by Joseph Badal
Before Bob could respond, a knock sounded on his office door, Sam Goodwin stuck his head in the office, and said, “Jack Cole on line two.”
“I’ll be right with him,” Bob told Sam. Then he blew out an exasperated sigh and said to Liz, “Okay, I give up. E-mail me your flight information. I’ll pick you up at the airport.”
“Check your inbox; I sent the flight information to you yesterday.”
“How’d you get my e-mail address over here?” Bob asked.
“I have my sources,” Liz said with a laugh. “I miss you, Bob,” she added.
“Me too, honey,” Bob said, “even though you’re a pushy broad.”
“You’re so romantic,” she said.
Bob laughed. “I think I might enjoy having you over here with me.”
“You think! You think!” Liz shouted playfully. “You really know how to make a girl feel wanted.”
“I gotta take a call, Liz. I’ll call you from my room tonight.”
“You’d better,” she responded and hung up.
Well, you handled that well, Bob thought as he pressed the blinking button for line two. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Jack,” he said.
“No problem,” Jack answered. “I assume you were talking with Liz. She should always take priority.”
“How in God’s name do you know that?”
“That Liz takes top priority?” Jack said.
“Godammit, you know what I meant.”
“Take it easy, buddy,” Jack said.
“Sorry, Jack, I guess the situation over here is getting to me.” Bob hesitated a moment, then said, “You gonna tell me how you knew I was talking with Liz?”
“Because she called me yesterday and asked for your e-mail address and telephone number. I told her we had a call scheduled at six-thirty your time today and suggested she call you then. That way she would be sure to catch you. I gave her your telephone number, too.”
“How long have you and my wife been conspiring against me?”
“Years, my friend. Many, many years. So, how are things?”
“Actually, better than I had hoped in some instances, and at least as bad as I anticipated in others. The team I have to work with is top notch, and the Brits appear to be willing to work with us. On the negative side, the Greek investigative process into Greek Spring is nothing short of a clusterfuck.”
“That’s why you’re over there,” Jack said, “to change the Greek leadership’s approach. And if anyone can find the rock those bastards are hiding under, it’s you.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence; but I think the upcoming Olympic Games has had as much to do with changing the Greek Government’s attitude toward terrorism as anything else. That change in attitude may be just what we need. The more pressure brought to bear on the terrorists by the Greek leadership, the more likely someone in one of the terror groups will make a mistake.”
“Last I heard, there are dozens of terror cells over there. How the hell are you going to manage that situation? It will be like herding cats.”
“We’re going to focus on the most active group: Greek Spring. Our feeling is that if we take that cell down, we’ll do irreparable damage to a lot of the other cells. A lot of these smaller groups may be nothing but red herrings and splinter groups. 17 November was one of two big fish in the terrorist cesspool. Now EA is the only big fish left.” These words had barely crossed his lips when Bob suddenly had a brain flash. He’d made the connection that had been gnawing at him before the telephone rang. Something Tanya had said back at Langley. “You have anything else for me?” Bob asked, trying to keep impatience from his voice.
“You scheduled to meet with the Prime Minister?”
“Yeah, next Friday. The sixth. The ambassador set it up.”
“Remember, you’ve got the trump card to play if you need it.”
“I know; but I don’t think it will be necessary. Besides, our Olympic team is already here. Pulling the team will make the President as popular as Jimmy Carter was after he pulled our team out of the Moscow Games.”
“Okay,” Jack said. “Keep your eyes and ears open. If the bad guys find out you’re there . . . .”
“Yeah, I know. Thanks, Jack.”
Bob signed off and leaped to his feet. He went from his office into the bullpen area. Files were stacked on all three of the desks there. Sam and Stacey had their noses buried in files; Tony was halfway out the door.
“Let me have your attention for a moment,” Bob said, causing Tony to turn around and shut the office door behind him. Sam and Stacey pushed their chairs away from their desks. “How many terrorist organizations are operating in Athens?” he asked.
“Oh Jesus, Mr. Danforth,” Stacey said, “there have got to be dozens of groups.”
Bob looked at Sam and Tony and inferred from their expressions that they agreed with Stacey. “Okay, let’s eliminate Abu Nidal and groups affiliated with Middle East groups with an anti-Israel agenda, the Kurdish PPK, anti-Turkish groups, and the like. Focus on the Greek-based organizations with objectives similar to Greek Spring’s.”
“There are still a bunch,” Tony said. “The Friendship Society, Red Line, Enraged Anarchists, Revolutionary Subversive Faction, Nihilist Faction, Anti-establishment Nuclei, and so on.”
“And what do these groups have in common, besides their stated aims?” Bob asked.
After a few seconds had passed, Tony offered an answer: “They each appear to have very few members.”
“They’re all violent,” Sam said.
“What else?” Bob asked.
“They don’t appear to have an expansion goal. They seem to care less about growing, about recruiting new members,” Stacey added.
Tony and Sam were now pacing the room, as though moving helped them think. Tony said, “They have the support of people in government and in the press, and, based on their communiqués, they appear to be well-educated.”
