Laugh of the Hyenas

by Ivan Roussetzki

  “Something’s wrong! Oh God!” he cried.

  Belevski staggered as he reached under his coat and felt a warm wetness in the small of his back. He pulled his hand out to look.

  “Jesus Christ, it’s blood!” he said.

  The shocked doctor spun around with his mouth open, and his eyes winced in pain as he fell forward onto the ground. People swirled about, but only one person bent down over him.

  “Oh sir, please!” Belevski begged, but then he felt another piercing pain—this time in front near his stomach. It was the man who stopped to help. His fiery eyes stared at Belevski from beneath a black hat that opened like a coffin lid.

  “Dear Lord,” the doctor gasped. “Why are you doing this to me? Who are you?”

  Ghostly shadows drifted by him sideways as the market noise faded further and further away. He felt hot, then cold, then hot again. Belevski could barely breathe, and his chest ached. His blood filled the ground around him as his eyes rolled back into his head.

  Everything went dark. Then in the distance, he heard a woman’s voice scream, “Manol!”

  I am floating above the trees. I see myself lying on the ground in the center of a crowd of people. I am bleeding. The man who attacked me has disappeared into the crowd. A woman kneels beside me and takes my hand, but she looks up to God in heaven and makes the sign of the cross on her chest. She seems familiar. Do I know her? Am I imagining it, or is she calling my name? I yell at the top of my lungs, “Don’t let me die. I’m sorry, Spasia. I love you. Dear God! Helen, where are you?” But no one in the market hears me, because I’m not making a sound.

  

  Milev held his breath as the people flowed around the struggling man like water swallowing rocks tossed into a river. The seconds passed so slowly that Milev thought that he would burst. Then he saw the back of Letchkov’s hat bobbing up and down, retreating from behind a growing crowd of people craning to get a better view of the dirty old man who lay bleeding on the cobblestones. The police chief exhaled and took another series of deep breaths.

  “He’s full of blood!” a woman screamed from somewhere below. A man cried, “Call a doctor.” Pandemonium broke out. Another person shouted, “Someone call the police!”

  The agents tailing Belevski tried to reach the scene of the crime, but they floundered in the crowd of curious onlookers. They didn’t even know that it was the doctor on the ground, but the looks on their faces revealed their worst fears. People gathered around the fallen victim, but the man in the broad-rimmed hat was nowhere to be seen.

  

  Helen awoke to the sounds of screaming from outside her window. When she looked down below into the plaza of the Woman’s Market, there was total confusion. Shoppers and vendors were running in all directions and shouting. Then she saw that a small crowd had gathered around a crumpled body lying on the ground. When Helen heard someone cry for a doctor she felt as if she had been struck by a truck.

  “Jesus, it’s Manol!” she said. “I just know it.”

  Helen was about to run and get Jean when she saw his note on her bedside table: Helen, I’ve some unfinished business to attend to. Adieu, Jean.

  Without taking a thing with her, she tore out of the room and flew down two flights of stairs and into the market plaza. Helen fought against the flow of people scurrying away until she reached the circle of onlookers who surrounded the person lying on the ground. She pushed through the crowd and saw him lying in a pool of blood.

  “Oh dear, Manol!” She burst into tears and cried out. “God, please save him!”

  Helen knelt down and cradled his body as she kissed his forehead. She didn’t know what else to do. He only moaned.

  “Manol, can you hear me? Don’t die!” She pleaded as her eyes filled with tears. “I’m so sorry. Who did this to you?”

  Belevski tried to say something when two men with their pistols drawn shouted at her in German to stand up.

  

  As the Bulgarian Chief of the Secret Police took a swig of brandy from a flask and watched the confusion in the plaza below, he admired Belevski’s determination to survive. The doctor had done a commendable job avoiding arrest or death, at least until now. By the time Gestapo agents finally reached him, Milev was sure that the doctor’s soul had already left his body.

  “You’re too late,” he laughed, “and your boss isn’t going to be very happy about it.”

