“Fine, so let me put this differently. I have given you a program to follow that yields great profits everywhere it’s employed. I expect you to adhere to the product formulas, but if you wish to pursue your love affair with the media as a means for enhancing our business I shall not oppose you.”
“Thank you.”
“But if one day you should again conclude there is a way to cheat me, or your actions deny me the full measure of all you’ve agreed to pay me, I can assure you that the press you see venerating you today will be reporting on speeches demanding justice for your assassination.”
“That’s a wholly unnecessary approach for you to take with me.”
“I think not. You just called the murder of your sister a ‘bit of a disagreement’ and raved on about how you’ve turned it into a ‘great opportunity’ for ‘our business.’ You should be cursing me, hating me, fearing me. Instead you’re trying to hustle me with your bullshit delusions of grandeur. I’ve seen it all, I’ve done it all, I’ve been it all. My bottom line is simple: I don’t care what sort of little masturbation games you want to play with yourself, but if you ever even think of screwing with me or our arrangement again, I promise to cut your balls off. Literally. Slowly. Painfully.”
Silence.
“Understand?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t hear you.”
“Yes!”
“Good. Your next wire transfer is due tomorrow.” Teacher hung up without saying another word and slammed her hand on the desktop.
She drew in and let out a deep breath. She hated when she lost her temper. She swallowed and looked at the photo on her desk. “This one just doesn’t get it. He’s a narcissistic sociopath, coddled and protected by his parents for so long he thinks he can get away with anything.”
She rubbed her forehead with the hand she’d slammed onto the desk. “I hope he’s right, or if he’s wrong that his parents remain prepared to be there for him. Losing one child is more than any parent should ever have to bear.”
***
“My, aren’t we home early,” said Lila looking up from the computer screen on her desk. She sat in her study, framed from behind by a lightly draped floor-to-ceiling window view of Athens’ majestic Likavitos, sister hill to the Acropolis. She glanced at her watch. “It’s still midafternoon.”
Andreas leaned across the desk and kissed her on the forehead. He stepped back and dropped onto a beige and crème damask Queen Anne sofa set back against five wall-spanning rows of lacquered bookshelves.
“That’s all I get, a forehead kiss?”
“I’m practicing restraint in all aspects of my life.”
“Come again?”
“It’s that mess up in Thessaloniki. We’re letting that asshole Tank wail away at us and not hit back. It’s emotionally exhausting. We can’t even swear at him.”
“That doesn’t sound like you.”
“It isn’t me, but the strategy is to let him punch away at us as often and hard as he likes until he makes a mistake that we can use to bring him down.”
“I get it. A variation on ‘rope-a-dope.’”
Andreas blinked. “You never fail to amaze me. I didn’t know you were a fan of American boxing.”
“‘Thrilla in Manila.’”
Andreas smiled. “You should have stopped while you were ahead. ‘Thrilla’ was Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. ‘Rope-a-dope’ came out of Ali’s fight before that one, when he beat George Foreman to regain his heavyweight championship in ‘The Rumble in the Jungle.’”
Lila shrugged. “Okay, so you caught me. Besides, those two phrases exhaust my knowledge of American boxing.”
“But you’re right about us and rope-a-dope. Ali let Foreman bang the hell out of him while he curled up against the ropes, letting the ropes absorb most of the shock from Foreman’s punches. That’s sort of our plan with Tank. Let him pound away at us until he knocks himself out.”
“Sounds like a painful strategy.”
“You’ve no idea.”
“How’s Spiros holding up?”
“Considering he’s taking most of the punches on his chin, amazing.”
“He must be on drugs,” said Lila. “Or else he’s found a guru the entire world should be following.”
“Or it could just be that his health problems have put everything else in perspective. Whatever the reason, so far he hasn’t cracked.”
“How much longer do you think he can take the pressure?”
“No telling. But if he caves in now, after Tank’s televised eulogy today, the whole country will think Tank was right about him. Make that right about us. We’ll all be out of work. Let’s just hope he hangs tough for at least a bit longer.”
“How long is a ‘bit longer’?”
“Until Tank makes a mistake that gives us an opening to hit him as hard as we can with the best we have.”
“How long did it take Ali to find his opening?”
“He knocked Foreman out in the eighth round.”
“Ouch, that’s a lot of pounding to take to get there.”
“And we’ve no way of telling which round we’re in with Tank.”
“Only one more boxing question. If Spiros is playing Ali, who are you?”
“Today, I’d say I’m the ropes.”
Lila stood up from her desk, walked over to the sofa, and sat down beside him. She put one hand around Andreas’ neck, the other on his upper thigh, and kissed him on the cheek. “Are you sure you want to practice ‘restraint’ in all aspects of your life?” She squeezed his thigh.
He smiled, still staring off in the general direction of the window. “At the moment, sadly, yes.”
She kissed him again on the cheek. “Too bad you didn’t decide on doing that sooner.”
He turned his head to face her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She nodded toward the desk. “I was just checking my emails. One is from my doctor.”
