The Facts Of Death

by Raymond Benson

  The file photo of Hera Volopoulos was not very good. It was a black and-white picture of a woman wearing sunglasses, looking over her shoulder and running. The motion blur made it virtually impossible to identify her. Why did Bond want this information? Was she connected to the Decada? As a precaution, Niki put out an advisory to all law enforcement agencies to be on the lookout for the woman.

  Niki supposed she should wait a bit to see if Bond showed up. If he weren’t around in fifteen minutes, she would start snooping.

  Sometimes she felt guilty working to protect the Turks and Turkish Cypriots. Here she was, a Greek, trying to make sure that Greek or Greek Cypriot terrorists didn’t do something terrible to the Turks. She shook her head at the irony. She hated the Turks as much as she might hate a Greek Cypriot terrorist. She could remember her grandfather telling horror stories about Turks when she was a little girl. The Turks were always the bad guys, and she grew to fear them. It was how bigotry was always perpetuated, she realized—through the mouths of older generations. As legends, knowledge, religion, and art were all passed down from generation to generation, unfortunately so was hatred. It was one of the unpleasant side effects of history.

  Niki was shaken from her musings when she saw James Bond emerge from the Monemvasia side of the portal and begin walking toward her across the causeway. Behind him was a redheaded woman wearing sunglasses. It was she. Hera Volopoulos. Niki knew it. Bond was walking slowly, looking a little dazed. He saw her but didn’t register recognition. Niki knew something was wrong. The woman had a concealed gun on him. She was taking him to the Persephone.

  Niki casually moved from her position and walked back toward the street where she had parked her car. She hid in the doorway of a taverna twenty feet away from the causeway entrance as Bond and Hera came across and started walking toward the dock. They would have to pass her on the way. She thought Bond glanced at her, but he kept on walking as if he had not seen her.

  She could have stopped them. She could have pulled her gun and kept them from getting aboard, but something in Bond’s face said not to do it. It was too dangerous. She needed backup. If they were taking him aboard the yacht, then it would be a far better plan to follow it and see where they went. Bond might be in danger, but he could handle himself.

  It was gut instinct that told Niki to wait and see what happened. She would call for backup and arrange to follow the boat. They weren’t going to kill Bond yet. They wanted him alive for a while.

  She just hoped that she could find a way to get him off the yacht before they changed their minds.

  Earlier, Hera had slapped Bond repeatedly until he regained consciousness. When his eyes fluttered open, she grabbed him by the chin. She dug her nails into his skin and said, “Don’t ever try that again. I’m real good with a knife. It would be a great pleasure to remove the piece of equipment you seem to be so fond of using, James Bond. I’m sure thousands of rejected women all over the world would thank me. Now get up and walk.”

  His head throbbing, Bond got to his feet and staggered to the front of the church.

  “Besides,” she continued. “You’re not supposed to fight in a house of God. This is a holy place.”

  “Since when do you care about what’s holy?” Bond asked.

  “Shut up and get going,” she said.

  Bond made up his mind to see it through. The woman had the upper hand now, and he should take no more unnecessary risks. Besides, she was right. He really wanted to hear what Romanos had to say to him. He had been in tight situations before. This one was no worse.

  It took them twenty minutes to descend the steps to the lower town. Bond lost his balance once and fell. His head was throbbing and his vision was a bit blurred. She had struck him hard in the church.

  They moved through the alleylike main path and out the portal. Bond saw Niki at the other end of the causeway, expertly playing it cool. She was as professional as they came. He hoped that she would remain so and not try to stop them; he wanted to get on the boat.

  They walked past her and he looked at her briefly but intently. He thought she got the message. If she did her job right, she would get back to her people and have the yacht followed.

  He stopped at the edge of the ramp leading onto the Persephone.

  “Get aboard,” she said.

  Bond walked forward to the deck, wondering if he should have brought an ancient Greek coin to give to Charon the boatman.

