ella. So determined. So trusting:

  ‘Am I like her?’

  God, you are like her!

  So very, very like her.

  With all his heart, Nikkos wished it weren’t so.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Makis Alexiadis walked into Mythos, Mykonos’s elite beach club, pausing for a moment as he weaved past the bar to enjoy the sensation of having all eyes swivel in his direction, the men’s with envy and the women’s with desire. It was a familiar sensation, yet he never grew tired of it. It felt good to be a king.

  Heading to his usual spot, a velvet-lined, Moroccan-themed booth occupying the premier position in the restaurant’s roped-off VIP section, just above the beach, he and his entourage settled in as the staff scurried around them, bringing silver trays of mojitos and caipirinhas, and peach bellinis for the girls. Makis had brought three with him tonight: Arabella, a willowy English It-girl and the daughter of a duke, added a touch of class to his harem. Lisette, the French movie star, brought the fame factor. And Miriam, the Persian princess, had the sort of curves that made other, lesser men crash their Bugattis into the sea. Mak had bedded all of them over the last few days, but none of them had truly inspired him sexually. Tatiana was a tough act to follow in that regard, although it was still a relief to be rid of her cloying, attention-seeking presence around the villa. Thankfully she would no longer be bothering him, or anyone with her whining demands. What was it about genuinely stunning women that made them so deeply insecure?

  Makis didn’t know, and tonight he didn’t care. A free man again, he allowed his eyes to rove lustfully around the room, picking out the most beautiful specimens from a female clientele that could have been ripped straight from the pa
ges of Sports Illustrated. Every now and then an ugly ‘friend’ or diamond-encrusted matriarch wedged their fat asses into one of the seats at the bar or usurped a spot on the dance floor. But these were rare blemishes on an otherwise perfect-skinned fruit. With its spectacular sunsets and thumping Arabic music, Mythos was the place to go for the hottest, youngest, most sought-after models on the island, the favored haunt of Mykonos’s ‘beautiful people’. Nammos and Cavo might be better known amongst the nouveau riche American crowd, but the Kardashians were welcome to that tacky scene. Mythos was where the real power players hung out on a summer night. Big Mak Alexiadis never went anywhere else.

  Almost immediately, a girl sitting at the end of the bar caught his eye. In black cigarette pants and a man’s smoking jacket, she already stood out from the rest of the barely dressed girls strutting their stuff, hoping to catch some billionaire’s eye. Her tousled, pixie-cut hair was streaked with white-gold flashes, and she wore no jewelry, not even a watch. But it was her face that really held Mak’s attention. He couldn’t decide if it was beautiful or ugly. Neither word seemed to fit. Compelling was the only adjective that came to mind to describe the huge eyes set wide on either side of a not-quite-straight nose, the cheekbones so high you could have launched a missile from each one, and the small, rosebud lips tapering into an almost elfin chin.

  Clearly he wasn’t the only one who thought so. The girl was sipping a martini in between bites of her salmon nigiri, and making what looked to Mak like bored, polite conversation with the handsome man next to her, who seemed to be trying and failing to make an impression.

  An imperious click of Mak’s fingers brought Jamie French, Mythos’s British manager, running to his side. Jamie was an encyclopedic fount of information about all his clients, and the go-to man for the latest island gossip.

  ‘Who is that?’ Mak asked, his eyes still glued to the girl.

  ‘That’s Persephone Hamlin. Heiress to an American real-estate fortune.’

  ‘She’s American?’ Makis was surprised. She looked too chic to be a rich Yank tourist. ‘And she’s not at Nammos with her posse?’

  Jamie chuckled. ‘No. Persephone was raised in Los Angeles but her mother was Greek, hence the name.’

  And the class, thought Makis.

  ‘She was docked on a yacht a couple of days ago, but her friends sailed on to Santorini without her,’ Jamie went on. ‘I believe she’s now slumming it in the presidential suite at The Grand.’

  This was another surprise. The truly rich rarely stayed in hotels, at least not on Mykonos. It was strictly yachts or villas only.

  ‘Is she staying there alone?’ Mak asked.

  ‘So I’m told.’

  ‘Married?’

  ‘Yeeees,’ Jamie nodded, ‘But not for long, I think. The husband has big addiction problems. Word is he fell off the wagon in St Tropez in July in spectacular style – binges, hookers, the lot. She came here to get away.’

  Mak dismissed him, feeling emboldened. This was the sort of backstory he could work with.

  He stood up and crossed the floor to where she was sitting.

  ‘I’d like to introduce myself. Makis Alexiadis.’ Stepping directly in front of the man she was talking to, he held out his hand. ‘Persephone, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right.’ She shook his hand, but with more curiosity than enthusiasm. ‘How do you know my name?’

  ‘This is Mykonos.’ He flashed her his most charming smile. ‘If you’re here for more than two days, everybody knows everything.’

  ‘Erm, excuse me.’ The man behind him tapped Mak on the shoulders. ‘The lady and I were just in the middle of a conversation.’

  Turning around, Mak looked at him with the cool, raw hatred of a killer.

  ‘Do you know who I am?’

  Belatedly, the man recognized him. A knot of fear slowly started to form in his stomach. He nodded.

  ‘Good. Now go away.’

  He was gone by the time Mak turned back around.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ he smiled at Persephone, settling himself onto the man’s vacated bar stool. ‘Where were we?’

