An Aegean Prophecy - Jeffrey Siger [59]
The thankful one answered for him. ‘We threw it in the sea when we fled to the farm.’
‘Where?’
‘I don’t know, some place between here and there. It all looked alike to me.’
‘Anything in it surprise you?’
‘Never had a chance to look at it.’
Andreas didn’t believe any of that, but the subject was going nowhere. ‘So, fellas, how about you telling me again just how you came to follow Kalogeros Vassilis.’
Andreas drove them through their story six more times, twice in reverse. It all came out about the same. They were sent by one they would not name to keep an eye on a monk they’d been told posed a threat to God’s mission on earth, one which they must be prepared to die to protect, and if anything unanticipated occurred, to ‘use your judgment.’ In other words, the power to decide life or death was delegated to men best trained in ways to kill. Whoever sent them was clever: give ambiguous advice to men who saw only black and white, and thus gain absolute deniability for yourself.
There was no way the person giving those instructions could be held accountable for this murder, even if the three named their dispatcher. But they didn’t have to. Andreas was certain it was Zacharias.
As far as Andreas was concerned this investigation was over. The fate of the three killers was out of his hands. They’d been caught and their confessions were on tape. Time to get back home to Lila. The rest was a mess for the church to sort out, not him. His job was done.
At least that’s what he kept telling himself on the helicopter back to Athens.
14
At four a.m., all would gather by candlelight for morning prayers. For Zacharias it meant an end to a restless night filled with thoughts of what was happening on the outside. The world might be in the midst of all-out war and this place wouldn’t know about it until missiles started landing in the monastery’s courtyard - assuming the abbot allowed them in before Sunday morning. Consciously, he knew there was nothing to worry about; all his bases were covered, no matter what. But in that falling-off-to-sleep time, when the subconscious started playing with the conscious, concerns leaked out.
What if that Patmos monk actually did know his plans? But how could he know? He’d only be guessing. Still, the others respected the old monk, and a good guess would present problems, raise suspicions, put him on everyone’s radar. Anything that made him visible was unacceptable. He could not allow one monk to destroy it all. That’s why he sent the three: to watch the monk, to learn what he knew, and, if necessary, to resolve an unacceptable situation.
Zacharias knew what ‘use your judgment’ meant to such men, but a public airing of the monk’s suspicions would be lethal to his plans. He just hoped there’d be another way; at least that’s what his subconscious was trying to tell him, no doubt grasping about for justification for the likely outcome if events he’d set in motion developed as he feared. He drew in a deep breath and fed his subconscious what it was hunting: the old fool brought it on himself by snooping into matters that didn’t concern him. So what if a holy man died? A lot have died in the past, and many more would in the future. Martyrs were everywhere. He let out the breath and his thoughts now were at peace. He drifted off to sleep, promising to pray for them all at morning services. Kalogeros Vassilis, too, alive or dead.
‘Breakfast in bed on a weekday with my superstud cop, what a treat.’ Lila rolled over onto her side, kissed Andreas on the cheek, and picked a grape off the plate balanced on his chest. His eyes were fixed on the newspaper held out just beyond the grapes. ‘And a famous one, too.’
‘Yeah, if you get beyond the front page and bother to read the next-to-last paragraph.’
‘At least the minister knows who’s responsible.’
‘Yeah, so he can blame me if anything goes wrong. Like word getting out that the three killers he told the press were “posing” as monks actually were monks. The minister’s job description might include covering up embarrassing