Mandy picked a pillow up off the chair, knelt down beside Sergeant Pappas, placed the pillow over the back of the man's head, pressed the muzzle of the pistol up against the pillow, and looked back up at Dalton expectantly.

Nouri looked at her and then back up at Dalton.

"Once more," said Dalton. "What are you?"

Nouri opened his mouth, closed it, and looked around the room for an exit strategy and came up with nothing that didn't involve being dead.

"Who the fuck fuck you people? You CIA?" you people? You CIA?"

"Wrong answer," said Dalton, looking briefly at Mandy "No . . . wait . . ."

Mandy, still kneeling, resisting the urge to turn her face away and close her eyes, squeezed the trigger-once, twice, three times-a series of muffled cracks. Pappas's body jerked with each impact. There was hardly any blood, just leakage from the exit wounds, which meant his heart had already stopped. Mandy began to have more confidence in the idea that she had just executed a dead man.

The pillow was smoldering, a thin column of white smoke rising. Mandy got up, dumped a pitcher of water on it, and went across to the window, still holding the pistol, her face bone white and her gun hand shaking. Nouri's breathing was short and shallow, and his skin was wet. A urine stain was spreading out from his crotch. He stared up at Dalton, hyperventilating now, his black eyes huge.

"Who are are you?" you?"

"Last time," said Dalton. "I don't need you. I can get all this from Keraklis."

"No. You kill me, anyway. And I talk, they kill me."

Dalton's face looked like a mask, and his pale eyes were in shadow. Mandy wasn't looking at him now, which was just as well since what was in his face was not something she would have wanted to remember later.

"I'll try again. What are you?"

Nouri's eyes were red as he looked up at Dalton. What he saw there was his sudden death.

"We are"-he looked to be struggling for the English word-"we are-how you say?-za nayam?"

"For hire?"

"Dah, for hire. He, him-the one you killed-he is my godfather, Uncle Gavel Kuldic. I am-my real name is-Dobri Levka-" for hire. He, him-the one you killed-he is my godfather, Uncle Gavel Kuldic. I am-my real name is-Dobri Levka-"

"You're Croatian?"

"Yes. Both of us. We are from Legrad, near border from Hungary."

"You work for Branco Gospic?"

Levka's face went convincingly blank.

"Who-"

"Never mind. Why are you here? In this room?"

Levka went inward, working it through, then brightened.

"Sergeant Keraklis call us. Said you ask about this body they find, supposed to be your son. But the boss-"

"Who?"

"Captain Sofouli-Keraklis boss-he think you are not . . . kosher? He tells Keraklis to check you up."

"Where is Sofouli now?"

Levka made a face, lifted his shoulders.

"He has woman. He goes to dinner with her, then bim-bim-boom bim-bim-boom ?" ?"

"Dinner where?"

"I don't know. He made a call, I think, to Franco's Bar? After that, he is gone with his woman."

Dalton looked at Mandy, who nodded.

He went back to Levka.

"Is Sofouli part of this?"

"Sofouli? No. He is"-Levka made a gesture of dismissal-"how you say?-bored too much. Once he was a big-time terror cop. Now like retired. He likes his girls, his big dinner, his bim-bim-boom bim-bim-boom. So long as Keraklis takes care, he is okeydokey. Keraklis tells him he look into it, then he calls big boss somewhere-"

"Where?"

"I don't know. Kerch, maybe. We are just to be muscle. After he talks to boss, he calls us and says we are to take you two out of hotel."

"Take us where?"

Levka looked a little greener now. He licked his dry lips, looked down at his hands, and then across to Mandy.

"Look, is business only. No personal thing."

Dalton and Mandy exchanged a look, and Mandy's face got some color back into it. There is cold-blooded killing, and then there is killing a killer. The difference is often small, but it is important to the one doing the killing.

"Do you know why Keraklis wanted us dead?"

"I . . . it got something to do with a Russian. Todorovich."

"Marcus Todorovich?"

"Yes, I think this is his name."

"Where is Marcus Todorovich?"

"I think he is in Istanbul. Keraklis says we are to get his boat, me and . . ."

Levka glanced over at the dead body again and swallowed hard.

"Do you live on Santorini?"

"No. Last month, we were in Kerch, in Ukraine. No work for us, now war is over in Kosovo. We can't go home because they're hunting all of us. For war crimes. Which I never do. We are looking for maybe work on fishing boat or in big coal plant there. We are in bar by the docks. Double Eagle. A man shows up one day, says he has work for good old soldiers. Says he is a good Croat. He knew man we knew."

"What man?"

Levka shrugged.

"He say his name is Peter. No last name. Not Croat. I think Russian, or maybe Ukrainian."

