Cunningham was very tall, with high, square shoulders and a hard, flushed face; his pale eyes were always discreet, and his long gray hair was carefully brushed straight back upon his narrow head. He seemed careful not to come into contact with anything in Stephanes' house. His height made him stoop somewhat to clear the beams in the ceiling. Xanakias said:
"We found the wires cut down the road, near the harbor. I have sent for some special agents to help out here."
"You won't find anyone," Stephanes growled. "The vultures have flown away by now."
Xanakias looked respectful: "You are Captain Panayotis Stephanes, are you not?"
"I am. And I knew your father, young man, in the mountains of the Peloponnese during the wars."
"Yes, he spoke of you, sir. It is an honor." Xanakias looked trim and eager, like a clean-cut beagle hot on the scent. His glance switched to the tall American, Cunningham. "We have a rather confused situation here. . . ."
"If you will allow me," Cunningham murmured. "I've come a long way for a conversation with Mr. Durell."
"Of course. My apologies."
Xanakias took Lisette's arm and led her outside. Several cars arrived at the gate. Xanakias could be heard giving quick orders to a number of men who quickly scattered through the rocky fields behind the house and up and down the road. Durell lit a cigarette and poured himself the last of Stephanes' wine, aware of Cunningham's bleak eyes on him. Cunningham had always deplored dramatics; he was the kind of diplomat who preferred to do business at Embassy dinners and teas. But although he had often clashed with K Section, and most usually with Durell, since he was Durell's opposite number at State during interdepartmental conferences, Durell had a high respect for Cunningham's keen mind and intellect. Through the years, it had developed into a kind of standoffish, mutual respect against inflexible differences of approach. Yet, as a trouble-shooter for State, Cunningham did his job well, and Durell knew he was dependable, even brilliant, under his dry diplomat's exterior.
"Make yourself comfortable, Angus," Durell said, amused "You won't get contaminated here."
"I find you in the most remarkable places, Samuel."
"I have a most remarkable job."
"And you have blown it, so far, you know. My orders are to take you off it, if I consider it necessary. These orders are from General McFee, your immediate superior. He left it to my discretion." Cunningham's voice was bland. "I have not yet decided on a course of action. Why did you not answer the urgent calls from Washington?"
"I've been busy," Durell said drily.
"Getting NATO men killed?"
Durell's blue eyes were dark and opaque. He finished his wine with one swallow and stood up again.
"Angus, you and I don't agree on many things, but we've always been honest with each other. So I'll tell you about Harris. Harris was stupid, easily irritated, too quick to move and too slow to think where he was going. He wouldn't have worked for me a week, if you want the truth. He had a hair-trigger temper, a bias toward violence, and he died because of it. I'm sorry when any of our men dies in the course of a job I'm on. But he sat here like a clay pigeon, asking for it. And he got it."
"And who put the knife in him, Samuel?"
"I don't know."
"Can you find out?"
"I mean to."
Cunningham made a clucking sound and dried his hands on an immaculately laundered Irish linen handkerchief. It was hot and stifling in the shuttered house now. Durell unfastened the wooden barriers over the windows and let some air in. The westering sun sent long streamers of golden light into the simple, white plastered room. The smell of dust and roses drifted in, together with the odor of sheep being herded past on the roadside. Cunningham sniffed and touched his long, heavy nose with his handkerchief.
"I'd better tell you the worst at once, Samuel. We have made urgent representations to Moscow about these missiles reported to be in Albania. I don't mind telling you that most of us in Washington are extremely skeptical of this whole business. After all, it's a fantastic report based on the rather garbled and self-interested story of an Albanian refugee who since has avoided all contact with you, correct? However, since nothing can be risked, we have consulted Moscow as diplomatically as possible. On the highest levels, the loss of nuclear warheads is vehemently denied. This is natural, and to be expected. The Russians would be touchy about it, of course, and try to avoid all international responsibility. However, again on the highest level, they agreed to send a query to Peiping about the Chinese intentions— again most reluctantly, I assure you. No response is expected. And, of course, through all this time our safety factor is running out. We have all but reached the end of our resources in Washington. And you don't seem to have accomplished very much here."
