Shot on Location (9 page)

Captain Koumaris accepted the photos. He sat down again behind the desk and studied the series in silence. Pallas was right. They were interesting. A group of young men had been snapped in various poses while engaged in unloading a metal box from an unmarked truck parked at the building site. Several of the men were recognizable—Stephanos Brisos, in particular.

“Has anyone else seen these?” the captain asked.

“Of course not, captain.”

“What do you want in exchange for this information?”

“Nothing, captain. I want only peace and order in my native country. I am now a respectable businessman, you see—”

“I see nothing but Mikos Pallas who never gives anything away.”

“Well, then. If you don’t want the prints—”

Mikos Pallas stretched forth his right hand, as if to pick up the photos. The captain snatched them closer.

“All right!” he snapped. “If you want nothing in exchange then accept my thanks and get on with your holiday.”

“Happily,” Pallas said.

After he had gone the captain scrutinized the photos under a magnifying glass. There was no doubt of it. Two of the young men were already suspected of anarchist activities. The number on the plates on the truck were clearly visible. The bearded one was Stephanos. Evidence at last. The captain was delighted. He would file away, in his mind, the knowledge that Mikos Pallas had, in some way, gained a prior knowledge of the explosion, for it was too much to believe that he had accidentally taken these pictures. At the moment that aspect was of minor importance. What was of importance was that this violence could well have been a deliberate cover for the robbery of the Kolinos’ safe. Anarchists needed money to continue operations. What they couldn’t raise by other means, they might well raise by theft. He would also, for the moment, file away the matter of identifying this strange Mr. Hussad, who had gone to such pains to see that the cash money would be in the Kolinos’ safe at the right time and then telephoned Kolinos to make certain he would be out of the office when the explosion occurred.

But at the top of his mind, marked for action, he would file the photos of Stephanos Brisos, who was now to be arrested on sight.

The manager of the tour agency was discreetly cooperative with Captain Koumaris. The girl, Katerina, had gone out on the tour to Epidauros. He provided a complete schedule of stops where she might be located, but a public tour was no place for questioning anyone. The captain hesitated. Did the office manager know Katerina’s brother, Stephanos? Indeed, the manager did know him. Had he come to the tour office this morning? A consultation of the staff was held and the answer given. No, Stephanos had not come, but an American tourist, whom Katerina seemed to know personally, had come to consult her about hiring a car and driver. An American? Koumaris was intrigued. There was nothing unusual about a tourist picking up an acquaintance with—even romancing—a beautiful tour guide, but the American, Smith, had lied about his business connections. Once he was curious about a man, the captain was thorough; and his curiosity was aroused, when the men he had placed on guard at the Avery suite reported that this man had visited Mrs. Avery. This curiosity prompted an investigation of his alleged business connections and the discovery that there was no Vance Properties located in London. If he was not in such a business, what was his business and why was he in Athens? He asked to see the rental application and was pleased to have his suspicions confirmed. It was Smith who had hired the car. Who was the driver? The management couldn’t supply that information and directed him to the garage.

The boy who had driven the Fiat to the boat house, tried not to show fear when he was questioned. He answered directly.

“Yes, sir, I drove the American, Mr. Smith, as far as the yacht harbour. He gave me my bus fare back and picked up another driver.”

“Did you know the driver?” the captain asked.

The boy lied, blandly, as only the very young can do. “He wasn’t one of our drivers,” he said. “That’s all I know for certain.”

“Where was the American going?”

“I—I don’t know.”

He had hesitated with his answer, and hesitation was suspect. The captain took a firm hold of his arm. The strength in the grip was enough to remind him that bones are easily broken. The boy clenched his teeth and refused to lower his eyes from the captain’s.

“Are you sure the American didn’t mention where he was going?” Koumaris prodded.

“Not exactly,” the boy said, “but he was impatient. He kept looking at his watch and telling me to make up time. I decided that he must have a rendezvous somewhere. He didn’t behave like a tourist. He didn’t even have a camera.”

The ploy was successful. The captain loosed his grip on the youth’s arm. This chatter was nonsense. Smith had gone directly to Mrs. Avery’s suite after arriving in Athens—now he was impatient to leave the city. It was only logical to assume that he had gone to join the search for Avery at Kastoria, and that made the identity of his driver all the more interesting. Kastoria was so very close to the Albanian border.

