The man screamed, “Help, help!”
Andreas laughed. “You and your now very dead buddies picked the perfect spot. Yell as loud as you like. No one will hear you. You’re all ours.”
The man kept screaming.
Kouros took the torch away from Andreas and used it to knock the man out.
***
The man awoke stark naked and tied to the cross. Andreas crouched by his head and Kouros stood by his feet.
“So nice of you to join us,” said Andreas.
The man started to scream.
“Shhhh,” said Andreas. “You’ll have plenty of time to do that if you don’t cooperate.” He pointed at Kouros who promptly pulled an over-sized, double-blade knife out of a sheath on his side.
“If you look closely you’ll see the blood of one of your late buddies still on it.”
Andreas waited until the man’s eyes had returned to somewhat normal size.
“So, I have a proposition for you. And it’s a very simple one. I have four questions to ask you. For each one you answer to my satisfaction my friend will cut one cord binding you to the cross. For each one you do not, he first cuts off one testicle, then the other, then your penis and then either an eye or an ear depending on how he feels at the time. Then I ask the same questions over again and we keep cutting away until you answer them all…or you die…but that will take a while. So, shall we begin?”
Andreas never had to ask the second question.
***
Andreas and Kouros were standing outside the lighthouse looking west toward Mykonos. “You do know that if we let him live he’ll do what he did to Tassos to someone else,” said Kouros.
“Yeah, I thought about that. Thought about it real hard. Thought about leaving him in there tied to the cross with the door open so that the animals could get to him. Also thought about just tossing him off the cliff.”
Andreas kicked at the dirt. “But do you know why I’m not going to do any of that?”
“Please don’t give me a lecture on taking the moral highroad after what we’ve just seen.”
Andreas gestured no. “Here’s my thinking. If there is anything in this world that will motivate Tassos to get better, it will be knowing that the sick bastard who did all that to him was still breathing.”
Kouros smiled. “Okay, I’ll take that as an acceptable answer.”
“Hey, don’t lose heart, Yianni. We still have to figure out what we’re going to do about the guy who’s really behind what happened to Tassos.”
“Yeah, mister blowtorch did get real chatty.”
“I don’t think he realized how much he was telling us when he said his only order was to find where a ‘briefcase’ was hidden.”
Kouros drew in and let out a deep breath. “I feel it’s my fault they did what they did to Tassos. If I hadn’t hidden what they wanted he could have told them where it was. He really didn’t know.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re probably the only reason he’s still alive. If Tassos knew where it was he’d likely have told them and they’d have killed him as soon as they had it. No way they would let him live.”
Kouros nodded. “Thanks.”
“No need to say that. It’s true.”
“So what are we going to do about the Albanian mob? They’re obviously working with Sergey.”
“Quite a risk they took siding with a stranger against a cop as important as Tassos. This must have meant one hell of a big payday for them.”
“It will get them run off the island,” said Kouros.
“You really think so? For sure it will turn the heat up high enough to nail the others involved in snatching Tassos on Syros, but more than that, I doubt it. Albanians are a convenient scapegoat for a lot of problems on Mykonos. It’s too easy to blame them for hotel-room thefts during tourist season, private home break-ins during the off-season, and car thefts year-round. If we get rid of all the Albanian bad guys, whom are the Mykonians going to have left to blame? Their druggie nephews? No one wants to hear that. They prefer the excuse, ‘Albanians did it. Or the Pakistanis, or the Tsigani. Anybody but us.’”
“What really pisses me off is that with so many locals and cops knowing who’s behind most of that shit, why haven’t they been arrested? It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out how to catch them.”
“No, just an honest cop doing his job.”
“The truly bad guys on this island probably think they can get away with just about anything,” said Kouros.
Andreas waved his finger. “Except kidnapping a cop.”
“So, what are we going to do about mister blowtorch’s Albanian mob boss? He said that’s who ordered him to torture Tassos. Want to go shake his tree?” Kouros waved his knife.
“I doubt we’ll get him to admit he ordered the torture of a cop. And once ‘mister blowtorch’ is safely in jail he’ll clam up and deny everything he told us. We’ve got to get a direct angle on Sergey and the only way I see for doing that is by finding out who the hell is bankrolling him.”
“He’s certainly not going to tell us.”
“Wish we could use your Bowie knife on him.”
“Which reminds me,” said Kouros. “We better get the prisoner down to the coast guard. They won’t wait for us forever.”
Andreas smiled. “Don’t worry about it, they’ll wait.”
“How do you know that?”
“That lieutenant whispered something to me just before he left us alone with the prisoner.”
“What was it?”
“‘Take your time, Tassos is my godfather.’”
Chapter Twenty-six
Andreas hadn’t been to sleep and it was approaching noon. He’d been summoned from the harbormaster’s office to Mykonos police headquarters by the minister of public order and had spent the better part of fifteen minutes listening to Spiros rant on at eardrum splitting decibel levels. Luckily, it was delivered by telephone so most of the volume was directed at the police chief’s office walls though a handset Andreas had put down on the chief’s desk.
“How dare you organize such an operation without telling me? Without telling the local chief of police? And involving the coast guard without my authority? Just who do you think you are? Andreas, do you hear me? Answer me!”
Andreas picked the phone up from the desk. “Well, Minister, since you asked so nicely and the august chief of the Mykonos police force who played such a large part in your decision to suspend me is sitting here enraptured by our little conversation, I’ll give you an answer. I did what I did to spare you both the embarrassment of having your names linked with mine.”
Spiros screamed, “I’ll see that you’re prosecuted for murder!”
Andreas laughed. “Good luck with that. Why don’t you suggest that to your colleagues in the party? My guess is you’ll be out of government before you finish the conversation.”
“Are you insane?”
“Obviously you’re not keeping up with the latest news. Why don’t you turn on one of those big screen TVs in your office? It’s just about time for the news. Try Antenna.”
Andreas waved at the police chief to turn on the television in the corner of his office.
Andreas watched as Greece’s number one television anchor reported on Antenna Network news, “In a daring pre-dawn raid against a cliffside island fortress, Greek police overcame a heavily armed and numerically superior terrorist cell to rescue their kidnapped comrade, a hero cop who had uncovered the terrorists’ plot to blackmail some of Greece’s most prominent citizens.
“In a joint operation conducted by representatives of the police and coast guard, GADA’s legendary chief of Special Crimes, Andreas Kaldis, and former navy seal, now detective, Yiannis Kouros, succeeded in freeing Cyclades Chief Homicide Investigator, Tassos Stamatos. Chief Stamatos remains in critical condition in an undisclosed Athens hospital under heavy police protection.
“I’m certain all of Greece joins us in praying for Chief Stamatos’ speedy recovery, and gives thanks that in the midst of our country’s crises we are still blessed with heroes on the order of Chief Kaldis and Detective Kouros who make us proud to be Greeks in the truest tradition of those who battled to the cry, ‘We are Sparta!’