cult of Hades was not well thought of, even in those times. People knew that you had to offer tribute to all the gods, but you chose the one or ones you wanted to watch over you. No one wanted to choose Hades to look over them because they felt they would see him far too soon as it was.”
Lourds thought about that. “Would Hades have access to enchanted weapons?”
“He had his helm of invisibility, called the Helm of Darkness, which he loaned to various gods and goddesses and heroes in Greek mythology. But you have to remember, Thomas, everything eventually ended up in Hades. So, if you want to be fanciful and believe that Hades once gave Aristotle weapons and armor to give to Alexander, Hades could have done it. They could have belonged to other heroes and tales that have been lost. Or we could simply know them by other names.”
Lourds nodded and looked at his notes. “‘And he that shall hold the weapons and armor that once belonged to my lord, to him shall go the power to rule the world.’” He leaned back and sighed. “That’s pretty heady stuff.”
“Yes, and I’ve been thinking. You and I have exhausted our knowledge of the cult of Hades, but there is one man who might be able to help us.”
“Professor Ian Westmoore. I had thought of him. Is he still in Berlin?”
Marias smiled. “Does Germany still have beer?”
46
Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport
Athens
Hellenic Republic (Greece)
February 21, 2013
Dressed in jeans, a soccer shirt, and tennis shoes, Sergay Linko sat at a bar inside the terminal and watched as new arrivals filed through customs. He had been there for two hours, watching the early morning passengers leaving and arriving, but looking only for Anna Cherkshan.
At a quarter after eleven, she walked from the security area and headed to the front of the terminal.
Linko picked up the disposable phone he was using to keep in contact with the FSB agents backstopping his operation. Plugging the earphone into his ear, he used speed dial to call his driver. “She is here. Bring the car around front.”
“Yes. I am on my way.”
Everything was coming to a head now. Lourds and Anna Cherkshan were both here. He knew where the young woman was, but he had yet to find Lourds. As it turned out, the American linguist had many friends in Athens. With his limited manpower, finding all of them was difficult, and even FSB computer intelligence was drawing a blank.
He followed Anna easily. She talked rapidly on the phone and even looked a little relieved. Something was going well for her. That was too bad. Because things were about to be the worst they would ever be for her.
Linko dropped a hand into his pocket and took out a ballpoint pen. The pen was one of the most lethal things he’d ever carried. Lead lined its inner workings, protecting the carrier from the low but deadly dose of radiation contained in the rice-grain sized pellet of Polonium 210. Irradiated as it was, the pellet—once implanted—would cause sickness and major organ failure within twenty-four to thirty-six hours. There was no cure.
The crowd of arrivals bunched up at the front of the terminal.
Timing his move judiciously, practiced from past experiences with the delivery system, Linko closed on Anna, keeping only an elderly woman between himself and the young woman. A moment later, he kicked the woman’s left foot behind her right as she took her next step. As expected, the woman squealed, knowing she was falling, and reached instinctively for Anna.
When the woman grabbed her shoulder for support, Anna turned to help her. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
She spoke in Russian, and Linko was fairly certain that the elderly woman didn’t understand. While Anna supported the woman, Linko stepped in from behind, unseen, and poked her with the ballpoint pen just hard enough to inject the pellet into her shoulder near the woman’s hand.
Anna didn’t notice. Her attention was solely on the woman who was clasping her shoulder.
A uniformed airport worker trotted over to help as the elderly woman started apologizing profusely.
Linko kept walking, staying ahead of Anna and offering her only the back of his head for identification. He felt confident she wouldn’t recognize him. He had let his beard grow and dyed his hair peroxide blond. He didn’t look much like the man she had seen at the dig outside Herat anymore.
He kept track of her in the windows of the shops they passed, then in