Spies of the Balkans

would have laughed. But the world had changed, the war was coming south, and only the British alliance might save the country.

And didn’t they know it.

“It’s really rather important,” Escovil said. “Is there somewhere …?”

Skata. “You can come to the office after six,” Zannis said, a sharp edge to his voice. “Do you know where it is?”

“I don’t.”

Oh yes you do. Zannis gave him directions, then said, “It’s very private here, once everyone’s gone home, you needn’t be concerned.” And the hell with your damn bookstores and empty churches.

And so, at five minutes past six, there he was. “Hello.”

He’d been drinking, Zannis could smell it on him. And there were shadows beneath his eyes, which made him seem, with his sand-colored hair swept across his forehead, more than ever a boy grown old. Beneath a soiled raincoat, the battered tweed jacket.

Once he was seated on the other side of the desk, Zannis said, “So then, what do you want?”

Such directness caused Escovil to clear his throat. “We must ask a favor of you.”

We. Well, now that was out of the way, what next? Not that he wanted to hear it.

“It has to do with your ability to bring refugees, bring them secretly, from northern Europe to Salonika.”

“You know about this?”

“We do.” Escovil’s tone was apologetic-the secret service was what it was and sometimes, regretfully, it worked.

“And so?”

“We need to make use of it, for a fugitive of our own. An important fugitive-that is, important to the British war effort.”

Zannis lit a cigarette. That done, he said, “No.” Lighting the cigarette had given him an opportunity to amend his first answer, which had been, Get out of my office.

Escovil looked sorrowful. “Of course. That’s the proper response, for you. It’s what I would say, in your place.”

Then good-bye.

“You fear,” Escovil went on, “that it might jeopardize your operation and the people who run it.”

“It could very well destroy it, Escovil. Then what becomes of the men and women trying to get out of Germany? I’ll tell you what: they’re trapped, they’re arrested, and then they are at the mercy of the SS. Want more?”

“No need,” Escovil said, very quietly. “I know.” He was silent for a time, then he said, “Which might still happen, even if you refuse to help us.”

“Which will happen.”

“Then …”

“It’s a question of time. The longer we go on, the more lives saved. And if some of our fugitives are caught, we can try to fix the problem, and we can continue. People run away all the time, and the organization designed to catch them adjusts, gets what information it can, and goes to work the next day. But if they discover an important fugitive, perhaps a secret agent, it suggests the existence of others, and then the organization starts to multiply-more money, more men, more pressure from above. And that’s the end of us.”

“He’s not a secret agent.”

“No?”

“No. He’s a downed airman. Who, it turns out, is a scientist, and shouldn’t have been allowed to join the RAF, and certainly shouldn’t have been allowed to fly bomber missions. But he escaped the attention of the department which-umm, attends to such individuals. And now they want him back.”

“And you can’t get him back on your own? You?”

“I don’t like saying this, but that’s what we’re doing.”

“And I don’t like saying this, but you’re endangering many lives.”

“Well, frankly,” Escovil said, “we do nothing else. We don’t want to, we’d rather not, but it seems to work out that way.”

Zannis thought for a time. “You have no alternative?”

“Not today.”

“I’ll tell you something, Escovil, if I find out you’re lying to me you’ll be on the next boat out of here.”

“I take your point, but that won’t happen. Don’t you see? It’s gone beyond that now. The war, everything.” He paused, then said, “And I’m not lying.”

“Oh, well, in that case …”

“I’m not. And you can assure yourself that the individual is precisely who I say he is.”

“Really? And how exactly would I do that?”

“Ask him.”

Zannis didn’t go directly home. He stopped at the neighborhood taverna, had an ouzo, then another, and considered a third but, nagged by guilt over putting off Melissa’s dinner, hurried back to Santaroza Lane. Then too, the third ouzo wouldn’t, he realized, have much more effect than the first two, which had had no effect whatsoever. His mind was too engaged, too embroiled, to be soothed by alcohol. It lifted briefly, then went back to work. Sorry!

He simply could not persuade himself that Escovil was lying. Years of police work had sharpened his instincts in this area, and he trusted them more than ever. After Escovil’s little surprise-“Ask him”-he’d gone on to explain the proposed operation, which was artfully conceived and made sense. Made the most perfect sense, as long as Zannis was willing to accept a certain level of danger. And who-given the time and circumstance-wouldn’t? Not him. He had to go to Paris. He had to go to Paris. And do what had to be done. And that was that.

Lying on the bed in his underwear, he reached toward the night table and had a look, yet again, at the photograph he’d been given. Yes, Byer was exactly who Escovil had said he was, bruises and all. And how had Escovil’s organization managed to get the photograph out of France? Escovil had claimed not to know and, as before, Zannis believed him. Next he studied the second photograph of Byer, the one in the Sardakis passport, a real passport photo, it seemed, and a real Greek passport. Perhaps for them not so difficult but, even so, impressive. So, was this a man who would murder his wife and her lover in a fit of jealousy? Well, it surely was-the owlish, seemingly harmless intellectual. Skata! He’d seen such murderers, that was exactly what they looked like!

He returned the passport and the photograph to the night table and turned his mind toward what he had to do in the morning. The gun. Why had he not replaced his Walther, lost in the Trikkala bombing? Why was he so …

The telephone. Who would call him here, his mother? She had no telephone, but, in an emergency … “Hello?”

“Hello, it’s me.”

Her! “Demetria. Did … did I give you this number?”

“Are you angry with me?”

“Good God no!”

“Vasilou had it, in a card index in his study.”

“Is everything … all right?”

“Better now. But it’s been a terrible week, Vasilou is suddenly affectionate, back early from the office, wanting, you know. But poor Demetria has eaten a bad fish. He is enraged, shouting. He will buy the restaurant and fire the cook! Meanwhile, I hide in the bathroom.” A memory of that moment drew from her a kind of amused snort. “Anyhow, at last I’m free to telephone. It is the servants’ night out but they dawdled before they left and I realized you wouldn’t be at work.”

“Can you come here now? Even for a little while? Just to see you….”