Then a spate of frightened, defensive words came from behind the sheeted corner as Xanakias probed it with his gunmuzzle. A middle-aged, stoop-shouldered man with a mop of thick gray hair and a strong beaked nose stepped out. His lined face was gray; his eyes rolled in fright. His hands were raised dramatically over his head. He looked at Xanakias as if he knew him, and there was hidden curiosity in the quick glance he stabbed at Durell.
"Amerikani?" he asked.
"Yes. Do you speak English?"
"A little, please. I have a brother who moved to New York. To Brooklyn. Is this a joke? Every American tourist who comes to my shop smiles when I say this."
"Your name?" Xanakias interrupted.
"George Mastrota. I was a teacher in Durres once. The humanities, if you please. I am a gheg."
"A what?" Harris rasped.
Durell said: "A gheg is a northern Catholic in Albania. The population is mostly Moslem."
"Please," said Mastrota. "Please tell this policeman I do nothing wrong, I do not break the law, I will be happy to help in anything I can do."
"All right," Durell said. "Don't be afraid."
"I have heard of certain of my countrymen disappearing, right here in Athens. I am a poor man now, I obey the law, I do nothing wrong," the shopkeeper insisted. He wrung long, sensitive hands together. "You must believe me. Let me stay here. I will do what you say, but I have no other place to go."
"You made a serious mistake tonight," Durell said flatly.
"Yes, I understand it now. But I did not know. I was afraid of Gregori Shkoeder. He has a bad reputation in Debrec, my home region in Albania. They say he has ordered the execution of many poor men like myself. He was a man of terror when I fled my country." The shopkeeper smiled nervously. "And now he is in flight, like we were. But who can tell for certain? Perhaps he simply seeks out an enemy. Who can trust one like him?"
"Was he here tonight?"
The antique dealer licked his lips and looked with apprehension at Xanakias. "You must understand, I was afraid to ask for his identification, for proper papers to show he could stay in this country."
"What did he tell you?" Durell persisted.
"He appeared like a ghost, from out of a nightmare. True, I had heard he had fled Albania, defected to the West. But I think—perhaps I am wrong—it is all a Communist trick of some kind. But I cannot be certain. His name has been a name of terror among us for so long, you see, that it is hard to accept him among the ranks of the exiles now. So I try to be careful. He asks for help, and I am afraid to refuse."
Xanakias spoke in English. "We know you run the underground for your countrymen, Mastrota. And we have not troubled you, have we, except to demand the lists of aliens here?"
"Yes, you have been very kind. You follow the rules of my country," the gaunt, gray-haired man said, with a timid
smile. "We have a saying, 'It is evil to have a full belly when others are empty.' "
"Yet you would have kept Shkoeder's presence here in Athens a secret, wouldn't you?"
"Please, he is a frightful man." The shopkeeper shuddered. "It is terrifying to think that as a colonel in the security forces back home, he knew all along of my place here, and came straight to me. How many of our people have been betrayed in the past, I wonder? I cannot guess. I can only pray that not too many were caught. He probably selected his victims like choosing fish in a pond."
"What did Shkoeder want of you?" Durell asked.
"He asked for a car." Mastrota swallowed. "And help in getting away from here unobserved."
"Where was he headed?"
"He did not say."
"Don't lie," Xanakias said sharply. "You are in trouble enough, professor."
Mastrota looked up sharply, looking for sarcasm in Xanakias' voice. But then he accepted his old title with a nod that shook his long gray hair. "I know I am in trouble, sir. I do not lie. You must believe me, I was terrified when Shkoeder appeared. I thought I should leave, run somewhere—but I saw your men out front then, Mr. Xanakias, and so I stayed here in the dark and hoped it was all a mistake. But you were much too clever for me."
"Nuts," Harris put in angrily. "This guy is lying while Shkoeder puts miles between us. We can knock the truth out of him easily enough."
"Shkoeder isn't running from us," Durell said. "He needs us, remember? Don't forget, his son was killed—and whatever he wants from us will make him circle back again. The trouble is, it may be too late by then." He turned back to the shopkeeper. "So you secured a car for Shkoeder?"