  But then Milev saw that the Gestapo agents were carting the doctor and someone else—a woman—off toward the doorway of another hotel overlooking the Woman’s Market. Milev focused the binoculars on the four of them to get a better look at the woman.

  “Oh, for the love of Christ, it’s Noverman! What is she doing here? Why are they taking her there?” Then, as if it were a sign from God, a reflection of the last rays of sunlight from a balcony above the trio caught his eye. He raised his binoculars to see what had attracted his attention.

  “Oh shit, I’m a dead man!” Milev shrieked as he saw Lupus looking down at the chaos below.

  CHAPTER 43

  “I’ve told you, he was my doctor, and I just happened to be passing through the market when I saw him bleeding on the ground.”

  Helen sat in a chair with her hands tied behind her back. The two sadistic-looking Gestapo agents who dragged her and Belevski into the hotel stood silently off in the corner of the hotel room. She heard Dr. Belevski moan and twisted her head to see the doctor lying on a small bed in the corner.

  “So we meet again, Helen Noverman,” he said. “Where is Jean Lopié?”

  She instantly recognized the icy voice of the German who peppered her with questions from behind her back. His sardonic tone was etched in her memory. Helen was sure he was the officer who she stabbed in the neck and escaped from nearly two years ago, the night that the Germans bombed Oslo.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She tried to think of what to say. “I’m a school teacher,” she cried. ”Will you please untie my hands! Are you afraid of a defenseless woman?”

  “No,” he said, “But as I told you when we met for the first time in Oslo, Helen, I won’t underestimate you again.” After a short pause, he asked, “Don’t you remember me?”

  “Why should I?” she asked.

  He leaned close to Helen and then suddenly ripped off the left sleeve of her blouse to reveal the scar that he had left behind on her forearm. Then he turned his neck toward her to reveal his own scar.

  “You know who I am now, don’t you?” he asked her.

  Helen said nothing as she sucked a gulp of air deep into her lungs. Now at least she knew what Lupus looked like.

  “Ah, but let’s let bygones be bygones, shall we? A scar for a scar?”

  His laugh was even more hideous than she remembered. Then he became deadly serious.

  “You are going to tell me everything I want to know. Who’s the most highly placed British mole in Sofia? And don’t tell me Madam Petrana Koleva.”

  Helen took a moment and considered what Lupus would do if she were to tell him that the Chief of the Bulgarian Secret Police had told her that he had passed secrets along to the British. While she guessed that Milev was responsible for the attack on Manol, she couldn’t be one hundred percent sure. Plus, Helen wondered if Lupus would even believe her, and what good it would do. But at that point, she didn’t have much choice other than to play her last card: George Milev.

  “Perhaps I can tell you what you want,” she said, “but what do I get in return?”

  Lupus smiled and was about to answer her when the door of the hotel room opened.

  “Ah, George, look who we have here,” Lupus said. “Please come in and say hello to Helen Noverman and to Dr. Manol Belevski. He’s still alive, I think.”

  CHAPTER 44

  Milev gazed uneasily about the room. When his eyes met Noverman’s, he paused a moment and then looked past her to Belevski holding his side and groaning on a bed. He saw Letchkov, too, standing in the corner. What was
he doing here, Milev wondered? Milev had no idea what to expect, except perhaps a bullet to the head. Had Noverman already incriminated him, or was she holding out for a deal to save her skin? Did Lupus know who attacked Belevski, and why? Did he know about Milev’s dealings with the British? With Lupus, you never knew what he knew until it was too late to do anything about it.

  The police chief wondered if it was possible to shoot everyone, with Letchkov there to help him. Milev guessed that he might survive, even if no one else did.

  “So, Helen,” Lupus smiled, “You were about to tell me about a high-placed British mole right here in Sofia, were you not?”

  Milev wrapped his finger around the trigger of the pistol concealed in his coat pocket. Helen Noverman glared first at Lupus and then at the police chief. She was about to speak when Sergeant Letchkov pulled out a silenced submachine gun from beneath his long coat and with a loud shout ordered Lupus, the Gestapo agents and Milev to remove their weapons, move to the wall, and face the door leading to the balcony.

