The Oracle (45 page)

Vlassos tucked his gun close, checking that it was loaded, and stretched out in the sleeping bag. ‘Well, if anyone gets close, shepherd or no shepherd, I’ll do him a favour. To stay on the safe side. I don’t like this place.’

The hiss of the wind died down and the distant grumbling of thunder quieted as well. But in the growing silence, an unnatural sound rained down from the summit. A flute: soft and sweet, achingly beautiful. It slipped down the rocky gorges, seeped into the dry grass, licked the bare branches of the trees.

Vlassos sat up: ‘What the hell is that?’

Karamanlis strained to hear as well, not understanding at first, but as the music became louder and clearer he saw, as in a dream, that underground corridor in the
astynomia
ten years earlier, heard that desolate, proud song that had penetrated the massive walls of the cell. ‘I know what it is,’ he said. ‘I’ve heard this melody before. It’s a challenge: he wants us to know that he’s here and he’s waiting for us.’

‘Christ, I’m going to go up there and . . .’

‘Don’t move yet. Let him play. We’ll make him dance, and we’ll set the tune when the rest of the orchestra gets here.’

T
HE REST OF
the orchestra were making their way up on foot, up the western face of the mountain. They had instructions to circle the entire area around the peak, and to cut off all access roads.

There were five of them, armed with Kalashnikovs, dressed in dark clothing, with the puffed trousers and wide waistbands of the southern Kurds. They must have come from around Jezireh, close to the Iraqi border. They marched with the slow, untiring step of highlanders towards the place where they were to meet the two foreigners before dawn. On the other side of a rocky outcrop, the head of the party raised his hand to stop the others and pointed to something a few dozen metres in front of him.

It looked like a camp, but there was only a single man, sitting alone in front of the fire. The leader approached and looked more closely at him: his head was covered by a hood, but his hair and beard were black, his skin dark and his eyes blue, hard and penetrating. He was dressed like the peasants of the high plains and had a strange object in front of him, leaning against his knee.

‘Isn’t it too late in the season, farmer,’ asked the Kurd, ‘to be using that?’ He turned towards the mountain. ‘The wind is blowing hard, but I don’t see any threshed grain to be aired with your winnow here.’

The man’s eyes blazed: ‘You’re right,
peshmerga.
I’m here for another reason. Turn back with your men, turn back and go in peace. This is a bad night . . .’ He raised his eyes, which glittered with the reflection of the flame. ‘I’m not here to scatter the chaff from the grain with what you have taken for a winnowing fan. I’m here to scatter souls to the wind, if the gods so wish . . .’ He lowered his head.

‘Sorry, dad,’ replied the Kurdish warrior. ‘But we’re expecting a good harvest on this mountain, and you’ll have to let us by.’ He put his hand on his gun.

M
ICHEL, CURLED UP
in a shelter he’d found higher up on the mountain, heard a gunshot echo in the valley, then another and yet another, and then a furious volleying of shots, how many he couldn’t say. The echoes multiplied wildly amidst the ravines and cliffs on the barren slopes of Nemrut Dagi.

Sergeant Vlassos sprang awake in his sleeping bag and grabbed his rifle: ‘Christ! What the hell kind of music is that?’

Karamanlis didn’t know what to think. ‘Don’t move. The mountain is crawling with smugglers; they might have met up with some army unit. Or it’s a gunfight among shepherds robbing each other’s sheep. Listen . . . See, it’s all over.’ The mountain had fallen back into a deep silence. ‘This is a strange place, all right. Let’s try to get some sleep now. Tomorrow we’ll take care of this business and then we’ll never think of it again. Saturday we’ll be in the Plaka eating a nice bowl of bean soup with some new retsina.’

‘Yeah,’ said Vlassos, ‘You’re right. I hadn’t thought about that. The retsina should be ready to drink by now.’

N
ORMAN AND
M
IREILLE
got to Eski Kahta a little after midnight in a new car, a Ford Blazer which they’d traded for the Peugeot at a rental agency in Kayseri. It had started to rain and the dusty roads of Eski Kahta had turned into slimy streams. The loudspeakers on top of the minaret invited the faithful to the last prayer of the day, and the chanting of the muezzin spread like a wail in the downpour.

