Spies of the Balkans

“I know, but our friend in Istanbul …”

“Why don’t I give you two thousand, four hundred today, and I’ll make up the remainder at our next meeting.”

“Oh very well,” she said. “If I must. I’ll send the papers over when they’re ready.”

“Thank you, Madam Urglu,” Zannis said, meaning it.

“Of course they could be free,” she said. “It wouldn’t take much. Really. It wouldn’t.”

Her face softened. She was-Zannis saw it-almost pleading. He nodded, sympathy in his eyes. “Yes,” he said. “I know.”

As to what exactly he knew, he didn’t say. Perhaps that it was a hard machine, national interest, which would in time destroy both of them. She was, without doubt, perfectly aware that he would never spy on his British ally-no? Not that he couldn’t-and Madam Urglu understood precisely his standing in the politics of Salonika-because he could. He’d seen, of all things, a memorandum from the traffic office of the police department. “Interruption of traffic planned to begin on 2 February, for important waterfront construction.” A new municipal garden, perhaps? But he would not, could not, reveal such things, no matter how little it would mean for the Turks to know in advance about the additional armament. They’d see it, eventually. But eventually was the active word. Until then, well, one didn’t spy on a faithful friend, it just wasn’t done.

All that much.

The commissionaire-doorman, porter, messenger-at the Tobacco Hotel was a straight-backed old fellow who’d fought valiantly, in his day, against the Turkish gendarmerie. Very solemn and courtly, in the old-world manner. The assistant manager had found for him somewhere, probably in the markets, a doorman’s overcoat from some bygone hotel. The epaulets were ragged-more than a few gold braids missing-three of the gold buttons had been replaced, and the original owner had obviously been taller and heavier than the present one. Still, it was the uniform he had, and he wore it with pride.

He was more than aware of the new guests, who spoke German, and who’d clearly had a hard time of it. One in particular touched his heart-she was thin as a rail, with iron-gray hair cut quite short. Likely an aristocrat, in the past, who never failed to give him a gratuity, a pitiful coin or two, when he went out to get her something to eat. Yes, pitiful, but the best she could do, and she never failed him.

Going to work one morning he took a detour through the market, and there was his young nephew, a sweet boy, working at a flower stall. They gossiped for a few minutes and then, as they parted, his nephew handed him a small bouquet and said, “Here, Uncle, take this. Brighten up your room.” He said thank you and then, later, on a sudden impulse, took the bouquet up to the nice lady’s room. “Please,” he said, fixing the bouquet in a water glass. “To brighten up your room.” Oh how she was moved, by this generous act. And he would not accept the coin she offered him.

Instead, they talked. Or at least she did. He would not sit down, but stood by the door as she told him her story. She came from Berlin, from a prominent family, at one time, but then the odious Hitler had risen to power and their circumstances declined quickly. Most of them had left, years earlier, and she finally had to follow them. But it had been a dreadful trip, into Hungary and down through the Balkans: unheated railway cars, almost nothing to eat, and police controls every day. Fortunately, some people had helped her, and for this she was grateful. She was no more explicit than that. He said he would hope for, on her behalf, a better future, and left with a nod of the head that suggested a bow. And the flowers did, indeed, brighten up the room.

Two days later, he had his weekly meeting with the British travel writer, not long resident in the city, called Escovil. They met, as usual, in one of the old Byzantine churches, and there the commissionaire passed along bits of gossip about the city and various doings at the hotel-Escovil was always curious about foreign guests. For this the commissionaire was paid a small stipend, money which, given his meagre salary, made all the difference in the way he lived.

Was it wrong? He didn’t find it so. He would never have given information to a German, or even a Frenchman, but the British: that was another story. They had been good friends to Greece, as far back as the nineteenth century when the great English poet, Lordos Vyronos himself, Lord Byron, had come to fight in their wars of independence; and the British had fought and died in the hills of Macedonia, in 1917, where they’d faced the Bulgarian army.

