by Alan Furst
"Can we go ... somewhere else?"
Sorrowfully, she shook her head.
"I ...," he said. She gazed at him, closer yet to tears. "I have fallen--"
"Don't! I know." She was pleading with him. "You will make me cry."
He didn't understand.
She saw that he didn't, said, "I mustn't. I must not." She stared into his eyes, in love with him, her lips quivered and she turned them inward and pressed them together. But, he saw, she couldn't hold it in.
"Quick! Think of a monkey!"
A great bark of laughter escaped her and she clapped her hand over her mouth. Then, her composure regained, she moved closer, almost touching him. She was, he thought, beautiful beyond belief; above her brown eyes, the smooth olive skin of her forehead met golden hair at the edge of her kerchief. "You don't," she said, "remember me, do you."
"Remember you?"
"From a long time ago."
He had no idea what to say.
"You don't," she said. "How could you? I was twelve, you must have been, sixteen? Our schools were side by side."
"We knew each other?"
"I knew who you were, I looked at you often, we never spoke. I was just a skinny little girl, just a kid. I had long hair, little gold earrings...."
He tried, but he had no memory of her whatsoever. "It's all right now?" he said. "No tears?"
"Thank God. They'd see it, they'd know I'd been crying--my eyes would be red. They watch me."
"The servants?"
"Yes. He pays them extravagantly, he buys their loyalty."
Not far from them, halfway down a row of graves, a woman was on her knees, despite the wet ground, and was placing flowers at the foot of a headstone. Demetria followed his eyes, then stepped back. "Too many people know me," she said.
"I have an apartment," he said. "On Santaroza Lane."
She didn't answer, and looked down at the ground, her eyes hidden from him. Finally, her voice barely audible, she said, "I am not so brave." The top of her kerchief was turning dark with rain and he extended his umbrella, attempting to cover them both, at least covering her. Then, on the side away from the woman at the grave, he took her hand. Which was cold and damp and, for a moment, lifeless. But it tightened, slowly, until she held him hard and said, "Near the railway station."
Zannis took his hand back and brought out a slip of paper on which he'd written the telephone number at his office. As he held it out to her it moved in the wind. When she'd put it away he said, "If you don't call me, I will call you. In the afternoon."
"Yes," she said. "I know about 'the afternoon.'" Her smile, as she said this, was sad, rueful, what secret lovers must do. She thrust both hands deep in the pockets of her raincoat. "I guess I'd better go home now."
"May I kiss you good-bye?"
Slowly, she shook her head. It meant no, but it was--the way she did it, the expression on her face--the most seductive gesture that Zannis had ever seen. Hands still in pockets, she turned and walked away, looked back at him once, then, at the end of the path, descended the stairway, and was gone.
The two men from the Secret Intelligence Service came to see Francis Escovil in Salonika. Well, almost in Salonika: out in the bay. They arrived on a small yacht, from Alexandria, anchored beyond the harbor, and sent the captain to the Pension Bastasini with an envelope. Escovil wasn't there, so the captain waited in the lobby, the residents glancing at him, at his uniform--of no country, of the land of yachts--as they came and went. When Escovil returned, the captain let him go upstairs, then followed. In the room, the captain gave Escovil the envelope and then they left together, walking down to the wharf where two sailors in a rowboat awaited them.
Once on board the yacht, he was taken to the salon: grand twenty years earlier, now fallen into gentle decay, the fabrics faded, the brasswork tarnished, mildew in the air. It was, Escovil had noted as the rowboat approached, called the Amenhotep II, so, an Egyptian yacht.
Escovil had never before seen these men. Jones and Wilkins, they called themselves and perhaps they were, Jones and Wilkins, or perhaps not. It didn't matter to Escovil who they said they were, he knew what they were. Jones was tall and bony and mournful--Escovil's interior description, adding though mournful about what God only knows, while Wilkins was military: stiff, mustached, hostile, and potentially dangerous. To the enemy, to his wife, to his dog. Maybe not the dog, Escovil thought. More sentimental, likely. Only you love me, Fido. That was very possibly true, Escovil sensed, so was relieved to find Jones in charge. It seemed, anyhow. Perhaps Wilkins had been brought along merely to frighten him, or was eager to have a ride on the yacht.
