by Joseph Badal
“I need to sleep,” Argyropoulos said. “I was up all last night. I’ll catch the ferry back to the mainland after dark tonight.”
Photos led Argyropoulos to a bedroom. “I’ll have something prepared to eat when you wake. The ferry leaves at nine p.m.”
“Thank you, my friend.”
Argyropoulos undressed and slipped into bed. He turned off the table lamp by the bed and stared into the blackness of the room. I’ll have to find a way to get rid of Photos and his people, he thought. I can’t afford to have anyone around who could tie me to the terrorists. That goes for the head of the Economic Development Department in the Ministry of Finance, Nicolaos Koufos. The man is losing his nerve.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
JULY 31, 2004
Nicolaos Koufos felt like a man in the darkest jungle who knew someone was hunting him, but couldn’t see or hear anything. The fluttering feeling in his gut seemed to be occurring more frequently. Greek Spring was out of control. Koufos couldn’t connect present actions taken by the group with what he considered its noble creation.
But there was nothing he could do to change things. He was in too deep. If he reported what he knew about Greek Spring to the Ministry of Public Order, he would incriminate himself. He could kill Photos. Eleeneekee Aneexee would wither away without Photos’ leadership. But Koufos knew he didn’t have the nerve to be a killer.
Perspiration broke out on Koufos’ forehead and ran down his spine. He wanted to pray for forgiveness, for deliverance; but he didn’t believe God would listen to someone who had fallen as far as he had. He started to rise from his desk chair when his cell phone rang. He pulled the phone from his suit jacket pocket and snapped it open. “Hello,” he said, trying to steel his voice to hide the despair he felt.
“You sound tired, Nicky.”
“No, no, I’m fine,” he lied. “What are you up to, Vassa? How was your trip to Paris?”
“Glorious,” Koufos’ sister said. “The food, the shopping, the men. I suffered from sensory overload.”
Koufos didn’t approve of his sister’s lifestyle. She spent too much money and had the morals of an alley cat. If he were her husband, he would straighten her out or dump her. “You keep taking these trips and you’ll ruin your husband.”
Vassa laughed. “I couldn’t go through his money if I shopped twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Hell, the interest income alone is staggering.”
“Okay, Vassa, what’s on your mind?”
“I can’t call my only brother to say hello after being away for two weeks?”
Koufos was already tired; Vassa was making him feel exhausted. “Okay, sister, you’ve said hello. I’ve got work to do. I’ll see you tomorrow when the family gets together for dinner.”
Before he could hang up, Vassa shouted, “I’ve got tickets to a football match.”
Koufos’ stomach erupted. His sister’s use of the private code they had established surprised him. She’d been away for two weeks. She hadn’t been back in the country long enough to have any new information to pass on.
“Ye-e-s?” he said. “Which game?”
“Panathenaikos against AEK. Tonight at seven.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
JULY 31, 2004
The Fratangelos had invited Bob to their home for dinner. He’d come close to begging off, but decided to accept their invitation. He didn’t want to offend Tony, and he admitted to himself that a home-cooked dinner with a real family might be a wonderful change. He’d rented an Audi A6 sedan and told Tony he would be at the Fratangelo home in Kifissia at 7:30. It was 6:00 now and he had to make two phone calls, one to Langley and the second to Liz.
The call to Jack Cole was fairly routine, other than the part of the conversation about Fred Grantham and Harvey Cornwell’s murders. Bob rehashed the conversation after he hung up. He picked up the Grantham/Cornwell file, randomly reviewing papers. Much of the attack was similar to other Greek Spring attacks. The same weapon. Two men on a motorcycle. Cornwell on his way to work. Heavy, slow-moving traffic—making the Englishman a sitting duck. It had been a fluke that Fred Grantham had been along. On any other day, the CIA Station Chief would have driven to the meeting at the British Embassy in his own vehicle. But it had been in the shop and Grantham had called Cornwell and asked for a ride. They lived a few blocks from one another.
But comments made to an MI-6 investigator by Cornwell’s widow had been tormenting Bob. He looked for the transcript of the taped interview and dug it out of the middle of the file. He found the section he was looking for.
“Did the Brigadier have a routine regarding the time he went to work, the route he followed?” the investigator had asked.
“Absolutely not,” Mrs. Cornwell had responded. “Even before Stephen Saunders’ murder, all government employees were ordered to avoid a routine, the time they left home, the route they followed.”
“Could anyone have known your husband’s route and schedule that morning?”
“Of course. He always called the office before leaving the house, to tell them he was on the way in. He could have mentioned which street he was going to take. He did that once in a while.”
“Did he call in that morning?” the investigator asked.
“I don’t know. I was busy getting the girls ready for school.”
“When he would call in, do you know who he talked to?”
“It varied from day to day. Whoever was in the office and happened to take the call.”
Bob realized the assassins could have been waiting for a target of opportunity. Maybe they hadn’t selected Cornwell in advance that morning. Perhaps he just happened to be the unfortunate Brit who drove into the gun sights of killers that morning. But that wasn’t Greek Spring’s M.O. They were careful planners. If the killers knew where and when to find Cornwell, that could mean there was a traitor in the British Embassy.