Norman and Mireille decided that they should both sleep for at least an hour, and set the alarm. When his electronic watch started to beep, Norman sat up, raised the seat to an upright position and started up the car, letting Mireille sleep a little longer. He looked over at her: even so worn out, with black circles under her eyes and an oversized sweater, she was incredibly beautiful.

The Ford Blazer started down the dirt road that crawled up the mountain, skidding at every curve on a thick layer of mud. Norman turned on the radio and tuned into the station of the US base at Diarbakir. Snow was forecast that night over three thousand feet.

C
APTAIN
K
ARAMANLIS WOKE
up stiff with cold. The wind was blowing hard and frozen sleet was falling like tiny balls of hail, piercing his hands and face. He looked at his watch: it was five o’clock and still dark, but the white sleet and the cloudy sky emanated a light glow, as if dawn – actually nowhere to be seen – were approaching. He glanced up towards the mountain peak and saw a quivering light. Yeah, there was something moving up there. A halo of flame became increasingly evident, casting a reddish glow on the colossal stone statues which sat motionless at the foot of the enormous mausoleum, looking like the spirits of darkness. There was a fire in the clearing, and again he could hear that flute, barely perceptible, soft and sorrowful as a sigh, then hard and cutting as the screech of an attacking hawk.

He woke Vlassos, who rubbed his eyes and pulled up his jacket collar: ‘Let’s get moving. He’s up there waiting for us. Let’s get this over with.’

‘But Captain, weren’t we supposed to get help?’

Karamanlis lowered his head. ‘They should have been here hours ago. Men who had no fear of the mountain or of the snow. I’m afraid those shots we heard . . .’ Vlassos’s eyes opened wide in an expression of pathetic bewilderment. ‘But then . . . Captain . . . maybe it’s better to turn back . . . I don’t know if . . .’

‘Shitting in your pants, are you? Fine, go to the devil, go get fucked, go wherever you want to go. I’ll go up alone, but get the hell out of here at least, you sorry excuse for a man!’

Vlassos changed his expression: ‘Hey, Captain, that’s enough. I’m not shitting in my pants. I’m better with one ball than you and that bastard up there with both. I’ll show you who’s a sorry excuse for a man.’ He took the machine gun and jacked up the magazine with the palm of his hand, heading up towards the top of the mountain.

‘Wait,’ said Karamanlis. ‘There are two of us, we can split up. The pyramid up there is flanked by two terraces – one on the east and one on the west. I’ll go up the back, on the western side, and it will take me a little longer. You go up this way. You have an infrared sight on that piece you’re carrying. You can see that demon even if he’s hiding. Don’t give him time to take a breath, lay him out as soon as you see him: he’s too dangerous. I’ll be coming up the other side, so be careful not to shoot me. Good luck.’

‘You too, Captain. We’ll drink up tonight and then get out of this damned country with the first ship, the first plane, whatever.’ He moved off, lying low, dashing between the rocky outcrops and dry tree trunks that covered the white mountain.

Fifteen minutes of silent advance brought Vlassos to the huge landing on which the immense complex stood. In front of him rose the colossal heads of the statues, wide-eyed as if surprised by a monstrous axe which had chopped them off their trunks. Behind them, nearly at the centre of the landing, crackled a fire made of branches and twigs.

He scoured the disturbing space in front of him until his face suddenly lit up: there he was, the bastard! Half hidden behind a stone block, wearing the same damn grey-green jacket with an American army emblem that he’d had on the last time he’d seen him in the underground prison of the police station. He was peering left and right to see around the post, checking his surroundings. Vlassos pointed his gun, and his infrared sight confirmed the body’s natural heat. Not for long. He shot five times in rapid succession and saw the man crumble to the ground.

He ran forward shouting: ‘Captain, I got him! I killed him dead, Captain!’ But as soon as he reached his objective his heart stopped still: what he’d shot was a dummy lashed on to a stick frame over a handful of embers. The rising heat had permeated it and fooled the infrared sight on his M-16.

