Dig Two Graves: Revenge or Honor

by Nick Vellis

  “Do you have any idea why all these men were killed,” AJ asked.”

  “They were killed for something someone thought they had,” Gia replied. “It’s the only logical answer.”

  “What?” Ceres said.

  “Each of these men were tracked down one by one and killed. It would take time to find so many people. My guess is each man was tracked down and murdered when he didn’t have what the killer wanted.

  “But what could it be?” Ceres said.

  “What have you protected so carefully all these years?” AJ said, as he glanced at Ceres’ leather folio on the floor next to the bed.

  “It can’t be. What could be so valuable? I’ve read that notebook cover to cover until the paper has worn thin,” Ceres said.

  “You’ve read everything,” AJ said, “Everything except …”

  “The code,” Ceres said. “My God, the code.”

  “There’s no other answer,” AJ said.

  “They must think you have it,” Gia said.

  “And I do,” Ceres said suddenly very tired. “Or I did. Ajax?”

  “I put it in the safe last night,” AJ said. “And I got it out again this morning. Here,” AJ handed the notebook back to Ceres.

  “All those men killed for something I’ve had all along and don’t understand,” Ceres said

  “I also dug up some information about codes. It’s a long story, but the gist of it is we need to find an expert to crack the message.

  Without knowing what kind of code it is or having a hint about the key, we don’t have a prayer of deciphering it,” Gia said. “We’ll need to bring in an expert. There’s too much at stake.”

  “But where can we find a code expert we can trust?” AJ said.

  “I still have friends at EUROPOL, or I can ask my uncle, but I didn’t want to do that until I asked you two first,” the PI said, anticipating AJ’s reaction.

  “EUROPOL…” AJ grimaced. “I don’t think we want the government involved in this, not yet anyway,” AJ said, shuddering inside.

  “I understand, but at some point, you’re going to have to tell someone. My uncle may have someone who could help but...”

  “He’s with a government agency, too,” AJ interrupted with resignation. He sat quietly for a moment then, turning to Ceres, said, “That leads us back to telling her the full story. I think it’s time.”

  Ceres closed his eyes and took a deep breath as if unlocking the secrets in his heart. “My dear, I have quite a story to tell you,” Ceres said.

  Ceres filled Gia in on his experiences in wartime Greece, meeting AJ’s grandfather, John Pantheras, and his escape to Italy in 1944. He explained how AJ’s father, Andreas, had located him in Boston through his own research into John Pantheras. Andreas’ death had lead Ceres to seek out Ajax Pantheras for help.

  When Ceres had finished Gia asked, “So this is about the missing gold and gems?”

  “We think so, but that’s what we have to find out,” AJ said.

  “Do you have any of your research with you, Ceres?” Gia asked. “I would like to go over what you looked at. Maybe I can see another side to it.”

  “Certainly. I don’t have all of it with me, of course, but there are some folders of printouts there, in the folio,” Ceres said, pointing to his battered leather bag.

  Gia picked it up and began to rifle through stacks of file folders. “There’s so much here,” Gia said. “What did you leave at home?”

  Ceres and AJ laughed.

  “Did you find anything about where the looted treasure could have been hidden?”

  “Oh, yes, there’s a whole folder on that. It’s a red one, I think,” Ceres said.

  While Gia looked at the printouts and notes, AJ and Ceres discussed the pros and cons of getting a government agency involved in their search.

  “I don’t want some bureaucrat deciding what they will tell us about our search,” Ceres said.

  “But we need help to decipher the code Ceres. You’ve had it all these years and haven’t had any success.”

  “I don’t want to hand this over to some government agency. Too many people have died for it to be ruined now,” Ceres said.

  “But if we never figure it out?” AJ protested.

  “Guys, guys hold on a minute. Ceres, what’s this information about the freighter Agamemnon?” Gia said, cutting into the argument.

  “The Agamemnon was a ship that left Thessaloniki just before the German evacuation. It's rumored to have carried at least part of the treasure on it. She sank, I think a British submarine got her or maybe it was a mine, I don’t recall.”

