But it was in Athens that it all went wrong. Overconfident after his successes with Perry and Andreas, Mood had been too trusting in the latter’s information and had seriously underestimated both the scale and the sophistication of Makis Alexiadis’s security arrangements. He barely made it into the grounds with Andreas’s code before he was Tasered to the ground, disarmed, bound, beaten, and finally dragged like a sack of rocks before Big Mak himself. He never even got a chance to use the stupid finger.
Prepared for death and not remotely afraid, Mood’s defiant attitude and physical courage made an instant impression on Makis. Rather than shooting him at once, Makis began to question him, curious about this fearless, angry giant of a man and what drove him.
‘You came here to kill me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Because?’
‘Because you killed my family.’
Salim’s eyes bored into his with laser-like hatred.
‘You’re mistaken,’ said Makis. ‘I don’t even know your family.’
‘That doesn’t matter. You’re responsible for their deaths. For so many deaths.’
The whole story came out then. Makis listened, fascinated. Not only to the horrors of the overcrowded migrant boats – this man’s wife and children had been among the lost cargo on one of their Aegean shipments – but how it was he who had tracked down Perry and Andreas Kouvlaki, murdering both and then branding them with letters ‘in memory’ of the drowned Libyan boy. This lunatic had been using Athena’s calling card without even knowing it! Tit-for-tat brandings! The whole thing was so ironic, you couldn’t make it up. ‘A’ had been for Ava, and ‘P’ for Parzheen, his drowned daughters. Makis, presumably, was to have been marked with an ‘H’ – for Hoda, the man’s dead wife.
It was amusing to think that all this time Mak had been second-guessing Athena, trying to piece together a code that was indeed about loss and rage – just not hers!
But Makis didn’t laugh. Instead he listened intently to Salim’s story. And then he told Mood a story of his own. It was a story that changed everything. A story that reframed what had happened to Hoda and Parzheen and Ava that terrible night, and that provided Mood with a new focus, a new enemy: Athena Petridis.
It was Athena, Mak explained, who had masterminded the people-smuggling operation. Athena who was obsessed with gaining overall control of the Aegean route. Athena who had branded children like animals, like cargo, to stake her claim over their lives, and deaths, and whose calling card Mood had unwittingly hijacked.
Makis Alexiadis had not sought to exonerate himself. That part was crucial for Mood. Unlike the Kouvlaki brothers, he hadn’t needed to. He wasn’t begging for his life. On the contrary, it was Mood whose life was in his hands. Makis could have shot Mood in the head then and there if he’d chosen to. But he didn’t.
Instead, he made him a deal.
Makis would spare Mood’s life, and direct him to the real mastermind behind his family’s deaths. In return, Mood would make no further attempt to kill him. Makis explained to Mood that if he, Mak, were to die, then Athena would assume total control of the Petridis empire and the drownings would only multiply.
The new plan was for Mood to go to the convent at Sikinos, with Makis’s help, find and kill Athena – aka, ‘Sister Elena’ – and bring irrefutable evidence of her demise back to Makis. In return for this task of Hercules, Makis would pull the Petridis organization out of the migrant business altogether and revert to his core areas of expertise – fraud, extortion and drugs. He would also donate $2 million to ‘Open Arms’, the charity that rescued Mood, pulling him from the water on the night of the drownings. ‘Because even if we withdraw from the business, others won’t,’ Makis reminded him. ‘And you can’t kill them all, my friend.’
Makis Alexiadis would never be Mood Salim’s ‘friend’. But the deal he offered was a good one. Mood believed him about Athena, for the simple reason that, as far as Mood could tell, he had no reason to lie.
The world Mahmoud Salim had come to know was full of evil, full of enemies. Makis was one of them. But he was also right: Mood couldn’t kill them all. He had to pick and choose. And if he could kill Athena – the worst of them all, the queen bee of the whole revolting, murderous hive – then surely he would die knowing he had avenged his girls?
That would be enough.
It would have to be.
That meeting had been two months ago. But again, Mood had been overconfident, and much had changed since then.
Athena Petridis was still alive.
Mood had failed in his mission to Sikinos.
According to their ‘deal’, this meant that, officially at least, Makis owed him nothing. And that he, Mood, owed Makis nothing, other than not to try to kill him again. They had shaken hands on that agreement, and Mood Salim’s word was his bond.
Any other man would have left Greece, left Europe, run as fast and as far as he could from the murderous crime boss who had miraculously spared his life once, but would not do so again. But Mood Salim was not any other man. He needed to see Makis. His work wasn’t done. He needed another chance. To put things right. And so he stepped ashore on Mykonos, preparing to walk once more into the lion’s den.
The doctor looked at the reading on his blood-pressure monitor and frowned.
‘Are you taking your simvastatin?’
Makis Alexiadis gave a grunt that might have been ‘yes’. Or ‘no’.
‘What about your diet?’