The captain was a very nervous man. The escalating tension of the times, so naively unnoticed by the casual tourist in search of antiquities, made it unwise to overlook any possibility of finding Stephanos. He dispatched two junior officers to follow the tour bus to Epidauros, but the instinct, by which he survived, beckoned him to the north country in search of a new Fiat saloon car. It was regrettable that Smith had almost three hours’ head start.

STEPHANOS WAS AN expert driver. Once they had reached the excellent motorway to Lamia, he bore down on the accelerator, with an intensity that needed no prodding from Brad. Speed seemed as essential to him as to his passenger. When the sea and Athens were both far behind he began to relax without losing speed. He began to talk.

“Harry Avery,” he mused aloud. “How fine it must be to be so rich.”

“He wasn’t born that way,” Brad said.

“The American Dream—is that it?”

“Don’t knock it.”

“I don’t. I envy it. Greece is a very poor country—and yet we have some very rich men. That may be why we are so poor, eh?”

“That may be why you aren’t poorer.”

Stephanos laughed. “Spoken like a true Capitalist! Yes, I suppose you are right. Without some rich men we would have no economy, but the antiquities and the tourists. But then, I’m no politician.”

“I never knew a lawyer who wasn’t.”

“Oh, but I’m not a lawyer yet. My politics are simple. I want from life what every man wants: a woman to love and to live with. Children. A house for my family and a good enough living so that my children can have a better life than mine. Once in a while a holiday, when the children are left with relatives and I can be my wife’s lover again. That’s my dream, Mr. Smith.”

“It sounds like a good dream.”

“Yes, but not too grand. Only now the dream is over.”

“Why do you say that? You’re very young.”

“Because of the damned politicians. And yes, I am young, but I’m also human. I can hate.”

“Who do you hate?”

“Koumaris.”

“He’s small fry. He’ll pass.”

“He killed my wife,” Stephanos said.

For a few minutes he remained silent. Only his knuckles whitening on the steering wheel betrayed his tension.

“My girl,” he said at last. “We were going to be married, as soon as I finished college.”

“Why did he kill her?”

“She was a teacher—of children. It became known that she didn’t like the Junta. Now, don’t misunderstand. She wasn’t stood against the wall and shot—nothing so honest or honourable. She was questioned. They want names—always names of resistance people … She knew no names. They abused her—” His voice broke. He continued in a huskier tone. “They hurt her to much—inside, I mean. Inside her soul. I saw her only once after her release. That was the night I cut down her body, after she had hanged herself.”

“I’m sorry,” Brad said. “I didn’t realize—”

“Of course not! Americans never realize, do they? They didn’t realize what Hitler was doing to the Jews, until they opened up the death camps. Don’t you people ever learn?”

“Look, why take it out on me,” Brad protested. “I’m just an ordinary citizen.”

“Isn’t that enough in a democracy?” Stephanos spoke with bitter sarcasm. “It’s not your fault, of course,” he added. “But I’ll give you something to think about: when a Greek is beaten with a rifle butt and the rifle was given to the tormentor by your government, it makes for a very strange reaction. It hurts more to be beaten by an American rifle because one thinks, what has become of our friends? Where have they gone? It’s a lonely feeling, Mr. Smith. My own father was killed, fighting with an American rifle, but he was fighting Communists. Before that, he fought Germans. It’s all very confusing. Do you have a girl, Mr. Smith?”

“Not now,” Brad said.

“But you have had a girl—a special girl?”

“Yes.”

“What happened to her?”

“She married another man while I was in Vietnam.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. But she had a choice, didn’t she? She wasn’t tortured and humiliated, until she wanted only to die and forget. She is still alive.”

“Yes, she’s still alive.”

“Good. My girl isn’t. Some day I will kill him. Some day I will kill Koumaris—when it is the right time.”

“Did you help blow up that construction site last night?”

It was possible that Stephanos smiled a little. Brad couldn’t see from where he was sitting. It was just a feeling.

“Mr. Smith,” he said, “I am the driver who is taking you to Kastoria—that’s all. How do you expect to find this Harry Avery, if no one else can?”

“I don’t really know,” Brad admitted. “I just wanted to try. It’s thought that he might have wandered off from the plane and been found by some farmer or villager. His cameras weren’t found in the wreckage. They might show up somewhere. Somebody might find them and try to sell them.”

