He paused for a moment to swallow another drink and fill my glass.
‘How much are you embroidering this story?’ I asked.
He shrugged. ‘Not much. But the man who told me was an American and he could reproduce that Kromak stuff so you’d think you were really listening to him. I just give you the bits I remember and fill in the rest. The effect’s the same, though. Anyway, after nearly a year of the American Way and Purpose according to Lieutenant Kromak, Georghi was shifted back to Cairo. Americans again, only this time the high priest was a dairy chemist from Minnesota and the dream was in a slightly higher income bracket. Georghi read the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States and the Gettysburg Address. After that there was a filling-station proprietor from Oakland, California. He was followed by an insurance man from Hagerstown, Maryland. Then came 1944 and the surrender negotiations between Deltchev and the Anglo-American representatives. There was a British military mission operating with the partisans in Macedonia at that time. They controlled quite a large area and had a landing strip, so it wasn’t too difficult to arrange the meetings. The Anglo-Americans flew in from Foggia. Deltchev travelled overland somehow. They met in a village schoolroom. Georghi was one of the interpreters. It was after the second meeting that Georghi’s little cap went over the windmill.’
‘Wait a minute. Had he known Deltchev before?’
‘Known of him, that’s all. Well now, we get to the second meeting. They had their meeting all right, but storms delayed their return and they had to wait for twenty-four hours in the village. The atmosphere of the negotiations had been quite friendly and the wait produced a lot of general conversation about conditions inside the country, the problems, what was to be done about them, and so on. The man who told me this was on that trip. Anyway, one of the subjects discussed was the Officer Corps Brotherhood. Deltchev was very frank about the problem and the difficulties of dealing with it. Some of his revelations, in fact, were deeply shocking to the Anglo- American brass and they didn’t hesitate to tell him so. Deltchev must have wished he hadn’t mentioned the thing. But that night Georghi went to see him privately. It must have been a curious meeting. After extracting from Deltchev a lot of secrecy and immunity pledges, Georghi revealed that he was a member of the Officer Corps Brotherhood, had been one since he had returned to the land of his fathers from Italy in ’37. I told you he’d had peculiar ideas then about the way things ought to be. He’d expressed them by joining the Brotherhood. But now, he told Deltchev, all that was changed. He’d seen the light of Western democracy — all the way from Passaic, New Jersey, to Hagerstown, Maryland, he might have added — and wanted to make reparation. The long and short of it was that the Provisional Government’s big clean-up of the Brotherhood was made possible because Georghi turned stool pigeon.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because the man who told me was the officer Deltchev went to for a check-up on Georghi. The old man’s first idea, of course, had been that Georghi was either an agent provocateur or crazy. So he was very careful. But after the next meeting he had another talk with Georghi and a plan was made.’ Sibley grinned. ‘You know, Georghi did a very brave thing really, when you come to think of it. He could have stayed safely with the Americans. Instead he asked them to lend him to Deltchev and came back here. The risk was really appalling, when you think. For all he knew, the Brotherhood might have already condemned him as a traitor. He’d not stayed to collaborate. He’d been in the service of a foreign army. And now he’d turned up again, safe and sound at a time when for a civilian the journey from Athens was all but impossible. However, he took the risk and got away with it. I suppose that outside this place the Brotherhood’s intelligence system didn’t operate, and in all the confusion nobody bothered to ask many questions. Georghi rejoined his cell and the game began. There were ten Brothers to a cell. Georghi would turn in the names of seven of them to Deltchev. Then the three survivors, Georghi among them, would attach themselves to another cell and in the next cell purge the survivors of the first one would go with the rest. All except Georghi. He was the permanent survivor. But because of the secret way the Brotherhood was organized, nobody could know how many purges our man had survived. He always arrived with the credentials and code words of the cell just betrayed and he’d always see that those who came with him were at the top of his next list. So there was never anyone to say that where he went disaster followed. It was always the first time with him. But still risky. After a time the word got round that there was treachery, and the remainder of the Brotherhood disintegrated. As a safety measure, Georghi had himself arrested on suspicion and then released. He’d done all he could. Deltchev had him quietly shipped back to the Americans. That’s when I met him.’
‘But why didn’t you recognize him at once?’
‘He had a moustache then and, as I told you, a uniform. As a matter of fact, he was so American it was difficult to believe that he’d never been out of Europe. His boss in Germany, Colonel Macready, was the last of the prophets as far as Georghi was concerned. He came from Texas. You know that seersucker suit Georghi wears? Macready gave it to Georghi as a going-away present. It came from a department store in Houston. It was also a kind of consolation prize. Georghi had tried every way he could to get a quota number for America, but it was no good. So he came back here and claimed his reward.’ He paused.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, just think. Four or five years ago he came back here without a penny to his name. Now he’s got this place, which I can tell you is quite expensive by local standards, and an established press agency with a dollar income. How did he do it?’
‘He’s quite efficient.’
‘But no genius. Besides, the Pan-Eurasian was a going concern long before the war.’
‘You know the answer?’
‘Yes. I did a bit of checking up. The Pan-Eurasian was originally a French company incorporated in Monaco. It took a bit of doing, but I managed to find out all about it through our Paris office. I got word today from them. Like a little surprise?’
‘Yes.’
‘All right, then. All the shares in the Pan-Eurasian Press Service were purchased in 1946 from the French syndicate that owned them. Forty-nine per cent of them are in the name of Georghi Pashik. All of them were bought with a draft signed by the person who owns the other fifty-one per cent.’ He stopped and grinned again.
‘Well, who is it?’
‘Madame Deltchev.’
My mind turned a somersault. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Sure? Of course I’m sure.’
‘She’d be a nominee, of course.’
He laughed. ‘Nominee? That woman? Don’t be silly. She ran Papa Deltchev as if he were a family business. And if you’ve fallen for that holier-than-thou line of hers, you’d better think again. I’m a newspaper reporter, Foster, dear, and I’ve met some very tough ladies and gentlemen, but that one is up near the top of the list. When I was here two years ago, she was running the country. If there were any nominees around they were her husband and that secretary of his, Petlarov. She did the thinking. She wrote the speeches. She made the policy. Do you think that dried-up little lawyer could have got to power on his own? Not on your life! The only thing he ever did without consulting her was to make a damn-fool radio speech that virtually handed over the whole country to the People’s Party. Papa Deltchev? Don’t make me laugh! They’re not trying a man in that courtroom. It’s a legend they’re after and I bet she’s still fighting like a steer to preserve it. Why shouldn’t she? It’s her work. She’s the only Deltchev they’re sitting in judgment on.’
I shook my head. ‘Oh no, she isn’t.’
He stared. ‘No?’
‘No. You may be right about her husband, but she didn’t control all the Deltchevs.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Her son, Philip. He’s a member of the Brotherhood. He was recruited by Pazar. And he’s the Deltchev who was the leader of the conspiracy against Vukashin. You see, they’re using the evidence against the son to convict the father and they know it.’
Sibley stared at me, his face sagging.
‘What’s more,’ I went on dully, ‘the conspiracy is still in existence. And Philip Deltchev is still alive. I carried a letter from his sister, Katerina, to him. The address was Patriarch Dimo 9 and instead of Philip I found Pazar shot through the back of the head. Then Pashik turned up. Where he is in this I don’t know. But he turned up and took me to see a man named Aleko, who says he is of the secret police, but isn’t. In fact he’s a professional assassin who makes a habit of shooting people through the back of the head. He seemed to be in charge of the whole affair.
