Black Sand

by William Caunitz

  Entering the station house, Pappas walked behind the watch desk and signed himself present in the service book. Lieutenant Kanakis’s gangly body stiffened to attention when he spotted the colonel entering the third-floor office.

  “You did a good job at the Iskur crime scene, Lieutenant,” Pappas said, moving across the room to the double windows. “Finding that amphora with the black sand pointed us in the right direction.” He looked across the wide boulevard at the passengers boarding the ferries for Aegina and Póros. “I have another job for you. I want you to use your best people, only those capable of instant amnesia.”

  “All my men suffer from that ailment when necessary, Colonel.”

  “Good. This is going to be a surveillance. I want you to make sure that your people can blend into any crowd.”

  Kanakis moved up behind the colonel. The sound of the busy port filled the airy room. “This harbor used to house the triremes of the ancient Athenian fleet; now it harbors the yachts of the rich.”

  They stared out at the luxurious boats, each man momentarily lost in his own thoughts. “Does this job have anything to do with the Voúla massacre?” the lieutenant asked.

  “It’s directly related, Lieutenant.”

  A humming, throbbing mass of people pressed through Plaka’s narrow arteries. At the end of Ifestou Street a stone stairway wound upward to the slopes of the Acropolis. Along the way an intricate network of narrow byways branched off to form shop-lined streets.

  Sitting under a pepper tree in one of the tavernas, Major General Philippos Tsimas sipped ouzo as he tried to pick out the passing women who were not wearing underpants. Dressed in brown slacks and a white pullover, he looked more like a tourist than the head of the Greek intelligence service. Fingering worry beads, he focused on the folds of a lanky blonde’s skirt, on how it creased into her marvelous young ass. Sipping his drink, he spotted Pappas climbing the steps right behind the woman.

  “Dimitri, good to see you,” Tsimas said, inviting Pappas to sit next to him, watching as the policeman came into the café’s garden. Bright, colorful flowers in borders surrounded the tables occupied by people having early evening aperitifs.

  Without any preliminaries, Pappas poured himself a drink and added the water. “I received a request from Vassos for information on Trevor Hughes, an American diplomat stationed here.”

  “I know about Hughes. What information does Vassos want?”

  “Whatever you can give him. Andreas sent me a photo of Hughes.”

  Tsimas picked up a slice of feta. Gnawing the edges, he asked, “How are things going in New York?”

  “Your head of station is running Vassos, so you probably know more about that than I do.”

  Tsimas’s face remained expressionless. He scraped his chair closer to the table. “Dimitri, I’m worried. No matter how much I want to, I can’t bring myself to believe that the Americans will ever allow Alexander’s Iliad to leave the country. The big museums would never permit it. They’d steal it outright if they could, or make up some false claim to get their greedy hands on it.”

  Pappas was startled by his colleague’s outburst. “The investigation being conducted here, and the one in the States, are both covert. The American museums have no way of knowing about this case. We’ve been careful, very careful.”

  Tsimas added more ouzo to their glasses. “For a seasoned policeman, you’re terribly naïve. Tell me, my friend, how was the New York end of the investigation arranged?”

  “Through the American State Department.”

  “And the State Department is run by tight-assed American aristocrats, the same sort of people who run the museums. Do you really believe that word of the casket-copy hasn’t been leaked to important curators?”

  Pappas clenched his jaw. “I don’t know.”

  “Those fucking people have stolen most of our national treasures.” He slammed his glass down; ouzo splashed over the sides. “The people of this country would never tolerate it if they knew the truth about Voúla and the casket-copy. Their outrage would be such that I’m sure the government would be shaken.” He leaned close and whispered, “If the casket-copy cannot be returned, it should be destroyed.”

  Pappas’s mouth fell open. “You’re serious?”

  “No matter what the politicians of this country say in public, they know, as I do, that Greece’s future is irrevocably tied to the United States.” He took an orange from the bowl on the table and rolled it between his hands. “See how easy it is for me to do this?” Suddenly he slapped the orange and watched as it flew off the table.

