Assassins of Athens

by Jeffrey Siger

  ‘This is your last chance! Do you understand me?’

  Kouros’ chin hadn’t left his chest since Andreas slammed the car door and started in on him. ‘Yes, sir.’ It was said in about as meek a voice as Andreas could imagine coming from someone Kouros’ size.

  ‘Good, then let’s never talk about this subject again.’

  Andreas drew in a deep breath, exhaled and told Kouros to drive to headquarters.

  Kouros didn’t say a word. The silence was uncomfortable. Andreas tried breaking the tension by filling him in on what Pericles had said after Kouros left the bar.

  ‘Chief.’ His voice was tentative.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That guy at the bar, the one who, uhh, didn’t belong.’

  ‘Yes.’ Andreas wondered where this was headed.

  ‘Doesn’t he sound familiar?’

  ‘Not particularly.’

  ‘At the coffee shop, where Anna worked, the guy at that back table who said he saw the two who killed the boy. You asked me before to speak to her about him, and I planned on doing that first thing tomorrow. The description of the guy in the bar sounds just like him.’

  But for their recent conversation, Andreas would have kissed him. ‘Damn it, Yianni, you’re right!’ He’d been so angry at Kouros, he’d missed it.

  ‘Want to head over to that coffee shop and try to find him?’

  Andreas shook his head no. ‘Not yet. I want to find out who we’re dealing with first.’

  ‘I have the information from his ID and prints back in the office.’

  ‘Good, because if he was in that bar …’

  ‘He was the lookout.’

  ‘Explains the phone calls and why he stopped those two from going out the back door. The gorillas must have been in the middle of dumping the body.’

  ‘That last phone call had to be the all-clear, telling him to leave! I’ll get someone to pull his phone records. Maybe we’ll get lucky and come up with something.’

  Andreas was happy to hear excitement back in Kouros’ voice. He turned his head slightly toward him. ‘Good thinking, Yianni.’

  ‘Thanks, Chief.’

  Andreas noticed a bit of a smile.

  13

  Andreas looked at his watch. It was after midnight and, from what they’d pieced together so far, the story of Demosthenes Mavrakis could have been written by Charles Dickens. At least the part about his early years.

  He was an only child. His mother and her brother were the only children of a wealthy, old-line Greek ship-owning family. Demosthenes’ father died when he was ten and his mother never remarried. Instead, when her own mother died a year later, Demosthenes and his mother moved in with her father to one of Athens’ wealthy northern suburbs. That was when Demosthenes began attending Athens Academy and adopted his grandfather’s surname, Mavrakis. His school records showed that he flourished there, but never finished. He withdrew two years before graduation. No reason was given for his sudden departure, and he finished his studies in Athens public schools.

  Based on his subsequent extraordinary performance on Greece’s nationwide university entrance examinations, Demosthenes was admitted to his first choice of universities. That was almost a dozen years ago, and still he’d not graduated, but certainly not because of any lack of brainpower. His IQ tested in the genius range.

  ‘The guy doesn’t want to be part of the real world’ was Kouros’ take on him.

  ‘Don’t be so quick to lump him in with all those student-types you can’t stand who don’t want to graduate. It clouds your judgment.’ Prejudices can do that was a phrase Andreas thought to add, but didn’t.

  ‘But why hang out with kids if you’re not insecure about facing the real world?’

  ‘Like I said, let’s not dismiss him so easily as “just like everyone else.” It gives him an edge.’

  Kouros paused. ‘He could be using it for cover, blend into that life and never be noticed.’

  Andreas nodded. ‘So, let’s assume his reason is unique and there’s a lot more to this guy than we know. Like, why his sudden withdrawal from Athens Academy and the move with his mother away from his grandfather’s mansion in the suburbs to a rented apartment in central Athens?’

  ‘Lack of money?’

  ‘Sounds like it. But why?’

  Kouros shuffled through some papers on his lap. He picked one up. ‘It says here that the grandfather died in January of the same year he left school and moved out with his mother.’

