The Black Life

by Paul Johnston

  ‘Thessaloniki. I know, dear. How is Yiorgos?’

  ‘Better. He was lucky.’ Niki dried her eyes. ‘That’s the thing. He asked Alex to come back too. But he … he won’t.’

  Dorothy stroked her back. ‘My son can be stubborn, I know. But remember that he does important work. My husband was the same. He’d get involved in court cases or party business and I wouldn’t see him for days, often weeks. But I had faith in him. I believed he was doing the best he could for the unfortunates of this world. You have faith in Alex, don’t you?’

  Niki sobbed, and then looked at the older woman. ‘That’s … that’s the problem. I don’t … I don’t know if I do … any more.’

  Dorothy was about to argue, but she hung back. Alex had endangered the people he loved; he was still doing so. Maybe you had to be related by blood to accept that, as even the fiery Anna did. Niki had been through some terrible experiences because of Alex’s tenacity in uncovering the monsters behind the façade in Greece. It looked like she’d reached the end of her tether.

  ‘Come on, drink your tea. It’ll be good and strong by now.’ She patted Niki’s arm. ‘I know you’re worried about getting pregnant, but you have to give yourself a chance.’

  Niki looked at her uncomprehendingly and let out another desperate sob.

  Four skinheads in combat jackets, trousers and shining boots stopped halfway up the stairs, their eyes on the pistol Rachel was pointing at them.

  ‘It’s that nosy fucker and his Jew bitch,’ one of them said, licking his lips.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Mavros said, brushing past Rachel. He raised the flagpole like a spear and rammed the end into the neo-Nazi’s belly. He crashed backwards, taking two of his friends with him. ‘Keep still!’ he shouted, as he and Rachel picked their way over the sprawling men. The fourth turned tail and headed for the street.

  ‘Go on, Alex,’ Rachel said, backing away. She kept her weapon pointed at the upended men.

  Mavros held on to the flag in case more Phoenix Rises troopers arrived. He peered round the corner of the lingerie shop. There were only ordinary people in the vicinity. He dropped the flag.

  ‘Get a taxi!’ Rachel said, as she approached.

  He did as she said. When one stopped, he got in and held the door open for her. She stuffed the pistol into the belt beneath her pullover and joined him.

  ‘Just drive!’ Mavros said.

  The young man at the wheel pulled away.

  ‘Do you speak English?’ Mavros asked.

  The driver shrugged. ‘You are very bee-oo-ti-fool. Dance with me?’ Then he rattled off a list of largely American product names. ‘And Deer-eh Stra-eets,’ he concluded.

  ‘Dire Straits,’ Mavros translated. ‘A rock band,’ he added, seeing Rachel’s puzzled expression.

  ‘So what was it the head Nazi told you?’ she asked.

  ‘Last night he called the head of the Athens Organised Crime Unit to ask what he should do with me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, I have history with that individual. But not much future.’ Mavros leaned forward. ‘Take us to the Archaeological Museum,’ he said, glancing at Rachel. ‘We might as well absorb some ancient culture as we plot the destruction of the present-day Greek state.’

  ‘That bad?’

  Mavros nodded grimly.

  THIRTY-TWO

  I combined dealing with Junta supporters in the US with tracking down Nazis throughout the 70s. Even though the dictatorship ended in 1974, there were plenty of targets – second- and third-generation Greeks who had taken on the worst aspects of their new country. I hadn’t gone back to the party, but I found myself disgusted by the arrogance of the rich, both those who had inherited and self-made men. Because the FBI was a more formidable opponent than the police forces in South America and most of Europe, I resorted to methods that pointed towards accident or suicide. So, several fascist sympathisers hanged themselves from trees on their estates and some went off the road when their brakes failed. I had become a competent mechanic over the years.

