Spies of the Balkans Read online

  Saltiel looked thoughtful. “Still,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Well, I have a nephew who teaches at the technical school. Geography, among other things. A smart boy, Manni, he says that as long as Hitler stays allied with the Russians, we’re safe. But, if he attacks them, we could be in for it. On the map of Europe we’re the right flank—if somebody’s headed east, the right flank that goes to the Caucasus, for the oil. Anyhow, that’s Manni’s theory.”

  “Believe it?”

  Saltiel shrugged. “Hitler’s cunning, I wouldn’t say intelligent, but cunning. Jews he attacks, Russians he leaves alone.”

  Zannis nodded, it sounded reasonable. “Before I forget,” he said, “did you bring what I asked for?”

  “In the glove box.”

  Zannis opened the glove box and took out a Walther PPK automatic, the German weapon preferred by Balkan detectives. There were bright metal scratches on the base of the grip. “What have you been doing with this?”

  “Hanging pictures,” Saltiel said. “The last time I saw my hammer, one of the grandkids was playing with it.”

  “Kids,” Zannis said, with a smile.

  “I’m blessed,” Saltiel said. “You ought to get busy, Costa, you’re not getting any younger.”

  Zannis’s smile widened. “With Roxanne?” he said, naming his English girlfriend.

  “Well …,” Saltiel said. “I guess not.”

  8:20 P.M. It had started to rain again, a few lightning flashes out in the Aegean. “You awake?” Zannis said.

  “Just barely.”

  “You want a nap, go ahead.”

  “No thanks. Maybe later.”

  10:30 P.M. “By the way,” Zannis said, “did you telephone Madam Pappas?”

  “This morning, about eleven.”

  “And she said?”

  “That she hated her husband and she’s glad he’s dead.”

  “That’s honest.”

  “I thought so.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No, she was getting ready to scream at me, so I got off the phone—you said to go easy.”

  Zannis nodded. “Let the detectives deal with her.”

  “She kill him?”

  “She did.”

  “Naughty girl.”

  1:15 A.M. Quiet, in the city behind them. Only faint music from the tavernas on the seafront corniche and the creaking of the pier as the tide worked at the pilings. The sound was hypnotic and Zannis fought to stay awake. He took a cigarette from the flat box in his pocket—a Papastratos No. 1, top of the line in Greece—and struck a wooden match alight with his thumbnail. Expensive, these things, so a luxury for him. He made good money now, Vangelis had seen to that, but good money for a cop, which wasn’t very much, not with four people to feed. His younger brother Ari, for Aristotle, sometimes made a few drachmas by carrying messages in the city. Poor soul, he did the best he could but he wasn’t quite right, had always been “different,” and the family had long ago accepted him for who he was.

  It was getting smoky in the car and Saltiel rolled down the window. “Do you think there are men on the moon?” he said.

  “I don’t know. I suppose anything’s possible.”

  “They were arguing about it, yesterday, in the barbershop.”

  “Little green men? With one eye? Like in Buck Rogers?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Somebody in your barbershop thinks those movies are true?”

  “That’s what it sounded like.”

  “I’d change barbers, if I were you.”

  3:30 A.M. “Wake up, Gabi.”

  “I wasn’t sleeping. Not really.”

  “Here he comes.”

  Of medium height, the man wore a raincoat and carried a briefcase. He had a hard, bony, chinless face beneath a hat with the brim tilted over his eyes. As he neared the end of the pier, Zannis and Saltiel ducked down below the windshield. By now they could hear footsteps, determined and in a hurry, that approached, then faded away from them, headed around the east side of the customshouse, toward the city—to the west lay the warehouse district and the railway station. Zannis made sure of the Walther in the pocket of his jacket, slid out of the passenger seat, and was careful not to slam the door, leaving it ajar. “Give me thirty seconds, Gabi,” he said. “Then follow along, nice and slow, headlights off, and keep your distance.”

