Chapter 10

 

A few minutes later, Elaine was back in the taxi, cruising along a six lane wide street through the center of Athens. The taxi passed the Temple of Olympian Zeus, which was on the left, the Panathenaic Stadium, on the right, and a few other Greek landmarks, but Elaine wasn’t there for sightseeing.

She’d given the taxi driver the address that she’d memorized, and he typed it into his navigator. As they neared it, they entered a somewhat run-down area with many two and three story buildings and a few taller office complexes, a few of them twenty or more stories high. Graffiti was scrawled across some of the concrete walls along the road.

The driver turned right. Elaine noted that they were now on Kolovou Street. They drove slowly, the man behind the wheel glancing at the navigator and checking the numbers on the buildings along the right-hand side of the road, which looked like residential apartments but with commercial enterprises on the ground floors.

A dry cleaners, a mini-market, a bookshop…

He brought the taxi to a stop in front of a kebab shop.

Elaine couldn’t make out an address anywhere on the little restaurant. There were a number of motor scooters parked on the sidewalk under a green awning. Three heavyset, middle-aged Greek men were seated around a little square table, drinking coffee, all looking curiously at the taxi.

“Are you sure this is Number Fifty-one?” Elaine asked the driver.

“Nai, Nai. Feefty-one.” He tapped on the navigator map.

Elaine paid him and got out. She was wearing a pantsuit and her light wool overcoat, carrying a small purse and a compact suitcase. The pistol disassembled and hidden in the toilet kit bag in the suitcase.

As she approached the kebab shop, the three Greek men silently leered at her, looking her up and down.

There were only a few customers inside. Two more men and a woman were behind the counter, preparing for a big lunch crowd, chopping vegetables for the kebabs and other Greek specialties. Elaine opened the door and walked over to them.

One of the men, who was slicing tomatoes on a wooden cutting board, stopped his work and stepped to the cash register. He smiled at her. “What you like to eat, beautiful lady?” She supposed she looked like a tourist.

“I need to talk to Nasos.”

The smile disappeared. He looked her up and down, then nodded to a door in the back.

“Thank you,” she said, and headed in that direction, pulling her suitcase along behind her. The door was next to the restrooms and labeled in Greek. Elaine guessed that it said NO ADMITTANCE.

When she turned the handle and pulled, the door wouldn’t budge.

She glanced over her shoulder—the man who had sent her there reached under the counter and apparently pushed a button. Now she noticed a big man sitting in the dim light in the corner, watching her every move.

The door finally clicked and she pushed it open.

Elaine found herself looking down a short hallway. All the doors were closed except the one at the end. She could only see a white tiled wall and could hear pounding. The bloody odor of raw meat flared her nostrils.

This is weird, Elaine thought uneasily, and cautiously moved down the hallway.

When she reached the open door, the rather large, brightly lit room came into view. A heavyset man in a white apron was standing at a stainless steel table, cutting meat with a knife. There was an electric meat saw and mincing machine on another table. Several huge, floor-to-ceiling refrigerator or freezers lined one wall. A row of animal corpses hung on hooks from the ceiling.

“Nasos?” Elaine said.

He stopped chopping and glanced up at her.

“Nai?”

She opened her purse and pulled out the Panacea business card and offered it to him.

He stepped over to the sink and quickly washed his hands, then dried them on a towel. He merely glanced at the business card.

“Passport?”

She handed over the Patricia Carter passport and he compared her face to the photo.

“Yes, I expect you,” he said, and handed the passport and card back to her.

Pulling a key ring from his pocket, he stepped over to one of the large refrigerators, with a double door. Now she saw that it had a heavy lock built into it.

What the hell? Elaine thought.

He turned the key and pulled the huge doors open.

Elaine almost gasped—it wasn’t a refrigerator but a doorway.

He reached inside and flicked a switch.

“I take your bag for you,” he said, and he grabbed her suitcase, stepped into the faux refrigerator. He carried it down a gently sloping hallway. “Follow please,” he called over his shoulder.

Feeling a little off balance, Elaine cautiously stepped into the faux refrigerator and followed the man down the ramp until they reached the bottom.

He set the suitcase down at her feet. “Follow hallway to end.”

Elaine peered down the sleek, white corridor—it veered off at an angle.

Hallway? she thought. This is a tunnel.

The man went back up the ramp. A cool breeze blew through her hair until he shut the door above, and it stopped abruptly.

A secret passage with wheelchair access? she thought. How strange.

Elaine took hold of the suitcase handle and started walking, rolling it behind her. Every now and then the tunnel took a slight turn, and she expected to see the end of it, but there was just more tunnel.

She soon had covered a distance of what must have been a city block.

Then the corridor turned off at an angle once more and she finally found herself approaching the end, where she could see another double door and, through a window, a boxy airport X-ray machine.

