He understood the meaning of the Legion of Skanderbeg as he studied the snapshot more closely now. The group of mountaineers stood in the ruins of a village built into the steep mountainside, while in the background was a long, hazy valley with ramparts of cliff and craggy wall rising in all directions. High above were ruins, perched in the tumbled wilderness.
"Skanderbeg's castle," Ursula said intensely. "My father said I carried his blood in my veins. It might be true."
The place was something out of Victorian romanticism, with crenelated walls and a tower of huge masonry blocks. Clumps of weeds grew between the stones he saw. Built in the medieval square, much of the structure had long tumbled into the earth of the mountainside. But two walls still stood; the rest looked as if it had been buried in a landslide. The tower reared intact against the sky, a defiant nest for eagles in that strange, implacable land.
Durell considered the immediate foreground where the villagers stood, smiling out of a dusty past. There were only softened mounds of rubble to show where the village had once stood. In the faded photograph, the dim shapes of goats could be seen grazing in what had been the village square. The men in their low-slung trousers and embroidered jackets looked as tough and gnarled as the trees that leaned in the invisible wind.
"This is where Debrec once stood," Ursula whispered. "The picture was taken a year after the massacre by the Italians. Since then trees have grown up—" Her finger touched the snapshot—"here, and here. This is where my father's house stood, where I was born."
It was a land of earthquakes, of calamity, a land that bred men and women accustomed to disaster from both nature and neighbor. A man needed quick wit and strength to survive here.
"Your village," he said quietly, "was destroyed long ago, Ursula—but by nature, not by man."
"But it is not forgotten, you see."
"Perhaps it should be."
"Impossible. Not while Shkoeder, the traitor, lived." Ursula's expression was veiled, defensive. "I spent my life in duty to the dead—and to myself."
"The dead appreciate more blood, do you think?"
"It is our way," she said simply.
"It's a savage, primitive way, to devote your years to vengeance, to the death of a terrified little man."
"Do not pity Shkoeder! His death cleans the world a little. I only regret I didn't tie the noose myself 1" "Who did?" "I do not know."
"But you judged him before a trial, it seems." "Shkoeder was judged long ago by the survivors of my village. When he betrayed us, my father was shot, my mother raped, all the men killed and the women degraded. I saw them die against the wall, I saw the houses burn, heard their screams. I can still smell the smoke and see my father's bloody body."
"You should have put such things from your mind." Her eyes were hard. "Would you? But you are an American, and in your country you don't know what such things are like. You are fortunate. Calamity rarely touches you." She reached out her hands in plea. "Listen to me, caro. After the massacre, the priests took the children who still lived, perhaps a score of us, and we marched into Greece. I remember all the confusion then, but I was very young. When the Germans came down through Yugoslavia, we were taken by the British as refugees to Crete, and then to Egypt, and finally, after the war, to an orphanage in Paris. There we were educated and learned English and French. Now and then, the Skanderbegs contacted us and taught us to hate and plan for revenge. We were never allowed to forget it. I was chosen a year ago, as the instrument to end the blood feud with Gregori Shkoeder."
She sat down on the narrow bed in the whitewashed inn room. "A year ago, I was taken home to Debrec. My passage was paid. I was part of a group permitted to go along on a tour sponsored by ALBTURIST, of the alleged 'People's Republic'. When the right moment came, I slipped away and was led into the hills to see the place where I was born, where my father and mother died in agony. It was a nightmare that had to be quieted."
"And did going back home help you?" "No," she said bluntly. "It made it worse." "One can only accept the past and live with it, and then look toward the future."
"We do not think that way in our mountains. Last year the plan was made to kidnap Shkoeder and take him back for trial. A trial by survivors, by the sons and daughters of those killed by his treachery. We waited a long time, but we know how to be patient. Our chance came when he defected and fled to Venice. Then we knew we could reach him. And now—tonight, somehow—we were cheated. Someone else executed Gregori Shkoeder."
"Someone shut his mouth, you mean," Dwell said grimly. "Just to keep him from leading me to Debrec. And to try to put the blame and confusion on you."
