The Fifth Profession (3 page)

“You didn't learn his name, I hope.”

“I never spoke to him directly, only through intermediaries.”

“Good.”

“Which brings me to my problem.”

“Miss Stone, another force of habit. Don't be specific in this room.”

“No one can overhear us. There aren't any hidden microphones.”

“What makes you sure?”

“My bodyguards checked it this morning.”

“In that case, I repeat …”

“Don't be specific in this room? My bodyguards didn't impress you?”

“They impressed me, all right.”

“But not the proper way?”

“I try not to criticize.”

“Another commendable habit. Very well, then, Savage.” Her smile matched the glint of her diamond earrings. She leaned from her chair and touched his hand. “Would you like to see some ruins?”

4

The black Rolls-Royce veered from traffic to stop in an oval parking lot. Savage and two of the bodyguards got out—the third had remained at the hotel to watch the suite. After the guards assessed the passing crowd, they nodded toward the car's interior.

Joyce Stone stepped smoothly out, flanked by her guards. “Circle the area. We'll be back in an hour,” she told her driver, who eased the Rolls back into traffic.

She turned, amused, toward Savage. “You keep surprising me.”

“Oh?”

“Back at the hotel, you objected to my sitting near a window, but you haven't said a word about my going out in public.”

“Being famous doesn't mean you have to be a hermit. As long as you don't advertise your schedule, an accomplished driver can make it difficult for someone to follow you.” Savage gestured toward the swarm of traffic. “Especially in Athens. Besides, you know how to dress to match your surroundings. To echo a compliment you gave me, you're adaptable.”

“It's a trick I learned when I was an actress. One of the hardest roles … to look average.”

She'd changed before they left the hotel. Now in place of her designer slacks and blouse, she wore faded jeans and a loose gray turtleneck sweater. Her diamonds were gone. Her watch was a Timex. Her shoes were dusty Reeboks. Her distinctive sun-bleached hair had been tucked beneath a floppy straw hat. Sunglasses hid her intense blue eyes.

Though pedestrians had paused to study the Rolls, they'd shown little interest in the woman who got out.

“You're playing the part successfully,” Savage said. “At the moment, a producer wouldn't hire you, even for a walk-on.”

She curtsied mockingly.

“I do have one suggestion,” he said.

“Somehow I knew you would have.”

“Stop using the Rolls.”

“But it gives me pleasure.”

“You can't always have what you want. Save the Rolls for special occasions. Buy a high-performance but neutral-looking car. Of course, it would have to be modified.”

“Of course.”

“Reinforced windows. Clouded glass in the rear. Bullet-proof paneling.”

“Of course.”

“Don't humor me, Miss Stone.”

“I'm not. It's just that I enjoy a man who enjoys his work.”

“Enjoy? I don't do this for fun. My work saves lives.”

“And you've never failed?”

Savage hesitated. Caught by surprise, he felt a rush of torturous memories. The flash of a sword. The gush of blood. “Yes,” he said. “Once.”

“Your honesty amazes me.”

“And
only
once. That's why I'm so meticulous, why I'll never fail again. But if my truthfulness gives you doubts about me …”

“On the contrary. My third movie was a failure. I could have ignored it, but I admitted it. And learned from it. I won the Oscar because I tried harder, although it took me seven more films.”

“A movie isn't life.”

“Or death? You should have seen the reviews of that third movie. I was buried.” “So will we all.”

“Be buried? Don't be depressing, Savage.”

“Did no one tell you the facts of life?”

“Sex? I learned that early. Death? That's why a man like you exists. To postpone it as long as possible.”

“Yes, death,” Savage said. “The enemy.”

5

They followed a tour group toward the western slope of the Acropolis, the traditional approach to the ruins since the other ridges were far too steep for convenient walkways. Past fir trees, they reached an ancient stone entrance, known as the Beulé Gate.

“Have you been here before?”

“Several times,” Savage said.

“So have I. Still, I wonder if you come for the same reason I do.”

Savage waited for her to explain.

“Ruins teach us a lesson. Nothing—wealth, fame, power—nothing is permanent.”

“ ‘Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair.’ “

She turned to him, impressed. “That's from Shelley's ‘Ozymandias.’ “

“I went to a thorough prep school.”

