Neil Olson - The Icon

Now the older one was wrestling with Taki’s bulky frame while the younger one fought with the rear door. Fotis shifted his torso and realized that some feeling had come back into the left arm. With great discomfort, he pulled himself partway back onto the passenger seat, just as Taki was dragged out into the road, and as the younger one freed the back door. The Peugeot driver, definitely. He saw Fotis now, oddly arranged across both seats, bent over the gun as if he were holding his ribs. The Snake let out a pitiful moan, only half faked.

“He’s alive,” the young one shouted, leaning forward between the seats.

Closer. There. Fotis swung the pistol up as fast and hard as he could manage, catching the young man beneath the chin with a tooth-snapping blow, sending him reeling onto the backseat. Then he shifted his attention to the open driver’s door.

The older man, a hollow-eyed, mustachioed brute in a dark suit, dropped Taki’s body and reached inside his jacket.

“Do not,” Fotis commanded, the nine-millimeter leveled at him. He would have shot both of them without warning but for the fact that they had not tried to kill him at once. They might be government, Andreas’ men, anyone. Too slowly, the big oaf pulled a blocky.45 from his shoulder holster and took aim. Fotis fired twice, then a third time as the man fell, every shot hitting. The sound was less deafening than he expected. Nice weapon; easy trigger, very little recoil. He had not used a gun in years, had thought himself beyond that place in his life. Mustache rolled heavily into the culvert and was still. The smell of cordite filled the car.

Fotis returned his attention to the driver. He was sitting up in the backseat, holding his bloody chin, his free hand extended like a shield. He spoke quickly.

“Wait, it’s a mistake. We tried to call them off.”

“Who sent you?”

“I work for him.” He gestured toward the dead man in the culvert.

Fotis leaned into the soft leather, reached his right hand between the seats, and placed the gun muzzle against the driver’s knee. The young man flinched and moved his leg.

“Be still,” Fotis said, gently. “First one knee, then the other, then I kill you. I won’t even ask you any more questions, so answer this one. Who sent you?”

“I don’t know.” The driver was shaking, from shock or fear, Fotis didn’t care which. He took none of the satisfaction in this he once might have. “I only overheard a few things. Someone in New York, some Russian. I don’t know his name. I don’t even know your name.”

“You don’t know anything, do you boy?”

“That’s right.”

It might even be true. Anyway, the information was sufficient. Of course, he had known that Karov might come after him. He just hadn’t expected it so soon, or on Greek soil.

“Why do you say it was a mistake?”

“The Russian, or whoever it was. He called it off half an hour ago. We couldn’t contact the others in time.”

“The motorcycle men. Where are they?”

“They were supposed to make sure someone saw them. Some cars coming the other way. Then vanish.”

“So it would look like a November 17 assassination.”

“I didn’t know the reason. I guess that’s right. Yes, of course that’s it.”

Once, he would have devoted all his efforts to finding those men and punishing them. Now, it would have to wait, maybe forever. He did not even know if he had escaped this encounter yet. How badly was he hurt? How dangerous was the boy? Could he drive the Peugeot himself, or did he need the little bastard?

“Where is your weapon?”

“I don’t have one. I’m just the driver. All I was supposed to do is follow you.” The young man shook badly, teeth clattering, sure he was about to die. Fotis had seen older men expire from heart attacks in the same situation. A nice, clean death, especially useful in political executions. The boy’s heart was probably too strong for that. And too much fear would make him desperate.

“I should kill you. I will not hesitate to do so if you make trouble, but I require your assistance. I need you to deliver a message to the man who ordered this. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Stay there.”

It was impossible for Fotis not to expose himself to a swift blow as he crawled across the driver’s seat and out into the cool dusk, but the young man never stirred. The old man stood, slowly. Pain shot down his left leg, but it did not buckle. The left arm was largely numb. A sticky bulge arose just above his left eye, but his vision was only slightly impaired. One rib could be cracked. All in all, it was miraculous. He might be able to avoid a hospital completely. He let the cool mountain breeze wash him, and tried to keep from vomiting.

The sun had gone behind the hills; the sky was still bright in a shallow arc to the west and blue, deepening to indigo, in the east. Captain Herakles would not wait forever. They must be fast. Fotis had the driver try to start the battered Mercury, and the engine turned over on the fourth attempt, coughing and sputtering miserably. Shocks gone, tires flat, it hammered and scraped its way across the road in reverse until it sat idling by the far ledge. Then Fotis made the young man load the bodies in: Taki behind the 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.