The letter in her hands was from Makis Alexiadis. An important man, certainly, and yet not fit to kiss the feet of the one who was coming.
Athena Petridis.
Athena!
Just the name sent chills like an electrical current through Sister Elena’s veins.
Pulling out the note that Makis Alexiadis had taken such pains to get to her, Sister Elena unfolded it and read it slowly. Her stomach soured, and she felt a tension in her body, her arms and hands and neck, that was at once alien and yet distantly familiar. This was bad news. Very bad. Two more lost shipments, the boats gone down with scores of lives lost. It was almost as if someone were trying to sabotage Athena’s glorious return, her reclaiming of her birthright from Makis Alexiadis.
Makis.
Big Mak. That was what people called him now, the eager, scrawny little lad whom Spyros Petridis used to take everywhere with him, like a dog. He was, he claimed, still loyal to the couple who had plucked him from obscurity and thrust him into a world of inconceivable power, influence and wealth. But was he really? What if Makis was the one setting Athena up to fail? Allowing the lucrative Aegean migrant route to slip through her fingers? Laying the groundwork for a plot to usurp her?
What if Makis Alexiadis couldn’t be trusted?
Of course there were many others to be feared. Old enemies. In particular ‘The Group’. They were the ones who had sabotaged the Petridises’ helicopter that day. The day they died.
Only of course, Athena hadn’t died. Somehow she’d survived the terrible flames of the wreckage, defied the searing heat like a witch. ‘Someone’ must have helped her.
Sister Elena chuckled to herself.
The drowned, branded boy would have let The Group know they’d failed. If Elena’s memory served, they didn’t take kindly to failure. Like all fanatics, they would fight on to the death. Till the job was done. They wouldn’t stop until they’d driven a stake through Athena’s heart.
Through the tall pines, Sister Elena glimpsed the walls of the convent that had been her home, her sanctuary, for so many long years. She would have preferred to delay her departure, just for a few more months. To prepare, emotionally. To ready herself for her duty, for what was to come. But the branded child washed up on the shore meant that time had run out. Today’s note from Makis Alexiadis merely confirmed it.
> The second coming was nigh.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The assassin crouched in the darkness, curled under the overhanging bay bushes that surrounded the bastide. His legs ached and his fingers had grown numb with cold. He felt as if he’d been waiting here forever. But these things mustn’t be rushed. The guardians of Andreas Kouvlaki’s estate, Monsieur and Madame Jamet, had only retired to bed half an hour ago. He must wait until both were deeply asleep before he made his move.
Andreas Kouvlaki’s holiday villa in the south of France was a surprisingly tasteful property. Not for him the flashy, modern, glass and steel mansions overlooking Pampelonne beach or one of the grand gated estates in town. Instead the wealthy people-trafficker had chosen a converted seventeenth-century farmhouse in the hills above Ramatuelle, its secluded grounds ringed by woodland and completely hidden from the prying eyes of the locals. Perhaps he felt that the bastide’s isolation was security enough? Was that why he’d hired only the elderly Jamets, a single, bored night watchman and two Doberman pinschers as protection? Or perhaps he was simply too arrogant to believe that his enemies would dare risk a strike against him?
His brother, Perry Kouvlaki, had been much more careful, installing elaborate alarm systems and trip wires and surrounding himself with a small army of bodyguards. Not that it had mattered in the end. The assassin had successfully dispatched Perry last month in Paris, beating him to death with a claw hammer in the back room of a deserted former nightclub, before branding his mangled body with a letter: ‘A’. Once he’d discovered the older Kouvlaki’s penchant for Arab boys, the younger the better, it had been easy to lure the revolting pedophile away from his various layers of protection to his death. He’d considered branding Perry while he was still alive. God knew the bastard deserved it. But once the hammer was in his hand, it was as if a red curtain descended and righteous, murderous rage took over. Perry was dead in seconds. In the end, he’d struggled to find enough unbroken skin on the corpse to leave his mark successfully, eventually opting for what had once been Perry Kouvlaki’s shoulder blade.
Next time he must try to slow down.
Andreas knew of his brother’s fate, although he assumed Perry’s grizzly murder had been at the hands of a pimp, or the ‘friends’ of one of his playthings. Not sharing his brother’s perversions, Andreas did not perceive himself to be at risk. Charming and handsome, with a slender frame and an immaculate taste in bespoke tailoring, the younger Kouvlaki was popular and well liked, playing the part of the respectable businessman to a tee. Women flocked to him and men competed to become his friend, oblivious to the raw human misery on which his business empire was based.
But Andreas had become complacent, and sloppy. No one was infallible, as the assassin well knew. And he was here to carry the job through. The day of reckoning had arrived.
Slowly emerging from his hiding place, wincing as the blood flowed back into his straightened legs, he moved towards the guardian’s cottage. If his calculations were correct, the dogs should pick up his scent in approximately fifteen seconds, beginning a cacophony of barking that he must extinguish as soon as possible.
Fifteen, fourteen … ten …
Reaching into the bag slung across his chest, he pulled out the two dripping steaks, each generously laced with an odorless horse tranquilizer, holding them in front of him like a talisman.
Two … one …
Right on cue the Dobermans leaped out of the darkness like twin hell hounds, barking loudly, but the steaks stopped them instantly in their tracks. He hung back as they sniffed, then ate, unaware of the sedative racing into their bloodstream. Both animals were on the ground unconscious within a minute.
Screwing the silencer onto his gun, he knelt down and stroked each of their sleek coats. He wished he didn’t have to do it, but it couldn’t be helped. With a heavy heart, he shot a bullet deep into each animal’s brain.
They’re Kouvlaki’s victims, not mine, he told himself as he reached the door of the cottage, easily unpicking the lock. Moving swiftly up the stairs, he paused for a moment at the Jamets’ bedroom, looking at the old couple sleeping side by side, their sun-weathered faces still visible in the shadows, peeking out above the duvet like two pickled walnuts. He climbed up onto the bed and held a chloroformed rag over monsieur and madame simultaneously before either had a chance to stir. Less than a minute later, with both the guardians knocked out cold and handcuffed to a bedpost, he was back outside, headed towards the main house.
The last remaining obstacle was Laurent, Andreas Kouvlaki’s lazy and useless night watchman. Most large homes on the Cote d’Azur employed such a person these days, supposedly to deter car thieves or would-be burglars, although most of the young men who accepted these deathly boring jobs were unemployed local youths, totally untrained and of considerably less use than the guard dogs. Nonetheless, it made people feel better to know there was somebody patrolling their homes with a flashlight while they slept. And Kouvlaki had at least gone to the trouble of providing Laurent with a gun, putting him one step above the rest.
At five foot eight and slightly built, however, Laurent was no match for the assassin. Approaching the boy from behind and clamping a third rag over his nose and mouth, just as he had with the guardians, he soon had Kouvlaki’s last line of defense bound, gagged and locked in an outdoor toolshed.