  “But you work for me, you Bulgarian bastard,” Lupus shouted.

  Milev’s mouth dropped open. He was in shock, along with everyone else in the room. Lupus and Milev looked at each other. The German’s eyes were so wide they looked as if they were about to pop from their sockets. Helen’s face showed a mixture of surprise, but she said nothing. As Letchkov untied her and whispered in her ear, Milev cried out, “You bastard! Who the hell do you work for?”

  Noverman knelt over Belevski, kissed his forehead and whispered in his ear. Sergeant Letchkov ordered one of Lupus’s men to open the door to the balcony. “Everyone step outside. Oh, by the way, Jean Lopié sends his regards to you all,” he laughed. “Now jump before I shoot all of you in the back!”

  CHAPTER 45

  George Milev sat in his office and drained his third glass of brandy, partly to ease the pain in his broken foot and to help him untangle the earlier series of events that nearly cost him his life. He was still not free of the Sword of Damocles that hung over his head—that being his secret dealings with the British—but with Manol Belevski nowhere to be found and Helen Noverman and Jean Lopié out of Sofia, he was safe, at least for the time being. He was about to pour himself another drink when the office door burst open.

  “Milev! What in the Führer’s name is going on?” Lupus shouted.

  Lupus marched into Milev’s office on crutches like a storm trooper with a broken leg. Without even asking him about his foot, Lupus launched into a long chain of obscenities about what had happened in the Woman’s Market yesterday evening.

  “How was I to know that Letchkov worked for you and the British?” Milev moaned. “After he saved me from getting run down, I hired him to work for me!”

  Lupus glared at Milev as he lit a cigarette and flopped into an overstuffed chair. He exhaled a geyser of smoke and looked around the room. “What are all these disgusting paintings doing here?”

  “Ah, that’s a long story, Colonel, but do you mind telling me,” Milev asked, “why you had Belevski followed and not arrested? Wasn’t he the radio spy that you were looking for?”

  “Of course he was, Milev! God in heaven, man. Do I have to paint you a picture? Don’t you read the papers? Sometimes I wonder how you have got as far as you have.”

  Exasperated, Lupus lit another cigarette while his first one burned in the ashtray. Milev bowed his head like a scolded child.

  “Let me explain so that even you will understand. I placed the story in all the papers about the ‘missing doctor’ to draw Noverman and Lopié back to Sofia—they are the ones I really want—not just Belevski. So, I left him free for a while to roam, in the hope that they would try to pick him up, at which time, I would pounce on them.”

  “Brilliant, Colonel.” Milev said, hoping to assuage Lupus’s anger.

  “Perhaps you were right Milev,” Lupus said. “Maybe I should have coordinated my operation with your department so that I could have kept an eye on you as well.”

  Lupus licked his pale pink lips with the tip of his tongue. Milev was still pretty certain that the German suspected him of being the British mole in Sofia, but he had no proof. Milev tried to pour some brandy into two tall glasses, but several ounces spilled onto the desk.

  Lupus leaned so close to Milev’s face that the police chief could smell the cigarettes, garlic, onions, and brandy on the German’s breath. “Your hand is shaking, George.” Lupus’s eyes narrowed. “What are you so nervous about?”

  “Nothing sir,” Milev stammered. “I’ve just had a twinge of pain in my foot. How’s the leg, sir?”

  Ignoring his question, Lupus emptied his glass in one drink. Milev poured him another.

  “If I had had too many agents on Belevski’s tail, they would have tipped off Noverman and Lopié that the doctor was the bait for a trap. But what I didn’t count on was that someone would try to kill the doctor. That’s what puzzles me. Who would want to kill Belevski, and why, George?”

  “Whom do you suspect, Colonel?” Milev asked as he lit a cigarette. “Perhaps someone was afraid that he would compromise other agents.” Milev hoped that the cigarette smoke would cover the fear that crept over his face.

