The Poison Secret by Gregg Loomis

Author:Gregg Loomis [Loomis, Gregg]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781630260101
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
Published: 2015-01-06T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 35

Syntagma Square

Twenty Minutes Later

The cab stopped on Amalia Avenue just short of the square. The first thing Lang noticed was the absence of the Evzones, the skirted honor guards at the tomb of Greece’s unknown soldier, catty-cornered to the palace King Ludwig of Bavaria had almost completed for his son, Otto, King of Greece. The building originally had 350 rooms and only one bath with running water. After Otto was deposed in 1862, the structure, still unfinished, became the home of the Greek parliament. Presumably, the plumbing had been updated.

Next to Lang’s hotel, it faced the square, formerly a royal private garden. Lang didn’t notice the blinding white glare of marble from the walkways and benches under a hundred oleander, orange, and cypress trees. All he could see was a surging, roiling, rioting sea of humanity. Police, figures from Star Wars with helmet visors down, fired canisters of tear gas from behind handheld shields. They received in exchange rocks, bottles, and the occasional Molotov cocktail. Even with the taxi’s windows up and the whisper of the air conditioning, Lang heard the yells of the opposing sides and the crash of things being broken.

The wisdom of the Hotel Grand Bretagne’s fortifications became visually obvious. The question was, how was Lang going to get through a violent mob to his hotel immediately adjacent to the object of the mob’s rage?

“How long do you suppose this is going to last?” he asked the cabbie.

A shrug was his answer, whether to the question itself or because the man spoke no English, it was unascertainable. One thing was clear: the taxi driver was not going to risk his vehicle joining the several automobiles already burning furiously. Lang could hardly blame him. If he was going to cross that square, he was going to have to do it alone and on foot.

Lang peeled euros from the roll in his pocket. He hardly heard the shriek of smoking tires on pavement as the cab turned around and fled.

Cautiously, he skirted the edge of the barricades surrounding the parliament building, occasionally dodging flying missiles. His target was a contingent of armored police cars directly in front of the Bretagne.

He concentrated on avoiding both being hit by flying bricks, or whatever else happened to be airborne, and the small groups of less-than-peaceful protesters. Had he paid closer attention to his other surroundings, he might have seen two men detach themselves from a group of students shouting slogans and distance themselves from each other to approach him from opposite directions.

The problem with tear gas is that it is impartial as to whom it attacks. A shift in the light wind caused the uniformed police to don gas masks as their own weapon turned upon them, as did the billowing cloud of greasy smoke from the burning cars.

Lang’s sight was beginning to blur with tears. Without a gas mask, or at least a bandanna soaked in cider vinegar or lemon juice, he knew his eyes, nose, and mouth would soon be stinging.

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