Given Zenia's penchant for costumery and theatrics, Dinah had prepared herself for an architectural wallop. But it was the setting rather than the architecture that imparted the drama. The house had been built atop a massive, smooth-shouldered boulder. She had to look closely to see where nature stopped and the stone facade of the house began. Two sets of narrow, curving steps had been hewn out of the boulder on either shoulder and converged at a weathered, unpainted pine door. The house blended into the surrounding environment without calling attention to itself.

Zenia turned into a drive that circled around behind the house. She took a remote control from a side pocket, opened an inconspicuous garage door into what appeared to be a dimly lit cave, and drove the Isotta inside. "There's an underground passage into the house," she said. "Follow me."

Dinah followed her through an arched stone doorway through a tunnel that seemed to have been bored through the boulder upon which the house rested. Niches had been cut into the walls to display a collection of urns and sculptures. The only figure Dinah recognized was Asclepius with his distinctive rod entwined with serpents.

Zenia noticed her interest. "You know Asclepius?"

"He was the Greek god of medicine. His rod has become the symbol of medicine."

"He was the son of Apollo." She walked back and glowered at the statue as if it had made an obscene gesture. Her eyes fairly glittered with fury. "His mother was burned alive for adultery."

Why, Dinah wondered, would she own a statue she so obviously detested?

Zenia turned on her heels and steamed on. At the end of the tunnel, a short stairway led to a large, cheerful room with sun streaming in from two skylights. The first thing Dinah looked for was the front door by which Thor must have entered, and the photographs that had so puzzled him.

"Dearest Zenia, you are back." A slight, haughty looking man with a high forehead and slicked-back gray hair roved into the room carrying a teacup. He wore a buttoned-up brown hunting jacket, too heavy for the season, over a buff colored T-shirt from which his long neck protruded like a wrinkled parsnip.

"Egan. This is the Pelerin woman I told you about, the inamorata of the man who leased Marilita's house. Dinah Pelerin, this is Egan Vercuni, the film director."

He accorded her a supercilious smile. "Enchante."

Zenia said, "Egan and I hadn't seen each other in forty years until I invited him to Samos three months ago to consult with me about making a motion picture together. He is staying here as my house guest while we collaborate on the enterprise."

"I am but a humble servant. Zenia is the boss."

Zenia's penciled brows crawled toward the edge of her cap. "That is because I'm paying for it. Will you take tea, Dinah?"

"Yes, thank you."

"Tell her about our project, Egan. I'll go and freshen the pot."

"Delighted." He bade Dinah to sit.

She chose a straight-backed chair across from the sofa. He set his teacup on the low table, arranged the cushions just so, and ensconced himself like a pasha. "Do you have any background in the performing arts, Miss Pelerin?"

"I'm afraid not." She tried not to let her eyes stray to the framed photographs.

"None at all? Perhaps a school play?"

"I was Madame Arcati in Blithe Spirit in my high school senior play."

"Only the Coward?"

"Yes."

"Pity."

In less than a minute, she had developed a major antipathy to the man. "Zenia says that you're calling your movie 'The Regime of the Colonels.' Is it based on her husband's life?"

"The Regime of the Colonels was the name for the junta of the late sixties. Zenia's husband, Phaedon, was a distinguished military officer. He helped to implement the Prometheus Plan."

"What was that?"

"A very efficient method of rounding up the anarchists and leftists."

Dinah couldn't tell if he was being ironic or politically provocative or just plain affected. Either way, he was a pill. "Were there very many anarchists?"

"Quite a large number, theoretically. NATO devised the Prometheus Plan in the event of a communist uprising and our military leaders were quick to see that, indeed, communists had infiltrated the universities, the bureaucracy, the government, even the military. The situation required drastic action."