  If Gavriella had any suspicions about what I was up to during my often lengthy absences, she kept them to herself. Because I didn’t go out to work, spending my days talking to my broker and banker, I saw a lot of my sons as they were growing up. Yosif, the elder, who bears my father’s name, was always a handful, racing around the house like a dervish and prone to falling out of trees. As you have probably noticed, he’s still impetuous. The scar under his hairline is evidence of that. Isaak, named after Gavriella’s father and my long-lost brother, is the other side of the coin – a rationalist and a sceptic. He would prefer you weren’t here, but I don’t run a democracy. Even if I did, Yosif and I would have prevailed. We need a witness.

  In the 90s, when Shlomo’s health began to break down and Baruh became more of a planner than an executor/executioner, I began to make use of the boys. Initially, they did research and ran errands. But from the start I felt they had to know what I was doing. They only thing I asked of them was that they never said a word to their mother – or to anyone else, of course. Also, they could back out at any point without recriminations or bad feeling. Neither of them did. Of course, they had learned about the Nazis at school and from war movies, comics and so on. They were aware that they were Jews, although we rarely attended synagogue or kept company with the local members of our community – they were few and tended towards the orthodox, as if the prairies and the open skies brought out something atavistic in them.

  I gave my sons books as they grew older, encouraging them to read widely about Judaism. I even discussed the works of Holocaust-deniers with them. They gave those fools short shrift. When Yosif was nineteen and Isaak seventeen, I played them Claude Lanzmann’s nine-and-a-half-hour film, Shoah. We split it into five parts, discussing each afterwards. When we got to the end, there were surprises all round.

  ‘We’ve already seen it, Father,’ Yosif said.

  ‘Last summer, when you were away,’ added Isaak.

  I was impressed by their interest and self-motivated study. They were – still are – serious boys. I judged the time was right to tell them my secret.

  ‘I was in Auschwitz,’ I said.

  ‘We guessed,’ Isaak said. ‘You wear long sleeves to cover them, but we’ve both seen the numbers tattooed on your arm.’

  ‘And what did you think?’

  ‘That you must be a hero to have survived,’ Yosif said, putting his hand on mine.

  I laughed bitterly. ‘A hero? You know what the Sonderkommando was?’

  He nodded, but Isaak shook his head. I told him, then described my life in the Lager – as I have to you.

  There was silence when I finished. Then both of them put their arms round my back.

  ‘You are still a hero,’ Isaak said. ‘You did what you felt you had to and we would not be here if you’d given up.’

  I was gripped by the self-destructive impulse that had driven me since liberation, and told them what I did when I was away from home – what I had done in almost every country in Europe and South America. I expected, this time, that they’d be revolted, their father a multiple murderer, a serial killer as the phrase in vogue had it.

  Again they surprised me.

  ‘Now I see you really are a hero,’ Yosif said, bowing his head. ‘There should be statues of you in Thessaloniki and all over the world.’

  Even Isaak – ever the stern young man – smiled at that. ‘Come, brother, he may be our hero, but you can’t expect the offspring of murderers, collaborators, profiteers and cowards to admire him.’

  ‘What about in Tel Aviv, then?’ Yosif had been to a kibbutz the previous year. ‘There are plenty of memorials to Jewish heroes in Israel.’

  I laughed. ‘Memorials are for the dead.’ I looked at them and judged that the moment had come. ‘Besides, I’m still operating. Would you … help me in the field?’

  Neither hesitated for a second.

  At the outset I set them to reconnoitring and surv
eillance duties, on targets in the US far from our home. They knew what the result of their efforts would be, but I kept them away from the executions until I was sure they could handle them. My experience in the SK and after was that some men, no matter how well prepared and apparently determined they were, could not face death at close range. I would never had subjected my boys to the ultimate challenge of taking another human being’s life – no matter how low that person was on the scale of humanity – unless I was sure they were up to it.

  Yosif was first. I had trained them in what the CIA and KGB would call fieldcraft, but for me was the practical knowledge I had accrued in action rather than in a classroom. One of the dictators’ main supporters was a second-generation Greek who had become a major drug-dealer in Florida. We discovered that he liked to go fishing in the Everglades and had a cabin there. The problem was, he never went alone. We watched him and his trips always involved at least four vicious-looking guards, whose weapons were easy to spot. Prostitutes were also taken along.