“What’s—”
Lila stopped him with a finger to his lips. “Shhh, I’ll tell you.” She sat back and took his hands in hers. “I’m pregnant.
Andreas’ face lit into a smile. “I can’t believe it. That’s terrific!” He squeezed her hands, dropping them only to hug and kiss her. “Tassaki’s going to have a baby…baby what?”
“Too soon to tell.”
“I’m so excited.” Andreas hugged her again.
Lila took his hands in hers. “Me, too. And I think there’s a sign to be drawn from this.”
“What sort of sign?”
“That your rope-a-dope strategy is working.”
Andreas gave her a ‘what are you talking about?’ look. “How could such wonderful news about your being pregnant possibly be a sign of anything having to do with that piece of garbage Tank?”
“I see it as a sign of the power of your knock up punch.”
Andreas burst out laughing. “It’s ‘knockout’ punch.”
Lila smiled. “Oh, well. That too.”
Chapter Eighteen
So far Teacher had kept her word. Kharon had his offshore company, and with it contracts to buy most of the olive groves he wanted. The olive oil production facility’s owners were playing cute over price, but Teacher told him not to worry. “They’ll come around.”
Her reassurance came in the course of a telephone conversation about another “simple message” she had for him to deliver. She said the details would be in a package in the helicopter she’d arranged to pick him up at a place of his choosing. “I assume you don’t want to be seen by your neighbors flying about on a helicopter like a shipowner bouncing between girlfriends and family on summer holiday.”
He met the helicopter in a deserted, burned-out olive grove between Delphi and Amfissa, and it brought him to a private airport near Greece’s nor
thern border with Bulgaria. From there, a private plane flew him to Kiev, and armored transport courtesy of the Ukrainian military brought him as close to its eastern border conflict with Russia as the soldiers would dare go. Kharon’s instructions described his target, its anticipated location, and a suggested method of transmitting her message. He was free, though, to vary the delivery means should he so choose. His army escort would wait for his return. At least that was the promise.
Arms smuggling stood as big business in the Ukraine. Players from around the world used it as a staging area for supplying many Middle Eastern and North African hotspots. The armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine brought unintended, unappreciated consequences to the region’s arms dealers. Russia was back in the game. Not directly, but with its war machine gearing up, black market, sophisticated product now found its way into the flow of commerce. The Bear’s illicit profiteers were cutting in heavily on Teacher’s share of arms-dealing profits.
Teacher’s efforts at reaching a deal with those in the Russian military now profiting off trade in their army’s weaponry were flatly rejected. “Tell the bitch to fuck off,” was the actual message conveyed to her emissary by the Russian General in charge of Russia’s unofficial military operations in the Ukraine. He saw no reason to share the benefits of his position with those he regarded as beneath him.
The General’s visit to the Ukraine that day had been a last-minute affair arranged to satisfy a buyer from the Middle East intent on purchasing a missile system capable of bringing down high-flying aircraft. The buyer had balked at paying until he received personal reassurances that the product was “truly Russian.” He would settle for nothing less than a face-to-face meeting with the General.
No matter, it would be a brief late afternoon excursion, one affording the General an opportunity to reacquaint himself with the young Ukrainian girls he’d put in charge of keeping his buyers happy. Middle East men loved his blond, busty, blue-eyed entertainers.
The General’s helicopter landed next to a warehouse about ten miles inside the Ukraine. A phalanx of armed men surrounded him at the helicopter pad and stayed with him to the warehouse door, then remained posted outside.
Fifteen minutes later, the door opened, and the General, accompanied by a man dressed in traditional Arab garb, stepped outside. The armed men immediately formed around the two and accompanied them to the helicopter. At the helicopter the Arab bowed and shook the General’s hand. The General smiled, patted him on the arm and got inside the helicopter. The men moved back and all but the Arab stopped to watch it take off. The Arab walked quickly toward the warehouse waving at the rising chopper as he did.
He reached the warehouse door just as a contrail seared across the sky from a hillside one mile from the warehouse. The explosion showered what remained of the helicopter down on the armed men scattering for cover.
The troops who reached the hillside minutes later found evidence of the sort of handheld surface-to-air missile used by the Ukrainian army. The Russian spokesman announcing the General’s death made no mention of the missile or the Ukraine, only that the General had died in a tragic helicopter accident “far from any conflict zone.”
As far as the world would know, it was an accident. But for those in the Russian military prepared to step into the General’s black marketeer shoes, there was a lesson to be heeded. A lesson that Teacher would reaffirm in red letters emblazoned upon a gold ribbon stretched across a massive wreath of flowers delivered to the General’s funeral: “Sharing is good.”
***
Kharon sat staring out the window of the private jet carrying him back to Greece. He still preferred the up close, personal approach to ending a life, one that allowed him the opportunity of affording a potential victim a reasoned means for survival. But with his assignments from Teacher, any opportunity for the target’s survival had long since past. For her, Kharon’s role was simply to function as executioner. He wondered at what point she’d lost her moral center. She must have had one. Did she lose it quickly, or did it degrade over time? And when will mine disappear?