  ‘Yeah, but her father was loaded, and there had to be an inheritance.’

  Kouros shrugged.

  Andreas drummed his fingers on his desk. He looked at his watch. ‘Do you think it’s too late to call her?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Lila Vardi.’

  ‘Why call her?’

  ‘She’s the only one I know who might know something.’ He picked up the phone and called.

  ‘Hello.’ The voice was stiff and formal.

  ‘Lila?’

  ‘Yes.’ Her voice sounded a bit more tentative.

  ‘Hi, it’s Andreas Kaldis. I hope it’s not too late to call.’

  Her voice came alive. ‘No, not at all. Like I said, feel free to call any time. What’s up?’

  ‘Uh, I’m here in my office with officer Kouros and we thought there’s something you might be able to help us with.’

  ‘Is it about our case?’

  He avoided answering her question directly. ‘I have no reason to think so yet, just checking out every possible lead. We’re hoping you can tell us about the Mavrakis family. Let me put you on the speaker.’

  ‘Which one?’ Her voice came across on the loudspeaker even perkier than before.

  ‘Thanassis. We were wondering what happened to his family after he died.’

  She laughed. ‘Boy, you sure come up with the juicy ones. You’re talking mega-society gossip here.’

  ‘But there was nothing in the papers.’

  ‘Wouldn’t be, most truly private high society family scandals don’t get press coverage unless a family member, or lawyer, wants to make it public.’ She’d mocked the words she emphasized.

  ‘So, what happened?’

  ‘I don’t know the family that well. Thanassis and his wife were friends of my parents, and their children were much older than I. In fact, I think the daughter had a son a few years younger than I am.’

  Andreas looked at Kouros. ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Demosthenes, I think. Don’t know him, not sure I ever met him. Terrible what happened to him and his mother, though.’

  Andreas didn’t say anything, just waited for her to continue.

  ‘Thanassis was a very successful ship owner, and like many old timers hid what he owned behind a lot of companies. Probably didn’t even have his name on the stock certificates showing who ultimately owned the assets. That was common among that crowd.’

  ‘So no one could find someone to blame if anything went wrong?’ asked Andreas.

  ‘Or find to pay taxes. Especially inheritance taxes.’ She paused. ‘I’m trying to remember the gossip. It was so long ago. I know the son worked with his father and that the daughter and her mother did not get along. The brother was the mother’s favorite. When the mother died, I believe the father asked his daughter and her son to move in with him. They lived near my grandmother’s summer home in Ekali. That’s when the brother had a huge fight with his father, accused him of betraying his mother’s memory. The father gave the son an ultimatum. Accept his responsibilities to his sister or leave the business.

  ‘The brother became a new man overnight. Doted on his sister and her son, even started calling him his “other son.” I think he had two younger ones of his own. Everything seemed perfect. But the moment the father died, the brother reverted to his old self. As I heard the story, after Thanassis threatened to put him out of the business, his son spent virtually every waking moment showing his father what a wonderful son and brother he was. Ultimately, he
convinced his father that the best way to save taxes for the family was to transfer ownership of everything to him on his promise to “take care of his sister and nephew.”’

  ‘I think I see what’s coming. And the father believed him?’

  ‘Well, the father didn’t have all his wits about him in his final years, but that sort of arrangement was something many Greek families with hidden assets followed. What happened here was the exception to the rule. Regrettably, not that rare an exception but, still, an exception.

  ‘The difference here was the intensity of the brother’s ruthlessness, as if he didn’t care what anyone else in the world thought of him. This wasn’t only about stealing his sister’s inheritance, he wanted her to suffer and did all he could to inflict punishment. Literally forced her and her son out of their father’s home just as fast as his lawyers could get it done.’

  ‘Why didn’t she go to court?’ It was Kouros.

  ‘I don’t know. Some said it was her nature. She was a very timid, depressed woman. Death or betrayal had cost her everyone in her life who mattered.’

  ‘Except for her son.’ It was Andreas.

