Resurrection (The Corruption Series Book 4)

by Charles Brett

  "A good idea. Can she make it soon?"

  "I'll tell her. You know what she's like."

  "But she's your daughter. She's living with you again."

  "That may as be. But her attitude towards me doesn't change with the years. My only hold over her is the senior partnership. She pleads for me to retire. The moment I do, she will run rampant, mark my words. You would be the first to suffer."

  "Why do you stay on?"

  "First to thwart her. Second to finish Nea Hagia Sophia for you, and for my Eleni whom I so mistreated before she died. Your Nea Hagia Sophia is your ecclesiastical memorial. It is my atonement."

  "You've never said anything like that before?"

  "I'm tired. I'm being honest with you, Nikolaos. Whereas the Basilica refreshes you, it drains me. I thought you would be dead long before me. It will be I who goes first. I bequeath Vasilia to you."

  Archbishop Ioannis whitened. This was a bequest like no other. Not one he relished.

  He approached his brother and wrapped his arms around him. For once, he displayed ordinary humanity. His hug was well meant. He offered a personal blessing.

  "Watch my words, Nikolaos. Or her deeds. Don't underestimate her or her ambition."

  Paphos (Cyprus)

  Father Georghios woke and felt ill. The conversation from the previous evening rushed back. Not content with his protests, Evdokia was up to something. Her hatred of His Beatitude had become tangible.

  Georghios did not know what she planned. Yet he could not bring himself to condemn her.

  Yesterday, he'd spent hours with two families living together in squalor in a house ready for condemnation. He knew he should report their presence to the local authorities. When a house has neither running water nor working sanitation, it was unfit for human habitation.

  But if he reported them, what would happen? Would they split the families up? Where would the children go? He didn't have the heart for the evictions that must follow, nor for subsequent futures lost in bureaucratic confusion. After all, the local council itself possessed no spare money.

  Instead he connived. He took them what food he and Evdokia could spare. Others in the parish did likewise. It didn't alter the awful conditions in which they lived.

  He reached out for Evdokia and found her side of their simple bed cold. Where was she? He stumbled down the stairs in a sleepy fashion, discovering her on their sofa, awake but staring at the ceiling.

  "See anything interesting?"

  She hissed at his old gibe.

  She raised herself to go to their kitchen and started coffee. Beyond a brief peck, they remained apart. Not in offensive poses. More like puzzled ones. He wanted to know what she had devised. She intended to be obscure so he could neither object nor attract blame.

  The coffees before them, they sipped in companionable silence. They topped their village bread with fresh tomatoes and sliced cucumber. They ate simple breakfasts.

  "How did the demonstrations go? You didn't tell me."

  "I didn't. I was – I am – disappointed. The numbers don't grow. Just a hard core of the anti-clerical allied to a clutch of environmentalists."

  "The tide does not swim your way?"

  Evdokia scrunched her face in a way he recognised, the precursor to a weeping fit. He tried to forestall this.

  "Have you any other initiatives in mind?"

  "Only Plan C ones. You won't like what I am considering with the Greens. I'm not going to tell you."

  "You will. You always do. Eventually. Why not now?"

  Evdokia recoiled. Yet he was right. She always confessed in the end.

  "The Greens want to find strong sulphuric acid, enter at least one of those fancy pillars and let the acid run down the metalwork. It would erode the metal. Hopefully a pillar would collapse and bring down the dome."

  "It sounds slow and dangerous and when it collapsed might kill or injure somebody. In addition, you would have to be sure nobody knew. Otherwise, to neutralise the acid wouldn't take long."

  "Your objections are those everyone else dredges up. But I haven't any better direct-action solution, other than setting it alight. That'd be arson and so obvious I would not see you for a long, long time. That is unappealing."

  "Not so subtle. Hmmm. Did I see on the television news that the dome's structure is assembled in aluminium?"

  "I think so."

  "Do you remember any chemistry from school?"

  "Not much. I was useless at it and uninterested."

  "I was the same. Plus, our teacher bored us silly, though she was pretty. She had good legs and wore short skirts. Sadly, she was out of our teenage league."

  Evdokia smiled at him with the affection which still surprised her. Here she was planning heinous deeds and he diverted her with stories of adolescent lust.

  "I have a dim memory of there being a metal which reacted with aluminium."

  "What sort of metal? Why might it be relevant?"

  "I'm not sure. I think it was a liquid metal, at room temperature."

  Evdokia reflected. A metal liquid at normal temperatures. Only one came to mind. That in thermometers and barometers. "You mean mercury?"

  "I don't recall. What I do remember is the experiment. We put the liquid on a small chunk of aluminium which we scratched beforehand so bare metal was visible. The latter began to react immediately. The process didn't stop."

  "Are you sure?"

  "No. But another hazy memory rises up. There was a programme one evening which talked about what airlines hated to carry. Lithium batteries which explode were the most obvious, like in clever phones or in laptops. Another was, I think, mercury. Airlines refuse to carry barometers."

  "What's the effect?"