Dinah concluded that he was being ironic in a way that he wouldn't be if Zenia were still in the room. Whatever this Prometheus Plan had meant back in the sixties, the Prometheus of Greek mythology was, as best she could recall, a Titan who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mankind. For his generosity, Zeus had him chained to a rock where a giant eagle ripped out his liver. His fury unsated, Zeus caused a new liver to grow back every day and sent the eagle back to rip it out again every night. She was loath to ask if Colonel Phaedon's method of dealing with the communists entailed anything that grisly. "What was Phaedon's last name?"

"Hero."

"That was his real name?"

"And a most fitting one. After the coup, he was one of the brave officers who occupied the parliament and the government ministries."

"I assume Zenia chose to keep her name for professional reasons."

"Yes, and she didn't shorten it to please the philistines, as Marilita did."

"Marilita was herself a philistine," said Zenia as she pushed a teacart into the room. "She was indifferent to the refinements of good breeding and she was attracted to the same ilk." She parked the cart in front of the sofa, poured two cups of tea, handed one to Dinah, and sank onto the sofa beside Egan. "What do you think of my find, Egan? Will she do?"

Dinah was instantly on guard. "Do what?"

Egan made a moue of acquiescent distaste. "Zenia wants you to participate in our film."

"Me?" Dinah set her cup and saucer on a glass shelf beside the chair.

"That's right. What did you call it, Egan?"

"A docudrama."

Zenia sniffed. "I envision a powerful statement, one that the intelligentsia will call an epic. Governor Rigas is an old friend of mine. He has granted us permission to film whenever and wherever on the island. No restrictions. Egan is bringing in a crew from Athens. You will play the young Marilita. You have a boldness about you that puts me in mind of her."

"After the disparaging things you've said about your sister, not to mention the fact that she murdered your husband, you can hardly expect me to thank you for the comparison."

Zenia's mouth squinched into a smeary magenta smile. "There were facets of Marilita's character that were laudable. One of them was her refusal to be slighted. As you have just demonstrated, you won't be slighted either." She took a sip of tea, leaving a lipstick smudge on the cup. "My sister and I were poles apart philosophically and politically. Our father was a royalist and a distinguished member of the Greek government-in-exile during the Second World War. He died in the Civil War that followed, fighting the communists alongside your American CIA Captain Giorgos Stephanadis. There he is now. You've put your tea on his ashes."

Dinah recoiled. The glass shelf was supported by three slim, cylindrical brass tubes. "Are those cannon shells?"

Egan nodded. "Howitzer, 105 millimeter. Zenia, didn't you say that Giorgos recovered the casings after they had been fired into a nest of communists?"

"That's right. It was one of his most successful sorties. My father's ashes are in the first casing, Phaedon's are in the second. When I die, my remains will be placed in the third and entombed in the family mausoleum at Kanaris."

Apparently, Marilita had been banned from the sanctity of the mausoleum and consigned to a grave in the village cemetery. Zenia's outburst at her memorial exhumation was more understandable now. To have a loved one murdered would be anguishing enough. But to know that the loved one was murdered by your own sister-a person who shared your upbringing and your DNA, a person connected to you in such a primal way-that would embitter anyone.

Zenia cinched her lips and seemed to contemplate. "Marilita never took pride in her father's sacrifice. She had no sense of class or order."

"Now, Zenia, you must admit that she was gifted in her own way and very alluring. Nasos Lykos was something of a rake, but a marvelous fellow, clever as they come and rich as Croesus. And she did change after she fell in love with him."

"For the worse. Everyone knows that he and his mother were leftist sympathizers."

Egan tugged his jacket closer around him. "When I saw Marilita in Rome with him the year before the tragedy, she seemed disinterested in politics and her work on the set was more disciplined. In spite of his amours, Nasos had rather a mellowing effect on her and he gave no indication that he was a leftie."

"He would have been imprisoned if he did. His family's money insulated him. I daresay he and his mother donated thousands to the anarcho-communists. They drew Marilita into their cabal. Phaedon found out about them and Marilita killed him."

Dinah couldn't see the logic. "If Nasos and his mother were her coconspirators, why would she kill them?"

