The Last Red Death (A Matt Wells Thriller)

by Johnston, Paul

  He felt a tremor of arousal, but kept his hands off her. ‘Not a good idea.’

  ‘What if she starts screaming?’

  Mavros looked up the poorly lit lane with its uneven steps. The large, dilapidated house on the left was the only one with a light in the lower windows. ‘Then we tie her to a chair, gag her and wait for Iraklis all the same.’

  ‘Very funny.’ She moved back when she saw his face. ‘You’re serious? But she’s an old lady.’

  ‘Who was once a ruthless killer, like her son.’ Mavros let his limbs slacken. He didn’t want to show Grace how desperate he was to find out how his brother fitted into Iraklis’s history. ‘It probably won’t come to physical restraint.’

  ‘Let’s hope not.’ She gave him a wary look. ‘You got any more hidden depths I should know about?’

  He smiled. ‘Oh, yes. Hidden depths are my speciality.’

  ‘Great.’ She stepped away. ‘Let’s do it, then.’

  He followed her round the corner of the church. ‘Grace? I’m not going to tell her who you are, okay? That might make her suspicious about what you want with her son.’

  She stopped in the street. ‘Who am I supposed to be, then? A female version of Doctor Watson?’

  ‘Something like that. Unless you’d prefer to be my secretary.’

  The look she gave him almost made Mavros laugh. Then he remembered that they were about to knock on the door of a woman who had cut many of her own countrymen’s throats.

  Kostas Laskaris let his pen drop and pushed his chair back from the table. His eyes were stinging and the stabbing in his gut was sharper by the minute. He tried to stand, but found he didn’t have the strength. He wiped his sleeve across his face, then peered at the lines of writing on the pad in front of him. They were blurred, indecipherable, though he knew exactly what they said. He had spent hours crafting the section of the poem that he had been dreading most—the scene of defeat and slaughter. It was done, but he didn’t know if he would be able to write any more. The horror, the pointless suffering—now that they were encapsulated in words, the work had become even more of a burden. How much longer could he bear it?

  The events he had described from the spring of 1944 cascaded past him again. Grimy faces and torn bodies against a barren winter hillside. The village of Loutsa was on a small plateau four hundred metres above the plain of Argos, a dirt road climbing up the steep escarpment in repeated twists and turns. There were about a hundred houses but many had been abandoned as the occupation dragged on, the monarchist inhabitants preferring to take their chances with the enemy down below than with the resistance fighters. Several locals suspected of dealing with the Germans had been taken away for questioning and none had returned. That was why the regional commander had decided to replace the unit that had used the village as a base with one from elsewhere.

  Kapetan Iraklis had been uneasy when the band arrived at Loutsa, saying it was exposed to attack on more than one front. There were goat tracks leading off in several directions, including one to the west that looped round a neighbouring mountain. After the losses during the many pitched battles and skirmishes in Lakonia, there were only forty fighters left. His shoulder wound had made Iraklis terse, his face pale and drawn, but in the week they had been at Loutsa, the band had made friends with the remaining villagers, even dancing with them in the kafeneion one night.

  ‘There are over a hundred of them, my captain,’ Dinos shouted, as he ran into the square. ‘Germans and Security Battalion dogs.’ He stopped under the bare branches of the old oak. ‘They are heavily armed. I saw machine-guns and flame-throwers.’

  Iraklis’s dark eyes glistened in the cloud-filtered sunlight. ‘Very well, comrade.’ He glanced round the ring of fighters that had gathered at the first cry of alarm. ‘We must choose, my friends, to fight this superior force from the high ground above the road or to withdraw.’

  Stamatina pushed her way to the front, the crudely stitched gash on her cheek still livid. ‘Withdraw, my captain?’ she said incredulously. ‘Withdraw? We have never done such a thing.’ She looked at her comrades. ‘We must fight them, we must slaughter them as we have done over and over again.’ Her voice was shrill.

  ‘They will not follow us into the mountains,’ Kostas said. ‘We can return to harry them on their way back.’

  Stamatina gave a harsh laugh. ‘You have become weak, comrade. You no longer have any stomach for the fight.’ She stepped closer to him. ‘You were not raped and buggered by the devils, you did not see your sister’s entrails ripped out and strung round her neck like a spring garland.’

