by Emma Lathen
Thatcher felt something had been accomplished at last. There was now one man in the Ministry with a lot to gain by maintaining the Sloan’s innocence. If the Sloan were guilty, then Bacharias had been its dupe. And happily he seemed to be the Minister’s chief source of information on the Hellenus project.
Good, that was the first step. The next step, and it must be carefully timed, had been broached in his discussion with the Ambassador. There were, as they had both agreed, other elements involved. To be precise, there was a third party present at the Hellenus site. Soon Bacharias might be reminded that both he and Nicolls might have been manipulated by Makris, the group that had been so peculiarly neglected throughout his interview with the Minister, the group that was always on the spot when something happened, whether in Salonika or in Athens.
His ruminations were interrupted by the porter.
“A Mr. Riemer awaits you in the Café Taxos across the street. He wishes to speak with you, Mr. Thatcher.”
Thatcher turned in his tracks with his hopes high. Perhaps something new had come up in the short time since he had left the Embassy. It could not be disaster. After all, the next scheduled disaster was his own disappearance. Maybe they had touched bottom and were on the way Up.
His hopes were not dashed. Riemer, rising from a corner table where he had been nursing a milky ouzo, did not waste time on preliminaries. “It looks as if Nicolls may be alive. We’ve just gotten a phone call from the north.”
Thatcher went straight to essentials.
“Alive when?” he demanded.
“Three days ago.”
Well, that took care of the swallowed-up-by-the-earth theory, once and for all. It had seemed just as unlikely in Athens as it had in New York.
“Tell me the details.”
“The call wasn’t from Nicolls. It was from some people at a Red Cross camp in the disaster area. They had a very peculiar story to tell.”
Slowly Riemer went on to outline events as seen from the vantage point of Jamison’s Red Cross field station—Nicolls’ sudden appearance on the truck in Larissa, his unexplained departure from the truck along the road, and the descent of three unidentified men tracking him.
“You’re sure it was Nicolls?” Thatcher asked.
“There doesn’t seem to be any reasonable doubt. A big blond American Jamison said. But it certainly was Nicolls the three men were looking for. They not only had his name, they had a complete description.” Riemer raised his eyes from the table. “What do you think it means, Mr. Thatcher?”
Thatcher fairly barked his reply. “Nicolls is on the run. Somebody who isn’t the Greek Army is looking for him and he knows it. What’s more to the point he seems to be taking very effective evasive action.”
“Yes. I suppose so.” Riemer sounded surprised. Nicolls had not seemed the type to take to the hills successfully.
A slow smile was beginning to break on Thatcher’s face. He could not quell his optimism. The men of the Sloan were beginning to come into their own. Nicolls—thank God!—was not only alive, he was giving the opposition a run for its money. Was it too much to hope that somewhere in the south of Greece, Gabler was doing the same? Of course Everett hadn’t had an earthquake to help him. But then Everett was more than capable of manufacturing his own earthquakes.
“You say this man Jamison thought that this car was making the rounds of all the relief stations?”
“Yes. He said they had a list. He could see other camps had been crossed off.”
“A big effort then.” Thatcher reflected for a moment. “It must be important for them to stop Nicolls. And they haven’t done very well so far have they?”
Riemer looked across at his companion with mounting unease. No one in the Foreign Service likes to see businessmen suddenly taking the bit between their teeth and stampeding off through a foreign countryside. He spoke hesitantly:
“The best thing, Mr. Thatcher, would be to find Nicolls and Gabler too, of course, and get them safely back to Athens. Then we can decide whether it’s a question that can openly be put to the authorities, or whether the two of them should be gotten out of the country.”
This pedestrian course of action had no appeal whatsoever for Thatcher. The smile grew broader.
“My boy you’re right about one thing. We have to ensure their safety and find out what’s going on. But after that I think it’s time to rethink our policy.”
Riemer’s heart plummeted.
“How?” he asked cautiously.
“We’ve been on the defensive too long. These people, whoever they are, are probably already rattled at losing Nicolls. It’s time we took the offensive!”
