Codename Xenophon

by Leo Kanaris

  ‘This is Perdika,’ said the driver. ‘Right or straight on?’

  ‘Go right,’ said Abbas. ‘I need to get my head under water. It’s too damn hot to think right now.’

  ‘And the list?’ said George.

  Abbas flashed him a slightly deranged smile. ‘You’ll see the list.’

  They plunged off the rocks into deep water, then stretched out in the sun to dry. Refreshed at first by the coolness of the swim, they soon felt hot and light-headed again.

  ‘There’s only one thing for it,’ said Abbas. ‘Another swim, then lunch in a shady taverna.’

  George said, ‘Listen, Abbas, I’m not going another step until you show me that list. You dragged me over to the island on that pretext and now I’m starting to think there’s something else going on.’

  ‘I just wanted to slow you down to the right pace.’

  ‘If I slow down any further I’ll be asleep!’

  ‘OK! Now we’re getting somewhere!’

  ‘No! You’re trying to lead me somewhere. That’s a different matter.’

  ‘I’m only trying to lead you to a taverna. Where you can consider this thing in its true perspective.’

  George stood up. ‘Forget it. I’m going back to Athens.’

  ‘To do what?’

  ‘Get on with my life!’

  ‘You’re making a mistake.’

  ‘I don’t care. I don’t have time to piss about.’

  Abbas dipped his hand into his trouser pocket. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘This is not quite the moment I had chosen, but never mind.’

  He handed over two folded sheets of paper.

  George opened them. Typewritten names and addresses, some corrected in blue ink, each marked with a cross, an X or an asterisk. Addresses in Aegina or Angistri. At the top of the first sheet was the word EΘEΛONTE∑. Volunteers. A note on the second sheet explained the symbols:

  * = rifle

  + = pistol

  x = shotgun

  ‘Did the colonel give you this,’ asked George, ‘or was it already in your possession?’

  ‘The colonel gave it to me.’

  ‘You told him it was for me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Did he remember me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So how did you explain it?’

  ‘I told him the story from the beginning. The murder, the investigation, and so on. He has just enough memory to hold onto the essential facts.’

  George thought about this. It could still be an elaborate trick, but the chances of that were getting slimmer. Who would go to the trouble of cutting a page from the firearms register and then provide a handmade substitute? Unless the substitute itself were designed to throw the police off the trail?

  ‘I have one troubling thought,’ said George.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The colonel’s failing memory. It seems strangely selective. It’s a powerful argument for his innocence, because this crime, and the subsequent cover-up of evidence, require forethought, which in turn requires a functioning memory. But there’s a problem. There are many problems. For a start, how did he remember the existence of this list?’

  Abbas did not answer the question. Instead he asked a question of his own: ‘What cover-up of evidence?’

  George replied cautiously. ‘That’s confidential. The details don’t matter. Can you answer my question?’

  ‘The colonel didn’t remember the list.’

  ‘How did it come to light?’

  ‘I remembered it.’

  ‘You remembered it? How?’

  ‘The way one does! You asked me about the firearms register, I thought of the colonel’s list, I went and asked him if he still had it, he said he had no idea, so we went through his files.’

  ‘That still leaves me wondering how you came to know of its existence in the first place.’

  ‘That takes us back,’ said Abbas. ‘Nearly ten years.’

  ‘To what?’

  ‘2001. I remember the conversation clearly. The colonel and I were on the ferry, returning from a rifle-club meeting in Athens. It was that day of infamy when the World Trade Center was destroyed. The televisions on the ship – things I detest normally – were just announcing the news.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘Around six in the evening.’

  George worked it out. Nine a.m. in New York, plus an hour or two for the news to get out, plus seven hours difference. The time was right. ‘Go on.’

  ‘The colonel was horrified. It seemed to strike right down into his soul. He was also impressed by the efficiency of the terrorist attack, viewed as a purely technical accomplishment. He could see the logistics behind it, of course, being an expert himself.’

