An Aegean Prophecy (19 page)

As they walked between the stone walls back to the car Kouros said, ‘Do you really expect them to believe your
wild-ass story about this being the Greek police and coast guard working together to protect our citizens from known boat thieves? I don’t think even the kid believed you.’

Andreas grinned. ‘I didn’t hear you coming up with a better one. Besides, the old man believed us, and he’s who’ll be telling the story in the coffee shops. And it only has to hold up until we get the bad guys to talk.’

‘Well, let’s hope it works as well as your “let’s be obvious” plan did.’

Andreas smiled and started up the slope to where the car was parked. Neither spoke as they angled up the steep, slippery hillside and over the wall onto the road. They made it without dropping a thing out of the bags. ‘Yeah, no way I wanted to go up against those guys hand-to-hand, even if the family wasn’t at risk.’

Kouros shook his head. ‘They must have thought we were the dumbest cops alive the way we came strolling up to the house.’

‘Thank God they did. Flushed them right into the waiting arms of the coast guard. No way for them to run off and hide in the middle of the sea. I was praying they’d go for the boat. Otherwise, it would have been one hell of a chase through the hills. And forget about trying to keep that sort of operation quiet.’

‘Yeah, Maggie said she keeps getting calls from the press trying to get an angle on where you are and what you’re doing.’

Andreas shook his head. ‘I don’t understand why they keep looking for me. The minister made it clear all media on this goes through him.’

Kouros smiled. ‘That’s what she keeps telling them, and they keep saying, “Yeah, but we want to talk to someone who actually knows what’s going on.”’

Andreas smiled. ‘I prefer having the entire Greek military at our disposal and letting the minister have the press.’

‘What did you say to inspire him to get us that kind of help?’

‘I told him we thought we’d cornered the killers, but unless we had immediate coast guard cooperation, there was a guaranteed hostage situation involving professional killers and the likely deaths of more innocents on Patmos during Easter Week.’

‘So he got the hint.’

‘And the chance to claim credit for the capture, but I told him not to put it out to the media until we’re certain they are the ones we are looking for. Because if they aren’t, they’re monks from Mount Athos on a true pilgrimage and wrongfully accusing them of killing a fellow monk would get career-ending pressure from the church for everyone involved.’

‘I assume he got that point, too.’

Andreas nodded. ‘So now it’s time for us to join our coast guard friends and their new guests. We’re meeting them on one of those virtually deserted islands between here and Turkey.’

‘Why there?’

‘Can’t risk word leaking out that we might have caught Vassilis’ killers. The media would be all over us. No way the press will find us where the coast guard is taking them. The only ones living over there are isolated families
subsidized by the Greek government to stay put, so that the Turks can’t claim the islands are abandoned.’ Andreas opened the back door of the police car and put some of the bags inside.

‘How do you plan on getting them to talk?’

Andreas lifted the rest of the bags. ‘Something will come to me, but if not, I’m sure you’ll come up with suitable ideas.’

Kouros burst into a broad smile and nodded in a way reminding him of Tassos.

‘Yianni, remember, innocent until proven guilty.’ He said that as much to remind himself. But no cop really believed it. Not if they wanted to stay alive among scum like those three murdering bastards.

Evening prayers during Easter Week always exerted particular strain on Zacharias. The sound of the mallet striking the long wooden cymbal-like
symantron
signaled another long night alone in his cell wondering what was going on outside the monastery walls. Tonight he simply couldn’t concentrate until, in a glance from the abbot, he sensed that his disinterest might be showing. Instantly, his demeanor changed, and once more Kalogeros Zacharias was among the holiest and most dedicated of the prayerful. A fact he actually believed was true.

The rapes, the murders, the genocide had not been committed by him but by some nonexistent being out of a past cleansed pure by his dedicated piety, rejection of the corruptions and temptations of the temporal world, and single-minded commitment to spreading those same values
throughout his church. But that required an army of brave men, thirsting for change, inspired by a goal. Those were not of the sort to be found among the powerful, for their zeal ran only to protecting their privileges. No, he knew where to find his warriors; the same places as he had in the past: on the fringes of life, men who felt powerless, waiting for a message to unite them in common cause.

And with the ‘we must find a savior’ message he’d fashioned from Revelation, he found his men among each monastery’s neglected and overlooked and unified them around a passionate, shared priority: Mount Athos must become home to the Ecumenical Patriarch, and the vast riches of the church made to pass through the largesse of a lens of moral piety, not bartered away in marketplace corruptions.

He knew their goal faced serious obstacles, but he saw only two: rivals in the church, and the Russians. The first was proving not as insurmountable as he once thought. Jealousies among the monasteries and disillusionment of their monks primed many for change, and the endless scandals rocking all of Greece provided a roaring catalyst. The country no longer trusted its leaders, and many prayed for a strong, decisive deliverer. The growing influence of his flock in virtually every monastery amazed even Zacharias. A united front was building, one difficult for other rivals in Greece, and indeed, elsewhere in the Orthodox world, to oppose.

The Russians presented a more difficult problem. They did not play by the same rules of morality. So be it.

The place the coast guard picked was among a cluster of barely inhabited, rock-strewn, hilly islands about ten miles north of Patmos. Though small, it still was big enough so that whatever went on in a cove to the northwest wouldn’t disturb the family of goat herders living at the southern end.

