An Aegean Prophecy - Jeffrey Siger [93]
It was almost four in the afternoon, and the man had been sitting in the same taverna chair for almost five hours. His ass was killing him. But his orders were clear and direct: ‘Petro, do not move under any circumstances until contact is made, and that means any circumstances.’ They were not instructions one could misinterpret. Especially considering their source. He’d been doing this sort of work for more years than he liked to remember, but this was the first time the director had given him his orders personally.
The jet, the parachute, the underwater approach were right out of one of those James Bond movies, but considering the last minute timing involved with this operation, there was no other real choice. You couldn’t get even a donkey to move in Greece on Easter. Still, he was getting too old for this special ops craziness. He just hoped the boat was here to meet him. All he could do was wonder, because the plan didn’t allow him to leave this goddamned chair to check.
Some plan. Once contact was made it was up to him to make the call: kill, grab, or walk away. The choices had been conveyed in their reverse order of preference. ‘We’d prefer no more dead Greek monks on public streets during Easter Week, and if he seems no threat, let him take the package and go - the dioxin is phony anyway,’ were the director’s exact words.
‘Where the hell is that monk?’ Petro muttered under his breath in Russian. The Little Saint Anna had docked twenty minutes ago.
‘May I have a light?’ someone said in Greek. It was a man who looked to be in his late thirties, early forties, sitting at a nearby table. He could be older, but his full beard was black and neatly trimmed. He was wearing jeans, a plaid work shirt, a fisherman’s hat, and construction boots, drinking coffee, reading a Greek newspaper, and holding a cat on his lap.
‘Here you are.’ Petro responded in Greek, handing him a lighter.
‘Thank you very much, that is very kind of you,’ said the man with the cat. ‘So, where’s the package?’ He now spoke Russian with a Serbian accent.
‘Package? What package?’ Petro responded in Greek.
The man with the cat continued in Russian. ‘Since you understood what I said, there is no reason for you to continue straining to speak in Greek. I’m very comfortable in your mother tongue.’ He smiled in a way suggestive of twinkling eyes, but his remained dark and focused.
‘So I see,’ Petro said, switching to Russian, ‘but I still don’t understand what you’re talking about.’
The man stroked the cat and spoke as if talking to himself. ‘Of course you don’t. And if I gave you 75,000 reasons you still wouldn’t know, would you?’
That was the amount the director told him would be paid for the dioxin. ‘That’s a lot of reasons.’
The cat man smiled, staring off toward the sea. ‘Yes, I know. And I also know that you were expecting someone else to give them to you.’
Petro nodded. ‘Yes, one of two possible persons as a matter of fact, and you do not fit the descriptions they provided.’
Cat man smiled again, still staring off to sea. ‘You mean three.’
Petro nodded again. ‘Yes, three. So why isn’t one of them here?’
‘They had commitments elsewhere and asked me to come in their place.’
‘Highly unusual for this sort of transaction.’
Cat man nodded. ‘I accept that.’
‘Well, I can’t.’
The man dropped the cat to the street and looked directly at Petro. ‘I am not with the authorities, although I do not expect you to believe me. But I am the one who is providing the money.’
‘You’re right, I don’t believe you.’
‘How can I change your mind?’ His tone was conciliatory, solicitous.
Petro shrugged. ‘I have a job to do, to deliver whatever’s in that package to one of three people and pick up the payment. If I deliver it to the wrong party my ass is on the line.’
Cat man shrugged. ‘It’s going to be a lot more on the line if you don’t show up with the money.’
‘Maybe, but then again, why take the risk? I get paid the same whether I deliver or I walk. But unless I get a specific ID confirmation on the party I’m supposed to meet, my instructions are to walk.’