A heavyset man in a dark suit stepped into view, waving her towards him.

She found herself entering a dimly lit room with a metal detector, a desk, and a couple of chairs and couches. Behind the desk was a rack of video monitors—she’d been watched all the way from the kebab shop.

“Documents, please,” the man said, extending his hand. A pistol bulged under his jacket.

She handed him her passport and the PANACEA card. Like the other man, he checked her face against the picture and then placed a plastic basket on the table. “Mobile phone, electronic devices.”

She opened her purse and put her phone and the sat-phone that Spyro had given her in the basket. She was glad she had left the burner phone behind.

“Jewelry, watches, rings.”

What is this, the Pentagon? She hoped the next step wasn’t a body scan.

He motioned for her to step through the metal detector, which beeped, and then told her to extend her arms while he carefully ran a handheld detector up and down her arms, torso, legs, and even her head, in case something was hidden in her hair.

These people don’t take any chances, she thought. The security was on the same level as at an American embassy and Interpol headquarters.

He ran her suitcase and everything else through the X-ray machine. Elaine tensed when he pushed a button and stopped the conveyor, carefully studying the image of her suitcase on the monitor. The eight rounds of ammunition for the disassembled Sig Sauer were arranged in a circular metal holder that, on X-ray, appeared to be part of the blow dryer’s electric motor.

After a few long seconds the man pushed the button again and the conveyor fed all her belongings out the other side of the machine.

Thank god, Elaine thought.

He handed the basket back to her and let her retrieve everything but the two phones.

“We give back phones when you leave,” he said, and set it on the desk. For the first time, he smiled. “Step into lift, please.”

Elaine hadn’t even noticed—a set of doors in the wall had parted, revealing the interior of a large, modern-looking elevator, with a mirror along the back wall.

 

* * *

 

As Elaine stepped onto the elevator, the security guard leaned inside and, using a key attached to his belt, turned a lock.

The doors shut and the lift bumped into motion. It was so sudden Elaine wasn’t sure if she was going up or down. Up, she thought, but she had half-expected to go down deeper underground.

She glanced around the moving elevator, feeling off balance again—there wasn’t a single switch or marking anywhere. Except for the mirror, all four walls were stark white, with soft fluorescent lights in the ceiling.

It finally bumped to a halt.

Now she was sure it had taken her up rather than down.

The doors smoothly opened.

She blinked a couple of times—she might have been a character in a movie scene that had just changed from black and white to color. From inside the lift she could see a plush office interior, some big potted plants, and sun streaming in from a window. She heard a trickle of water.

She stepped cautiously into the room, pulling her suitcase along behind her.

It was a fancy reception area—a modern desk, with a beautiful dark-haired woman sitting behind it.

Above her, in letters that covered the whole wall, was one word: PANACEA

It was fashioned in the same gold font as the business card.

Elaine’s eyes were drawn to the right—in the center of the room was a statue of a woman who stood in a large stone basin of water.

“Welcome,” the receptionist said, standing up behind the desk and walking around it to greet Elaine. She radiated a perfect smile—her face was so stunning she could have been on the cover of Vogue. As she stepped forward, Elaine noticed that every feature was perfect, from her straight teeth to her perfectly manicured nails. “May I have your documents, please?”

She handed the woman her passport and the gold-lettered business card. She hadn’t realized Spyro was sending her to a Panacea office. Was this the company headquarters? Or just a client processing point?

“Have a seat,” the stunning woman told Elaine, nodding to the couch. “I’ll just be a moment.”

The lady stepped through a side door which she had to open with a code, and it closed again with the snap of an electronic lock.

Elaine moved over to the window. The ancient, sprawling city of Athens was spread out before her. She was inside one of the high rise office buildings she’d seen during the taxi ride over, maybe twenty stories from ground level. The view was facing her hotel—she could see the Acropolis towering above everything else. Beyond it, a strip of blue sea and horizon.

This is where Zeus would have worked, Elaine thought, had he been a real person and had an office to go to every day.

She sat down on the soft leather couch. It was hard to believe that she had reached this lofty office by entering a smoky, run-down, kebab shop a couple of blocks from here.

She glanced around the lavish space, and now aware of the trickle of water again, her eyes were drawn to the statue in the center of the room. Carved out of marble, it depicted a woman in robes, standing in a pool, holding a bowl in one hand and with her other arm hanging straight and relaxed, a snake rising out of the water as if charmed or controlled by her.

The beautifully carved statue depicted the Panacea character from Greek mythology, Elaine realized. While researching Spyro Leandrou, she had done some research on the clinic name and had confirmed what she had already guessed—Panacea was one of the minor, lesser-known Greek goddesses, the goddess of universal remedy. This was where the common English word panacea, or cure for all ailments, originated. It was the perfect name for Spyro’s wellness spa, especially if the top secret facility provided all the amazing services that he, and the rumors she had heard from Cattoretti, claimed that it did.

