Today's Reading
CHAPTER ONE
He regarded himself as a swashbuckling pirate awash in Mediterranean adventures. Part Errol Flynn, part Johnny Depp, and part good old Jacob Diamantopoulos. Trouble was, Jacob lived in Brooklyn, and the only boat he'd ever been on was the Staten Island Ferry, an experience that still haunted him.
One lunchtime, on a warm and gusty mid-October day, Jacob's mother had showed up at his third-grade classroom to take him for what she promised would be 'an adventure on the high seas.' It was the first anniversary of his father's death from a heart attack, and his mother decided that the two of them should spend the afternoon visiting her sister-in-law on Staten Island. Normally his mother took the bus, but today she decided it would be more fun for eight-year-old Jacob if they went by ferry.
An uneventful fifty-minute subway trip from Brooklyn's Brighton Beach brought them to Manhattan's South Ferry, where they boarded the largest vessel in the fleet for the five-mile journey across a choppy New York Harbor to Staten Island. Jacob had never seen a boat that big up close. It stood longer than a football field and could hold 6,000 passengers, though only a quarter of that many people had joined this crossing.
The journey was as exciting as his mother had promised. He sat staring out a starboard window, mesmerized by the Statue of Liberty while his mother softly stroked his hair. She spoke of how tightly she'd gripped his father's hand at her first glimpse of that symbol of freedom from the plane that brought them to their new lives in America.
As the ferry approached Staten Island's St George terminal, his mother hurried them forward on the main deck to be among the first to disembark.
'We're almost there,' she said, bending down to kiss the top of his head.
He knew nothing about boats, so he didn't bother to ask why the ferry hadn't slowed down.
That unasked question was answered a moment later when the Andrew J. Barberi slammed into a concrete pier that ripped through the ferry's main deck on the starboard side, trapping hundreds of passengers in piles of broken glass, twisted metal, and splintered wood, while others leaped overboard into the sea.
The impact hurled Jacob away from his mother and buried him under the pile of bodies flung forward behind him. He struggled to breathe, shouting all the while for his mother. All he heard were the screams and moans of the bloodied and dying surrounding him. He never knew how long he lay trapped before rescuers reached him.
Seventy passengers were injured that day. Ten died.
Including his mother.
Never again had he set foot upon a boat.
Special Crimes Unit Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis sat behind his desk at Athens Central Police headquarters—better known as GADA—waiting for his sister to call. Her text message had read: WHEN CAN I TALK WITH YOU? IT'S SERIOUS.
He'd texted back: NOW. That was five minutes ago. His mind ran to all sorts of possibilities. Had something happened to their mother, or possibly to one of his sister's three children? The two boys were still in public school in Athens, and Anna had just started university in America.
Andreas stared at the phone as if willing it to ring.
Ring.
He answered immediately. 'Gavi, is Mother OK?'
'Yes, she's fine.' She paused. 'It's Anna.' She paused again. 'She's getting married.'
'What?' blurted Andreas.
She stifled a sob. 'I'll never hear the end of it from her father. I convinced him to allow her to go to America for university. She's not even nineteen and wants to marry a boy she met there.'
'But she's only been in New York a month.'
Her voice rose. 'You don't have to tell me. I know!'
...