"That remains to be seen," Durell said. "My first impression was that I was being manipulated into a position of pulling the Soviet's chestnuts out of the fire. I began to manage things to let Dinov do his own dirty work. But now I'm not sure that would be wise. I'm not sure the job would be done."
Cunningham coughed slightly. "If the story holds any truth at all, we have just two days left before the incident takes place."
"Incident, Angus?" DurelPs voice was harsh and peculiarly flat in reaction to Cunningham's slow, pontifical drawl and mushy-mouthed enunciations. "I call it disaster—a moment of peril for us, for the West, perhaps for the whole world."
"Then you do believe Shkoeder's story?"
"Yes, I believe it. Enough of its pieces have been verified. Others believed it, too. Pollini, in Venice, accepted it, and he's dead. It was important enough to have Harris killed here in this remote village in Argos. I've been shot at, and Shkoeder is still hiding, terrified. But I expect to find him and talk with him before morning."
"But time is running out, Samuel."
"Then what did you come here for?" Durell asked. 'To waste more of it?"
Cunningham cleared his throat and looked flushed and embarrassed. "I mentioned the upper-level reactions in Moscow, but not the really operative ones on which we can do business. Their suggestion, which you seem to avoid like the plague, is that their top man in this area, Dinov, is ready to work with you in this situation. My instructions to you are to cooperate with him by exchanging information, by making immediate contact with him, consulting with him, and deciding what is best to be done. And if necessary, go into Albania with him and assist him in—ah—retrieving his missiles."
"You mean sabotage them, don't you? Blow them up? Why are you afraid to speak plainly, Angus?"
"You are to dispose of them." Cunningham's bland, poached eyes were reproving, "Dispose of them, by working with Dinov."
"No, thanks," Durell said.
"I beg your pardon, Samuel, but these are orders."
Durell sat down quietly. "Angus, we've never seen eye to eye on a lot of projects, but I know you have our success at heart. You seem to think, however, that a kind word will turn aside the killing blow, in this business. I'm sorry, but my approach is quite different. Have you ever seen Dinov's dossier?"
"No, I've had no opportunity—"
"Helmuth Dinov had been with the repressive, terrorist secret police since the early '30's, and he grew quite powerful at the time of the worst of the Stalinist purges. A very fine hatchet man and executioner. Since that time, he has become adept at changing colors like a chameleon, according to the climate in the Kremlin. He's managed to eel his way through to survival and at the same time, he's left a long, long trail of corpses behind him."
"I don't quite see—"
"Angus, listen to me. Dinov isn't just a Stalin extremist, a terrorist, a hatchet man who believes in force to gain world domination. He's a man obsessed by doom and death. He stinks of the grave. He'd be happy to see Europe and America turned into one vast charnel house by atomic bombs."
"See here, Samuel—"
"I don't know what Moscow has documented on him. Maybe he Tbas some power back there to make him immune to reprisal. I can't gue
ss what it might be. Anyway, they still seem to trust him. But I'm convinced he prefers Peiping's ideology of hard nuclear warfare to gain Communist hegemony, built on a charred and burning world of tens of millions of corpses. I think he's a man who belongs to Peiping, not Moscow."
Cunningham looked troubled. "But then he's an enemy—"
"Precisely. Someone has been trying to knock off everybody even remotely able to sabotage the installations in
Albania. Pollini first, then Harris, and a few shots at me and at Stephanes. Shkoeder has been smart enough to hide. I don't think he's smart enough to last long, though, unless he comes to me. However, I think there are other ways to skin this cat, Angus. And it's not through Dinov, either."
"Samuel, you can't be certain of any of this."
"I'm sure enough to risk my job, maybe my life—"
"I don't know what to say." Cunningham's heavy face went blank. "Can the Greek police pick up Dinov?"