The receptionist stepped back through the secure door and gave her another brilliant smile. “Will you come with me, please?”

 

* * *

A few minutes later, Elaine was back in the reception area, sitting on the comfortable sofa and sipping a cappuccino. The receptionist had taken a number of head shots of Elaine, and now someone in the back office was apparently forging a new passport for her.

Elaine’s two phones were returned to her. How the hell they had gotten from the basement up to this office, she wasn’t sure. She guessed the devices were sent through a pneumatic tube, like those used by banks. She hadn’t seen or heard anyone else come in or out of the office. Or maybe there was another elevator hidden somewhere.

She now understood that this office was indeed a processing point, a secret location where PANACEA referrals were sent for initial screening. When a former client gave you the business card, he or she would tell you to go to Fifty-one Kolovou Street in Athens, ask for Nasos, and give it to him, along with your passport—or at least a passport that looked legit and had a photo that matched your face. Then you were sent up to this office to be further checked out before you were admitted into their exclusive world.

Elaine assumed that somewhere in the back of this space were some extremely competent techs who checked the microprinting on the Panacea card to make sure it was real, probably the same ones who were forging her a new passport.

It was a tricky business to operate, Elaine thought, as she sat there sipping her cappuccino. On the one hand, Panacea guaranteed complete secrecy and client anonymity, but on the other hand, they had to find out as much as they could about you to avoid being infiltrated or taken to court over whatever laws they were breaking. She guessed prospective clients had to pay a six figure “screening fee” to find out what services they might provide you with, if they deemed you safe and trustworthy.

The receptionist was expertly trained, that was for sure, the embodiment of discretion. The woman was warm and friendly, yet treated Elaine completely anonymously, never alluding to where her instructions originated, and never uttering one unnecessary word, not even “passport.” A fly on the wall observing her and Elaine might have thought she was there to have a simple ID card made.

 

 

* * *

Almost by the time Elaine finished her cappuccino, the receptionist returned with a tablet computer in one hand and an envelope in the other.

“I trust this will suit your purposes,” she said, handing Elaine the envelope.

Elaine opened it and pulled out the American passport. SOMMERS, MEGAN LEA, was the name on the identity page.

After studying it for a few seconds, her first impulse was to compliment the forger, because the work was truly impressive—her photo had been expertly melded into the first page. The work was flawless, in her opinion—even Giorgio Cattoretti would have been impressed.

But of course she couldn’t say a word about this—as Patricia Carter, she wasn’t supposed to know anything about the quality of forged documents.

“I do have one question,” Elaine said.

“Yes?”

“Is this Megan Sommers a real person, or—”

“The individual is deceased, but as you can see, this document is still valid. It expires next year.” She gave another pleasant smile. “Any other questions?”

Elaine double-checked the expiration date. “No, that was all.”

The woman handed her another document in a plastic protective folder. Elaine pulled it out—it was an official blood transfer request form from a hospital in Odessa, supposedly, all in Ukrainian. It looked real enough to her, with the appropriate stamps at the bottom. The blood type was right, a rare one.

“This looks fine,” Elaine said.

The woman smiled, raised the tablet, scrolled down the page, and said, “I see you have a reservation on a commercial flight to Zaporizhia, Ukraine, under this document name, at one fifteen...”

Elaine glanced at her watch—the flight left in less than two hours. “Yes, that’s right. Do you think I can make it, with the traffic?”

“Traffic won’t be a problem. We will provide transportation to the airport.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

She glanced at Elaine’s suitcase. “You’re ready to leave, then?”

“Yes.” Elaine put all the documents back in her purse. She noticed the Panacea business card had not been returned. Then she realized the woman had not returned her Patricia Carter passport, either.

“Uh, what about my other passport? My real one?”

The woman consulted her tablet again. “That will be returned to you later.”

Elaine opened her mouth to ask what “later” meant, and then closed it. Of course Spyro wasn’t going to let her go on a smuggling mission carrying her “real” passport. He wanted to make absolutely sure that if she got caught or killed, there was no tie back to him. Which is why he refused to provide any documents for her driver.

“Step this way,” the woman said, and she pressed a button beside the elevator.

The doors immediately opened and Elaine pulled her carry-on inside.

“Have a good trip.”

“But how am I getting to the airp—?”

The doors closed.

The elevator gave a bump and started moving.

It was definitely going up again.

Elaine was confused. The lift came to a halt again after only a few seconds.

The doors opened.

Bright light accosted her eyes as she glanced up at the blue sky—she was on the rooftop of the building.

A tall man in a black suit stepped into view, a radio in his hand.

“This way, please,”

A sleek white helicopter was waiting for her, the pilot just starting the rotor up.