The Fifth Man (13 page)

“And your son’s name?”

“Matthew.”

Marchenko smiled; a thousand wrinkles briefly appeared on a face that a moment before had been as smooth as ice and almost as white. “The apostle John lived in Ephesus,” he said, the smile gone, his face alabaster again. “In 90 A.D. And Mary, she died here. Who is Matthew, in your family?”

“No one,” Chris answered, understanding the question immediately. “We liked the name, my wife and I.”

“Don DiGiglio’s daughter.”

“Yes.”

“Your ex-wife.”

“Yes.”

“America.”

“America,” Chris said, smiling very faintly, with his eyes only, thinking of his father, Joseph, who should have had the honor of being the namesake of Chris’s first son.
No, Don Marchenko, America—the modern world—was not the reason for this slight, but perhaps you know that already.

“Have you spoken to your captain?” the Russian asked.

“He’s been killed.”

“By whom?”

“Whoever hired him to hire the Ukrainian.”

“And this is where I come in.”

“Yes.”

“What exactly do you want from me?”

“A man named Marko Dravic has approached me. A Russian businessman. He got my attention by briefly abducting my daughter. I need to know if he is the originator of the diamond ploy. Also, who he works for.”

“Who he works for?”

“Yes.”

“What did he want of you?”

“He asked me to go to Prague, to help the Czechs stop a terrorist attack. He says the Russians won’t be trusted in Prague. He says he is just a businessman who has been asked by his government to approach me.”

“What kind of attack?”

“He didn’t say.”

“The Russians?”

“GRU.”

“Will you go?”

“Yes.”

The old man got up slowly, rising—unfolding it seemed to Chris—to his full height of no more than five and a half feet. He was rail thin. Taking a thick stick from the ground, he poked it into the pond and swirled it around, creating concentric ripples that went forth and faded as they reached the far bank. These small marching waves glistened as they caught the morning sun.

“I love this place,” the don said, turning and facing Chris, holding the mud-coated stick out before him like a baton, lining it up with Chris’s face. “I will die here soon. But I have children and grandchildren, and men who have sworn their lives to me.”

“I am asking a lot,” Chris said, “I realize that.”

“How do you know it wasn’t me who hired the Ukrainian?” the don said. “That Dravic is not my man.”

“You would not have put the grandchildren of Anthony DiGiglio in harm’s way.”

Marchenko smiled his wrinkled smile again, then looked closely at Chris. “You know, Christoff,” he said, “the Turks used to fabricate terrorist attacks by the Greeks as a way of keeping their people stirred up and of course distracted. Now the Israelis are the devils. Sometimes the attacks are real, with evidence left pointing to Tel Aviv. It’s what governments do in this part of the world. But only
governments
retaliate against other governments.”

Chris remained silent. He got the point. The price for Marchenko’s help would be very high.

“Have you tried yourself?” the don asked.

“Yes. But no luck. My people in Moscow have found nothing and time is running out.”

“Where does he go?”

“To his office, to church.”

“He goes to mass on Sundays?”

“No, he visits at random times.”

“Which church?”

“The Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow.”

“Does he go alone?”

“We believe so.”

“How much time do I have?”

“The attack is supposed to occur on September eleven.”

“Thirteen days.”

Chris nodded. “Thirteen days.”

“Do you know of the Emperor Theodosius?” the don asked.

“No,” Chris answered.

“He built a stone wall around Constantinople, fifteen hundred years ago. Some of it now encloses us here.” Marchenko gazed at the parts of the wall around them that were not covered by vines, his light, intelligent eyes seeming to look into the past. “They are careless with their treasures, the Turks, now that they are an Islamist state. They disdain anything not Muslim.” The don, a wry smile on his face, threw the muddy stick into the pond, then strode to the stone slab. Swiftly and with surprising ease and grace, he lifted the hammer, placed the chisel vertically on the goddess’s face and cleaved her in half. “I will do as you ask. Take this,” he said, handing half of the shard to Chris, leaving the other half on the slab. “The person with the other half will tell you what I have been able to discover.”

“Thank you for seeing me. And for your help,” Chris said, rising, “I am in your debt. When this is over, you may call on me at any time.”

^ ^ ^ ^ ^

Chris was relieved to see Costa Vasiliou watching from the stern rail as the launch approached
Eleftheria
at anchor in Samos’s Karlovassi Harbor. He had entered Turkey illegally, and, though Chris had been received politely by Marchenko in his den, the Russian don was nevertheless a lion, old but far from toothless. Chris had not slept well on the overnight cruise from Skopelos, and now, gripping Costa’s large brown hand as he was helped aboard, he was tired.

“Did you make the call, Costa?” he asked, standing next to his captain at the rail, watching the launch being lifted onto the deck.

“Yes.”

“Thank you. I will fly to Prague from Skiathos tonight.”

“I will make the arrangements. Are you going alone?”

“Matt will come with me. Tess will fly separately. Send two of your men with her, the ones watching her now. Put her in the Europa. They are not to leave her until I say so.”

Costa nodded. “How was Turkey?”

Not,
how was the don?
Or,
how did your business go?
How was
Turkey
? This was Costa’s one weakness, his hatred of the Turks. Christina hated them even more, if that were possible.

“I am glad to be back on Greek soil.”

Costa smiled, his white teeth brilliant against the blue-water tan of his face.