"We have one—it is a kind of community car for our little group of exiles here. He took my keys to it."
Xanakias said: "I know the auto. An old Packard. I'll put out an alarm for it."
"It may be hidden by the time we get that started." Durell frowned, looking around the shabby room. "Did Shkoeder have any luggage with him?"
"Nothing, sir, I swear it," said the shopkeeper. "But— one moment—I recall he asked for a map—"
"A map?"
"Of the highways to the west, sir. Argolis, Corinth. I had one, which we used to bring out people over the frontier. I gave it to him."
"Did he keep it?"
"No. He studied it for a moment and dropped it. Let me think—" The frightened man rolled his eyes around the room. His eagerness to please was pitiful. With a small cry of triumph, the shopkeeper darted to the left and reached under the battered mohair chair. "Here it is! It fell here. I had quite forgotten—he had a pencil in his hand, you see, and although he did not actually write or mark with it, he traced a route on the map—"
"Give it to me," Durell said.
The map was old and greasy, worn from constant folding and creasing for many months, in many hands. It showed the roads from Athens through the Isthmus and beyond, north to the Albanian border. Several of the mountain roads had been marked with symbols in red crayon. The map itself seemed to offer no clue as to what Shkoeder had been seeking. Then Durell held it so the light from the ceiling bulb glanced off the surface. There was a faint indentation from a fingernail that had been impressed on the glazed paper at a certain point on the map. He looked up at the antique dealer.
"Did Shkoeder mention Epidaurus to you?"
"No, sir."
"Did he hold this map tightly, do you recall?"
"Yes, he was nervous."
"Did he ask for extra petrol for the car he took?"
"No, the tank was half full." The Albanian looked interested. "As a matter of fact, he would need another tank full to reach the frontier. Come to think of it, he did not consider that part of the map at all. That is, he did not turn the map over on the fold to look at the northern half, you see? Only this part interested him, and that which you are looking at, too."
Durell nodded. It was possible, he thought, that Shkoe-der's impatience and fear had betrayed him by making him unconsciously indent with his fingernail the locality on the map that indicated his destination.
Xanakias brushed his big, silky moustache. "We know of no activity in Epidaurus, Mr. Durell."
"Just the same, Harris ought to start there at once," Durell said. "I'll cover your tracks, Harry—I'll meet the four o'clock plane, in case Dinov is on his way here, too. I'll meet you in Epidaurus in the morning."
"Good enough." Harris nodded.
Xanakias said, "There is a pleasant class A tourist pa-villion there, but a friend of mine has a small hotel nearby, too—the Minoa. You might prefer it. I'll give him a ring." He looked at the shopkeeper and asked Durell: "And what shall we do with this man?"
"Keep him in custody for a day or two. In forty-eight hours, this should all be settled, and he won't matter then, one way or the other."
Xanakias nodded. "As you say."
They returned to Xanakias' office, a small business establishment redolent with the scent of imported leaf tobacco stored in the warehouse building. Except for the floodlights of a freighter loading down at its pier in the Piraeus, the city seemed to be asleep. Harris was prov
ided with a car from the Company' garage and Xanakias produced thick Turkish coffee and small round cheesecakes. He telephoned his wife in his suburban house and explained he would not be in. It was three o'clock before Harris left, tall and angry, his mouth stubborn. Durell and Xanakias then returned to the airport to wait in the car for the mail plane.
Xanakias talked of his family, of his hobby in hunting for archeological specimens for his private collection of antiques. Then he said quietly:
"This is a very serious one, is it not?"
"It might be."
"You are skeptical of the information you have?"
"I just don't trust anything a man like Gregori Shkoeder has to offer. I've got ten thousand dollars, American, to give him. He knows I've agreed to pay it. Why is he running from me, then?"
"Life is more precious than money, my friend."
"Not to a man like Shkoeder," Durell said. "It has to make sense, somewhere, but I don't see it yet."
"And what will you do about calling Washington?"