He felt saddened by the way she had lived her years in terror and poverty, alone in strange lands. All the nights of her life had been haunted by bloody dreams, by dedication to a fruitless revenge. And when he remembered her in Venice, he wondered which was the real Ursula—this grim little guerilla, or the bright, lovely girl painting Venetian canal scenes on the balcony next to his. He did not know.
Her escape from Venice, when he pressed her about it, had been easy. He smiled to himself, imagining Zuccamella's chagrin. She had flirted with the surveillance man, and overheard from her balcony the speculation that she might be Pollini's murderess, and learned from her fellow Albanians that Durell had followed Shkoeder to Athens. With the help of her fellow conspirators, she had slipped down from her balcony, jumped into a gondola, and was taken to the airport for a flight to Brindisi in southern Italy. The planes in that direction had not been checked. From there it was simple to fly to Athens, contact the exile group at the antique shop, and come to Epidaurus.
"You say you had the help of young Skanderbeg men in Venice?" Durell asked. "Did one of them knife Shkoeder's son?"
"No. I asked, and they swore by their dead parents they did not. I was furious about it, and they are too much afraid of me to lie."
He wondered. Her head was tilted proudly. He turned off the lamp and returned the room to soft darkness. In the night outside, he heard the footfalls of Xanakias' agents on patrol outside the Minoa. He spoke bluntly.
"Now that Shkoeder is eliminated, aren't you beginning to know fear for yourself, Ursula?"
"Why should I?"
"You were in Albania, in Debrec, a year ago. You say you saw the rocket emplacements."
"Yes, from a distance." She nodded. "Beyond the village ruins there is the valley you saw in the snapshot, and on the opposite range is a restricted government area. Some shepherds were shot there a month ago when they wandered over the wire fences. One of our people lost a leg to a land mine, too. The place is full of Chinese technicians. A special rail line was built from the main railroad from Tirana to Durres, on the coast, across the Voyutsa River. But no one really knows what has been built into that honeycomb of caves there."
"And who knows those caves best, Ursula? Do you?" She shook her head. "No. Some of the older village survivors, of course. One of the tunnels leads directly from Skanderbeg's castle in the snapshot to the hilltop at the head of the valley. It's almost two miles of underground passage, they say. But I've never been in there."
"Have you ever heard of Captain Stephanes?" "Of course. His name is legendary. He was our friend in Debrec."
"If he went there to blow up the missile silos, would he be helped?" Durell pressed.
She frowned. "The villagers idolized him. As for the caves —it is why Debrec was chosen for the rocket site. But they did not find all the passages. It was in one of those caves that Shkoeder hid the king's gold, when he ran from the Italians and then turned about and betrayed us to them, for the gold. But even the earth rejected him, when the earthquake and landslide buried the gold forever."
"Were the passages under the rocket silos destroyed?" "No, they still exist."
Durell lit two cigarettes. The sound of the matches being struck seemed loud in the darkness. He handed one to Ursula, and their hands touched for a moment. "Thank you, caro Sam . . . and am I under arrest?" "Call it prote
ctive custody."
"But who would wish to hurt me now? Shkoeder is dead. The men who did it escaped, but—"
"No fault of ours," Durell said. "Whoever did it, knew his way around the theater. It's a maze of ruined paths, you know."
"But why should I need protection?" she asked. "It's only for the next two days. Then, unless Captain Stephanes is successful—"
"Yes, I know about it now. If he fails, then it will all have been useless." She drew a deep breath. "I am glad I had no chance to kill Shkoeder. I felt cheated, at first. My life was dedicated to vengeance, planned in detail. Even my acquaintance with General Pollini, that poor old man, was planned because of Shkoeder's old relationship with him during the Italian campaign long ago. It was not really expected that Shkoeder would contact Pollini again, yet the contingency had to be considered. And it actually happened. Perhaps to the surprise of the Skanderbeg men, my position became crucial all at once, because I had gotten to know Pollini." Her eyes were bitter. "Well, perhaps now I am free to be myself. But who and what am I? After all, Zuccamella knows I was in the palazzo in Venice that night, and he is sure to arrest me for killing Pollini. I was there, but I was trying to reach Shkoeder, and—"
"And you saw no one else? Not Dinov, or anyone else who might have been the murderer?"
