by Joseph Badal
And now there were workmen crawling all over the place, making noise with their tools, shouting at each other, and playing radios all day long. They were painting the professor’s house. She thought about going over to the house and giving the man a piece of her mind. But after thinking about it for two days, she came up with a much better idea.
“Anna,” Maroula shouted into the telephone, “it’s your sister.”
“Maroula, you don’t have to yell, I can hear you.”
“Oh, sorry. How are you?”
“Oh, all right. The arthritis gets me down sometimes. And you?”
“The same. The pills help. How is your son?”
Anna’s tone brightened. “Wonderful. Pericles is truly a gift from God. Did you know he was promoted to Detective with the Athens Police Department?”
“Yes, Anna, you told me the last time we talked. How’s that girlfriend of his?”
“Po, po, po, I don’t know what he sees in that woman,” Anna said, lowering her voice. “She talks too much, wears clothes that show off her body, and, can you believe it, lives by herself in an apartment. What sort of woman leaves her parents’ home before she marries?”
Maroula sympathized with her sister, letting her moan and groan about the injustices of the modern world. After listening for several minutes, she said, “So, Pericles is still living at home?”
“Of course,” Anna said with pride. “He’s a good boy. He’s outside now fixing a shutter, before he goes to work.”
“I wish I had a son who was a policeman,” Maroula said. Then she began to cry, and when Anna asked her what was wrong, she told her about the awful man who lived nearby who was making her life a living hell.
Anna listened to her sister and said, “Let me get Pericles on the telephone. He’ll know what to do.”
Maroula waited for her nephew to come on the line, then, when she heard him say hello, she started crying again.
“What is it, Aunt Maroula?” Pericles said. “Are you all right?”
She continued crying and, between sobs, told Pericles about the terrible man who lived down the road. She mentioned the man’s visitors and the noise and his lack of respect for the people of the island.
“But, Aunt Maroula, there’s nothing I can do about this. It’s not a police matter. Besides, I have no jurisdiction outside Athens.”
“But you could call the local police, couldn’t you, and ask them to talk to the man? He’s awful; I mean, what kind of person comes as a stranger to an island and paints his house pink? Every other house on Evoia is white; but not Mr. Photos’ place. It’s against thousands of years of tradition, it’s an insult to our history, it’s—”
“What did you say?” Pericles demanded.
“It’s against our tradition, it’s—”
“No, no, about the house being painted pink.”
“That’s right. He moved here two years ago and the first thing he did was paint the house a god-awful color. Can you imagine? It’s the only house on the whole island that isn’t white.”
“What’s does this man do for a living?” Pericles asked, his voice strained and loud.
“He’s some sort of professor, why?”
CHAPTER SEVENTY
AUGUST 12, 2004
While Miriana accompanied Liz on a tour of Constitution Square and the Plaka, Bob took Michael to the CIA office in Glyfada. He played the proud father, introducing Michael to his team members. They were talking with Tony, when the telephone rang on Tony’s desk.
“Hello,” Tony said into the receiver. He listened for a moment, then punched the speaker button and replaced the receiver in its cradle. “Lieutenant, you’re now on speaker.”
“Okay,” the caller said.
“This is Lieutenant Zavitelos with the Ministry of Public Order,” Tony said. “He has some information for us. Start all over again, please,” Tony told the caller.
In heavily accented English, Zavitelos said, “We received a call an hour ago from a detective with the Athens Police Department. One of his aunts had just called him about a neighbor of hers on Evoia. Apparently, the old lady was upset about noise coming from the neighbor’s house and mentioned the neighbor’s house was painted pink.”
Bingo, Bob thought. Maybe we finally got a break.
“The detective got the neighbor’s name and then called the hotline number we’d put out to law enforcement offices throughout the country. I took the call and put the name into our database. The neighbor, Giorgos Photos, is Professor Emeritus at the university. We’re checking him out, but haven’t been able to get anything on him yet, except for information about his educational credentials and his family. The local constable on Evoia went to the man’s house, but found only a painting crew. They couldn’t tell him where Photos was.”
“Did they find anything in the house?” Bob asked, trying to control the excitement he felt. Giorgos Photos. The man who Grigor Madanowski had identified as having been trained by the Communists and terrorist cells around the world.
“Nothing important,” Zavitelos said. “There was a fifty-five gallon drum with two feet of ash in it behind the house. Someone must have been burning paper.”
“Any other information on Photos?” Sam asked.
“We have an address from his university employment records,” Zavitelos said. “His primary residence is listed as being near Sounion. We sent a squad to see if Photos is there.”
“Where can we reach you, Lieutenant Zavitelos?” Bob asked.
The officer gave them his cell and office phone numbers and promised to keep them informed of any progress.
After the Greek officer terminated the call, Bob asked Tony, “How well do you know this guy Zavitelos?”
“Pretty well,” Tony said. “I think he’s pretty straight up. He’s been forthcoming with information, and seems to be embarrassed about the way his government has executed the investigation into the terrorists.”
“You think he’d let you tag along with him?”