  “How did you find out about that?” AJ said.

  “I found a post war interview with some German soldiers who said they loaded crates onto the Agamemnon in the middle of the night, right before she sailed. I thought Solaris was involved but the records I found showed he was confined to a hospital when the ship sailed,” Ceres explained.

  “They could have faked the records,” AJ said.

  “Or it could have been that mysterious Greek officer you mentioned. You know, the one who was on the train when John disappeared,” Gia said. “Have you found any record of his name?”

  “No, I haven’t. It’s one of several very strange pieces to this puzzle,” Ceres said.

  AJ looked at Gia with a newfound respect. “That’s brilliant,” AJ said.

  “Maybe, but we have no way to prove it,” Ceres said. “Can we?”

  “No, well, yes, maybe there is something we can do with the information to break things open. It’s sort of crazy and it’s risky.”

  “What do you have in mind?” AJ said.

  “Well, this ship sank near the town of Katerini. We could go to Katerini, hire a dive boat …”

  “But I don’t dive,” AJ said.

  “Neither do I, but if we go there, maybe the thugs will too.”

  “How do we get them to follow us there?” Ceres said.

  “Oh no, not you, my Greek friend,” AJ said. “The doctor said another ten days at this resort for you.”

  Ceres protested and AJ shouted until Gia whistled to stop the two men’s bickering. “AJ is right about this Ceres. It’s a two-person job. Besides, you have to hold onto the notebook and keep it out of the wrong hands.”

  “All right, I’ll stay, but I don’t like it.”

  “Ceres has a good question though,” AJ said. “How do we get them to follow us?”

  “That’s the easy part. We drop a hint to a certain local police chief and word will get back to the right, I mean, the wrong people. If this works we’ll catch the hit men by surprise and maybe get some phone records to trace back to the source,” Gia said.

  “Ajax is right, you are brilliant,” Ceres said.

  “When did you find out the source of the leak?” AJ asked.

  “When I spoke to my uncle last night we … we reached the conclusion it was the local police chief. It’s embarrassing for Alessandro. The man’s an old friend, but it’s pretty clear he’s the source,” Gia said, feeling her uncle’s discomfort at the knowledge he’d been betrayed by a friend.

  “Now all we have to do is figure out the damn code,” AJ said.

  “Hello, dears, you know you really must not excite the patient,” Nurse Mary said as she bustled through the door. “His face is as red as a beet.”

  AJ said, “We’re sorry, we were just….”

  “Playing at ciphers now are we? That’s my line of country, you know. I love a puzzle or a good cipher.”

  “We were just talking, Mary,” Ceres said.

  “Yes, you were, deary, and talking too loudly for your own good, I’m afraid. No harm done,” the rosy cheeked nurse said. “You can count on Mary. There weren’t no one but me in the hall just now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know what you three are up to, but you seem nice sorts. Let me help you.”

  AJ said, “Mary that’s kind of you but…”

  “You
see, ciphers are my hobby. Me mum, well, she worked her whole life for the Foreign Office, but on her deathbed, she told me about it, she did. It was really MI 5, the Security Service, she done all them years o’ work for. And her mum, well she,” Mary lowered her voice to just above a whisper, “she got a secret MBE for working at Bletchley Park during the war. Never heard a word about it from neither of them, can you believe it? So you see secrets and ciphers is in my blood.”

  “Mary, I don’t…”

  “I’ve always loved a puzzle,” the nurse interrupted. “I studied mathematics and cryptography at Cambridge. I’m the past president of the Leicestershire Amateur Cryptographers as well as the Cambridge Mathematics Society. I’ve won seven honorable mentions in the annual national Sudoku competition. I could go on,” she said. “When I found myself just sitting in a solitary room all day, it didn’t appeal. I need to be around people so I switched to nursing. ‘Course, I can’t tell you who I worked for, the State Secret Act, you know.”

  Mary stood defiantly in front of three stunned people. They needed a codes expert and here was one, of a sort, right under their noses. Gia looked at Ceres, who gave an imperceptible nod. AJ, seeing this, slowly shook his head in disbelief.