"They're trying to. I know it's difficult, Angus, for you to believe our information sources are so far out of line on this man. But we live in a world where little is what it seems to be," Durell said quietly. "If I meet up with Dinov again, I intend to kill him—before he gets a chance to kill me."
Cunningham sighed. "You leave me no alternative, Samuel, but to cable home about your incompatible attitude and let K Section heads decide."
"And while they're deciding, what about the rockets in Albania?" Durell rapped.
"Perhaps they don't exist," Cunningham said lamely.
"Well, you can wait until the day after tomorrow to find out—if that day ever dawns. I don't intend to wait. I'm going on with the assignment as I see it."
Durell got up and walked out of the room.
Cunningham insisted on an immediate return to Athens, and Xanakias ordered a car. Xanakias spoke mildly of matters to be cleared up in Epidaurus, and apologized for not returning to Athens with Cunningham. Durell borrowed a car and a driver and asked to be taken back to the Minoa Hotel.
"Send Lisette Pollini to Athens with Cunningham," he suggested. "Put her in a decent hotel and have a couple of men keep an eye on her for the next forty-eight hours. Tell her to be careful."
"She wishes to speak to you, Mr. Durell. She is very attached to you." Xanakias smiled. "I know there isn't time. I will tell her for you that if everything works out well, she will have nothing more to worry about."
Durell nodded. "I'll clear things up for her in Paris." He noted a faint amusement in Xanakias' bright, dark eyes, and the Greek brushed his silky moustache. "I know she's a rich woman, but I don't think the Pollini money interests her as much as being able to go home freely again. What's funny, Xanakias?"
"Nothing, perhaps. But there is another young woman involved with you—a Signorina Ursula Montagne, last known address the Penzione Murelli in Venice. You ordered her kept under surveillance, since she was known to be—ah—a protege or mistress of the late General Pollini."
"Yes, I know about her."
"Zuccamella telephoned. He regrets to inform you that the Signorina Ursula escaped her surveillance team last night, shortly after you arrived in Athens. It is believed she managed to leave Italy, too."
Durell stood very still in the sunshine beside the car. "And her destination?"
"South. Albania, perhaps—or Athens. Her identity has been established, Zuccamella says. She is the child of one of the survivors of the old Debrec massacre, which makes her a national of Albania."
"I see."
"I hope so," Xanakias said. "I was not aware of the involvement of another woman in this. Will you stay at the Minoa Hotel long, Mr. Durell?"
"Until midnight, I think."
"There will be no publicity on what has happened here. The man who shot at you in the Valley of Apollo, and who Captain Stephanes killed, is a known criminal from the Pireaus—a stupid hoodlum, nothing more. As for Mr. Harris, we will list him as the victim of a traffic accident."
"That should please our diplomatic Mr. Cunningham."
"I should add that Captain Stephanes has already disappeared."
"That's all right," Durell said quietly.
"You have sent him somewhere? I know of his record, of where he fought—"
"Xanakias, will you stay in Epidaurus with me?"
The Greek smiled. "I do not intend to be far from you for a moment, until this is over."
Durell nodded. "Then, if you will sit down and listen, 111 tell you what I'd like you to do."
Chapter Fifteen
Durell awoke a few minutes before midnight. He watched the shadows on the ceiling of the small room at the Minoa,
heard the thin scuttle of a lizard, listened to the sigh of an unexpected wind in the cedars outside. He slid from the bed and dressed in a few silent moments. Xanakias must have been perched on a chair outside the door, for there came a quick rap as he slid into his shoes.
"Come in."
Xanakias wore a dark suit and dark shirt. "You sleep well, for a man with the world on his shoulders."
"I have my nightmares," Durell said. "If everything is quiet, perhaps we can go."
"It may be too quiet. The performance of "Prometheus" was brilliant. There were drama critics from all over Europe to witness Pataxou play. The tourists were thrilled, I must say."
"And have they gone home?" Durell smiled.
Xanakias looked at his big wrist watch. "The place will be deserted now. The wind has shifted. It blows from the Bay of Argos, and there's a chill in it. Yes, the tourists will aU be gone."