  Zannis walked quickly to the east side of the customshouse, paused at the corner, and had a quick look around it. Nobody. Where the hell had he gone? There was only one street he could have taken, which served the warehouses. Zannis, moving at a fast trot, reached the street, turned the corner, and there he was—there somebody was—about two blocks away. Now Zannis realized he was getting wet, put up his umbrella, and moved into the shelter of the high brick wall of the first warehouse. Up ahead the German sped on, with long strides, as though, Zannis thought, he was taking his evening constitutional on a path in some Deutschland forest. A few seconds later the Skoda turned the corner behind him and Zannis signaled, waving his hand backward, for Saltiel to stay where he was. Zannis could hear the engine idling as the Skoda rolled to a stop. Could the German hear it? Doubtful, especially in the rain, but Zannis couldn’t be sure—the street was dead silent.

  Then the German glanced over his shoulder and turned right, down a narrow alley. He’d likely seen Zannis, but so what? Just a man with an umbrella, trudging along, shoulders hunched, on a miserable night. Zannis walked past the alley, ignoring it, eyes on the ground ahead of him, until he passed the far corner and moved out of sight. He didn’t stop there but went farther down the street—if he could hear the German, the German could hear him—then looked for a place to hide. He saw a loading dock across from him and moved quickly, soaking one foot in a puddle between broken cobblestones, hurried up the steps and stood in the angle of the shuttered entryway and the wall, which was blind from the street—as far as the alley, anyhow. The German wasn’t going anywhere, Zannis realized, not from this alley, where, a few years earlier, a porter had stabbed Hamid the moneylender in an argument over a few lepta—not even a drachma—and it was blocked by a high stone wall covered with a wisteria vine. Hamid had staggered as far as the wall and pulled at the wisteria, thinking to climb over, but the vine came away from the crumbling stone and he died right there. The porter covered him up with the vine but in a few hours—it was summertime—Hamid had made his presence known and the crime was discovered. A sad business, Zannis thought, the moneylenders preyed on the waterfront laborers like hawks on pigeons. Was this a law of nature? Perhaps it was. A real hawk had once tried to get at one of his little brother’s canaries, in a cage on the windowsill, and bent the hell out of the wire frame.

  Zannis looked at his watch, 3:39, and settled down to wait. This was a meeting, of course, and somebody was going to show up, sooner or later. If he was dumb enough to walk past the idling Skoda, they’d get both of them. If not, just the German, though Saltiel would likely take off after the second man. Woman? Maybe, anything was possible.

  3:48 A.M. Hurry up, you bastards, have your fucking meeting and let me go home to bed. After arrest, and a trip to the police station, where they’d get what they could, then run him back to the ship. After all, he hadn’t done much—entered Salonika without having his passport stamped. No point in keeping him. The German consul would squawk, Vangelis would be irritated, the hell with it.

  4:00 A.M. What was the German doing down there? Was there a way through to another street that Zannis didn’t know about? Oh, a fine thing that would be! I stood there in the rain until dawn but I never saw him again. Zannis sighed, shifted from his wet foot to his dry one, and thought about Roxanne, about making love, which was what they did. Sure, a restaurant now and … Suddenly, his mind snapped back to full attention.

  From the other end of the street, at the corner of a distant alley, headlights—no car yet, just beams probing the mist. What? Could you get through down there? Zannis didn’t know
, but obviously somebody did because the lights swung left into the street and now pointed directly at him. He scurried along the iron shutter to the opposite corner and wound up facing the Skoda. What would Saltiel do? Nothing. The lights stayed off. Good, Gabi, that’s the way.

  And next, he thought, addressing the unseen driver of the car, you’ll turn into the alley. It was a Renault sedan that muttered past him, going very slowly, but his prediction was off. The Renault paused at the alley, moved forward a few feet, and backed in. Clever, Zannis thought, ready for a fast getaway. What was this? Another murder in the alley? Was it cursed? Was this long, boring, stupid night going to end in melodrama?

  Whatever happened down there didn’t take long. It happened in the alley and it happened quickly and it happened where Zannis couldn’t see it. A car door slammed, an engine roared, and the Renault reappeared, taking a fast left turn into the street and speeding off. Zannis squinted into the rain, trying to see through the cloudy rear window—someone in the passenger seat? No, he didn’t think so. As he hurried down the steps from the loading dock, he watched the Renault as it flew past the Skoda. Count: one, two, three, four; then the Skoda’s lights came on and Saltiel made a nice easy turn and followed the Renault, which had turned east up the deserted corniche.