He’d toyed with the idea of killing the General while he enjoyed the women, but that would have been needlessly risky. Besides, Kharon lacked the time, local contacts, and language skills necessary for carrying out such a sophisticated assassination.
So he did it Teacher’s way. Just as her instructions promised, the missile had been waiting for him on the hillside, programmed to take down the General’s helicopter. All he had to do was watch through binoculars for the signal wave from her Arab colleague, count to five, and fire. It was all too simple. Anyone could have done it. There was no reason to bring Kharon all the way from Greece simply to pull a trigger.
Which meant Teacher had a very important reason for bringing him.
She wanted the Ukrainians to see an actual foreign assassin, one the Russians would later hear described in detail by their spies in the Ukrainian military.
He shook his head, admiring her technique. Teacher had used him as cover for Russians she’d involved in arranging the assassination. Most likely some of the General’s underlings, anxious to get in on the profits he’d kept only for himself and his bosses.
Yes, sharing is good.
***
“Have you told anyone else?” said Maggie.
“Only my mother and sister.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll get the word out around here.”
“I bet,” mumbled Andreas from behind his desk.
“What was that?”
“I said, ‘go ahead.’”
“I bet.”
Andreas smiled. “It’s exciting. A new baby on the way.”
“I wish I’d had the experience,” said Maggie, uncharacteristically wistful.
“You’re always welcome to change diapers.”
She nodded. “Which reminds me, Tassos told me to ask you how things were going with Tank.”
“I won’t bother to ask how one thought reminded you of the other.”
She chuckled. “The mind works in mysterious ways.”
“Like I said, I won’t ask. Just tell him Tank’s set up a press conference for this afternoon.”
“About what?”
Andreas shrugged. “No idea.”
“Maybe to announce his candidacy for Parliament?”
“That would go a long way toward making the rest of Parliament look good by comparison.”
“Son of a bitch gets his sister murdered because of what he did, lets her killer walk away free, and makes himself into a martyr as her perpetual mourner.”
“Modern family values at work,” said Andreas.
Maggie waved her hand in the air as she walked out of his office.
Andreas stared at the photo of Lila and Tassaki on his desk. I’ll need a new photo. Will our baby be a girl or a boy? he wondered. As long as it’s healthy. He glanced at the door Maggie had just passed through. He’d realized why his little joke made Maggie think of Tassos: Tassos’ only child had died in childbirth along with his wife. Tassos, like Maggie, had never had the opportunity of changing diapers.
Life wasn’t fair. That wasn’t news. Every cop knew that.
Andreas looked at the document on his computer screen, a press release announcing a “major announcement” by Tank later that afternoon.
What is it that makes some children good and some children bad? For sure the parents must play a part. But it’s hard to imagine even the worst of parents as solely responsible for an asshole like Tank. Or the best of parents as wholly blameless.
***
For as long as Spiros could remember, Sunday mornings meant church, first alongside his parents, later beside his wife. Like clockwork, they would find a place close to the front where Spiros would listen for the word of God. His loss of faith came gradually, much as a beach yielded ground to the sea. Ultimately, church meant
nothing more to Spiros than the last remaining public pretext for his marriage.
Although his mind was on prayer, today wasn’t Sunday, and in five minutes Tank’s press conference would begin. Spiros walked from behind his desk to the leather armchair across from a big-screen television.
The days when he’d believed faith and prayer important seemed so very long ago, as if they’d simply vanished from his memory. He longed for the comfort of those times.
Spiros looked at his watch as he sat down. No time for such thoughts now. He’d lost all room to maneuver. The prime minister had given him forty-eight hours to “break the case wide-open.” That was thirty hours ago. There was no “or else” at the end of the prime minister’s curt call. It was understood without being said.
Spiros leaned his head back against the chair. He dreaded what was about to come. He shut his eyes and pressed the remote.
Then he prayed.
***
A shimmering blue and green sea touching up against a robin’s egg blue sky and a lightly fluttering Greek flag filled the TV screen. The final notes of the Greek National Anthem played in the background as a stern-faced Tank stepped into the frame, blue shirt, blue blazer, no tie.
“My fellow Greeks, good afternoon. It is a truly beautiful day. One befitting our glorious Greece. We have much to be thankful for, much to be proud of, and much to defend.
“I do not have to tell you that we are a country in crisis, put upon by nations who call us friend while they drain us dry. I do not have to tell you we struggle to find work, while illegal immigrants take our jobs for slave wages. I do not have to tell you our children see no future, while foreign investors buy our precious resources for their own children.
“Today, our politicians serve foreign masters. They do not share the concerns of our people. They are only interested in emptying our pockets to fill their own. Foreign bank accounts, expensive cars, lavish boats, and mansions on Mykonos—not keeping Greece alive and strong for Greeks—are the goals of Greece’s political leadership.
“We are nothing to them but sheep forced to fend for ourselves. To be bought. To be sold. To be slaughtered.”
Devil of Delphi: A Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis Mystery Page 16
