by Emma Lathen
Everett was braced for some atrocity.
“No, no,” Paul Makris said. “I did not arrange his arrest. Although, to be honest with you one of my men was in the police car with him. You see by then I was afraid that the Sloan had joined forces with someone to elbow Makris out of Hellenus.”
Everett was outraged but Thatcher got in first. “I am flattered that you think we are capable of that, but I assure you we have done no such thing.”
Makris said agreeably that he realized that now. Still he felt that Thatcher should be apprised of his earlier suspicions if only to explain why Chiros for example, had not been more forthcoming.
Which was one way to put it Thatcher thought.
“With the murder of Dr. Ziros I should have revised my thinking,” Makris said seriously. “Even in Greece simple businessmen do not customarily indulge in murder. And as described to me that shooting seemed more than simple Army brutality. At this point I should have wondered if the Sloan was being victimized. After all we are in the midst of political maneuverings!”
Thatcher observed that after a military takeover which jails its opposition and suspends the constitution some political unsettlement was perhaps to be expected.
“Ah, Greece, Greece!” said Makris again. “But the details, Mr. Thatcher, are even more interesting. You know, I take it that Dr. Elias Ziros was a member of ASPIDA—the militant left? When the colonels took over, Ziros had emergency information that his confederates here in Athens needed. He made arrangements to meet a courier at Salonika—he could not risk coming to Athens himself, you understand—”
“Of course,” said Everett impatiently. “And Nicolls was mistaken for the courier—”
“Exactly.” Makris was sure of his facts. “According to my informants, somebody managed to learn ASPIDA’s secret . . .”
“And informed the police?”
Makris said, without noticeable sarcasm, “No here things get complicated.”
Thatcher maintained a poker face. He was not sure if Makris knew that the emergency information was a list of arms dumps and that it was currently at Thatcher’s disposition. Well if he did not then it was going to be an ace in the hole.
Makris said: “I have reason to believe that somebody learned of ASP1DA’s plans and reported it to the Government authorities. That much is clear. Now, I think it was no accident that a man from the Sloan was arrested. This fits too well with the approaches made to me. Somebody Mr. Thatcher is out to discredit the Sloan.”
Thatcher only wished he could refute this but unfortunately it fitted. Above all it fitted with Nicolls’ impression that he had been hunted down by somebody other than the Government or the left. “But who?” he murmured aloud. “And why?”
Makris shrugged. “I have made inquiries—among my contacts here and there. Even that idiot Myrto. So far nothing has come to light. But it seems that whoever it is, he—or they—are both powerful and determined. I am worried—very worried—about the safety of your Mr. Nicolls.”
Did he trust Makris? Thatcher was not sure. He did however recognize horse sense when he encountered it. It was certainly not Makris currently bedeviling the Sloan with corpses and violence.
“Nicolls was in serious difficulties,” he said carefully. “But he has been extricated . . .”
Makris smiled faintly at this caution.
“Good,” he murmured. “I am very glad to hear it. Now he must lie low until the uproar dies down. If you are very careful the Hellenus negotiations may proceed as scheduled. Then in time Nicolls can be smuggled out of the country. This may all blow over.”
Thatcher frowned. “And we go on as if nothing had happened? No, I don’t like that.”
Makris spread his hands and shrugged. “It is very unpleasant granted. One does not like to be victimized in this fashion. But you must be reasonable. You do not know who your enemy is. You have no lever to use against him. It is no small accomplishment that you have saved Mr. Nicolls. If you have . . .”
“What’s that?” Everett demanded sharply.
Makris became very Greek. “An enterprising opponent might not yet admit defeat in his attempts to incriminate the Sloan.”
Thatcher digested these comments. What Makris said was true . . . an unknown enemy . . . no means of attack. These musings were interrupted by a waiter announcing a call at the desk.
“Come right over!” Mary Katherine Murphy ordered crisply. “We’ve got something.”
Chapter 19
The Fox and the Grapes
Dr. Murphy was waiting at the door for them her eyes sparkling with excitement. “Wait until you hear. You won’t believe it,” she promised.