"No one. And since I am the only other person known to have been there, Zuccamella thinks I am the murderer Shkoeder claims came to see Pollini. But I killed no one."
Durell stood up. "We'll talk about it later. Get some rest. You and I have some more work to do—dangerous work, I think. Will you help me?"
Her eyes were mysterious in the gloom.
"Why not? Of course I will help, caro Sam."
Chapter Seventeen
Xanakias was against the plan. His olive face closed abruptly and he showed alarm and dismay as he listened to Durell. Several times he shook his head.
"No, it is an impossible risk," he said.
"You admit that Dinov has escaped us," Durell insisted.
"I know he managed to get back across the Corinth Bridge. So we know he is here in Greece, and was in Epidaurus. It proves nothing. He still professes to seek an alliance with you, and claims to be more desperate every moment."
"Yes, that's Cunningham's story, too, but Cunningham hasn't been in the business as long as you and I, Xanakias."
"But for you to take such risks, sir—"
"Time has run out for us," Durell said. "It's a question of misleading the hunt, of drawing the scent away from Ste-phanes immediately, or losing everything, perhaps the world."
"And the girl agrees?"
"Ursula agrees."
"And must you lead them actually to Corfu?"
"Dinov is no fool. Dinov will know I have another string to my bow—Stephanes—if I stay here. Can you doubt that Dinov is our enemy? He's betraying his Moscow masters and working for Peiping; since he loves death and destruction, the Red Chinese ideology must appeal to him."
"But did Helmuth Dinov kill Pollini, back in Venice?" "I think not," Dwell said. But he did not elaborate. "All the others—Shkoeder's son, Harris, Shkoeder himself—yes. Unless we distract him, he will stop Stephanes. So let him go after me and the girl, instead. You're not to interfere from now on. If you throw guards around me and the girl, Dinov will be alerted and go off to Debrec, himself." "I should be sorry to find you dead, Mr. Durell." "I don't like being a clay pigeon, myself," he said.
He did not like it, but it had to be done. Somewhere in the shadows close on his heels was the enemy. He had killed before and would kill again to keep the Debrec area from being explored. Durell used Xanakias' organization to check on Corfu. Captain Stephanes had arrived safely, mustered a crew of mixed Albanian exiles and his old guerilla friends, and sailed off to the north in the Ionian Sea. Nothing more had been heard from them. Radios were tuned to monitor any unexpected broadcasts from the enemy's sealed coast. But everything had been silent—so far.
Corfu was bathed in brilliant sunshine when he arrived with Ursula, apparently alone, at the capital of the Heptanisos, the seven Ionian Isles at the entrance to the Adriatic. The regular flight from Athens took two hours, and it was noon of the day after Epidaurus when they landed.
As far as he could tell, they were not followed. He had abandoned all attempts to hide his movements, making just enough gestures to give the illusion of care, but showing a greater impression of urgent speed, in which ordinary caution had to yield to his necessity. He felt exposed, with all his usual patterns abandoned; he felt naked to the knives of his enemies.
It seemed even worse in the sun-drenched island landscape of Kerkyra, the main town on Corfu. The pink and green buildings on the broad Esplanade were brooding and somnolent. The plane trees murmured in the wind, the people chattered, the women were either smartly Western or clad in the long, black-skirted clothing, white aprons and scarves of the peasants. They took a taxi to register at the Corfu Palace Hotel. In Athens, he had sent for clothes for Ursula, who had nothing but what she'd worn in Epidaurus. Her bright frock changed her back to the bright, tawny-eyed girl in Venice, he thought. He enjoyed her arm tucked in his in the back seat of the rattletrap taxi.
The driver insisted on being employed as a guide. He was a grizzled man in a cloth cap and a dark brown sack suit. His front teeth were missing, and his English likewise had gaps in it that only Ursula could eke out.