“Good,” Bob said, while he moved to the window and looked out at the sea. When he turned back to the team, he looked from Sam, to Tony, to Stacey and said, “Tony, you mentioned the communiqués the various terrorist groups have issued after their assassinations and bombings. Anything strange about them?”
Tony seemed to think about the question for a moment. “Not that I can . . . .” Then his face lit up. “Holy shit! Yeah, there’s something real strange about their messages. Almost all of them sound the same. I mean, the writing style, the use of certain words, even the length of the messages. It’s as though the same person wrote many of the letters, as though the groups are connected with one another.”
“Or, as though many of the terrorist groups were really one and the same,” Sam noted.
Bob pointed a finger at Sam. “Now you’ve got it,” he said. “What if all of the terrorist organizations—or at least many of them—which have claimed responsibility for crimes are nothing more than one group of individuals operating under a myriad of organizational titles? What if they’re using different names to throw off the authorities? What if we’re dealing with a cell structure, all under the leadership of one person, or of a few people?”
“That could make our job a lot easier,” Sam blurted, his voice rising with excitement.
“Maybe, in one sense,” Bob said. “The job does not appear as daunting if we have a small, integrated group committing these violent acts. But, if we’re correct, we’ve still got the problem of finding a few people in a city of four million.”
“Maybe we can narrow our search a bit,” Sam said. “The consensus opinion of the psychological profiles the Brits have done is that the leaders of the group, or groups, are intellectuals—doctors, lawyers, educators, journalists. We should focus in on the intelligentsia.”
“Here’s what I want you to do,” Bob said. “Go back and review every violent crime claimed by Greek terro
rist organizations. Look for similarities in the crime MOs, in the style and wording of the communiqués sent after the crimes. Which newspapers did they send their communiqués to. Let’s see if we can come up with something. And, two other things. I agree with Stanton Markeson. I think we are probably dealing with fewer than thirty individuals, maybe as few as twenty, in EA. Any more than that and I suspect someone would have made a mistake by now. No organization can operate for an extended period of time in absolute secrecy unless it’s relatively small. In fact, it’s staggering that not a single one of the EA terrorists has screwed up and gotten caught. Lastly, let’s try to identify someone who was actively involved in Marxist-Leninist organizations, probably recruited as a university student, and perhaps trained in the former Soviet Union, maybe at Patrice Lumumba University, or in Cuba.”
“One other thing, Mr. Danforth,” Stacey said. “I think the leader has got to be an egomaniac. The tenor of the letters sent to the press has been self-righteous, egotistical. I think this guy is in the terror business for two reasons: He likes violence and he likes messing with the authorities. He especially likes tweaking the noses of the most powerful nations on earth.”
“I agree,” Tony said. “Greek Spring, like 17 November, started with a Marxist orientation, but it smoothly transitioned into whatever doctrine was convenient—nationalism, anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism, anti-Americanism, and even anti-multinational corporations. The top guy of Greek Spring, and maybe of all or many of the other terrorist cells, is no longer supporting an ideology. He’s in the business to feed his own ego.”
“That’s good thinking,” Bob said. “I’m going to have Langley put together a new psychological profile on the guy. Then we’ll follow that thread. We’ll check with professional organizations—teachers unions, lawyers and doctors associations, and the like. Maybe someone in those groups can match up an individual against the profile.”
Bob could see that his team was excited. They had long days of grunt work ahead; their eyes would become red from staring at computer screens and photocopied documents. But they now had a specific, narrower goal, instead of the almost impossible task which had confronted them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
JULY 30, 2004
July had been an unusually mild month in Athens. The temperature had stayed below ninety and a moderate wind had reduced the air pollution from a three cigarette pack per day level to about a one-pack per day level for the last few days. Friday changed all that. The temperature rose to the mid-nineties and the breeze disappeared. By 7:30 p.m., the air was gray, the pollution so bad that Pavlos Manganos’ eyes burned. The traffic in Constitution Square reminded him of the bumper car concession at the amusement park he’d visited in Germany a couple years earlier. Vehicle anarchy. He would have preferred to wait in the hotel, in the air-conditioned lobby, but that wouldn’t have been the smart thing to do. The hotel might have security cameras.
Pavlos’ 35 millimeter Nikon camera with telephoto lens hung on a strap around his neck. He moved every fifteen minutes or so, from a spot in the shadow of the Bank of America bank branch, to a crowded place on a sidewalk behind a street vendor, to the Parliament building steps, to the front of a row of shops. He snapped pictures as though he was a tourist intent on doing a photographic study of the square. The area was so bright with street and shop lights that Pavlos knew his shots would turn out fine, even without a flash attachment.
Demetrios Mavroyianni’s source at the Justice Ministry had provided them with the name of the hotel where Robert Danforth was staying: The Grand Bretagne. Giorgos Photos had sent Pavlos to watch the hotel entrance, to see if he might be able to pick out the CIA man. But Pavlos was beyond frustrated. The pollution was making him hack and he had no way of knowing what Danforth looked like. To make matters worse, he’d had to cancel his date with Lela—the third time he’d stood her up in a month. His involvement with Greek Spring was ruining his sex life. He was about to go to the pay phone on the far side of the square to call Lela, when a white Ford Taurus pulled up in front of the Grand Bretagne and two men got out of the vehicle. Pavlos recognized the driver: Tony Fratangelo. He’d watched the man meet with Mikaelis Griffas on two occasions. He’d seen Fratangelo walk from the small street in Piraeus to the same white Ford the night Pavlos had killed Griffas. He didn’t know who the second man was, but he had a damned good idea.
