Spies of the Balkans

A FRENCH KING

Storms, in January. Snow covered the mountain villages. Down in Salonika, windswept rain came sheeting across the corniche, where the locals staggered along, struggling with their umbrellas and scowling each time a gust hit them. When, after work, Zannis returned to Santaroza Lane, a welcoming Melissa shook off a great spray that decorated the wall of the vestibule and the apartment was filled with the musky aroma of wet dog. Lately, Zannis was often alone there-Tasia Loukas didn’t visit very often. She sensed in him a certain distraction and she was right. For, again and again, his imagination replayed the scene on the street in front of the Club de Salonique. Behind the window of a white Rolls-Royce, a vision, olive skin and golden hair, then, from perfect composure, the smile of an actress.

Idiot, he called himself. For indulging in such fantasies. But nothing new, he thought. Down through the endless halls of time, forever, there wasn’t a man in the world who hadn’t wanted what he’d never have. “Do you know Vasilou?” he asked Tasia. “And his wife, what’s-her-name?”

“Demetria, you mean? The goddess?”

“Yes.”

“I know him by sight, he doesn’t mix with people like me. What do you want with him?”

“I was just wondering.”

“Not about her. Were you, little boy?”

“No.”

“Better not.”

So, he thought, Demetria.

And schemed. Absurdly-Oh no, the house is on fire, I’ll have to carry you out. Or, not so absurdly-A cocktail party? I’d love to.

Meanwhile, much realer schemes absorbed his day, schemes involving the Balkan railways and Turkish documents. As the Gruens left for Istanbul, six new refugees-a couple, a single man, a family of three-appeared at Salonika railway station. For reasons of economy, and because the management was sympathetic, Zannis housed them in the Tobacco Hotel, a weary but functional relic of the nineteenth century. There, gray and exhausted, they tried to recover from long days and nights on the escape route. Tried to recover from the slow brutal succession of torments experienced as Jews living in Nazi Germany. Seven years of it.

As for the final link in the chain, Ahmet Celebi had had his fill of the indifferent food at the Club de Salonique, and now Zannis dealt exclusively with Madam Urglu, nominally a deputy to the commercial attache, in fact the Turkish legation’s intelligence officer. An intimidating presence, Madam Urglu, with her opaque, puffy face, her eyeglasses on a chain, and her-well, inquisitive nature. They met at a taverna owned by Greek refugees who’d come to Salonika in the great population exchange, thus called Smyrna Betrayed, where, in the winter damp, Madam Urglu was partial to the fish stew.

“So,” she said, “this turns out to be an ongoing, um, project. One might as well call it an ‘operation,’ no?”

“It is,” Zannis said. “Someone has to help these people.”

“Can they not remain in Salonika?”

“They would be welcome, this city has always taken in refugees.” Zannis tore a piece of bread in half. “But the Wehrmacht is in Roumania-maybe it won’t stop there.”

“We hope they don’t go into Bulgaria. That puts them on our border.”

“Only tourists in Bulgaria, right now,” Zannis said. “Very fit young men, in pairs, with expensive cameras. Tourists with a passion for the ancient Bulgar culture, like airfields, and port facilities.”

Madam Urglu smiled. “Such finesse,” she said. “Our Teutonic friends.” She retrieved a mussel from her stew, open perhaps a third of the way, stared at it for a moment, then set it beside her bowl. “But at least they’re not in Greece. And the English are doing what they can.” There were now sixty thousand British Commonwealth troops, divisions from Australia and New Zealand, on the island of Crete.

“We’re grateful,” Zannis said. “But we can’t be sure how Hitler sees it. Provocation? Deterrent? And Mussolini must be screaming at him, because the RAF is bombing the Italians in Albania.”

“Which we applaud. Unofficially, of course. And it isn’t just a feint, I see they’ve put shore artillery in Salonika.” She gestured with her head toward the waterfront, where long cannon were now facing the Aegean.

“They have.”

“One wonders if more is coming.”

“It’s possible,” Zannis said, preparing for the attack.

“Perhaps more guns. Or, even, an RAF squadron.”

“We’d be happy to have them,” Zannis said.

“You haven’t heard?”

“I’m not told such things, Madam Urglu. I’m only a policeman.”

“Oh, please. Don’t go being coy, not with me.”

“Truly, I don’t know.”

“But I’m sure you could find out. If you cared to.”

“Not even that. I expect the military would be informed, but they’re known to be secretive.”

For just a bare instant, a look of irritation, compressed lips, darkened Madam Urglu’s face. Then she said, “Naturally,” and with some resignation added, “they are. Still, it would be something of an achievement, for me, to learn of such plans. One always wants to do well in one’s job.”

“And who doesn’t?” Zannis said, meaning no offense taken.

“You would like to see me do well, wouldn’t you?”

“You know I would.”

“Then, maybe sometime, if you should discover …”

“Understood,” Zannis said. “It’s not impossible.”

“Ah me,” Madam Urglu said, gently rueful, how the world goes around.

Zannis smiled, yes, it does. Then he said, “I’ll need six visas, this time.”

“Six!”

“Yes, it’s more desperate every day, up north.”

“My, my. Would five help you?”

“Madam Urglu, please.”

“All right then, six. It’s five hundred dollars each. I trust you have the money with you.”

“It was four apiece, the last time.”

“I know, but our friend in Istanbul …”

“Why don’t I give you two thousand, four hundred today, and I’ll make up the remainder at our next meeting.”

“Oh very well,” she said. “If I must. I’ll send the papers over when they’re ready.”

“Thank you, Madam Urglu,” Zannis said, meaning it.

“Of course they could be free,” she said. “It wouldn’t take much. Really. It wouldn’t.”

Her face softened. She was-Zannis saw it-almost pleading. He nodded, sympathy in his eyes. “Yes,” he said. “I know.”

As to what exactly he knew, he didn’t say. Perhaps that it was a hard machine, national interest, which would in time destroy both of them. She was, without doubt, perfectly aware that he would never spy on his British ally-no? Not that he couldn’t-and Madam Urglu understood precisely his standing in the politics of Salonika-because he could. He’d seen, of all things, a memorandum from the traffic office of the police department. “Interruption of traffic planned to begin on 2 February, for important waterfront construction.” A new municipal garden, perhaps? But he would not, could not, reveal such things, no matter how little it would mean for the Turks to know in advance about the additional armament. They’d see it, eventually. But eventually was the active word. Until then, well, one didn’t spy on a faithful friend, it just wasn’t done.

All that much.

The commissionaire-doorman, porter, messenger-at the Tobacco Hotel was a straight-backed old fellow who’d fought valiantly, in his day, against the Turkish gendarmerie. Very solemn and courtly, in the old-world manner. The assistant manager had found for him somewhere, probably in the markets, a doorman’s overcoat from some bygone hotel. The epaulets were ragged-more than a few gold braids missing-three of the gold buttons had been replaced, and the original owner had obviously been taller and heavier than the present one. Still, it was the uniform he had, and he wore it with pride.

He was more than aware of the new guests, who spoke German, and who’d clearly had a hard time of it. One in particular touched his heart-she was thin as a rail, with iron-gray hair cut quite short. Likely an aristocrat, in the past, who never failed to give him a gratuity, a pitiful coin or two, when he went out to get her something to eat. Yes, pitiful, but the best she could do, and she never failed him.

Going to work one morning he took a detour through the market, and there was his young nephew, a sweet boy, working at a flower stall. They gossiped for a few minutes and then, as they parted, his nephew handed him a small bouquet and said, “Here, Uncle, take this. Brighten up your room.” He said thank you and then, later, on a sudden impulse, took the bouquet up to the nice lady’s room. “Please,” he said, fixing the bouquet in a water glass. “To brighten up your room.” Oh how she was moved, by this generous act. And he would not accept the coin she offered him.

Instead, they talked. Or at least she did. He would not sit down, but stood by the door as she told him her story. She came from Berlin, from a prominent family, at one time, but then the odious Hitler had risen to power and their circumstances declined quickly. Most of them had left, years earlier, and she finally had to follow them. But it had been a dreadful trip, into Hungary and down through the Balkans: unheated railway cars, almost nothing to eat, and police controls every day. Fortunately, some people had helped her, and for this she was grateful. She was no more explicit than that. He said he would hope for, on her behalf, a better future, and left with a nod of the head that suggested a bow. And the flowers did, indeed, brighten up the room.

Two days later, he had his weekly meeting with the British travel writer, not long resident in the city, called Escovil. They met, as usual, in one of the old Byzantine churches, and there the commissionaire passed along bits of gossip about the city and various doings at the hotel-Escovil was always curious about foreign guests. For this the commissionaire was paid a small stipend, money which, given his meagre salary, made all the difference in the way he lived.

