The waiter set a fresh bottle of the white wine from Crete between the two of them and swiftly walked away.
“Well, we’ve been dealing with the cotton trade in that country for decades,” Halsey said. Really, he had only made a single call to a man he knew in the new government. Money still meant something in that part of the world. “Have you heard anything about the two previous investigators sent to find my sister?”
Maria took a sip of wine, her eyes concentrating on the senator. “Nothing,” she said, setting her glass onto the table. “We had their passports flagged, so if they’re still alive they will show up eventually.”
Still alive? Could this situation be that grave? He had simply put the ball in motion hiring the first man from New York, a former detective there, a week after he had found out his sister had vanished in Athens. When that man made only one call to the lawyer brokering the search before also disappearing, Senator Halsey had taken a more active role. He had recommended the second man to go find his sister, a former Texas Ranger from Houston, but just a week ago the senator had found out this man had also gone missing. That was when Halsey took over completely, quietly enlisting the help of his government contacts.
“What can you tell me about this new man?” Senator Halsey asked her.
She smiled. “He’s highly capable.”
“I thought the last two were as well.”
“Not like this man. He’s not a man to be taken lightly.”
Halsey noticed something in her eyes when she talked about this mystery man. “You have a special relationship with him.”
Shaking her head, she said, “Not really. We were friends once.”
But there was more, he knew. “What makes you think he can find Sara?”
“If she’s alive he’ll find her. If she’s dead…you’ll know that as well. He’s never failed at anything in his life.”
Senator Halsey leaned across the table toward Maria. “The state department said he killed a man in Tunisia. The authorities there were holding him in some disgusting prison for the past week. What do you know about that?”
She finished her glass of wine and poured half a glass more for herself and topped off the senator’s glass. Throughout the action, her eyes kept watch around the room. “I’ve heard the same thing. But this man doesn’t kill someone unless they deserve it. The man he killed was a wanted international terrorist. A man who had killed the girlfriend of the man you just hired.”
“Shucks. Sounds like divine retribution to me. I’d like to meet this man.”
She laughed. “Only if he wants to meet you.”
“Where do we go from here?” the senator asked.
Maria sucked down the last of her wine and got up. “The trail went cold in Rome. Our guy will start there.” She started to leave and turned back. “Next time maybe you could buy dinner.”
With that she walked off and the senator watched every sway of her hips out the door, as did every other man in the restaurant. Halsey checked the wedding band on his left hand and considered taking it off the next time they met.
High above the azure ocean in a stark white villa, Petros Caras sat on his balcony overlooking a 350-foot yacht, the blue and white colors matching the Greek flag that flowed in the soft breeze at the stern. It was his new expedition yacht, where he spent most of his time. He only came to his villa for meetings with those who did not deserve to step foot on his yacht, his real home. This villa, although ten thousand square feet of splendor and opulence, was a shell filled with expensive furniture and peopled, more than not, with the Euro-trash and nearly illiterate actors of Hollywood — all of whom seemed to want something from him, and mostly money and financing for their next project. But Petros Caras hated American movies. They meant nothing to him, other than pure investment. And they better deliver or they would never get another Euro from him.
Caras shifted his gaze from his yacht to the naked woman laying on the lounge chair a few feet from him. What was her name? No idea. She was Czech and that’s all he needed to know. He only had sex with Slavic women, and only those who were real. So those American women with their fake boobs and even more fake disposition, would never find a way to his bed.
The Czech woman stood up and slipped on her high heels, bringing her lithe body to nearly six feet. She had been a super model in her youth, but was now in her mid-thirties, he couldn’t remember exactly how old. Yet, she was still a striking figure. Gorgeous. She had seen the inside of his yacht on the trip from Italy last week.
“Petros,” she said, her lips in the perfect pout that all models could emulate, “you said you would take me to bed this afternoon. I’m horny.”
God he loved her accent. She spoke not a word of Greek, only her native Czech, Italian and some English. So to understand each other, they only spoke English.
“I have a meeting in five minutes,” Caras said, shrugging his shoulders.
“I need more than five minutes,” she whined.
“So do I. Go to the bedroom and wait for me. My meeting will take ten minutes, maybe less.”
She smiled and started for the double French doors, but then stopped, lowered her sun glasses, and said over her shoulder, “I could be finished by then.”
“We all have to make choices,” Caras said. “You can wait.”
She huffed and walked away as if still making her way down a runway in Milan.
Moments after the woman left, one of the villa staff members escorted in a man wearing a white linen suit, dark hair to his shoulders, and a tan behind three days growth of beard. Normally the man had his hair pulled back in a ponytail.
Zendo was the fixer for Petros Caras. At one time he had studied at the Greek Orthodox seminary in Athens, a profession that would have never suited the man. He was far too independent and lacked the discipline to follow any higher authority — with the exception of Petros Caras, who paid him quite nicely for his expertise. Zendo turned his military intelligence experience into a long career with the Hellenic Intelligence Service. He would have still been with that organization, but Petros Caras paid better.
“Have a seat, Zendo,” Caras said. Then he waived for his butler to close the door behind him and leave them alone.
Zendo sat on a chair near the stone wall, over which was a sheer drop of some one hundred feet to sharp rocks. Without thinking, he pulled his hair back and attached a rubber band at the base of his skull, making a perfect ponytail that most women would kill to have.
“How was Rome?” Caras asked.
Adjusting his sun glasses and trying not to make direct eye contact with this powerful man, Zendo said, “We lost the woman.”
“I guessed that much,” Caras surmised. “Otherwise you would have simply called for further instructions.” He gazed back to the ocean at his yacht, thinking he could just forget this whole affair. But that was the problem. He had all the money any one man could spend in dozens of lifetimes, but that which could not be reasonably purchased, those things that had value beyond what could be appraised, were even more cherished by Petros Caras. Which is why he began collecting items that no others would have, or could obtain. “What about those who came looking for her?”
Zendo smiled now. These were things he could control. “Athens and Rome can both be dangerous places.”
“Perhaps not as bad as New York or Houston,” Caras reasoned. He noticed a shift in disposition on Zendo’s face, from his normal incertitude to something bordering on concern — a characteristic Caras had never seen on the man. “What’s the matter?”