Santorini Caesars (25 page)

The Prime Minister looked ahead at the police leading the way up the hill, smiled and waved at people shouting his name. He waved again for a TV camera up ahead.

“Sounds like I don't really have much of a choice. If there's no way to prove there's a plot or conspiracy, either I take the risk here today where we have a bit of warning or I take the risk every day for the rest of my life when we don't.”

“That's about how I see it. But obviously the call's up to you, not me.”

“Well, I guess you better run ahead. I'll tell my security chief to take orders from you. And by the way, I hope you don't mind me saying this, but deep down inside I'm praying you're insane.”

“Not at all,” Andreas said. “I hope so too.”

Chapter Twenty-four

About the only bit of luck Andreas felt he'd found so far was that one of the security agents possessed a sharpshooter's rifle and said he knew how to use it. Andreas sent him off to the top of the bell tower closest to the square with the best view of the ceremony. The square ran lengthwise roughly north-south, with its northern edge parallel to the southern wall of the old castle. The unlit tree stood in the middle of the square. Barely had the agent reached the tower when the crowd accompanying the Prime Minister up a cobbled path began pouring in from the east to an already packed square. Some folks climbed up onto the castle's southern wall, others moved to the western edge of the square along its drop-off to the hillside below. The Prime Minister soon stood surrounded on all sides.

Andreas had posted Petro and Yianni two meters on either side of where the Prime Minister now stood at the northern end of the square, facing the TV cameras, the tree beyond them, and hundreds of people gathered around it. Andreas stood directly behind the Prime Minister with his back to the castle's south wall and those perched on the wall behind him.

“Can you hear me?” Andreas said into his wrist mike. He pressed his other hand against his earpiece, waiting for a reply.

“Clear as a bell,” said Yianni.

“Me too,” said Petro.

“This is a pretty tight crowd for taking a long sniper shot,” said Andreas.

“Unless you don't care about taking out a few more in the process,” said Yianni.

“Then why not use a bomb?” said Petro. “There must be some misguided soul out there that those wealthy bastards could buy to die in exchange for a guaranteed better life for his family.”

“Let's hope that if there is, he or she is not here tonight,” said Andreas. “But as I said before, we have to stick with what brought us here, the assumption this will be a precision, military-style operation and not some sloppy bombing.”
Please, God.

He looked up at the tower at his sharpshooter. He had the best position of anyone.
Good
. Suddenly, Andreas swallowed hard.
What if
he's
the assassin
? It could be anyone. Petro was right. These people could reach anyone. And if he were the one, then the Chief of Special Crimes had just put him in position to assassinate the Prime Minister.

Terrific. A joint police and military conspiracy
.

“Get a grip,” he said aloud to himself and looked west. The sun stood cued to set right on time.

The mayor launched into his speech, generously thanking the Prime Minster for turning an event meant to shine the Christmas spirit across Santorini into a beacon of good cheer for all of Greece. The mayor got on a roll and by the time he'd turned the mike over to the Prime Minister, only a bare slice of the sun remained visible.

Halfway through the mayor's speech, all but one TV crew had turned from filming the mayor to catch the sunset. Now all cameras swung back to focus on the Prime Minister.

The bit of tension in the Prime Minister's voice might have been taken by some to be displeasure at the little time the mayor had left for him to speak. Andreas saw it differently. Bravado was fine until you're in the actual line of fire. Then you sweat.

The Prime Minister's speech lasted less than three minutes, consisting mostly of thank-yous to local dignitaries, but even that took longer than he seemed to want. He finished with a grand flourish of his arm toward the tree, “Santorini,
let there be light
.”

All but the same lone camera swung around to catch the moment the tree would burst into light. The blond male reporter's camera remained fixed on the Prime Minister.

It flashed across Andreas' mind in a blur: the cameras, the reporters, the vans, all expected, all wanted, all invisible. He screamed into his wrist mike. “It's the TV crew. The blond and his cameraman.”