  Cats pounced on the fruit.

  “I just knocked it into a different orbit. It is the same way with countries, Dimitri. All you need is the right pretext to tilt a country’s policy. The casket-copy could be the vehicle to knock Greece into a much more Eastern alignment.”

  The whitewashed church set on the top of Lykavitos Hill glowed in the bright morning sunlight. Tour buses discharged their passengers in front of the funicular. Taxis cruised Aristodimou Street. At a little past seven that morning a gray van had parked at the end of the block; at nine o’clock plainclothes policemen began their apparently aimless promenade around the area. Inside the van Lieutenant Kanakis waited by the communications monitor, arms folded, listening to negative field reports.

  Meanwhile, three kilometers away at 173 Leoforos Alexandras, Colonel Dimitri Pappas worked at his desk, waiting for Kanakis to inform him that Nina Pazza had left her apartment.

  Reading the report on Trevor Hughes, Pappas grudgingly gave Tsimas an A-plus for efficiency. The folder not only contained photographs and biographical data on the dead American, it also detailed every time he had left Greece, giving the date and time of departure, his destination, and the date and time of his return.

  Pappas noticed that all his trips were within Europe and of short duration; most of them had been made on weekends. A courier with a diplomatic passport would have been an asset to any smuggler. Pappas put the file down and telephoned his wife to tell her that he would not be home for Saturday lunch. She reminded him, in an unyielding tone of voice, that his name day was next week and that his daughters were planning a surprise for him. He was ordered to be home that night, no matter what. “I’ll be there,” he said, replacing the receiver just as the green phone on the confidential line began to ring.

  Many fashionable cafés were located within walking distance of Syntagma Square. All of them were places where a person could inexpensively pass a day or evening watching the cosmopolitan life of Athens passing by; places where Greek men, wearing the latest American and Italian casuals, could stalk female tourists. The Everyday Café, located at 15 Standious Street, had shiny tube chairs with brown calfskin seats. Outside the tables formed an arch around the café’s curved front.

  At 1:10 Nina Pazza stepped from a taxi and passed the first two outside rows, choosing a table in front of the café’s gleaming window. Driving away in his taxi, the “cab driver” reached under the seat and slid out a walkie-talkie. A gray van pulled up at the curb across the street from the Everyday Café. Policemen inside it aimed movie and still cameras through the oneway glass set in the side panel. Using the van’s cellular telephone, Lieutenant Kanakis communicated their location to Colonel Pappas.

  Tweny-three minutes later Pappas parked his unmarked car at the other end of Standious Street, far enough away so that the subject would not see him or the car. He quickly blended into the mass of people flowing along the busy shopping street, stopped by the side door of the van, and knocked. It slid open and Pappas climbed inside. “What’s she doing?”

  “Sitting and drinking tea,” Kanakis said. “She might be waiting for someone.”

  “Why don’t we arrange to eavesdrop,” Pappas said.

  Kanakis opened the supply drawer above the communication console and took out a magnetized M5A micro-transmitter. “Paper-thin,” he said, showing it to Pappas. He called over one of the six policemen squatting on the portable
bench that folded down from the wall. The officer took the transmitter and left the van. Pappas and the lieutenant watched the policeman cross the wide street and saunter into the café.

  George Dangas, a member of Kanakis’s elite unit for the past seven years, moved across the Everyday Café’s marble floor to the cashier, who was sitting behind her machine adding up checks and putting the register’s tapes on the waiters’ trays. Dangas told her that he wanted to see the owner. “Over there,” she said, pointing with her hand.

  Dangas walked up to a short, bowlegged man and showed him his shield. “I need to talk with you a moment.”

  Five minutes later George Dangas, wearing a white waiter’s jacket and carrying a tray, reappeared outside; he worked his way along the rows, bussing the sidewalk tables. He cleaned the tin tops and emptied and wiped ashtrays. When he came to Nina Pazza’s she gave him an indifferent glance and returned her attention to the people passing by.