  TWENTY

  GODS NEVER DIE

  THE PERSEPHONE WAS A SUPERB YACHT. AS BOND WAS LED ABOARD AND down below, he noticed that there were several rooms. A lavish galley and dinette were located on the main deck. There was a midlevel pilothouse with a complete control console, helm, and lounge seating, as well as steps to the flying bridge above.

  What was extraordinary about the setup was that the interior didn’t look like a modern boat. It was decorated in the style of an ancient Greek galley: The walls were covered in wood that looked hundreds of years old. The light fixtures were made to look like flaming torches. The pilothouse was indeed equipped with the latest technology, but it was all disguised by a bizarre facade of theatricality and make-believe. The entire ship was a stage setting for a Greek tragedy by Aeschylus or Euripedes.

  Obviously Konstantine Romanos didn’t mind flaunting his wealth. Bond thought he was two sandwiches short of a picnic.

  Hera knocked on a wooden door that was the entrance to the master cabin. They heard a bolt draw back, then the door creaked open.

  Konstantine Romanos stood in the doorway, still wearing the captain’s uniform which was completely incongruous with the setting around him. His room was illuminated entirely by candles.

  “Ah, Mr. Bond, come in,” he said. He gestured to a chair at a table. Hera followed him in and shut the door behind her. From then on, she stood in silence like a sentry.

  “Your costume and set designers need to communicate better,” Bond said. “Are we in the twentieth century or in ancient Greece?”

  Romanos ignored him. “Sit down. What would you like to drink? Wait … I know. You like martinis, don’t you? Vodka martinis. I know that. It’s in the information we dug up on you,” he said. He was playing the gracious host, but his voice was laced with menace.

  “Unfortunately, we don’t have any martinis this morning, but we do have some nice red wine,” he said, then walked over to a bar and poured two glasses from an unmarked wine bottle. “Would you like something to eat?”

  Bond was actually starving, but he shook his head. “Let’s just get on with it, Romanos.”

  “Tsk tsk,” he said. “You look famished. I insist. Have some bread and cheese.” He placed a wooden plate with a fresh loaf of bread and a chunk of goat cheese on the table. A large kitchen knife was stuck in the cheese.

  “I trust I don’t have to worry about you trying to take that knife,” Romanos said. “Hera here will make sure that you remain sensible.” He began to cut the bread and cheese and placed several pieces on a plate in front of Bond. Sitting down across from him, Romanos held up his glass and said, “Yasou.”

  Bond would have preferred not to eat and drink with the man, but he needed sustenance. He slowly began to eat, but he was eyeing the knife and trying to form a plan to grab it.

  “Here you are again, Mr. Bond,” Romanos said, as if Bond were a naughty child and had been sent to the school headmaster.

  “The name is Bryce.”

  “Please, dispense with the spy stuff, we know who you are. You are a civil servant working for the British government. We got your picture from a closed-circuit television camera at ReproCare in the United States. That was quite a job you did on that place.”

  “I didn’t set the explosives.”

  “No, of course you didn’t. The late Dr. Ashley Anderson did. We shall miss her. That facility was due to be closed down anyway. What you did do, Mr. Bond, was hasten its demise. We wanted to rid ourselves of those awful Suppliers, and you helped us do that.”

&nbs
p; “So you are the leader of the Decada?”

  “I am the Monad, the One,” he said. He gazed intently at Bond. The man’s eyes seemed to glow, and Bond couldn’t look away. He found himself mesmerized by Romanos; there was something in his eyes that beckoned Bond to stare into them. It was several seconds before Bond’s willpower alerted him to the fact that Romanos was attempting to hypnotize him. He managed to look away, but it was an effort to do so.

  Bond realized that Konstantine Romanos was one of those rare men who possess a unique power of persuasion. If he could hypnotize weak-willed people, use his flowery talk and philosophical conundrums and eventually charm subjects into trusting and believing him, then he was the sort of man who might be looked on as a prophet (or a devil). Many men throughout history had had this kind of charisma, and they were always leaders.

  Bond now understood why Romanos had a large following who believed his unique brand of mumbo jumbo.

