An Aegean Prophecy - Jeffrey Siger [38]
‘What’s that?’ asked Kouros.
‘Mount Athos is a self-governing monastic state within Greece, made up of twenty self-governing territories, each with a ruling monastery and each with a representative to the Holy Community, the governing body of Mount Athos. They’re monks who must be at least thirty years old, but usually much older, and well versed in church law and doctrine. They move from their monasteries to Karyas, Mount Athos’ capital, where they meet in the tenth-century Church of the Protaton, the oldest church on the Holy Mountain, and from what I hear, enjoy modern communications with the outside world and a pretty fancy lifestyle. At least for monks.’
That explained the Italian suit, thought Andreas.
‘Anyway, he didn’t seem to be lecturing anywhere, and I was worried he might be ill or, God forbid, passed away.’ She crossed herself. ‘So, I went to a lecture by another representative and asked him if he knew what had happened to the other monk. You’d have thought I’d asked him to commit blasphemy. I thought it was because I was a woman, and that really pissed me off.’
Pity the poor monk who did that, thought Andreas.
‘I called the head of police in Karyas and asked him to find out what happened to the monk. I couldn’t believe it. He knew, but wouldn’t tell me, either. I reminded him who I worked for and that unless he wanted to be reassigned to duty on a bread-and-water prison barge off the coast of Turkey in August, he’d better start talking.’
‘I didn’t know we had that sort of place,’ said Kouros.
She smiled. ‘We don’t, but he got my point and told me what I wanted to know. The monk was alive and well, but in a position many on Mount Athos preferred playing down. A group of four monks, called the Holy Administration, serves as the executive committee of the Holy Community. One member of the group must come from one of the five senior monasteries, the other three from the remaining fifteen. He was one of the four overseers.’
She paused and shut her eyes. ‘But he was more than just a member of the Holy Administration. He was from a senior monastery.’ Maggie opened her eyes. ‘And that made him protos, the head of it all. He’s their president, the most powerful churchman on Mount Athos.’
Andreas picked up the flash drive and stared at it. He’d guessed right about the man being from the Holy Mountain, but never imagined that it was his mountain. ‘You know, Maggie, somehow I’m not as excited as I once was to learn what’s on this thing.’ He fluttered his lips. ‘But what the hell, what’s the worst that can happen?’
He slid the drive into his computer’s USB port, hoping the answer to his question was not eternal damnation.
The Protos wasn’t used to arriving home in secret. But Sergey was adamant. No one should see them arriving so early in the morning from the mainland. Karyas was a small village and gossip its primary pastime - especially among civilians working for the civil governor appointed by Greece’s ministry of foreign affairs and charged with supervising the area’s secular matters. It was their way of impressing co-workers back on the mainland that what they did really was important, even if they seemed to be living in the middle of nowhere.
A simple, ‘It’s Easter Week and the Protos was away last night,’ would spawn endless speculation on his whereabouts, and perhaps a ‘My cousin Nick drives a taxi and thought he saw the Protos at the Athens airport,’ followed by more speculation over the reason for the trip at such a busy time. That was not the sort of gossip Sergey wanted to risk reaching the ears of nervous killers.
By mid-morning they were back at the Protaton, in the Protos