''Very excellent guide for ancient Kerkyra, sir. This city founded in 730 B.C. by Corinthians, sir, as provisioning point for their ships on way to colony at Syracuse, in Sicily. Much historical value here, sir, for a man of your scholarly intellect. I am Alessandro. I show you all of interest, very cheap, most dependable. You don't regret hiring Alessandro." He grinned into his rear-view mirror. "The lady wishes to go to the beaches at Dhassia, perhaps? Or Glyphada? Splendid views, very fashionable. Perhaps Pondikonissi? Palaces of Byzantine times r ancient Greek, old monasteries, a temple to Artemis, too. Alessandro shows everything, sir, missus."
Ursula laughed at his impetuous rush of words. "I think you are hired. Isn't he, caro Sam?"
"We need a car. We might as well use this."
"Never break down, always on time," Alessandro insisted. He grinned his gap-toothed smile. "A deal, you say? American expressions have been learned very good, no?"
"So I see. Wait for us for half an hour, all right?"
And so it began.
He felt like a fly on the wall, exposed, vulnerable. It would have been easier without Ursula. But he knew she was the last threat Dinov had to eliminate. She was the lamb staked out for the tiger. It was difficult to conceive of death on this sunny Ionian isle. Difficult to believe that beyond the northern horizon, where the mountainous coast of Albania lifted in the invisible haze, there were men engaged in a count-down that might spread ashes and fire over half the face of the earth.
They had connecting rooms in the hotel, overlooking a palm-tree lined terrace, where traffic sounded in the main street. The sea twinkled beyond the town. The sun-drenched air spoke of ancient power, of vast temples and monuments. It was in 431 B.C. he remembered, that Kerkyra took part in the Peloponnesian War as an ally of Athens against dreaded Sparta. Later, the island submitted to Alexander of Macedon, and Pyrrhus, King of Epirus. After the long Roman rule it became a province of Byzantium, which left its indelible mark on the island's architecture. Then Venetians, Turks, French, Russians and British all came and went. Something of the island's population survived in sturdy defiance: the shepherds in their cedar-wooded hills, the merchants in the town, the fishermen in their little ports along the shore. . . .
Spiridari was the village where Captain Stephanes had gone, according to Xanakias. Durell checked the faded elegance of his hotel room with care, then went through the old-fashioned bath to Ursula's room. She stood at the window facing north to the distant sea. She paid no attention as he made a routine circuit of the room and then telephoned to order lunch sent up.
He wondered how long he
had to wait. His premise might have been wrong from the start. Suppose Dinov did not rise to the bait, but struck directly at the heart of the matter and returned to Albania? Suppose all his maneuvers to distract the enemy, while Stephanes did his work in the Debrec caves, were anticipated and thus ignored? Then there was no hope for success. Stephanes would march into a trap, with his mountaineers and old guerillas. But if Dinov could somehow be convinced that Durell still desperately sought a way into Albania. . . .
He felt sure that Dinov was already on the island. His eyes swept the terrace, the Esplanade with its thin traffic of cars and cycles, the occasional glimpse of a western tourist. Was Dinov at one of the tables below, or crossing the street there, or turning the corner of Nikoforou Street? He spotted the battered taxi waiting, with Alessandro smoking a thin cigar, content and patient, clever under his dark brown cap. Maybe Dinov had already made his first contact, he thought.
"It is strange," Ursula said suddenly, "to be so near my home again. Strange, I think of Debrec as my home."
"How did you take the name of Ursula Montagne?"
She shrugged. "I knew the real Ursula two years ago. We met in Italy. I was on a mission for the Skanderbegs, and pretended to be an art student. She was sweet, too fragile for this world. When she died of polio, I took her identity."
"And do you know your real name?" he asked.
"I would rather remain Ursula Montagne," she said softly, her huge eyes sorrowing.
Their lunch arrived. Durell ordered wine, and later they went down to the spacious lobby. As if Alessandro had a stop watch to consult, he appeared, cap in hand, to offer the taxi again. "We sight-see now? Much time, all afternoon, always sunny, air clear and sharp, can even see mainland from Spiridari. Quaint fishing village. Perhaps you like to go there?"
Assignment The Girl in the Gondola Page 16