Was it wrong? He didn’t find it so. He would never have given information to a German, or even a Frenchman, but the British: that was another story. They had been good friends to Greece, as far back as the nineteenth century when the great English poet, Lordos Vyronos himself, Lord Byron, had come to fight in their wars of independence; and the British had fought and died in the hills of Macedonia, in 1917, where they’d faced the Bulgarian army.

That afternoon, the commissionare told the travel writer about the aristocratic German lady and her difficult passage to Salonika. Was she, Escovil wanted to know, the only one? No, there were a few others, and, he’d heard, more were expected. And a good thing too. In these times of war, people didn’t travel so often, and there were too many empty rooms at the hotel. And these rooms were paid for in full, promptly, by the well-regarded police official himself, Constantine Zannis, from an old Salonika family.

Escape line!

Francis Escovil hurried back to the room he kept at the Pension Bastasini, where his predecessor in Salonika, Roxanne Brown, had stayed. There he wrote a report of his contact with the commissionaire, then drove his car out to a house on the Chalkidiki peninsula, where his assistant encrypted the message and sent it on to London by wireless/telegraph.

The following night, the Secret Intelligence Service wired back. And very excited they were! Could he get at least one name? One true name? There had been, for some years, contact with anti-Nazi Germans in Berlin: intellectuals, lawyers, Communist workers, and aristocrats; some Jewish, some not. Were the people using the escape line from that group? Or another, that they didn’t know about? Were “the friends”-operatives of the Jewish agencies in Palestine-involved? Could this policeman Zannis be recruited? Bribed? Coerced? Intimidated? Find out more! Most urgent!

Escovil was, despite himself, almost amused. Hit a tender spot, have I? It reminded him of something he’d heard about Churchill, who, excited by some new discovery, would head his minutes, memoranda, with the phrase Action this day. Escovil’s assistant was less amused; the five-digit groups of numbers took a long time to decrypt. “The hell have you done?” he grumbled. To the fishing village outside the cottage, he was known as Plato, a deaf-mute taken to be Escovil’s intimate companion. In fact his name was Geary, formerly a corporal in the Irish Guards and a famous pub brawler. Once, to emphasize the nature of the companionship, Escovil had taken his hand as they walked through the village. This was a practice common enough between any and all Greek men, but Geary didn’t like it and said, in an undertone, “Let go me fookin’ hand, you damned poofter.” To Escovil, a Greek woman radio operator would have been a more credible arrangement, but there weren’t any such to be found, so “Plato” had to serve.

In any event, the message radioed back to London wasn’t so long. He would try to learn a name. Zannis could be asked to help, but any sort of pressure wouldn’t work.

On 18 January, a hand-carried envelope reached Zannis at his office. The message within was typewritten: Colonel Simonides, of the Royal Hellenic Army General Staff, requested his presence at a meeting of “certain residents of Salonika” at a house in the officers’ quarters of the army base, east of the city. The meeting was to take place the following day, at six in the evening, and this invitation was, Zannis realized as he reread it, very close to an order. He took a taxi to the base, where he had to show his identity papers to a lieutenant, list in hand, at the guardhouse by the gate. He was then escorted to the residence of, apparently, a senior officer, with fine though well-worn furnishings. On entering a large parlor, Zannis saw that many of the guests had preceded him, to what looked like a social gathering: a number of Salonika’s rich and powerful, some with their wives; the city’s chief rabbi was there, as was Spiraki, head of the local State Security Bureau; and Vangelis, who waved to him from across the room. In one corner, a professor at the university was talking to a well-regarded journalist. There were, Zannis estimated, close to fifty people in the crowded room, sitting, standing, and drinking coffee, available at a table to one side of the doorway.

A uniformed officer-harsh, slightly reddened face, black mustache-tapped a spoon on a coffee cup to get their attention. As Zannis looked over the crowd he saw, obscured by two large guests, a flash of golden hair. Was Vasilou there? Of course, he would be. So then, was that who he thought it was? Could it be? His heart raced, and he started to move to a position where he could get a better view.

But then, the officer cleared his throat and said, “Citizens of Salonika, allow me to introduce myself, I am Colonel Simonides, and the first thing I would ask is that you will please consider this a private meeting, not a subject for gossip. Not with associates, or even friends. We-that is, the General Staff of the army-have chosen you carefully. You are crucial to the way our city works; you are crucial, in our opinion, to Greece itself.

“Two further things I would ask: please do not question me when I’m done speaking. For reasons ranging from the unknown future to state security, I won’t be able to answer. And, second, please don’t seek us out later and ask for our assistance. If this information seems useful and you wish to act on it, you’ll do so as you see fit. And if you must share this information, you may do that as well-but choose carefully who you tell and don’t say where it came from. Do I have your agreement?” He looked around the room, all were silent, their faces deadly serious. Zannis watched as the golden hair moved slightly, then was still.

“Very well,” the colonel said, finality in his voice. “Our war with Italy continues, we are certainly winning, though for the moment we’ve reached stalemate in central Albania, and we anticipate an Italian counteroffensive in the spring. No matter, we’ll drive them back. And I know you will agree that the very last word that can describe the Greek armed services, or indeed almost any Greek, is defeatist.” Again he looked around the room, as though to challenge anyone who might, even privately, contradict this assertion. Then, after a pause, a muscle ticked in his cheek and he said, “However …”

What followed was known, in military terminology, as a “strategic appreciation,” though phrased for a civilian audience and stripped of any reference that might reveal secret information. Much of what Simonides said was known to the people in the room. Or, rather, it was believed to be true. Roumania and Hungary had signed treaties with Germany; Yugoslavia and Bulgaria had so far refused to do so. So far. The Greek General Staff had undertaken studies-a nice word for it, Zannis thought-indicating that, with the April thaw in the Balkans, this situation would change and, once the Wehrmacht moved across the Yugoslav and Bulgarian borders, Greece would be next. Metaxas, as premier of Greece, would not give way under pressure, so there would be war with Germany. “We,” the colonel said, “will fight hard, and the British will fight by our side, but, when a nation of seventy-five million goes to war with a nation of eight million, the outcome will not long be in question. And what we are suggesting tonight is that you prepare yourselves for that eventuality.”

Simonides paused and let that sink in. “In time, Hitler will be defeated, after, we calculate, a long and difficult war. Here there will be occupation, resistance, and insurgency, and then, when the war is over, Greece will have to, once again, as we did after we drove out the Turks, restore itself as a state. On that day, we judge that the people in this room will be of significant help, will play an important role in the recovery. So we want you alive. And, by the way, you might give some thought to the fact that the Germans will soon learn who you are. People just like yourselves have been murdered in Poland-an attempt to behead potential resistance-and we don’t want you to share that fate.”

After a moment, he went on. “As to what you may do, and how you do it, that’s clearly up to you. We invite you here tonight to tell you only that it is not too soon to begin preparation. That is, I fear, the only way you can secure the safety of yourselves and your immediate families.” He paused, then said, “Thank you for attending this meeting,” turned on his heel, and left the room.

For a time, nobody said a word. Then the man standing next to Zannis turned to him and introduced himself. Mid-fifties, eyeglasses, balding, nobody who would stand out in a crowd. “You’re Costa Zannis, aren’t you?” he said. “From the police department.”

“I am. And what is it that you do in Salonika?”

“I’m the traffic manager for the railroads. What do you make of all this?”

“I’m not sure. ‘Get out while you can’? Something like that.”

“And will you?”

“No, I’ll stay. And you?”

“I hadn’t really thought about it. Where would I go?” He shrugged, said he thought he’d get himself a coffee, and headed for the table by the door.

Zannis again searched the room. Now he was rewarded! Demetria Vasilou was standing in back of a sofa, in conversation with an older woman. She was listening with apparent interest but then, just for a moment, she turned toward him, and smiled. Not the smile of an actress, just the briefest acknowledgment that she was aware of him, that she knew who he was, that she remembered him. Then she returned to the conversation. She wore, that night, an ice-blue blouse, again with a pearl necklace, and a soft, gray wool skirt, not exactly snug, but tight enough to reveal her shape. Now she began to talk to the woman opposite her, not frivolous but making some kind of point. She folded her arms above her waist and leaned backward, so that the top edge of the sofa pressed into the curve of her ample derriere, for one second, then another. As she straightened up, and the woman in front of her began to speak, she glanced at him again and, just for an instant, their eyes met.

His mind raced. Had he seen what he thought he’d seen? Did it mean what he thought it meant? I want you. No, no, impossible. Tired of standing, she’d simply taken a moment to lean on a sofa, and desire had led him to believe it was a gesture of seduction. But a voice from within knew better. A signal. Not overt, but not subtle either. That’s the way women do things. Don’t they? Perhaps? He stared at her; he couldn’t stop. Her profile was like, like …Now he remembered that Tasia had called her “the goddess,” as though people spoke of her in that way. An irony? Not to him. Well, enough, just go over there and talk to her. Be brave!