  When her attention was elsewhere, Dangas fastened the microtransmitter to the underside. He continued working along the row until he came to the end, where he turned and worked his way back to the café entrance.

  Inside the surveillance van the policewoman manning the console’s sophisticated communications equipment flicked on the receiver switch and began monitoring instruments on the front of it. Loud fragments of conversations and laughter burst forth from the speakers. She painstakingly worked the controls until the clink of Nina Pazza’s teacup was clearly discernible, at which point she looked up at Kanakis and said, “We’re zeroed in, Lieutenant.”

  Leaning against the van’s wall with his arms folded across his chest, Pappas asked the lieutenant, “Is the entire area covered?”

  Kanakis nodded and picked up the hand mike.

  A young man on a motorbike stopped in front of the café and called out to a passing woman. She hesitated, looking in the direction of the voice. “John,” she called out, and rushed over to the bike, throwing her arms around him. As she did this, the policewoman said into her transmitter fastened inside her blouse, “Orange three on station.”

  Two women sat at a table in the row directly in front of Nina Pazza. They immediately leaned across the small space and began to gossip about a friend who was having an affair with a married man. As they talked, the redhead pulled a tissue from her shoulderbag and wiped a fleck of dirt from her eye. While doing so, she whispered, “Orange five on station.”

  Lieutenant Kanakis looked at the colonel. “I’ve got my people scattered throughout the café. I’ve also got some nearby motorbikes ready to go after her if she bolts on us.”

  They waited; fifteen minutes passed.

  Kanakis was the first to spot the woman heading between the tables toward Nina Pazza. She was well dressed and had a designer scarf around her neck. She looked to be in her mid-thirties and had short auburn hair. An attractive woman, she moved with the grace and sureness of a professional dancer. Coming up to Nina Pazza’s table she sat, speaking in English with a decided British accent, “I could not get rid of a silly customer.”

  “I hope you made the sale.”

  “Of course I did. How are you, Nina? You look wonderful. Widowhood appears to agree with you.”

  “It does.” She leaned close and whispered, “Ann, a policeman visited me yesterday, a Colonel Pappas. He questioned me about Orhan’s murder.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “What do you think I told him. The truth, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “He searched my apartment and found a photograph of Orhan and two other men. One of them was his friend from New York, Denny McKay. I don’t know who the other one was,” she lied easily.

  “Why on earth didn’t you destroy it with the rest of his things? You should have anticipated a visit from the police.”

  “I didn’t destroy it because I didn’t know it was there. The old fool hid it in a telephone book.” Nina sipped her tea. “I don’t think we have any reason for concern. There is just no way that they can connect us to New York.”

  “Don’t be too sure of that, Nina. Yiotas has been arrested and Trevor has been killed. I don’t like it. Everything ran smoothly for years, but now unpleasantness is cropping up all around us.”

  “We have nothing to worry about. Yiotas knows nothing. Besides, he was always getting himself arrested for one thing or the other. And people are always getting murdered in New York.”

  “And Orhan?” Ann asked, beckoning to a waiter. “That was no accident?”

  “He more than likely had his hand in someone’s pockets. You know how he was.”

  A waiter came up to them. Ann ordered tea with lemon. “Will you share a baklava with me?”

  “I’ll nibble,” Nina said.

  The waiter walked off.

  “You don’t think the police know anything about the business?” Ann asked anxiously.

  “Absolutely not.”

  Ann sucked in a deep breath. “I can’t help wondering if Orhan’s death had anything to do with what happened at Voúla. It was the same day, Nina. Coincidences like that just don’t happen.”

  “Of course they do. Don’t let your imagination play tricks with you. Use your common sense.”

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  The waiter came with Ann’s order. He put it down and left. Picking at the honey-soaked pastry, Ann asked, “What are we going to do without Orhan?”

  “They asked me to come to New York to discuss taking his place.”