  “Mary we don’t know what type of code it is or how to figure out the key,” Gia said.

  “You don’t figure out ciphers, you use trial and error. If solution number ten doesn’t do, you go on to number eleven. When was it written?

  “During the war,” AJ said, warming to the idea of Mary’s help.

  “Which one deary, there’ve been quite a few,” Mary said tersely but with a broad smile.

  “The Second World War, about 1944,” Ceres said.

  “You would have been just a young lad then,” Mary said. “British or American, Army or Navy?”

  “American Army in the Balkans,” Ceres replied.

  “You said 1944. That would be Greece or Yugoslavia then. I know my history, you see, even the secret history. Did the chap that wrote it use ciphers regularly?”

  AJ and Gia both turned to Ceres who looked up at the ceiling trying to dredge up long forgotten scenes from the hillside camp. After a few moments he said, “I don’t think so. He had a radio operator who decoded for him.”

  “But he had a code book?” Mary asked, getting more excited.

  “I’m sure he did,” Ceres said.

  “Did he have a good deal of time to encipher the message?”

  “I don’t know,” Ceres said.

  “What does it look like? Are there letters or numbers? Are there any spaces?”

  “It’s three rows of letters, two and a half, really with a space between each letter.”

  “Are there any letters repeated?”

  “Is that important? I don’t remember if there’re any repeated letters.”

  “It could be. Repeated letters sometimes give a hint to the type of cipher,” Mary said. “May I see it, deary?”

  “I’m not sure I should let you get involved in this Mary. It’s dangerous,” Ceres said.

  “What’s life without a little danger or excitement, Mr. Savas? It’s deadly dull here, don’t you know.”

  “I’ve kept this to myself for many years, Mary. I’ve shared it with these two people this morning. Forgive me if I hesitate a little longer to trust you with it, too.”

  “As you like deary, now let’s get your vital signs since you’ve calmed down a bit,” Mary said, grabbing the blood pressure cuff from the hook on the wall above the bed and wrapping it roughly around Ceres’ arm.

  “Now, you two best keep the ruckus down. You’re disturbing my patient,” Mary said as she pumped the gauge’s bulb. She put her stethoscope in her ears and listened intently as she slowly let the air pressure out. “Your pressure is up, Mr. Savas. You behave or you will lose your visiting privileges. I’m not going to lose a patient because of unruly visitors,” Mary said, staring daggers at AJ. “Now keep it down in here.”

  The portly nurse flounced out of the room.

  “Now I feel bad,” AJ said. “She was just trying to be helpful.”

  “Oh, I did that badly,” Ceres said. “AJ would you copy down the code for me. When she comes back, I will apologize and give her a copy of it. She can’t do any worse than I have all these years.”

  “Sure. May I have the notebook?”

  Ceres handed the book to AJ who copied the coded message.

  H Q T S R B S V H S G P T G S N E V U E X I F N P K T F F E E P Q W F Z O Y N J M G A Q M V J S J R

  “Do you want me to copy anything else for her?” AJ asked.

  “No, just the message will be fine. Thank you. Now Gia, about your plan…”

  Anton Petru sipped cappuccino at Café Alto on Corso Garibaldi. He took great pleasure in his anonymity as he watched the chic women stroll past his sidewalk table. Petru took another sip, secure in the knowledge his changed appearance made him invisible to the police.

  An expensive light brown wig, styled in the latest designer cut, covered his normally close-cropped black hair. Large aviator sunglasses flared at their outer edge made his round face appear longer and thinner. While no camouflage could hide his muscular physique, he had done his best to look smaller by choosing a light color linen sport coat a size larger than normal. The loose fitting outer garment, coupled with loose khaki slacks and a pastel shirt completed his disguise. Petru enjoyed the challenge of being a chameleon, but his work with Dobos had changed his normal methods and he resented it. He resented the older man’s orders and control of their operations. Now he resented exposing himself unnecessarily.

