Kouros kept his eyes on the road. 'Looks like someone's sending a message.'

Andreas nodded. 'You don't go to all the trouble of hiding a body in a place where it's certain to be found, then call the police to make sure that it is, without a very clear purpose in mind.'

'What do you think it is?'

'Not sure yet, but whatever it is, they want the message delivered by us.'

Kouros turned onto Alexandras Street. They were almost back to General Police Headquarters, better known as GADA. It wasn't far from where they found the kid's body, but it sat at the heart of Athens' bustle, next door to a major hospital, down the block from Greece's Supreme Court, and across the street from the stadium of one of Greece's most popular soccer teams, Panathinaikos. GADA was a chore to get to at almost any hour.

Andreas drummed the fingers of his right hand on the top of the dashboard. 'I don't see it as a spontaneous crime of passion or tied to some drug deal gone bad. It certainly wasn't a mugging. This was planned.'

'But why kill a kid… can't imagine even our worst, hard-ass, scum-ball mafia types doing that.'

'I know. That's what has me wondering.' And worried, Andreas mumbled to himself. 'This can't be the beginning of whatever's going on.'

'Maybe it's the end?'

'Let's hope.' Andreas stopped drumming. 'But I don't think so.' Noblesse oblige was a French phrase, but for Sarantis Linardos it needed no translation. Not because he was fluent in French as well as German, English, and, of course, his native Greek, but because it described his view of the Linardos family's obligations to Greece so perfectly; most particularly his own responsibilities as family patriarch and publisher of its most sacrosanct asset. Many old-line families in Greece shared the Linardos family's social position, but none its power of the press. A loss of The Athenian meant the end to his family's influence over the thinking of its peers and its reign at the pinnacle of Athens society. He could never allow that to happen.