Taking Stephanie by the arm, he added: ‘Come along. I mustn’t lose a moment in letting Henry know about this.’
As they hurried back to the car, she said: ‘I can’t believe that even a dozen H-bombs would have quite such terrible results. But say you are right; what is the object of destroying great chunks of Greece? What have the Soviets to gain by churning the Aegean into a raging lake, just for a day or two?’
‘It will be far more than that. Parts of it would become impassable, owing to the vast quantities of molten lava and mud thrown up. That would take months to settle. In the meantime, the levels of its bottom would have altered so much that all navigational charts would be rendered useless. Every ship in it would be wrecked, and that’s what they are gunning for. They are planning to bring about this cataclysm in order to knock out at one stroke every U.S. submarine in the northeastern Med.’
Sixteen minutes later, Stephanie pulled the car up outside the Candia Palace Hotel. As Robbie was about to jump out, she said quickly: ‘Shall I wait for you or shall we meet somewhere?’
Stepping on to the pavement, he replied: ‘I may be some time. Better go to some small restaurant and wait for me. I know; go to that little place where we lunched on Sunday. It was called the Ariadne. We’ll lunch there again.’
It was only twenty to twelve, so he was early for his appointment. At the desk, he learned that Mahogany Brown was up in his room; so he rang through, said he wanted to see him urgently and asked if he might come up. Two minutes later he was shown into a bedroom where the American was sitting with his coat off, working at some papers at a small table by the window.
After one look at Robbie’s face, he grinned and asked: ‘What’s cooking? Have you just heard that the police are on to you at last?’
Robbie gave a quick shake of his head and launched straight into his theory. Hardly pausing to draw breath, he spoke for three minutes. As Mahogany Brown listened, his expression changed gradually from mild scepticism to wondering dismay. Having heard Robbie out, he exclaimed: ‘Hell’s bells! I believe you’ve hit it. And if you’re right about all these places being so susceptible to earthquakes, this could lose us the war.’
‘There is no question about the situation of the earthquake belt,’ Robbie assured him. ‘It runs from Naples in the north and Sicily in the south, right across Greece and the Aegean to Turkey. Any geologist will confirm that. They may be playing some game similar to this in Italian territory; but I doubt it. You were saying last night that the nearer your submarines could get to Rumania and the Balkan wells, the better their aim would be. From that it follows that they wouldn’t be stationed off Italy, but in the Gulf of Corinth and the Aegean. The only thing which might make nonsense of my theory is if a dozen nuclear bombs with intervals of so many miles between them would be insufficient to do the trick.’
Mahogany Brown considered for a moment, then he said: ‘One of those Czechs you overheard talking at Gortyne spoke of dropping cylinders five feet long. Given an eight-inch diameter, now that the mechanism to explode such bombs has been so much reduced in size, they could contain as much fissionable material as would go into the warhead of an I.C.B.M. and, of course, they could be exploded by remote control. The Russians are believed to have about fifty I.C.B.M.s, and with those they reckon they could flatten most of the principal cities in the West. Things have gone a long way since Hiroshima. It’s calculated now that the bomb used there was only about the power of old-fashioned T.N.T., compared with the power of the stuff we have now. One megaton of it would render a thousand square miles of territory uninhabitable. That should give you the picture.’
Robbie drew a sharp breath. ‘Then I’m right. Even if those cylinders contain only a quarter of the load in the war-head of an I.C.B.M., a dozen of them would set earthquakes going that would destroy the islands and tear southern Greece into pieces. As for your subs, in the Aegean, they would be thrown about like matchsticks and smashed to bits.’
‘You’ve said it, friend.’ The American grabbed his coat. ‘I’m off to my local H.Q., to get on the “blower” to my Chief in Athens. I’m telling him that he’s got to act fast and, whether the Greeks like it or not, bust this Czech oil-prospecting wide open. If you’re wrong, I’ll be out on my ear; but if you’re right, I’ll get the Congressional Medal and be the No. I hero in the United States.’
