The Lost Temple

by Tom Harper

  “Me,” said Muir. “Get your hat and your gun. Jackson’s man just rang in. Molho’s arrived at the club.”

  They almost ran out of the hotel. There was some sort of commotion at the reception desk as they strode past—Grant thought he heard the girl calling his name—but he was already halfway out of the door and ignored her. Muir drove, a pre-war Wolseley he had picked up from the embassy motor pool. His driving was as aggressive as the rest of him: he raced the car down the beach-front road with no regard for the holidaymakers, donkeys and pedestrians who made up most of the traffic.

  They knew something was wrong the moment they got there. An army jeep had pulled up outside, blocking the mouth of the alley. An American soldier guarded it and another infantryman stood at the top of the steps that led down to the cellar.

  The sentry by the jeep strolled toward the Wolseley. The driver’s door almost flattened him as Muir leaped out. “Is Jackson here?”

  Jackson was waiting for them inside, together with a man in a blue suit whom Grant didn’t recognize. Smoke from the night before still clouded the air, but the music was gone. Stools and chairs stood stacked on tables, their legs in the air like sea urchins; half a dozen music stands were tucked behind a curtain; a mop oozed water into its bucket. In a strange way it reminded Grant of the palace at Knossos. An archaeologist could find these artifacts in a thousand years and never understand what had happened there.

  Molho lay in the middle of the room under a white sheet—a tablecloth that someone had thought to lay over him. He couldn’t have been dead for long. Red smears stained the tablecloth, as if a careless diner had spilled a bottle of wine, and a dark pool seeped from under the hem.

  “It’s a hell of a thing,” said Jackson. “They really did a job on him. Teeth, fingers, the works.” He sounded brutally dispassionate, a tradesman delivering a bill of goods. “Whatever secrets he had, you can be damn sure he told them.” With the toe of his shoe he tugged back the cloth to reveal the face. “That him?”

  Molho’s face was a horrific sight. Grant had seen worse in the war—not much worse, but enough to keep his composure. “That was him. Poor bastard.” He’d liked the man, as much as he’d known him. It seemed impossibly cruel that he should have survived the war and all its horrors, only to meet this end. But then, the world, as Grant well knew, could be an impossibly cruel place. “Cover him up, for God’s sake.”

  Jackson kicked the sheet back over his face. “Mike here”—he gestured to the man in the blue suit—“was watching the place. When Molho showed, he scrammed to the nearest phone to call me. Missed the bad guys going in. Shame.”

  Mike grimaced. “I didn’t realize they were in there until they came out. Jumped in a black Mercedes and drove off.”

  “Did you see the number plate?” said Muir.

  “I did, but . . .” Mike shifted uneasily. “It’s those goddamn Greek letters. You don’t recognize them, you know?”

  “Molho’s car was a black Mercedes,” said Grant. He gave them the number—another habit he’d learned at SOE.

  “We’ll get the local cops to put out a bulletin. Probably won’t do jack, but you gotta try. We’ve got guys at the ports and airports too on Red watch. Maybe they’ll show up there.”

  “They’d better turn up somewhere,” said Muir tightly. “I think we have to assume that the Soviets came here to ask the same questions we wanted to put to him. I think we also have to assume that they didn’t let him die until they had the answers. With Molho dead, Dr. Belzig’s our only link to the second half of that tablet.”

  “You’re assuming we have to find him.” Three pairs of eyes turned to face Grant. “Even if Belzig does get the whole tablet, he’s not going to be able to read it. Who’s he going to come after then?”

  Jackson and his colleague stayed to search the building for any records Molho might have kept. Muir and Grant drove back to the library to pick up Reed and Marina. No one spoke as they drove back along the beach-front road to the hotel. A low haze hung over the sea, blurring the island silhouettes on the horizon; it caught the light of the sinking sun and puffed it into a nebula of pink and gold on the water.

  They trooped into the hotel in silence. All Grant could think of was a cold bath and a glass of beer, but as they passed reception one of the girls ran out from behind the desk and accosted him. “O Kyrios Grant.” She thrust a slip of paper into his hands. “A message for you.”