His foot never moved. The traffic manager materialized in front of him with two cups of coffee. Extending one of the cups he said, “I thought you might like a coffee.”

Zannis couldn’t escape. Heartsick, he watched as Vasilou appeared, took Demetria’s arm, and led his prize away.

22 January.

His letter confirming yet another arrival in Salonika crossed Emilia Krebs’s letter to the Royale Garment Company. Two men would be setting out from Berlin on the twenty-ninth, papers in the names of Brandt and Wald; both were university professors. This time, for a recognition signal, Brandt, who wore a trimmed beard, would carry a pair of gloves in his left hand. After Zannis had informed her of the difficulty at the Subotica border station, the refugees now went west, from Budapest to Zagreb, then back east to Novi Sad, and Belgrade. This deviation added another day to the journey, and Zannis could only hope they were making the right choice. Dipping his pen in the Panadon solution, he confirmed that day’s arrival and the departure of three refugees to Turkey. The following day, in the office, he sent teletype messages to Pavlic in Zagreb and Gustav Husar’s detective in Budapest. Wanted for questioning by the Salonika police: one WALD, one BRANDT, who wears a trimmed beard and has been known to carry a pair of gloves in his left hand. Believed to be arriving-then the dates-“by excursion steamer” to Budapest, “by express rail” to Zagreb. When the teletype messages had been confirmed, he returned to his desk. On a pad he printed Belgrade/Skoplje? Based on his questioning of the refugees at the Tobacco Hotel, he’d discovered that Emilia Krebs had an operative riding that train. He drew a box around what he’d written and went back over it, darkening the line. Only eye contact, from what the refugees said, but more than once-two or three times. “He was just making sure we were safe.” Only some of the refugees said it, and not the Gruens. Still, the ones who did report the man also said that he’d appeared on the platform at Skoplje. Once more, Zannis’s pencil traced the box. He would write again, to the Kalcher und Krohn attorneys, that night. He had to ask her. Who was it? Why hadn’t she told him? Because, God forbid, she might not know.

Later that morning he invited Gabi Saltiel to lunch. They left early-Smyrna Betrayed was always crowded-and took the most private table, in the corner. That day the taverna had a freshly caught octopus. A tentacle was hung from a hook in the kitchen ceiling, the customer would proceed to the kitchen, indicate the desired width of the portion, and one of the cooks would slice it off with a fearsomely sharp fish knife. Zannis didn’t much care for the knife, he’d too often seen what it could do as a weapon, back when he’d been a detective.

While they waited for their lunch-the slice, grilled over coals, turned sweet and was something like lobster-they lit cigarettes and drank ouzo.

“How are things at home?” Zannis said.

“As usual, nothing too exciting.” Saltiel paused, then said, “Thank heaven.” He stopped there and waited; he sensed Zannis had something he wanted to discuss.

“Gabi,” Zannis said. “I think it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to talk about the future.”

Saltiel waited, what now?

“I’ve begun to hear things about the Germans. Maybe going into Bulgaria.”

“Real things? Or just … talk?”

“Real things.”

Saltiel’s face tightened. “Bad news for us, chief, if that’s true, because it’s our turn next.”

Zannis agreed. “What would you want to do, if that happened? Because-well, if the Germans take the city, they’ll be interested in our office.”

“They know about us?”

“I think we’d better assume they do. And, if they do, once things quiet down they’ll come calling. Polite at first, then not.”

“Costa?” Saltiel leaned back in his chair. “What are you saying?”

“Make plans, Gabi. Then get out.” After a moment he added, “Even if you didn’t work for the office you ought to think about it. Because, for the Jews-”

“I know,” Saltiel said. “We’re all talking about it. Talking and talking.” They were silent for a time, then Saltiel forced his attention back to the conversation. “So, get out. When, next week?”

“If the Wehrmacht moves across the Danube, from Roumania to Bulgaria …”

“It’s very hard to think about this, Costa,” Saltiel said, his tone faintly irritated. “To leave the place where you’ve always lived because something may happen later.” He shook his head. “Have you talked to Sibylla?”

“Not yet. I will.”

Saltiel thought for a time, then said, “How long will it take, this, this potential German advance? Not a lot of bridges over the Danube, you know; those countries don’t like each other.”

“I don’t know,” Zannis said. “Days. Not weeks.”

“Will they use the railroad bridge, at Vidin?”

“They could use pontoon bridges.”

“Here comes the waiter,” Saltiel said, stubbing out his cigarette emphatically.

They ate for a time, dutifully, Zannis telling himself that if he didn’t eat something he’d be hungry later. Then Saltiel said, “Oh, by the way, did you hear about the man in the synagogue-”

Zannis looked up, knife and fork suspended above his plate. Was this a joke?

“-photographing books?”

“What?”

“You know that the synagogues in Salonika are famous for their sacred texts: ancient books, Talmuds, Torahs, five, six hundred years old. Very valuable, if anybody ever sold anything like that. So last week, the rabbi at the synagogue on Athonos Street left his eyeglasses in his office, then, late that night he went back to get them and discovered some guy, using a desk lamp, had some of the books out and was taking photographs.”

“Did the man taking photographs say anything?”

“He ran. The rabbi is eighty years old, he couldn’t chase him. Maybe he yelled at him, I don’t know. Then he talked to two or three rabbis at other synagogues, and one of them said he’d found his books in the wrong order, though he didn’t think anything of it at the time.”

Zannis put his knife and fork down on his plate, so much for lunch. “Nothing stolen,” he said.

“No. Photographed.”

“Which means,” Zannis said slowly, “somebody is taking an inventory, in order to know what to steal.” He paused, then added, “At some time in the future.”

The waiter noticed that Zannis wasn’t eating his lunch and walked over to the table. “Everything all right, gentlemen?”

Zannis stared at him. I’ve had enough of tentacles for one day. “It’s just,” Zannis said, “I’m not hungry.”

As they walked back toward the Via Egnatia, they passed Sami Pal, sharp as ever, a red carnation boutonniere in the buttonhole of his jacket, standing in the doorway of a tobacco shop. “Good afternoon, captain,” he said.

“Sami,” Zannis said.

As they went around the corner, Saltiel said, “Ah, the slick Sami Pal. You’re a captain, now?”

“He thinks so.”

“There are things you don’t tell me, chief.”

“There are. And I may have to, one of these days. In the meantime, Turkish visas. What will you need?”

Saltiel turned his head toward Zannis and raised an eyebrow. “What have you been doing, Costa?”

“Private business. How many?”

It took Saltiel a while. “Strange, you never count your family,” he said. “There are, with the grandkids, ten of us. Is it possible that you have a way of getting ten Turkish visas?”

“Yes.”

“What will this cost?”

“I’ll worry about that.”

Almost to himself, Saltiel said, “How in God’s name would I ever make a living in Turkey?”

“When the Wehrmacht reaches the Macedonian border, something will occur to you.”

Saltiel thought for a time. “Don’t do anything right away, I have to talk this out with the family. Is there a time limit?”

Zannis thought about that, then said, “Not right now.”

*

Back in the office, Zannis grabbed the telephone and called Vangelis, repeating Saltiel’s story, asking what could be done. “Not much,” Vangelis said. “I assume they lock the synagogue doors. Beyond that, I don’t know.”

“This could be coming out of the German legation.”

“I suppose,” Vangelis said. “It’s possible.”

“You understand what it means?”

“Of course I do.” Vangelis’s voice was sharp. “The Nazis have some kind of commission for the study of Jewish culture and religion, maybe it’s them. They steal everywhere else, why not here?”

“What if I interviewed the consul? Asked him about it?”

“Von Kragen? He’d just tell you, politely, to go to hell.”

“What about Spiraki?”

“No, he wouldn’t be interested.”

“Then what?”

“Leave it alone, Costa. Go break your balls on something else.”

Zannis, looking out the office window, found himself going back over his conversation with Saltiel. Ten visas. He knew that the more visas he requested, the harder Madam Urglu would press him: tell me something. And then, how much money did he have left? Enough, he thought, though if Emilia Krebs’s operation went on for months, the bribes and the payments to Gustav Husar would deplete his secret bank account. Then he’d have to contact Vasilou. Did he have the telephone number? He thumbed through his card index, yes, there it was, the office on the waterfront, the number at home. The number at home.

The number at home.

There were reasons he shouldn’t. One reason: if Vasilou found out … But he won’t find out. And, if he did, there were other wealthy men in the city, including wealthy Jews, who might be the best people to approach. One hand resting on the phone, Zannis fought it out with himself but the outcome was never really in doubt. In his imagination, Demetria once again pressed herself against the back of the sofa. Look what I have for you. That’s what she meant. And then? Then this: soon enough the world was going to end, the world he knew, and his life-he wasn’t going to run away-would end with it. So, to love one last time before that day comes …

He dialed the number.