"Nothing."
"The message was urgent. You really should—"
"As long as I don't contact them directly, I can't disobey orders, can I?" Durell's smile was hard. "There are a few armchair specialists who dream of an entente between East and West against China. It may well come to that. But while men like Dinov still run a Blue Squad for the KGB, I can't quite see welcoming them with open arms."
"But perhaps a new era of cooperation—"
"I don't trust Dinov. He's been slippery and smart, working his way up through all the shifts and purges from 'way back in the Stalinist period. He was the old man's favorite, as a matter of fact—for executions, that is. His future looked rocky when Stalin died, but he managed to eel his way back to the top again. But I'll bet even his bosses in No. 2 Dzherzhinsky Square in Moscow would like to know the ideology behind those dead eyes of his."
"If you are ordered directly to cooperate with him—" "I'm sure Moscow would like us to pull their chestnuts out of the fire. After all, it's their equipment that got into the wrong hands. If it weren't for the horrible fact that the whole world might blow up because of it, I'd say we let them stew in their own ideological juices. They don't want to aggravate the split with Peiping, I suppose; and if Dinov went in to wreck the rockets and were caught, it would mean an open break." Durell looked thoughtful. "And if / went in and were caught, Moscow would come out on top two ways—by getting the rockets out of Albania, and by showing Peiping a common front toward the West."
"You think Dinov wants you as a cat's-paw to go in there —and then arrange for your capture?" "It could turn out that way." "But if you refuse to go into Albania?" "Then Dinov must go in." "He will try a bluff, you know. He will wait." Durell was grim. "I can sit him out. But if we both wait too long, those rockets are going to streak up and come down God knows where and then the panic buttons will be pushed, and nothing will matter any more."
"They tell me you have a gambler's education, my friend," Xanakias said. "I hope you have the nerves to go with it. It seems unfair, with millions of innocents asleep at this moment—my wife, my children—that you and I can discuss such a risk as we sit here."
"Nobody gives you a blue-chip guarantee of fair play in this world," Durell said.
A cool wind blew over the airport, smelling of dust and an occasional surprising scent of spring flowers. Most of the lights in the airport administration building had been dimmed. Only a few attendants were in sight. One hangar was brilliantly lighted, where mechanics were working over an old DC-3. It wasn't likely that Dinov would brazenly appear here, Durell thought. But the possibility had to be considered. It was strange to think they had an objective in common. Or did they? Some nagging doubt kept him unsure, kept him from responding to Washington's urgent clamor for contact with him.
How many times in recent years had he waited like this in some strange corner of the world, and so often waited in futility? Perhaps he should have gone to Epidaurus, instead of sending Harris. Not that he was too hopeful of turning up anything there; it was an equal long shot.
He remembered a time from his boyhood in the bayous of Louisiana, in Bayou Peche Rouge, a time when he had gone hunting with his old grandfather Johathan in the swamps and along the chenieres of the delta country. Fishermen had reported a large wildcat loose in the tangled swamps, and the old gentleman had decided to go after it. Old Jonathan had been one of the last of the gallant breed of Mississippi riverboat gamblers; his wisdom, his patience, his knowledge of the world and of men, of hunters and the hunted, of the clever and the sly, had been transmitted to the boy Sam Durell had once been in the long-ago hours, when they went hunting the cat. He had been taught patience, sitting there in the heat, with the insects humming hungrily, in the shadows of evening under the tall gum trees. He remembered the whistles of the bird calls, and the silent, black pools of water under the Spanish moss. He had been taught the feelings of the hunter—and more important, a knowledge of the ways of the hunted.
He remembered a girl back there, one of the first he had ever loved, who suddenly reminded him of Ursula Mon-tegna. The same mixture of brash innocence had dwelt in her, a longing to challenge life in a search for love. He felt an odd nostalgia for that boy of long ago, the boy he had been —but he had no regrets for the man he had become.
