Soon after six they passed through the little town of Tropaia, that clung so precariously to the mountain-side; but they did not pull up there as they had done on their outward journey, because Stephanie wanted to make the most of the light. For another twenty minutes or so they ran on along the narrow shelf of road, beyond the edge of which lay seemingly bottomless gorges with, on their far side, range after range of rugged heights rising to peaks, many of which were capped with cloud.
It was then that Robbie at last plucked up the courage to say something that he had been contemplating saying for an hour or more. Unlike their journeys in the past, during which he had told Stephanie stories of the Immortals, or they had laughed together over all sorts of trivialities, they had exchanged hardly a word since leaving Olympia. Now he stammered out:
‘On Thursday, after … after what happened down by the pool, I stayed there a long time. When at last I did get back to the hotel, I went along to your room.’
‘And found me gone,’ she volunteered. ‘I packed at once. It didn’t seem to me that there was much point in my remaining there till you put in an appearance just for us to have a slanging match.’
‘I suppose not. To have found out about you was a shock … a most frightful shock. But, all the same, I wanted to apologize. I felt absolutely terrible.’
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ she said slowly. ‘You know, for some girls an experience like that might spoil their whole lives—give them a hatred of men and warp their natures. It was very clear that, in spite of your age, you are still completely ignorant about that sort of thing. But that wouldn’t have made it any the less terrifying for a girl who was as ignorant as yourself; so I hope you will never let yourself go like that again. As far as I am concerned, it was a beastly way in which to try and take your revenge. Fortunately, though, it did me no harm. It’s quite a long time since I left my mother’s apron strings, and I’ve seen enough of the world to make allowances for you.’
Robbie threw a quick glance sideways. Stephanie’s eyes were fixed steadily on the road ahead. She had spoken without the least embarrassment and her face showed no trace of heightened colour. Yet what she had said amounted to a confession entirely out of keeping with the picture he had built up of her.
‘D’you mean …’ he stammered, ‘do you really mean that … that you’ve often made love … well, not quite like that … but … but …?’
‘I didn’t say that,’ she replied. ‘But, since you’ve found me out, hasn’t it occurred to you that, as I am twenty-four, I might quite well be married?’
‘Married! No! Are you?’
‘Yes. My real name is Madame Václav Barak.’
‘Good God!’
‘What is there surprising in that? You must at least have realised that the story with which I took you in, about having a father who was forcing me into marriage with a rich cement manufacturer, was all nonsense; and that I’m not a Greek but a Czech. You seem to have known all along, too, that it is Barak who is responsible for establishing the groups of Czechs on special missions. When he learnt that you were spying on them, what could be more natural than that he should use his English-speaking wife to keep an eye on you?’
‘It wouldn’t seem natural to me,’ Robbie commented. ‘After all, before you came into the game, he can have known very little about me. I might have been much more attractive to women than I am, and a Don Juan by nature. To send you off round Greece with a man who might have turned out like that seems to me an extraordinary thing for a husband to have done.’
Stephanie gave a mirthless laugh. ‘Oh, that side of the matter wouldn’t have worried him. He was quite mad about me once, but he isn’t any more. And I’ve long since lost the admiration I had for him in my teens, when we married. As I told you last night, he’s quite capable of beating me when he’s really angry, and that sort of thing is not calculated to turn schoolgirl hero-worship into love.’
‘Why do you stick to him, then?’ Robbie asked.
‘Because it suits me to. And I don’t think he would like to lose me, either. I’m a very useful wife to him in a lot of ways, and I’ve helped him quite a bit in his career. Until now, I’ve never actively gone against him in anything that is important. How he’ll take it, I don’t yet know; but I’m quite prepared to stand up to him because, provided you do as you have promised and leave Greece, no one can say I’ve let down my country. There is no sense in committing murder when it can be avoided, and I feel certain that all the Comrades at the Legation will back me up in what I’ve done.’
‘That’s all very well,’ said Robbie gloomily. ‘But, as he is your husband, you’ll have to face up to him when they are not there. I … well, it seems silly to talk hot air about wanting to be your champion, but all the same I wish to God that when you do meet him I could be there to protect you.’