Zenia gave this incongruity the back of her hand. "Nasos was a womanizer. If Marilita hadn't killed him, another woman would have done it." She focused her compelling, squid-ink eyes on Dinah. "I've asked Egan to make this film about my family while I'm still alive and able to help craft it. I'll be the producer and director and I will have final approval of the script. We haven't got a big budget and the rights to use clips from Marilita's studio films would cost too much. I will speak some of the...what did you call them, Egan?"

"Voice overs."

"Louder."

"Voice overs."

"Yes, yes." She poured herself another cup of tea and cocked her head at Dinah. "You won't have to speak. All you have to do is vamp and strike an attitude. None of the women in the Samian theater company can capture Marilita's recklessness or impetuous nature. You've got the right coloring and her same rebellious eyes. You're the best we can do."

Being compared to Marilita because of her coloring was one thing. Being compared because of a perceived similarity of character was downright chilling. Still, Dinah couldn't help being fascinated. "I thought you didn't like film."

"I don't. This is an exception. All this drivel about Marilita being a martyr to the cause of democracy, I won't have it. She was depraved. I have given Phaedon's journals and papers to Egan to sort through. He has been a family friend for half a century. I trust him to tell the truth and preserve Phaedon's reputation."

And destroy any vestige of Marilita's, Dinah guessed. Egan was probably stringing Zenia along in order to bilk her out of a ton of money and the film would never be completed. But on the off chance that it was, Dinah predicted that the intelligentsia would label it fascist propaganda, whether or not of the epic sort. "I wish I could help you, Zenia, but I plan to leave Samos today."

"A day in Athens, but you'll be back. You won't be needed right away."

"Reckless, impetuous, depraved. I don't think I'd do justice to the part."

"I'm eighty-five-years old. Surely you can spare an old woman a few weeks. Of course, you will be paid handsomely for your time."

"I wish you luck finding a suitable Marilita, Zenia, but I'm not the one." Dinah stood up. "Thank you for the tea, but I have to be getting back to Kanaris to meet that mechanic. I'm sure Mr. Vercuni will save you the trouble and drive me back down the mountain."

Egan rose from the sofa, tugging his jacket around him. "Yes, of course. And don't worry, Zenia. We'll find another Marilita. I'll call one of my contacts in Athens to set up some auditions. There's always a cluster of young starlets looking for a start."

"None so damnably like my sister as this one," said Zenia and swept out of the room with surprising energy for an octogenarian.

Egan smirked. "She's not used to hearing 'no' for an answer. It's rather bracing to see. Wait here, Miss...Pelerin, is it? I'll change and drive you to town."

He left the room and Dinah nipped across to look at the framed photographs and articles beside the front door. There was a ratty newspaper clipping dated June 1973 with a picture of a hawk-nosed, thin-lipped, square-jawed man in a much decorated military uniform. Colonel Phaedon Hero, she surmised. The Greek script was unreadable. It was the kind of photo that might have accompanied a notice of promotion, or an obituary. There were several black-and-white photographs that looked as if they should have stayed in the family album. The sun pouring through the skylights had faded them badly. There was one of the Colonel, recognizable by his beaky nose, standing with his arm around an arrogant, dark-eyed young woman in a rakish feather hat-Zenia? Another photo showed a different military man standing with one hand on the shoulder of a seated woman in a high-necked dress. His heavy black brows and austere visage suggested an authoritarian mentality. No doubt he was the intrepid father whose ashes reposed in the first howitzer shell and the seated woman must be his wife. She had a vacant stare, like a marionette. It was hard to imagine such a drab looking woman giving birth to the likes of Zenia and Marilita.

