Lavat nodded. ‘I assumed as much. And are you now going to try and find where the Greek discovered this pathogen that killed him?’
‘Yes,’ Richter said, ‘I am definitely going to find the source of those germs. And I’m really sorry that you lost a police officer over this business.’
In fact, the mountain road wasn’t anything like as good as Krywald had hoped, but it was better than he had feared, so they reached Chora Sfakia by mid afternoon. It wasn’t a big place, and locating the diving supplies shop was easy. Finding the owner, or at least somebody to open the door so that they could collect the equipment Nicholson had booked for them, proved much more difficult.
The Spanish have the word
This realization dawned on Krywald when the shop’s proprietor, a lanky, bald and burnt-brown Greek Cypriot named Monedes, finally turned up a little after five-thirty, weaving from side to side as he made his unsteady progress down the street. He smiled happily at Krywald and Stein and belched at them an unwholesome mix of stale garlic and
Monedes clearly spoke nothing but Greek, and frankly Krywald was surprised he could still remember any language at all after the prolonged and largely liquid lunch he had obviously enjoyed. Stein therefore handled the negotiations, such as they were, in that language.
‘You have a booking for us, I hope, in the name of Wilson? A boat and some diving equipment?’
Monedes stared at him as though through a haze. ‘A booking?’ he echoed as he leaned against the shop doorway while fumbling with a large bunch of keys.
‘Wilson. The name is Wilson,’ Stein repeated with as much patience as he could muster. ‘The booking was made by phone from America.’
Monedes’s face cleared somewhat, but it was only because he had finally found the right key. ‘Come in, come in,’ he said cheerfully, turning the key in the lock and pushing open the door. The Cypriot staggered over to the counter and lurched behind it. ‘What can I get you?’ he asked as he reached down and pulled up a glass bottle half-full of a clear liquid with a very faint bluish tinge. The label identified it as ‘Raki’, an alternative name for
Stein waved the bottle away and repeated his question, but Monedes appeared totally engrossed in removing the top.
‘We need a boat and some aqualungs,’ Stein said.
‘I have aqualungs,’ Monedes giggled. ‘Lots of aqualungs. You’ve come to the right place.’ He finally unscrewed the bottle cap, smiled at the two men, put the neck of it to his lips and took a gulp. Then he slammed the bottle back on the counter, gazed unsteadily at Stein for about a minute, pointed towards the open door with his left hand and slowly toppled sideways.
‘Shit,’ Krywald growled as the Greek hit the floor. ‘That’s all we needed right now.’
Stein stepped forward to check that Monedes was still breathing, then rolled the unconscious man onto his side into the recovery position. ‘He’ll have the mother of all hangovers when he finally wakes up.’
‘Yeah, well that’s
‘That’s not really a problem. We can pick it up in the morning,’ Stein said. ‘Look, it’s too late for him to do any diving today anyway. We can go find a hotel, get back here first thing in the morning and we’ll still have the job done by lunchtime. That means we can be out of here tomorrow afternoon and on our way back to the States tomorrow night.’
Krywald considered this for a moment. ‘Yeah, I guess so,’ he nodded. ‘Go fetch Elias and the car, and we’ll see what we can find here.’
Chapter 14
Thursday
‘Hullo, John,’ Jayne Taylor murmured, as Westwood pushed open the outer door to the office of the Director of Operations (Clandestine Services) and walked in. ‘Good morning, Jayne. You’re looking good.’ As she invariably did, in fact, Westwood thought, and wondered again at the rumours that periodically surfaced about the precise nature of the relationship between Walter Hicks and his personal assistant. Jayne Taylor’s coal-black hair and huge brown eyes had inspired more than one fantasy even in Westwood, who had a wife he adored and two children he doted on, though this mental image crumbled almost immediately he included the lumbering figure of Walter Hicks.
‘Thank you, kind sir.’ Jayne Taylor smiled back at him. ‘You can go right in – he’s expecting you.’
Westwood headed across to the inner office door, knocked and entered.
‘Hi, John. Take a seat and grab a coffee.’ Hicks gestured towards the conference table where another man was already sitting. He was wearing a ‘Visitor’ tag so Westwood knew immediately that he wasn’t Company personnel.
‘Frank, this is John Westwood. He’s the head of the Foreign Intelligence Staff here at Langley, and he’ll act as your CIA liaison officer for the duration of this investigation.’
‘What investigation?’ Westwood asked.
‘All in good time, John,’ Hicks said. ‘Right, this is Detective Delaney of the Washington DC Police Department, who’s actually heading up this case.’
Delaney was slightly overweight, had lost most of his hair and was perspiring gently even in the air- conditioned cool of the office. ‘The name’s Frank, Mr Westwood,’ he said, clambering to his feet and extending his hand.
‘And I’m John,’ Westwood replied, before sitting down opposite him.
‘OK,’ Hicks said. ‘John knows nothing about this yet, so perhaps you could fill him in on why you’re here, Frank.’
‘Sure.’ Delaney placed his arms squarely on the table in front of him. ‘Yesterday two former employees of the Central Intelligence Agency died in mysterious circumstances. One was certainly murdered and the other died as a result of a drug overdose, but we’re reasonably sure it wasn’t either an accident or suicide.’
Westwood pulled a cup and saucer towards him and reached out for the coffee pot. ‘Who were these two men?’ he asked.
‘The man who was clearly murdered was James Richards. He was a widower who lived alone in a small community called Crystal Springs – that’s just south of the old Route 66, about twelve, fifteen miles west of DC. He had a small house in a quiet area and none of his neighbours seemed to know him well. Certainly none of them knew he was ex-CIA: they all seemed to think he’d been involved in some kind of communications business.’
Westwood poured his coffee and took a sip.
‘Richards was found this morning by a neighbour who had noticed that his front door was slightly ajar. She knocked, but got no reply and went inside. She found Richards lying beside the fireplace in his lounge, his head stove in and blood everywhere. She screamed and ran out to dial nine one one.’ Delaney was warming to his theme. ‘Now obviously Richards was murdered – that’s not in dispute – and he died yesterday evening. The initial medical report suggests around ten to ten-thirty local time – not earlier than nine and not later than midnight. What bothers us were some anomalies at the crime scene.’
Delaney held up a slightly podgy hand and began ticking off points on his fingers in turn. ‘First, he had a non-fatal bullet wound inflicted by a small-calibre weapon on his left upper arm, but none of his neighbours heard anything resembling a gunshot yesterday evening, though all of them we’ve interviewed were at home when Richards must have died. That means whoever pulled the trigger was using a silencer, which is not a common
