They were locked in traffic packed solid up to an intersection about one hundred yards ahead. The traffic light at the corner was red and, when a gap opened in oncoming traffic all the way back to the light, Kouros pulled the unmarked car into the empty lane and raced toward the intersection.

'Christ, Yianni, at least turn on the lights.'

'Never turned them off, only the siren.' Another reason Andreas liked Kouros: he listened but was no fool.

Kouros reached the intersection just as the light turned green. He swerved across the front of their lane and shot up the street to the right, narrowly missing the rear wheel of a motorcyclist who'd jumped the light.

Andreas turned his head and stared at Kouros. He knew there must be a grin breaking out somewhere on the other side of that face. Andreas was a dozen years older than Kouros but, except for the few tinges of gray streaking Andreas' slightly too long dark hair, you'd think they were the same age, perhaps because Kouros' boot-camp style haircut and compact, bull-like build made him look older than he was, or because Andreas' hard work at keeping his six-foot two-inch athletic frame in shape paid off.

Kouros weaved through a series of far-from-fancy back streets running roughly parallel to Pireos. Just before Omonia he turned left and cut back across the road. 'It's only a couple blocks from here.'

Andreas watched a hooker lean out from a doorway marked by a single white light above it, the local signal for 'hookers here.'

'Great neighborhood.'

'Yeah, probably another drug deal gone bad.'

'Don't know yet, but something tied to drugs would be my guess. Dawn on a Sunday morning, this neighborhood, a foreign-looking young male in a dumpster, no money, no ID, no witnesses, no one with him, and no one looking for him. At least not so far.' Andreas shrugged. 'We'll see.'