The Mask of Minos, Bruno's Inferno

Chapter 40 - Piraeus

The worst part about travelling, Harry thought, was the waiting. Waiting to take off, waiting for the plane to make its final stop after it landed and crawled at a snail's pace to the gate. Waiting for the baggage to appear. Waiting.

Sara took it all in stride. He remembered the traffic. One couldn't visit Athens and not remember the throngs of cars. The smell of traffic, the stop and go. He stopped, "It's this way to the car rentals."

"If you want to wait two hours you can, but Stu will have one for us at the hotel."

"Stu? Stu who?"

"Shea. He is our contact here in Athens. He's probably watching us right now." Harry looked around at anyone who might be watching them. He saw several people that might fit that paradigm. "Is that him?" he asked.

Without looking, Sara said probably not. "Stu likes to pretend he is a secret spy type. Look for someone in a seersuckers suit and that's him. He'll most likely meet us at the hotel."

The Attica Hotel was the standard stay for Sara's department while on business. It was small and unprepossessing, and out of the way, but close to the port city of Piraeus.

******

As the driver put their luggage in the trunk of his small pony-Citroen and turned out of the airport traffic onto the highway, the hippie couple from North Arundel watched from near their car. When the cab took off, they ran across the street in the hot summer air and jumped into their car and followed closely behind.

******

The ubiquitous traffic was everything Harry remembered it was in Athens. The highways moved swiftly and the downtown traffic was gridlock. It seemed that everyone used a car and that more than half were taxis. The meter ticked away. Sara leaned close to Harry. "Do you know any Greek?"

"That's one language I never got." Though he knew only a few key phrases in many he could not hold a substantive conversation in any but his own. The driver looked in the rearview mirror, looked ahead and slammed on the brakes narrowly hitting the car in front. He honked the horn and shouted.

"Is this the way to Piraeus?" she said. The driver nodded, "Piraeus."

"Hotel Attica."

He nodded his head furiously, "Atticus, Atticus. You said."

The heat soon became unbearable and putting the windows down allowed only a slight breeze in. An hour later they pulled up to the Attica. The cabbie got out and opened the trunk to remove the bags. Immediately, a little man rushed out of the hotel and began yelling at the driver. Harry got between them and shoved money at the driver, turned to the clerk and said they had reservations. He smiled at them, "I am sorry but that is my cousin and he owes me money," the little man said in surprisingly good English.

Harry looked up at the five story building. It was old by any standards, not the most expensive either. Each of the rooms facing the water had tiny porches over which many had laundry hanging over the railing. "Beautiful," he turned to Sara. "Figures."

"What? Harry, we're on business, not vacation. This will do." The front was a white stucco, but had browned over time from the pollution.

The cheaply decorated entrance used porticoes to support the Parthenon-like roof. A grey scruffy cat slept on the foyer and they crossed the threshold. Harry stopped at the door and turned to look out at Piraeus. The tiny row of old brick buildings that ran the length of the narrow street blocked his immediate view of the port.

"Beautiful." This time he meant it. He loved this town and the people and ways.

******

Going inside, neither of them noticed the Ford Pinto sitting across the street just two doors down with its motor running, nor the couple inside.