“Not turn them into the police? We are all villains, then, in Greece?”

“I didn’t say that! And for your information, I’ve been hungry enough times to have sold anything I could lay my hands on, whether or not I knew the owner. I don’t think that virtue comes issued with any particular passport, if that’s what you mean.”

“I apologize,” Stephanos said. “I’m too touchy today. Anyway, we agree on one thing. My sister is a lovely girl—right?”

“Right!” Brad said.

“It was good of you,” Stephanos added, “to give her the telephone number of the man at the embassy.”

“She told you that?”

“When she called me this morning. It was very good of you.”

On such a lovely morning, Brooks Martins would normally have breakfasted on the terrace of his house, a short distance from the Embassy. Lois had lived some time in England and was capable of doing fantastic things in the way of buffets. But dinner, with young Richard and his charming fiancée, had lasted longer than anticipated and afterwards, when they had come home and gone to bed, there was much earnest conversation about the girl: would she make Richard the right kind of wife, would she be a help or a hindrance to his career? Finally, exhausted, they had talked themselves asleep, in the knowledge that the children would do exactly what their parents had done, and would marry, with or without a blessing, whenever they so pleased. And so they had both overslept, and there was no buffet: merely a pot of coffee in the kitchen and iced melon from the refrigerator. Martins was still in pyjamas and robe, when Sam McKeough arrived, with a report of the police investigation of the latest bombing.

Sam was a State Department career man: stocky, sandy-haired and tough. He spoke in a blunt, staccato-like style, as if he spent all his spare time reading telegrams.

“Another one last night,” he said. “Messy.”

“Any lives lost?”

“No. Lucky. A million West German marks are missing from the safe in a broker’s office next door. Police think the bomb was cover for the robbery.”

Martins poured a cup of coffee for Sam—black with two lumps of sugar. The sugar was wasted. It would do nothing to sweeten his disposition. “I suppose they have some reason for arriving at that conclusion,” he mused.

“Damned good reason. I just left them. Zervios called a Mr. Hussad in Cairo, who supposedly had lunch with the victim of the robbery the day before yesterday and set up a deal to pick up the marks last night, in exchange for an invoice on a shipment of cotton. Hussad hasn’t been away from Cairo in six months, and the cotton isn’t for sale. It was sold before it left Egypt.”

Martins listened carefully. “And the appointment last night wasn’t kept, of course.”

“Cancelled less than half an hour before the explosion. The man who claimed to be Hussad was a revolutionary, who has left the country, obviously. The broker, a man named Kolinos, was a stooge, used to get the marks into the safe.”

“Then the resistance has money to buy arms. Koumaris must be climbing the walls.”

“I wish he’d climb back into the trees where his kind belong. Protecting the free world would be a lot easier if occasionally the countries we’re protecting would practice democracy. If anybody wants my job at any time—”

Brooks Martins laughed aloud. “You’ve been saying that for the last fifteen years that I know of, Sam.”

“And I’ll be saying it for fifteen years more! We’ve got a reception room full of irate tourists and businessmen at the Embassy this morning, demanding help with everything, from locating a lost husband to cashing American Express cheques. None of them ever heard of the Cold War or the way governments over here keep changing, as if everybody in power had one foot in a revolving door. This coffee’s good.”

“I’m glad you like something this morning, Sam.”

“Always like good coffee. Any time. And I didn’t come about the bombing. Any word about Avery?”

“Nothing new from what I reported last night.”

“Where the hell do you think he is? He did make contact in Albania. We got confirmation from our man there.”

Martins finished his coffee and took a straight-stemmed pipe from his robe pocket. He always filled it before going down to breakfast, so he could have one good smoke before dressing. He struck a match and studied McKeough’s perplexed face over the flame. “That makes the situation more sensitive,” he said.

“It sure does. I only hope he walked away from that crash with the film intact. Has the wreckage been examined? Any chance the plane was shot down?”

“I don’t think so. I would have been told before now.”

“Well, something forced it down. Are you sure of this man Avery?”

“Of course I’m sure! He’s worked with us before. Always reliable.”

“A movie producer!”

“A smart man, Sam. Don’t be misled by his private life. That’s for the man and his wife to work out. Now, be quiet a minute and let me think.”

