The tone of his voice suggested he wasn’t in the mood to argue. “I know it’s nuts, but that’s the way I feel. If I had answered my phone, if I had given him the help that he asked for, he’d still be alive today. . . . Pretty ironic, huh?”
“Ironic?”
“The reason I can’t sleep at night is because of Chad, and my parents, and all the bad shit we saw overseas. So what do I do? I take a sleeping pill to get some rest. Of course, in this case the sleeping pill is the reason I didn’t answer my phone to begin with, so a lot of good it did.”
“Wow,” Jones said, trying to lighten the mood. “You are fucked up.”
“For the record, I said messed up. But thanks for making me feel better about myself.”
“Hey! That’s what friends are for.”
Payne smiled, hoping to change the subject. “Anyway, enough about that crap. Let’s talk about the mission.”
“I thought that’s what we were doing.”
“No, we were talking about my demons.”
Jones shook his head. “No, we were talking about your motivation. That’s far more important than anything else.”
“How so?”
“Tell me, why are we going to Russia? Is it to rescue the girl, or is it to rake leaves?”
Payne grimaced. “What in the hell are you talking about?”
“Don’t play dumb, Jon. You know damn well what I’m talking about. Is saving Allison enough for you, or do you need more from this trip?”
“Like?”
“Finding out why Byrd was killed and completing his mission. If that’s the case, I’m completely cool with it. I really am. I’m willing to do whatever I can to help you sleep at night. But you have to come clean and tell me now so I can adjust our itinerary.”
“And you won’t be mad?”
“Mad? Not at all. In fact, I’m kind of curious.”
“About?”
“His death, the Archives, his search, and so on. It’s all very compelling.”
“Compelling, huh?” Payne thought about things for several seconds before he smiled. “Fine! If you feel that strongly about it, I’ll tag along with you. I mean, that’s what friends are for.”
26
While Andropoulos searched for Theodore, Dial stood outside the monk’s room, guarding the hidden door and the tunnel. Making sure it stayed his secret for as long as possible. To Dial, this was one of those times when the element of surprise was far more important than the collection of evidence. He couldn’t wait to spring his discovery on Theodore and witness the monk’s reaction. Would he stammer? Would he sweat? Would his pupils constrict? In the long run, that information would be far more helpful to Dial’s investigation than ten extra minutes of forensics.
It would help him decide if the monk could be trusted.
While Dial waited, his thoughts drifted back to the previous night, when he had met Nicolas at that very spot. It was a conversation that Dial wished he could do over.
In the past, Dial had always considered himself a great judge of character—whether it was interviewing suspects or making new friends. Yet for some reason his instincts had failed him with Nicolas. Dial wasn’t sure why, but he figured he must have let his guard down because Nicolas looked like a holy man, someone who could be trusted. If that was the case, Dial knew he had to alter his mind-set. Most of the people he’d be questioning in the coming days were monks, and if he didn’t view them as fallible human beings—men who were fully capable of murder and deceit and all the other bad stuff that went on in the outside world—there was a damn good chance that he wouldn’t get the information he needed to solve the homicides.
And that was completely unacceptable.
The first monk to be interviewed was Theodore. Dial wanted to look him in the eye and see if he was telling the truth. If not, Dial was determined to make an example out of him—if for no other reason than to get full cooperation from every other monk at Metéora.
He had to seize control of the case, and he had to do it now.
When Theodore finally came into view, Dial didn’t smile, or nod, or acknowledge the monk’s approach in any other way. He simply stared at him with unblinking eyes. Occasionally he clenched his jaw, causing his temples to pulse and his massive chin to jut forward.
His intensity was impossible to miss.
Theodore sensed the change in Dial from afar. This wasn’t the same man who had joked with him about stealing furniture