They gave him a big whiskey soda from the bar and treated themselves to one as well. Settled in the smelly chairs, and smiled. Both of them. It was utterly horrible.
"We have a bit of a nightmare," Jones said. "So you'll have to help us out." He had a high insinuating whine of a voice. "Really, this is somebody else's mess, but we're the ones who have to clean it up."
"Somebody with a name?" Escovil said.
"Oh, we can't tell you that," Jones said. He stared at Escovil. Are you mad?
"I see," Escovil said, faintly amused.
Which wasn't at all the proper response. "Do you," Wilkins said.
Only in England, Escovil thought, could "Do you" be spoken in such a way that it meant So now I shall cut your throat. In full retreat, he took a sip of whiskey and tried to look compliant. This was war, and he'd signed up to fight a filthy enemy, but he would never be one of them, the Joneses and the Wilkinses--they didn't like him and they never would.
"Once upon a time," Jones said--glass in hand, he settled back against the chair and crossed his legs--"there was a little man called Henry Byer. You wouldn't know the name, but if you'd been one of the chaps hanging about in the science labs of Cambridge in the nineteen-twenties, you most certainly would. A physicist, Harry, as he's called, and brilliant. Studied sound waves and radio beams, very theoretical back then, nobody had the faintest idea such things could be used in war, nobody had ever heard of radio navigation. It helps bombers flying at night, who can find their targets only by use of radio beams, locator beams we'd call them now. Who could have known that a radio beam would become a crucial weapon, could win or lose a war? Now the Germans have their own radio beams but, using the methods that Harry Byer discovered, we can alter them. And the Luftwaffe may know we're doing it, but they don't know how. Harry Byer knows how."
Jones stopped for a drink, then went on. "Anyway, life went well for Harry; a lectureship at Cambridge, where he worked in the physics lab, he married his sweetie, a pretty girl--"
"Smashing girl," Wilkins said. "Big bosoms." He indicated the magnitude of the bosoms with his cupped hands.
"Mmm," Escovil offered, raising his eyebrows in appreciation, one of the boys.
Jones cleared his throat and said, "Yes, well." Then, "But, in the summer of nineteen thirty-nine, life went sour for the Byer family, because la wife found somebody she liked better. Harry was, how shall I say, unprepossessing physically, you see, very smart certainly, but came the day when very smart just didn't ... compete.
"And, well, still, who cared? But Harry took it badly, oh, very badly indeed. And just about then the first of September comes rolling around and Adolf sends his tanks into Poland. So Harry Byer, in a terrible huff, marches himself down to London and enlists in the RAF. He'll show the wife what's what, he'll go and get himself killed! Hah! There! Take that!"
Something rumbled inside Wilkins which, Escovil figured out a moment later, was laughter.
"Oh, but you know, Escovil, somebody should have cared about this fellow who's crucial to the war effort. Because Hitler's got legions of goose-stepping SS goons, but Britain has scientists. And scientists win. You see?"
"I do see," Escovil said.
"But the aristocrat, who's supposed to be watching, a very titled aristocrat I might add, who goes to country houses with divinely important people, slips up. Not that he does anythi
ng right away, when there's still time to do something about it, no, either he isn't told or he ignores it."
"The latter, I'd say," Wilkins offered.
"And Arthur's got it right. Because that class of individual doesn't make mistakes. They simply go on. No balls-up here, everything is tickety-boo. But, as you might have guessed, everything really isn't tickety-boo. Now the RAF isn't going to allow Harry Byer to actually fly an aircraft, good heavens no, but he is something of a gnome, a little runt, and that qualifies him as a tail gunner because he fits in the turret. So off he goes, in his Wellington bomber, dropping incendiaries on Germany, and good for him."
"Amen," Escovil said.
"Well, it damn near is amen, as you say, because early in January, Harry's Wellington is hit by flak over the Ruhr. The pilot makes a valiant effort but it's no good and the crew bails out over France. Now, luck intervenes. Some of the crew are caught right away, but Harry lands in just the right farmer's field and the French, perhaps a resistance group, or simply French, take charge of him and smuggle him up to Paris. And there he sits, as they try to make arrangements to get him out of the country.