“But you don't give the name of the school. Anonymous as usual. Do you remember the rest of the poem?”

Savage shrugged.

”… Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Shelley understood precision. If he'd been Japanese, he'd have written great haikus.”

“A bodyguard quoting poetry?”

“I'm not exactly a bodyguard, Miss Stone. I do more than run interference.”

“What are you then?”

“An executive protector. You know, except for the sand, the ruins Shelley describes remind me of …”

Savage gestured toward the steps they climbed. The marble had been eroded by time, by use, by various invaders, and worst of all, by automobile exhaust.

They passed through a monument called the Propylaea, its precious decaying walkway protected by a wooden floor. Five gateways of columns grew wider and taller, leading them to a path that split right and left.

After the cloying heat of summer, September's moderate temperature brought the start of the tourist season. Sightseers jostled past them, some out of breath from the climb, others taking photographs of monuments on either side, the Precinct of Brauronia and the less impressive House of Arrhephoroi.

“Tell your guards to walk behind us,” Savage said. “I'll watch ahead.”

Turning right, they proceeded to the vast rectangular Parthenon. In 1687, a conflict between invaders had resulted in a Venetian bomb's igniting a Turkish gunpowder magazine in the Parthenon, which in ancient times had been a temple devoted to the Greek goddess of purity, Athena. The explosion had destroyed a considerable part of the monument, toppling pillars and much of the roof. Restoration was still in progress. Scaffolding obscured the magnificence of surviving Doric columns. Guardrails kept visitors from further eroding the interior.

Savage turned from the tourists, approaching the precipitous southern ridge of the Acropolis. He leaned against a fallen pillar. Athens sprawled below him. The earlier breeze had died. Despite a brilliant clear sky, smog had begun to gather.

“We can talk here without being overheard,” Savage said. “Miss Stone, the reason I'm not sure I want to work for you—”

“But you haven't heard why I need you.”

“—is that an executive protector is both a servant and a master. You control your life—where you go and what you do—but your protector insists on how you get there and under what terms you do it. A delicate balance. But you've got a reputation for being willful. I'm not sure you're prepared to take orders from someone you employ.”

Sighing, she sat beside him. “If
that's
your problem, then there
isn't
a problem.”

“I don't understand.”

“The trouble isn't mine. It's my sister's.”

“Explain.”

“Do you know about her?”

“Rachel Stone. Ten years your junior. Thirty-five. Married a New England senator campaigning to be president. Widowed because of an unknown assassin's bullet. Her association with politics and a movie-legend sister made her glamorous. A Greek shipping magnate courted her. They married last year.”

“I give you credit. You do your homework.”

“No less than you.”

“Their marriage is like the Parthenon. A ruin.” Joyce Stone rummaged through her burlap purse. Finding a pack of cigarettes, she fumbled with a lighter.

“You're not a gentleman,” she snapped.

“Because I won't light your cigarette? I just explained, when it comes to protection,
you're
the servant and I'm the master.”

“That doesn't make sense.”

“It does if you realize I have to keep my hands free in case someone threatens you. Why did you ask to see me?”

“My sister wants a divorce.”

“Then she doesn't need me. What she needs is a lawyer.”

“Her bastard husband won't allow it. She's his prisoner till she changes her mind.”

“Prisoner?”

“She's not in chains, if that's what you're thinking. But she's a prisoner all the same. And she's not being tortured.” She managed to light her cigarette. “Unless you count being raped morning, noon, and night. To remind her of what she'd miss, he says. She needs a true man, he says. What he needs is a bullet through his obscene brain. Do you carry a gun?” she asked, exhaling smoke.

“Seldom.”

“Then what good are you?”

Savage stood from the column. “You've made a mistake, Miss Stone. If you want an assassin—”

“No! I want my sister!”

He eased back onto the column. “You're talking about a retrieval.”

“Whatever you want to call it.”

“If I decide to take the assignment, my fee …”

“I'll pay you a million dollars.”

“You're a poor negotiator. I might have settled for less.”

“But that's what I'm offering.”

“Assuming I accept, I'll want half in an escrow account at the start, the other half when I deliver. Plus expenses.”