Chapter 13
Achilles’ Heel
Such sentiments of course were very American. They were what won the West, delivered the mail, and, created Ford and GE. Yet, even as he made his way back to the Britannia pondering and dismissing various means by which he and the Sloan could take the offensive, Thatcher forgot that he was in a land where ancient gods let puppets strut their brief moment, then step down from Olympus to take a hand. Greece was about to produce a Homeric case in point. Oddly enough, it came in the form of a chartered bus, filled with German tourists, just pulling up to the curb as Thatcher neared the hotel.
The imposition of dictatorship had discouraged American tourists; a Middle Eastern crisis had deflected cruise passengers; currency restrictions were limiting the English to Blackpool and worse.
But no power on earth can keep Germans in Germany. Primal forces as powerful as those impelling lemmings to the sea put bibulous Bavarians into lederhosen and deliver them to the Côte d’Azure, Port ‘Ercole, and the Kingdom of the Hellenes. This particular contingent, complete with motherly wives in flowered print dresses, was occupying a small stunned hotel around the corner. But they assembled, debouched, checked cameras, and drank Fix in Syntagma Square. They were not noticeably noisier than the surrounding Greeks—nobody could be. But they were fair-haired, blocky, rumpled, and energetic. As a result, each of their foregatherings conjured up the bivouacking of some Nordic tribe.
Now the bus door opened and the occupants thundered out. Thatcher, like everybody else in the immediate vicinity, instinctively drew out of the path of the juggernaut. And there, ringed by chunky burghers, was a business-suited Wall Street executive, clutching his brief case.
“Everett!”
Thatcher was not really conscious of having called out. Gabler looked around. His clothes were not as meticulous as usual and he certainly looked out of sympathy with his surroundings. But he seemed to be in sound shape.
“Everett! Here!” This time Thatcher began to cleave through the crush.
“Well, John! What are you doing here . . . Just a minute, will you?”
Fascinated, Thatcher watched Everett punctiliously tip the guide and shake hands with three bellowing Germans. He then posed for two photographs and finally worked his way to Thatcher’s side.
“Remarkable people the Germans,” he said. “I know they feel the heat dreadfully, but they don’t let it stop them . . .”
“Everett,” said Thatcher awfully, “where have you been?”
Gabler expelled a small sigh of fatigue.
“It’s a long story. Perhaps tea . . .”
Thatcher knew that nothing would be forthcoming until the tea was provided. Ruthlessly he propelled Gabler past the sidewalk tables into the hotel. When an incredulous waiter was refused the opportunity to serve ouzo, ices or similar exotica and told to bring tea, Everett again sighed.
Then he said crisply: “John, the sooner we extricate ourselves from Greece, the better!”
“My feelings exactly,” said Thatcher. “But I’d like to take young Nicolls with us when we go. Everett, what have you been up to?”
Everett bent his lips in a smile. “First I was kidnapped. Then I was systematically poisoned. Then I escaped.”
Thatcher controlled himself. “Ye-es. Yes, I see. Of course, I had heard about the kidnappi
ng. But, Everett, could you bring yourself to fill in some of the subsequent details?”
“Ah!” The tea had arrived. After peering into the pot, Everett indicated satisfaction. “Well, I was standing on the sidewalk . . .” Invigorated by his favorite brew, Everett began his tale. As was to be feared, in this version he left out nothing at all.
The bald-headed man had been exaggerating. Everett’s first day of imprisonment, baffling and alarming had indeed ended with a solitary meal in his bedroom cell. As promised, it was octopus, thinly sliced, and served in a garlic and walnut sauce. Naturally Gabler paid the price. Acute gastric distress, compounded by unavoidable mental anxiety, kept him awake for a second night in a row. Fortunately, during this second night he was not further exacerbated by two alien presences at his comfortless bedside. The door to his bedroom was locked, to be sure. Outside, he had no doubt, the ex-seminarian waited, brutish and menacing. Everett had already ascertained that in the garden beneath his small balcony other enemies lurked.
