her mother and they’d spend the afternoon doing ‘baby things.’ Still, somehow he felt he’d screwed up. Big time.
Dimitri had dropped off the computer and disks as promised, together with a handwritten note:
I have no idea what’s on this and don’t want to know. Promise. D.
A likely story, thought Andreas. Maggie had left Dimitri’s note on his desk together with a typed one of her own:
OUT FOR A BIT. THE COMPUTER GURU IS LOOKING AT EVERYTHING. WHEN
YOU WANT HIM, CALL HIM. YIANNI CALLED TO CHECK IN. I TOLD HIM ABOUT
THE COMPUTER AND THAT YOU SAID, ‘STAY ON HOLIDAY, THAT’S AN ORDER.‘
There was a tiny word at the very end of the note he couldn’t make out.
Andreas shook his head and talked to himself as he rummaged through his middle desk drawer looking for a magnifying glass. ‘I didn’t tell her that, but yes, that’s what I would have said. Still, she can’t go around doing that sort of thing without checking with me first. I’ll have to speak to her. I run this office, not Maggie. Great, now I’ll have the other woman in my life pissed at me.’ He found the glass and stared at Maggie’s note. The word was ‘Over.’ He read the other side of the note.
HE DIDN’T BELIEVE ME. SAID YOU’D NEVER BE THAT CONSIDERATE AND YOU
SHOULD CALL HIM IF YOU WANT HIM TO COME BACK.
Andreas laughed. He picked up the phone, called the computer guru, and told him to come up and show him what he’d found so far. Then he hung up and laughed some more.
He looked again at Dimitri’s note. A phrase caught his eye: ‘and don’t want to know.’ He ran the thought through his mind. Maybe he really meant that. Curiosity can be a curse, and there’s a certain comfort in ignorance of facts you do not need to know in order to live out your life in peace. Especially those facts almost impossible for you to change, like the number of people in the world who die each year in freak accidents. Or whatever can of worms might be on Vassilis’ computer.
The intercom buzzed. ‘Hi, I’m back. Ilias is here.’
‘Who’s Ilias?’
Maggie whispered, ‘The computer guru.’
He paused for an instant. ‘Send him in.’ I’m too damn curious for my own good.
Ilias said there was a lot of information on Vassilis’ computer, even more on the disks stolen from the monk’s room, but without knowing exactly what Andreas was interested in, it was ‘needle in a haystack time.’ Still, he’d narrowed things down, or at least hoped he had by focusing on what Vassilis was working on in the thirty days before his death. ‘I’m not sure if what I’ve come up with helps, since I don’t know what you’re looking for.’
‘Any luck on finding sources for the images used to doctor the photograph we took off the USB drive?’
‘All but one.’
‘Which one?’
‘The carpet. The faces were lifted from group photographs stored on the computer’s hard drive, the painting was a recent download from a museum site on the Internet, so was the photo used for the empty chairs, but the carpet…’ He shook his head. ‘I found the image of the carpet on the hard drive, but no idea of its source. It could be buried on one of the disks or lifted from something online. Can you give me some help?’
‘Like what?’
‘Keywords. I can use them to search the files.’
‘Revelation.’
Ilias keyed it in. ‘Looks like a zillion hits.’
Of course, thought Andreas. He’s a scholar monk living on Patmos. ‘Can you limit it just to file names?’
‘Sure,’ and with a few keystrokes Ilias brought up a hundred entries.
Andreas read the list. Nothing recent, and nothing interesting. ‘Try Russia, but only recent entries.’
That brought up a lot of newspaper articles, but nothing earth-shattering. He told him to try Mount Athos. That got him what he expected, more newspaper articles but nothing more than what everyone already knew.
Andreas kept suggesting keywords, but none led to anything helpful. ‘Okay, I’ve about had it.’ He paused. ‘Try Zacharias.’
Ilias typed in the word. ‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing? How can there be nothing? Try searching for more than just file names.’
‘I did, there’s no “Zacharias” anywhere in the computer.’
Ilias paused. ‘But it’s a biblical name. Someone would have had to intentionally purge every mention of it.’
Like some do 666, thought Andreas. ‘Let’s check out the disks.’
There were about fifty. Not a hit anywhere.
‘It’s almost like someone’s trying to call attention to the name by its absence,’ said Ilias.
Andreas had been leaning over Ilias’ back reading off the screen. He patted him on the shoulder. ‘Sure does.’ He walked over to the window and stared up at the sky. Neither man said a word for about a minute. ‘Try “time is at hand” as a file name.’ Andreas spoke without taking his eyes off the sky.
A few seconds later Ilias said, ‘Nothing.’
Andreas shook his head. ‘Damn, I was sure there’d be something.’ He turned away from the window. ‘I have another idea, but for luck I’ll type it in myself.’ He walked over to the laptop, typed four words, and hit ENTER.
The computer came up with a single hit, a file titled, ‘Thief in the night.’
‘ Bingo,’ Andreas shouted and slapped Ilias on the back so hard the whiz kid almost fell off his chair. ‘Sorry, I’m used to slapping my partner.’
‘Lucky him,’ said Ilias, rubbing away at his back.
‘So, what do we have?’
Ilias opened the file. It was a folder containing a dozen different documents, including three lists. One was a list of monks at Zacharias’ monastery, but Zacharias’ name wasn’t on it. Another was a list of newspaper articles, arranged by journalist, accusing the Russians of a hand in the scandal at Mount Athos, and the third listed TV journalists known for sharing those same views on the Mount Athos scandal. Of the remaining documents, all but one were newspaper articles published more than a decade ago, and not in Greek. The last document was a photograph of a monk in his cell, probably from a magazine.
‘ Maggie, come in here.’
The door swung open. ‘I wondered when you’d invite me.’
Andreas pointed to the two lists of journalists on the screen. ‘What do these names mean to you?’ She read the lists and smiled. ‘Officially or unofficially?’
‘Maggie!’
‘Okay, they’re the best money can buy. If you want a story and are willing to pay for it, you get it. Facts are secondary to these guys.’
Andreas let out a long breath. Just like the ones who brought down my father, he thought. He pointed to the newspaper articles. ‘Any idea what these are about?’
Maggie looked and gestured no. ‘They’re foreign, not my area of expertise.’
‘Uh, Chief.’
‘Yes.’
Ilias pointed to one. ‘This one’s in German, the others I believe are in Serbian.’
‘Can you read them?’
‘Not the Serbian, but I think I can make out the German.’ He studied the article for a couple of minutes. ‘It’s German, but from a Swiss paper. It’s about an escaped war criminal who burned to death in a car crash in Switzerland.’
‘How was the body identified?’
‘From documents on the scene.’
How convenient they didn’t burn, Andreas thought. ‘Anything else?’