  ‘Expert in what?’

  ‘Counter-terrorism and intelligence.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘That was his field.’

  ‘OK. Go on.’

  ‘I think not,’ said Abbas.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘This is not the place for it, out here on the rocks. I’m roasting alive. Why don’t we go and get settled in a taverna down the road there, get a flask of retsina, and then I can tell you this story properly?’

  ‘I don’t like these delays.’

  ‘OK, suit yourself. We’ll sit here and I’ll make it short. And in the usual Athenian way you’ll miss the point because you’re in too much of a hurry!’

  ‘I have just two more days to close this case.’

  ‘Says who?’

  ‘Says my client.’

  ‘Tell him to go boil his arse.’

  ‘I would very much like to. But he’s paying.’

  ‘OK. I’m offering you the chance to meet three men who possess the right kind of weapon, in the right place, to have shot Professor Petrakis. Do you understand that?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘I want to tell you about these three men. But I don’t want to do it while my balls get grilled on this block of limestone. I might miss a crucial detail. Are you still with me?’

  ‘I need to work quickly.’

  ‘No, my friend, that’s your big mistake! You are in a rush and it’s doing you no damn good at all.’

  ‘This is an investigation! I ask the questions and move on!’

  ‘OK, go and see these guys yourself. Leave me out of it.’

  ‘Which ones are they?’

  ‘Paraskevás, Kotsis and Tasakos.’

  George scanned the list. All three had asterisks, meaning rifles. He could go and see them himself. It would take time to find them in the warren of back streets, and he would have to interview them cold… He wondered why Abbas was so determined to do things at this slow pace. To have lunch, spin things out?

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘We’ll do it your way. But I need a timetable.’

  ‘Five minutes swim. Five to the restaurant. One hour for lunch. Fifteeen minutes drive back to town in a taxi which we will book now. Half an hour for each interview. Ten minutes de-briefing. That’s three hours. You’ll be on the 4.15 ferry back to Piraeus.’

  ‘OK. It’s a plan at least. Let’s try and stick to it.’

  With the retsina on the table in front of them, and the aromatic smoke of grilling sardines rolling out of the kitchen window, Abbas continued his tale of that evening in 2001.

  ‘The colonel was filling in the background for me – the logistical steps that those terrrorists would have had to take in order to hijack five aircraft simultaneously and fly them at those targets. He laid it all out as if he’d conceived it himself. The pilot training, the organisational network, the coded communications by phone and email… We discussed it on the ship from Athens, and went on far into the evening back at his house. I asked him how well defended Greece would be against such an attack, and he gave me the answer you’d expect: very poorly indeed. But, he said, there are informal defence corps, groups of volunteers who could make themselves available in a national emergency, like they
did in the Second World War. I was cynical about that, I remember, because Greeks don’t generally like to put themselves out for the collective good. He was stung by that. He showed me his list of armed volunteers. Waved it in front of me, to prove that there’s still some decency and fight left in the old country. I was perfectly willing to take his word for it, but he was determined to prove his point. He made me read it. Name by name.’

  ‘Were you drinking?’

  ‘You bet we were! Kyra Sophia brought us meatballs and cheese at some point because she didn’t like to see us boozing on empty stomachs.’

  ‘Did you often drink together?’

  ‘We weren’t in the habit. But when the time came, when the mood took us, we went at it hard.’

  ‘I’m surprised he told you about the volunteers.’

  ‘Why? Because I’m a foreigner?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’re friends. Nationality doesn’t matter a damn.’

  ‘Except in times of war.’

  ‘OK. But Persia was last at war with Greece in 330 BC. We’ve never found a reason to fight again.’

  ‘Do his volunteers still meet?’

  ‘No. Stopped about five years ago.’

  ‘What did they do?’