Made a mistake? A man answered and said, “Plakos here.”

Tried again. Now, a woman’s voice: “The Vasilou residence.”

“Is Madam Vasilou there?”

“Just a minute, please.”

He could hear a vacuum cleaner, a voice gave instructions, then the telephone was picked up and the voice said, “This is Demetria.”

“Hello,” he said. “It’s Costa Zannis.” He waited, ready to turn the call toward some meaningless inquiry, everything depended on what she said next.

Silence. Only the vacuum cleaner. Then: “Oh, Mr. Ionides, please forgive me, I won’t be able to come to the office this afternoon. Unfortunately, I must attend a funeral, at the Evangelista cemetery, at four. It will have to be another time.”

“I’ll be there,” Zannis said.

More silence, then the phone was hung up. As he replaced the receiver, he realized that his hand was trembling.

He made a great effort not to leave the office too early, then he did precisely that. I can’t just sit here. It had drizzled all day, on and off, from a leaden winter sky, so he took an umbrella. By twenty minutes to four he reached the cemetery, decided to walk down to the waterfront, circled the White Tower, a former Turkish prison now pictured on postal cards, then went back up the hill.

As he passed through the entry gates, a group of mourners, led by an Orthodox priest, was on its way out, all dressed in black and wiping their eyes with handkerchiefs. Forcing himself to a slow pace, he walked down the central pathway until he reached the older part of the cemetery, past long rows of graves-headstones askew, clusters of cypress trees, and monuments with pillars and rusted iron doors. He searched as he walked, peering into the misting rain and fading light, but found no living soul, only the dead. Then, with a view from the top of a crumbling stairway, he saw, by the high wall that bordered the cemetery, a figure in a brown raincoat. Head covered by a black kerchief, a bouquet of anemones in clasped hands.

She saw him, as he approached, and stood still, heels properly together, posture erect, waiting. When they were a foot apart, he stopped and they stared at each other, as though uncertain what to do next. At last he said, “Demetria.” Then very slowly raised his hand and touched her lips with two fingers. When he did this she closed her eyes, dropped the bouquet, and with her hand pressed his fingers against her. After a moment she let him go and, when he withdrew his hand, said, very quietly, “My God.” I cannot believe that this has happened. As he leaned forward, as though to kiss her, she said, “Please,” her face close to tears. “It isn’t safe here.”

“Can we go … somewhere else?”

Sorrowfully, she shook her head.

“I …,” he said. She gazed at him, closer yet to tears. “I have fallen-”

“Don’t! I know.” She was pleading with him. “You will make me cry.”

He didn’t understand.

She saw that he didn’t, said, “I mustn’t. I must not.” She stared into his eyes, in love with him, her lips quivered and she turned them inward and pressed them together. But, he saw, she couldn’t hold it in.

“Quick! Think of a monkey!”

A great bark of laughter escaped her and she clapped her hand over her mouth. Then, her composure regained, she moved closer, almost touching him. She was, he thought, beautiful beyond belief; above her brown eyes, the smooth olive skin of her forehead met golden hair at the edge of her kerchief. “You don’t,” she said, “remember me, do you.”

“Remember you?”

“From a long time ago.”

He had no idea what to say.

“You don’t,” she said. “How could you? I was twelve, you must have been, sixteen? Our schools were side by side.”

“We knew each other?”

“I knew who you were, I looked at you often, we never spoke. I was just a skinny little girl, just a kid. I had long hair, little gold earrings….”

He tried, but he had no memory of her whatsoever. “It’s all right now?” he said. “No tears?”

“Thank God. They’d see it, they’d know I’d been crying-my eyes would be red. They watch me.”

“The servants?”

“Yes. He pays them extravagantly, he buys their loyalty.”

Not far from them, halfway down a row of graves, a woman was on her knees, despite the wet ground, and was placing flowers at the foot of a headstone. Demetria followed his eyes, then stepped back. “Too many people know me,” she said.

“I have an apartment,” he said. “On Santaroza Lane.”

She didn’t answer, and looked down at the ground, her eyes hidden from him. Finally, her voice barely audible, she said, “I am not so brave.” The top of her kerchief was turning dark with rain and he extended his umbrella, attempting to cover them both, at least covering her. Then, on the side away from the woman at the grave, he took her hand. Which was cold and damp and, for a moment, lifeless. But it tightened, slowly, until she held him hard and said, “Near the railway station.”

Zannis took his hand back and brought out a slip of paper on which he’d written the telephone number at his office. As he held it out to her it moved in the wind. When she’d put it away he said, “If you don’t call me, I will call you. In the afternoon.”

“Yes,” she said. “I know about ‘the afternoon.’” Her smile, as she said this, was sad, rueful, what secret lovers must do. She thrust both hands deep in the pockets of her raincoat. “I guess I’d better go home now.”

“May I kiss you good-bye?”

Slowly, she shook her head. It meant no, but it was-the way she did it, the expression on her face-the most seductive gesture that Zannis had ever seen. Hands still in pockets, she turned and walked away, looked back at him once, then, at the end of the path, descended the stairway, and was gone.

The two men from the Secret Intelligence Service came to see Francis Escovil in Salonika. Well, almost in Salonika: out in the bay. They arrived on a small yacht, from Alexandria, anchored beyond the harbor, and sent the captain to the Pension Bastasini with an envelope. Escovil wasn’t there, so the captain waited in the lobby, the residents glancing at him, at his uniform-of no country, of the land of yachts-as they came and went. When Escovil returned, the captain let him go upstairs, then followed. In the room, the captain gave Escovil the envelope and then they left together, walking down to the wharf where two sailors in a rowboat awaited them.

Once on board the yacht, he was taken to the salon: grand twenty years earlier, now fallen into gentle decay, the fabrics faded, the brasswork tarnished, mildew in the air. It was, Escovil had noted as the rowboat approached, called the Amenhotep II, so, an Egyptian yacht.

Escovil had never before seen these men. Jones and Wilkins, they called themselves and perhaps they were, Jones and Wilkins, or perhaps not. It didn’t matter to Escovil who they said they were, he knew what they were. Jones was tall and bony and mournful-Escovil’s interior description, adding though mournful about what God only knows, while Wilkins was military: stiff, mustached, hostile, and potentially dangerous. To the enemy, to his wife, to his dog. Maybe not the dog, Escovil thought. More sentimental, likely. Only you love me, Fido. That was very possibly true, Escovil sensed, so was relieved to find Jones in charge. It seemed, anyhow. Perhaps Wilkins had been brought along merely to frighten him, or was eager to have a ride on the yacht.

They gave him a big whiskey soda from the bar and treated themselves to one as well. Settled in the smelly chairs, and smiled. Both of them. It was utterly horrible.

“We have a bit of a nightmare,” Jones said. “So you’ll have to help us out.” He had a high insinuating whine of a voice. “Really, this is somebody else’s mess, but we’re the ones who have to clean it up.”

“Somebody with a name?” Escovil said.

“Oh, we can’t tell you that,” Jones said. He stared at Escovil. Are you mad?

“I see,” Escovil said, faintly amused.

Which wasn’t at all the proper response. “Do you,” Wilkins said.

Only in England, Escovil thought, could “Do you” be spoken in such a way that it meant So now I shall cut your throat. In full retreat, he took a sip of whiskey and tried to look compliant. This was war, and he’d signed up to fight a filthy enemy, but he would never be one of them, the Joneses and the Wilkinses-they didn’t like him and they never would.

“Once upon a time,” Jones said-glass in hand, he settled back against the chair and crossed his legs-“there was a little man called Henry Byer. You wouldn’t know the name, but if you’d been one of the chaps hanging about in the science labs of Cambridge in the nineteen-twenties, you most certainly would. A physicist, Harry, as he’s called, and brilliant. Studied sound waves and radio beams, very theoretical back then, nobody had the faintest idea such things could be used in war, nobody had ever heard of radio navigation. It helps bombers flying at night, who can find their targets only by use of radio beams, locator beams we’d call them now. Who could have known that a radio beam would become a crucial weapon, could win or lose a war? Now the Germans have their own radio beams but, using the methods that Harry Byer discovered, we can alter them. And the Luftwaffe may know we’re doing it, but they don’t know how. Harry Byer knows how.”

Jones stopped for a drink, then went on. “Anyway, life went well for Harry; a lectureship at Cambridge, where he worked in the physics lab, he married his sweetie, a pretty girl-”

“Smashing girl,” Wilkins said. “Big bosoms.” He indicated the magnitude of the bosoms with his cupped hands.