"Now, just about here, the aristocrat is told what's become of Harry and gives forth a mighty British roar. And who do you suppose he roars at? To clean up this godawful mess? He roars at us, who else?"
Jones waited. Escovil knew he had been called on to recite, and what came to him was, "And now you're roaring at me."
Impertinent. Wilkins said, "We're not roaring, Francis. Yet."
"So then, what shall I do?"
"Why, get him out. What else?" Jones said. There was a file folder on the table by Jones's chair. Jones opened it, withdrew a photograph, and held it out to Escovil, who had to go and retrieve it. When he'd returned to his chair, Jones said, "There he is. Taken when he reached Paris, just to make sure they have who they say they have."
In the photograph, Harry Byer looked like an owl who'd flown into the side of a barn. Owlish he had always been--hooked beak of a nose, small eyes, pursy little mouth--while the barn wall had left livid bruises by his right eye and the right-hand corner of his mouth. Injured in the airplane? Beaten up? "When was this taken?" he said. He started to rise, intending to return the photograph.
But Jones waved him back down and said, "A week or so after he landed."
"And how did, um, we come to hear about it?"
"Whoever these people are, they were in contact with an underground cell operating a clandestine radio."
"Back to London."
"Back to the French in London."
"Oh."
"Quite."
"You don't suppose the Germans are in control of them, do you? Waiting to see who shows up?"
"Haven't a clue."
Silence. Wilkins had now assumed the same posture, drink in hand, legs crossed, as his colleague. They were, Escovil thought, rather good at waiting. Finally he said, "So you'll want me to go up there."
Jones cackled. "Are you daft? Of course not, you'll send your agent, what's-his-name, the policeman."
"Constantine Zannis? He's not my agent. Who told you that?"
Wilkins leaned forward and said, "Oh damn-it-all of course he is." He glanced at his watch. "Has been for a while--ten minutes, I'd say, more or less."
I'd like to be in the room when you tell Zannis that. But Escovil knew there was no point in starting an argument he couldn't win. "Paris is a long way from here. Why wouldn't you take Byer out by fishing boat, from the French coast?"
"Option closed," Jones said. "For the time being. Somebody got himself caught up there and the Germans shut it down. We'll get it back, in time, but right now you'll have to use your escape line."
"It isn't mine."
"Now it is."
Oh piss off. "And why does Zannis have to go?"
"Because Byer will never make it by himself, speaks not a word of any continental language. He can read a scientific journal in German, but he can't order lunch. And, more important, if he's caught, we have to be able to show we did everything we could. We have to show we care."
Escovil suppressed a sigh. "Very well, I'll ask him."
"No," Wilkins said, now quite irritated, "you'll tell him. 'Ask him' indeed."
Jones said, "Do it any way you like, but keep in mind, Francis, we don't take no for an answer." He stood, collected Wilkins's glass, then Escovil's, and poured fresh drinks. When he'd resettled himself, he said, "Now," in a tone of voice that was new to Escovil, and went on to explain how they thought the thing might actually be done. Bastards they were, to the very bone, Escovil thought, but at least, and thank heaven, smart bastards.
27 January. A telephone call from Escovil, early that afternoon. Could they meet? Privately? Zannis's instinctive reaction was to refuse, courteously or not so courteously, because the word "privately" told the tale: the spies wanted something. And it wasn't such a good day to ask Zannis anything, because he was miserable. He had waited for a call from Demetria, waited and waited, but it hadn't come. Five long days had crept by, his heart soaring every time the telephone rang: It's her! But it never was. Now, he would either have to assume she'd thought better of the whole thing, or was waiting for him--as he'd promised, very nearly threatened--to call her. Meanwhile, the spies were after him. Back in the autumn, in his time with Roxanne, he would have laughed. But the world had changed, the war was coming south, and only the British alliance might save the country.
And didn't they know it.
"It's really rather important," Escovil said. "Is there somewhere ...?"