A voice he’d never forgotten sounded behind him: ‘Here I am,
Chìros
!’ And before he could turn round an arrow pierced his back between his shoulder blades and came out of the front of his chest. Vlassos spun around with enough strength still in him to want to empty out the rest of the magazine, but his executioner had a gun of his own and turned his hand to pulp with a series of shots.

Vlassos collapsed into his own blood, which flowed copiously on to the great altar, and before his eyes glazed over he recognized the young man who so many years before had suffered – at his own hand – the cruellest of tortures in an underground chamber of the police station in Athens. With a last burst of energy he raised his arm in an obscene gesture muttering: ‘I fucked . . .’ But the words never left his mouth. The final bullet pierced his throat, cutting the phrase in half, and Vassilios Vlassos, known as
O Chìros,
reclined his head, breathing his last into the gelid mountain wind.

The sound of the shots had reached Michel, who shook himself awake and left his shelter. They stopped Norman cold as well. He’d switched off the engine, unsure what he was hearing, but the next shots were as clear as could be, carried on the north wind blowing stronger and stronger in their direction. Mireille got out and could see the flash of gunfire near the top of the mountain. ‘Oh my God, Michel!’ she started to yell. ‘Michel, turn back, it’s me, turn back!’ But Michel could not hear her because her shouts were carried away on the wind and because he was already crawling up the mountain in the direction of the shooting and the fire.

Captain Karamanlis had heard the first volley of shots just as he was arriving at the edge of the western platform. He’d heard Vlassos’s voice calling him, but couldn’t make out what he was saying as his feet noisily scrambled over the pebbles.

He had tried at first to climb up the pyramid, but the loose pebbles slid beneath him and he rolled back down to the base of the monument. He had decided to advance along the southern side of the mound, slipping between the huge slabs that once flanked the processional road.

He finally reached the side of the eastern landing, hammered by the wind and sleet, from where he could see the dying light of the fire. He crept alongside an open-jawed stone lion guarding the tomb of King Antioch. As it dawned on him that he was looking at Vlassos’s rigid corpse, already covered by a veil of ice, a voice rang out from behind the statue, darker than the night and colder than the wind, deep and vibrant, as if it were coming from a throat of bronze.

‘What are you doing here, Captain Karamanlis?’

And then the flash of eyes as blue as ice on a winter’s morning, the glint of a wolf’s smile. And he suddenly heard the warning of the
kallikàntharos
echoing in his head:
It is he who
administers death.

He jumped out, firing and shouting like a madman: ‘You damned impostor, you’ve dragged me all the way here, but you’ll come to hell with me!’ But the man had disappeared just as quickly as he had appeared, and as he spun around, bewildered, he heard his name raining from above: ‘Karamanlis!’

He turned and pointed his pistol to the sky and saw Claudio Setti standing on the knees of the headless statue of Zeus Dolichenus, already aiming at him. He felt paralysed and impotent, at the mercy of an implacable enemy. He shouted to save his life: ‘No! Wait! Heleni is alive and I know where she is!’ He had taken the photograph from his pocket and was waving it upwards: ‘Look! Heleni is alive!’ But the wind carried away his words and Claudio didn’t hear him. He raised his gun and fired: one shot hit Karamanlis at the centre of his collarbone, and another flung him, lifeless, between the paws of the stone lion.

Claudio leapt to the ground and looked at his defeated enemies. He turned towards the stone lion: ‘Vlassos and Karamanlis are dead, Commander!’ he shouted.

At that moment Michel appeared on the landing: he was soaking wet, his clothes torn, his hands dirty and bloody.

‘Your work is not yet over!’ shouted the voice behind him. ‘It is he who betrayed you! Give him his due and strike him down!’

Pale, Claudio raised his weapon against Michel, who stood absolutely still, his hands at his sides. ‘I was deceived, Claudio. For the love of God, listen to me,’ he shouted. ‘Just listen to me for a moment and then kill me, if you want.’ His face was lined with tears. ‘Claudio, for the love of God, I’m Michel, I’m your friend.’

‘His cowardice caused Heleni to be tortured and raped. He deserves to die!’ thundered the voice that seemed to come from the lion’s mouth.