As they went down together in the lift, he said to Robbie: ‘I gather that this big think came to you while you were out at Knossos this morning. Was your girl friend with you?’
‘Yes. That car you saw us in yesterday is one we’ve hired for the week in her name, and whenever we go anywhere she still does the driving.’
‘Did you tell her this theory of yours?’
‘I saw no reason why I shouldn’t. It has nothing to do with any arrangements between you and me; so my telling her didn’t infringe our pact.’
‘Sure, sure. I’m not complaining. You’ll be seeing her again shortly, I take it?’
‘Yes, we’re lunching together.’
‘Well, she’s certain to want to know what I thought of your idea and I’d be glad if you said that I didn’t consider it practical. We can’t be too careful. Where will you be lunching, in case I want to get in touch with you?’
‘At a little place called the Ariadne.’
‘Good. I don’t suppose I’ll be bothering you but, as you’re so cagey about giving me your address, you’d best look in here again this evening, round seven o’clock, to see if I’ve left a message for you.’
By this time, they had reached the entrance to the hotel. They parted on the pavement outside, Mahogany Brown to get on his motor cycle and Robbie to walk down to the Ariadne.
Stephanie was having a drink at one of the tables on the narrow pavement. As Robbie sat down beside her, she said eagerly: ‘Well?’
He grinned at her. ‘Henry is still afraid that you are in secret communication with your husband; so he didn’t want me to tell you. But I made no promise that I wouldn’t. He thinks I’m right, and by this time he will be in communication with his Chief in Athens. He means to push him into having all the sites raided, and hopes to get the Congressional Medal for having spiked the great Communist plot.’
‘What cheek!’ Stephanie exclaimed indignantly. ‘He hasn’t discovered a thing. All the credit for this ought to go to you.’ Robbie shrugged. ‘I don’t give a damn who gets the credit. What matters is preventing the possibility of this part of the Med. being blown up, and the destruction of the U.S. subs.’
‘Anyway, you are safe now. Once the sites have been raided and the plot uncovered, no one is going to hold it against you that you killed Cepicka while trying to prevent Greece being blown off the map. I think we ought to celebrate. Instead of lunching in this shoddy little place, let’s go down to the Glass House.’
‘I told Henry I’d be lunching here, in case he wanted to get hold of me,’ Robbie demurred. ‘Still, he said that was unlikely, and I promised to look in at the Candia Palace about seven, to pick up any message he might have left during the afternoon. So let’s leave it at that.’
At the Glass House, a quarter of an hour later, they found that the chef had just had in some live crayfish; so they selected a fine hen and, while it was being boiled, they ordered the rest of their meal at a table at the far end of the restaurant. When the waiter had taken their order, Stephanie said: ‘What shall we do about Václav?’
‘You mean, what is the best way to secure him when you have brought him along to me?’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I wasn’t thinking of that. I was wondering if you still wish me to meet him. After your wonderful hunch this morning, and now that Henry is acting on it, we could let sleeping dogs lie. You never have liked the idea of taking him to pieces. Now, apart from the fact that you hate him on account of what he did to me, there’s no reason why you should.’
After a moment, Robbie replied thoughtfully: ‘I think you’re wrong there. I feel pretty certain my guess
is the right one, but there’s a chance that it might not be. There’s a chance, too, that Henry’s Chief may refuse to believe him and do nothing, anyhow for the present. Your getting Barak here will give us the opportunity of making certain, and I don’t think we ought to throw it away.’
‘Very well, then. His plane is due in at the airport at ten to five. That means that I should be able to deliver him over to your tender mercies at about half past. Unless, of course, he wants to register at an hotel first and drop his bag. In that case, it will be nearer six. But you’ll be careful how you tackle him, won’t you? Remember, it is you he is coming to get, and it’s certain that he’ll be carrying a gun.’
‘You bet I’ll be careful,’ Robbie smiled. ‘I should look pretty silly if this boomeranged on me.’