  Petru was sitting at the café in response to the old man’s text message. It was the first he had ever received from his older partner. He was tired of Dobos and of waiting for him.

  Another sip of cappuccino did little to sooth Petru’s frustration. As he was about to leave, he caught the eye of a stunning blond slowly swaying toward him. He smiled and surprisingly, she smiled back. Well, the outing may not be a total loss, he thought. Petru, with a small hand gesture, offered the woman, who still held his gaze, the empty chair at his table.

  Clearly a model or a trophy wife, Petru thought. The exaggerated walk, the flowing dress direct from some designer’s window, and the long, elegantly coiffed blond hair gave her away. As she got closer, she turned her head in the odd manner women do when they try not to show interest. She walked directly toward Petru. Her smile grew until her dazzling white teeth showed.

  She stopped in front of Petru, who stood and extended his hand. He was about to introduce himself when she firmly grasped the top of his right hand with her left. She pulled him close and whispered in his ear, “You’re fired.”

  She squeezed the trigger on the suppressed Sig Sauer Mosquito three times. Three .22 long rifle slugs slammed into Petru’s heart from less than eighteen inches away. He was dead before the woman lightly lowered him by his right hand back into his seat. The three pops attracted no attention from the others in the café, nor did the blond as she walked away.

  CHAPTER 28

  “Katerini! You want to tell these killers where you’re going? Are you out of your mind?” Alessandro Moretti, Guardia di Finanza, Deputy Director shouted into the phone.

  “Uncle Alessandro, it’s the only way to draw these men out. AJ and Ceres are never going to be safe until we solve this. If my idea works we’ll be able interrogate the men, track their phone calls and maybe even their money transfers. We could find out who’s behind this whole thing.” Gia responded.

  “I know all that, I just don’t want you doing it,” Alessandro said.

  “It’s my case, and my clients want to avoid official involvement,” Gia replied.

  “I just keep remembering burying your mother and then your father. I don’t want to do that again.”

  “I understand and I appreciate your concern. The difference with this situation is I know they’re coming.”

  “Will you at least let me come with you?” Alessandro said.
“You’re going up against professional assassins and your clients aren’t exactly Special Forces.”

  “No, we have to do this alone. You can help, though. Can you can put a guard on Mr. Savas at the hospital?”

  “Consider it already done, bella. Anything else I can do?”

  “Two things. I need you to call your friend Commander Verde and let him know I have gone to Katerini with both my clients to search the wreck of the Agamemnon.”

  “Done. And I have Verde’s phone tapped. The Public Prosecutor was all ears when I suggested the Commander of Police might be dirty. He hates Verde and hates corruption even more. And the other thing?”

  “I need to borrow one of the unmarked GdF Gulfstream jets.”

  “You want me to give you a government airplane? You’ve lost your mind,” Alessandro said.

  “Remember, you’ve kept me on at Guardia di Finanza as a consultant. I need to consult in Greece, and the Gulfstream G550 is the fastest way to get there.”

  “You know I can’t authorize that. The only way you get the plane is if you take me as copilot. If I fly it, they can only reprimand me.”

  “OK, OK, you win. I’ll have to check with my clients, but under the circumstances, I think they’ll agree,” Gia said, relieved she would have some back up she could rely on. “I’d be glad to have you along.”

  “Gia, I need to take another call. Can you hold on or do you want me to call you back?” Alessandro said.

  “I can wait,” Gia replied.

  “OK, hold on…” Alessandro said.

  Gia waited a few moments, then clacked away at her computer, looking at a couple emails, and then clicked on CNN Europe. She bookmarked an article on the Greek debt crisis to come back to later. Growing impatient, she did an Internet search on scuba diving in Katerini, Greece. She looked at four sites, bookmarking three of them. She was about to launch a second search when Alessandro came back on the phone.

  “Gia, you still there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sorry to be so long, that was Verde calling.”

  “Does he suspect something already?”

  “No, no problems. The Polizia Provinciale responded to a shooting on Corso Garibaldi this afternoon. A man was shot in the chest while sitting in front of a café.”