“Mmm,” Escovil offered, raising his eyebrows in appreciation, one of the boys.

Jones cleared his throat and said, “Yes, well.” Then, “But, in the summer of nineteen thirty-nine, life went sour for the Byer family, because la wife found somebody she liked better. Harry was, how shall I say, unprepossessing physically, you see, very smart certainly, but came the day when very smart just didn’t … compete.

“And, well, still, who cared? But Harry took it badly, oh, very badly indeed. And just about then the first of September comes rolling around and Adolf sends his tanks into Poland. So Harry Byer, in a terrible huff, marches himself down to London and enlists in the RAF. He’ll show the wife what’s what, he’ll go and get himself killed! Hah! There! Take that!”

Something rumbled inside Wilkins which, Escovil figured out a moment later, was laughter.

“Oh, but you know, Escovil, somebody should have cared about this fellow who’s crucial to the war effort. Because Hitler’s got legions of goose-stepping SS goons, but Britain has scientists. And scientists win. You see?”

“I do see,” Escovil said.

“But the aristocrat, who’s supposed to be watching, a very titled aristocrat I might add, who goes to country houses with divinely important people, slips up. Not that he does anything right away, when there’s still time to do something about it, no, either he isn’t told or he ignores it.”

“The latter, I’d say,” Wilkins offered.

“And Arthur’s got it right. Because that class of individual doesn’t make mistakes. They simply go on. No balls-up here, everything is tickety-boo. But, as you might have guessed, everything really isn’t tickety-boo. Now the RAF isn’t going to allow Harry Byer to actually fly an aircraft, good heavens no, but he is something of a gnome, a little runt, and that qualifies him as a tail gunner because he fits in the turret. So off he goes, in his Wellington bomber, dropping incendiaries on Germany, and good for him.”

“Amen,” Escovil said.

“Well, it damn near is amen, as you say, because early in January, Harry’s Wellington is hit by flak over the Ruhr. The pilot makes a valiant effort but it’s no good and the crew bails out over France. Now, luck intervenes. Some of the crew are caught right away, but Harry lands in just the right farmer’s field and the French, perhaps a resistance group, or simply French, take charge of him and smuggle him up to Paris. And there he sits, as they try to make arrangements to get him out of the country.

“Now, just about here, the aristocrat is told what’s become of Harry and gives forth a mighty British roar. And who do you suppose he roars at? To clean up this godawful mess? He roars at us, who else?”

Jones waited. Escovil knew he had been called on to recite, and what came to him was, “And now you’re roaring at me.”

Impertinent. Wilkins said, “We’re not roaring, Francis. Yet.”

“So then, what shall I do?”

“Why, get him out. What else?” Jones said. There was a file folder on the table by Jones’s chair. Jones opened it, withdrew a photograph, and held it out to Escovil, who had to go and retrieve it. When he’d returned to his chair, Jones said, “There he is. Taken when he reached Paris, just to make sure they have who they say they have.”

In the photograph, Harry Byer looked like an owl who’d flown into the side of a barn. Owlish he had always been-hooked beak of a nose, small eyes, pursy little mouth-while the barn wall had left livid bruises by his right eye and the right-hand corner of his mouth. Injured in the airplane? Beaten up? “When was this taken?” he said. He started to rise, intending to return the photograph.

But Jones waved him back down and said, “A week or so after he landed.”

“And how did, um, we come to hear about it?”

“Whoever these people are, they were in contact with an underground cell operating a clandestine radio.”

“Back to London.”

“Back to the French in London.”

“Oh.”

“Quite.”

“You don’t suppose the Germans are in control of them, do you? Waiting to see who shows up?”

“Haven’t a clue.”

Silence. Wilkins had now assumed the same posture, drink in hand, legs crossed, as his colleague. They were, Escovil thought, rather good at waiting. Finally he said, “So you’ll want me to go up there.”

Jones cackled. “Are you daft? Of course not, you’ll send your agent, what’s-his-name, the policeman.”

“Constantine Zannis? He’s not my agent. Who told you that?”

Wilkins leaned forward and said, “Oh damn-it-all of course he is.” He glanced at his watch. “Has been for a while-ten minutes, I’d say, more or less.”

I’d like to be in the room when you tell Zannis that. But Escovil knew there was no point in starting an argument he couldn’t win. “Paris is a long way from here. Why wouldn’t you take Byer out by fishing boat, from the French coast?”

“Option closed,” Jones said. “For the time being. Somebody got himself caught up there and the Germans shut it down. We’ll get it back, in time, but right now you’ll have to use your escape line.”

“It isn’t mine.”

“Now it is.”

Oh piss off. “And why does Zannis have to go?”

“Because Byer will never make it by himself, speaks not a word of any continental language. He can read a scientific journal in German, but he can’t order lunch. And, more important, if he’s caught, we have to be able to show we did everything we could. We have to show we care.”

Escovil suppressed a sigh. “Very well, I’ll ask him.”

“No,” Wilkins said, now quite irritated, “you’ll tell him. ‘Ask him’ indeed.”

Jones said, “Do it any way you like, but keep in mind, Francis, we don’t take no for an answer.” He stood, collected Wilkins’s glass, then Escovil’s, and poured fresh drinks. When he’d resettled himself, he said, “Now,” in a tone of voice that was new to Escovil, and went on to explain how they thought the thing might actually be done. Bastards they were, to the very bone, Escovil thought, but at least, and thank heaven, smart bastards.

27 January. A telephone call from Escovil, early that afternoon. Could they meet? Privately? Zannis’s instinctive reaction was to refuse, courteously or not so courteously, because the word “privately” told the tale: the spies wanted something. And it wasn’t such a good day to ask Zannis anything, because he was miserable. He had waited for a call from Demetria, waited and waited, but it hadn’t come. Five long days had crept by, his heart soaring every time the telephone rang: It’s her! But it never was. Now, he would either have to assume she’d thought better of the whole thing, or was waiting for him-as he’d promised, very nearly threatened-to call her. Meanwhile, the spies were after him. Back in the autumn, in his time with Roxanne, he would have laughed. But the world had changed, the war was coming south, and only the British alliance might save the country.

And didn’t they know it.

“It’s really rather important,” Escovil said. “Is there somewhere …?”

Skata. “You can come to the office after six,” Zannis said, a sharp edge to his voice. “Do you know where it is?”

“I don’t.”

Oh yes you do. Zannis gave him directions, then said, “It’s very private here, once everyone’s gone home, you needn’t be concerned.” And the hell with your damn bookstores and empty churches.

And so, at five minutes past six, there he was. “Hello.”

He’d been drinking, Zannis could smell it on him. And there were shadows beneath his eyes, which made him seem, with his sand-colored hair swept across his forehead, more than ever a boy grown old. Beneath a soiled raincoat, the battered tweed jacket.

Once he was seated on the other side of the desk, Zannis said, “So then, what do you want?”

Such directness caused Escovil to clear his throat. “We must ask a favor of you.”

We. Well, now that was out of the way, what next? Not that he wanted to hear it.

“It has to do with your ability to bring refugees, bring them secretly, from northern Europe to Salonika.”

“You know about this?”

“We do.” Escovil’s tone was apologetic-the secret service was what it was and sometimes, regretfully, it worked.

“And so?”

“We need to make use of it, for a fugitive of our own. An important fugitive-that is, important to the British war effort.”

Zannis lit a cigarette. That done, he said, “No.” Lighting the cigarette had given him an opportunity to amend his first answer, which had been, Get out of my office.

Escovil looked sorrowful. “Of course. That’s the proper response, for you. It’s what I would say, in your place.”

Then good-bye.

“You fear,” Escovil went on, “that it might jeopardize your operation and the people who run it.”

“It could very well destroy it, Escovil. Then what becomes of the men and women trying to get out of Germany? I’ll tell you what: they’re trapped, they’re arrested, and then they are at the mercy of the SS. Want more?”

“No need,” Escovil said, very quietly. “I know.” He was silent for a time, then he said, “Which might still happen, even if you refuse to help us.”

“Which will happen.”

“Then …”

“It’s a question of time. The longer we go on, the more lives saved. And if some of our fugitives are caught, we can try to fix the problem, and we can continue. People run away all the time, and the organization designed to catch them adjusts, gets what information it can, and goes to work the next day. But if they discover an important fugitive, perhaps a secret agent, it suggests the existence of others, and then the organization starts to multiply-more money, more men, more pressure from above. And that’s the end of us.”

“He’s not a secret agent.”

“No?”

“No. He’s a downed airman. Who, it turns out, is a scientist, and shouldn’t have been allowed to join the RAF, and certainly shouldn’t have been allowed to fly bomber missions. But he escaped the attention of the department which-umm, attends to such individuals. And now they want him back.”

“And you can’t get him back on your own? You?”