  ‘Yes, I don’t know what happened to him.’

  ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘Friends of her parents were appalled at the brother’s behavior. They paid her rent on a small apartment in some modest building in downtown Athens and found her a job in a government ministry. She worked there until the tragedy to her brother.’

  ‘What tragedy?’ Andreas’ voice seemed to jump an octave.

  ‘The explosion that blinded him. I thought you knew, and that’s why you were calling.’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘But I don’t think it’s related. He comes from a very old Greek family. Not like the others. Though he did move away. But you can’t blame him.’

  Andreas didn’t want to show his impatience. ‘Uh, Lila, could you tell us what you’re talking about?’

  She giggled. ‘Whoops, it’s late and I had a glass of wine. Sorry for rambling. No, as a matter of fact the story had a happy ending.’

  Andreas rolled his right hand at the phone in a hurry-up-already gesture. Kouros smiled.

  ‘I guess it shows how a near-death experience can show you the value of family. After the brother was released from the hospital he moved to Geneva and brought his sister to live with him. As far as I know, they’re still living in Switzerland.’

  ‘When did all this happen?’

  ‘A bit after the capture of the 17 November terrorists.’

  ‘Huh?’ It was Kouros again.

  ‘Don’t you remember when a group claiming to carry on the “revolutionary mission of our 17 November brothers” bombed a small, private family church in Ekali? No one could stop talking about it. I still cringe when I think about it. It was his family’s church. It was his mother’s name day, and he went alone into the church behind his father’s house, actually his house then, to light a candle and say a prayer. The bomb went off when he leaned over and kissed the icon next to his mother’s wall crypt. It was a miracle he was only blinded.

  ‘I can’t image what sort of human could commit such an outrageous sacrilege.’

  Andreas looked at Kouros. ‘Someone very bitter and angry.’

  ‘But still, in a church, planting a bomb behind an icon?’ Andreas rubbed his eyes. ‘Ever hear anything more about the family?’

  ‘No, that’s all I remember. Did it help?’

  ‘Sure did. I’m really sorry I bothered you so late, but you helped a lot. Thanks.’ His voice sounded burdened with other thoughts.

  ‘Andreas—’ she paused.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. Just call me tomorrow. If you have the chance.’

  Kouros gestured if he should leave. Andreas gestured no.

  ‘Absolutely. Promise. Good night. And thanks again, Lila.’

  ‘Good night. Kisses. And good night, officer Kouros.’

  ‘Good night, Mrs Vardi.’ The line went dead. ‘Sounds like a nice lady.’ Kouros actually sounded sincere.

  ‘She is; very nice.’ He let out a deep breath. ‘What the hell do we have going on here? I feel like mice being run through a labyrinth.’

  ‘At least there’s no Minotaur chasing us.’

  ‘But wait, there’s still time.’ Andreas fluttered his lips. ‘That guy was blinded intentionally. If they’d wanted to kill him in such a confined space it would have been easy. The tricky part was just blinding him. These people knew what they were doing.’

  ‘You think it’s the same ones who killed the Kostopoulos kid?’

  ‘Not sure, but I’d bet my left nut Demosthenes was behind that church bombing. Revenge on a betraying surrogate father for all the harm done to his mother. Can’t say I don’t see why the kid might have wanted to kill the bastard, if the uncle’s anything like he sounds, but this is … is—’

  ‘Sick?’

  Andreas nodded. ‘Yeah, as in sicko-genius. Instead of just killing his uncle and watching all that money pass on to his cousins, our guy figured out a way to torture the man for life and still get him to take care of the sister he despised.’

  ‘Think he’s behind the whole thing?’

  ‘Seems too young to me for that, but who knows. One thing’s for sure, he has the right connections and is our only link to them, whoever they are. I want 24/7 surveillance on this guy ASAP. But nothing that might let him know we’re on to him. He’s too smart and runs with too dangerous a crowd.’

  ‘I’ll get it up and running first thing tomorrow.’