Bob shook his head as though to clear it of the unwanted thought. It was inconceivable; but something in his gut told him he needed to pursue this line of thinking, no matter how abhorrent it seemed.
He put the file away and called Liz.
“Hey, babe,” he said after she picked up the phone.
“Well, that’s a little better start than the last time we talked.”
“You’re not going to bust my chops right off the bat, are you?”
“You deserve worse than that,” she said, but Bob could hear the humor in her tone as the butterflies in his stomach took flight. The same butterflies that always seemed to be present when he thought about how much he loved this woman.
“You know I want you with me,” he said. “I can’t help it if I worry about you.”
She relented and said, “I know that, Bob. But I married you for better or for worse.” She laughed and added, “There’s been a lot of worse; but think how boring our lives would have been otherwise.”
“Boring sounds good,” he said. “Boring sounds real good.”
“Uh-huh. I suppose you want me to believe that.”
Bob laughed. “I’d better sign off,” he said. “Tony and Michelle Fratangelo asked me to their house for dinner tonight.”
“Good,” Liz said. “I’m glad someone is looking out for you. Love you.”
“I love you too, honey. See you next Friday.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
AUGUST 1, 2004
Giorgos Photos dropped Dimitris Argyropoulos off at the Evoia ferry dock late Saturday night and watched the massive blue and white boat carry the Deputy Prime Minister toward Athens. Then he returned to his place, slept for eight hours, and drove back to the ferry dock just after dawn on Sunday morning.
Photos felt charged with electricity. All he had worked on for almost three decades was approaching fruition. The movement had been grounded in Marxism in the beginning, but that message no longer resonated w
ith the Greek people. Nationalism grounded in anti-Americanism and an independent Cyprus—free of Turkish occupation, had become more popular themes. So, Greek Spring had adapted. Now, they were less than two weeks away from having their man in the Prime Minister’s seat. When that happened, on the heels of more assassinations and a devastating attack on the Olympic venue, the Greek people would embrace the cause. They would embrace Argyropoulos as their new leader when he assured the nation there would be no more terrorist attacks, when his hand-picked enforcers raided the safehouses of the terror groups in Greece and wiped out their members. Photos smiled. He would personally see to it that the members of Greek Spring were eliminated.
It was 10:20 Sunday morning when Photos pulled his car off the ferry and wound his way through the Athenian streets. He decided to stop at a tavern along the water. He hadn’t eaten since the night before and he knew he wouldn’t have time to stop for food until later that night. His meeting with Pavlos Manganos would take several hours. Planning was the essence of Greek Spring’s success.
He stopped at Taverna Marathonos and selected a table in the back, under the shade of a blue canvas cover. After the waiter took his order, Photos stretched his long legs in front of him and stared out at the sea. A stiff wind was whipping at the water, making it choppy. Whitecaps danced across the surface. Photos thought that the situation in Greece, like the sea before him, was about to get unsettled. He blurted a slight laugh. His cell phone chirped as the waiter served him coffee and a croissant.
“Yes,” he answered.
“Can you talk?”
Photos recognized Demetrios Mavroyianni’s voice. He looked around. Only one other table was occupied, and that was at least ten meters away.
“Go ahead,” he said.
“I tried to call you last night.”
“I was in a meeting; my phone was switched off. What’s going on?”
“My contact at the Ministry of Justice called last night. He ran through visa applications on his computer. He thought there might be something interesting there after he discovered that the American, Danforth, had arrived in Greece.”
“I assume he found something.”
“He thought the Americans would probably send more than one person over here.”
“That was very industrious of him,” Photos said, getting impatient with Mavroyianni. “Did he find another match?”
“Hah, that wasn’t even necessary. The name of the woman on the visa request has the same last name as Danforth’s.” Demetrios paused for a moment, as though he was building up the suspense, then added, “And according to her visa application, she’s due to arrive in Athens—”
Photos cut him off. “I’ll be at the same place we met last time,” Photos declared. “Be there at 3:00.” He hung up and considered what he had just been told. If Danforth’s wife was coming to Athens, then there was a strong possibility he would be at the airport to greet her. He would have preferred to watch Danforth’s movements for several weeks before setting up an attack. But an opportunity seemed to be about to present itself. And killing the CIA agent and his wife would send a message that would be like a spike in the heart of the American spy organization.
He picked up the croissant and devoured it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
August 1, 2004
Nicolaos Koufos hadn’t slept at all. His meeting with his sister, Vassa, had been brief but poignant. Vassa said she had gone to bed with her fat husband that afternoon, explaining how disgusted she felt fucking him.
“Please spare me the details,” Koufos had complained. “The last thing any brother wants to hear is the particulars of his sister’s sex life.”
“Nicky, you’re such a prude,” Vassa said. “You should open your mind, you might learn something. I suspect your wife, Sofia, would appreciate a little variety in her bed. I could teach you—”
“Enough!” Koufos growled. “Do you have something to tell me, or not.”
