But this evening Kharon’s thoughts focused on another sort of passage: One that involved negotiating two hundred yards of wide open space safe from those who might possess less tranquil intentions in their minds and perhaps a sniper rifle or more in their hands. And he had good reason to think someone might be out there.
So he did not park, but raced his motorcycle down one hundred yards of thirty terraced marble steps, spun into a switchback turn for another fifty-yard run of steps, and raced the final fifty yards across an open terrace to a skidding stop by a stone domed pylon close by the entrance to the church and Katholikon. He’d apologize to the monks later.
No one within earshot could have missed the distinctive roar of the big BMW’s dual exhausts reverberating off the walls. Nor the eerie sudden absence of sound the moment he’d turned off the engine. Yet he heard no shouts or running footsteps, only the wind through the trees, and he saw no more than a cat cowering off in a corner away from the unexpected intruder.
Where is everyone?
The instructions from Tank’s father had been for Kharon to meet Tank in the old cells up above the west facing entrance to the church. Kharon scanned every window, doorway, and roof he could see. No one. The courtyard surrounded him with hiding places: On the ground stood doorways, latticed windows, and walls dropping down and rising up; turrets, a dome, and the roofs on which they sat loomed above him; and in between rose four to five stories of windows, nooks, and crannies, each offering a different clear angle on him for a marksman.
I am the proverbial sitting duck, he thought. So he did just that: he sat. But around the back, in the shadows, on a block of stone protruding from the rear wall of the Katholikon, in a tiny cove-like spot a few feet from where the church and Katholikon abutted each other. Dirt ground, a view of what could be coming from the north entrance of the monastery fifty yards away, and a bit of cover from the sides offered him options for dealing with what might be out there. He put his backpack down beside him, stretched, and focused on the hunt—but as the hunted, not the hunter. They would have to come to him.
After all, it was Tank who’d invited him.
Two hours passed without the sight or sound of a human soul. He sat quietly in total darkness, calmly identifying each sound as friendly, waiting for the first one he’d know meant something else.
Two more hours passed. Still nothing. Kharon appreciated patience as a great virtue in the hunter. But in the hunted it accounted for far more; it meant the difference between living and dying. And so he sat, with his back flat against the east wall of the Crypt of Saint Barbara.
***
What is taking so long? Why has no one come for me? Tank knew hours had passed, but not how many. The monks did not allow him a phone or a watch. Damn them. He’d paced the floor a thousand times. Quiet as a tomb kept running through his mind. He wanted to get out. He wanted to know what was happening. The only window in the crypt sat in the rear, east wall of the Katholicon, beyond the altar, covered in grillwork, and draped over with a dark curtain. He’d listened for a sound at the window but heard nothing. It seemed as soundproof as the walls.
No wonder. He’d heard that the crypt had once been used to house psychopaths. The monks would chain them to its stone pillars until cured of their madness.
I’ll go just as mad if someone doesn’t show up soon.
Tank thought to look out the window in case someone might be out there. Maybe his father’s men had forgotten about him? He shook his head. He knew his curiosity was getting the better of him. He’d do better to relax. If he drew back the curtain to look out, dim as the light from the oil lamp might be, it would draw the immediate attention of anyone out there. If seen by one of his father’s men, he’d have hell to pay to his father for not sitting tight as ordered. If seen by the only other possible person out there interested in him, it could mean a bullet in his head.
He toyed with putting out the lamp, but decided ending a thousand years of light just to peek out a window risked too much bad karma, even for him. So, he resigned himself to playing it safe and waiting for someone to come for him.
Then he paced some more.
Chapter Twenty-six
Tank’s father looked at his watch. He’d told his son to stay put and not move until the men he’d hired came for him. That would be when Tank would make his call to Teacher, after the killer of his daughter had been quietly disposed of without a trace, and long before the monks emerged from their solitary, dusk-to-dawn prayer vigil and fasting for his daughter’s soul. Their unique commitment to remain confined to their cells in all-night individual prayer came in exchange for a generous donation from Tank’s father toward refurbishing the monastery’s most endangered treasures.
He looked at his watch again. The assassins he’d hired told him they’d found the perfect place along the corridor leading to the old cells. Sooner or later their target must pass that way, and when he did, they’d be waiting for him. With but a faint pop from their silenced weapons, he’d be dead. They’d told the father to relax, mentioned again how many times they’d done this sort of thing before, and assured him it would all be over soon.
That was six hours ago.
He poured himself a scotch and stared at his reflection in the sliding glass door leading from his office out to the pool. He’d decided to wait out the night’s events in Chalkidiki. He felt more secure there. At least he had before that asshole killer had shown up.
He looked at the telephone number on the piece of paper on his desk. It came with clear instructions: “Only call during the operation to abort or inform us that our lives are in danger.” He wondered whether Alexander the Great ever received similar instructions from those he’d delegated to execute his plans.
