Goddamnit. Hurry up and finish.
The pissing man said something else, opened the lighthouse door, and disappeared inside just as the first rays of sunlight hit the top of the island.
Andreas pushed up from the ground and started toward the cistern. He could make out Kouros taking out the other sentry. The one at the cistern must have seen the same thing because he was swinging his gun around onto Kouros just as Andreas came up behind him.
Andreas thrust his right hand at the back of the man’s head and just as quickly his hand jerked back at him. But there was no flash of light or sound. Except for the sound of the sentry and his gun crumpling to the ground.
Andreas waved for Kouros to hurry.
He looked at the gun in his hand. The little bugger had worked. It’s what he had Maggie send him, a gift a few years back from a US military liaison assigned to the American embassy in Athens. He’d called it a QSPR, for Quiet Special Purpose Revolver, and said it was developed for use by tunnel rats in the Vietnam War, the brave ones who crawled into dark holes looking for the enemy with nothing but a flashlight, a pistol, and cast iron balls.
The American said it suppressed all the natural consequences of an explosion of gases rushing down a barrel to escape behind the bullet or shotgun pellets they were pushing. Silencers only muffled the effects. The QSPR stopped them cold. No muzzle flash, sound, or shockwaves. Only the faint click of the firing pin.
It was a modified six-round Smith amp; Wesson.44 caliber revolver with a barrel just over an inch long. The trick was in the gun’s ammunition. It trapped the gases inside the cartridge so they never reached the barrel. Each cartridge was made of steel and housed fifteen metal shotgun pellets separated from the gunpowder by a piston-type device. When fired, the piston propelled the pellets out into the barrel and sealed off the end of the cartridge before the gases escaped. The weapon wasn’t all that powerful, but at close range it was deadly.
But by the time Kouros reached him, Andreas had switched to the other gun in his pack, the noisier and far more lethal Heckler amp; Koch MP5K submachine gun. Kouros was carrying the same.
Temi had said the door on this side of the lighthouse was the only way in or out, just inside were stairs straight ahead leading up to the light, and off to the right at the bottom of the stairs was a room. That was it.
They listened by the door. Not a sound. Andreas pointed toward the room on the right.
Kouros nodded.
Andreas tapped him twice on the back and yanked open the door. Kouros was off like a sprinter to the crack of a starter’s pistol. By the time Andreas swung in behind him, two men with shotguns sitting on chairs next to a body tied naked to a cross at their feet had bullets in their brains.
A man across from them with an AK-47, tried to fire but Andreas drew a circle around the man’s center of mass and ran the string up through the top of his head.
A fourth man cowered in the corner by the feet of the body on the cross, a lit blowtorch in one hand. He dropped the torch and put up his hands. Kouros put a round in the man’s knee.
“Whoops, it slipped,” said Kouros.
The man screamed in pain. Kouros walked over, grabbed him by his throat, and dragged him to the doorway. “Any more friends around?”
The man kept screaming.
Kouros smacked him across the face with the back of his hand and pointed the machine gun at the man’s other knee. “Shall we try for two?”
“No, no, just us and the four outside.”
“Four?” said Andreas.
“The others must be down by the church. I’ll be right back.” Kouros opened the door, peeked outside, and crept out.
Andreas picked up the still burning blowtorch and motioned the hobbling man out into the other room. He told him to sit on the steps leading up to the light with his hands on the back of his head.
“Please don’t hurt me with that.”
“You mean this?” Andreas brought the flame close enough to the top of the man’s head to singe his hair.
At the odor the man screamed.
Andreas turned off the torch, snapped a handcuff on one wrist, pulled the open cuff over the railing and cuffed the other wrist. “Not yet.”
***
Andreas kneeled down next to the body on the cross, bent his head close to the man’s face, and said softly, “Tassos.” He waited. He heard nothing. He tried again. He prayed.
It seemed like forever before he heard a struggling, “Andreas…Andreas…is that you?”
“Shhhhh, my friend. We’re going home.” He sliced the ropes binding Tassos’ arms and legs to the cross, ripped the shirts off the two men Kouros had killed, and carefully covered his friend with them.
Tassos tried to speak. Andreas leaned down and said, “Rest easy, buddy, the helicopter will be here for you soon.”
“It wasn’t the pain…It was the helplessness. I knew they could kill me. I knew they would kill me. But I made them drag it out…I would be in control of my own death.”
“You’re going to be fine, don’t worry.” Andreas ran outside the lighthouse and pulled a military communicator from his backpack. “This is Kaldis, we have the kidnap victim and he’s alive. Get that medevac chopper in here STAT. Officer down.”
Andreas saw Kouros double-timing it toward him across the plateau.
“What happened?”
“Real brave guys. As soon as they heard all the fireworks they must have run the other way. They took off in the boat before I could get a shot at them or the boat.”
“The coast guard will deal with them. They’re out there waiting for them.”
“How’s Tassos? I called for the helicopter before I went after those last two fuckers.”
“I just called it in again. Not good. I keep forgetting how old he is. Where the hell is that goddamned chopper?”
“They were at the airport waiting for the call. Every cop in the Cyclades, coast guard included, respects that old bastard. Trust me, they’re coming as fast as they can.”
As if on cue they heard the chopper coming in from the north. The pilot brought it in as close to the lighthouse as he could and before the rotors had stopped a doctor from Mykonos’ private clinic was racing toward them.
“Where’s Tassos?”
“Inside.”
Kouros watched the doctor run to the door. “See, I told you a lot of people like that old bastard.” Kouros coughed and sniffled.
“You did well, buddy. Tassos would be proud of you.”
“He damn well better be, I used the crazy American Bowie knife he gave me for my birthday on that sentry.”
Andreas put his arm over Kouros’ shoulder and led him back into the lighthouse.
“I think we should pray,” said Andreas.
“I already am.”
***
The doctor called it critical that they get Tassos to Athens immediately. He had extensive burns on his body and was in shock.
Andreas and Kouros helped get Tassos into the helicopter, then helped the coast guard carry the dead down to the beach for transfer by boat to Syros. As the coast guard carried the last of the bodies out of the lighthouse the man cuffed to the railing kept screaming at a coast guard lieutenant, “What about me? You have to arrest me. I’m one of the kidnappers. I’m the one who tortured him. You must take me with you.”
The lieutenant treated the screaming man as if he didn’t exist, and just before leaving the lighthouse whispered something to Andreas.
Andreas stared at the handcuffed man. “So, you really did all those things you just said?”
“No, no, I just wanted them to get me out of here.”
“Why? Don’t you like it here? It seems rather cozy. How long have you been here? Wait, let me guess. About a day?”
“I just got here.”
Kouros picked up the blowtorch. “You think you’re pretty good with this I bet. A specialist, huh?”
“I’m not telling you anything. And you can’t do anything to me but arrest me, you’re cops.”
Andreas laughed. “Not any more, Cinderella. Right now we’re just friends of the fellow you were using this on.” He took the torch from Kouros.