Sam McKeough poured his own second cup of coffee and took two more lumps of sugar. Martins, gnawing on the pipe, paced the kitchen floor, like a father-to-be in a hospital waiting room. He stopped in his tracks and held up the pipe for attention. “Suppose Avery was hurt in the crash—enough to slow him down quite a bit. He would take the cameras and the film—that would be instinctive—and then he would try to find some kind of shelter. That wreckage isn’t more than ten miles inside the Greek border and he must have known that, when the plane started down. There was a radio call, remember. The pilot knew where they were. If the plane was forced down, a search-party could be sent in from the Albanian side. Avery may be close to that wreckage now and not showing himself, because he isn’t sure who’s beating the bushes for him. The radio was smashed in the crash. He couldn’t make contact that way.”

“A familiar face might help,” Sam said.

“That’s what I was thinking. Nobody could mistake me for an Albanian.”

“Or a Russian,” Sam added. “Boris Popenko was seen at Central Airport this morning.”

“The executioner?” Martins scowled and gnawed on the stem of his pipe. “That old war horse here?” he mused. “Do you know that he’s one of the last of the real thing—a genuine patriot? He’s a veteran of the nine hundred days of Stalingrad.”

“You sound as if you admire him?”

“And why not? We’ve locked horns before—and, believe me, that old bull has plenty of fight in him! Yes, I can admire an antagonist, even when he’s a top Russian agent. But, surely, you don’t think Popenko was the illusive Mr. Hussad!”

“I didn’t say that. Anyway we lost him at the airport. He might have gone on to Cairo. I did think of that, yes, but it doesn’t fit. Popenko arrived only this morning. Now, suppose he didn’t go to Cairo or points east, but went to Kastoria, instead? That would mean the Russian side of the iron curtain is represented in this mess. I’ll lay it out for you. The Albanians certainly want to find Avery, if they have any inkling what he was doing on the wrong side of the border. The Russians would want him for the same reason we do: to get that micro-film report. Captain Koumaris wants him because he’s a paranoid, who thinks everybody is a threat to his share of the goodies—”

“And Mrs. Avery wants him because he’s her husband,” Martins concluded.

“Did you get a clearance on Smith?”

Martins grinned reflectively. “Omar Bradley Smith,” he said. “Wouldn’t you know a man with a name like that would volunteer for service in Vietnam? If you want to know why he showed up at Avery’s suite, I can tell you. Mrs. Avery and Smith were lovers before he went into the service and she married Avery.”

“So what’s he doing here? Trying to pick up where he left off?”

“I don’t know—or care. Remember when you came out of the army, Sam? I do. I was too keyed up to settle down right away. I kept trying to find the pieces of what was there, before I went to Korea, but there wasn’t anything there any more. Then I met Lois in London and re-directed my energies into a pleasanter kind of aggression. Smith has that same searching look about him. The man I’m concerned about is Avery’s contact in Albania. If that plane was forced down, he could be in trouble.”

“Not necessarily,” Sam said. “It could have been a routine border patrol. Anyway, he’s got cover. Our job is finding Avery, before either side of this schizophrenic iron curtain does.”

“Can you get me a plane?” Martins asked.

“I can get us a plane,” McKeough said.

“And leave the embassy to cope with that swarm of tourists without you?”

Sam swore softly. “As you say, Brooks, aggression has to go somewhere. I’m in a better mood to take on the Mao-ists, Popenko, and even that bastard, Koumaris, than face a delegation of visiting poultrymen. Can you dress in ten minutes?”

“For a state dinner,” Martins said.

Stephanos refuelled the Fiat at Larissa. The tank wasn’t empty but he warned that service stations might be scarce on the road ahead. “If you are hungry,” he said, “this is the last stop until we reach Kastoria. I want to make up time.”

Brad found an outdoor coffee stall, across the street from the service station, where he could get hot lamb, broiled on a skewer, and a cold beer. Turning around to inquire of Stephanos what he wanted, he saw that he was alone. His driver had disappeared. The Fiat was still in plain view, and so Brad ate in silence and waited for Stephanos to return. When he came, he was impatient to get on the road again. He bought a roll and some cheese and took it back to the car with him. “Everything takes forever with these people!” he fumed. He shouted in Greek to the station attendant who glared at him and shouted back. “He wants money,” Stephanos said. Brad relinquished a handful of bills and let Stephanos complete the deal. “Now we can go,” Stephanos said.