Hurriedly, Dinah ran her eyes around the rest of the gallery until she found the newspaper photo that had aroused Thor's curiosity-the one taken on the day of the murders. Marilita, her hair tousled and her head thrown back in voluptuous abandon, was laughing into the camera. She wore a bikini with a man's shirt hanging open over the top. Phaedon Hero, in uniform but clearly in a jovial mood, stood between Marilita and a seemingly bemused older woman in street clothes-Nasos' mother. Phaedon lifted one of her hands high over her head as if he were about to lead her into a Greek dance. A well-muscled hunk in bathing trunks stood apart from the rest holding a picnic hamper. So that was Nasos Lykos. He certainly didn't look like a mellowing influence. He must have been at least ten years younger than Marilita and, even in the deteriorated newspaper photo, his eyes transmitted a bad-boy bent.

"Let's be off then," said Egan, breezing through the room in a short-sleeved green shirt and mustard colored tie. He opened the door with a flourish. "My car is parked in front."

Dinah put on her sunglasses and preceded him down the curved stone steps to his car, her thoughts revolving around that tableau forty years ago. If Zenia's explanation of the murders could be believed and the Colonel had found out that his sister-in-law and the others were traitors, why didn't he have them arrested? Why go to a beach and let himself be photographed smiling in their company? And who had taken the picture?

Chapter Fourteen.

Egan's car was a dusty green Hyundai pocked with dents, but you wouldn't know it from his superior air. He looked as if he were holding back a nosebleed as he pulled on a pair of leather driving gloves.

Dinah couldn't wait to tell Thor that Phaedon Hero was Zenia's husband. She wondered why Mentor hadn't mentioned the fact, but maybe he thought she knew already. "How long had Zenia and Phaedon been married before his death?"

"Twenty years, I should say. Yes, twenty, at least. Perhaps longer."

Dinah did the math. According to Thor, Marilita was forty when she was executed in 1973. That would make her eighty today, five years younger than Zenia. "Did Zenia and Phaedon have any children?"

"No. They pretended briefly that Marilita's misbegotten child was theirs, but gave up the charade when the scandal broke."

"There was a scandal that Marilita had a child out of wedlock?"

"It wouldn't make the back page of the tabloids today, but at the time it made headlines in the dailies all across Europe. Marilita never denied that the girl was illegitimate. It devastated her career, but she had made most of her big films and big money in her early twenties. She had a few supporting roles in her thirties, but her star power was gone."

"Was Nasos Alcina's father?"

"Zot, no. Alcina must have been ten or twelve when Marilita met Nasos. They had known each other only a couple of years when they played their climactic scene. Marilita's execution was an anticlimax. She went to her grave without naming the child's father."

"Do you think the junta executed her because of her politics?"

"They had absolute power. They could execute anyone for any reason, but murdering a member of the junta was certainly high treason. The newspapers reported only what they were ordered to report, of course, but they embellished their stories with a rather gleeful flair. I read one or two while filming on location in Albania. Military Court Awards Disgraced Actress, Murderess, And Convicted Insurrectionist Her Date With Nemesis, The Inescapable Messenger of Justice. Marilita received a bit more ballyhoo than the average prisoner. The government demonized her. By the time they stood her up in front of the firing squad, she was probably longing to die. The junta's manicures were not designed to pamper."

"You mean they pulled out...?"

"Among other forms of torture, or so I've heard."

Dinah shuddered. "You said that Marilita changed when she fell in love with Nasos. How?"

"She was less outspoken. Not demure by any means, but muted. Before Nasos, her political comments would have caused repercussions were it not for Phaedon. He protected her."

"She opposed the junta?"

"She opposed conformity. I think she did a lot of things just to antagonize her sister. She was always bringing around some disreputable artist or actor to queer Zenia's parties. Phaedon rather enjoyed her slumming and laughed it off, but it goaded Zenia."

"But Zenia is an actress. Aren't most theater people nonconformists?"

"Only when it's advantageous. Zenia was ambitious for her husband. She was more interested in advancing Phaedon's military career than her own and then, well. Sadly, Nemesis is a democrat. The goddess doesn't like any one person to have too much good." He finally got the gloves fitted to his satisfaction, started the car, and eased out into the road like an aristocrat out for a Sunday jaunt.