  "You'll need to look it up in the library. If my recollection is accurate, once mercury touches aluminium it never stops eating away. If a plane made of aluminium is exposed to mercury, that would mean disassembling it and replacing all parts touched by the mercury. That's expensive."

  "Why might this help against 'His Abominable Beatitude'?"

  "If I'm right, and if someone could add just a little mercury to the naked aluminium drum or at the top of the ribs we saw being lowered into place, then the builders would have to disassemble the dome. It might never rise again, if you see what I mean."

  "Georghios, my love. For a provincial parish priest, you're a genius – if you're right."

  She churned through the implications. The major issue would be obtaining unknown entry to the building site. A good demonstration could provide a distraction to the security people. One person, with a phial of mercury, could paint or spray it once inside the Basilica. The mercury could then react in peace with the aluminium, leaving the Basilica's assailant to effect his, or her, escape.

  "You know, you might not have to do anything. You could double-bluff."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Why not advise the fire or the health and safety office that someone has placed mercury on the aluminium in the dome and ribs. This would oblige an investigation, to establish the corrosive effect. Even if there was nothing, or because there was nothing, to find, they couldn't afford to ignore the threat. Progress would halt. No one could risk the dome collapsing."

  "Very ingenious."

  She said it with heavy irony. The active concept of painting the aluminium with real mercury seduced Evdokia more than espousing any virtual threat. If Georghios was correct, at least some of the aluminium would need replacement. Which would delay completion, the extra costs of which might produce a permanent shutdown.

  "Can you buy mercury in aerosol form? It would be so much easier to spray on and would infect a wider area."

  "I haven't a clue. But you'd better make sure there's no link to you and researching or buying mercury. That could be a giveaway. I think the phoned-in warning is superior. The risks are fewer."

  Limassol (Cyprus)

  Iphi and Aris decanted themselves from Aris's car, now parked by the promenade. He'd refused any mor
e trips on her motorbike, unless they were short ones. She'd been furious. Calmed by his driving, she pushed for more insight.

  "Why did you change your mind and invite Kjersti in on this? You were so anti her involvement."

  "I did some reading. The truth is, you and I are decorative, you especially, rather than serious. What we write and broadcast is sugary compared to what Kjersti or other investigative journalists write. We can't escape the facts."

  "So what?"

  "The one message, which Kjersti confirmed, is patience."

  Aris continued by repeating Kjersti's admonitions, that journalistic coups don't drop off shelves to be gobbled up by the lazy. They demand commitment and patience. This involved hard work, going after small clue after small clue, to assemble a bigger picture and then test that picture against the evidence and reality.

  In his telling, he and Iphi were bit players on the lookout for a cheap story which would make their names. In Iphi's case, big enough to land her a permanent place in front of the TV cameras. In his, a column with his own byline or, better still, a job with a serious news organisation. Like the Associated Press or Agence France Presse or Reuters.

  Iphi's confusion was plain. She'd never heard Aris talk this way. He'd crossed some bridge she's never sighted.

  She contemplated him and what he contended. If he was right, they had to refocus. Everything he raised meshed with her conversations with Kjersti. Except she'd not appreciated what Kjersti had meant. This was a shock.

  "What do you suggest, Mr 'ever-so-now-serious-reporter'?"

  "Give over, Iphi. You don't mean that. Or if you do, I don't think I want to work with you anymore."

  An abyss unfolded before Iphi, one she'd not anticipated. Was Aris serious enough to walk away? If he could do it about a story, he might follow through and dispense with her altogether.

  In a distressing extra, she absorbed, first that she was more attached to him than she'd ever admitted to herself and, second, she no longer manipulated the play strings. Talk about wet flannels whipped across unwilling faces.

  "You've changed. Why?"

  "I haven't. You may have."

  "Explain. Please?"

  "Neither of us like the way the Russians rape our island and our compatriots. If anything, the Russians make the British look tame and beneficial. My sense, like those of our separate editors, is a story exists about the gambling. Our first attempt to follow it up was a joke. This time I want to change."

  He paused. He regarded Iphi before looking her straight in the eyes. "I accept there'll be a cost. That might be us, whatever 'us' is. Too bad. I'm going to try to dig the dirt. If you don't want to... "

  His voice trailed off. She floundered in the face of his precision. She hated the sensation. Her instinct was to reject, both him and his argument. Oppressed and obliged were an ugly combination.

  He turned and walked away. His shoulders drooped in disappointment.

  It was decision time for her. Iphi's instinct was to flee. For sure it wasn't to yield. Obstinacy was a familiar colleague.

  Suddenly, she recalled Kjersti making light of her own motivation to find truths. What had struck Iphi at the time was the steel in Kjersti's mental make-up. She might joke about it. But it was Kjersti's ability to fixate, to ferret out facts and mobilise a convincing argument which she could present as a 'good read' to impress readers worldwide.

  A dejected Aris was already way down the promenade, a small figure reduced by his disappointment in her.

  Iphi decided, at least for today. She ran after him, grateful for their gym work. Panting, she caught up and fell in step. Neither uttered a word until her breathing calmed.

  They turned to each other, as if directed by an external force. The same word escaped from their mouths.

