wheel, Mustache in back. Grisly work, covering the driver’s hands and jacket with blood and road grit. He washed his hands with a water bottle and threw the jacket over the ledge.
Fotis leaned into the car and removed Mustache’s wallet, then placed his own bent fedora on the dead man’s head. Unwilling to part with a passport, he settled for tucking his box of Turkish cigarettes in the bloodied suit jacket. The gray mustache contributed nicely to the effect. Of course, the man was thirty years younger at least, but who knew, after the effects of a hundred-foot fall, it might fool someone, even briefly. He would take any small advantage he could get. Simple confusion would suffice.
A moment’s hesitation as full dark took hold. Taki had not been quite dead when the driver checked on him before. What if he lived yet? His troubled sister’s only child. Fotis had never really liked the boy, but he had been loyal, and now the old man was gripped by a deep and unfamiliar sorrow. Something like loneliness. He knew that this feeling, like the fear, would thicken with time, but he had no energy for either emotion right now. There was just enough to do what must be done. If Taki was not dead he would be an empty husk, no good to anyone. Probably he was dead. Let it be so. Fotis signaled the driver.
The young man grabbed the open door for balance, reached in, put the car in drive, hit the gas pedal with his right foot, and pivoted away on his left. The Mercury lurched, rolled, then teetered on the worn, dusty ledge, before tipping like a toy car. Then it was gone in a cloud of loose soil. They heard a thump, followed by a more decisive crunch far below. Fotis shuffled to the ledge and peered down into darkness. He could barely make out the car’s scraped, oily underside, like an exposed insect. There was no smoke and the gas tank had not ignited. Only at that moment did he see lights approaching from the west.
He waved the driver into the Peugeot and got into the back himself.
“Pull into that little lay-by ahead. No lights.”
The car from the west passed a few moments later, slowed somewhat where the Mercury had gone over, but then continued on. Fotis waited, and the wait nearly undid him. His aches reached him all at once, taking his breath away. Fatigue stunned his brain, he could think of nothing. He almost believed that none of it had happened, that the shaggy head before him was his nephew, and the Snake had merely been sleeping. A terrible, terrible dream. His hands shook, dampness was on his cheeks.
“What now?” asked the young man quietly.
The old man drew a wet, heavy breath.
“You’re the driver. So drive.”
PART THREE
EPIROS, 1944
The trail was hard-packed earth, turning to stone, and Captain
Elias could not locate footprints or other signs of recent use.
He passed the tiny, burned-out village of Nikolaos, no more than a dozen scorched stone walls, on the largest of which some communist andarte had painted in large white letters: What have you done for the struggle today, Patriot? At Mary’s chapel, still well maintained, the path seemed to end, but the captain was able to pick it up again on the far side. It was indeed desolate ground, as Giorgios had said. High and rocky, no good for goats or planting. Only for God. The religious always claimed this sort of place.
Gregori’s chapel was easily visible a hundred meters above, although at first Elias had mistaken it for a boulder. It was the color of the gray stones surrounding it, walls and dome having faded years ago. Only the dark rectangle of the entry gave the place away. A nearly indecipherable path ran up to it. There were no trees, just a large rock or two, very little cover. The slope fell away sharply to the left and right, so it was straight up. The captain’s only advantage was that the doorway faced directly into the just- risen sun, and the little dell in which he stood was still in shadow.
Anger and the heedlessness of exhaustion drove him up the hill. He ignored the trail, using the rocks as he could, sliding left and right in no definite rhythm so as to make a poor target. Halfway up he heard a sharp crack, and a small stone jumped three meters to his left. Elias darted behind the last rock of any size between himself and the chapel. A wide miss; either Kosta was warning him, or something impaired his aim-perhaps he was injured? Elias drew his own pistol, rolled right and risked slipping down the steep slope, then scrambled toward the domed cell from a more oblique angle. He reached the structure’s northeast corner without drawing more fire. Now what? He could race in, shooting, but that would deprive him of the answers he sought. He could try to bargain, but Kosta would never believe that he would spare his life. The pistol shot was his only clue. Some hesitation there.
“Kosta, put down the gun, I’m coming in.”
To his surprise, the captain heard two voices within, arguing softly but urgently. It might be his only opportunity. Three quick strides and in the door. He saw the figure in back first, a cringing monk in a cassock, then someone just inside the entry, crouched in the shadows, head turned away. Elias struck hard with the pistol butt, and the crouching figure dropped as the monk cried out.
“Don’t hurt him, Captain, please.”
Elias looked about as his eyes adjusted to the shadows. The chamber was small, no hiding places. It was just these two. The one at his feet now appeared to be a boy, ten or eleven, a pistol loosely clasped in his limp fingers. Ioannes, Kosta’s younger brother. Then the voice of the monk registered with him and Elias looked hard at the man.
“Kosta.”
He sat behind a small, crooked table. The cassock was really a long, loose shirt, beneath which stained, hasty bandages were visible. A pink discoloration ran up his neck and disfigured part of his face in a ghoulish whorl. The right eye was squeezed shut and leaking fluid, and much of his hair was gone. Only the left side of the face preserved that handsomeness that had so charmed women and men alike, until just a few hours before. An empty wine bottle was on the table before him, the last of its contents in the cup Kosta gripped with his left hand, while tiny bits of something, paper or cloth, were by his right.
The icon leaned against the wall beside him, the two panels slightly split, but otherwise undamaged. Mother Mary’s eyes stared at the captain, seizing him with that dual power of judgment and forgiveness which Mikalis had always spoken of. It had soothed the priest. The captain felt only anger. All this for you, he thought, returning the painted stare. My brother, the old man, this young one, how many more over the years? A pagan goddess is all you are, demanding blood sacrifice. You should have burned. He lifted the pistol, as if to put out those damning eyes, but leveled it instead at his traitorous protege.
“Wait,” Kosta said quietly, his tone resigned. He placed one of the little scraps near his right hand in his mouth, took a gulp of wine. Administering his own sacrament. When he had swallowed, he leaned back in the chair and nodded. Elias resisted the impulse to simply squeeze the trigger. “Please don’t kill my brother,” Kosta added then. “He doesn’t know what is happening.”
Elias glanced again at the prone child and Stamatis’ note suddenly made sense. Spare the boy. Not Kosta-he knew that life was forfeit-but the little one. How badly had he hurt him, Elias wondered. Why should he care? The boy had shot at him. The whole family was rotten.
“Why is he here?”
“I could not walk and carry the Holy Mother also.”
“So your father sent the boy along. Why not your sister, too? Why not the whole family, if the prize is rich enough?”
The other man said nothing.
“You betrayed me,” Elias continued, without heat, as if discussing the weather. “Not a man trusted you but me.”