Thatcher replied that nothing in Greece would ever surprise him again. Gabler said nothing; he merely passed ahead of Thatcher questing eagerly forward into the living room. Thatcher paused in the hall to lay down his hat. “I gather you found out something from Nicolls?”
“Yes but we haven’t really gone into it yet. Do come in,” she urged him through the doorway. “We’re bursting to figure out what it means.”
In the living room Lorna Jenkins was setting ash trays while Ken Nicolls protested ignorance to Gabler. “There’s no point in looking at me. I don’t know what’s going on,” he maintained. “I was just describing how I got into this mess when suddenly everybody got excited and started phoning you.”
Nicolls had made another of his lightning character changes. Gone was the oppressed Greek handy man.
For a moment Thatcher was alarmed, fearing that the ladies had been busy collecting clothing from their acquaintances. Then as he assimilated the glory of his junior’s appearance he realized that the dashing silk sports jacket and slacks must belong to the absent movie producer. Thatcher decided that comment would be unkind.
“Let’s go back to the beginning. We want you to hear this yourselves,” suggested Lorna Jenkins.
Patiently Ken obliged. “I was describing how I got from the Quaker camp to Elasson. And Kate wanted to know how I found the Quakers in the first place.”
“It was clever of him,” Kate interposed. “To figure out that an earthquake would automatically mean an American Friends camp in the offing.”
“More than clever,” Thatcher acknowledged. “Almost inspired.”
“It would have been, if I had anything to do with it,” Ken said. “But I was wandering around with a Red Cross badge in my buttonhole. Some Greek soldiers who didn’t speak English gave me a lift and drove me straight to the Friends.”
Lorna Jenkins was tense with excitement.
“So we asked him why he emerged from an earthquake with a Red Cross badge.”
Ken was now elaborately reasonable. “I got it at the Salonika station,” he said in reply to looks of inquiry from Thatcher and Gabler. “At a newsstand. The man there had a collection can. When I dropped my change into it he gave me the badge.”
Kate Murphy could no longer restrain herself. “And it was after that,” she exclaimed triumphantly, “that Elias Ziros came over and sat down beside Ken.”
“Yes,” Ken picked up his tale. “Ziros said something about being surprised to find an American involved in Greek difficulties. At the time I thought he was talking about the transportation difficulties. Now I realize he was surprised to find an American acting as courier for his organization. It must have been that. Because, when he was satisfied about me, he gave me a business card and then immediately made an excuse to leave. But I still don’t see what there is to be excited about.” He looked at the ladies with good-natured resentment. “As soon as you knew that card contained the microfilm you could figure out most of it without my help.”
“Except for one item.” Lorna Jenkins paused to assure herself of the room’s attention. Then she delivered her punch line. “There will be no Red Cross collecting in Greece for another five months!”
Thatcher expelled his breath softly. “A recognition device,” he reminded Gabler. “We said there must be one.”
�
��You mean it was that little tin badge that got me into all of this?” Nicolls exclaimed indignantly.
“Oh I wouldn’t blame it on the badge,” said Lorna Jenkins in a voice of steel. “That lapel pin was no accident. Why don’t you describe how you got it?”
Ken frowned in recollection. Slowly he recapitulated those distant events overtaking a respectable banker not yet on the run. His recital was interrupted again and again as his audience seized on a fresh point.
“The collection can wasn’t on the counter in plain view, was it? He brought it out especially for you. So he told you to be sure to wear it did he? He certainly wasn’t taking any chances.”
“I’m not surprised Elias was reassured by your reference to California. That’s where Andreas Papandreou was teaching before he came back to Athens. Elias probably thought you were old buddies.”
“Yes but how did you get to the newsstand in the first place?”
Finally the spate of questions and observations came to a halt. There was no longer any need to belabor the obvious. But Thatcher allowed only a short breathing spell before hitching himself forward and saying grimly: “We seem to have underestimated our friend from the Ministry, Stavros Bacharias. The question is, what are we going to do about it?”