  Grant looked at the paper. There was only one word, carefully written out in block Latin characters. Whoever wrote it had obviously struggled with the unfamiliar alphabet: the tentative strokes and wobbly lines looked more like a child’s writing: SOURCELLES.

  “Did you take this message?” Grant asked the girl.

  She nodded. “On the telephone. He spelled it out very carefully.”

  “What time?”

  She pointed to a small note in the corner: 13:47. He must have rung just before the Russians arrived. Grant winced as he remembered the sight of the body.

  “What is it?” Muir pulled the paper out of his fingers and examined it. “Sourcelles? What the hell is that?”

  “Maybe the man who bought the tablet.”

  “And how the fucking hell are we supposed to find him? Get the Paris phone book? Ring the French embassy?” Muir turned away in disgust. But Marina was suddenly animated. She delved in her handbag and pulled out the slim notebook she had been using at the library. She flicked through the pages, then stopped. Wordlessly, she passed it to Grant, holding the page open with her thumb.

  The paper was covered with her small, neat writing—all in Greek, except for one word that leaped out at Grant like a bullet between the eyes: Sourcelles.

  CHAPTER 20

  North Aegean, near Thessalonica. Two days later

  The seaplane soared high over the water like a messenger from the gods. In the dazzling sunlight the tips of its silver wings rippled like molten glass in a furnace. No wonder Zeus so often appeared as an eagle, Reed thought, for this was a god’s eye view of a land that only gods could have made. The clouds below lapped round an archipelago of thrusting mountain peaks, while further west, where the clouds parted, the sun shone on the sea like a sheet of sapphire. He murmured to himself:

  . . . the sandals of celestial mold,

  Fledged with ambrosial plumes, and rich with gold,

  Surround her feet: with these sublime she sails

  The aerial space, and mounts the winged gales;

  O’er earth and ocean wide prepared to soar,

  Her dreaded arm a beamy javelin bore.

  What would Homer have written, Reed wondered, if he could have seen his country from here?

  It had taken them the best part of a day to track down Sourcelles, a day spent shouting into telephones and tapping out telegrams in the offices at the Hotel Grande Bretagne. From that little room, tentacles of enquiry had gone out all over Europe: first to consulates, libraries, universities, and—most often—the gray building off Victoria Street; then gradually closing in around tax offices, mayors and local police chiefs. By the end of the day Muir had been able to report back to Jackson at the hotel.

  “Luc de Sourcelles. Naturalised Greek, but French originally, as you’d guess from the name. His family comes from Bordeaux—they were involved in shipbuilding, which is what brought him to Greece originally. He inherited a fortune, which he’s mostly plowed into his collection of ancient Greek artifacts. He’s a nut on the subject—obsessed with the age of heroes. Corresponded with Schliemann’s widow—occasionally pops up to badger some obscure Europe an archaeologist. They humor him because they hope he’ll fund them. No one will say so, but everyone thinks he’s a crackpot. Famously—if that’s the right word—reclusive. Widowed, one daughter, lives in a mansion in Macedonia, outside Thessalonica. Ten years ago he wrote a monograph, published privately in Paris: La Mort d’Achille et son Audelà.”

  “What’s that when it’s at home?”

  “The Death of Achille
s and His Afterlife. His speciality. Marina found out about it researching the White Island. That’s why she had the name in her notebook.”

  “Any good?”

  “They didn’t have it in the library,” Marina explained. “I just found a reference to it in a footnote in another book.”

  “Huh. And you think he’s the guy who bought the second piece of the tablet off the dead Yid?”

  “It would make sense. The writing alone would have interested him—and then there’s the painting on the back. Reed thinks there might have been something in the picture that hinted at Achilles, or the shield, or even the White Island.”

  “Did you manage to get in touch?”

  “We tried to phone him but couldn’t get through. There’s been a lot of rebel activity up in the north of Greece—the lines may have been damaged.”