‘You wouldn’t have a chance to look anything,’ Stephanie told him grimly. ‘Once I’ve led him into the ambush there must be no mistakes. When we’ve finished lunch, we’ll go over to your hide-out and work everything out very carefully.’
About half-past-two, Stephanie drove the car back to its garage, while Robbie made his way to the half-ruined house among the rubble. Half an hour later, she joined him. Their problem was to think of a way by which Robbie could stun Barak, by hitting him over the head with a sandbag, before he realised that he had fallen into a trap and drew his gun. Their difficulty was that there was no place in the house in which Robbie could lie concealed and that, being empty, even taking a few steps on tiptoe from one room to another meant boards creaking so loudly that they would give away a stealthy approach.
After much discussion it was decided that Barak must be ambushed outside the house and, as this required darkness to prevent anyone seeing from a distance the assault on him, the following plan was adopted: Stephanie was to tell him that Robbie had gone over to Phaestos to see what he could find out about the site there, and he would not be back until eight o’clock. When he returned he would go straight to his hide-out for a meal, since he avoided as far as possible being seen in the town from fear of the police. She would take Barak to the hide-out about half-past-seven, and he could lie in wait for Robbie there. That was the sort of set-up that Stephanie had suggested in her letter, and it would still be daylight when she brought Barak to the house; so there would be no reason for him to suspect that she was leading him into a trap.
Actually, however, a little before the time that Barak was due to arrive at the house Robbie would conceal himself behind the low wall outside it. Having brought Barak there, Stephanie would leave him. The half hour would pass and twilight would be falling. Barak, believing Robbie’s return to have been delayed by some unforeseen circumstance, would continue to wait for another hour, perhaps two, or it might even be three. But it was certain that by midnight, at the latest, he would become so weary of standing in the darkness that he would throw in his hand and decide to go to his hotel. As he passed along the low wall, Robbie would then rise up, slog him on the back of the head and drag him into the house. The plan might mean a long vigil for Robbie, but it reduced to a minimum the risk that he might be shot by Barak before he could overcome him.
At four o’clock, Stephanie left to collect the car and drive out to the airport. Robbie also went out and bought some stout cord with which to tie up Barak. On his return to the house, he tore an old shirt into strips, suitable for gagging his enemy, and put them in his pocket, then filled a sock about a third full of finely crumbled plaster. These preparations completed, he had a meal from one of the tins and some of the fruit Stephanie had bought for him and washed it down with half a bottle of the red wine.
By that time it was half-past-five. As there was just a chance that Barak, believing him to be absent at Phaestos, might demand to be driven straight to the hide-out so that he could reconnoitre it in daylight before returning later to lie in wait there, Robbie decided to play for safety and leave the house. Putting a slab of chocolate, some biscuits and a paper-back ‘thriller’ in his pockets, he went out and selected his hiding-place.
The wall ran from the side of the house down to the great barn that was used as a sawmill and faced on to the road along the sea front. From the road a track led up along the side of the barn to the beginning of the wall, and up to the end of that track Stephanie would bring Barak in the car; after that they would have to walk. The wall was broken and crumbling in places, so Robbie had no difficulty in finding a spot only about thirty feet from the house where he could force out a few bricks and so make himself a spy hole which would command the approach to the building. Having got over the wall he settled down with his back to it, on a pillow which he had brought out with him, then endeavoured to concentrate on his ‘thriller’.
For a variety of reasons he found it far from easy to do so. He still disliked intensely the idea of tying up any man—even the husband who had been cruel to Stephanie and had attempted to murder her—and torturing him. The thought that Stephanie was again with her husband filled him with uneasiness. To carry out their plan, she would have to spend at least two and a half hours with him and, excellent actress though she was, should she make a slip during that long session in her husband’s company, not only would their plan be brought to naught but she would then be in great danger. There was also the chance that the plan might somehow go wrong. Robbie could think of no reason why it should but, all the same, the thought that if it did he would probably pay for it with his life was distinctly unnerving.
