“We want to have a little chat with him,” McGarvey said.
“May I know what you wish to discuss with him?”
“He used to work for us, and something has come up we’d like to ask him about.”
“The service would want a more detailed answer.”
Pete came the rest of the way into the sitting room. “Do you know where this man is?”
“Of course. I was the one responsible for putting him there,” Moshonas said. “If you’ll give me something I can report, any little thing, I’ll take you to him.”
“He’s wanted for questioning in the murders of two CIA employees a few days ago.”
“That would be impossible,” Moshonas said. “Mr. Cooke was convicted of trafficking in stolen artifacts last year. At the moment he’s serving time at Korydallos prison in Piraeus.”
For just a moment McGarvey allowed himself to be surprised, until he realized what was wrong. Coffin would never have allowed himself to be caught doing something so simple. “Did he plead guilty?”
Moshonas’s eyes narrowed. “In fact, he did.”
“Was he offered a plea bargain, maybe if he named his sources?”
“He turned it down.”
“Maybe a fine instead of a prison sentence?”
“He turned that down as well, though he was living in a very expensive home, without a mortgage. He wanted to go to prison, which none of us understood.”
“Let’s go talk to him, and I’ll tell you what I can on the way down.”
“Would you like to see his house?”
“No,” McGarvey said. “There’d be nothing there of any interest to us.”
Moshonas nodded. “I’ll bring you to him, but I want to sit in on the interview, and there are a few questions I’ll have to ask you afterward.”
TEN
Coffin, wearing gray scrubs of the sort used by doctors in hospitals, walked down the corridor of the maximum-security section for men, his eyes lowered, a slight scowl on his face. No guard accompanied him; he was treated more or less as a special guest because of his generous contributions to the warden’s pension fund, and funds for the families of guards who were out of work because of injuries or illness. He was well liked here and practically had the run of the place.
He’d been convicted and sentenced as an antiquities thief, but he’d presented himself, complete with diplomas, as a clinical psychiatrist specializing in the mental disorders of habitual offenders — especially females, of which there were still a few in Korydallos.
The prison, which was infamous with Amnesty International for its horrible conditions, maintained a vastly out-of-date and underequipped hospital and mental clinic. Always short of money and personnel, the medical director was initially overjoyed to have Coffin’s help. And no one ever bothered to question his credentials, even though some of the staff had their suspicions.
At the end of the long corridor, he was admitted through a steel door into the medical section that divided the women’s cellblock from the rest of the complex.
“Good morning, Doc,” the guard said in Greek, a language Coffin had managed to become reasonably proficient in over the past couple of years.
“How is your child?”
“It was very close. Without your help, his appendix would have burst and he would have died.”
“Is he out of hospital?”
“Two days ago, and he’ll start back to school on Monday.”
“Glad to hear it,” Coffin said, patting the man on the arm.
Dr. Vasilis Lampros, the prison’s medical director, was waiting at Coffin’s office door when he came into the clinic. He was a stern, rough-looking old man who’d worked in Greek prisons all his medical career. He looked more like a rock cutter in a marble quarry than a doctor, and he trusted no one.
“Good afternoon, Doctor,” Coffin said pleasantly. He’d been expecting bad news for the past several days, but he wasn’t going to let his mood show here and now. The old bastard would jump on it and suspect the worst — whatever that might be in his mind.
“Your examination with Ms. Pappas will not be necessary,” Lampros said.
“Is she being transferred?”
“She hung herself last night. Told everyone at dinner you tried to rape her at your most recent session.”
Coffin laughed. “That’s ridiculous, and you know it. The woman was delusional, lived in a fantasy world her entire adult life. It’s a fact that in the three months I treated her, she was completely unable to distinguish truth from lies.”
“It’s a common condition here, as you well know.”
Something in the tone of the man’s voice was bothersome. “Is there a problem, Doctor?”
“You’re a prisoner.”
“Indeed I am. And you’re understaffed. Perhaps I could underwrite the salaries of a couple of nurses. They would help lighten your load.”
“Go back to your cell, Cooke,” Lampros said. “You’re no longer needed here.”
“As you wish,” Coffin said. He shrugged indifferently and turned to walk away.
“No one at Harvard has heard of you. There are no records.”
Coffin turned back. “That’s not surprising. May we go into your office so I can explain?”
“Nothing I want to hear.”
“But I think you will want to hear this,” Coffin said, smiling.
No one else was in the clinic evaluation room at the moment. Coffin took the doctor’s arm, and they went into the office and closed the door.
“You’re a fraud,” Lampros said.
“Of course I am,” Coffin said. He shoved the doctor back against the desk and clamped his fingers around the older man’s neck with enough pressure to the carotid artery to cut off blood flow to the man’s brain but not enough to cause a bruise.
Lampros tried to pull away, but Coffin was much stronger and trained in hand-to-hand combat. In a surprisingly short time, Lampros went unconscious and slumped to the floor.
Coffin followed him down, keeping pressure on the man’s neck until the heartbeat became thready and finally stopped.
He threw open the door. “Someone get me the crash cart!” he shouted. He went back to the doctor’s body, ripped open Lampros’s shirt, and pulled up his T-shirt. “Let’s go, let’s go!” he shouted, and started CPR.
One of the nurses came in with the defibrillator at the same time Coffin felt a very slight pulse, and he stopped the chest compressions until the machine came to full power.
One of the orderlies came in as Coffin applied the paddles to the doctor’s chest. “Clear!” he shouted. But nothing happened. The machine was broken and had been for some months.
He listened at the doctor’s chest and then felt the artery in the man’s neck. But the pulse had stopped. He sat back on his heels and shook his head. “It’s no use. Dr. Lampros is dead.”
One of the nurses said something Coffin didn’t catch.
He looked up.
“Dr. Lampros turned down a request for a new defibrillator,” the other nurse said. “He didn’t think the prisoners were worth it.”
Coffin got up. “Perhaps it’s best if I went back to my cell. But call the warden and let him know you tried to save his life, but his heart gave out.”
“Yes, sir,” the one nurse said.
Coffin walked out, though what he wanted was to kick everyone out of the office and look at the good doctor’s computer to erase whatever e-mails he’d received from Harvard. But he’d already come to the conclusion several days ago, especially since learning about the deaths of Wager and Fabry, that he would have to go very deep and very soon.
The wolves were gathering, and it was time to remove the scent from the pack.