  ‘That’s enough,’ Iraklis said, moving between them. ‘This is no time for arguments. I will not sacrifice any more lives needlessly.’ He smiled briefly at his friend. ‘Comrade Kostas is correct. We will pick them off on their retreat. To the mountain.’

  Stamatina’s eyes were wide. ‘Retreat is surrender, my captain,’ she cried. ‘I will not—’

  She broke off as a young fighter came into the square from the rear of the village, the nailed boots he’d taken from a dead battalionist skidding across the stones.

  ‘The enemy!’ he gasped. ‘They are behind us too.’ Gunfire started the second after he had spoken.

  ‘How?’ Iraklis said, as he pulled back the slide of his Schmeisser. ‘The sentries…’ He looked at Kostas. ‘Someone betrayed us, my friend.’ He shouted out dispositions, splitting the band into two sections. Then he strode away towards the rattle of automatic weapons, his injured shoulder down. The fighters divided, Stamatina leading the other group to the front of the village.

  And that was end for most of them. The German force that had made the long detour around the mountain to the southwest was made up of battle-hardened Alpine troops. As soon as they pinned the band down in the rough ground behind Loutsa, the column that had come up the dirt road broke through the meagre defences.

  Kostas was behind Iraklis, relaying his orders to the fighters on either side. He saw Dinos, his thin face split by a frightening grin, shoot a German. Then the top of the boy’s head flew off, the crack of the bullet coming after the spray of red and lumpen grey. Bitter liquid filled Kostas’s mouth and he blinked hard before looking to the front again. The enemy was making relentless progress, forcing the ELAS fighters closer to each other. Grenades accounted for several comrades, their bodies thrown shattered into the air.

  Iraklis and Kostas found themselves close at the last, crouching behind a low outcrop of rock that protected them from the encircling enemy. There were explosions and loud cries from the village, the rattle of gunfire getting nearer.

  ‘We are finished, my friend,’ Kapetan Iraklis said, his eyes damp. ‘I hope Stamatina survives.’ He swallowed. ‘She…she is carrying my child.’

  Kostas nodded, unsurprised. He had seen them go off at night when the other fighters were asleep. At first he had been jealous, but then he understood that the love he felt for Iraklis was on a higher plane, unsullied by physical urges. He knew his friend returned that emotion; he had always known it even though no words had been spoken.

  ‘The struggle will go on after us,’ he said, fitting the last ammunition clip to his submachine-gun.

  Kapetan Iraklis nodded, his lips parted as he fed bullets into his revolver. He leaned over and squeezed Kostas’s arm. ‘Farewell, my friend. Let us die like true heroes of the Mani.’ But before he could clamber round the rock, a long-handled German grenade landed on the ground between them. There was only time to exchange a brief glance…

  In the tower, the old poet managed to get to his feet. He would soon be going into the void. Iraklis, Spyros Mavros, Randos—so many comrades had gone before him. It would be something to share the ultimate collective experience, even though it would be over in an instant. Unlike Iraklis in the myth, heroes in the real world didn’t become immortals.

  But before he allowed the cancer to cut him down, there was one more thing he had to do. Iraklis’s son would not return to the tower afte
r he had visited Stamatina, Laskaris was sure of that. So it fell to him to climb the accursed steps to the room at the top of the tower. If he didn’t, he would have one more senseless death on his conscience, one more comrade who deserved better.

  As they climbed the steps of Potamianou towards Stamatina Kastania’s house, Mavros caught a quick movement in the floodlights on the fortified wall beyond. He stopped, touching Grace’s forearm.

  ‘I think there’s someone up where we were earlier on.’

  She peered forward. ‘You-know-who?’

  He shrugged, staring up to the line of Akronafplia. It was not as well illuminated as the fortress of Palamidhi and the stars were visible in the clear night sky above the lower citadel. ‘Could be. Or a couple looking for a secluded place to neck.’ He moved on, thinking that if they were being observed by the terrorist, then the sooner they got into his mother’s house the better—though if they had any sense, they’d turn tail and run.

