Read Online Devil of Delphi: A Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis Mystery by Jeffrey Siger - Free Book Online Page B

in exchange for their hanging out with him for a couple of hours, saying he needed them as cover to catch his cheating wife and her boyfriend strolling the promenade at lunchtime. They’d leisurely pedaled back and forth along the promenade for nearly an hour when Kharon told them to stop under the plane tree and take a break. That had been at five minutes before two.
    When they’d last passed that same spot, Kharon noticed that a black Mercedes G-class SUV with heavily tinted windows had driven onto the pedestrian way and parked directly across from the entrance to the path up to the Acropolis. The SUV hadn’t moved.
    Kharon sat on his bike, sipping from a water bottle, scanning every face he could see. None seemed the sort interested in conducting an interview. At precisely two o’clock a bearded derelict dozing under folded cardboard by the path entrance jumped to his feet, startling three tourists into abandoning a nearby bench. He waved his hands and began a dance of what looked to be his own improvised creation. But Kharon did not see it, for he was searching for anyone not distracted by the performance. He found no one.
    As abruptly as he’d started, the derelict ended his dance, went back to the bench, and picked up his cardboard. He shuffled to the edge of the path, carefully unfolded the cardboard, held it up above his head, and slowly turned so that everyone in the area could read, KHARON IS HERE, WHERE ARE YOU?
    A few tourists laughed. One yelled out, “Do you take silver coins?”
    Someone knows his Greek mythology , thought Kharon. Be sure to have coins for the ferryman . But the tourist walked away. That was not his contact. No one approached the derelict. After five minutes he carried his cardboard sign to the bench and sat down. It was now two-fifteen. Still no interviewer.
    “Hey, are we done yet?” asked one of the bicyclists.
    “Almost,” said Kharon. “Just one more thing. Follow me.”
    He put the water bottle back on the bike, pushed off, and pedaled thirty yards past the rear of the black SUV before turning and coming back at it from behind. He skirted in between the passenger side and the edge of the road, burst out in front of the SUV, and pointed at a sign marked NO MOTORIZED VEHICLES.
    He pedaled ahead toward the elegant pre-war homes that distinguished Dionysiou Areopagitou from virtually everywhere else in Athens, but turned and circled back before reaching Herodes Atticus theater, pointing again at the sign as he passed close alongside the driver’s door. His identically dressed companions followed him, making identical gestures toward the sign. The bicyclists looped slowly around the SUV, like Indians from an American Western film surrounding a wagon train wrongly cutting through their territory.
    A few minutes into this routine, as Kharon’s bike came head-on past the SUV’s front bumper on the driver’s side, the driver’s door flew open—wedged in place by the driver’s left foot—smashed into the bike’s front wheel and catapulted Kharon over the handlebars. But, as if he were a gymnast going from one uneven bar to the next, Kharon grabbed ahold of the outside edge of the open door, swung his body around it, and drove his feet squarely into the face of a surprised and instantly unconscious driver.
    The big man next to the driver struggled to pull a gun from his right hip, but before he could free it Kharon had pushed the driver across the seat into him, drawn a switchblade from his bag with his right hand, and driven the tip hard up against the big man’s throat.
    “Uh, uh, Panos,” said Kharon as he edged across the seat closer to the ex-soldier. “Play nice, now.”
    Panos slowly raised his hands. “No problem. Didn’t know it was you.”
    “Then please tell your friend in the backseat to put down the Uzi.” Kharon kept the blade pressed against Panos’ throat.
    “That was a very bold move, young man,” said a voice from the backseat. “But foolish, because