  ‘I don’t think we should kill the women,’ Isaak said.

  ‘Why not?’ demanded his brother. ‘They’re worthless trash that no one will miss.’

  ‘Wrong,’ Isaak replied. ‘They have pimps – we’ve seen them. They’ll ask questions.’

  ‘True,’ I said. ‘Besides, innocent lives shouldn’t be taken.’

  Yosif stared at me. ‘What about the women and children you killed immediately after Knaus?’

  I held his gaze. ‘That was a long time ago. I hope I’ve learned better.’

  ‘There were no innocents in Germany and Austria,’ Isaak said. ‘This is different.’

  Yosif eventually nodded in agreement.

  ‘So how’s it to be?’ I asked. ‘He’s never on his own and neither is his car. That makes kidnapping him and tampering with the vehicle difficult.’

  ‘Leave it to me,’ Isaak said.

  I looked at his brother, then nodded. ‘You’ve got twenty-four hours.’

  Yosif and I kept up surveillance. In the evening the drug boss – I don’t want to soil my mouth or your ears with his name – went with his henchmen to eat in a restaurant with a large parking lot. As normal, one of them stayed with the car. We watched as a convertible with the top down rolled up and a stunning girl wearing very little leaned over to talk to the foot soldier. A few seconds later, he got in and the girl drove to far side of the lot, behind a truck and trailer.

  Isaak knew where we were. He looked towards us as he rode up on a small motorbike, dressed as a pizza-delivery boy. He broke into the car within a minute and then worked away inside. My heart never beats faster than normal during operations, but I could see Yosif was nervous. Finally Isaak got out, looked around and rode away. Shortly afterwards the girl in the convertible drove back and dropped off the grinning guard.

  ‘What did you do?’ Yosif demanded, when his brother arrived at the rendezvous point.

  Isaak held up a remote-control device.

  ‘There’s half a kilo of high explosive under the back seat of the target’s car. All we have to do is get within five hundred yards and press the button.’

  ‘Half a kilo?’ I said.

  ‘I didn’t want any survivors.’

  ‘Apparently.’

  ‘The hookers come separately. We’ll wait until there are no vehicles or people nearby.’

  I looked at Yosif. ‘It sounds good to me.’

  The next day we followed the car into the Everglades. After half an hour we were in the wilds, an alligator’s snout popping from the water near the road.

  ‘The honour is yours,’ I said, handing the remote to Isaak.

  ‘I can see the car,’ Yosif said, at the wheel. ‘We’re in range.’

  There was a hell of a blast. On the way back to the highway, I debriefed them.

  ‘Good work, Isaak,’ I said. ‘But there was – and still is – a high degree of risk.’

  ‘We might have been or might get spotted on this narrow track,’ Yosif said. ‘Getting away unnoticed and in one piece are not guaranteed.’

  ‘That’s right.’ I clapped Isaak on the back.

  ‘You knew,’ he said, crestfallen. ‘You both knew.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘There’s always risk attached to operations. I calculated that your planning was adequate.’

  ‘Adequate?’

  ‘Wait till we’re back in Miami.’

  We ditched the car, which Yosif had stolen, in the suburbs and took a taxi to the train station. We changed several times, picking up our own car in St Louis. This was in the years before Homeland Security. The deaths of the fascist-supporting drug runner and his bravos were put down to inter-gang rivalry.

  I didn’t care about the operation any more – it was in the past. The future belonged to my loyal and lethal sons.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Mavros called Nikos Kriaras when they were outside the museum.

  ‘So now you’re running the Greek Nazi Party?’

  ‘How did you … That fool Kalogirou talked.’

  ‘Yes. I put a bomb in his office and locked him in.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t worry, it was a fake. As you know, I don’t kill people. Or haven’t done yet.’

  ‘Is that a threat?’

  ‘You’re fucking right it is. Tell me what’s going on or I’ll be outside your house tomorrow morning.’

  ‘You don’t know where I live.’

  ‘That’s what you think.’

  ‘What do you mean “what’s going on”? You’re the smartarse investigator.’