  “Oh, Nina, that’s wonderful,” Ann said, leaning up out of her seat to kiss her friend’s cheek. “I’m so happy for you. You’re going, of course.”

  “I’m trying to book a flight sometime this week.”

  Ann squeezed lemon into her tea. “Do you miss him?”

  “I guess so, yes. I miss his brains and the way he made me laugh. But I don’t miss the other part, the pretending. Ugh. I hated it.”

  Ann inched her hand across the table until their fingers touched. “Do you enjoy it with me?”

  “How can you ask that?” she said, brushing fingers over Ann’s. “Would you like to come home with me?”

  “Very much.”

  The surveillance on Aristodimou Street resumed at 2:31.

  At 4:32 Ann walked out of the lobby of Nina Pazza’s apartment and hailed a passing taxi. Standing on the curb, she turned and waved up at Nina, who was standing on her terrace dressed in her white caftan. Ann’s lips puckered into a silent kiss. She turned and slid demurely into the taxi.

  Eighteen minutes later Ann got out on crowded Othonos Street in front of the Pan Am ticket office. A few doors away two policemen, with machine guns strapped across their chests, guarded the entrance of the El Al ticket office. Walking west, Ann passed the Albert Café, the Boutique Regina, and entered an exclusive-looking shop with a marble facade and the name Delos Antiques written in gold script in both Greek and English above the entrance.

  A gray van parked across the street from the Albert Café. “Get someone inside that store and find out who this Ann is,” Pappas said to Kanakis.

  The lieutenant called a policewoman off the bench. “Areta, be careful,” Kanakis said to the officer.

  Areta opened the supply drawer and took out a micro-transmitter. Turning away from the others she unbuttoned the front of her blouse and clipped the transmitter to her brassiere. She buttoned up, smoothed down the front of her blouse, and climbed down out of the van. Bustling city sounds echoed inside the surveillance van as Pappas and the lieutenant watched Areta enter Delos Antiques.

  A door opening, a tinkling bell, the woman called Ann speaking Greek: “May I help you?”

  “I’m just browsing, thank you,” Areta said.

  Silence.

  Inside the surveillance van, Pappas leaned up against the communication console, his ears close to the speakers.

  Ann, speaking Greek, said, “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “Yes it is. My husband and I have been s
earching for a table for our entrance hall. This looks as though it would be perfect,” Areta said.

  “It’s French, early eighteenth century. It’s made of tulipwood and kingwood veneer and has ormolu mounts.”

  “How late are you open?”

  “Until seven.”

  “I’ll come back with my husband. Are you the owner?”

  “Yes, here is my card.”

  “Ann Bryce,” Areta read. “Your Greek is excellent.”

  “That’s because I am Greek.”

  “Really?”

  “My parents emigrated to the U.K. when I was three. I married an Englishman, but that didn’t work out, so after the divorce I decided to come home to Greece.”

  “How interesting. We must talk more when I return with my husband.”

  Athens was quiet, the night clear, the café almost deserted. Two revelers walked unsteadily into the lobby of the George I Hotel. A garbage truck drove slowly along Syntagma Square, its crew gathering and emptying refuse cans. On Othonos Street two policemen lurked in the shadows of the El Al ticket office.

  A gray van rolled up onto the sidewalk in front of Delos Antiques. Two police cars appeared from nowhere and blocked both ends of Othonos Street. A fire truck skirted around the car blocking the east end of the street and drove up on the sidewalk, stopping behind the gray van. Firemen jumped down and began lugging hose out of the truck’s bay. A man came out of the van and knelt down in front of the gate protecting the antique store’s windows. He removed a set of manufacturer’s keys from a black pouch and went to work on the padlock. Firemen tugged hose into the lobby of the office building that housed the antique store.

  Inside the van Pappas and the lieutenant reviewed the plan. Working with a detailed diagram of the store that the policewoman, Areta, had made, it was decided that the antique store would be searched using the “wheel” method.