The landing strip lights of the airport came on. He tried to dismiss Ursula from his mind, but her image lingered on for a few more moments as the mail plane from Venice came in and taxied toward the administration building. The wind felt cooler. Xanakias sat up straighter, watching as the steps were trundled to the gleaming, aluminum ship. The pilot stepped out first, then the stewardess, both yawn-in the dark, early-morning air. A man and a woman followed, then two more men, then an obviously German family. Xanakias looked at Durell and shook his head. « "My men will check all their papers."
"Dinov isn't aboard," Durell said. "If he planned to operate here, he'd come personally."
"There are other ways into Greece, my friend."
Then a last passenger appeared in the plane doorway, pausing a moment before stepping down the ladder with quick, delicate steps. It was Lisette Pollini.
Chapter Ten
"Let's not alarm her," Durell said.
"But you say she is Dinov's woman."
"Not exactly. She was his creature, once. Possibly she still is. We'll see. I'll take care of her."
Lisette waited quietly while her passport was checked by the sleepy-eyed Greek customs man. The airport echoed with emptiness. She was dressed in a silk traveling suit and carried only a small overnight bag of expensive blue leather. Her dark red hair gleamed in the garish lights of the waiting room. She wore no hat. Under her makeup, she seemed tense and pale, betraying the calm posture she tried to assume. Her eyes, pale green and long with drawn nerves, drifted this way and that, but Durell and Xanakias kept out of sight in a ticket office. She went directly to a telephone booth after she was checked through the turnstile and remained closeted in the booth, speaking quickly, for several long minutes. Xanakias shrugged helplessly. It would be impossible to trace the call. He scowled his disapproval, but Durell signalled for his silence.
When Lisette summoned a taxi, Durell took Xanakias' car to follow her along the empty highways to Athens.
There was a faint pallor of dawn in the eastern sky above the loom of the Acropolis as they headed into the heart of the modern city. The breeze from the Piraeus felt fresher. The city still slept. Durell pondered the surprise of Lisette's appearance here. Had she yielded to her fear of Dinov's blackmail and resumed working for the Red agent? Or was she here for motives of her own? Her presence could not possibly be a coincidence.
He was surprised when her taxi drew up to the imposing entrance of the Grande Bretagne, the hotel on Constitution Square where Xanakias had registered himself and Harry Harris. He hadn't even had time to check into his room here.
He parked Xanakias' Chevrolet across from the banks of flower
beds in the square and followed the graceful figure of the woman as she walked into the lobby. Lisette went directly to the desk, spoke to the sleepy clerk, got a shrug in reply, and spoke again, her chin haughty and demanding. The clerk summojied the concierge, who expressed apologies with his hands and reached behind him for a room key. When Lisette took it and walked to the elevator, Durell crossed the marble lobby floor and questioned the clerk.
The desk attendant shrugged and looked at him with thin suspicion. "She is the wife of one of our guests, sir."
"Her name?"
"I am sorry, it is certainly not permitted—"
Durell flashed an Athens police card that Xanakias had given to him. The man's manner changed at once. "But of course, sir. There was a mistake about the registration, you see. We did not expect madame, and her husband has not appeared as yet. Her name is Mrs. Sam Durell."
He stared blankly for a moment. "Mrs. Durell?"
"Yes, sir."
"And the room number?"
"It is 515, sir."
"Thank you."
He waited several moments outside the door before he used the key the clerk had given him. He did not underestimate the danger simply because Lisette was a woman. He knew she was desperate for reasons of her own, and in the past she had been slavishly obedient to Dinov's command. It was still possible, he reminded himself, that she had murdered her husband at Helmuth Dinov's order.
When he stepped silently inside, he saw that she had calmly made herself at home. The room was large, furnished in Italian Provincial, rather old-fashioned; she had opened the tall windows to air it out. The smell of dawn mingled with her perfume. She was not in sight. The bathroom door was closed.
"Lisette!" he called sharply.
There was a small crash from inside the bath, as of glass breaking. He spun about, crossed the room with a quick stride, and lunged at the door. It was locked, but the impact of his shoulder snapped the lock. It slammed inward.
Assignment The Girl in the Gondola Page 8