He put the scotch down on the desktop, muttered, “Enough of this macho, special operations bullshit,” picked up the phone, and dialed the number.
It rang five times. On the sixth ring he heard a whispering, obviously annoyed man. “I told you not to call during the operation.”
“Let me explain who’s calling. It’s the man who’s paying you a shitload of money to do something you repeatedly tell me you’ve done many times before.”
“This is not the time—”
The father’s voice rose. “Shut up and let me finish. The whole purpose of your ‘operation’ is evaporating. If my son doesn’t make a call soon telling someone that your target’s dead, either my son is dead or we’re out a hell of a lot of money. Neither one will keep you in my good graces.”
Pause.
“Did you hear me?”
“This guy’s good—”
“I know he is. That’s why I hired you.”
“We heard him arrive four and a half hours ago.”
“He’s there?”
“The bike is, so we assume he is.”
“Assume. As in you don’t know?”
“Affirmative on the bike.”
“I don’t care about the bike. What about the target?”
“We haven’t seen him.”
“Have you looked?”
“Sir, you don’t understand—”
“Have you looked for him? Just answer yes or no.”
“No, but it’s not that easy. It’s dangerous to hunt someone like him in a place like this.”
“Dangerous? You say ‘it’s dangerous?’ Of course it’s dangerous. If it wasn’t I’d have sent a ya-ya with an umbrella to beat him to death. Fuck, man! A grandmother would have more balls than you.”
“If worse comes to worst we’ll get him at sunrise.”
The father’s voice dropped to calm and flat. “That’s the first thing you’ve said in this conversation that I agree with completely.”
“Yes, at sunrise—”
“No the part about it being the very worst thing that could happen.”
The father’s vo
ice remained perfectly measured and even. “At sunrise, many tired and very hungry monks will be running all over the place. Each one a potential witness to a murder no one is ever supposed to know happened. Though to be honest with you, from your current performance, I think that come sunrise, you’re the ones who’ll most likely be dead.”
The father cleared his throat. “Let me put it to you this way. Get off your asses and use your vaunted special operations military backgrounds and equipment to find this killer of my daughter on your terms, or wait until morning and be dead on his. End of story.”
Pause.
“Do you understand?”
A whispered, “Yes.”
“Good. Now get to work.”
The father hung up the phone and stared back out toward the pool. Men like that need firm leadership, he thought. He picked up his scotch, put his feet up on his desk, and leaned back in his chair. They’re damn lucky I’m here for them.
***
Kharon originally assumed they’d come dressed as monks, an obvious cover for assassins working in a monastery. But not now. Too much time had passed for that ploy to work, and whoever held this monastery under wraps had to know that. He’d not seen or heard a single monk since he arrived. If the monks were being held by force, he likely faced a lot of armed men. If by guile, not so many.
His eyes long ago adjusted to the dark, and he smiled at a cat dozing fifteen yards away, straight ahead to his left, at the southeast corner of the church atop a nearly seven-foot high wall. Maybe they’ll come disguised as cats.
He stretched. He hadn’t done that in a while. He’d done isometrics to keep his muscles from cramping up, but not stretching. Stretching required noticeable movement that might give away his position. He wondered how people could possibly sit at desks all day without moving. Kharon shook his head. I’m losing concentration, I’d better—
He heard a sound. The cat had leaped off the wall onto the open ground in front of Kharon and disappeared up a stone pathway to Kharon’s right running along the south side of the Katholikon. He slid his right hand into the backpack and came out with a Heckler & Koch MP5K submachine gun, cocked and ready to fire. With his left he reached in for a grenade and crept carefully toward the corner of the church.
He stood two paces away from the corner when the same cat shot out of the same narrow pathway to Kharon’s right, racing straight away from the church, the Katholikon, and Kharon. Kharon paused only long enough to arm the grenade and, with his left hand, toss it up into the pathway vacated by the cat.
On the sound of the grenade hitting stone Kharon dropped to the ground, tightly shut his eyes, covered his ears, and waited for the flash and near stun-level noise. At the explosion, Kharon sprang to his feet and brought the muzzle of his submachine gun up over the edge of the wall, close by the corner of the church. Two men in body armor and dressed for nighttime military combat stood swinging Kalishnikov AK-74Ms in wild sprays of automatic fire, each blinded by their own night vision goggles from the flash grenade explosion.
Hugging close to the edge of the church, Kharon took careful aim and dropped each man with a shot to the head. The instant the second man fell, Kharon raced across the open ground to the southeast corner of the Katholikon. He listened. He heard nothing. Someone had to be out there. The grenade startled, not killed.
His choice of grenades had nothing to do with sparing life; Kharon simply wasn’t willing to chance harming the monastery unless left with no choice. He had frag grenades, but they risked driving shrapnel and shock waves into walls and windows, doing potentially serious harm to the place and its treasures. Nazi planes had failed at trying to destroy the monastery in 1943, and he wasn’t about to inadvertently accomplish what Hitler’s bombs had not.