  As Zannis approached the alley, the German came out. They stopped dead, facing each other, maybe thirty feet apart, then the German, like Hamid the moneylender, went scuttling back down the alley. Heading for the wisteria vine? No, he had a better idea, because by the time Zannis entered the alley, he’d disappeared. The magic German. Where? Zannis trotted along the sheer wall, very tense about some sort of unseen cover at his back, very certain that he was about to be shot. But then, just at the foot of the alley, a door. A door that, he guessed, would lead into the office of the warehouse. Had he forgotten it? Had it even been there, back then?

  Walther. Yes, the time had come, work the slide, arm it, assume Gabi kept it loaded, assume he’d put the bullets back in the clip when he’d got done hanging up his picture. For he’d surely unloaded it, knowing full well that banging loaded weapons on hard surfaces wasn’t such a good idea—the very least you could hope for was embarrassment and it got quickly worse from there. Grampa! The cat! No, Gabi had done the right thing because Gabi always did the right thing. No?

  Zannis closed the umbrella and set it by the wall, freed the Walther’s clip, found it fully loaded and locked it back in place. Then he stood to one side of the door and, making sure of his balance, raised his foot and kicked at the knob, intending to make it rattle on the other side. No bullets from inside so he reached over, turned the knob, and opened the door. Unlocked. Always unlocked? Unlocked at the moment. Keeping to the cover of the wall as much as he could, he swung the door wide, waited a beat, then rushed in low, Walther pointed ahead of him.

  He’d expected an office, and hoped for a telephone. Right, then wrong. It was an office, open to the warehouse floor—filing cabinets, two desks, and an old-fashioned telephone, no dial, on the wall. But the line had been cut a few inches below the wooden box. Cut years ago? Or thirty seconds ago? He didn’t know. But he did know where he was—the Albala spice warehouse. The air was thick with scent; a dense compound of fennel, opium poppies, foul silk cocoons, and Mediterranean herbs; sage and thyme and the rest. Stacked in burlap-covered bales and wooden crates out in the darkness, ready to be shipped.

  He listened for a time, but heard only silence. Then waited, hoping his eyes would adjust to the darkness but the only light in the warehouse seeped through closed louvers, set high on the walls. One hand ahead of him, he moved forward, but he knew it was hopeless, he wasn’t going to find the German crouched behind a bale of fennel. So he returned to the office, took hold of the door handle, and slammed it shut, then walked out into the darkness, making no attempt to move quietly.

  Something moved, something much bigger than a rat. The sound, weight shifting on boards, came from somewhere above him. He waited, changed gun hands, and wiped his sweaty palm on his pants leg. Again he heard it, almost directly above his head. So, the second floor. How did one get up there? No idea. He reached in his pocket, lit a match, discovered he was in an aisle with stacked bales on both sides. Lighting a second match, he saw what looked like a stairway on the far wall.

  It wasn’t a stairway but a wooden ramp and, when he got there, he found what he was looking for. At the foot of the ramp was a metal cabinet with a lever affixed to one side. He pulled the lever down and the lights went on. Not a lot of light, a few bare bulbs in outlets screwed to the boards of the ceiling, and only on the first floor, but enough. Whatever was up there moved again, fast, running, then stopped.

  Zannis was finding it hard to breathe—how the hell did people work in here?—the air was so charged, so chemically sharp, his eyes were watering and he had to take his glasses off and wipe away the tears. Then, in a crouch, he scurried up the ramp and dove flat at the top, his head just below floor level. Quickly, he raised up to get a look but, even with some ambient light from the first floor, the gloom at the top of the ramp quickly faded into darkness. He sniffed—this place was really reaching him—then spoke, not loud and not angry, in German. “Sir, please come out from wherever you’re hiding, and let me see your hands. Please. You won’t be harmed.”

  That did it.

