The Lost Throne(50)
“And?”
“I have nothing to add. I did a great job this morning.”
“Wonderful,” Dial said sarcastically. “Thanks for the update. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Wait! Don’t hang up. I’m not finished.”
“Go on, I’m listening.”
“Next, I pondered what you said to me. You asked if these killers could be Spartans. I laughed at you and told you no because Sparta is no more. But the more you argued, the less sure I became. They sounded like real Spartans to me. So I called Spárti—”
“Spárti? What’s Spárti?”
“It is city built on top of ancient Sparta. It is in the Peloponnese of southern Greece.”
“Never heard of it.”
“It is small, maybe twenty thousand people. It is located near the Eurotas River in Laconia.”
“If you say so. Currently I’m in a parking lot, nowhere near a map.”
“Well, trust me, Spárti is real. And the man I spoke with was quite helpful.”
“What man?”
“An NCB agent by the name of George Pappas. He has lived there for many years.”
“And?”
“You will not believe me, but he swore to me that Spartan soldiers still exist.”
“What are you talking about?”
Toulon laughed. “See, I knew you wouldn’t believe me. You never believe me.”
Dial ignored him. “Give me details.”
“First, you must understand the geography. The Peloponnese is a large peninsula separated from the rest of Greece by the Gulf of Corinth. If not for a narrow land bridge in the northeast corner, it would actually be an island, not a peninsula. Spárti sits at the bottom on the southern end of the Laconian plain. It is guarded by mountains on three sides, isolated from the rest of Greece by distance and geology. Ancient Sparta was settled there for that very reason. These were men of war. They built their city in a location that would be difficult to attack.”
“Got it,” Dial said. “I can picture it in my head. It’s south of the city of Olympia, about halfway to the island of Crete.”
“Good job, Nick! Someone did his homework on his flight to Athens.”
“They didn’t make me chief for nothing.”
“Well, we can talk about that some other time. For now, let’s stick to my point: Spárti is very isolated. And since it is, it is very different from mainland Greece.”
“In what way?”
“For one, some of the people—particularly those who live in the mountain villages—don’t speak Greek. They speak Tsakonian.”
“Tsakonian? I’ve never heard of it.”
“Let me make it simpler. They speak the language of Sparta.”
“Hold up! People still speak Spartan?”
“More or less. It comes from the language of Ancient Sparta, though it’s been updated through the years. Some experts classify Tsakonian as a dialect, but that’s incorrect. It is a separate Hellenic language, different from the branch of Ancient Athens, which eventually became Modern Greek. Tsakonian is Doric Greek, not Attic Greek. So it is different.”
Dial grimaced at the information. “Speaking of foreign languages, I didn’t understand half the shit you just said. But that’s okay. I’m kind of used to it. You speak English like a tourist.”
“That was funny, Nick. Perhaps I will tell you the rest of this en français.”
“Sorry. I didn’t understand that, either. We must have a bad connection.”
“Oui. Let us blame your ignorance on your cell phone.”
“And we’ll blame your English on your drinking.”
Toulon smiled. “Touché.”
“Anyway,” Dial said, trying to get the conversation back on track, “didn’t you say something about Spartan soldiers?”
“Oui. I was just getting there.” Toulon opened his desk drawer and grabbed his pack of cigarettes. “Some of these mountain towns, they are filled with people from a different era. They have no television. They have no electricity. They don’t even speak Greek. All they have is one another and the culture they have always known. The culture of Sparta.”
“Continue.”
“This morning, I told you about their ancestors. Spartan boys were bred for war. They lived for it. They died for it. It’s all they cared about. It was passed from fathers to sons for generations until it was so much a part of them that they could do nothing else. Some men are born farmers. Some men are born poets. And some men are born warriors. These are those men.”
Toulon pulled out a cigarette and held it under his nose like a glass of fine wine. “You have these men in America, no? They live in Montana with their kids and their dogs and they follow their own rules. What is it you call them?”