Pavlos took rapid-fire pictures of the two men as the passenger started up the front steps of the hotel and the driver said something to him over the top of the car. The other man turned and looked at Fratangelo, saying something in return. Pavlos snapped a full frontal shot of the man standing in the hotel entrance, highlighted by the hotel’s lights.
The heat and smog forgotten, Pavlos felt exhilarated, as though jet fuel pumped through his veins. If his instincts were correct, he had just photographed Robert Danforth, a high-level CIA man, a target to rival 17 November’s first target: Richard Welch.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
JULY 31, 2004
Dimitris Argyropoulos wanted two things out of life. He wanted to bring down his enemies: The United States, Britain, and Turkey. And he wanted to capture the imagination of the Greek people in a way that would imprint his name in the minds of every citizen and catapult him into the position of Prime Minister. As Deputy Prime Minister, the odds were in his favor that he would succeed the present Prime Minister in the next round of elections, four years from now. But Argyropoulos didn’t want to wait. He stared out at the top edge of the rising sun as it broke above the sparkling Aegean waters and felt his chest swell with the promise of a glorious future for him and his country.
He turned his wrist so that the sun lit up his watch face: 6:30. The ferry would dock in another fifteen minutes. He checked around the boat deck to make sure none of the other passengers were too close to him. It wouldn’t do for one of them to recognize him. He pulled his black knit fisherman’s hat lower on his head and snapped his windbreaker over his neck, partially covering his face. This would have to be his last trip to Evoia. But it would be the most important one.
Giorgos Photos picked up Argyropoulos at the Evoia ferry dock. The ride to Photos’ home took ten minutes. The Deputy Prime Minister sensed the other man’s anxiety. It matched his own. It wasn’t that he was frightened. In actuality, he was excited. They were meeting to finalize a series of actions that would prove to be the seminal events of Greece’s modern history and of its future. They rode in silence until Photos pulled into the driveway of his home.
“Eteemos eesay?” Argyropoulos asked.
“Yes, I’m ready,” Photos answered.
Argyropoulos came around to the driver-side of the car and hooked his arm inside Photos’ arm. “Good, my friend. Let’s go inside. Our country awaits its destiny.”
The windows of Photos’ house were shuttered; the doors now locked. The only light came from a table lamp in a corner of the living room. Photos turned on a projector connected to a laptop computer on a small round table in the middle of the room. The light beam from the projector lit up one white wall. Photos then tapped on the computer keyboard and a list showed on the wall.
“I made some entries last night based on information I received from one of my people in Athens.” He laughed. “Our luck is getting better with each day.”
Argyropoulos stared at the projected image and noted with satisfaction that Photos had added several names to the list since he had seen it last. “Who is this Robert Danforth?”
“A highly placed CIA Special Operations officer. He’s been with the Agency since the seventies. He was with the United States Army before that. And you’re going to love this; he was stationed here in Greece during the time of the junta. Danforth helped keep the Colonels in power. He was part of the bastard Americans’ plot to deny our people an elected government.”
“All very interesting,” the Deputy Prime Minister said, “but why is he on the
list?”
Photos laughed again. “Because he’s in Athens as we speak. The CIA sent him here to stop us.”
Argyropoulos shook his head in wonder. “Isn’t that ironic?” he said.
Photos ran down the list, briefing Argyropoulos on the proposed chronology of events, beginning with an attack on the British, then the killings of CIA agents Danforth and Fratangelo, and ending with the coup de grace.
Argyropoulos questioned Photos on every detail of every detail of the plan. When he had asked every question he could think of, he walked over to the wall by the front door and flipped on the lights. Photos switched off the projector.
“You can make all of this happen?” Argyropoulos asked.
“And more,” Photos said. “The actions we just went through are the high points. We will fill in the gaps between the major events with a hundred attacks that will demoralize our enemies. We will bring them to their knees.”
“This will ruin the attendance at the Olympic Games.”
“Exactly,” Photos said. “The business community will be up in arms. The Prime Minister will lose his supporters there. There will be a crisis of confidence in our leader.”
Argyropoulos nodded a half-dozen times as he thought about the sequence of attacks Photos had just described and the consequences. If the man and his terror cell performed, Argyropoulos knew the Prime Minister would be forced to resign and he would replace him. He would govern a new Greece, a Greece of his own design. A country that would attain a level of influence and respect it had not enjoyed for over two millennia, a country divorced from the suffocating influence of The United States, England, and Turkey. He smiled at Photos and said, “You will hold a place of honor in our government and will become a national hero.”
Photos stood and approached the Deputy Prime Minister. They clasped one another’s arms and simultaneously said, “Zeeto ee Ellas,” cheering their country.