‘How nice of you, Robbie.’ Her voice was softer and it was the first time she had used his Christian name since the affair at the pool. ‘But,’ she added, ‘I don’t think you need worry. I mean to keep away from him for the next few days, and by then several other people will have talked to him about all this, and his anger will have died down.’
For the past few minutes, they had been approaching one of the great cliffs of rock jutting out from the mountain-side and making a blind corner. The bend was a sharp one, so Stephanie took it slowly. As they rounded the mass of rock, they saw the black Mercedes parked behind it, only fifty feet away. Barak was in it and Cepicka was at the wheel. Its motor whirred and the big car slid forward, blocking the way.
22
Wanted for Murder
Stephanie was forced to pull up. With the long Mercedes drawn across the road, it was impossible for her to pass it either on the near side or the off. In the one case, she would have jammed the Ford between the rock face and the boot of the big black car, in the other gone over the edge of the precipice.
As she braked the car to a halt, she cried: ‘Get out, Robbie! Get out! No stupid chivalry! Run for your life! Leave this to me!’
Even as her cry echoed down the mountain valley, Barak and Cepicka were both getting out of the Mercedes. Cepicka, who had been at the wheel of the car, was the nearer. As he jumped out on to the road, he drew an automatic from an armpit holster. Robbie knew then that Stephanie was right. This was no time for heroics. Although he was completely ignorant about weapons, he would have given a lot to have been armed and to stand beside Stephanie. But he knew that, however unsatisfactory her relations with her husband might be, she was in no danger of losing her life; whereas his own clearly hung by a thread.
Flinging open the door of the Ford, he scrambled out, stepping on to the road at the same moment as Cepicka drew his gun. There was not much more than thirty feet between them, but by the time Cepicka had swung round and aimed with his weapon there were fifty. Even then Robbie might have been shot down; but one of his flying feet hit a stone, causing him to stumble sideways. At that second, the Czech’s pistol cracked, then it cracked again, but the bullets sang past Robbie.
At the sound of the shots, he threw a swift glance over his shoulder. He saw that Stephanie and Barak were now also out of the cars and standing in the road facing one another. Next moment, he was round the corner of the cliff. In front of him lay a long, down-sloping gradient, several hundred yards in length, before the road passed out of sight round another bend. With a gasp of fear he realised that, running down that open stretch with two gunmen pursuing him, he would not stand a hope. They would wing him for certain and, as he fell wounded in the road, race up to finish him off.
Desperately, he looked right and left for a chance of salvation. To his left lay the precipice, an almost sheer drop of some three thousand feet. Even if it had jutting rocks and scrub on it that would have provided tenuous hand-holds, Cepicka would be upon him and put a bullet into him before he could scramble down his own length. He would lose his hold and, with arms and legs whirling, hurtle into the chasm. To the right rose the twenty-foo
t-high cliff of rock. For most of its frontage it presented a flat, smooth surface; but in one place, round the corner from the cars, it had a chimney in it—a three-foot-deep gulley, broken here and there with small bushes and tufts of coarse grass growing out from the crevices in it. The chimney was narrow at the bottom, but grew deeper towards the top. It offered the only alternative to being slaughtered on the open road, and Robbie took it.
Hurling himself into the fissure, he seized on stunted bushes of myrtle and clumps of wild thyme and began to haul himself up. Half the plants he grasped broke off or came away under the pull of his weight; but fear lent him such speed that, almost as the twigs of one bush snapped, he thrust up his arm and grasped another. Meanwhile his feet scrabbled wildly on tufts of grass and little ledges of rock, forcing him further upward.
He had nearly reached the top when he heard shouts and screams below him. As he had just secured a firm handhold, he paused to look down. Cepicka stood below him at the foot of the gulley and had just raised his gun to shoot. A few feet away Stephanie, the butt of a small automatic clutched in her right hand, was wrestling with Barak. At that moment Barak wrenched the pistol from her, but she broke free and launched herself at Cepicka. She caught him sideways on, throwing him off balance just as he fired. He swore and hit out at her. She fell in the roadway and Barak lugged her to her feet.