  Mavros took a deep breath. ‘Let me make this simple for you. Why did Kalogirou call you last night?’

  ‘I … I knew nothing about his plan to abduct you.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Honestly.’ Mavros swallowed a laugh – when operators like a police brigadier used such words you knew you were being pissed on. ‘I suppose he got a bit nervous when he realised who you were.’

  Mavros looked at Rachel, who was sitting on a low wall. ‘He knew who I and my client were since the rally.’

  ‘Well, if you must make a spectacle of yourselves on TV …’

  ‘Is the Son involved in this?’

  ‘The Son? Certainly not. I told you I would never bring that lunatic back.’

  Mavros was almost convinced – a genuinely outraged tone was hard to pull off. ‘So who firebombed the Fat Man’s house?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  Which may have been true. ‘All right, what do you think I’m doing up here?’

  ‘I know what you’re doing.’

  ‘At least you didn’t try to feign innocence. Any comments?’

  There was a pause. ‘Beyond incomprehension that you’re looking for a man who died sixty years ago?’

  Mavros knew Kriaras was playing with him. ‘There aren’t many Jews left in Greece. But there are plenty of people – important people – descended from collaborators and black-marketeers, aren’t there?’

  Silence.

  ‘What if Aron Samuel, or his descendants, are getting ready to take out prominent Thessaloniki citizens? I don’t include that worm Kalogirou in that group.’

  ‘What are you talking about? There have been no attacks.’

  ‘Maybe they practised on Tareq Momani.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Don’t play stupid. It’s insulting.’

  ‘The Jordanian? Why would they do that?’

  ‘You’re the hot-shot cop.’

  ‘If you have any information about Aron Samuel or anyone else that might lead to the prevention of a major crime, it’s your duty as a Greek citizen to report it.’

  Mavros laughed. ‘Don’t talk to me about duty. Your colleagues here should have thrown Kalogirou and the rest of the Phoenix Rises into the old prison on the hill after they laid into those immigrants.’

  ‘Look, I think it’s time you spoke to the head of organised crime in Thessaloniki.’

 
‘Why? You tell him what to do, don’t you. The minister and the people who pull his chain use you as their bugler.’

  Kriaras sighed. ‘All right, have it your own way, but don’t be surprised if you get taken in. This is all I can give you. There are indications that a Mossad death squad is operating in the co-capital. What we don’t know is if this Aron Samuel has links to it.’

  ‘And they took out Momani, leaving swastikas to frame the Nazis?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  Mavros watched Rachel as she picked up her laptop bag and walked away from the museum entrance.

  ‘OK, leave it with me.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You people can’t do your jobs, so allow me to take over.’ Mavros broke the connection. He had to have an in-depth conversation with Rachel Samuel.

  They took a taxi back to the hotel. Going through museum security with a loaded pistol wasn’t a good idea – he was now sure the weapon was real.

  ‘What’s the plan?’ Rachel asked, as they passed the beige tower.

  Mavros was looking out to sea. ‘You’ve been playing me for a fool, haven’t you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He laughed emptily. ‘How many jewellery executives know how to handle both themselves and firearms?’

  ‘You’d be surprised how rough some of the places I visit are.’

  ‘Stop it, Rachel. You’re playing at least a double game, though maybe your multiplication is even more advanced than that.’

  She put her hand on his mouth lightly. ‘Not here. Wait till we get to the hotel.’

  ‘You think? It wouldn’t surprise me if both our rooms are bugged.’

  ‘All right, where then?’

  Mavros told the driver to head to the Eptapyrgio. As the car went up the steep road to the upper city, he glanced at Rachel. She was looking out at the narrow streets and the battlements ahead. As usual her face was composed, the expression stern. He wondered what it would take to break down the barriers she had erected around herself.

  They got out at the gate to the partially ruined citadel and looked over the city to the sea.

  ‘This was the culmination of the Byzantine defensive walls,’ Mavros said, remembering the visit he’d made with his brother. Andonis had explained to him about Gedi Koulé, as the old fort was known. It was still a prison when they’d been there, a place of pilgrimage where many Communists, men and women, had been executed.