  “What are you after, Romanos? I know you’re dying to tell me.”

  “Mr. Bond, it’s quite simple. I’m on a mission from the gods. They do exist, you see. I know, because they speak to me. The soul of Pythagoras lives within me, and he was a very religious man.”

  “What is that mission?”

  Romanos sipped his wine and glared at Bond with fire in his eyes.

  “I suppose I can tell you, since you will be tortured to death very soon. You will be held accountable for the death of my cousin Vassilis. He was my Number Seven, you know. Very important to the organization. He was family. You will be made to suffer for what happened to him. But before that I will tell you the story of my life.”

  “If it’s all the same to you, I think I’d rather just get on with the torture,” Bond quipped.

  “You won’t have many witticisms left when we’re through with you, Mr. Bond. I’m a Greek Cypriot, born and raised in the northern town of Kyrenia. In 1963, I was just out of university, having studied mathematics and philosophy. I had landed an important teaching job in northern Nicosia, was married and had two beautiful children. I was apolitical. It was a good life, but I was unenlightened at the time. The gods had not spoken to me yet. It took a crisis to open the communications between me and them. My life crashed around me that year, for violence broke out all over Cyprus. Our former president and spiritual leader, Makarios, was making too many concessions to the Turkish Cypriots. Your troops and the United Nations’ so-called peacekeeping forces invaded the island and tried to keep the peace, and they succeeded, for a while.”

  “You forget that many Greeks and Greek Cypriots on Cyprus looted and destroyed many of the Turkish Cypriot settlements. The United Nations and our troops came in to keep Greek Cypriots from killing Turkish Cypriots.”

  “That’s what the Turkish propaganda wants you to believe.”

  “Romanos, these are facts. But go on, we can argue semantics later. We’ll call an assembly, put on our sandals, and have a proper debate in the Parthenon.”

  Romanos smiled wryly at Bond’s sarcasm, then went on. “Throughout the rest of the sixties, a very tentative peace existed, but there were always small outbreaks of violence. I moved my family to the outskirts of Nicosia, unfortunately to an area that became overpopulated with Turks and Turkish Cypriots. The worst was yet to come. As you know, a military coup d’etat occurred in Greece in 1967. Makarios retained control of the Republic of Cyprus, but he had many enemies in Greece. Seven years later, in 1974, the Greek National Guard ousted Makarios and set up a junta on the island. Makarios fled. It was … chaos. The Turks used the opportunity to invade the island. They began to systematically massacre Greeks and Greek Cypriots, working their way down from the north.”

  “Uhm, you forgot to mention that when Makarios was ousted and the junta was set up, the same thing was happening to the Turks and Turkish Cypriots. Turkey has always claimed that they were ‘intervening,’ not ‘invading.’ They were protecting their people.”

  “Again, that is the Turkish propaganda speaking. The Turks are animals. They are like jackals, waiting until their prey is in a weakened state. Then they strike and are merciless.”

  “I’m not defending the Turks, Romanos,” Bond said. “They have done some unspeakable things on Cyprus. If you ask me, both sides are equally misguided and bigoted. It’s simply another example of two races disagreeing with each other over centuries of misunderstandings.”

  “Do you expect us to get together, hold hands, and sing ‘All You Need Is Love’? You’re just like all the other British mediators who have tried to dictate policy on Cyprus. You know nothing about our people. If you think our problems can be solved by talking about them, then you’re out of your mind.”

  “I’m not the one who talks to gods who don’t exist.”

  Romanos looked at Hera and nodded sharply. She stepped over and slapped Bond hard across the face. He jumped up and prepared to defend himself, but Romanos pulled a Walther PPK out of his jacket and pointed it at Bond.

  “Sit down, Mr. Bond,” he said. “Oh, is this yours? I believe we found this at Number Two’s flat. Tie him to the chair, Number Two.”

  Hera laughed quietly and took some thick nylon cord from a cabinet. She wrapped it around Bond’s chest and tied him tightly to the back of the chair.

