Achilles Wept - A Brief Synopsis
William McVane gave it all up when Angelina was tortured and murdered in a sadistic ritual, only months after they were married in Paris. McVane had already given up his clandestine career for her and, after her death, he pretty much gave up living. He drank and smoked too much, slept too little. The only thing that kept the barrel of his 45 out of his own mouth was a cold determination to find the cult bastards who had taken her away from him - to stick that same barrel down their throats.
With the help of John Brooks, his ex-partner and a brilliant analyst still in the agency, McVane decides to take on cases having anything to do with cults, one a year. As a former assassin, he does not lack the training and skills to go after them.
Two years after Angelina’s death, Red Petrakis finds McVane at the dive bar he owns in Paris, slaps the shit out of him for sending her brother to the prison where he’s murdered, and then tries to hire him. It was McVane who caught Panos and had him locked up. It was Brooks who suspected something cultish about Panos’s grisly death, so he had sent Red to McVane.
The huge bald-headed, track suit-wearing simian, with the tattoo of a Greek letter A on his calf, that McVane finds in his house the next day, proves it. The guy tosses him around like a toy, rips a Michener hardback in half with his bare hands, and gets a McVane 45 through his skull for his efforts.
Someone is killing people all over the world, mostly in Eastern Europe, where McVane spent most of his old career. They’re killing with their hands, in brutal fashion, like ripping the arms off of people and beating them to death with those limbs. Brooks sees a pattern. The killings are being done to maintain the purity of a race. The partners of couples are being murdered, meaning the survivors are part of the race. It means that McVane and Red are part of the race. Made sense. Both were orphaned and never knew their real parents.
McVane goes back to his old stomping grounds, starting in Athens. Dimitri, an old mafioso friend, tells him it’s the Cult of Achilles. The next day Dimitri is found strangled with his own intestines, so they’re not playing around either.
Based out of the estate on the coast of the Black Sea he built for Angelina with some dirty money, McVane sets out in search of the Achilles; from the monasteries in Meteora, to the catacombs of Odessa, from the Vatican to the Hagia Sofia. But it’s a two way street. The Achilles are after him too.
With the help of John Brooks, his ex-partner and a brilliant analyst still in the agency, McVane decides to take on cases having anything to do with cults, one a year. As a former assassin, he does not lack the training and skills to go after them.
Two years after Angelina’s death, Red Petrakis finds McVane at the dive bar he owns in Paris, slaps the shit out of him for sending her brother to the prison where he’s murdered, and then tries to hire him. It was McVane who caught Panos and had him locked up. It was Brooks who suspected something cultish about Panos’s grisly death, so he had sent Red to McVane.
The huge bald-headed, track suit-wearing simian, with the tattoo of a Greek letter A on his calf, that McVane finds in his house the next day, proves it. The guy tosses him around like a toy, rips a Michener hardback in half with his bare hands, and gets a McVane 45 through his skull for his efforts.
Someone is killing people all over the world, mostly in Eastern Europe, where McVane spent most of his old career. They’re killing with their hands, in brutal fashion, like ripping the arms off of people and beating them to death with those limbs. Brooks sees a pattern. The killings are being done to maintain the purity of a race. The partners of couples are being murdered, meaning the survivors are part of the race. It means that McVane and Red are part of the race. Made sense. Both were orphaned and never knew their real parents.
McVane goes back to his old stomping grounds, starting in Athens. Dimitri, an old mafioso friend, tells him it’s the Cult of Achilles. The next day Dimitri is found strangled with his own intestines, so they’re not playing around either.
Based out of the estate on the coast of the Black Sea he built for Angelina with some dirty money, McVane sets out in search of the Achilles; from the monasteries in Meteora, to the catacombs of Odessa, from the Vatican to the Hagia Sofia. But it’s a two way street. The Achilles are after him too.