"What did he look like?"

"Like . . . nothing. Like everything. We called him Siva ovjek. Gray Man. He is maybe six feet, not big, not small. Big belly like Buddha. Soft, fat hands. Fingers like sausage. Old. Bald. Has small eyes, black, sharp like a bird, but big red lips, like big fat worms. He is man hard to remember later, you know? Voice is soft like girl. He gives us money, sends us here, to Santorini, to work for Sergeant Keraklis."

"Did Sofouli know about you?"

"Sofouli knows we are here. We are no trouble, stay away from girls, stay quiet. We speak Greek pretty good, so Keraklis tells him we are fishermen, faraway cousin to him. We maybe get work in tourist time. We no trouble, he does not care."

"You said Keraklis called the big boss. Is that Gray Man?"

Levka shrugged again, looked over at Gavel Kuldic's body, and then back to Dalton. "Maybe Peter is big boss. Only Keraklis know this."

"Keraklis told you to kill us?"

Levka looked pained, swallowed with difficulty, then nodded.

"And what about our bodies. This is an island. Mostly rock."

"We are to take you off island. Keraklis knows Sofouli doesn't want any trouble. No dead tourists all over. You gone is okeydokey with him."

"Take us off how?"

Levka shrugged.

"In boat maybe. Or maybe in helicopter. Sofouli have one."

"What kind of chopper?"

"I . . . I saw them in Kosovo, in the war. Jastreb crno. Jastreb crno. Black-bird?" Black-bird?"

"A Blackhawk Blackhawk? Not a chance. The Hellenic Air Force flies Super Pumas. Or those crappy little Bell 47s. There's no way in hell there's a Blackhawk on Santorini."

Levka nodded vigorously.

"But is is Blackhawk. I know from Kosovo. Believe me, I know. You getting shoot at by one, make big picture in mind, no foolings." Blackhawk. I know from Kosovo. Believe me, I know. You getting shoot at by one, make big picture in mind, no foolings."

"Whose is it?"

"Got markings: UNPROFOR? Old machine. UN logo. Big red cross on both sides. Twenty years, maybe. Keraklis thinks Sofouli keep it for to sell someone."

"You're telling me that Sofouli has an old United Nations medevac Blackhawk for his personal use?"

"Not for personal. Sofouli in private business, buy and sell guns and ammo and radios to Bulgaria people, also to Romanians. Big black market for Turkey. This one come in three weeks ago. Sits there, tied down under big camo tarp. Nobody know how to fly. Kind of beat-up. Paint pretty bad. But is Blackhawk, okeydokey. Full up of gas."

"How do you know?"

"Keraklis show us."

"Does it have external tanks?"

"Like big bombs with points? Stick out from bottom, at sides?"

"Yes, that's right."

"Were they full?"

Levka shook his head.

"Do not know. Who can tell?"

"What about Keraklis, could he fly it?"

Levka made wry face, shook his head.

"Keraklis cannot drive fucking koda. Maybe Sofouli?"

"Get up," said Dalton, stepping back.

Levka did not want to get up but he did, slowly, like a corpse rising, which in a way he was. He straightened his suit jacket and looked down at his soaking crotch, a fleeting spasm of self-loathing crossing his face. He stood in the middle of the room, a forlorn presence, waiting for a bullet. He stared into the middle distance, went inward. He was a feckless and unlucky man, thought Dalton, watching Levka steel himself for death, but he was no coward. Dalton shifted the muzzle of the Croatian pistol, indicating the body of his cousin. "Can you carry him?"

Levka seemed to come back from another place. He blinked, looked down at Pappas, and then back at Dalton.

"Yes. Often. He drinks too much."

"Roll him in a carpet and bring him with us."

Levka held Dalton's look for a moment longer.

"A suggest I make, okay? No shooting."

Dalton nodded. "Go on."

"Is balcony out there? Three hundred feet to rocks. Storm all night too. In morning, maybe no body anywhere."

"Fine. Do it."

They watched as Levka did just that. He must have been telling the truth about carrying Kuldic home drunk, because he managed to get the other man up off the floor and into a fireman's carry, although the effort made his face turn blue and he staggered under the body's deadweight all the way out to the balcony. Kuldic went over the edge without a psalm, dropping into the wind and the eternal Aegean with only a slight flutter from his coat.

For a time, Levka stood there, staring down at the dim churning of the distant surf, at the jagged rocks along the shoreline. Dalton came up behind him, looked down at the black water, saw nothing at all. The wind sighed and moaned, the surf boomed, and the air was full of salt tang. There was music from a nearby bar and a faint scent of frying fish.

"Okay," said Dalton, "let's clean the place up and go."