  ‘And be careful, I don’t want him recognizing you from that coffee shop, even though he was studying me, not you.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll get Maggie to lend me her invisibility cloak, the one she uses to find out everything going on in this building.’

  Andreas leaned forward and pointed a finger at Kouros. ‘You know, that would explain a lot.’

  Kouros smiled and stretched. ‘Looks like we finally have something to grab onto, Chief.’

  Andreas leaned back in his chair and yawned. ‘Yeah, let’s just hope it’s not that Minotaur’s balls.’

  His routine was simple: he had none. He lived by that rule. Never could tell where he’d be. Certainly never when he said, unless he was ordered and then always early. How early depended on what he felt the situation required. Routine to him was a weakness, the Achilles’ heel of the strong. The only time he was precisely where he was supposed to be was when the habits of a target required split-second timing, and that exception proved his rule: targets died because of their routines.

  Demon was a very angry young man those first few years at university. Bitter at the world in general and at his uncle in particular, he didn’t realize just how easily one could be manipulated: ponderous thoughts subtly argued out to logical extremes by gifted talkers, patiently reinforcing each point with references to classic literature, ancient history, and modern events were exactly what young, rebellious minds found important when trying to validate their new independence from family and home. That was what made them so vulnerable to those seeking to focus their outrage at the world in general on ‘Greece’s class system’ in particular, and channel undirected anger into violence. For most, their seductions required not much more than that, carried out amid drinks, drugs, supportive friends, and willing lovers applauding their every argument and thesis.

  But for Demon it was different. Yes, he enjoyed and participated in the Exarchia revolutionary scene, but his reach was far greater than the bounds of any single group or philosophy. He was a creature born of the unique us-against-the-Man rapprochement achieved in that community among the ideologues of revolution and the city’s unholy criminal underbelly, and he moved effortlessly through those different worlds.

  In that environment, it felt natural for him to talk among his like-minded comrades of how revenge might be had on his capitalist pig of an uncle; but never did he expect things to go so far that his words
would become actions. He wasn’t even there when it happened; but they told him how his description of the house, the church, and his uncle’s routine gave them what they needed, and his words the inspiration to come together to make his plan work. He threw up for days, agonizing over how he’d possibly become part of this, made it all happen. Then he was told his moment was here: there was a message only he could deliver. To his uncle, in person, and at once.

  In a heavily guarded hospital room, in the presence of his aunt and cousins, a dutiful, concerned nephew calmly whispered into his uncle’s ear, ‘Take care of my mother or your children and wife are next,’ then kissed him on the forehead and smiled. Not a word was returned, not a gesture made; only a nurse moved, looking for what triggered the heart monitor alarm.

  Demon stayed in the room for another five minutes; quietly off to the side feeling no stress, no anxiety, no fear, no remorse. He was perfectly calm and at peace with himself as his eyes drifted over each member of the family, his family, that he’d just threatened to cripple or kill. None of this bothered him at all, and at that moment he realized he had a great gift: he was free of conscience. Never again did he question any method that might achieve a goal. Unless it failed.

  But in the years that followed, failure rarely occurred when Demon was involved. No one seemed able to resist his charms and, for the same reason, he served the Exarchia shadow world as its primary liaison to the other world. Not to the planet at large, just to those parts of it necessary for achieving one group or another’s seemingly far-fetched goal. He possessed an uncanny instinct for finding the perfect flattery, bribe, appeasement, or threat required, and an equivalently eerie facility at maneuvering past the maniacal egos, outrageous demands, and polar opposite political views of those he sought to persuade.

  His skills grew almost as much as his view of himself, and he hungered for greater influence than the banner-painters, bomb-tossers, and political outsiders he served could ever hope to achieve. When a chance meeting with old-line acquaintances of his grandfather led to musings on the fate of their country, Demon saw an opportunity to broker violence for those with real power and jumped at it. But that was years ago, and he believed by now he’d more than proven his value to them – certainly with his Kostopoulos masterpiece.