For the next two hours, in fits and starts, he read a few pages of his book then, each time realising that he had not taken in a word of what he had been reading, he turned back and went over most of the passage again. By half-past-seven the light began to fail; so he put the book in his pocket and, knowing that if Stephanie had succeeded with her part of the plan she should soon be bringing Barak to the house, he began to listen intently.
About ten minutes later he caught the sound of a car approaching, and it pulled up not very far away. Then came footsteps. But they puzzled him, for it sounded as though more than two pairs of feet, and one of them a woman’s, were crunching the rubble. Anxiously, he peered through the spyhole he had made. He suppressed a gasp of dismay and his heart began to hammer heavily. Stephanie was leading, but there were two men behind her. Barak must have brought one of his thugs to help him exact vengeance on the man who had ruined his looks.
The party of three went on into the house. Robbie sat down again and endeavoured to rally his wits to cope with this unforeseen complication. Stephanie must have received the same shock as he had, on finding that Barak had brought one of his men with him; but, having met him, she had evidently found herself unable to think of any excuse for not taking them both to Robbie’s hide-out. According to plan, having led Barak there, she should now come out of the house leaving him behind. But his companion would remain with him. If, later, they left together, Robbie could have no possible hope of knocking out both of them. Even if Barak came out alone, leaving his underling to remain on watch, Robbie would not be able to sandbag him without the other man hearing the scuffling on the rubble and appearing on the scene to find out what was going on.
Clearly the whole plan had broken down. The only thing to do now was to wait till Stephanie came out, follow her to the car and go off with her to some place where they could talk over the situation, devise some new plan to trap Barak or, if that seemed beyond them, agree to abandon their idea of forcing him to disclose his secret.
Anxiously, Robbie waited for the sound of Stephanie’s light footfalls as she walked from the house; but they did not come. After a while he decided that Barak must be keeping her there, to ensure that she should not give way to a last-minute change of heart and waylay Robbie to warn him that she had betrayed him. They had envisaged such a possibility but had agreed that Stephanie’s being with Barak when Robbie knocked him out would have no adverse effect on their plan. The only thing Stephanie had stipulated was that she should not be present afterwards for, although she had not an atom of love left f
or her husband, she was still averse to standing by and watching while he was maltreated.
For over an hour, that seemed like an eternity, Robbie sat behind the low wall, straining his ears. Darkness had fallen and, being so near the house, he could see tiny chinks of light round the edges of the black-out curtains in the upper room. Now and again a low, indistinct murmur, which he knew must be muffled voices, came to him, but that gave no indication of what was going on up there. He had been due to return at eight, and a glance at the luminous dial of his wrist-watch showed him that it was a quarter to nine. Barak, he felt, must by now be becoming impatient.
Ten minutes later, he had evidence of it. The murmur coming from above suddenly became louder and faintly there came to him what sounded like cries of protest. There was a brief interval of silence, then the sounds of a scuffle, followed by a wail of pain. The blood drained from Robbie’s face. Those sounds could mean only that, on his failure to appear, Barak had become suspicious that Stephanie had deliberately misled him, and was now trying to drag out of her the truth about where Robbie might be found.
The thought of the extent to which their plan to trap Barak had now miscarried appalled him. Standing up, he stared with agonised gaze at the blacked-out windows. His imagination ran riot as he visualised the scene now taking place behind them. Stephanie bound and with the end of a lighted cigarette pressed against her skin, or her arm being twisted to near-breaking point behind her back, or Barak’s fingers clutching her throat, so that she could get her breath only in gasps at intervals when the pressure was relaxed.
But what could he do? To dash into the house and attempt to rescue her from two armed men would be hopeless. He would be riddled with bullets before he could even strike a blow. In desperation, he looked about him. He could run to the road and back along the quarter of a mile of deserted seawall to the harbour, then up into the town until he met a policeman. But when he did, would one policeman be willing to return with him, and go into the house, knowing that there were two men in it who, rather than allow themselves to be arrested, might shoot him?
Mayhem in Greece Page 53