That afternoon, the commissionare told the travel writer about the aristocratic German lady and her difficult passage to Salonika. Was she, Escovil wanted to know, the only one? No, there were a few others, and, he’d heard, more were expected. And a good thing too. In these times of war, people didn’t travel so often, and there were too many empty rooms at the hotel. And these rooms were paid for in full, promptly, by the well-regarded police official himself, Constantine Zannis, from an old Salonika family.

Escape line!

Francis Escovil hurried back to the room he kept at the Pension Bastasini, where his predecessor in Salonika, Roxanne Brown, had stayed. There he wrote a report of his contact with the commissionaire, then drove his car out to a house on the Chalkidiki peninsula, where his assistant encrypted the message and sent it on to London by wireless/telegraph.

The following night, the Secret Intelligence Service wired back. And very excited they were! Could he get at least one name? One true name? There had been, for some years, contact with anti-Nazi Germans in Berlin: intellectuals, lawyers, Communist workers, and aristocrats; some Jewish, some not. Were the people using the escape line from that group? Or another, that they didn’t know about? Were “the friends”-operatives of the Jewish agencies in Palestine-involved? Could this policeman Zannis be recruited? Bribed? Coerced? Intimidated? Find out more! Most urgent!

Escovil was, despite himself, almost amused. Hit a tender spot, have I? It reminded him of something he’d heard about Churchill, who, excited by some new discovery, would head his minutes, memoranda, with the phrase Action this day. Escovil’s assistant was less amused; the five-digit groups of numbers took a long time to decrypt. “The hell have you done?” he grumbled. To the fishing village outside the cottage, he was known as Plato, a deaf-mute taken to be Escovil’s intimate companion. In fact his name was Geary, formerly a corporal in the Irish Guards and a famous pub brawler. Once, to emphasize the nature of the companionship, Escovil had taken his hand as they walked through the village. This was a practice common enough between any and all Greek men, but Geary didn’t like it and said, in an undertone, “Let go me fookin’ hand, you damned poofter.” To Escovil, a Greek woman radio operator would have been a more credible arrangement, but there weren’t any such to be found, so “Plato” had to serve.

In any event, the message radioed back to London wasn’t so long. He would try to learn a name. Zannis could be asked to help, but any sort of pressure wouldn’t work.

On 18 January, a hand-carried envelope reached Zannis at his office. The message within was typewritten: Colonel Simonides, of the Royal Hellenic Army General Staff, requested his presence at a meeting of “certain residents of Salonika” at a house in the officers’ quarters of the army base, east of the city. The meeting was to take place the following day, at six in the evening, and this invitation was, Zannis realized as he reread it, very close to an order. He took a taxi to the base, where he had to show his identity papers to a lieutenant, list in hand, at the guardhouse by the gate. He was then escorted to the residence of, apparently, a senior officer, with fine though well-worn furnishings. On entering a large parlor, Zannis saw that many of the guests had preceded him, to what looked like a social gathering: a number of Salonika’s rich and powerful, some with their wives; the city’s chief rabbi was there, as was Spiraki, head of the local State Security Bureau; and Vangelis, who waved to him from across the room. In one corner, a professor at the university was talking to a well-regarded journalist. There were, Zannis estimated, close to fifty people in the crowded room, sitting, standing, and drinking coffee, available at a table to one side of the doorway.

A uniformed officer-harsh, slightly reddened face, black mustache-tapped a spoon on a coffee cup to get their attention. As Zannis looked over the crowd he saw, obscured by two large guests, a flash of golden hair. Was Vasilou there? Of course, he would be. So then, was that who he thought it was? Could it be? His heart raced, and he started to move to a position where he could get a better view.

But then, the officer cleared his throat and said, “Citizens of Salonika, allow me to introduce myself, I am Colonel Simonides, and the first thing I would ask is that you will please consider this a private meeting, not a subject for gossip. Not with associates, or even friends. We-that is, the General Staff of the army-have chosen you