  “All right, you’ve got a captive audience, Romanos. You might as well continue your little story,” Bond said.

  “I will. There was a war. The northern third of Cyprus was occupied by the Turks, and they forced out or killed all of the Greeks and Greek Cypriots living there.” Romanos paused a moment, as this part of his tale was obviously painful. “Our house was bombed. My wife and children died. I was wounded in the head and left for dead. All I remember was regaining consciousness in a hospital in southern Nicosia. My only memory is that shortly after the bombing I saw some British soldiers. I begged them to help me and they ignored me.”

  Bond figured that might explain the Decada’s attacks on the British bases.

  “I was in hospital for six months,” Romanos continued. “I wasn’t sure if I would lose my mind and the very faculties by which I made my living. I couldn’t remember simple mathematical problems. I forgot my Latin. It was only after I was discharged and I fled to Greece that I regained what I had lost.”

  No wonder the man was mad, Bond thought. The serious head injury had left him unbalanced.

  “I admit I was in a bad way when I got to Greece. I lived on the streets of Athens, homeless and poor. I drank. I was invisible to the people around me. Then, one day, I slept in the Ancient Agora in Athens. I had crept in and found a place among the ruins where I could sleep. It was there that the gods first spoke to me.”

  A change was coming over Romanos as he spoke. He seemed to be assuming the persona of an orator, preaching to a large crowd. His voice grew louder, and he stood up from the table. He walked around the room as he spoke, gesturing to the invisible masses around him.

  “The Greek gods sent me messages that I, and I alone, was able to hear. One night, I experienced an epiphany of the highest order. Zeus himself spoke to me and entrusted me with the soul of Pythagoras. Konstantine Romanos died that night, and the Monad took his place. Divine assistance led me to an organization that helped homeless people get back on their feet. Once I could prove that I had teaching credentials before the war, I got a job in a university library. I read everything I could about Pythagoras and his philosophy.

  “I went to lectures at the university and to student gatherings, for I met many young people through working in the library. I became involved with some students who were violently anti-Turk. They were Greek Cypriots who, like me, were forced out of their homes in northern Cyprus, and they wanted something done about it. It turned out that they were a little militia. They had smuggled guns and bombs into the country and were planning on instigating revenge against the Turks.”

  “Who were they?”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” Romanos said. “They’re all dead now. What’s important
was that I learned a great deal from them about guerrilla warfare and terrorist tactics. It was with this experience that I got my first job as a mercenary. I left Greece for Lebanon in, let’s see, 1977, it was. While I was away, the group attempted an ill-conceived attack on a Turkish supply ship off the north coast of Cyprus. They were never heard from again. But the knowledge I took from them was invaluable. I applied Pythagorean philosophy to their lessons. They were seeking to make the One into the Many, which was what Pythagoras wanted to achieve.”

  Bond now understood that Romanos had combined the teachings of Pythagoras and the tenets of the militant group. The philosophies had blended together unnaturally and he believed them.

  “But I digress,” he said. “I spent the next few years working as a freelance mercenary in the Middle East. I performed jobs for various factions, for which I was paid handsomely.”

  “You mean acts of terrorism, don’t you?” Bond interjected.

  “I found that I had an extraordinary ability to organize men and lead them. The gods had given me a gift of persuasion. There was one particular excursion in 1981 in which I made a sizable amount of money. I decided to retire from the mercenary business and come back to Greece and do what I was ordained to do. I settled in Athens and made some wise real estate investments. I founded the New Pythagorean Society. Through connections I had made with the Greek government, I landed a teaching position at Athens University. I wrote and published a book. I suddenly found myself in demand, so to speak, and I became well known in Greece. People actually paid money to hear me speak. I received invitations from other countries to visit their universities and lecture. I spent five years in the United States, in Texas, in the late eighties, off and on, with frequent trips back to Greece. For the remainder of the decade, I expanded my power base and laid the groundwork for the future policymakers of Greece and Cyprus—the Decada.”