One of the Zodiacs from the operation, minus mounted machine gun, met Andreas and Kouros at the port in Skala and had them on the island twenty minutes later. Only a bit of daylight was left by the time they started up the beach toward a tiny, all-white structure. It had a round roof and sat nestled on a ledge about twenty yards above the shore.

‘You’d think they could have found a better place to do this,’ said Kouros.

Andreas smiled. ‘I don’t know, I think it might be fate.’

Light was coming from inside the building through the
only window they could see. There were no windows on the front side, only a blue door facing west - in the tradition of all Greek churches, even those in the most remote of places. A man in his early twenties, about Andreas’ size, was standing next to the door watching them approach. Andreas waved as he walked up to him, then patted him on the shoulder. ‘Great job, sailor.’

The man nodded. ‘Thank you, sir. The captain is inside with the prisoners.’ He pushed open the door.

The space inside the church was cramped, but neat and clean, as if tended to every day. A military issue, battery-powered lantern stood on a small table next to the door. The required icons were in their proper places, but there was no candle stand. As if reading Andreas’ mind, the captain said, ‘We took it out. No reason to give our friends here anything to swing at us in case they decide to get frisky.’ He smiled. ‘Again.’

The three prisoners sat in a row at the captain’s feet, legs tied together straight out in front of them, and tied again to each other’s. Their hands appeared tied behind their backs. On either side of the row stood a sailor, each armed with a twelve-gauge short-barrel semiautomatic shotgun. They were the best for close work and gave an unmistakable message to the three on the floor: the end is near and here if you want it. From the way the three looked, Andreas doubted they were anxious to test that possibility.

Andreas pointed to the man in the middle. ‘Looks like his face ran into a door a half dozen times.’ The others didn’t look much better.

The captain laughed. ‘They’re big boys, and I guess they
thought my little guys couldn’t handle them. They took a run at these two,’ he pointed to the sailors holding the shotguns, ‘when we brought them on board the cutter from the
caique.
They were wrong.’ The captain smiled again, then kicked the one closest to him on the bottom of one foot. ‘Assholes.’

‘Captain, thank you very much. We’ll take it from here,’ said Andreas.

‘You want us to leave you alone with them?’ He sounded worried.

‘Don’t worry, we can handle it. Just leave a shotgun with my buddy here. He once was one of you.’ Andreas nodded toward Kouros.

The captain smiled. ‘Another sea-sucking
lokazides
?’

Kouros grinned and gave the captain and the two other sailors some archaic hand-slap that must have meant something to the shared DYK special ops brotherhood of Greece’s equivalent of U.S. Navy Seals.

Andreas had insisted to the minister that the operation use only coast guard vessels so as not to attract unusual attention, and that the men involved must be able to handle trained military types willing and capable of killing without hesitation. So the minister sent in the big boys.

‘We’ll be right outside. If you need anything, just holler.’ The captain glared at the three on the floor and followed his two men out the door.

Kouros took up a position looking straight down the line of prisoners, leaving no doubt what would happen if they tried anything with the new guy holding the shotgun.

Andreas smiled. ‘You guys have had quite a day. First a
stroll in the country, then a boat ride, now a bit of prayer and meditation. But, oh yes, I forgot you’re used to that. So, do you miss the monastery?’

No answer.

‘Okay, I understand, these are not the best circumstances for us to get to know each other, but it’s all the time we have.’

Silence.

‘Now, now, you’re not going to tell me you’ve taken a vow of silence are you?’

Not a word.

This was going nowhere, thought Andreas. Time to take another risk. ‘I don’t understand, Kalogeros Zacharias wouldn’t have sent you if you had.’

It was as if someone had touched the three with an electric cattle prod. The prisoner in the middle said something in Serbian to the others.

Andreas shook his head. ‘Fellas, the party is over. We know where you came from, and you know where you’re going. The only question is whether it’s prison for the rest of your lives - for war crimes.’ He guessed that at least one of them had that worry, possibly all of them.

Kouros shrugged and tightened his grip on the shotgun.

‘No matter. Besides I’m sure you boys know more about that than I do.’

‘Fuck you.’ It was the prisoner in the middle.

Must have guessed right. ‘Nice to meet you, too. The name’s Andreas.’

‘We have nothing to say.’

Andreas nodded, and walked over to a bag he’d brought
with him. Carefully he lifted it from the floor and stood holding it in front of the three men. He shook his head. ‘Would you like to see what I have in here for you?’

The middle one spoke again. ‘Fuck you, we’re not afraid. We’ve been tortured before.’

Andreas looked surprised. ‘Torture, who’s talking torture?’ He reached into the bag, pulled out and pointed a cylinder in the man’s face. ‘Here, bite this.’

The man jerked his head back and away from the thing, studied it, leaned forward, and sniffed at it. Then he took a bite.

‘Good, huh?’ Andreas gave the others the same choice, and each accepted. Then he went up and down the line until the sausage was finished. ‘I know it’s a little awkward doing things this way, but I’m sure you understand why I can’t untie your hands.’ He reached into the bag, pulled out some bread, and repeated the process.

‘Cheese?’

The three nodded. One even said, ‘Thank you.’

After another round of sausage, Andreas opened a bottle of wine. ‘Hope you don’t mind sharing.’ Carefully, he held the bottle up to each prisoner’s lips, allowing each man to comfortably drink as much as the man wanted. Andreas kept this up until the bottle was empty. Then gave them more sausages, another bottle of wine, more cheese, another bottle of wine, more cheese, and more wine. It took about a half-hour for the feast to finish.