“Stay in the best hotels for all I care. Spend as much as you want on meals. A few extra thousand hardly matters.”

“You don't understand. When I say ‘expenses,’ I'm thinking of as much as several
hundred
thousand.”

“What?”

“You're asking me to antagonize one of the most powerful men in Greece. What's he worth? Fifty billion? His security will be extensive, costly to breach. Tell me where your sister is. I'll do a risk analysis. A week from now, I'll tell you if I can get her.”

She stubbed out her cigarette and slowly turned. “Why?”

“I'm not sure what you mean.”

“I get the feeling this job's more important to you than the money. Why would you consider accepting my offer?”

For a chilling instant, Savage had a mental image of steel glinting, of blood spraying. He repressed the memory, avoiding her question. “You told your driver ‘an hour.’ It's just about time. Let's go,” he said. “And when we get back to the car, tell him to take an indirect route to your hotel.”

6

Adhering to his own advice, Savage used an indirect route to return to the Acropolis, or rather to an area immediately north of it—to the Plaka, the principal tourist shopping district in Athens. He entered narrow, crowded streets lined with myriad markets and shops. Despite the renewed bitter smog, he detected the aroma of smoking shish kebob, which soon gave way to the fragrance of freshly cut flowers. Loud vendors gesticulated toward handcrafted carpets, leather goods, pottery, copper urns, and silver bracelets. He reached a labyrinth of alleys, paused in an alcove, satisfied himself that he wasn't under surveillance, and proceeded past a tavern to a neighboring shop that sold wineskins.

Inside, the wineskins hung in bunches from hooks on rafters, their leather smell strong but pleasant. Savage bowed to pass beneath them, approaching an overweight woman behind a counter.

His knowledge of Greek was limited. He spoke in memorized phrases. “I need a special product. A wineskin of a different type. If your esteemed employer could spare a few moments to see me …”

“Your name?” the woman asked.

“Please tell him it's the opposite of gentle.”

She nodded respectfully and turned to proceed up a stairway. Seconds later, she came back, gesturing for him to ascend.

Passing an alcove from which a beard-stubbled man with a shotgun studied him, Savage climbed the stairs. At the top, a door was open. Through it, Savage saw a room—bare except for a desk, behind which a muscular man in a black suit poured a clear liqueur into a glass.

When Savage entered, the man peered up in surprise, as if he hadn't been notified he had a visitor. “Can it be a ghost?” Though Greek, the man spoke English.

Savage grinned. “I admit I've been a stranger.”

“An ungrateful wretch, who hasn't seen fit to keep in touch and maintain our friendship.”

“Business kept me away.”

“This so-called business must have been truly mythic.”

“It had importance. But now I make up for my absence.” Savage set the Greek equivalent of ten thousand U.S. dollars onto the desk. Spreading the bills, he covered the pattern of circular stains made by the glass refilled compulsively each day with ouzo. A licorice scent—the aniseed in the ouzo— filled the room.

The middle-aged Greek noticed Savage's glance toward the liqueur. “May I tempt you?”

“As you know, I seldom drink.”

“A character flaw for which I forgive you.”

The Greek swelled his chest and chuckled deeply. He showed no sign of his alcoholism. Indeed the ouzo, like formaldehyde, seemed to have preserved his body. Clean-shaven, with glinting, superbly cut black hair, he sipped from his glass, set it down, and studied the money. His swarthy skin exuded health.

Nonetheless he looked troubled as he counted the money. “Too generous, Excessive, You worry me.”

“I've also arranged for a gift. Within an hour, if you agree to supply the information I need, a messenger will deliver a case of the finest ouzo.”

“Truly the finest? You know my preference.”

“I do indeed. But I've taken the liberty of choosing a rarer variety.”

“How rare?”

Savage gave a name.

“Extremely generous.”

“A tribute to your talent,” Savage said.

“As you say in your country”—the man sipped from his glass—”you're an officer and a gentleman.”

“Ex-officer,” Savage corrected him. He wouldn't have volunteered this personal detail if the Greek hadn't known it already. “And
you
are a trusted informant. How long has it been since I first negotiated for your services?”