The roar of a motorcycle thundered down the path at him, but not the bike. Whoever had been on the path must be fleeing on Kharon’s BMW. But there could be more.
He heard the clamor of running feet and voices shouting, all headed his way.
He hurried to his backpack and managed to put the MP5K away just as the first monk came upon him, flashlight in hand.
“Who are you?”
Kharon stood facing the monk, hands clenched and held tightly to his chest, his body shaking. “A very frightened pilgrim. I came here in search of a place to stay for the night and, finding no one, I came to sleep over there.” He pointed at the backpack on the wall.
Other monks now joined the first.
“What happened?” asked another.
“I don’t know,” said Kharon speaking rapidly, as if terrified. “I awoke to an explosion and a bright flash of light, then men dressed like soldiers,” he pointed toward the rear of the church, “started shooting at someone over there,” he pointed at the south side of the Katholikon, “who shot back and then must have run up that path,” he pointed again to the south side of the Katholikon, “because the next thing I heard was a motorcycle roaring away.” Kharon hadn’t stopped shaking.
“Yes, I heard the motorcycle, too. The defiler must have fled on it,” said an older monk, holding a candle. He put his arm around Kharon. “Relax, my son. Your ordeal is over.”
Kharon put his head on the monk’s shoulder and wept.
Another monk with a flashlight edged his way up onto the wall behind the church. “Oh, my Lord. There are two men back here. I think they are dead.” He crossed himself and said a prayer. The other monks did the same.
Kharon backed away from the older monk and sat on the wall next to his backpack.
“Who would dare commit such a sacrilege in our holy place?” said the older monk
“Yes, who?” asked the others.
Kharon was about to offer a suggestion, but wasn’t quite sure how to raise it.
“There can be only one answer,” said the monk with the flashlight. “The newcomer. It was his father who paid the abbot for all of us to remain in our cells in prayer through the night.”
Bingo, thought Kharon.
A murmur of agreement came from the other monks.
“We must find the abbot, tell him what has happened, and have him deal with this heretic tonight.”
“Yes, tonight!” said another.
“Let us find this man of the devil and bring him to the abbot. His face will show his guilt.”
At that, the monks dispersed as quickly as they’d appeared. Kharon gathered up his backpack and quietly but quickly moved toward the northern gate fifty yards away. There was still the chance of an assassin hiding somewhere inside, or more likely outside, though at this point Kharon saw both risks as minimal. Still, he wanted to get away from here as fast as possible. So far, no one had suggested calling the police, and he did not want to be there when someone did.
He stopped by the gate and looked back at the church and Katholikon. He knew he couldn’t return. He wasn’t religious, and crossing himself meant nothing to him, but this place had been special to him for a very long time, and tonight it sheltered and saved him. He owed it a sign of respect.
Kharon drew in and let out a deep breath, lifted his right hand to his forehead, “Thank you, Hosios Loukas,” saluted, and left.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Every monk in the monastery somehow found a way to pack into the abbot’s study. No one was going to miss this.
A broad-shouldered man with a salt and pepper beard and dressed in formal abbot’s garb sat in a tall back, Byzantine era chair, behind a Byzantine era desk, surrounded by Byzantine mosaic and icon masterpieces. Purposeful or not, the setting made clear the seminal importance of that time to this place, and the absolute power of the occupier of the abbot’s chair over the monastery’s affairs.
Tank sat directly across the desk from the abbot. Two monks stood beside Tank, one on either side.
“Do you know why you’re here?” asked the abbot in a soft voice.
“No. I was brought here in the middle of my all-night vigil praying for the soul of my sister by these two.” He pointed at the monks beside him.
“Did you ask them why?”
Tank hesitated. “No.”
The abbot nodded.
“I assumed it had something to do with the loud noises.”
The abbot nodded again. “And what led you to that conclusion?”
Tank shrugged. “It’s the only explanation I could think of.”
“And why were you in the crypt instead of in your cell as instructed?”
“In such a holy place I felt I could be closer to God than alone in my cell.”
The abbot’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Would you like to know about the loud noises?”
Tank shrugged. “Why not?”
The abbot leaned back. “Two men were murdered tonight inside our walls.”
Tank blinked. “Two?”
“Were you expecting more?”
“No.”
“Less?”
“No, no, I’m just surprised. Here, in a place of God—”
The abbot raised his hand. “Please, no more of that. Do you know who died?”
Tank crossed his legs. “How would I?”
“Perhaps you’ve seen them before?”
“I doubt it. I wouldn’t know such men.”
“Such men?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know the dead are not from among our own?”
Tank blanched. “You mean they killed monks?”
“Did you expect them to kill someone else?”
Tank uncrossed his legs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about two men, in full combat dress, equipped with night vision goggles and Kalashnikovs, each killed with a single shot to the head.” The abbot leaned forward and said in a firm, commanding voice, “Does that method of death sound familiar to you, sir?”
Devil of Delphi: A Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis Mystery Page 23