“And Marchenko?” he asked.

“Don Marchenko has made an idol of himself,” Chris replied. “It is the great sin of our age.”

“No one above God, no
thing
above God.”

“Yes.”

“Shall I continue to watch Mr. Dravic?”

Neither Costa nor Max French had been able to discover who Marko Dravic was.
Frie Markit
was registered in the Cayman Islands in the name of a Swiss corporation. There was no getting behind those curtains without Mr. White’s help, and Chris did not want that help.

“Tell me: when he goes to the Cathedral in Moscow, what does he do?”

“He is met by an old woman, who escorts him through a door behind the altar.”

“Where your people cannot follow.”

“Yes. It is perhaps a private chapel. Or meeting place.”

“Do you have pictures of the people who enter before him?”

“No, we followed him there.”

“Are there other entrances?”

“Several.”

“Who is the bishop there?”

“Bishop Josef Bukov.”

“Check him out.”

“I will. Shall I continue following Dravic?”

“No, it is not necessary. Have last night’s pictures arrived?”

“They came in while you were ashore.”

“Put the prints in my briefcase. I will look at them on the plane.”

25.

Skiathos, August 29, 2012, 8:00 p.m.

“Tell me what happened,” Chris said.

Matt had been waiting for this question for the past two days, unnerved by how long it took his father to ask it. They were seated on plush leather swivel chairs in the lounge area amidships of a corporate jet, a twin-engine Gulfstream, as it stood on the tarmac at the airport on the island of Skiathos. A cable news program was being broadcast on two high definition televisions mounted on the walls above them; the newsreader, a handsome middle-aged man, looked grim as he spoke of Greece’s financial crisis. There will be a delay, the captain had told them when they boarded, perhaps thirty minutes, nothing unusual. The hostess, in a simple black skirt and white blouse, with an onyx pin on it that said,
Hellenic Waste Management,
served them sparkling water and retreated through the door that led to the service area at the rear of the plane. The six passenger seats, also buttery-looking leather, were empty.

“The guy pulled a gun,” Matt said, thinking of the days when he was thirteen and thought that Mafia violence was cool. “He had already hit her with a bat. I saw the bruise. He was drunk, or high on something.”

“So it was self-defense? Him or you?”

“Yes.”

Silence.

“What did he look like?”

“A mess, like he’d been up all night drinking, or drugging, probably both.”

“Describe him.”

“Six-three, two-thirty, cut, tattooed, long greasy hair.”

“How long?”

“Almost to his shoulders.”

“Where were the tattoos?”

“His forearms.”

“Of what?”

Matt stopped to think. “I can’t remember,” he said finally.

“What did he say?”

“He asked me who I was.
Who the fuck are you?
he said, when I told him.
I want to see my kids
.”

Chris nodded.

“Don’t ask me the color of his eyes, Dad,” Matt said, half smiling. “I don’t know.”

“And the woman? Anna.” Chris said. “Where is she now?”

“She’s here.”

“You brought her here?”

“Yes.”

“Where is she?”

“In town, in a hotel.”

“How old is she?”

“How old is she?”

“Yes.”

“Thirty-two.”

“The kids, are they here too?”

“Yes.”

Matt watched his father absorb all this, his face unreadable.

“I was crazy about your mother when we first met.”

Matt said nothing. What could he say to that?

“Why did you bring her?” Chris asked. “Are you worried about their safety?”

“Yes. I was afraid friends of Nico would want revenge, or come after her looking for the money.”

“Max says she’s a Czech national. When did she come to the U.S.?”

“When she was eighteen.”

“She’s fluent in Czech, I take it. Anything else? Czech kids learned Russian in grammar school.”

“I don’t know.”

“What’s her story?”

“Her father worked in the underground against the Russians. He was arrested, tortured and killed when Anna was ten. Her mother had died earlier. She came to the U.S. on a work visa when she was eighteen, then married Cavanagh.”

“What was the father’s name?”

“The full name, I don’t know. Cervenka, I assume.”

“Have you checked out her story?”

“Dad…”

“I’ll do it.”

Chris picked his cell phone up from the coffee table between them and dialed a number. “Costa,” he said after a moment or two. “Where are you?” Chris listened for the time it took Costa to answer, then said, “Turn around. Matt will meet you in the harbor.” Then to Matt: “Take Costa and pick up Anna and the kids. Drop the kids off to Christina, bring Anna here. She’ll come with us.

“Why?”

“She speaks Czech, she knows the city. My bet is she speaks Russian too. She’ll blend in. I may need someone like that.”

“She’s a civilian. She’s completely innocent.”

Chris did not respond to this immediately. His face was set at an angle that prevented Matt from seeing his eyes.
What’s he thinking? He never thinks just nothing. It’s always something.

“No one’s completely innocent, Matt,” Chris said finally, turning to face his son.

“You may be right,” Matt said, thinking of Anna, of how she would react to another abrupt move, knowing she would have no choice. Once Uncle Frank DiGiglio’s two farmers showed up and took Skip Cavanagh’s body away, while she watched, even offering them coffee, she had crossed the line into the parallel world where the Chris Massi’s, the Max French’s, the Frank DiGiglio’s—and now the Matt Massi’s—lived and worked, interacting with but never re-joining the world where normal people, civilians, lived their lives, with only sins of the flesh and spirit to haunt them, not murder or worse.