approximately a quarter-mile long and seemed forever under construction. People were used to it. A giant's sandbox, complete with all the old-time trucks, cranes, bulldozers, and other sorts of tank-tread earthmoving equipment every giant's little boy would love to play with. It even had a set of blocks: car-size concrete ones, lined up along the seaside and used to keep pressure on footings that some day would support the 'soon to be completed' marina.
The loudspeaker blared, 'We are arriving at Mykonos. Drivers please return to your vehicles.'
Demon was sleeping, the Old Man dozing. The Old Man leaned over from the passenger's side of the back seat and said to the driver, 'Did you tell them where we're going?'
'Yes, sir.'
'And how to get there?'
'Yes, sir. I told them to take the back way, up that steep hill next to the taverna across from the stop sign where we come out of the port.'
'Good.' He leaned back and looked at Demon. 'I prefer not to be predictable. Just in case.'
'I understand.'
The boat docked and the rear door began descending. Drivers started their engines.
Demon looked at the Old Man. 'Do you mind if I ask a question?'
'Possibly.'
'What are you planning to say to Kostopoulos?'
'Ah, now that's a good question. And one I'm prepared to answer.'
The Cayennes in front started moving. He leaned forward again. 'Stay close, no more than ten yards behind.'
'Yes, sir.'
The Old Man continued. 'He is a very interesting man, more so than I realized. He has both the willingness and capacity to do whatever he thinks necessary to achieve what he sets his mind to. He is not swayed by emotions or fears. He stays focused. He has the qualities of a Spartan.'
This was not what Demon wanted to know. He did not need a lecture. He wanted to know the game plan. He thought of saying, 'And Spartans helped end the Golden Age of Athens, so now what?' But didn't. He assumed the Old Man was dragging things out to kill time — some bus looked to have traffic backed up coming out of the port.
'I am going to tell Mr Kostopoulos exactly what he wants to hear. He wants to be accepted. He wants glory. He wants prestige. He wants to be among Greece's aristocracy. I will offer him all that. I will offer him everything he's ever wanted. And I am the one man in Greece who can guarantee all of that to him.'
Demon nodded. Those were his goals, too. 'But, what if Kostopoulos doesn't agree?'
They were up to the stop sign, but the bus responsible for the traffic tie-up still blocked the road they intended to take. People were screaming at the bus driver to move. He screamed back that he couldn't move it, that the bus was broken, and walked into the taverna.
'What shall we do, sir?' asked the driver.
'Always problems. Tell the men to go along the sea road, and just past that construction.' He pointed to a large yellow excavator working below the wall next to the road. 'Take the first left up the hill.'
The traffic started moving again. The first two Cayennes sped out onto the main road. The Mercedes started to follow, but a motorcyclist shot up along its right side and cut directly in front of it. The limo driver slammed on his brakes and missed the motorcyclist by inches. 'Malaka!' the driver screamed. 'Sorry, sir, I didn't mean to swear.'
The Old Man didn't seem upset. 'That's okay, just catch up with them.'
The two Cayennes were a hundred yards ahead. The driver floored it. He'd be up to them in seconds. The two other Cayennes were right behind him.
'To answer your question, let me put it in American movie vernacular, 'I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse.'' The Old Man smiled.
Demon leaned forward to pick up a water bottle on the floor by his feet. He didn't think that was the right way to negotiate with Kostopoulos, but he didn't have the opportunity to suggest a different approach. All negotiations were peremptorily cancelled by the yellow excavator's refrigerator-size steel bucket.
At top speed, the Liebherr 942 excavator cab spins completely around — with claw-tooth bucket extended — in eight seconds. But it only took two seconds for this perfect, some might say golf-like, swing of the bucket down over the wall, into the Mercedes' windshield, through its insides and out the rear glass. The Cayennes plowed into the mess from behind at fifty miles an hour.
But the tall man who jumped out of the excavator, raced thirty yards to the sea, and leaped into a waiting Zodiac was not a golfer. He'd prefer calling it a perfect assassination.
27
Kouros walked off the Hi Speed before the vehicles were moving and hustled on foot toward the main road. Christina was waiting for him there because 'traffic was terrible in the port.' He was three hundred yards from the stop sign when the first Cayenne crept past him. Every window in the convoy had dark glass, but he could make out Demon sitting behind the driver through the less darkly tinted rear window.
About fifty yards from the stop sign, a motorcycle shot out from behind a dumpster ten feet in front of Kouros and headed toward the main road. The cyclist was riding in the dirt on the side of the road, but when the first Cayenne turned right he accelerated so that he arrived at the intersection just as the second one turned and cut in front of the limo. It was a damn lucky thing he didn't get hit — or a very professional move.
Kouros watched the limo and Cayennes tear after the two in front. The surreal part played out in seconds: the swinging bucket across the roadway, the explosion of glass, the wrenching of steel, the aftershocks delivered by the Cayennes; the tall man running toward the sea and disappearing with a leap into a boat.
That was how Kouros described what he saw to Andreas. The official investigation didn't yield much more.
Headlines screamed, 'New Terrorist Assault on the Fabric of Our Country,' and everyone ran stories venerating the Old Man and his accomplishments. His funeral was delayed by a day, because the Old Man had left instructions insisting there be a public viewing of his body — and that required spare parts from a theatrical supply house in London. It was attended by virtually everyone in Greece who mattered, or thought they did.
Buried in the stories were the fates of the others in the limo. The driver died instantly. The young passenger miraculously survived the bucket. Evidently he was bent forward when the bucket swept through, shearing off everything above him, but was tragically crippled by the impacting vehicles from behind. He was not expected to survive.
Andreas stopped reading the stories. He long ago gave up on 'the truth will out' or 'justice prevails.' He just did his job. And prayed for Lila to survive. It was a little more than a week later when Andreas received a call from Tassos.
'Hi, I hear Lila is out of her coma.'
'Yes, thank God. About four days ago. Doctors said she's getting stronger every day.' Andreas heard a sniffling sound on Tassos' end of the line.
'That's great. I'm in Athens-'
Andreas interrupted. 'I figured you were from the increased number of smiles on Maggie's face.'
'I'll never tell.' Tassos laughed. 'Do you think it would be okay if I visited Lila?'
'She'd like that.' Andreas paused. 'I'd like that, too. Meet you there in an hour.' He hung up.
He knew how Tassos felt about him. Tassos lost his own son and his wife during childbirth. Yes, Tassos wasn't a cop like his father. But then, Andreas thought, am I? Sure, Tassos had something to do with what happened at the port. Andreas was certain of that. Big fucking deal. In today's world, who knew which of them was doing things the right way? He really should do something about the distance he'd put between them. He knew what Lila would say: it's time to start trusting again.
Andreas arrived at the hospital fifteen minutes later than he said. That would give Tassos all the time he
