The Project 04 - Black Harvest

the floor.
    The other man had a gun, a big automatic. She spun with a high kick and knocked it from his hand. She followed with a strike to the solar plexus, a blow to the throat, a deadly fist up under the ribcage. He collapsed. His face went purple. He died.
    The first attacker moaned in pain, clutching his groin. His right arm lay at an odd angle. Selena walked over to him. She felt cold, her mind clear and focused. He had touched her, grabbed her. He had wanted to hurt her, worse, she had no doubt. She considered the strike that would kill him. Just in time, she thought better of it. He would have answers.
    She shivered. Where did this urge to kill come from? What had happened to her civilized education, her deep sense of compassion, her sense of common humanity? For an instant they'd vanished like a wisp of smoke in a harsh wind.
    It was the Project. Since she'd joined the Project, things has changed. For years she'd hidden behind a comfortable veneer of academic and athletic achievement. She'd had control of her life, everything neatly organized. That was gone. Life in the Project had stripped it away.
    She didn't know where this new life was taking her.
    Selena bent over the sobbing man as he tried to crawl away from her. She placed her thumb on a nerve center and pressed until he was unconscious. An act of mercy, really, and now it was quiet in the room. Somewhere in the background she heard her name, a tinny voice far away.
    The phone. It lay on the rug where it had fallen. She walked over, bent down and picked it up. She was breathing hard. Her forehead hurt. A trickle of blood ran from her nose. She wiped it away with her knuckle.
    Nick was shouting. "Selena!"
    "It's all right." She walked over to the dead man. "I guess the olive business isn't what it used to be."

CHAPTER TEN

    Nick touched down in Thessaloniki sixteen hours after Selena's call. The flight was official, cleared with the Greeks. Nick wasn't pretending to be someone he wasn't. He'd brought a Glock .40 for Selena. His own H-K rested in the shoulder rig under his jacket.
    It was Sunday morning when he arrived. The sky was cloudy with patches of sun through scudding clouds. He smelled rain coming.
    A white police car with blue stripes waited outside the hotel entrance. A bored constable stood by the car smoking a cigarette. He watched Nick enter the hotel.
    Selena opened her door. Her forehead was red and swollen, her violet eyes red-rimmed with fatigue. She smiled. He felt something jump inside him. Behind her, a small, dark man stood near the window.
    "You okay?"
    She nodded. "Nick, this is Chief Inspector Giorgos Demetrios from the police. We were just talking."
    She made the introduction.
    Demetrios was around five-seven, maybe 140 pounds. He wore civilian clothes, a brown suit of indifferent cut. His shoes were black and dull. His tie had stains on it. His hair was short and curly, showing gray. He had a paunch and needed a shave. Nick guessed him at around fifty-five years old. Dark eyes watched them with the calculating gaze universal to cops everywhere. He looked annoyed. Demetrios had a Smith and Wesson 910 holstered on his belt.
    Chief Inspector. At his age, that wasn't much. He was stuck at the equivalent of a first lieutenant in the military, a working cop. Demetrios wasn't going any higher up the promotion ladder.
    Selena had killed one of the attackers. It could complicate things.
    "Carter." Demetrios spoke passable English. "I recognize you. From the films of Jerusalem, with your President."
    Damn, Nick thought, the Jerusalem thing again. It had compromised him, blown his cover in a big way. Every agency in the world had his picture.
    Demetrios didn't waste words. "I want to know why you are here and why Doctor Connor was attacked. And why you are armed." He gestured at the bulge under Nick's gray jacket. "Foreigners are not allowed to carry guns here. Not without official permission."
    "I have permission, Chief Inspector. Selena and I work for our government as a kind of floating investigative team. We look into things that might be against the country's interests. In this case, international interests, including those of Greece."
    They needed as much help as they could get. Nick decided to tell Demetrios most of it, except about the golden urn. This cop could make a lot of trouble for them if he wanted to. It would delay things.
    "We think this incident is related to three murders in the US. It involves historical