“I don’t like saying this, but that’s what we’re doing.”

“And I don’t like saying this, but you’re endangering many lives.”

“Well, frankly,” Escovil said, “we do nothing else. We don’t want to, we’d rather not, but it seems to work out that way.”

Zannis thought for a time. “You have no alternative?”

“Not today.”

“I’ll tell you something, Escovil, if I find out you’re lying to me you’ll be on the next boat out of here.”

“I take your point, but that won’t happen. Don’t you see? It’s gone beyond that now. The war, everything.” He paused, then said, “And I’m not lying.”

“Oh, well, in that case …”

“I’m not. And you can assure yourself that the individual is precisely who I say he is.”

“Really? And how exactly would I do that?”

“Ask him.”

Zannis didn’t go directly home. He stopped at the neighborhood taverna, had an ouzo, then another, and considered a third but, nagged by guilt over putting off Melissa’s dinner, hurried back to Santaroza Lane. Then too, the third ouzo wouldn’t, he realized, have much more effect than the first two, which had had no effect whatsoever. His mind was too engaged, too embroiled, to be soothed by alcohol. It lifted briefly, then went back to work. Sorry!

He simply could not persuade himself that Escovil was lying. Years of police work had sharpened his instincts in this area, and he trusted them more than ever. After Escovil’s little surprise-“Ask him”-he’d gone on to explain the proposed operation, which was artfully conceived and made sense. Made the most perfect sense, as long as Zannis was willing to accept a certain level of danger. And who-given the time and circumstance-wouldn’t? Not him. He had to go to Paris. He had to go to Paris. And do what had to be done. And that was that.

Lying on the bed in his underwear, he reached toward the night table and had a look, yet again, at the photograph he’d been given. Yes, Byer was exactly who Escovil had said he was, bruises and all. And how had Escovil’s organization managed to get the photograph out of France? Escovil had claimed not to know and, as before, Zannis believed him. Next he studied the second photograph of Byer, the one in the Sardakis passport, a real passport photo, it seemed, and a real Greek passport. Perhaps for them not so difficult but, even so, impressive. So, was this a man who would murder his wife and her lover in a fit of jealousy? Well, it surely was-the owlish, seemingly harmless intellectual. Skata! He’d seen such murderers, that was exactly what they looked like!

He returned the passport and the photograph to the night table and turned his mind toward what he had to do in the morning. The gun. Why had he not replaced his Walther, lost in the Trikkala bombing? Why was he so …

The telephone. Who would call him here, his mother? She had no telephone, but, in an emergency … “Hello?”

“Hello, it’s me.”

Her! “Demetria. Did … did I give you this number?”

“Are you angry with me?”

“Good God no!”

“Vasilou had it, in a card index in his study.”

“Is everything … all right?”

“Better now. But it’s been a terrible week, Vasilou is suddenly affectionate, back early from the office, wanting, you know. But poor Demetria has eaten a bad fish. He is enraged, shouting. He will buy the restaurant and fire the cook! Meanwhile, I hide in the bathroom.” A memory of that moment drew from her a kind of amused snort. “Anyhow, at last I’m free to telephone. It is the servants’ night out but they dawdled before they left and I realized you wouldn’t be at work.”

“Can you come here now? Even for a little while? Just to see you….”

“Oh Costa I can’t.” But with her voice she let him know how much she wanted to, and, almost better, she had never said his name before and hearing it thrilled him.

“Tomorrow?”

“The day after. He is off to Athens, the maids are going to a christening, and I told everyone I was invited to a mah-jong party. So I can see you at five, and we will have two hours, unless …”

“Unless what?”

“I must warn you, Costa, he is a dangerous enemy, a very dangerous enemy. Some of the people who work for him, they will do … anything.”

He wondered why she thought Vasilou would discover them so quickly, then he knew. “Demetria, do you want to tell him? Now? Leave him and stay with me?”

The line whispered. Finally she said, “Not now. Not yet.”

She was, he thought, testing him. I know you will lie in bed by me, but will you stand by me? “I am not afraid of him, Demetria.”

“You are not afraid of anybody, are you.”

“No. And the day, the hour, you want to leave, it’s done.” When she didn’t speak he said, “Do you still love him?”

“No, I never did, not really. I thought I might, at one time, yes, I suppose I did think that.” After a moment, she continued. “I am, you know, his third wife-he simply wanted something different, a new possession, but even so, I hoped. He was forceful, masculine, rich-who was I to refuse him as a husband? And I had been married-and all that that means in this country-so I was grateful, and he was honorable; he went to my father and asked for my hand. Very old-fashioned, very traditional, and it affected me. I was alone, and getting older, and here was, at least, a luxurious life.”

“That can happen, I think, to anyone.”

“Yes, I guess it might. And I am ‘anyone,’ Costa, inside … all this.”

“I’m afraid you’re not just ‘anyone,’ not to me.”

“I know. I saw that. From the car when you and Vasilou came out of the club.” She hesitated, then sighed. “I want to tell you everything, but not on the telephone.” A pause, then, “You haven’t told me where you live.”

“There are no numbers on Santaroza Lane, but it’s the fourth house up from the corner toward the bay, the door is old wood, unpainted. I have the second floor.”

She waited, said, “So,” then, “I have to go now. But it’s only two days. One day, and part of another.”

“At five,” he said.

“Yes, at five,” she said, her voice lovely, and hung up the phone.

Salonika’s best gun shop was at the western end of the Via Egnatia, in what had been, before the Great Fire, the city’s Jewish district. The owner, called Moises, the Sephardic version of the name, had been there forever, more than thirty years. Still, his sidelocks were not quite gray. He always wore a black Homburg, a formal hat, with a vest and a colorful tie, his shirtsleeves buttoned decorously at the wrists. The shop smelled of gun oil, not far from bananas. Policemen had always received a discount from Moises, so Zannis showed his badge.

Moises said, “You are Costa Zannis, no?”

“That’s right.”

“What can I do for you?”

“I need a Walther, the PPK detective’s model, and a holster. Also a box of ammunition.”

Grimly, Moises shook his head. “I thought maybe you wanted something repaired.”

“No, a new sidearm.”

“Ach, forgive me, but I haven’t got one.”

“Well then, used. Maybe even better.”

“All gone, I’m afraid. New, used, everything.”

“What do you mean, all gone?”

“I’m down to practically nothing-everything’s been bought up: hunting rifles, shotguns, all the handguns.” He shrugged. “I wish I could help you. I write the Walther company, they say next month.”

Zannis thought it over. “Moises, I have to ask you, as a special favor to me, to try and buy one back. I’ll pay whatever it costs.”

Moises scratched the back of his head and looked doubtful. “I don’t know, I’ve never done such a thing. Once the customer buys, it’s his, that’s that.”

“Of course. But, this time, I must have one. A PPK.”

“Well, I had one customer who bought twenty model PPKs, I suppose he might make do with nineteen. I wonder, maybe it’s better if you ask him yourself.”

“Would he mind, that you gave me his name?”

Moises considered it. “Not you. Anybody in this city can tell you anything. And, come to think of it, I’d imagine you’re acquainted with him.”

“Who is it?”

“Elias, the man with one name. You know, the poet.”

“Twenty handguns?”

“Not so strange. Who can see into the future?”

“Maybe Elias can. I’ll get in touch with him.”

“Tell him, tell him I was reluctant, to give you his name.”

“He won’t care.”

“Poets buying Walthers,” Moises said. “I don’t remember anything like that, and I’ve been here forever.”

Zannis walked back to the office. Fucking war, he thought. Salonika was preparing for resistance, people buying weapons and hiding them. But Elias, one step ahead of the game, meant to go-bearing gifts-up into the mountain villages where, once the Germans came, the bandits would once again become andartes, guerrilla fighters, as they had during the Turkish occupation.

Zannis telephoned, then met with Elias at a kafeneion an hour later. He’d come away from the gun shop with a belt holster and ammunition, now, ceremoniously, Elias handed over a box containing a Walther. When Zannis reached into his pocket, Elias held up a hand. “Not a drachma shall I take from you, Officer Costa. This is my pleasure. My gift, my gesture. For it’s my job, as a Greek poet, to be oracular, to see into the future, so I know what this weapon will do, and to who. As I said, my pleasure.”

29 January. An excited Costa Zannis left his office at three to pick up the sheets he’d taken to be washed “and ironed, Elena.” Then, once back at the apartment, he made the bed and started to sweep the floor, but stopped, realizing that this chore had to be preceded by another, and began to brush Melissa. Probably she liked food more than a brushing, but it was surely a close second. She rolled over on her side, paws out, tongue lolling out of the side of her mouth, so Zannis could brush her chest. “Yes, Melissa, we are going to have a guest. An important guest.” Melissa’s tail gave a single thump against the floor.