"Then it's time for Shkoeder," Durell said.
A man in the corridor gave a brief nod and vanished as Durell walked with Xanakias to the front terrace of the inn. There was no moon. The proprietor of the Minoa was asleep —he hoped—and so were the peasant women who worked in the place. The wind had an unexpected bite to it. The cedars were being flailed by its strength, their tall shapes arching darkly against the scud of night clouds overhead.
"It will be easier if we walk," said Xanakias.
"Any sign of Dinov in Epidaurus?"
"None. And none of Shkoeder, either."
The narrow streets of the village gave way to the long road into the hills toward the ancient theater. A car came along silently, and Durell and the Greek got into it. There was an extra man with the driver. They proceeded in silence for some minutes, then halted and they all got out, and another man stepped from the window shadows of a high, stone wall.
"We have seen no one yet, sir."
"Stay alert. This one is important," Xanakias said.
Durell said: "How many men do you have?"
"If they are good men, they will be enough."
The theater was dark, shrouded in the wind. Tier upon tier, curving with the shape of the open hillside, the rough stone benches lifted in their perfect acoustical pattern around and above the broad open stage. A whisper down here could be heard, miraculously, in any one of the thousands upon thousands of seats. It seemed to Durell that these benches were occupied by ghosts who silently applauded the strength and beauty and duration of their own handiwork. The ancient Greeks were never ones to diminish pride by false modesty. In this place, for over two thousand years, the comedies of Aristophanes, the tragedies and dramas of Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus, had been witnessed by rapt audiences through generations of time.
Durell paused and let his glance sweep the perfect geometry of the tiered benches that lifted high above the open stage. Nothing broke the pattern of curving stone and aisle. He thought he heard someone whispering, but it was only the wind in one of the huge floodlights superimposed on the ancient structure for the festival performances. The next moment, the scrape of a shoe sounded with shocking loudness, and Xanakias gave an admonitory cluck to one of his tough-looking aides. It was obvious that this ancient theater picked up every sound and amplified it with remarkable acoustical perfection.
Durell worked his way down the long aisle to the stage below. A temporary structure had been b
uilt at the back, artfully blending with the old, to make possible the modern performances enacted here. The shadows moved, swaying with the force of the wind. A giant flapping echoed back and forth with the explosive effect of monster handclaps; it was only a streamer of curtain at the back of the stage, caught by the wind, flapping like the wing of some prehistoric reptile.
He paused and drew a deep breath. Xanakias was at once beside him. "Nothing?"
"He'll be here," Durell whispered. "He must come to us if he wants to stay alive."
"But he may be too frightened to show himself."
"He has a choice of dying like Harris, Pollini and his own son—or coming to us."
"How long should we wait?"
"As long as necessary."
Xanakias' men were good, Durell conceded, but he could have wished for less of them. They were all around the place, and it was possible they might scare Shkoeder off. But not likely. In Shkoeder's place, he himself would have run into the arms of the cops. He moved across the empty darkness of the stage, not unaware of the pressure of history all around him. Pausing, he faced the semicircle of tiered benches that lifted so symmetrically above and around him. Nothing broke the emptiness. He saw no one seated in the darkness of any of the spectator areas. The curtain flapped again with a series of sharp, heart-stopping reports. Turning, he walked to the back of the stage to catch and secure it. Anyone who might be hiding up there in that vast circle of seats could see him with clarity, even though the night was dark; his back crawled and a familiar prickling stung the nape of his neck. Xanakias sounded urgent. "Please, Mr. Durell. You know you are a target, too. If this is a trap—" "If it is, then let's find out about it." "You take too many risks."
"Have you any other way out of this? We need Gregori Shkoeder."
"I could put a dragnet around the countryside—" "Shkoeder could wriggle through it. And if he could get out, so could our assassin." Durell tied back the flapping curtain with finality, and glanced at the scaffolding above. "If anyone is going to shoot at me, though, I wish they'd begin soon. I don't like waiting any more than you." There was an hour of the waiting.
Assignment The Girl in the Gondola Page 14