By then, Robbie had reached the summit of the rock. When he again looked down, Barak and Stephanie had disappeared, but their voices could still be heard as they continued to shout abuse at one another round the corner of the cliff. Cepicka, with his pistol thrust back into its armpit holster, had begun to scale the chimney and was coming grimly up, hand over hand.
Robbie stared wildly about him. The top of the rock formed a small, natural citadel about forty feet in width. Round the semi-circle that overhung the road, a ragged line of rounded humps rose up from three to five feet above the level of the uneven floor on which he stood. Behind him rose another tangle of great boulders, spreading up the slope for half a mile. In some places, there were dark gaps between them large enough to squeeze through; in others they were partially overgrown with wild vegetation.
Frantically, he cast about for big stones or a small chunk of rock that he could grab up and throw down on Cepicka. One hit on his head or face should be sufficient to dislodge him from his precarious hold in the chimney and send him crashing back on to the road. But there were no loose stones. Nothing larger than pebbles was to be seen anywhere within easy reach of where Robbie was standing.
He was left with a choice, either of which might prove fatal. He could run for cover between the great boulders thirty yards away, which meant risking Cepicka’s getting to the top of the chimney and shooting him before he reached them; or he could wait where he was until Cepicka appeared, then bank on rushing him before he had a chance to take proper aim.
Deciding on the latter course, Robbie crouched down behind the big stone hump beside which the chimney emerged. As he did so he could hear Cepicka’s heavy breathing as he hoisted himself up, only a few feet away. Suddenly an idea came to Robbie. If he could tackle Cepicka while the Czech still needed both his hands to clamber out of the top of the chimney, and had not one free to draw his gun again, he would be caught at a serious disadvantage.
Throwing caution to the winds, Robbie came to his feet and stepped round the buttress of rock just as Cepicka’s head appeared above its level. He already had one knee on the ground at the top of the chimney. For an instant, they stared at one another. Cepicka’s hand leaped to his gun, but Robbie stooped and seized the weapon before the Czech could aim it. In striving to wrench the pistol from Cepicka’s grasp, Robbie stepped backwards, dragging Cepicka after him, up over the edge of the cliff. As the Czech found his feet, he struck out at Robbie with his left fist, catching him a blow on the right ear that made him dizzy. But Robbie had shifted his grip to Cepicka’s wrist and gave it such a violent twist that he was forced to drop his pistol. Next moment they had seized one another in a bear-like clinch, and were staggering to and fro across the platform of rock.
In spite of his little paunch and pasty face, Cepicka was very strong and he knew all the tricks. Suddenly he thrust his leg between Robbie’s so that his right heel was behind Robbie’s left heel, then threw forward the full weight of his powerful shoulders. Robbie staggered, lost his balance and went over backwards. As he fell, he lost his hold. The Czech came down on top of him. Now that Cepicka’s hands were free, he used the left to seize Robbie by the throat and raised the right to smash into his face. Just in time, Robbie jerked his head aside. The clenched fist came down with terrific force on the bare rock. Cepicka let out a yell and his whole body twitched with the agony he had caused himself. Robbie seized his opportunity. With a violent upward jerk of his thighs, he threw off his enemy. They both scrambled to their feet simultaneously. Panting as though they had run a mile, they stood a few feet apart, facing one another, poised like wrestlers seeking an opening for a crippling hold.
Blood was dripping from Cepicka’s right hand, where he had smashed the side of it on the rock; but, in spite of this handicap, he showed no sign of retreating. His small, pale eyes glared murder into Robbie’s. Suddenly he took a pace forward, feinted with his right foot as though to kick, but came down on it and shot out his left. Robbie had acted almost at the same second. His right fist had been aimed at Cepicka’s jaw but the Czech threw his head up, and his own movement caused the blow to land on his left shoulder. He was already off balance, so his kick missed Robbie’s shin and the force of the blow swung him round. For a moment he swayed, striving to regain his balance, sideways on to Robbie and unable to use his uninjured fist to protect himself. Rushing in, Robbie grabbed him with one hand by the back of the collar, and with the other by the seat of the pants. Exerting all his great strength, Robbie gave one terrific heave, lifting Cepicka as though he were a sack of potatoes. For a moment, he held his enemy high above his head, then threw him over the low battlement of boulders down into the road.
