Athena Savalas (also known as "The CEO" and "Director Savalas") is a target that appears in the Golden Handshake mission in HITMAN™ 2.
Background[]
Now, at the age of 51, Athena Savalas’ transformation is complete. The fair-skinned girl with the bright blue eyes and warm smile has been replaced by an impossibly white creature of infinite sternness who is always in complete control. Savalas is a marble statue at this point, having shed every original bit of herself with every year that she’s worked in finance. She’s an expert at finding loop holes, exploiting tax rules and laundering money for criminals and has been involved in numerous tax evasion schemes, which have earned her multiple “Banker of the Year” awards in the last decade.
Over the years, Savalas has also developed a refined disdain for the middle class, reducing customers to numbers on sheets of paper with no thought to the things she destroys with her constant “less is more” approach to small and medium-sized businesses. Rumors of wanton gambling with client money and the bank’s finances are beginning to catch up to her and with the board of directors looking for a new CEO of Milton-Fitzpatrick, Savalas is eagerly covering her tracks, using any means necessary.Description and Behavior[]
Athena Savalas is initially found in her office on the bank's top floor. She alternates between looking down on the bank from her clocktower window, working on her computer, making phone calls and watching employees through a two-way mirror in her private quarters. Both her office and the corridor outside of it are heavily guarded.
Athena, with the help of Fabian Mann, staged a break-in the night before with the intent of hiding a report detailing her reckless behavior. In addition to having the vaults investigated, she has hired a firm to find the missing report upstairs and bribed a security guard enough money to retire. Mateo Pérez, the bank's head of security, is suspicious of both Savalas and Mann. If 47 organizes a meeting between the three, Pérez correctly guesses that Savalas and Mann are conspiring to hide the report and will quit after.
Athena has fired an employee for wearing knitted sweaters on the job. 47 can disguise as the employee and meet Savalas in her office. Halfway through the meeting, Savalas will tell her guards to leave and turn her back to the window, allowing 47 to defenestrate her. Otherwise, she will conclude the meeting.
Athena usually never leaves her office, only going to the second floor if the stock price crashes. 47 can crash the market by giving Ruby Red the Cronkite Report or by selling stocks on the second floor. Savalas will come down to the floor to admonish her employees before heading to a small private chamber to make a call.
If 47 places the Cronkite Report on a desk in a room near the two-way mirror, one of her hired investigators will read through it and state her intention to whistleblow. If Savalas witnesses this, she will shout at the investigator and threaten to shoot her before dismissing everyone in the room.
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Trivia[]
- According to a teller in the bank, Eugene Cobb named Athena Savalas to be his successor for the position of CEO of Milton-Fitzpatrick. However, the unnamed new chairman of the board of directors (potentially Jonathan Luther) blocked her promotion, deciding that she should stay to be the director for a few more years. But a rumour said that the chairman was also investigating her background to make sure she is fit to become the Milton-Fitzpatrick CEO.
- Athena herself believes that her most recent Banker of the Year award would be enough to convince the board that she's the rightful successor to Cobb (not Alexander Fanin).
- Athena is erroneously referred to as a "Herald" of Providence by Diana as part of her "THAT" dialogue when first identifying a target; all other sources, however, indicate Athena is a regular operative, including most recently, IOI's official World of Assassination guidebook which retcons Diana's claim.
- She is referred to as an operative by Lucas Grey in the opening cutscene of Golden Handshake.
- Notably, she isn't named at all by other Heralds during dialogue in The Farewell, despite the names of deceased Heralds being mentioned.
- IOI's guidebook openly identifies Heralds in its Target pages, such as Yuki Yamazaki, Nolan Cassidy, and Tamara Vidal; like other regular operatives, Athena's Target page refers to her by her occupation, "Bank Director."
- Furthermore, Athena is pictured in the Providence Operatives section, alongside Ken Morgan and Robert Knox.
- She is an enforcer for the Bodyguard disguise.
- Due to a bug, Athena will ignore coins and other noise-based distractions. This is the result of a patch that introduced a fix to a different bug, which prevented Athena from falling to her death from her office window.
- An easter egg shows that when Athena dies, the bell of the giant clock on her top floor office will strike.
- Athena keeps two Commemorative Tokens in her office. This implies that she is a patron or a member of the Ark Society.
- According to a banker on the building's second floor, Athena and her were once scolded by their supervisor. Athena took notes of all the supervisor's mistakes and reported them to the company, earning her his job two weeks later.
- Athena might be related to a George Savalas, a "Greek-American investment banker" and friend of Blake Nathaniel who is mentioned by Miranda Jamison during The Appraiser elusive target. More than likely, however, this was the original name for the future target of Golden Handshake, given Jamison's mission was released months prior; Athena is also a Greek name.
- Athena's appearance and personality appear to be based on late New York businesswoman Leona Helmsley, infamous for her tyrannical personality and being convicted of tax evasion. She also bears a strong resemblance to Maye Musk.
- Elsie Bennett is incorrectly listed as having voiced Athena in both the HITMAN™ 2 and HITMAN™ III credits.