by Neil Olson
“Why aren’t you with the men I sent?”
“They are safe,” the Snake answered casually.
“What happened up there?”
Dragoumis looked at him hard.
“What do you think happened? The Prince didn’t get his gift, so he didn’t call off the men guarding the house.”
“You couldn’t overrun them?”
“We could have. There were only a few, but they had a machine gun, and it would have cost many men. God knows they were eager, but they were not my men to spend that way.”
We’re all your men, thought Elias, and you spend us in whatever manner suits you.
“So why are you here?” he pressed.
“The same reason as you. To find out what the hell happened.”
“You seem to know already.”
“I could say the same.” Fotis circled the table like a shark.
“Here we both are.”
“Kosta went into the church during the shooting. I don’t know why he went in or if he got out.” Elias could not mention Mikalis. It was too new, too raw.
“The son, yes, he is part of it.”
“And this one?” Elias kicked the chair leg and Stamatis flinched.
“This one,” Fotis answered evenly, a hand upon the merchant’s shoulder, “was seen leaving the church, with another man. And something wrapped in a bundle.”
“Before the fire?”
“During the fire.”
“Seen by whom?”
“It’s a lie,” hissed the old thief. “It’s a lie. They all hate me. Peasants. They would lie for a crust of bread. Captain Elias—”
“Enough of that.”
Dragoumis slapped the merchant’s face to quiet him, and Elias became aware that the old man’s desperate words were directed at him alone. Some tacit, if hostile, understanding already existed between the other two men. They were beyond petty issues like guilt or innocence, and bargained now for other lives, and the style of necessary deaths. Elias stepped closer to the table. Sweat glistened on Stamatis’ forehead. His clothes were clean, probably freshly put on before Fotis’ arrival, yet the bottom of his large beard was distinctly singed, and his matted gray hair smelled of smoke. The captain leaned over the shaking man.
“Where is Kosta?” he asked.
“Yes, where?” Fotis seconded. “You’ve sent him away with your prize, haven’t you? Where do you think he can go? You know we control all the countryside around here. Where will he go that I can’t find him?”
Stamatis shook his head vigorously, though what it was he denied was unclear. The whole pathetic situation, perhaps. A schemer snared in his own scheme. Intolerable. What the hell had he intended? Elias wondered. Not to get caught, first of all, but he must have known he would be suspected. To leave the village quickly? To sell the icon? To whom? To keep it until after the war? How to get answers from him? They could pretend to negotiate, but he would never believe them. Not now, not with the knife on the table. Besides, there was no time.
“I want to write a confession,” the merchant announced.
Fotis drew a deep, explosive breath, then let it out. His voice stayed calm.
“Listen to me. I am going to take your fingers off one by one until you tell me where your bastard boy is, and what you have done with the icon.”
“I want to write a confession,” Stamatis insisted, voice quavering. “I’ll tell you everything, but I want it on paper. And the captain must keep it, so one honest man will know the truth.”
“I can know it just as easily if you speak,” Elias answered, catching a withering look from the Snake for engaging in this dialogue at all.
“No, no, it must be on paper. So that you may prove I said these things. Men trust nothing spoken these days.”
It was some game the old thief was playing. Simply buying time, perhaps, but Elias decided to call his bluff.
“So, write.”
Fotis snorted in disgust but did not contradict his subordinate. Maybe he felt that the captain knew the merchant’s ways better than himself. Perhaps he feared the things Mavroudas might say in Elias’ presence, if pressed too hard. Elias knew that if he had not entered when he did, the interrogation would have reached the ugly stage by now, as it was still likely to do. And maybe that was the better course. Stamatis was stalling; Kosta—if Fotis was right about that—could not yet be far away.
The merchant snatched a stubby pencil from a cup, and a soiled sheet of brown paper from beneath the table, and began writing. Fotis risked a peek out the small window, and Elias slid over next to him.
“You got here quickly.”