Vassa laughed, put her arms around her brother, and whispered in his ear.
It was now Sunday morning. Koufos sat on his back patio, a copy of Eleftherotypia propped up before him. He didn’t have a clue what was written on the newspaper pages. But he didn’t want to get into a conversation with Sofia while he thought about what he would do next. He thought about his alternatives: call his contact with Greek Spring, call the authorities, or do nothing. He recognized that his conscience was driving him crazy. It took him an hour to come to the conclusion that he had no choice.
“I need to run an errand,” he told his wife, standing and walking toward the house.
“Don’t forget the family will be here at 5:00,” she said. She didn’t bother to ask where he was going. Her husband’s position with the government was always taking him away.
Koufos nodded and entered the house through the back door. How the hell can I continue to look my brother-in-law in the eye, he thought as he stepped to the telephone.
“Hello,” the man said.
“Do you know who this is?” Koufos asked.
“Of course, sir. Can I be of assistance?”
Koufos checked his watch: 11:00. “Be at the drop site in one hour.” He hung up and walked to the refrigerator. He took out a plastic water bottle and dumped the contents in the sink, placing the bottle upside down on the kitchen counter, ensuring there was no moisture left in it. Then he moved to his office and scribbled the names Rodney Townsend, Cyril Bridewell, and Marcus Swinton on a scrap of paper. He added the words: Secret Brit. Intelligence team and an address. After rolling the paper into a small tube shape, he returned to the kitchen with his briefcase under his arm, shook the bottle several times, saw that it was dry inside, and inserted the rolled up piece of paper into the bottle. He capped the bottle and put it inside his briefcase.
The ride along the wooded narrow two-lane road toward Katsamidi took thirty minutes. Five hundred meters from the entrance to what used to be the former Greek King’s summer palace, he stopped his car and executed a U-turn. He left the car and moved to a guardrail, the plastic bottle in one hand and a screwdriver in the other. Railroad ties supported the steel guardrail. Koufos went to the third railroad tie on the left and slipped the edge of the flathead screwdriver in a slot five centimeters from the top of the tie. He popped the top off the tie, dropped the bottle into a hollowed out space, and replaced the cap. He scurried back to his car and drove away. He was still shaking when he arrived home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
AUGUST 1, 2004
Bob had enjoyed his visit with the Fratangelos even more than he had thought he might. Tony’s wife, Michelle, had been an exceptional hostess and cook, and Andrew had been a joy to be around. Bob learned that Andrew had spina bifida, a defect in the arch of the vertebrae that results in a failure of the vertebrae to fuse. The boy had already suffered through a half-dozen operations and, according to Tony, was about as mobile as he was ever going to be.
Tony had explained Andrew’s condition in a matter-of-fact way. It was just something they had all come to accept, including the little boy, who didn’t appear to know he had a problem, despite the braces on his legs and the crutches he used to get around.
The boy seemed to have gotten past the point of blaming Bob for Tony’s long workdays and suckered Bob into a game of chess. Trying to be the good guest, Bob intentionally moved some of his key pieces into positions that made them vulnerable to Andrew’s attacks. After all, he was playing against a six-year-old. They were five minutes into the first game, when the boy looked at Bob and said, “You’re either the worst chess player in the world, or you’re throwing the game.”
Bob heard Tony snort a laugh behind him. “You’d better play your best game against this little hustler,” Tony said.
They started a new game, and Bob discovered that Andrew Fratangelo was not only a chess prodigy, but ruthless when he was on the attack. They
split the first two games; then Bob lost the third game in a blitzkrieg that lasted less than ten minutes.
After Michael put Andrew to bed, Bob asked, “Where did he learn to play like that?”
“I’m sorry about that, Mr. Danforth,” Tony said. “He loves to hustle our guests. Michelle’s father is a Grand Master. He spent a lot of time with Andrew when we lived in Virginia. Andrew apparently inherited the chess gene from his grandfather.”
“First of all, it’s about time you and the rest of the team called me Bob. Second, don’t apologize for Andrew beating me. Twenty years from now I’m going to be able to tell people I took one game from Grand Master Andrew Fratangelo. Of course, I won’t mention he was only six-years-old at the time!”
***
It was Sunday, just after noon, and Bob had slept late and just finished breakfast in the hotel dining room. He signed the check, went to the front desk and asked for his car to be brought up. He needed to go to the office and was feeling guilty about getting such a late start.
Athens’ streets were crowded with families driving to wherever Greek families go on Sundays—church, relatives’ houses, the beach, parks, historical sites, and restaurants. It took Bob an hour to get to the Glyfada office. He anticipated he would have the office to himself, since he had told the rest of the team to take the day off. They had all worked fourteen-hour days during the past week, and he didn’t want his people burning out. But he found Tony, Stacey, and Sam had all beat him in.
“Happy Sunday, folks,” Bob announced by way of greeting.
Sam and Tony waved at Bob; Stacey picked up a file and followed him into his office.
“You know that idea about tying one of the terrorist leaders to the Communists?” she said.