“Certainly you’re not going to let him get away with it?” demanded Lorna Jenkins, all moral outrage. Her posture conjured up a host of abolitionist and suffragette forbearers. Those women didn’t ask what you were going to do about temperance. They reached for the nearest axe.
Thatcher knew that he must inevitably fall short of standards such as these. “Not at all. But you see,” he said apologetically, “while it is clear to me that Bacharias is the one person who could have stage-managed that scene in Salonika, I am still not sure why he did it.”
“You know sir,” Ken Nicolls spoke diffidently, “I think the answer may be in Greek politics.”
Thatcher suppressed the retort that that much was obvious. “Yes?” he invited.
Ken marshaled his argument. “I don’t know if you’ve heard of Cliff Leonard, the engineer up at Hellenus?”
Thatcher nodded encouragingly.
“Well, the day after the coup, Bacharias was running around like mad. Leonard has had quite a lot of experience with revolutions. He said that Bacharias was at a level where it made a real difference to him what coup became successful. Then, when the situation had clarified 24 hours later, Leonard said that Bacharias had come out about the same. He was still in the Ministry, but he hadn’t gone up. That’s when Bacharias started to interest himself in my travel plans,” Nicolls ended on a note of bitterness.
“Very interesting. You see what it means Everett?”
Gabler had been making little bleats of satisfaction to himself. “Of course,” he said briskly. “Bacharias is an undersecretary—he’s practically at the top of the Ministry now. If there was any possibility of his becoming Minister he must be a Member of some group that has been contemplating a coup of its own. And Bacharias’ group is either still contemplating a coup or intends to infiltrate the present government by peaceful means.”
“The latter, I would say.” Thatcher turned politely to the ladies. “Our people at the Embassy were outlining the position for me the other day. The rightists are now firmly in command. But there is a good deal of dissension among these rightists. The colonels are all for encouraging foreign investment and tourism. You might call them anti-isolationists. There is however a strong conservative element in Greece that is rigidly isolationist.”
“The Ottoman Empire,” said Kate Murphy suddenly.
“What?” Momentarily Thatcher braked his well-oiled argument. Then rejecting temptation he continued. “If we assume that Bacharias is one of these fanatic isolationists it explains a lot. Imagine the situation if Ken had been arrested, searched, and found to be carrying a list of arms dumps to leftists in Athens! No one would have believed his disclaimers. More important, no one would have believed that he was not acting as a representative of the Sloan throughout. And with the Hellenus negotiations coming up in the near future? What do you think would have been the result?”
“There’s no doubt about the result.” Everett seemed to be deriving some obscure relish from the scope of the disaster they had avoided. “There would have been a public outcry for expropriation of the Sloan’s interest in Hellenus as well as a hardening policy against all other American investment.”
“It explains a good deal,” said Lorna Jenkins soberly. “One of the things that has been puzzling me all along is the pseudo-official quality of the men running after Ken. But if they were rightists who are not in the government, but very close to it, then no one would dare question their authority after the take-over—at least not for a week or two.”
Thatcher nodded somewhat absently. He was pursuing his own line of thought. “It also explains how Bacharias learned of Dr. Ziros’ rendezvous in Salonika. I suspect the real courier was arrested by the Army that first night—by an officer who was a member of Bacharias’ group.”
“But John aren’t we letting this theory run away with us?” Everett, as usual, had come up with a difficulty. “If Ziros hadn’t been shot, the whole story would have come out sooner or later. At least enough to confirm Nicolls’ denials.”
Thatcher stared at him.
“Now wait a minute, Ev. Just let me think.” He held up a hand to impose silence as an idea labored to the surface. “That may be exactly why Ziros was shot! The Army has claimed all along that they didn’t do it. But what if Bacharias did? He had a real motive. If only we knew exactly what happened.”
Ken Nicolls turned to look at his superior reproachfully. “Have you forgotten Mr. Thatcher? I was there.” Under prodding, Ken told the story. No he said, none of the soldiers had been holding a gun. In fact they had been as paralyzed by the occurrence as the prisoners. “I didn’t pay much attention,” he confessed. “I was too busy getting under cover. If I thought anything it was that some other Army detachment had started to snipe at us.”