Skata. "You can come to the office after six," Zannis said, a sharp edge to his voice. "Do you know where it is?"
"I don't."
Oh yes you do. Zannis gave him directions, then said, "It's very private here, once everyone's gone home, you needn't be concerned." And the hell with your damn bookstores and empty churches.
And so, at five minutes past six, there he was. "Hello."
He'd been drinking, Zannis could smell it on him. And there were shadows beneath his eyes, which made him seem, with his sand-colored hair swept across his forehead, more than ever a boy grown old. Beneath a soiled raincoat, the battered tweed jacket.
Once he was seated on the other side of the desk, Zannis said, "So then, what do you want?"
Such directness caused Escovil to clear his throat. "We must ask a favor of you."
We. Well, now that was out of the way, what next? Not that he wanted to hear it.
"It has to do with your ability to bring refugees, bring them secretly, from northern Europe to Salonika."
"You know about this?"
"We do." Escovil's tone was apologetic--the secret service was what it was and sometimes, regretfully, it worked.
"And so?"
"We need to make use of it, for a fugitive of our own. An important fugitive--that is, important to the British war effort."
Zannis lit a cigarette. That done, he said, "No." Lighting the cigarette had given him an opportunity to amend his first answer, which had been, Get out of my office.
Escovil looked sorrowful. "Of course. That's the proper response, for you. It's what I would say, in your place."
Then good-bye.
"You fear," Escovil went on, "that it might jeopardize your operation and the people who run it."
"It could very well destroy it, Escovil. Then what becomes of the men and women trying to get out of Germany? I'll tell you what: they're trapped, they're arrested, and then they are at the mercy of the SS. Want more?"
"No need," Escovil said, very quietly. "I know." He was silent for a time, then he said, "Which might still happen, even if you refuse to help us."
"Which will happen."
"Then ..."
"It's a question of time. The longer we go on, the more lives saved. And if some of our fugitives are caught, we can try to fix the problem, and we can continue. People run away all the time, and the organization designed to catch them adjusts, gets what information it can
, and goes to work the next day. But if they discover an important fugitive, perhaps a secret agent, it suggests the existence of others, and then the organization starts to multiply--more money, more men, more pressure from above. And that's the end of us."
"He's not a secret agent."
"No?"
"No. He's a downed airman. Who, it turns out, is a scientist, and shouldn't have been allowed to join the RAF, and certainly shouldn't have been allowed to fly bomber missions. But he escaped the attention of the department which--umm, attends to such individuals. And now they want him back."
"And you can't get him back on your own? You?"
"I don't like saying this, but that's what we're doing."
"And I don't like saying this, but you're endangering many lives."
"Well, frankly," Escovil said, "we do nothing else. We don't want to, we'd rather not, but it seems to work out that way."
Zannis thought for a time. "You have no alternative?"
"Not today."
"I'll tell you something, Escovil, if I find out you're lying to me you'll be on the next boat out of here."
"I take your point, but that won't happen. Don't you see? It's gone beyond that now. The war, everything." He paused, then said, "And I'm not lying."
"Oh, well, in that case ..."
"I'm not. And you can assure yourself that the individual is precisely who I say he is."
"Really? And how exactly would I do that?"
"Ask him."
Zannis didn't go directly home. He stopped at the neighborhood taverna, had an ouzo, then another, and considered a third but, nagged by guilt over putting off Melissa's dinner, hurried back to Santaroza Lane. Then too, the third ouzo wouldn't, he realized, have much more effect than the first two, which had had no effect whatsoever. His mind was too engaged, too embroiled, to be soothed by alcohol. It lifted briefly, then went back to work. Sorry!
He simply could not persuade himself that Escovil was lying. Years of police work had sharpened his instincts in this area, and he trusted them more than ever. After Escovil's little surprise--"Ask him"--he'd gone on to explain the proposed operation, which was artfully conceived and made sense. Made the most perfect sense, as long as Zannis was willing to accept a certain level of danger. And who--given the time and circumstance--wouldn't? Not him. He had to go to Paris. He had to go to Paris. And do what had to be done. And that was that.