He was humming some song, the words forgotten, when there was a sharp knock at the door. Zannis looked at his watch. She’s early! It was not much after four but, who cared; they would have more time together. He opened the door and there stood a detective-Tellos? Yes, he thought so, a few years earlier they’d served in the same squad. What the hell was he doing here?

“Come in,” Zannis said.

“Vangelis sent me to find you,” Tellos said, apologetically. “I went to the office, but you weren’t there. I have a car downstairs.”

“What’s wrong?”

“You haven’t heard?”

“No.”

“General Metaxas has died. In a hospital in Athens.”

“Assassinated?”

“No, though people are saying all sorts of things-poisoned by the Italians, you name it, conspiracies of every sort.”

“But not true.”

“No. Vangelis talked to people in Athens. The general had a tonsillectomy and died of toxemia. Anyhow, we may have to deal with demonstrations, riots, who knows what, so there’s a meeting at the mayor’s house, east of the port, and Commissioner Vangelis wants you there.”

Zannis was enraged. He feared Tellos would see it and covered his face with his hands. What evil fate contrived to take from him the thing he wanted most in the world?

Tellos rested a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. “I know,” he said. “This man saved Greece, and now he’s gone.”

30 January. There were no riots. The Metaxas government had never been popular; surely half the population would have preferred a republic, long championed by the noble voice of Greek democracy, Venizelos. But Venizelos had died in exile in 1936, while Metaxas, dictator though he was, had led the country well in war. Now King George II had named one Alexandros Koryzis, a former governor of the Bank of Greece, as the new prime minister. Hardly anyone had ever heard of him. Therefore, no marching in the streets. Instead, melancholy and silence. Poor Greece, no luck at all, why did fate treat them so badly?

Zannis might have had similar feelings, but there was barely room in his wretched heart for emotion about the national politics, for he had to go to Paris the following day and, if the operation went wrong, he would never again see Demetria. It tore at him, this loss. If only they’d been able to meet, if only they’d made love. Two stolen hours, was that too much to ask? So it seemed-their hours together stolen in turn by a bizarre twist of destiny: a man got tonsillitis. Zannis couldn’t stop brooding, angry and sad at the same moment.

But then he had to, because he had difficulties beyond this, and these he’d brought on himself. He knew he would be away for at least ten days, and during that time it was more than likely that a letter from Emilia Krebs would arrive at the office. And so he had no choice but to designate Gabi Saltiel-and Sibylla, she could no longer be excluded-as his deputies in running the Salonika end of the escape line. Saltiel never said a harsh word, but Zannis could tell his feelings were hurt-why hadn’t he been trusted from the beginning? As for Sibylla, feelings didn’t enter into it, she was simply intent on getting everything right.

Not all that easy. “You melt six Panadon in a glass of water and use a clean pen with a sharp point.” And the rest of it: the iron, the lawyer’s address in Berlin, the teletype numbers for the detectives in Zagreb and Budapest. “You can depend on us, chief,” Sibylla said. And, Zannis realized, she meant it.

That done, Zannis’s eye inevitably fell on the telephone. He didn’t dare. Umm, maybe he did. Oh no he didn’t! Oh but yes, he did. Vasilou would still be in Athens, and Zannis just could not bear to leave the woman he loved, perhaps forever, with no more than an unanswered knock on a door.

Very slowly, tempting fate but unable to stop, he worked the dial with his index finger, running each number around to the end. But then, at last, good fortune: it was Demetria who picked up the receiver. He spoke quickly, in case she had to hang up. “I’m sorry, I was taken away to a meeting. Because of Metaxas.”

“I see,” she said, voice breathy and tentative; the call had frightened her. “Perhaps … I could try … next week?” Then, her mind now working quickly, she added, “For another fitting.”

From the background: “Now who the hell is that?”

Skata, Vasilou!

“It’s the seamstress, dear.”

“Well, make it snappy. I’m expecting a call.”

“Yes, dear, just a minute.”

“Oh lord,” Zannis said, “I didn’t realize …”

“The hem is just too long, so-”

“I’ll be away, for ten days. I’ll call you.”

The sound of approaching footsteps. “Can’t hang up?” Vasilou shouted. “Then let me show you how it’s done!” The footsteps grew louder.

“I have to say good-bye.” Her voice wobbled. “But, please-”

The receiver was slammed down.

At Gestapo headquarters, on the Prinz-Albrechtstrasse in Berlin, Hauptsturmfuhrer Albert Hauser studied a long list of names typed on yellow paper. When a name caught his attention, he riffled through a metal tray of five-by-eight cards, where, in alphabetical order, information about each of the names was recorded. If that was insufficient, he had dossiers for most of the names, dossiers filled with pages of information obtained from surveillance, paid informants, denunciations, and interrogation. The yellow list was a sort of Who’s Who of dissidents in Berlin, all suspected-some more than suspected-of activity against the interests of the Reich. Rather loosely defined, those interests; thus it wasn’t difficult to say the wrong thing, to know the wrong person, to own the wrong book. Welcome to the list!

So then, A to Z, six and a half pages long. Some of the names had a mark next to them, Hauser’s symbolic note to himself: question mark, exclamation point-you didn’t want that! — asterisk, and others, even an X-the last, for instance, beside a couple whose names appeared early in the D section. This couple was believed, after coming under pressure from the Gestapo, to have committed suicide, but, Hauser thought, committed suicide in an irritating way, so that their bodies would not be identified when found. Spiteful, wasn’t it. To go to some distant city and manage the business in some little hotel room, having first burned one’s identity papers. Defiant even in death and, really, very annoying.

He turned the page. Beside the name GRUEN, two entries for man and wife, two question marks. On what had been meant to be their final day of freedom, missing. Fled? Fled where? One word used by these people-Jews, Communists, even aristocrats-was submerge. It meant hiding in an apartment, sharing a friend’s food obtained with ration coupons, rarely if ever going outside, and then only with borrowed or false identification.

Others, like the couple D, killed themselves. Still others contrived to flee the country-into Switzerland, if they were lucky. Or, sometimes, to the unoccupied zone of France, where the Vichy police agencies were dedicated to catching them, but not always. The trouble with the unoccupied zone, the southern part of the country, was that fugitives might make their way to Marseille. And, once in Marseille, with some money to spend, one could do just about anything. That’s how it is, Hauser thought, with port cities, like Naples. Or Odessa-even under the rule of the ruthless NKVD, for so Hauser thought of them. Where else? Hauser’s inner eye wandered over an imaginary map of Europe. Constanta, in Roumania? A long way to go, for a fugitive. Equally Varna, on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast.

Go to work, lazybones, Hauser told himself, stop woolgathering. Where were these Gruens? He rose and walked over to the wall, where large sheets of brown paper showed diagrams of relations between the dissidents. Solid lines, dotted lines, some in red pencil: who met with who, who worked with who, who telephoned who, and on and on. Hauser located the circle containing the name GRUEN and traced the radiating lines with his index finger. Popular, weren’t they. Here was, for example, the circled name of KREBS. And who was that?

He returned to his list and flipped over to the Ks: KREBS, EMILIA, and KREBS, HUGO. The latter was marked with a triangle, which meant, in Hauser’s system, something like uh-oh. Now to the three-by-five cards. Yes, there it was, definitely worth a triangle; this Krebs was a colonel on the Oberkommando Wehrmacht, the General Staff, and not to be pestered. Scheisse! You had to be careful in this work. You had to be on your toes! Or you’d wind up in Warsaw, God forbid. Still, he wondered, and had a look at KREBS, EMILIA. Close and longtime friend of the Gruens, neighbor in Dahlem, Jew. Hunh, look at that. This Colonel Krebs must be powerful indeed to have a Jewish wife and get away with it.

He was distracted from this line of thinking by two taps on the door and the entry of the department’s chief clerk: tall, fading blond, and middle-aged. Something of a dragon, Traudl, with her stiff hair and stiff manner, but smart, and relentless in her commitment to the job. No surprise there, at one time she’d worked for some of the better-mostly Jewish, alas-law firms in the city. Then, with Hitler’s ascension, she’d seen the light and come to work for the Gestapo. “Hauptsturmfuhrer Hauser?” she said. “Pardon the intrusion, but I have brought your morning coffee.”

“Thank you, Traudl.” He set the steaming cup on his desk.

“Will there be anything else, sir?”

“No, thank you,” Hauser said. “I’ll be going out for a bit.”

He took a sip of the coffee. Real coffee, and strong-oh, the little pleasures of this job. He returned to his paperwork, drumming his fingers on the yellow list. So, who wants to see the Gestapo today? But he already knew that, some tiny clicker in his brain had decided to go out to Emilia Krebs’s house. That wasn’t pestering the husband, was it? No, certainly not, he would never know about it, because she would never know about it. Just a little spur-of-the-moment surveillance. Just a look-see.

