The Freedom Broker (Thea Paris #1)(43)

Thea’s breath burned in her chest, but she increased her pace and stayed focused on the chef’s bald head. Rif was a few steps ahead of her. Training on the Santorini stairs seemed easy compared with this insanity. She wished Aegis was here to run ahead and bring the bastard down.

The mass of people slowed Henri’s progress. She and Rif closed the distance to fifty feet.

“Go right, and I’ll cover left,” Rif said.

“Got it.” The Acropolis was a large, flat plateau on a rocky outcropping hosting several ancient structures. By splitting up, they could cut off Henri’s escape routes.

The stones were slippery and uneven, dangerous as a running surface. Thea stumbled. Her right ankle twisted, and sharp pain shot through her lower leg. She stabilized herself, grateful for her rubber-soled shoes, and continued running.

Henri knocked over two elderly Japanese tourists snapping photos. He turned and fired at Thea.

But nothing happened.

He’d emptied the magazine in his gun.

Henri tore through the Parthenon, then headed directly east. They were close to cornering him. Rif angled in to help. Thea’s lungs were now on fire, but she kept her legs pumping.

The chef sprinted toward the eastern point of the plateau, where a flagpole had been planted beside the cliff. A Greek flag fluttered in the breeze. Rif trapped Henri from the north, Thea from the southwest, no escape route left.

Henri reached the flagpole and turned to confront Thea.

His face was blotchy; sweat dripped down his forehead. She was thirty feet away. Almost there.

Resolve flashed in Henri’s eyes. He crossed himself, looked toward the sky, hopped the fence, and hurled himself off the cliff.

Thea’s stomach plummeted as she reached the edge.

No, no, no.

She collided with the fence. Looking down, she ignored the Plaka—the old city—the ruins of the giant Temple of Olympian Zeus, and the Olympic stadium nestled in a pine-covered hill. Her gaze zoomed in on Henri’s body on the rocks below, his neck and limbs twisted in death.

Tourists gathered near the fence. Rif joined Thea, taking in Henri’s lifeless form.

“Fuck. Let’s get out of here before the police arrive.” He placed a warm hand on her shoulder.

She stumbled away from the cliff, a stupid history lesson from school in her mind. When the Germans had occupied Athens in the Second World War, the Evzone—a member of the Greek infantry—who guarded the Acropolis’s Greek flag was ordered by the Nazis to take it down. The guard calmly did so, then wrapped himself in the flag and jumped off the cliff to his death.

She and Rif headed for the exit, trying to blend into the crowd, avoiding the security guards swarming the site. “Who merits such loyalty that Henri would rather die than risk revealing who hired him?”

“Or maybe he feared someone more than death.”

“More questions. We need answers.”

Her shirt was soaked with sweat, her skin coated with dust, her spirits dampened.

“Every lead is a dead end. Actually dead.” The crew of the Aphrodite had been executed, the old woman murdered, Helena blown up, the oil tanker hijacked, and now Papa’s chef, who had betrayed him, had died to hide the truth.

The body count would escalate until they figured out who had kidnapped her father. She needed to step back, sift through the information. Somewhere in this mess rested the answer.





Chapter Thirty-Two



Thea perched on a stool in the Hotel Grande Bretagne bar, sandwiched between Paris Industries COO Ahmed Khali and CFO Peter Kennedy. The large floor-to-ceiling windows showcased the spectacular Acropolis, but the view was ruined for her after Henri’s suicide.

She nursed a glass of white wine. A single thread could unravel this blanket of murder and kidnapping—she just had to pull the right one. And that was why she’d asked for this meeting.

Every lead thus far had turned into a dead end. But Kanzi consistently resurfaced, so she planned to go there as soon as she finished here. Despite the news about her father’s kidnapping breaking, the negotiations over the Kanzi oil rights had not been canceled after all. She would attend the negotiations in neighboring Zimbabwe to watch the power players—including these two men—to see if something or someone felt off.

Ahmed lifted a club soda to his lips and sipped. “Peter filled me in on the K-and-R insurance. Anything you need, just ask. We can easily liquidate more cash.”

“Thank you. I wish it were that simple.”

“Still no demands from the real kidnapper?” Peter downed the remnants of his second Scotch.

“No. Any idea who could be behind this?” She studied the executives as they struggled to respond to the blunt question. Between the two of them, she’d bet on Peter being implicated, because of his ambition. Still, she wasn’t sure what lurked behind Ahmed’s well-polished veneer.

“The Chinese or maybe the Russians could be involved. Both would benefit if they sent Paris Industries into a tailspin.” Peter waved to the bartender and pointed to his empty glass.

“I’d look at the Kanzi military and political party officials. Fifteen years working in Africa showed me the corruption and greed inherent in the political system in Kanzi, from the national government on down.” Ahmed’s voice had a hitch to it, as if he was tamping down anger.

Thea toyed with the stem of her wineglass. “When we lived in Kanzi, tribal infighting played a prominent role in politics. Maybe this is about an internal power struggle?”