  Jackson had scowled. “Then we’d better go visit with him. And hope we get there before the Reds show up.”

  Thessalonica was a gloomy city spread round a bay. Ghostly mansions lined the waterfront; much of the port still showed the ravages of the recent war. Beyond, a few minarets raised their heads above the skyline, a reminder of more distant invasions. Even now, it felt like a city near the front lines of a war. As the seaplane chugged into the harbor, they passed between warships and transports waiting to discharge their cargo, their hulls as gray as the skies overhead.

  A car met them at the docks, a black Packard driven by an American soldier. A serial number was stencilled along the hood of the car and another one along the right chest pocket of the driver. “Lieutenant Kirby,” he introduced himself, reiterating what was written on his uniform. He couldn’t hide his surprise as he looked over the rest of the group. Reed, in his donnish tweed and spectacles; Muir, who always looked to Grant like a black marketeer with his sharp suit and darting eyes; Marina, in a demure black dress belted at the waist; and Grant, whom he probably took for the mechanic. “HQ told me to take you wherever you want to go, sir.”

  “Did they say anything else?” said Jackson.

  “Only that I shouldn’t ask any questions.”

  Jackson clapped him on the shoulder. “Good man. Now, we need to get to a place called the Villa Pelion. Know it?”

  “No, sir.” Kirby pulled out a map and spread it over the Packard’s hood. Grant leaned over to look; he was surprised to see that all the markings were in German.

  “Greeks can’t make maps for shit, sir,” Kirby explained. “It’s easiest to use the ones the Krauts left.”

  Jackson tapped the map with his pen. “That’s the place.”

  Kirby looked worried. “The Reds are pretty busy up that way, sir. There’s a radio in the vehicle—I could call in for some back-up if you like. Might take a little while, but . . .”

  Jackson glanced at his watch. “No time. The bad guys want this guy too. Just get us there as quick as you can.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Before they left, Kirby rummaged in the trunk and brought out a Sten gun with a folding stock. He handed it to Grant, who was squeezed in the front seat with Jackson. “You know how to use this?”

  Grant nodded.

  “Keep it handy. Just in case.”

  They drove out of the city, through the flat pasture and wheat fields that occupied the coastal plain. After so much famine, the crops were at last beginning to grow back, pushing their way between the concrete pillboxes and twisted steel tank traps that still littered the landscape. Not all the obstacles were in the past, either. Three times they had to stop to pass through checkpoints manned by Greek soldiers. Each time, Kirby’s uniform got them through unmolested; each time, Jackson handed over a copy of Belzig’s photograph with instructions to stop him if they saw him.

  “What’s the latest on the civil war?” Jackson asked, in between two of the roadblocks. “Are we winning?”

  “You’d probably know better than me, sir.” Kirby kept his eyes on the road. “I just got here. Officially, I don’t arrive for another three months. But from what I hear it’s not good. The DSE . . .”

  “Who are the DSE?” Reed inquired from the back. The bumps and potholes had left him pale, and he pressed an arm against the ceiling to brace himself.

  “Deemo-kratikos Stratos Eladdas.” Marina winced to hear Kirby manhandling her language the same way he crunched through the Packard’s gears. “Demo cratic Army of Greece. Commies, to you and me. From what I hear, they’re doing pretty OK. They’re not just taking pot-shots at convoys any more—they’re trying to take the cities. Stalin’s supplying them through Yugoslavia and Albania. And now the Brits have dropped out—no offense—if we don’t hold the line here they’ll roll us up all the way to Athens.” He shook his head. “It’s a helluva thing. But we’re hitting back. Way I figure it, most of these guys are just peasants, sheep stealers. They won’t have the stomach for a stand-up fight.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Grant warned him. “Most of them learned their trade against the Nazis. Before that, they spent five years underground resisting the Metaxas dictatorship. They know all about fighting dirty little wars.”

  “Lucky for them they found someone to supply their guns,” said Muir drily. His eyes met Grant’s in the rearview mirror for a second, before Grant looked down at the Sten gun in his lap. If he had regrets, he didn’t let them show.

