get rid of him.'
Bond's Greek was small but well-chosen. He leant close to the man, who was staring at him contemptuously, and said in his deadliest tone, '_Fiye apo tho, malaka__.'
This, though probably as obscene as anything the man had been saying to the girl, is a standard Greek insult. What made it effective was Bond's air of determination and his sudden grip on the man's nearer arm. There was a pause while the two men stared at each other and Bond tightened his grip, noticing half-consciously that the arm was distinctly harder than its owner's general corpulence would have suggested. Then the Turk quickly and quite calmly let go the girl, waited for his own arm to be released, rose to his feet, adjusted his jacket, and walked out of the bar. His departure did not go unnoticed by the two couples Bond had picked out earlier. 'Thank you,' said the girl in excellent American English. 'I'm sorry about that. I could see no other way without a public disturbance. You dealt with him very competently.' She chuckled suddenly, a warm-hearted, gay sound that showed remarkably quick recovery from the fear she had been displaying. 'You must have had practice.'
'Shall we have a drink?' asked Bond, raising his hand. 'Yes, I rescue girls from obscenity-spouting Turks all the time.'
'Thank you. Tzimas isn't a Turk. He just behaves like one. But he is obscene. My family have been pushing me at him - he has a good carpet-manufacturing business here. After this tonight my mother will talk to my father and there'll be no more pushing in that direction. Are you married?'
Bond smiled. 'No. I sometimes think I never will be. What will you have?'
'Ouzo and ice,' said the girl, glancing up at the waiter. 'Not that Sans Rival stuff you serve all the time. Have you Boutari?'
'Certainly, madam. And for you, sir?'
'The same. Plenty of ice.'
'You know ouzo?' The girl looked at Bond consideringly. 'You know Greece well?'
'Greece I know a little and love what I know. Ouzo I know much better: a Greek version of Pernod with a much more sinister smell but similar effects. Love would be too starry-eyed a word to use there.'
'That's a slander. And not accurate. The French took it from us and flavoured it with aniseed and dyed it green. Horrible! My name is Ariadne Alexandrou.'
'Mine is Bond, James Bond. How did you know just now that I spoke English?'
The girl laughed again. 'Most people do. And you look English, Mr Bond. Nobody could mistake you, not even for an American.'
'As a matter of fact I'm not strictly English at all. Half Scottish, half Swiss.'
'The English have swallowed you, then. What are you doing in Athens? Business or pleasure?'
'Business, but I hope to get some pleasure in while I'm here.'
Ariadne Alexandrou returned Bond's gaze for a moment without reacting to it, then turned away to observe critically as the two small tumblers of cloudy drink - the cloudiness curling whitely outwards from the ice- cubes like liquid smoke - were set in front of them and as much again of water added. Bond watched her lovely profile, very Greek yet totally unlike the overrated, beaky, 'classical' look one associates with old coins, a carefully- finished sculpture overlaid with the softest tints of tan and white and olive and rose. The effect was set off by earrings in an ancient style, small thick hoops of beaten gold.
No doubt it was for her splendid appearance and obvious quickness of mind that she had been picked by the enemy - of whose presence behind the events of the past five minutes Bond was no longer in the smallest doubt. All the girl's apparent confidence and warmth had not been able to disguise the patness and predictability of the way she had established acquaintance with him. He guessed that, left to herself, she would have stage- managed things with more imagination. Some plodding middle-echelon spymaster had come up with that amorous-Turk routine. Encouraging: the other side were getting lazy. Bond brushed aside the thought that they could afford to.
The girl Ariadne had raised her glass and was looking at him with a kind of down-turning smile that might have been ugly on anyone else, but in her case only emphasized the marvellously delicate yet firm lines of her lips.
'I know the sort of thing you expect me to say now.' The smile turned upward. ' 'In Greece, when we drink to someone, we say _ees iyian__, your health, or colloquially _yassou__.' Well, sometimes we do, but half the time it's 'cheers' and 'here's looking at you' these days.' The smile faded. 'Greece isn't very Greek any more. Every year less. I'm being a little conservative and sentimental just by asking for ouzo. The newest people want vodkatini, or Scotch and soda. Are you free for dinner, Mr Bond? Shall we go out somewhere together?'
Despite himself, Bond smiled in his turn. He was beginning to enjoy the girl's tactic of wandering away from the point and then jumping back to it with a direct question. But the other half of his mind was cursing. Why hadn't he taken the simple, obvious precaution of getting something under his belt before allowing the enemy to make contact? He could visualize, as clearly as if it had already happened, the deserted street where she would lead him, the men closing in, the car, the long drive to and across the Bulgarian frontier, and then.... Bad enough on a full stomach, he thought wryly. Was there another way?
Bond sipped the deceptively mild drink, its flavour reminding him as always of the paregoric cough-sweets he had sucked as a child, before he answered. 'Splendid, I'd love to do that. But why don't we eat in the hotel? I've done a lot of travelling today and- '
'Oh, but nobody dines at the Grande Bretagne unless they have to. It's not exciting. I'll take you somewhere where they have real Greek food. You like that?'
'Yes.' Perhaps he should come part-way into the open. 'It's just that I should hate to be prevented from getting to grips with it. I've never liked being sent to bed without any supper.'
A flicker of alarm showed in the light-brown eyes, to be instantly followed by blankness. 'I don't know what you mean. All the good restaurants stay open late. What they have they will give you. The Greeks have the oldest tradition of hospitality in Europe. And that's not tourist-bureau talk. You'll see.'
The hell with it, thought Bond savagely - what could he do but play along? It was far too early to start trying to capture the initiative. He decided to give in gracefully.