  The building was three storeys high: it looked as if it had once been a rich man’s home but was now almost derelict. Only two shuttered windows on the ground floor were illuminated, but the street door was neatly painted in a deep shade of red, a shrivelled May wreath and a cross marked in soot above it. The old woman might have been a Communist, but she still observed the folk beliefs to bring good fortune to her house.

  Mavros looked around, saw no further movement on the walls, nodded to Grace and knocked three times. After a few moments he heard uneven, shuffling footsteps and the door opened a few centimetres.

  ‘You don’t look like you’re going to sing the kalanda,’ the old woman said, only part of her face visible. The reek from a diesel stove rolled over them. Mixed up in it was the aroma of roasting meat, reminding Mavros that he had eaten little that day.

  ‘Excuse us, Kyria Kastania,’ he said. ‘Can we come in? My name is Mavros. You’ll have heard of my father, Spyros.’

  The old woman in black screwed up her eyes, moving them from him to Grace. Her mouth was working as if she was trying to enunciate a distant memory, the pocked edges of the scar on her cheek stretching. ‘Spyros Mavros,’ she said, surprise replacing suspicion. ‘You are Spyros Mavros’s son?’ She stared at him, taking in the long hair and stubble. ‘You don’t look much like your father. The time I saw him give a speech in Athens he was perfectly turned out, his hair and moustache neat.’ She opened the door a little wider. ‘Andonis, that’s your name, isn’t it?’

  Mavros felt a knife-thrust to his heart. ‘No,’ he managed to say. ‘My name is Alexandhros—Alex.’

  Stamatina Kastania extended a wrinkled hand to him. ‘Here, my boy, let me greet you. Your father was a great man in his way.’ Her expression tightened. ‘But he was not strong enough. The struggle should have been continued by force, not propaganda.’

  Mavros let her have her rant. ‘Can we come in?’ he asked quietly. ‘It’s very important.’

  The old woman frowned. ‘No, young Mavro, I’m afraid you can’t. I’m very tired. I was just going to bed.’

  He had expected her to refuse them entry because of Iraklis’s imminent arrival. He put his hand on the door and pushed it gently inwards. ‘I’m sorry, you must let us in, Kyra Stamatina.’ He put his mouth close to her ear. ‘I have a message for your son.’

  The old woman’s eyes flew wide open. ‘My son?’ she said. ‘My son?’ Her voice was suddenly tremulous. ‘I have no son.’

  Grace bustled in, taking her by the arm. Mavros closed the door behind them and followed them into a small living room. The diesel somba was in one corner, its rattling fan dispersing heat. The place was small but spotless, rough-weave blankets on the sofas and chairs, rugs on the stone floor. The only thing to distinguish it from the homes of countless other elderly Greeks was the life-size bust of Lenin in the niche that would normally have contained an icon. He wondered if it had looked the same when his brother had visited.

  ‘What is this?’ Stamatina Kastania demanded, shaking off Grace’s hand. ‘What do you think you are doing?’ When Grace took her arm again and led her towards the single armchair, she tried unsuccessfully to break free.

  ‘Sit down, Kyra Stamatina,’ Mavros said soothingly. ‘Sit down and listen to me.’ He glanced at Grace. ‘I’m sorry if my friend hurt you.’

  The old woman gave a humourless laugh. ‘It would take more than a skinny woman to hurt me. I was an ELAS fighter, I was a member of the—’

  ‘Iraklis band,’ Mavros interrupted. Stamatina Kastania was in her eighties, but her spirit was still burning strongly. She was capable of shouting for help from a neighbour unless he could convince her to let them stay. Short of tying her up—which he didn’t want to do—the best way of doing that was to show at least part of his hand. ‘You fought here and in Lakonia.’

  Grace was standing over the old woman’s chair, trying to follow the exchange.

  ‘How do you know these things?’ Stamatina asked. ‘Did your father tell you?’

  ‘My father died when I was five. I didn’t really know him.’

  ‘Alexandhros,’ she said, musing. ‘I was sure Spyros’s son was called Andonis.’

  ‘My brother,’ Mavros said, his voice faint.

  ‘Andonis,’ the old woman repeated. ‘Ach, yes, I remember now. He was an activist, wasn’t he? Against those bastard Colonels?’ She looked up at Mavros. ‘Was he involved in the siege of the Polytechnic?’