“That corroborates the post mortem findings,” Gabler said. “The man was shot from a distance by a rifle. And Bacharias knew after all that Ziros was going to be arrested at the station that evening. He was a sitting duck.”
“Poor Elias,” mourned Kate Murphy.
“Either Bacharias killed him or one of his followers did,” Lorna Jenkins added. She straightened her shoulders. “That makes it a deliberate murder. I’d like to see the authorities try to wriggle out of that when you tell them this story.”
Gabler shared her martial desire for action.
“They shan’t be given the opportunity,” he promised. “We’ll bring the State Department into it if necessary. Their own Ministry personnel, trying to incriminate the Sloan falsely! It passes anything in my experience.”
And no one had to be told that Everett’s experience was singularly rich in instances of unsatisfactory government liaisons.
Kate Murphy looked shrewdly across the table. “I don’t think Mr. Thatcher agrees with you.”
Thatcher shook his head. “No, I don’t. Oh I share your indignation. But I think you’re being optimistic if you see the Greek Government reacting the way we would like. I have no doubt that we could make the present regime look askance at Bacharias—particularly the Minister whose job he wants—but a good deal of mud would stick to the Sloan. After charges and counter-charges, after Nicolls and Bacharias had each called the other a liar, everyone involved would be suspect. And that would be the end of working cooperation on the Hellenus project.”
It was impossible for Gabler to resist this reminder of the Sloan’s purpose in Greece. But he was a man of standards. “The situation is certainly not desirable. But what else can we do? It’s intolerable that Nicolls should have to slink about like a criminal. It’s unthinkable that Bacharias should feel he can blackmail the Sloan into silence.”
Seeing that an impasse had been reached, Kate let her instincts take over. “There�
��s no point in worrying a problem like a dog with a bone. What we need is some coffee and sandwiches. Mr. Thatcher, why don’t you help me put things together. We’ll think of something you’ll see.”
Thatcher was happy to leave the charged atmosphere. As he followed his hostess the other three were already putting their heads together in a protest meeting. Everett and Lorna Jenkins both had firm principles which demanded that Bacharias pay for his crimes; Nicolls, usually more malleable had a personal commitment to the problem.
In the kitchen, while Kate filled the electric percolator, Thatcher busily sliced Greek sausage and bread.
“You don’t want to go to the authorities, do you?” she asked spooning coffee.
Thatcher tried to be honest in his answer. “No I don’t. One way and another I’ve had a good deal of experience with authorities all over the world and their collective intelligence is always lower than that of their most stupid employee. I hate to think what they’d make of this story.”
“There’s more to it than that,” Kate said with quiet assurance.
“Yes. I’m afraid I’d like to accomplish Bacharias’ undoing personally. And I resent the thought of any mud sticking to the Sloan, not only as a matter of policy but because that is precisely what he intended.”
“You know how I feel? I think all this talk about authorities is too tame. You can’t have murders and arrests and abductions and end it all with a conference at the Ministry.” She plugged in the coffee pot savagely. “There, that will be about 20 minutes. Could you use a drink in the meantime?”
Thatcher admitted that he could and accepted a Scotch and water hoping it would provide inspiration.
“By the way,” he said reflectively, “what did you mean by the Ottoman Empire?”
“It conditioned the thinking of a good many Greeks about foreigners and foreign intervention. Of course, partly, it’s harking back to the golden years.”
“The golden years? I thought they had a miserable time of it.”
“Oh they did,” she agreed, absently refueling their glasses. “But it was a time of great emotional unity—you know one people and one church united against the Turkish tyrant. You don’t get that kind of unity unless a country’s occupied. Greece tried to recapture the same wild fervor over Cyprus, but that turned out very unsatisfactorily from the emotional point of view. So now I’m afraid there’s a group that will be happy to cast the Sloan in the role of the Ottoman Empire.”