  Running footsteps on the far side of the second floor, then a series of thumps punctuated by a cry of panic, and, after a few beats of silence, a moan. Using two matches to reach the opposite wall, Zannis realized what had happened. There was another ramp over there but, if you didn’t want to use it, there was an alternative; a square cut in the floor with a narrow and very steep set of stairs, almost a ladder, that descended to the floor below. The German’s descent had clearly taken him by surprise and he was lying face down with his head on the boards and his feet on the steps above—Zannis saw that he was wearing green socks—briefcase still clutched in one hand. Carefully, Walther still held ready for use, Zannis walked down the stairs. The German said something—it sounded as though he were pleading but his voice was muffled and Zannis couldn’t make out the words. He checked for weapons, found none, then took the German under the arms, turned him over, hauled him upright, and managed to get him seated on a step. For a moment he just sat there, eyes shut, nose bleeding, then he pressed a hand to the center of his chest and said, “Hospital. Hospital.”

  Well, Zannis thought later, I tried. He’d put one arm around the man, held him up, and walked him along a step at a time, meanwhile carrying the briefcase in his other hand. It was awkward and slow; by the time they reached the street that led to the customshouse, dawn had turned the sky a dark gray. There they were lucky—a taxi was cruising slowly along the corniche, looking for the last revelers of the night. Zannis waved it down and settled the German in the backseat and the driver sped off, reaching the hospital only a few minutes later. And when they pulled up to the emergency entrance a doctor showed up right away and climbed into the back of the taxi. But then, the doctor shook his head and said, “Can’t help him here. You might as well take him to the morgue, or maybe you want us to use the ambulance.”

  “You’re sure?”

  The doctor nodded and said, “I’m sorry.”

  By ten the next morning he was on the phone with Vangelis, who said, after hearing a brief version of the story, “And what was in the briefcase?”

  “Photographs. Seventy photographs. And a sketch, in sharp pencil, a freehand map of the area around Fort Rupel.”

  “How do you know it was Fort Rupel?”

  “It’s labeled. Printed in Roman letters. The pictures were taken from a distance: roads, barbed wire, the fort itself.” The line hissed, finally Zannis said, “Hello?”

  “Yes. I’m here.” A conventional answer, but the tone was sad and grim.

  Zannis repeated what he’d said to Saltiel in the car. “Maybe just the war, coming south.” Fort Rupel protected the Rupel Pass on the Bulgarian border, direct
ly north of Salonika. The invasion route from there, down the Struma valley, was more than two thousand years old. Farmers’ plows turned up spearheads, broken swords, bayonets, and bones.

  “Not yet,” Vangelis said. “The Nazis don’t care about us. Yet. What are you doing about the Renault?”

  “Saltiel never could catch him, but he did get the license plate number. Local car, so all I have to do is call the clerk.”

  “All right, Costa, just proceed as you think best.”

  “I called some friends at the newspapers—German tourist found dead on the sidewalk near his hotel. Heart attack the apparent cause. I gave them the information on the passport: Albert Heinrich, domiciled in Essen, fifty-three years old.” He paused, then said, “You wouldn’t prefer a spy scandal, would you?”

  Vangelis snorted and said, “Oh fine! Good idea!” then added a version of a local Albanian expression. “Let’s fart up Hitler’s nose. We’ll have them down here in no time at all.”

  “I thought you would see it that way. As for the photographs, what’s your pleasure?”

  “Drop them off here, I’ll send them over to the army.”

  “And Spiraki?”

  “I was afraid you’d ask that. Tell him what happened; write him a report—he’ll like that; have your clerk type it up, on Salonika police stationery. And Costa? Make damn sure you get rid of the passport before you contact Spiraki—those people love passports.”

  “It should go to the German consulate.”

  “It must. Tell me, was it really a heart attack? You didn’t, ah, do anything to him, did you? Not that I’d blame you if you did.”

  “No, sir, he did it to himself. He was scared—afraid of being caught, afraid of failure—he was running around up there like a rat. Falling down the stairs didn’t help, but if I had to have a theory I’d say he frightened himself to death.”

  Vangelis’s voice was disgusted. “Miserable business,” he said. Then, “Oh well, keep me informed.”