“Yes.” Nothing more, of course. It was one of the Snake’s rules never to explain, never to be placed on the defensive. It meant nothing either way. Yet it seemed only natural that fellow officers should discuss such a disastrous dissolution of their plans, not to mention forge a new strategy, and Elias could not help finding his chief’s reticence disturbing.
“Where are my men now?” he asked.
“The little hill above the north road.”
“So close? Müller has fifty soldiers.”
“The church is south. For all he knows you’re still there. He won’t split up and strike north, not in the dark.”
“He could call for reinforcements.”
“He is not even supposed to be here,” Fotis snapped. “Those troops are borrowed. He came for a trade, not a fight. Anyway, your men will know to scatter if there is trouble.”
“Who did you leave in charge?”
“The one you picked, Giorgios. What happened at the church?” Fotis finally asked.
“I’ll tell you later,” Elias answered. Two could play the game. Besides, it would not do to say he wasn’t precisely certain what had happened. “Are you sure this one has the icon?”
“You have another idea?”
“I only wonder how a man could escape that inferno. Or a painting. It may have simply burned.”
“I don’t think so. I think this bastard lit the fire behind him to cover his tracks.”
“You said he came out during the fire.”
“He lit it in front to keep Müller out. Then he escaped another way.”
“How did he know Müller was coming?”
Fotis fixed him with a rare expression: incredulity bordering on disgust.
“How else? His son. Your trained dog, Kosta.”
Of course. This conspiracy was not newly hatched; father and son had been in communication all along. Kosta had been with Elias when he told Müller the plan, and again when Elias gave Stefano the message that would flush Mikalis from the church and keep him from harm while Müller took the icon. Kosta, his most trusted man. The Snake saw understanding transform the captain’s face.
“You were deceived, my friend. The boy was the old man’s spy in your camp.”
“You knew?”
“I just realized it tonight. And so have you, don’t deny it.”
A shout from the table startled them both.
“Damn it all to hell,” Stamatis cried, tearing the page lengthwise. “Damn you both, I won’t do it. I won’t confess to what I haven’t done.” He tore the page to pieces.
Fotis moved quickly to the table, and the merchant threw the paper in his face, then sprang for the knife on the table. Dragoumis grabbed wildly and nearly caught the blade with his hand, then managed to snag the older man’s wrist before the knife could find his throat. The table leaned and the guttering flame threw wild shadows about the room as the men struggled.
Elias first reached for his pistol, but that would make too much noise. Instead, he grabbed the rope and pulled it around the merchant’s neck, yanking him back into the chair.
“Release the knife.”
It clattered to the table, and Fotis quickly snatched it up, his wide eyes narrowing in rage.
“That’s enough. Tie him there, with one hand free. We’ll have answers now.”
The captain had seen this before.
Communists, collaborators, once even a German corporal, tied to a chair while Fotis worked on them with the knife. Torture had its uses. Time was wasting, and the fat thief was a likely candidate to break quickly. Still, Elias hesitated.
“Tie him,” Dragoumis demanded, his composure gone, his face flushed with blood.
A hard rap at the door, followed quickly by two more. Fotis went to the window.
“It’s Marko.”
They covered the light again, and a thickset young man slipped in. He nodded to Elias who ignored him. Marko had a way of appearing when there was dirty work to do. He was a baker’s son from a few villages away, but not with the captain’s andartes. He worked directly for Dragoumis. Fotis had shaped him, or perhaps nature had. Nothing unsettled the boy, no order was too grim. Elias believed that he had found such a one in Kosta, but Marko was the genuine item. Perhaps a lack of cleverness was the key. Kosta was clever, damn him.
“What’s happening out there?”
“They’re gathering people in the square,” Marko replied.
“They started with the old men, but now they’re grabbing anyone, even some women. I guess there aren’t enough men left. I was lucky they didn’t take me.”
“Did you kill any Germans at the church?” Fotis asked.
“One,” Elias answered.