  “Himmler has suggested that the Allies have killed their own agents to keep them from talking or turning,” Lupus said, “but until now I never believed that propaganda. Besides, my men have been following the doctor around the clock for days, and they reported no counter-surveillance.”

  As the German propped his broken leg on the corner of the antique table, Milev wondered how long Letchkov had worked for Lupus and what he had told him. He poured Lupus a third glass of brandy. After emptying it and motioning for another refill, the German looked at Milev with disdain. Lupus sighed, and Milev filled his glass for the fourth time, or was it the fifth? Then they both took another long sip of brandy.

  “Perhaps you know more than you are telling me, eh George?” Lupus asked. “Do you?”

  “What about the Communists?” Milev proposed. “If the French thought Belevski was going to compromise their agents, they wouldn’t hesitate to button his lip and keep their network up and running.”

  “Yes, that’s possible, I suppose.” Lupus’s words became slurred. “This brandy is excellent, George. I’d like a few bottles to take with me when I leave.”

  “Of course, Colonel,” he said. “The Communists are always hungry for money or ammunition and offer their services to anyone who gives them something in exchange. I just can’t believe that Letchkov betrayed me after all that I’ve done for him.”

  “Save your tears for Mrs. Belevski, Milev,” Lupus said as he stroked his chin. “Her spying husband must be dead by now, and Noverman and Lopié have returned to Istanbul.” He gnashed his teeth. “But this isn’t over. I know exactly where they are—and I will get them yet.”

  Part VIII

  June 1941

  CHAPTER 46

  How many times in his life had George Milev heard the laugh of the hyenas at his doorstep yet evaded their hungry jaws, only to see them snap shut on someone else? Last month’s events proved again that Czar Boris was right about terrible things happening on Tuesdays. That’s why Milev wasn’t shocked when he read this short newspaper story describing a grisly crime scene in Perra, a wealthy Istanbul suburb.

  Istanbul, Turkey—“Woman Found Hung”

  Police found the partially clad body of a woman hanging by the neck from a chandelier in a luxury apartment in Perra late last evening. She was pronounced dead by a doctor at the scene. Based on evidence found in the apartment, police have not ruled out foul play.

  Captain Nedim Kerim of the Perra Police Department did not comment on the situation, other than to say that documents found in the apartment indicate that the woman’s name was Helen Noverman, and that she was involved in some “unsavory business dealings” with foreigners operating in Istanbul.

  “Today’s story from Istanbul about Helen Noverman was ever so peculiar,” Lupus said as he a
nd Milev sat smoking and drinking in the deserted Varshava Café. It was one of the few chic European-style restaurants in Sofia frequented by wealthy businessmen, Axis military brass, government officials, and anyone else who was willing to pay outlandish prices for a nice place to relax and eat decent food.

  “Have you ever had the feeling of being cheated when someone has robbed you of the pleasure of doing something special yourself?”

  Lupus sounded agitated and tense.

  Milev only nodded in agreement, not sure exactly what Lupus meant.

  “You know, George, I would have liked to get some answers from her, but, alas, you let her and Lopié slip through your fingers, didn’t you?”

  “I suppose so,” the police chief admitted as he shifted in his seat. The café was as quiet as a cathedral. Its lofty ceilings were adorned with sparkling chandeliers. They sat at one of the corner tables and ate Baklava along with brandy and Turkish coffee.

  “Maybe the British or the French seized the opportunity to drop some ballast from their sinking ship,” Lupus said. “Noverman was already a compromised component of their Balkan network, and her elimination might cut us off from her other sources.”

  “Perhaps,” Milev said.

  “Maybe there’s a traitor right here in Sofia,” Lupus speculated, leaning back on his chair and holding the cigarette between his teeth. “Or right here in this very room.” The smoke curling out of his mouth made him look crueler than ever, and when Milev looked at his healed broken thumb, he knew what the German was capable of. Lupus had spun a theory, part of which he knew was probably true, but did he know which part? Lupus was testing Milev again, he was sure of that. Then the German blew a cloud of smoke in Milev’s face as he dropped his next bombshell.