  After a few miles the road left the plain and began winding up into the hills. The higher they climbed, the lower the sky seemed to get. A hard ceiling of cloud pressed down on them, filling the spaces between the dark, scrawny pines that crowded the slopes. The road deteriorated to little more than a forest track. Kirby looked exhausted from the effort of wrestling with the wheel as he struggled to navigate the endless switchbacks, ruts, rocks and fallen trees that impeded their way. The rest of them held on to whatever they could and tried to gulp down breaths of air, while Grant gripped the Sten and scanned the impenetrable forest.

  They passed a village—a mean place, half derelict. They would have assumed it had been abandoned if not for the shadows that moved inside the empty windows and splintered doorways, watching them pass. Jackson, squeezed between Grant and Kirby in the front seat, wriggled his hand inside his jacket to reach the Colt pistol tucked under his shoulder.

  They came round a bend on the flank of the mountain and saw the house at last. They could hardly have missed it. A huge slice of the hillside had been carved off and levelled into two broad terraces across the face of the mountain. The lower level seemed to be gardens; above, buttressed by a huge retaining wall, perched a mansion that could have graced any estate in the Loire valley. Everything about it—from the lead tiles of its squat, steep-sided roof, to the white limestone walls, to the box hedges and gravel paths that surrounded it—could have been imported wholesale from France. Perhaps they had been.

  The road ended at a wrought-iron gate. Two marble lions gazed down from the gateposts, aloof and disdainful. Grant jumped out of the car and tried the gate. It was locked, but there was a black brass button set into one of the pillars. He pushed it and waited.

  Kirby craned his head out of the car window. “Nobody home?” His voice sounded small and feeble against the brooding immensity of the mountain; the cloud and pines seemed to swallow it up.

  “You said he was a recluse. Maybe . . .”

  Grant broke off and turned to look down the gravel driveway. He stared.

  A stiff figure in a black raincoat and bowler hat was walking toward them, his crisp footsteps crunching on the path. He held a black umbrella erect in his left hand; a bunch of keys jangled in his right. There was something of the bank clerk or the railway station attendant about him. He came to a precise halt, three feet back from the gate, and stared at them through the iron bars. “Oui?”

  A fat-bellied raindrop landed on the back of Grant’s hand as Reed leaned out of the car window and said, “Dites à Monsieur Sourcelles que le Professeur Arthur Reed est venu pour lui voir.”

  The butler—he must be a butler, Gr
ant thought—stepped behind the gatepost and pulled out a telephone receiver concealed within. He spoke a few words, listened, nodded. “Monsieur Sourcelles is honored that Professor Reed has come so far to visit. He would very much have liked to greet him. But—malheureusement—he is busy.”

  Grant resisted the urge to threaten him with the Sten gun. “Tell Monsieur Sourcelles it is very important. Tell him it concerns the clay tablet he bought in Athens in 1941. Tell him his life is in danger. Not from me,” he added.

  The butler stared at him, dark eyes in deep sockets. With obvious reluctance he picked up the telephone again and spoke a few more words. “Oui. Oui. Bon.

  “Monsieur Sourcelles welcomes you.”

  The butler opened the gate and they rolled up the driveway, between flower beds and lawns, willows and laurel hedges. Further away, through the poplars that hemmed the estate, Grant could see the alabaster outline of a domed classical temple—presumably a folly, though beside the house it seemed almost rational.

  The car ground to a halt at the foot of a stairway that led up to the main house. The rain was heavier now. Forgetting decorum, they piled out of the car, ran up the stairs with their jackets and bags held over their heads, and pushed through the open door. They waited there, trembling and dripping, until the butler reappeared to show them through.

  The inside of the château—none of them could think of it as a villa—was stark and cold. Everything seemed to be carved from white marble: the floors, the stairs, the Corinthian half-columns set into the walls. Marble busts, all ancient, stared from marble pedestals and marble athletes flexed marble muscles in marble alcoves.