Tony shrugged. “You want me to call him back and ask?”
“Yeah. I want you to be on him like white on rice. The second you learn something, call my cell.”
“Right,” Tony said.
“Sam, I want you to fly over to Evoia. Get the local police to take you to Photos’ house. Go over every inch of the place.” Bob then turned to Stacey. “Go through our computer files and get everything on Photos.”
After Bob and Michael went into Bob’s office, Michael asked, “Could this guy be important?”
“Big time,” Bob said. “We taped a phone conversation someone had with a man we suspect is an Arab, a Middle Eastern-based terrorist. The Arab mentioned a pink-colored house owned by a professor on an island. You may not know this, Mike, but there aren’t a lot of pink houses on the Greek islands.”
Michael nodded. “You know, I was thinking about what you said about some sort of major terrorist attack.”
“Uh-huh,” Bob said.
“When I was at the Pentagon, I was assigned to a special project that modeled potential terrorist attacks on the United States. We looked at hundreds of possible points of vulnerability and hundreds of possible vehicles for introduction of chemical, biological, or nuclear agents. Our conclusion was that most of the alternatives we investigated were impractical. Chemical and biological agents are extremely unstable, difficult to process, and even more difficult to transport. Nuclear materials aren’t that easy to come by, despite all the hype we read in the newspapers. And they’re unstable and expensive. Maybe thirty million dollars for a suitcase dirty bomb.”
“Of course, this isn’t the United States,” Bob said. “Greece has more porous borders than we do with Mexico, and that’s saying something. And the Greeks haven’t been especially aggressive about trying to prevent terrorists from entering their country.”
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p; “I’ll give you that,” Michael said, “but I think terrorist organizations are becoming more sophisticated. It doesn’t matter where the target is located; their methods are being elevated to a more high-tech level. Sure, there are still suicide bombers with explosives wrapped around their chests who kill a small number of victims; but if you’re correct about the terrorists wanting to make a big statement, a suicide bomb attack isn’t going to get the job done.”
“What are you getting at?” Bob asked, finding Michael’s reasoning interesting. He’d already told Jack Cole that he believed the same thing: If anything was going to happen, it wasn’t going to be the garden variety suicide bomber attack.
“At the Pentagon, we came to the conclusion the 9-11 attacks taught the terrorists an important lesson: that an airborne assault is preferable to a ground assault. Even the best air traffic control system in the world can’t ensure that a renegade or hijacked aircraft won’t get through.”
“So, are you telling me you believe an attack might come from a hijacked airplane?”
Michael shook his head. “I don’t know, Dad. Sure it might be an aircraft. All I’m saying is I would be surprised if they tried ramming a truck loaded with explosives into one of the Olympic venues. We’ve learned how to deal with that sort of attack. Remember the suicide attacker last year who went after the Turks’ building in Baghdad. All he did was ram into a concrete blockade, blow himself up, and shatter a lot of windows. Their methods are changing as we learn to counter them.”
Bob began pacing. Michael made sense, and he also had elevated his concern. It was as though a small voice inside his head was telling him he had to get his act together, that something big was about to go down. The voice had been there for weeks now, but it was becoming louder and more frequent.
“Since we’re playing hypotheticals here, what type of weapon would you guess the bad guys would use?”
Michael rested his chin in one hand and said, “That’s where I’m stumped. As I said before, chemical and biological weapons are problematical, and nuclear weapons aren’t easy to acquire.”
“What if you were a terrorist; what would you do?” Bob asked.
Michael laughed. “There’s a question.” He hesitated for a moment, then said, “And I want to make the ultimate statement.”
Bob nodded.
“I’d go nuclear.”
“I thought you said—”
“Yeah, I said nuclear weapons are hard to acquire; but I’d still go nuclear.”
Bob was enjoying the discussion. He was impressed with Michael’s thinking. “Where would you find the weapons? How would you bring them into the country.”
Again, Michael paused to think about Bob’s question. Finally, he said, “How have the Greek terrorists acquired their weapons up to this point?”
Bob gave his son a querulous look. “We’re talking apples and oranges here. You’re talking about nuclear weapons. These guys have been using pistols, and rifles, and basic explosives. Maybe a rocket launcher here and there. But nothing close to a nuclear payload, or a delivery vehicle sophisticated enough to carry a nuclear device.”
“I understand,” Michael said, “but tell me how these terrorists have acquired their weapons to this point.”
“They’ve stolen them,” Bob said. “Primarily from military and police installations.”
Michael spread his arms. “Well, then I guess they’d do the same thing to get nuclear weapons. I don’t think they’d import weapons into the country. There would be too many obstacles to getting them into Greece. I’d guess they’d follow the same M.O. they’ve used up to now: Steal nuclear weapons from someplace inside Greece.”