Andreas leaped forward, seized the Prime Minister by the back of his collar, and yanked him back into the crowd behind them just as a blinding array of colored lights exploded from the tree in all directions. He'd pulled the PM to the bottom of the castle wall when Andreas heard the first sharp crack of pistol rounds, followed by screaming people. More pistol shots. More screaming. Andreas realized the assassins were firing in the air, trying to scatter the crowd away from the Prime Minister. He pushed a now-sprinting Prime Minister along the base of the castle wall toward its western end. They'd have to jump off the hilltop edge of the square. And they did, an instant before the first shots whizzed over their heads.

***

Yianni and Petro, with guns drawn, rushed west toward the sound of gunfire through a panicked crowd pressing at them in the opposite direction. As they neared the northwest corner of the square, the crowd opened up and Yianni saw the reporter crouched by the end of the castle wall, taking aim downward off the edge of the square at a wide ledge running three meters or so below that part of the square. Andreas and the Prime Minister must have fled there. Petro fired first, but missed. The reporter swung around, fired, and did not miss, catching Petro in the middle of his chest, then fired an immediate second round hitting Yianni squarely in a similar fatal spot. The reporter calmly returned his aim to what lay below as a distinctly higher-pitched crack came ringing down from above.

The bullet caught the side of the reporter's head, driving him sideways into the castle wall, bouncing him off the rock, and over the edge.

***

Andreas heard the body crash onto the ledge. He peeked out from behind the mess of building materials he and the Prime Minster huddled behind on the far north end of the same ledge. Andreas kept his gun focused on the downed assassin as he shouted into his wrist mike. “Yianni, Petro, where are you?”

No answer.

“
Yianni, Petro
,” he screamed.

Still no answer.

He pulled the Prime Minister closer. “There's still at least one assassin out there. And I can't reach my men.”

Out the corner of his eye, Andreas caught two men staring down at them from where the reporter's body had fallen. He raised his gun and fixed his aim on them.

“Prime Minister, are you okay?” yelled one of the men.

The Prime Minister touched Andreas' arm. “It's okay, they're from my security detail.” He stood up and yelled back, “Yes, I'm fine.”

Andreas stood, holstered his pistol, led the PM to the three-meter high cliff-face directly below the agents, and boosted him up into their waiting arms. Andreas backed up to the edge of the ledge, then ran for the cliff-face, vaulting himself high enough up the rock face to grab its top edge. The PM's agents took hold of Andreas' arms and pulled him up.

“Thanks. Have you seen—?” Andreas didn't move, just stared at the two bodies lying by the base of the castle wall. “
Get an ambulance
!” he shouted to the agents and ran to his men. He dropped to his knees, saw the bullet holes, and felt for a pulse.

He found one. Then he felt for another. Found that one too. They'd both been knocked out, either by the impact of the bullets or by striking their heads on the ground. No matter, they were alive.

Andreas shut his eyes, said a prayer, and crossed himself. “And thank you, too, Dear Lord, for ballistic vests.”

“Chief.”

Andreas looked up. It was the agent from the bell tower. “I got one of them, but the other one took off before I could get a bead on him.”

“Which way did he go?”

“Down toward where the vans are parked.”

“Do me a favor and stay with my men until the medics get here.”

“Will do.”

Andreas turned to leave, but stopped and looked at the agent. “That was great shooting. I owe you one. A big one.” And Andreas was off and running.

Andreas didn't have to know the way down; all he had to do was follow the stream of people still racing down the hill. When he came to the first of the media vans, he saw someone in the driver seat.

“Hey, buddy, did anyone from a media crew just go by here?”

“You mean leaving? Are you kidding me? This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for every reporter up there. I don't know if they'll ever leave.”

Andreas showed him his ID. “Think harder.”

“Well, come to think of it, a cameraman from an independent went by here in a hurry a few minutes ago.”

“Independent?”

“Yeah, they're the sort that do freelance work trying to sell whatever they come up with to anybody who'll take it. He might have left. They parked a rented green-and-white van by the main road. Never even tried to cut some distance off their hike to the top.”

For an easy getaway.
“Thanks.” Andreas ran down the hill to the main road. No green-and-white van.

The survivor had escaped.

