could see tension etched in the forehead and the jawline. The Snake was angry.
“You shouldn’t use my name.”
Elias ignored the comment. Stamatis knew them both.
“What are you doing here?” Elias demanded. It was not the tone to take with a superior, but he didn’t care. Fotis should have been with the team sent to retrieve the guns, simultaneously with Muller’s removing the icon. Elias, the only one among the guerrillas who knew where the Mother was hidden, had insisted on assigning roles. He’d never forgotten the covetous way Fotis had admired the work years before, stroking the cypress panels as he would a lover. He wanted the Snake nowhere near the church when the confiscation occurred, and leading the team that seized the guns was an honor Fotis could not refuse without revealing some ulterior motive for the whole scheme. The captain had thought it all through. A false message would get Mikalis out of the church; the Germans guarding the wrecked villa where the weapons were stored-three or four men in Muller’s pay-would fire some rounds at the andartes and withdraw. Each side would get what it wanted, and only the Prince, the Snake, and the captain would know what happened.
“Interrogating this son of a whore,” Fotis answered him.
Mavroudas had used Elias’ entry to shuffle across the small storeroom-now empty of the barrels of olives, figs, and cheese that used to crowd it-toward the front of the shop. Fotis covered the distance in two strides and flung the cowering merchant back into the old chair, which groaned beneath his sudden weight. Coiled rope and a six-inch blade sat on the table, on either side of the fat candle. Fotis had placed them carefully, to give Stamatis something to think about.
“Why aren’t you with the men I sent?”
“They are safe,” the Snake answered casually.
“What happened up there?”
Dragoumis looked at him hard.
“What do you think happened? The Prince didn’t get his gift, so he didn’t call off the men guarding the house.”
“You couldn’t overrun them?”
“We could have. There were only a few, but they had a machine gun, and it would have cost many men. God knows they were eager, but they were not my men to spend that way.”
We’re all your men, thought Elias, and you spend us in whatever manner suits you.
“So why are you here?” he pressed.
“The same reason as you. To find out what the hell happened.”
“You seem to know already.”
“I could say the same.” Fotis circled the table like a shark.
“Here we both are.”
“Kosta went into the church during the shooting. I don’t know why he went in or if he got out.” Elias could not mention Mikalis. It was too new, too raw.
“The son, yes, he is part of it.”
“And this one?” Elias kicked the chair leg and Stamatis flinched.
“This one,” Fotis answered evenly, a hand upon the merchant’s shoulder, “was seen leaving the church, with another man. And something wrapped in a bundle.”
“Before the fire?”
“During the fire.”
“Seen by whom?”
“It’s a lie,” hissed the old thief. “It’s a lie. They all hate me. Peasants. They would lie for a crust of bread. Captain Elias-”
“Enough of that.”
Dragoumis slapped the merchant’s face to quiet him, and Elias became aware that the old man’s desperate words were directed at him alone. Some tacit, if hostile, understanding already existed between the other two men. They were beyond petty issues like guilt or innocence, and bargained now for other lives, and the style of necessary deaths. Elias stepped closer to the table. Sweat glistened on Stamatis’ forehead. His clothes were clean, probably freshly put on before Fotis’ arrival, yet the bottom of his large beard was distinctly singed, and his matted gray hair smelled of smoke. The captain leaned over the shaking man.
“Where is Kosta?” he asked.
“Yes, where?” Fotis seconded. “You’ve sent him away with your prize, haven’t you? Where do you think he can go? You know we control all the countryside around here. Where will he go that I can’t find him?”
Stamatis shook his head vigorously, though what it was he denied was unclear. The whole pathetic situation, perhaps. A schemer snared in his own scheme. Intolerable. What the hell had he intended? Elias wondered. Not to get caught, first of all, but he must have known he would be suspected. To leave the village quickly? To sell the icon? To whom? To keep it until after the war? How to get answers from him? They could pretend to negotiate, but he would never believe them. Not now, not with the knife on the table. Besides, there was no time.
“I want to write a confession,” the merchant announced.
Fotis drew a deep, explosive breath, then let it out. His voice stayed calm.
“Listen to me. I am going to take your fingers off one by one until you tell me where your bastard boy is, and what you have done with the icon.”
“I want to write a confession,” Stamatis insisted, voice quavering. “I’ll tell you everything, but I want it on paper. And the captain must keep it, so one honest man will know the truth.”
“I can know it just as easily if you speak,” Elias answered, catching a withering look from the Snake for engaging in this dialogue at all.
“No, no, it must be on paper. So that you may prove I said these things. Men trust nothing spoken these days.”
It was some game the old thief was playing. Simply buying time, perhaps, but Elias decided to call his bluff.
“So, write.”
Fotis snorted in disgust but did not contradict his subordinate. Maybe he felt that the captain knew the merchant’s ways better than himself. Perhaps he feared the things Mavroudas might say in Elias’ presence, if pressed too hard. Elias knew that if he had not entered when he did, the interrogation would have reached the ugly stage by now, as it was still likely to do. And maybe that was the better course. Stamatis was stalling; Kosta-if Fotis was right about that-could not yet be far away.
The merchant snatched a stubby pencil from a cup, and a soiled sheet of brown paper from beneath the table, and began writing. Fotis risked a peek out the small window, and Elias slid over next to him.
“You got here quickly.”
“Yes.” Nothing more, of course. It was one of the Snake’s rules never to explain, never to be placed on the defensive. It meant nothing either way. Yet it seemed only natural that fellow officers should discuss such a disastrous dissolution of their plans, not to mention forge a new strategy, and Elias could not help finding his chief’s reticence disturbing.
“Where are my men now?” he asked.
“The little hill above the north road.”
“So close? Muller has fifty soldiers.”
“The church is south. For all he knows you’re still there. He won’t split up and strike north, not in the dark.”
“He could call for reinforcements.”
