Maggie nodded.
‘Any family?’
‘No record of any.’
‘Damn, another dead end.’
‘But, guess what, once more we’re the second one making the same inquiry.’
‘Vassilis?’
‘Yes, and less than a week before he died.’
‘Sounds like he’d connected the dots.’
‘But how could he prove anything? All roads lead to dead ends.’
Andreas leaned his elbows on his desk and held his head in his hands. ‘Did the war criminal leave family?’
‘Yes, according to the translations I had done — we Greeks also can be efficient — he had several brothers and sisters.’
‘Then there’s a superhighway leading to an answer. If we can get a sample of Zacharias’ DNA and match it against his blood relatives…’ Andreas spread his arms wide. ‘We’ve got the bastard,’ and slammed his hands together in a loud clap.
‘But how can we get him to cooperate? Mount Athos is an independent state.’
Andreas nodded. ‘Probably the same way Vassilis intended to do it, by telling the Protos what he knew and getting him to force Zacharias to cooperate. I’d bet my badge that was the real reason Vassilis insisted on the Protos coming to Patmos. To confront his old friend with the evidence and urge him to expose Zacharias for who he really is.’
‘But why wasn’t that proof on the USB drive in the cross Vassilis was bringing to his meeting with the Protos?’
‘My guess is… caution. Sort of the same reason for keeping the component parts of an explosive chemical reaction far away from each other, to avoid a bomb going off — in this case at the heart of the church. The flash drive only held clues to a silent coup d’etat underway on Mount Athos. Without the information on Vassilis’ computer, there was no way to determine who was behind it. The photographs on the USB were no more than a list of names. The catalyst that would make everything go boom was what Vassilis had come up with on Zacharias, and there was no reason to put that on the drive. Once Vassilis told the Protos his suspicions, everything could be verified from newspaper articles and public records.’
Andreas paused, then shook his head. ‘Or maybe Vassilis didn’t completely trust the Protos.’
‘You don’t really think that, do you?’ said Maggie.
‘I don’t know what to think anymore.’ He shook his head again. ‘If only the poor man hadn’t been carrying copies of the photographs. The killers recognized the faces in the doctored photograph and took that to mean Vassilis knew of Zacharias’ plan. They killed him to protect the plan — not the man. They may not even know about Zacharias’ past.’
Andreas picked up Vassilis’ list of monks from Zacharias’ monastery. ‘The reason Zacharias’ name doesn’t appear on this list is because Zacharias is not his real name. Here is his real name.’ Andreas pointed at the name of a war criminal supposed to have died long ago in a car crash in Switzerland. ‘Buried in the middle of a list of monks!’
Andreas smacked his desk. ‘I think it’s time to call the Protos again, and this time he’d better take my call.’
He dialed and waited for the answering machine to pick up.
‘Hello, office of the protos.’
Andreas was surprised to hear a live voice. ‘Hello, is the Protos available? It’s Chief Inspector Kaldis.’
‘Chief Inspector, as I’m sure you understand, the Protos is terribly busy this week. I’ve put you at the top of his list and I’m certain he will call you back as soon as he has time. And I can assure you that your repeated calls insisting he call you back immediately will not get you a faster reply. Kalo Paska. Goodbye.’
Andreas held a dead phone up to Maggie. ‘He didn’t even wait for me to say goodbye. Just gave me Easter wishes and hung up. Arrogant son of a bitch.’
‘You should be used to that by now. Everybody’s available to you when they need you and don’t want to know you once you’ve fixed their problem. You remind them of what went wrong.’
‘Well, if he thought that was a problem, wait until he sees this.’ Andreas wrote something out in longhand across Vassilis’ list of monks. ‘Here, fax this to the Protos. And mark it personal so that everyone who touches it reads it.’ If the Protos wanted to dodge Andreas’ phone calls that was his privilege, but to Andreas’ way of thinking the Protos did so at his peril. There was no danger posed by the Russians; they weren’t involved in these intrigues. The Protos’ problems were in his own backyard, so if he wouldn’t take Andreas’ calls he damn well better pray no Judas had access to his fax machine.
Maggie took the paper from Andreas and read it out loud. ‘“Your Holiness, I obtained this list from our mutual friend. It’s supposed to name all the monks serving in one of your monasteries. Please check the list to make sure no one is missing and call me. Thank you. Respectfully, Andreas Kaldis.”’
Maggie looked at Andreas. ‘I like it. Simple, courteous, innocuous, just the sort of friendly note you’d expect if someone were trying to tell you, “Do you happen to know that a notorious, long-thought-dead war criminal is living in your midst?”’
Andreas smiled. ‘Let’s see what this gets us.’
Fifteen minutes later Maggie buzzed Andreas on the intercom. ‘It’s the minister.’
‘Hello, Kaldis here.’
‘Andreas! How are you?’ The voice was all joy and light.
‘Fine, Minister, and you?’
‘Great, really great. I’ve been meaning to call you, to thank you for your assistance on that Patmos monk thing.’
Andreas wondered how this guy could so easily believe his own PR. ‘Glad to have been of help.’
‘I really can’t thank you enough for closing this case so quickly.’
Something’s coming. ‘No need to thank me, Minister, it’s my job. Besides, it’s not closed. There’s a major new development.’
‘ Yes, it is closed! ‘ The tone was that of a mercurial temper tantrum by an insecure bureaucrat.
Andreas was used to that. He also was used to pushing back. ‘Sorry, Minister, it’s not over.’
There was a decided pause on the other end of the line. Andreas assumed it was so the minister could give thought to all the threats he wanted to make but knew better than to voice. The bottom line was he needed Andreas more than Andreas needed him. And both men knew it.
‘Andreas, let’s be reasonable. You caught the killers. Everyone, and I mean everyone, is overjoyed at your triumph. You’re even getting a raise. The prime minister himself just called to tell me how much he appreciated your work. There is no reason to go on.’
‘Did he tell you about the fax?’
Pause. ‘Andreas, sometimes you can be a real pain in the ass.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Yes, he did. Look, no one is going to help you on this. Absolutely no one. You will get no help from the ministry, the press, the church — certainly none from the church. You are shut down on this, officially and unofficially.’ He paused. ‘The church will deal with this problem in its own way. This cannot come out. It benefits no one and destroys many good people who were deceived by this… well, you know what I’m talking about.’
‘Yes, I do.’ Andreas was fuming; he’d heard this sort of honey-coated cover-up crap many times before. ‘Let’s cut to the chase, Spiro. Is there anything I can say to change your mind?’
‘I’m sorry, Andreas, no. It’s really out of our hands. Let us just accept it. Consider it the internal problem of another country, and none of our concern.’
‘But it’s our church.’
‘And we must protect it.’
‘From whom?’
‘Andreas, this is going nowhere. We both know it.’
Andreas let out a deep breath. ‘Get some balls’ was what he wanted to say. The minister wasn’t really a bad