He called Santorini's police chief, who was still up at the site of the ceremony, and told him about the van. The police chief said he'd already shut every road leading out of Pyrgos toward the ports and airport, and with Andreas' description of the van, they should have no trouble finding it, hopefully with the would-be assassin still in it.

Andreas had a gnawing feeling, though, that catching the suspect wouldn't be that easy. “How are my men?”

“A little groggy, but they'll be okay. They got hit with some powerful loads for a nine millimeter. You guys ought to get better vests. Those shooters came loaded for bear. Literally.”

“Thanks.” Andreas hung up, shut his eyes, and said another prayer.

A mustached old man in a Greek fisherman's hat and frayed denim work shirt sat smoking a cigarette in the doorway of a tiny white house across from where Andreas stood praying. “The missus doesn't let me smoke inside.”

Andreas nodded, forced a smile.

“Say, aren't you Sappho's friend?”

Andreas nodded again.

“I thought I recognized you. I watched you and two other guys walking up and down here with her most of the day.”

The last thing Andreas wanted now was to chit-chat. He had to figure out the assassin's next move.

“If it's Sappho you're looking for, she's in that taverna over there.” He pointed across the road.

“Thanks, but I'm looking for a green-and-white van.”

“Oh, that guy. He took off. Almost ran over my neighbor he was in such a hurry. Crazy driver. Doesn't even know where he's going.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because unless he's interested in checking out our southern beaches in December in the dark, or in some moonlight sightseeing down in the village of Emborio, he should have turned right. That's what gets you to the ports and airport. But he went left.”

“What's to the left?”

“The Monastery of Profitis Ilias.”

Andreas nodded.

The old man puffed on his cigarette. “And that military radar station the monks keep praying for God to kick off their mountaintop.”

Andreas' mouth dropped open. “Did you say a military radar station? Are you sure?”

Nod. “Lived here all my life—”

“Thank you.” Andreas sprinted across the road and into the taverna. Sappho sat with a group of men huddle around a table staring up at TV coverage of what had just gone down at the top of the village.

He grabbed Sappho by her arm. “Is your car here?”

“What's going on?
Is Petro okay
?” The news says people have been shot, but they're not giving details beyond saying the Prime Minister is safe and unharmed.”

“Yes, he's fine. I'll tell you everything on the way. Let's go.”

She stumbled out behind him, as he led her by her arm. “Go where?”

“The radar station up by the monastery.”

Sappho drove as Andreas called the Santorini police chief and every ministry official he could think of who could alert the radar station that an assassin was headed their way. But no one could get through.

That's when he called for backup.

***

The first minutes of the usual nine-minute drive from Pyrgos to the monastery ran through the village's modern outskirts along a broad two-lane road passing by closely spaced one- and two-story traditional homes. That abruptly changed when the road turned serpentine climbing up the mountain toward the monastery. The two lanes shrank to barely more than one, presenting only a bit of dirt shoulder to the side of the road pressed against the mountain, while the opposite side offered a cliffside drop. But traffic still buzzed along in both directions.

The sky held enough light for Andreas to make out the broad details of the mountain. Gray, beige, and green splotches of unrecognizable vegetation along the hillsides, wind-battered slim green trees clinging haphazardly to the edges of the road, the odd stone wall holding back erosion, and a rare building strategically placed to take advantage of the stunning views.

He kept assuring Sappho that Petro was fine, and asked what she knew about the radar station.

“There's an entrance close to the one for the monastery. It has an up-and-down, single-pole gate, sliding metal gates, and a guard posted twenty-four/seven. A road leads around from there to radio towers and dishes twenty meters or so from some monastery buildings. It was built in the 1960s and the Greek military operates it for NATO. The monks hate it, but can't get the Greek government to remove it. They like NATO money too much.”

“What's the layout past the front gate?”

“I haven't been in there since my father took me when I was a kid. He had a friend who worked there and he wanted me to see what it was like so I wouldn't be curious and go exploring on my own. He said it's dangerous up there. Too much radiation.”

“Do you remember anything about what you saw?”

“Just look at the mountain and you'll see the towers. They're the island's biggest eyesore.”