“That’s forty they’ll shoot at sunrise. You’ll be lucky if they don’t burn the place.”
“Bastards,” said Marko.
Elias had let his grip relax, and Mavroudas slipped the noose, but only to fall like a heavy sack at the guerrilla leader’s feet.
“Captain, for the love of Christ, spare me from these beasts. You’re not like them, you’re a good man, everyone respects you.”
“Get up.”
“No, please, I beg you. Show mercy, it is in your hands.”
The merchant’s face was damp with tears, his eyes wild. Elias knew that his terror was genuine, yet there was also a staged quality to the outburst. Stamatis seized the captain’s right hand between his own in a prayerlike fashion, and fixed him with a meaningful stare. Even as he struggled to pull his hand free, Elias felt a scrap of paper being pressed against his palm.
The room’s dynamics shifted invisibly. The old thief had made his choice; the rest was up to Elias. He felt the other men’s eyes upon him and knew that Fotis rarely missed a trick.
“Let go of me, you pig.”
“No, listen, I don’t know where the boy is, I don’t—”
He clouted the merchant across the face with his left hand, rotating his body in rhythm with the blow, stuffing the paper into his pocket while his right hand was obscured from view.
“You have no friends here, Mavroudas,” Fotis said quietly, his calm restored. “Marko, put him in the chair and tie him, one hand free. Which hand do you want to lose first, Mavroudas, left or right? You see, you still have some choices.”
Marko worked swiftly. Stamatis, his last card played, nothing to distract him from the horror to come, stared stony-faced at the wall, a whimper escaping him as the knots secured him in place. Elias would not watch. It was one thing to kill strangers in a fight, quite another to slowly drain the life from a man you had known since childhood. Yet the merchant’s actions had caused Mikalis’ death. It was right he should die. So let him; Elias had other work. He headed to the door as Fotis took up the knife.
“Where are you going?”
“To find my men on the north hill.”
“Yes, good. If you must move, the old monastery, not the cave.”
“I know my business,” snapped Elias.
“Of course. Otherwise, stay on the hill and I will find you there.”
“What is the plan if he talks?”
Fotis smiled unpleasantly. “He will talk. We will discuss it when I find you. Take care, my boy.” The last words spoken in that urgent hush which convinced you of their sincerity.
Stamatis’ whimpering reached a higher pitch, almost a scream, as Elias slipped out into the night. “Put something in his mouth” were the last words he heard.
Activity in the square continued. Scattered pairs of Germans were everywhere, pounding on doors, looking for something or someone. Müller probably had a dozen false leads to pursue, fed to him by panicked villagers trying to save themselves. Elias kept within the darkest shadows, thankful for the lack of moonlight, and slipped street to street between houses, stopping at a bend in an alleyway. He found the box in his vest pocket, with only a precious few matches remaining. Drawing out the little scrap of paper with one hand, he struck a match against the cold stone wall with the other.
St. Gregori’s chapel. Spare the boy.
That was all. He touched the dying match to the paper, watched it flare brightly and vanish in ash. St. Gregori’s. A good choice. It was not in regular use, and the captain had a hard time remembering just where it was. To the north somewhere, but well off of any road. Spare the boy? How could he be serious? Did Stamatis not know what Kosta had done to Mikalis? Did he think that Elias was unaware? Why should his mercy be greater than the Snake’s, who had not lost a brother? The old thief had gone soft in his final minutes, but it did not matter.
How to proceed? He no longer trusted Fotis. It was best that he hadn’t mentioned Mikalis, for then Fotis would not trust him to act rationally. The most important thing was to get to the chapel quickly. With the icon he had bargaining power, he could still make some kind of deal. Stamatis would talk; Fotis would be directly on Elias’ heels.