  ‘I don’t think we were anywhere,’ she replied, draining the rest of her cocktail and signaling to the sushi chef for the check.

  ‘You’re not leaving?’

  ‘I am leaving,’ she corrected him. ‘That was very rude, what you just did.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ said Mak, placing a hand on her arm. ‘It was chivalrous.’

  Removing his hand, she gave him a withering look. ‘Chivalrous?’

  ‘Absolutely. He was boring you. I could see it from across the room. I just rode to your rescue.’

  She ran a hand through her boyish hair (the sort of cut Makis usually detested) and fixed him with a look that could only possibly be interpreted as expressing profound dislike.

  ‘Well thank you, Mr Alexiadis. But I’m not the sort of girl who needs to be rescued. I suggest you go and terrorize the companions of one of your other … friends.’ She glanced in the direction of Makis’s booth, where Arabella, Miriam and Lisette were all looking daggers in her direction. ‘I’m sure they would all appreciate your chivalry.’

  ‘Let me buy you a drink, at least,’ said Mak, who was enjoying the thrill of the chase. It was a long time, a very long time, since a woman had shown no interest in him. ‘I’m sorry if we got off on the wrong foot.’

  Signing her check, she stood up and looked at him, that same appraising, curious expression in her eye.

  ‘This being Mykonos, you must already know I’m married.’

  ‘I might have heard something,’ he confessed, not taking his eyes off hers. They were even bigger close up and the same green as vermouth. All of a sudden his desire to sleep with this woman, but more than that, to conquer her, to make her want him, felt almost overpowering. ‘Do you never cheat on your husband, Persephone?’ he asked, his voice hoarse with lust.

  ‘Sometimes,’ she answered nonchalantly, not a hint of desire in her own voice. ‘But only when I feel a strong attraction. I’m afraid that’s not the case with you. Goodbye.’

  The entire club watched, astonished, as this strangely dressed American girl crossed the dance floor and walked out, leaving Makis Alexiadis sitting there like a jilted schoolboy. You could have cut the tension in the air with a knife. Big Mak was not a man you would choose to humiliate, or offend in any way. Not if you valued your life.

  But when Mak walked back over to his group, he was grinning from ear to ear. Ordering another drink, he pulled an ecstatic Miriam onto his lap and distracted himself with her ample bosom.

  ‘Goodbye!’ She hadn’t even said ‘goodnight’. It was ‘goodbye’ – so cutting, so deliberately final, as in ‘goodbye for ever.’ ‘Get lost.’

  The hardness he felt between his legs owed more to Persephone Hamlin’s curt dismissal of him than it did to Miriam’s spectacular breasts.

  What a triumph it would be to hear that feisty little bitch moaning out his name in pleasure, begging him to take her, again and again and again. With all the recent stress over the lost shipments and the millions of dollars sunk in the Aegean, he could use a distraction.

  Tomorrow he would find out all there was to know about Miss Persephone Hamlin.

  Back in her suite at the Grand Hotel, Persephone slipped off her clothes and walked naked into the bathroom, observing herself in the gold rococo mirror.

  It felt good to be Ella Praeger again, despite the lingering sexual frustration clinging to her body after her first encounter with Makis Alexiadis. Dear God, the way he’d looked at her! Like a hungry lion locking eyes with a gazelle. It was all Ella could do not to rip off her clothes on the spot and wrap herself around him, so overwhelmingly sexual and masculine was his aura. She could feel her groin throbbing and her throat was dry just thinking about it, and about all the things the animal in her would like the animal in Makis to do to her. Persephone Hamlin might be a model of decorum and restraint, but Ella Praeger wasn’t at all use
d to having to rein in her sexuality. Between resisting Makis and Gabriel, this had the potential to be a grueling and frustrating mission.

  Observing her naked reflection appreciatively, Ella ran a hand through the short, boyish hair that she still couldn’t get used to. Back in Athens, after receiving a ten-page ‘background document’ on the mythical Ms Hamlin (Gabriel had concocted an impressively detailed persona, complete with schooling, siblings, complex parental relationships and a skiing accident when she was nine years old that accounted for the kink in her nose), Nikkos had dispatched her to the hairdresser’s for a complete new look.

  ‘Any color is fine,’ Ella told the stylist in increasingly fluent Greek. ‘And any style, within reason. Just please, don’t go super-short.’

  With the very first cut, a foot of her precious blonde hair hit the salon floor.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Ella screeched. But the man just shrugged.

  ‘Mr Nikkos already gave me directions. He paid me, very good money,’ he added, rubbing his fingers together with satisfaction.

  It’s not enough that the men here choose what women eat? Ella thought furiously. They get to pick their hairstyles too?

  ‘Why that nasty face?’ Nikkos asked when he came to pick her up. ‘You look very beautiful. Very sexy.’

  ‘I hate it,’ Ella growled. ‘I look like a boy.’

  ‘It’s not for you. It’s for Makis. He will like it,’ Nikkos insisted. ‘It’s …’ he searched for the right word. ‘Striking.’

  ‘Strikingly gross,’ Ella mumbled, like a sullen teenager, although secretly she had to admit that the bright blonde pixie suited her more than she’d thought it would. Afterwards the hairdresser, a woman named Grace, took Ella to some sort of spa where her eyebrows were shaped, her lashes tinted, and hair was removed from every conceivable part of her body. It was agony.