  ‘He disappeared in 1972.’ He glanced at Grace and saw that her expression was stern. He was allowing his family to hijack her case, but he didn’t want to mention why she was interested in Iraklis and, besides, he needed to gain the old woman’s confidence. He squatted in front of the chair. ‘Kyra Stamatina, we…I must see your son. I know he’s coming here.’

  ‘You know—’ She broke off. ‘I don’t understand what you’re saying, young man. I told you, I have no son.’

  Mavros sighed. ‘You must believe me, I mean him no harm.’ He glanced up at Grace, who gave him an inquisitive look. ‘I want to ask him about my brother, Andonis. Kostas Laskaris told me that they met in the Mani a month before my brother vanished.’

  ‘You know Comrade Kosta?’ Now the old woman seemed less tense. ‘You spoke to him recently?’

  ‘We visited him yesterday. He told me that Andonis stayed with you here after he saw your son.’

  Kyra Stamatina stared at him blankly. ‘Many people stayed with me during the stone years. I don’t remember your brother any more than the others.’ She inclined her head towards Grace. ‘What about her? Why doesn’t she speak?’ She ran her eye up the American’s denim jacket to her head then pointed to the blonde ponytail. ‘Is she foreign?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mavros admitted.

  ‘German?’ Stamatina Kastania’s voice was harsh.

  ‘American,’ Grace put in, realising she was the subject of the conversation.

  An expression of loathing appeared on the old woman’s face. ‘A curse on the capitalists,’ she hissed. Then she looked up at Grace again. ‘Wait a moment, I’ve seen her before.’ She turned to Mavros. ‘And you. You’ve been watching me, haven’t you? Following me around.’ She gave a sharp laugh. ‘She is no artist and you are no friend of the struggle if you are with her.’ She sat back and folded her arms. ‘To the devil with both of you.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Grace asked.

  ‘I failed to convince her. She’s even more suspicious of us than she was at the outset.’

  ‘So what do we do now?’

  ‘Cut and run,’ he said. ‘This was a mistake. She’ll warn her son we’re here unless we gag her and tie her up. I don’t think that’s a good idea. He’ll realise there’s something wrong if she doesn’t respond in the right way when he comes to the door. You can be sure experienced underground operators like them will have some sort of password. I don’t want to take on the most dangerous man in Greece in his mother’s house.’ He took out his notebook and wrote down his mobile number. ‘Give this to your son,’ he said to
the old woman. ‘Tell him I must talk to him. He can call me any time, day or night.’

  Stamatina Kastania took the paper and dropped it on to her lap. ‘I told you, I don’t have a son.’

  Mavros leaned closer. ‘I know what you did in the war,’ he whispered. ‘I know you slaughtered your fellow Greeks. But I won’t talk to the newspapers about that and I won’t tell the police about your son, as long as he calls me by midnight tomorrow.’ He gave her a look that she eventually acknowledged with an almost imperceptible nod.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Mavros said to Grace. As he closed the front door, he glanced back and caught a glimpse of the old woman’s scarred face.

  It almost froze the blood in his veins.

  Peter Jaeger came into the office in the basement of the American embassy at speed, loosening his bow-tie. There was a spot of red wine on the right lapel of his white tuxedo. Although his fair hair was smoothed down as usual, his eyes were wide as they took in his nervous subordinate.

  ‘This had better be good, Ms Forster,’ he said, his tone sharp. ‘The Saudi minister was not impressed when I left in the middle of his address.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ she said, her hair swinging as she pointed to the telephone on her desk. ‘There was a call for you.’ She summoned the nerve to look him in the eye. ‘Code Red. It was—’

  ‘I know who it would have been,’ her superior interrupted. ‘When’s Finn calling back?’

  Jane Forster looked at the digital clock on the wall. ‘In four and one quarter minutes.’

  Jaeger took off his tuxedo and threw it over a chair. ‘Jesus, something must have got right up his ass.’ He glanced at her. ‘Okay, Ms Forster, you can relax. You did the right thing.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ She picked up the jacket and draped it carefully round the back of the chair. ‘Sir, if you don’t mind me asking, where’s this operation heading?’