The Green Lady Read Free

big money freelancing for the Athens crime bosses, who were connected to the dictators and their henchmen. So much for army, church and family, especially since the old bastard had pushed his wife down the stairs to her death. The Son had taken steps to make sure nothing like that would happen to him.
    The man in the mask was making a curious noise, but the Son paid little attention. He was thinking about his success over the last two years. After being forced to leave Greece – and there would be a reckoning for that – he had plied the trade the Father had taught him throughout the Balkans. There was no shortage of customers. He had also added to his talents, as gang bosses were often more interested in killing their opponents than extracting information from them. He’d become a fully functioning hit man, able to take out people by rifle, bomb, pistol and knife – as well as a few specialities he’d come up with himself. It had cost him a large proportion of the old man’s gold to take lessons from a retired Committee for State Security man in Bulgaria, but it had been worth it. Petrov had been a good teacher and he knew his craft, but he had a serious weakness – he drank vodka by the litre. That meant the Son couldn’t trust him even with the little he had said about his background. The Father had been a perfectionist, suspending his victims from the ceiling with fish hooks and lines. The Son was more practical. Whatever did the job – such as the piece of burlap he’d found in an outhouse, stinking of goat’s cheese.
    He closed the door and went over to his prisoner.
    â€˜For the last time,
where is she
?’
    The man was silent and motionless, his head still forward.
    The Son bent over him, his nose twitching. He could smell death better than a master of wine could identify a vintage. He unwrapped the mask and let it drop to the compacted earth floor. The prisoner’s eyes were wide open and crimson veined, his lips lacerated where he had bitten through them. He’d succumbed to shock or suffocation, or perhaps had choked on his own blood.
    Gathering up the tools of his trade, the Son smiled. No matter. It was obvious the fool didn’t know anything. He’d have killed him anyway, though in a more imaginative way. Now he would move on to the next name on the list of worshippers he’d been given. He took the pictures with his camera phone that he’d been ordered to pass on to his employer.
    The Son went out to the pickup truck – a battered, five-year-old Nissan that didn’t stick out from the crowd, but packed a hefty punch under the bonnet – and took a plastic petrol can from the cargo space. He doused the dead man with enough fuel to mess up the crime scene investigator’s job, even if he was found quickly. Then he laid a trail of petrol to the door, lit a match and dropped it. There was a noise like an ox belching and then the corpse combusted.
    â€˜His soul flew past the barrier of his teeth and departed, lamenting bitterly, for the halls of Hades,’ the Son said, leaving the door open until the fire was well established and taking a few more photos. He knew he had mangled the lines from Homer’s
Iliad
, but he didn’t care. The fact that the Father would have broken a stick over him for doing so made him laugh out loud.

TWO
    T he alarm woke Mavros from a troubled dream, in which Niki was pursuing him with a large pair of scissors in her hand. He showered and put on a loose white linen shirt and cream trousers. He considered shaving, but dismissed the idea. His stubble wasn’t too long and the woman had cut him off.
    â€˜Morning,’ the Fat Man said, coming out of the kitchen with a tray of
baklava
, sweat streaming down his face. ‘How about this for a change?’
    â€˜Just coffee,’ Mavros mumbled.
    â€˜You know that isn’t how it works in the holy mother’s halls. The deal is coffee