Bob wanted to blow off what Michael had just told him, but he didn’t dare do so. As incredible as what his son had said, now that he’d heard Michael’s theory, he couldn’t ignore it. He didn’t view the theory as his top priority; but he would have to assign one of his people to look into the possibility.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
AUGUST 12, 2004
Sam Goodwin took a helicopter over to Evoia and instructed the pilot to land in the parking lot next to the ferry dock. The local constable, a twenty-something, six-foot-tall local boy named Yiannis Portokallis, met Sam in the lot and drove him to Photos’ property. The constable led Sam through and around the house, showing him how he had searched the property. The smell of fresh paint burned Sam’s sinuses.
“What about the cellar?” Sam asked when they were outside, pointing at the padlocked cellar door.
“It was locked,” Portokallis said. “I didn’t think I should break the padlock.”
Sam held his breath for a while, not wanting to show his frustration, then looked around for something to pry the hasp off the door. He found a hammer inside the house and brought it back outside. After ripping the hasp and padlock off the door, Sam opened it and stepped inside. He asked the constable for his flashlight and shined it around the room. Nothing seemed out of place. An odd assortment of dilapidated furniture, a metal cabinet, and empty wooden boxes were arrayed against the room’s walls. Then Sam noticed footprints in the dirt floor, near the front of the cabinet. He and Portokallis pulled the cabinet away from the wall, exposing an opening. The outline of a rectangle was evident in the dirt inside the opening.
Sam returned the flashlight to Portokallis and left the cellar. He circled the house and returned to the fifty-five gallon drum he’d noticed before. Lying a few feet away was an empty wooden box that could have made the impression in the dirt behind the metal cabinet.
“Give me a hand,” he said to the constable.
“Excuse me?” Portokallis said. “Give you a hand?”
“I need your help,” Sam explained. “Let’s turn over this drum.”
The two men tipped over the drum and upended it. A torrent of ash and what appeared to be burned fragments of paper poured onto the ground. Sam crouched down as a car horn blared. The constable excused himself and went around the house. Sam used the hammer to stir the debris, spreading it out over an area the size of a child’s rubber wading pool. He kept moving the ashes around until he came upon a piece of singed paper. He carefully picked up the fragment—about half the size of an 8-1/2” x 11” piece of paper. The top half of the paper had been burned. The side that was up was blank. Sam turned it over. Typewritten in Greek on the reverse side was a short numbered list of items. The list started with the number 5 and ended with the number 7:
5. $250,000 Mahmoud Abdalan # 125900765-0090.
6. $350,000 Parviz Mirzadeh # 328507753-8930.
7. $2,760,000 Maria’s account # 70931074-7612.
He took a Ziplock plastic bag from a jacket pocket, inserted the slip of paper into the bag, sealed it, and put it back in his suit jacket. The constable returned at that moment.
“Who was that in the car?” Sam asked.
Portokallis blushed. “My wife,” he said. “She wanted to know when I would be home for dinner.”
God save me, Sam thought. He stirred the ashes again, but found no more intact pieces of paper. He pulled his cell phone from his pants pocket and called the Glyfada office.
“The place has been cleaned out,” he told Bob. “It looks as though there was a box of documents in a hidden space in a locked basement. Whoever was here must have burned them before taking off.”
“Damn,” Bob said. “You got nothing?”
“I found a scrap of paper with three names on it, along with dollar amounts and what looks like bank account numbers.”
“Give me the information from the paper, then wait for the Greek investigative team, which I understand is flying over there right now. They’re going to look for fingerprints and the like.”
“Okay,” Sam said.
“Oh, and Sam, has anyone else seen this information?”
“No, no one.”
“Good. Let’
s keep it that way. I don’t want anything getting back to the terrorists.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
AUGUST 12, 2004
Bob had just hung up the telephone after Sam’s call, when the phone rang again.
“Bob, it’s Tony. There’s no one here at the Sounion house. We did find a neighbor who said she saw Photos’ wife Maria leave in a car yesterday.”
“No sign of Giorgos Photos, I suppose.”
“You got that right.”
“Did it look like the house was being abandoned?” Bob asked.
“No,” Tony said. “The closets and dressers are full of clothes and we found a half-dozen photograph albums. It appears they’re planning to return. But we didn’t find a damned thing on Giorgos Photos. He doesn’t even show up in any of the photographs.”
“Come on back to the office,” Bob said. “I want you to find out where every nuclear weapon in Greece is located.”
“Nuclear weapons? Do you know something I should know?”
“Just being careful, Tony. As far as I know, the only nukes in and around Greece are under U.S. control. I’m primarily concerned about weapons inside the Greek borders. Don’t worry about weapons on our ships.”
***
Stacey Frederick had a phone glued to her ear the entire time that Bob was on the other line with Sam and then Tony. When she finally hung up, she told Bob, “That was Frank Reynolds on the line. I was checking to see if he had any more information on Photos.” She looked dejected. “Just the same stuff they passed on before from the Bulgarian. That Photos went through training in Bulgaria and that he was a leader of the student demonstrations in Paris years ago.”
“When was Photos in Paris?” Bob asked. Before she could respond, he added, “Was he there at the same time our friend, Casanova, was there?”
“Frank told me that Madanowski made a point of saying that Casanova and the Professor were friends while in Paris. He also knew they were students together at the University here in Athens before going through Intelligence training.”