  Abbas smiled at the memory. ‘We got together on Wednesday evenings. In winter we had classes in subjects like the handling and placing of explosives, urban and guerrilla warfare, communications, defence planning, organisation and supply, even “military strategy from Alexander the Great to Ho Chi Minh”. In the warmer months we were active. Shooting, fitness, rock-climbing, unarmed combat, manoeuvres, simulated attacks on fixed and moving targets, survival in the wild, seaborne invasion – it was a full military training in miniature. God, we had some laughs!’

  ‘Varzalis ran the whole thing?’

  ‘We had guest speakers from time to time, but all the action was led by him.’

  ‘You took it seriously?’

  ‘Yes and no.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You had to take it seriously or you were out. Varzalis demanded commitment. And he got it. But at the back of my mind there was always a sceptical voice saying, “Come on, this is just a game!” Only of course games have to be taken seriously to be enjoyed. So I had a double consciousness, maybe even a triple consciousness.’

  ‘You’ve lost me. Why triple?’

  ‘The first is serious, the second sceptical, the third an awareness of both. And I suppose the fourth is the awareness of the awareness, but that’s a little too curious for a hot afternoon.’

  George wondered how Abbas could ever get anything done with a brain like that. ‘Was that just you playing mind games,’ he asked, ‘or others too?’

  ‘I never enquired. But you know, when we were in action it was totally absorbing. For an academic like me, who’s spent his life in libraries and lecture halls, it was exhilarating. I remember one night, half of us were detailed to defend an old German gun battery overlooking the sea, while the other half attacked it. I was in the defence group. It was terrifying. We knew an attack was coming, but we didn’t know when, or from where. I witnessed an impressive and highly unexpected fact about human perception. A figure standing still in the landscape is invisible. Invisible, I tell you! Especially at night. It’s only movement that catches the eye. A man can be standing just a few feet away and you’ll fail to see him. The mere knowledge of that is frightening. And the night is enormous! Full of strange noises, mysterious shapes and movements. Where among all those shadows, those pools of ink, is your enemy? Beside that olive tree? In that ruined house? Or behind you? I had no voice at the back of my mind then, I can tell you! Only fear and excitement that lasted till dawn. I still have goose pimples now when I think of it.’

  ‘You had weapons, I presume?’

  ‘Only knives on that occasion. Not real ones, of course. You had to get your opponent at a clear disadvantage, then you won.’

  ‘So the rifles were a side issue?’

  ‘On that exercise, yes. On others we used them, either with blanks or with live rounds for target practice.’

  Abbas seemed lost in his memories. ‘We wouldn’t have been able to do much in reality, but we were well trained, and we’d have given the enemy a few headaches. We respected the colonel totally.’

  ‘All of you?’

  ‘Every one.’

  ‘Have you remained friends?’

  ‘Mostly. Some drifted away.’

  ‘Was there anyone among you who had any disagreements with the colonel? Or was maybe humiliated by him?’

  ‘It wasn’t his style to humiliate. He spoke bluntly, but never cruelly. His mind was always on the mission. Criticism always for a good reason.’

  ‘He made no enemies?’

  ‘Not in our group.’

  ‘Anywhere else?’

  ‘You’re asking me these questions as if Varzalis had been killed rather than the professor!’

  ‘There’s a chance he will be if this murder is pinned on him.’

  ‘There’s no death penalty in Greece.’

  ‘Just the living death of a prison sentence.’

  Abbas nodded. He turned his gaze to the sea, where a small fishing boat was entering the harbour, seagulls flitting along its wake. ‘I just hope it never happens to him. Or, if it does, that he dies first…’ He turned back to George. ‘Tell me, why are you interested in the volunteers?’

  ‘They intrigue me.’

  Abbas seemed amused.

  George glanced through the names again. ‘Tell me about these three you mentioned, Kotsis, Paraskevás and Tasakos.’

  Abbas described them to him: a retired policeman, a pilot with Olympic Airways and a man who owned a couple of shops in town. All, in his opinion, steady, honest, law-abiding people, without grudges, fanatical opinions or mental instability.

  ‘So why would any of them choose to shoot Professor Petrakis?’