  "Kjersti!"

  After restorative coffees, they approached the leisure port. According to Aris's editor, this was where some Russians had once run a sports-betting business, now closed. Their first step was to find out where.

  Office by office, they moved around asking questions. No one knew a thing. Most businesses were new on site, financial technology start-ups or ones oriented to tourists selling off-plan apartments or services for foreign buyers of holiday homes.

  Frustrated, they headed to a bar's terrace to reconsider. They took a table by the sidewalk and ordered. The food arrived. Salads for both. Aris slimmed. Iphi supported him though she could have murdered a horse.

  "Excuse me."

  They looked up. A small dark woman in jeans stood over them, leaning on a crutch. Iphi had talked with her earlier. The crutch had stood behind the reception desk. Addressing Iphi, she proceeded.

  "You were asking about a sports gambling outfit that had gone out of business?"

  Iphi nodded. Aris held his breath. Were their efforts about to bear fruit?

  "The office building where I work used to house something like that. I overheard the agent who rented the place to my boss. She was talking about a Russian called Dmitriy whom she didn't trust and was right not to. The business closed down without due notice. He didn't pay the outstanding rent."

  "Do you know the agent?"

  "No. But I know of her office. It's called RYS. I think it stands for 'Rent Your Space'. I'm sorry, I must go."

  "Why couldn't you tell me before?"

  "My boss. He's a mean bastard. If I hadn't noticed you when passing here on my way to pick up my daughter from nursery school, I wouldn't have said a thing."

  Before Iphi or Aris could respond, she limped away. It was painful to watch. Her left foot looked as if something had crushed it long ago. Iphi stared, trying to imagine living with such infirmity.

  "Here we are. RYS has offices in Limassol, one in the centre and one around the corner from here. Shall we go?"

  Aris held up his smartphone in delight, his salad forgotten. Iphi shook her head.

  "No point. Lunchtime. It'll be shut. Let's finish here."

  Nicosia (Cyprus)

  Eleni doodled on her tablet. She wasn't satisfied. Her ideas for the Kampanarió needed refining. The structure was complete and ordered. The foundations were about to start, and wouldn't take long. Her use of CLT reduced the weight and provided the skin on which to hang the sandstone, more of which they'd smuggled. The four bells, Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Omega, were in the process of being cast. Omega would roil the Old Town.

  It was the decorative themes that bothered her. When she chose the eleven sides to reflect the eleven sides of the Old Town walls, she had set herself the additional challenge of making each vertical face unique. At first, she'd thought to find some aspect associated with the name of each of the eleven bastions, which had been named after the Venetian families who'd contributed to their construction. D'Avila, Roccas, Constanza, Loredano and so on.

  Then she'd let her imagination run riot. She might blame it on Stephane, but that wouldn't be fair. His technique for producing the 3D printed model in slices, which added together had formed the representation she'd shown to her uncle, enabled her to think about how to make each face on each slice unique.

  With eight slices, this meant eighty-eight different panels. Each panel took time, effort and originality. She was running out of the latter. Combining supervision of the Basilica's construction with design tasks was proving tough.

  Yet the Kampanarió would be her personal crowning glory. She envisaged it as the pinnacle – at some fifteen metres higher than the peak of the Nea Hagia Sophia's dome.

  A gentle knock on her office door prompted her to exit the design studio. It was Stephane. Was she pleased by the interruption? She wasn't sure, but she welcomed him nevertheless and took him to the studio. Without thinking she explained her design frustrations.

  If there was one outstanding merit she liked about him, it was that he knew how to listen and interpret when offered a tableau on which to cast idea. Photoshop was his preferred medium. But he was versatile, once set a problem.

  Another feature she found rarer s
till. He submerged himself in problems without drama. There didn't have to be long-winded explanations. He thought visually, though he didn't possess formal engineering training. It was a curious combination for someone who made his living from assembling abstract bits and bytes into intangible working software.

  As he thought, she cast her mind back to their latest session in the gym. The 100 Tonne Challenge was acquiring a life of its own. Almost twenty people had signed up already, along with two other gyms, one in Nicosia and another in Limassol. At some point, someone would fix a date with a common start time of seven in the morning. The participants would compete, not only to achieve the 100 Tonne target, but to see who reached it first and who could lift the most over 100 Tonnes in the allotted time.

  Stephane was a powerful competitor. His raw strength enabled him to move massive weights compared to her more ladylike weights. But she was at least as fit and several years younger. She exploited her stamina to push many lighter weights far faster. It was a case of the hare and tortoise, except she wished to show him how the hare could win.

  Beating him mattered. She didn't understand why. It was visceral. His charming French accent and his manners belied his physique and presence. When she watched him lift, like when she stared at his butterfly in the pool, she could only admire. He wasn't conventionally good-looking: his baldness put paid to that. But he was attractive and with that sexy voice... A tremor ran through her belly.

  "Why don't you simplify? You're letting the search for the unique introduce unnecessary complexity."

  That voice, again. Softly said, he'd grasped the essence of the rising fear she'd resisted.

  "You could go for a different solution which would realise your objective for variety and be more efficient."