For twenty or thirty seconds Robbie stood, legs splayed, gasping for breath; then he stumbled to the boulders and looked over. Twenty feet below, Cepicka lay sprawled, his limbs twisted at unnatural angles.
From where Robbie stood, Barak and Stephanie could not be seen. Straightening himself, he ran the few paces across the curve of the rocky platform and crouched again over the boulders there, to look down into the road round the corner. Stephanie was standing near the bonnet of the Ford. Her back was to the precipice and she was only a few feet from its edge. Barak stood facing her and was shaking his fist in her face. Robbie heard him shout:
‘How dare you upset my plans? How dare you? You shall be disciplined for this. I’ll teach you to sneak off with your boy friend. Cepicka will deal with him within the next few minutes, then we’ll take you back and I’ll deal with you.’
His mind whirling, Robbie wondered how he could possibly get the better of Barak. To scramble down the chimney to the road would have been suicidal. He would have had a bullet in him before he could get within yards of his enemy. From where he stood, up on the shoulder of the mountain, he could see the road winding away for a considerable distance in both direetions, and it was empty. During the two hours or more since he and Stephanie had set out from Olympia, they had met only one coachload of tourists, three lorries and one private car, and the traffic going in their direction could be assumed to be no more frequent. The odds were, therefore, against Barak’s being forced to abandon his hold-up through a vehicle arriving on the scene in the next ten minutes or quarter of an hour.
As Robbie’s glance swept the distant road, he suddenly caught sight of a solitary figure some way to his left and about half a mile away on the slope above it. The man was evidently a goat-herd and from up there he must have had a clear view of Robbie’s struggle with Cepicka, but he was too far off to be called on for immediate assistance. Swinging round again, Robbie once more stared down at Stephanie and her husband.<
br />
Her voice, shrill with anger, came up to him clearly: ‘You murderous brute! I’ll stay with you no longer! I’m sick to death of you and the Party and all its filthy work. But don’t think you can get me sent back to Czechoslovakia. I know too much about you. If you refuse me my freedom or fake a lying report about me, I’ll give Janos chapter and verse about the bribes you’ve taken. Then it’s you who’ll be sent back, and you’ll find yourself in the uranium mines.’
For the space of a minute they stood glaring at one another, and there was complete silence on the mountainside. Then Barak took a pace forward. Suddenly his hand shot out. It landed on Stephanie’s chest. She staggered back. Robbie saw the earth on the edge of the precipice crumble under her heel. Her eyes instantly became round with terror. Her mouth opened wide and she gave a piercing shriek. Then, as though a trap-door had opened under her, and with her hands wildly clutching empty air, she shot downwards into the abyss.
Barak stepped back and passed a hand over his eyes. Robbie, twenty feet above him, remained for some seconds paralysed by horror at the awful scene he had witnessed. Then he found his voice and shouted:
‘You fiend! You fiend! I’ll kill you for this. I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you! I swear I will!’
Swinging round, Barak stared up at him. His hand went to his shoulder holster and he jerked out a gun. It was not the small pistol he had wrested from Stephanie, but a big blue-barrelled automatic. As he raised it, Robbie ducked down behind the boulder. Realising that Robbie was well under cover, Barak did not fire, but Robbie heard his footsteps as he walked quickly round the corner of the cliff to the gully. A loud exclamation told Robbie that he had just come upon Cepicka’s body.
Robbie wondered if his enemy would come up the chimney. On all fours he wriggled over to the boulder nearest to it, to be ready for him; but after he had crouched behind it for a minute, the footsteps moved away. For what seemed an age he continued to crouch there, then he heard the engine of a car start up. Crawling quickly back to the other side of the bastion, he risked a quick look over.
Mayhem in Greece Page 40