  ‘That’s the big question!’

  The sardines arrived, with a plate of fried potatoes and a salad of tomato and cucumber. Abbas ordered another half litre of retsina and checked his watch. ‘If we’re sticking to the timetable, we’ve got twenty-five minutes to eat these,’ he said.

  ‘It’s OK,’ said George. ‘I’m starting to think you’re right. Let’s take our time.’

  17

  They called first on the pilot, Paraskevás. A solidly built man in his forties, he explained that he had sold his rifle four years ago when his son was born.

  ‘I didn’t want any weapons in the house with children around. You can lock your guns away as carefully as you like, but children are curious. They find keys. They explore.’

  George asked him what kind of gun he had owned.

  ‘A Winchester 70,’ said the pilot. ‘A collector’s piece, inherited from my father.’

  ‘Was it registered with the police?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Who bought it from you?’

  ‘A farmer from Souvala. Do you want his name?’

  ‘And his address.’

  ‘I don’t think I wrote it down. His name was Koromilás.’

  ‘What do you know about him?’

  ‘Not much. He seemed a normal farmer. Big hands, hairy, sunburnt. Drives a pick-up truck.’

  They talked briefly about one of the great economic riddles of the day: the dwindling sums that farmers were paid for their produce and the ever more bloated prices in supermarkets. Someone was making grotesque profits… George let the conversation ramble, watching the pilot talk. He seemed relaxed, not hiding anything. He wished them luck with their investigation.

  Next they called on the retired policeman, Evangelos Kotsis. He had clearly been woken up by the doorbell, but he welcomed them sleepily in, and asked his wife to make coffee. They sat in his yard, shaded by vines, attended by bees, admiring his prolific vegetable garden: melons, tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, and, a little further off, orange and lemon trees, the fruit small and
sharply green among the leaves. Pots of geraniums and lilies clustered around the table where they sat.

  ‘Not bad for a town garden,’ said Abbas.

  The old man nodded. ‘You have to do something when you retire. Otherwise what’s the point?’

  The scent of lilies was reminding George of his friend’s funeral, while the manic fullness of the garden brought to mind the nightmare of Sotiriou’s office in Athens. He watched the old policeman rubbing his eyes and asking what he could do for them.

  ‘My friend is investigating the Petrakis murder,’ said Abbas. ‘Up there in that window we can just see. You’re on the list of gun owners in this area. So Mr Zafiris would like to see what weapons you have and ask you some questions.’

  ‘What sort of questions?’

  ‘Where were you on the night of the murder?’

  ‘Date?’

  ‘March 25th.’

  ‘I’ll fetch my diary.’

  ‘And your rifle!’

  He was back a few minutes later, in company with his wife, who asked him worriedly what he wanted with the gun.

  The policeman explained, and handed the weapon to George.

  ‘Take a look,’ he said. ‘It’s not loaded.’

  George examined it. World War Two by the look of it.

  ‘Is this a Nazi symbol?’ He pointed to a tiny eagle and swastika stamped into the metalwork near the trigger guard.

  ‘That’s right. A captured Wehrmacht weapon. Used by guerrillas in the resistance. Given to me by my uncle.’

  ‘What is it? A Mauser?’

  ‘Correct. Karabiner 98K.’

  ‘What do you use it for?’

  ‘Hunting.’

  ‘In Aegina?’

  ‘No. Epirus.’

  ‘What do you find up there?’

  ‘Deer, wild boar, mountain goats.’

  ‘Enough for hunting?’

  ‘Oh yes. Plenty.’ He winked. ‘Especially if you get lost and cross the Albanian border.’

  ‘Can you remember where you were on March 25th?’

  ‘I’ll tell you exactly.’

  Kotsis opened his diary, flipped back a few pages, studied one of them closely, and said, ‘I was in Ioannina. Staying with my cousin Angelos, son of the uncle who gave me the Mauser. The next day we went hunting.’

  ‘Did you have this gun with you?’