The next few streets were clear of Germans, and this allowed freer movement. Stefano’s tavern was closed, no light visible inside. The Germans might have the barkeep, but Elias doubted it. Not for nothing did he trust messages to Stefano. The man was a collector of secrets but never spoke them unless the price was right, and he was skilled at arriving and departing unnoticed. Where would he be now? Not at home. The wife and child were dead; only the mother-in-law was in the house, and Stefano would not care what happened to her. He would not be walking the streets with a roundup in progress. No, Elias guessed that Stefano was sitting in the darkened tavern, waiting for the danger to pass. The captain went to the back door. There was a bolt on the inside, but Elias remembered that the bracing screws were loose. A polite knock was not going to serve. Without deliberation, he stepped back and threw his left shoulder against the door, which leaped on its hinges, making a terrible noise, but did not give. So much for surprise. The captain stepped back again, shifting his right shoulder forward and placing the bottom of his left foot on the wall behind. Killed by a nervous tavern owner, he mused in disgust; and I gave him that damn pistol! Then he sprang forward with all his strength.
The door gave, just, but the shock of the impact staggered Elias and he stumbled to the floor. He stayed prone for several seconds but spoke at once, to identify himself.
“Stefano, it’s me.”
The tavern keeper would not have willingly let him in, but would not shoot him now that he was. Empty chairs and tables loomed in the faint light from the windows. The bar stood by the kitchen entry, and Elias crawled that way. Peering around the edge, he made out a figure peering over the top. He placed his pistol against the man’s knee.
“I’m down here.”
The tavern owner jumped in surprise.
“Easy,” said the captain, rising to his feet. “Put your pistol down.” He had not actually seen a weapon, but he heard the thunk of it being released. “Light a lantern.”
“Who has oil, besides you and the Germans?”
“A candle, then.”
The low, flickering light revealed a swollen bruise around Stefano’s left eye, and his refusal to look at the captain made questions almost unnecessary, but Elias had to be certain.
“Did you deliver the message to Mikalis?” Elias asked.
“If you ask me, then you know I didn’t.”
“Who did that to your face?”
“Mavroudas. The old man.”
“To learn the m
essage?”
“He already knew that. To persuade me not to go, to let him go in my place.”
“Beat you with one hand, paid you with the other.”
“What does it matter?”
“You’re very casual for a traitor.”
Stefano’s eye widened, the first sign of real alarm.
“I am no traitor. Did he not deliver the message?”
“You must have known that he intended more than that.”
“How am I to know what he has in mind? He threatened to kill me if I crossed him.”
“He delivered it. Then things went wrong. Mikalis is dead.”
“No.” The tavern keeper’s face collapsed, and tears welled up in his eyes. Did he think that Elias was about to execute him, or was it real grief for the life of the popular priest? Who could say? The captain wanted to strike him, but might knock him senseless, which would not serve his purposes. He stepped in close and put the pistol to Stefano’s throat.
“I should kill you, but I need you to do two things. You must not fail in either.”
Stefano nodded.
“You will go to the German major, Müller,” Elias continued.
“You’ll tell him that the business at the church was a mistake. The deal is still possible. I will bring him what he wants before sundown tomorrow, but he must not shoot anyone. If he does, everything is off. He must be alone when you tell him, and you must reach him before sunrise. Do you understand?”
Stefano paused only a moment, licking his dry lips.
“I will do it.”
Elias stepped away and put the pistol back in his belt.
“If you do, you will save many lives. But you must be swift, and you must convince him. No one can know of this, ever. It is your death if you speak.”
“Of course.”
The tavern owner’s eyes burned with sincerity, but that would pass. Such secrets got out. Someone would see Stefano and Müller together, maybe the communists would get hold of him. It was just the sort of story they wanted to hear, republicans and Germans in bed together. Stefano would say what he must to survive, or even sell the information. He was slippery, an unwise choice, but there was no one else. Kosta was gone. Elias’ other men didn’t know what he was doing, and they would never support it if they did. Every man in the village was compromised. Though who was he to judge, Elias wondered of himself; he, the most compromised man of all? All the good men were dead.