Indeed, certain snuffling sounds suggested dogs as well. “This,” he said to himself, between painful turnings, “is too much!” Everett’s captors might have been surprised to learn that he was industriously mulling over possible escapes. Or then again, they might not have been. Certainly the bald man had begun to take Gabler’s stubborn measure. This may have explained the dogs.
But dogs were, in the last analysis, an error. A career in banking had done nothing to develop Everett’s feeble penchant for derring-do. It was not that thoughts of dramatic assaults on young, muscular toughs unnerved him; it was simply that Everett did not think along these lines. Nor of clambering up the vines to the roof and skulking around chimneys, abstracting shawls or impersonating aged Greek ladies, nor of burning down the entire edifice.
Everett turned, emitting a grunt of discomfort. Swashbuckling was out. What about creating some sort of disturbance to bring the authorities to the scene?
Everett contemplated this for a moment. He knew that his abduction from the streets of Athens must have been reported. The police must be seeking him out. But Everett’s realism obtruded at this point. From what he had seen of Greek authorities—in all forms—he knew that they were a far cry from New York’s Finest. In fact they made the Turks look good. He personally would not trust the Greek police to locate the Mediterranean Sea.
Then too there was his present location. Everett had been hustled from car to villa without much opportunity to scan the countryside. Since then, he had been confined to bedroom and living room. But he was obviously in a building with some pretensions to elegance; there was a flower garden beneath his window, perfuming the night air. The sea spread a sequined carpet from the rocks below.
All of this told Everett not that Greece was a land of incredible loveliness, as the tourist bureaus insist, but that he was in a rich man’s country place. It was either secluded or, more possibly, in a resort area. What the local authorities would run to Everett preferred not to think. Upstate New York after all was bad enough. It would be folly to rely on aid from locals, whoever they were.
Everett took a deep breath. Just as he had foreseen, the only way to get out of this mess—and he made a note to have a frank talk with Charlie Trinkam on his return—was by his own, unaided efforts. Presumably in Greece, as on Wall Street, the game goes to the quickest wits. Tired, shaken, and generally unwell he might be, but Everett Gabler had no doubt that he was an abler man than those louts outside. It was unfortunate that he spoke no Greek, that he did not know where he was, and that he lacked perfect comprehension of whatever was exercising his captors. But all of this was beside the point; a keener mind, trained to be analytical and dispassionate, must triumph.
Reassured in the broad sense, if still vague about particulars, Everett fell into an uneasy sleep.
The next morning, not much refreshed, Everett awoke determined to put his analytical and dispassionate intelligence to work. The problem was to find material worthy of it. Proceedings, when they resumed, suggested a duplication of the previous day. And breakfast, an inky black liquid, two slices of bread and honey, did little for a man with Everett’s high regard for wheat germ.
When Everett finished the breakfast that the aged Eleni served him, he was again ushered into the living room, still cool and shaded against the sun that was beginning to sear the sea and distant islands.
The bald-headed man was again behind the desk. “I hope you slept well,” he said.
“As a matter of fact,” said Everett coldly, “I had a very disturbed night.”
“That is too bad,” said his opponent. “Now Mr. Gabler, surely you must realize that we are in deadly earnest. We must get in touch with Nicolls . . .”
For over an hour the tiresome dialogue continued. As an experienced negotiator Everett managed to reply, deny, and protest, while at the same time storing and registering facts for later utilization.
Unless he was mistaken—and Everett discounted this instantly—the tempo had been relaxed. The baldheaded man was beginning to sound weary. Theo, the younger man, was nowhere in evidence. And the two thugs were not skulking nearby.
“I thought so!” said Everett to himself in triumph. He knew what had happened. These villains had nerved themselves for one dramatic confrontation; when it was protracted they lost their fighting edge.
As he so frequently remarked at the Sloan, nobody seemed to have staying power these days! Everett took heart, while outwardly continuing to expostulate. Of course his captors’ impatience might portend fast strangulation followed by disposal of his corpse. But Everett firmly put such specters behind him and concentrated on the possibilities offered.
As he did so he was provided with a suddenly expanded view of his prospects. In the midst of a series of threats centering upon Everett’s obduracy, the bald-headed man was interrupted. The phone at his elbow rang three times. Swiftly he picked it up, and snarled a few words.
Then, just as swiftly he looked at Everett and barked: “All right! Get out!” He was enraged.
Rising with dignity Everett said: “Does this mean I am free to go?”
The bald-headed man clapped a meaty hand over the receiver. “One step out of this house and you are dead,” he said brutally. “Get out of this room! I have business!”
Without unseemly haste Everett stepped into the hall, closing the door behind him. With his customary precision he docketed one precious fact; he had the freedom of the house. He proposed to make use of it. The corridor was long, shadowy, tiled, and cool. It was also quite empty.
Unhesitatingly Everett proceeded past the door to his bedroom, to the stairs leading to the ground floor. He was trying to fix the physical layout of his prison and to estimate the task before him. No doubt about it, he decided, descending, they were letting down. Phone calls—important, if appearances were correct—and unless he was in error, fewer people around. According to the bald-headed man, guards were posted outside.
At the frosted glass front door, Everett determinedly grasped the ornate handle and shoved. It was not an easy task, but the heavy door finally yielded, admitting a blast of quite incredible heat and a fusillade of hoarse Greek. Firmly, Everett pulled the door shut. He was not the man to take anything on faith, but now he knew; there were guards outside.
He continued down the tiled hallway to the rear of the house. Little though he realized it, his fundamental nature was shaping the course of his reconnaissance. Everett was heading for the kitchen. First he passed through a gloomy Victorian dining room filled with heavy carved furniture. The kitchen just beyond was large with a huge stove and strange aromatic objects strung from low rafters. The windows were shuttered but the back door stood open.
There under a canopy of grape leaves sat Eleni, a shapeless black heap. Her gnarled hands were automatically peeling vegetables. Lounging beside her was the ex-seminarian. They both looked at Everett with hostility, then Eleni said something that ended in a cackle. The ex-seminarian, his eyes squinted at Everett, made a m
ildly offensive gesture. Everett retreated to the stove where a huge cauldron, gently bubbling, emitted more of the strange and wonderful odors that permeated Greece.
Momentarily forgetting his immediate thoughts, Everett inspected it. A pale grey-yellow mess with unidentifiable objects simmered and steamed.
Eleni let out a brief screech. As Everett turned to look at her, she tapped her forehead. Seeing that Everett did not grasp her meaning, the ex-seminarian weighed in.
“Head,” he said with an unpleasing gargle of gutturals.
“Head?” asked Everett, deciding that the kitchen offered him no useful means of egress.
The ex-seminarian tapped his brow meaningfully, then he like Eleni gave a roar of what must have been amusement.
Everett looked at the doorway then back at the stove. Suddenly, his stomach heaving, he grasped the message causing their laughter.
That stew boiling so gently on the stove was another Greek culinary specialty: brain soup. With uncontrollable revulsion, Everett jammed his hands into his pockets. And there his fingers encountered something.
At this point, Everett sipped his tea, snapped for a passing waiter, and communicated the need for more hot water and dry toast.
“For God’s sake!” Thatcher said.
With care, Everett adjusted his glasses.
“As you may recall, John,” he said, “I am a martyr to sea and air sickness.”
“You’re going to be a martyr to something else if you don’t get on with this,” Thatcher told him grimly. “How did you . . .?”
Everett resumed his narrative. He had discovered a bottle of pills, prescribed by his medical man in the event that his overseas flight to Turkey proved uncomfortable. While not believing in unnecessary medication, Everett had suffered enough in jet planes and heaving ships to yield to the temptation of precautionary measures. Now while Eleni and the ex-seminarian were doubled up with mirth, Everett emptied the whole ample supply into the day’s lunch.