Hauser picked up his phone and dialed a two-digit number, which connected him with the office of Untersturmfuhrer, Lieutenant, Matzig, his partner. “Matzi?”

“Yes, Albert?”

“Let’s go for a little ride, I need some air.”

“I’ll bring the car around,” Matzig said.

So, yet another ride out to Dahlem. Lord, this neighborhood was a dissident nest! But, in the end, there wasn’t much to see. Hauser and Matzig sat in the front seat, talking idly from time to time, waiting, the principal activity of the investigative life. The winter darkness came early, a light snow began to fall, and eventually the colonel came home from work, dropped off at his door by a Wehrmacht car. The colonel disappeared into his house and, though the two officers waited another hour, that was it for the day.

They tried earlier the following day, waited longer, and were rewarded with a view of the Krebses going out for dinner. Thus Hauser and Matzig got to wait outside Horcher’s while the couple dined. No fun at all, visiting the best restaurants in Berlin, but not a morsel of food. After dinner, the couple went home. Matzig drove the Mercedes to their chosen vantage point, Hauser lit a cigar and said, “Let’s go home, Matzi. We’ll give it one more day, tomorrow.” All he could afford, really, because like any job you had to show your bosses some success, some production, and there was nothing yet to warrant even the most diffident interview.

But then there was. Patience paid off, at least sometimes, because just after five on the third day, the lovely Emilia Krebs, in sober gray coat and wide-brim gray hat, briefcase in hand, left her house, walked quickly down the path that led to the sidewalk, and turned left, toward downtown Berlin. As she passed the low hedge that bordered her property, here came a fellow in a dark overcoat: half-bald, heavy, wearing glasses-some sort of intellectual, from the look of him. For the length of a block, he matched her pace. Hauser and Matzig exchanged a look; then, no discussion required, Matzig turned on the ignition, put the car in gear, and drove past Emilia Krebs to a side street with a view of the nearest tram stop.

She arrived soon after, followed by the man in the dark overcoat. They stood at a distance from each other, mixed in with a few other people, all waiting for the trolley. Five minutes later it appeared, bell ringing, and rolled to a stop. Emilia Krebs and the others climbed on, but the man in the overcoat stayed where he was and, once the trolley moved away, he turned and walked back the way he’d come.

“Did you see what I saw?” Hauser said.

“A trailer, you think?” The function of a trailer, in clandestine practice, was to make sure the person ahead wasn’t being followed.

“What else?”

6 February. Paris. Occupied Paris: triste and broken, cold and damp, the swastika everywhere. Following the operational plan, Zannis played the role of a Greek detective in Paris, come to escort a prisoner back to Salonika. In trench coat and well-worn blue suit, heavy shapeless black shoes, and holstered pistol on his belt, he took a taxi to the commercial hotel Escovil had named-on a little street near the Gare du Nord-and slept all afternoon, recovering from days of train travel. Then, around eight in the evening, he ventured forth, found a taxi, and went off in search of Parisian food and Parisian sex. So, if anybody was watching, that’s what they saw.

He left the taxi at the Place de la Bastille, found the proper cafe on the second try, and the woman right away. She was, according to plan, reading Le Soir, the evening tabloid, and marking the classified ads with a pencil.

“Excuse me,” Zannis said, “are you waiting for Emile?” He hadn’t been in France since the time he’d worked as a Parisian antiquaire, more than ten years earlier, but the language, though halting and awkward, was still there.

“I’m waiting for my grandfather,” she said, completing the identification protocol. Then, looking at her watch, added, “We’d better be on our way. You shall call me Didi.”

Didi! Good God. For whoever she was-and she’d given Didi her best effort: neckline much too low, “diamond” earrings, scarlet lipstick-this woman had never been picked up in a cafe, she’d never met a woman who’d been picked up in a cafe. What was she, a baroness? Possible, Zannis thought: narrow head, small ears, thin nostrils, aristocratic tilt to the chin. Didi? Oh fuck, these people are going to get me killed.

“Off we go, honey,” Zannis said, with a coarse grin, a nod toward the door, and a proffered arm.

The aristocrat almost flinched. Then she recovered, stood, took his arm, pressed it to her champagne cup of a noble breast, and off they went-circling the Place Bastille, heading for a brasserie down a side street. Zannis took a deep breath. These people were brave, were resisting the Occupation, were putting their lives in jeopardy. They were, he told himself, doing the best they could.

So the Greek detective, in case anybody was watching-and there was no way to know whether they were or not-had found a girl for the evening and would now take her out for dinner. The restaurant was called the Brasserie Heininger, a man in an apron and a fisherman’s waterproof hat was shucking oysters on a bed of shaved ice by the entryway.

When Zannis opened the door, the interior hit him hard-much fancier than any place he’d been to when he’d lived in Paris. The brasserie was fiercely Belle Epoque: red plush banquettes, polished brass, and vast gold-framed mirrors lining the walls, the waiters in muttonchop whiskers, the conversation loud and manic, the smoky air scented by perfume and grilled sausage. And, as the maitre d’ led them to a table-that sexy slut Didi had reserved ahead-Zannis saw what looked to him like half the officer class of occupied Paris, much of it in Wehrmacht gray, with, just to set off the visual composition, a sprinkling of SS black. As they wove their way among the tables, the aristocrat crushed Zannis’s arm against her breast so hard he wondered why it didn’t hurt her, or maybe she was so scared she didn’t notice. At last they were seated, side by side on a banquette at a table where the number 14 was written on a card supported by a little brass stand. The aristocrat settled close to him, then took a deep breath.

“You’re all right?” Zannis said.

She nodded, gratitude in her eyes.

“Good girl,” he said. “Didi.”

She gave him a conspiratorial smile; the waiter brought menus in golden script. “Here one takes the choucroute garnie,” she said. “And order champagne.”

Sauerkraut? Oh no, not with the way his stomach felt. On the surface, Zannis showed a certain insouciant confidence, but every muscle in his body was strung tight; he was ready to shoot his way out of this restaurant but not at all prepared for sauerkraut. “Maybe they have a fish,” he said.

“Nobody orders that.”

He searched the menu. “Shellfish,” he said.

“If you like.”

He looked up for a moment, then said, “What the hell is that? Behind your shoulder, in the mirror.”

“It’s very famous,” she said. “A memorial to a Bulgarian waiter, slain here a few years ago.”

“It’s a bullet hole.”

“Yes, it is.”

“They don’t fix it? Back where I come from, they have them fixed the next day.”

“Not here.”

The waiter returned. “‘Sieur et ‘dame?”

Zannis ordered the seafood platter, which he would try to eat, followed by the choucroute, which he would not, and a bottle of champagne. As the waiter hurried off, Zannis discovered his neighbors in the adjacent booth: two SS officers with French girlfriends; puffy and blond, green eyeshadow, pouty lips. One of the SS men looked like a precocious child, with baby skin, a low forehead, and eyeglasses in tortoiseshell frames. The other-Zannis understood immediately who he was, what he was-turned to face him, rested an elbow on the plush divider, and said, “Bonsoir, mon ami.” The set of his face and the sparkle in his eyes suggested a view of the world best described by the word droll, but, Zannis saw, he was a certain kind of smart and sophisticated German who’d found, in the black uniform and death’s-head insignia, a way to indulge a taste for evil.

“Bonsoir,” Zannis said.

“Your girl’s a real looker.” He moved his head to get a better view of Didi, said, “Hello, gorgeous,” with a sly smile and waggled his fingers by way of a waved greeting. The aristocrat glanced at him, then looked down. The SS officer, at that stage of inebriation where he loved the world, said, “Aww, don’t be shy, gorgeous.”

Zannis turned back and began to make conversation. “Had much snow this winter?”

From behind him: “Hey! I was talking to you!”

Zannis faced him and said, “Yes?”

“You Frenchmen can be very rude, you know.”

“I’m not French,” Zannis said. Maybe the SS officer wouldn’t figure it out but the girlfriends certainly would.

“No? What are you?”

“I’m from Greece.”

The officer spoke to his friends. “Say, here’s a Greek!” Then, to Zannis, “What brings you to Paris, Nick?”

Zannis couldn’t stop it: a hard stare that said Shut your fucking mouth before I shut it for you. Then, making sure his voice was soft, he said, “I’m a detective, I’m here to bring back a murderer.”

“Oh,” the officer said. “I see. Well, we’re friendly types, you know, and we were wondering what you were doing after dinner.”

“Going home,” Zannis said.

“Because I have this very grand apartment up on the avenue Foch, and you and Gorgeous are invited, for, well, some … champagne.”

The aristocrat sank her clawed fingernails into Zannis’s thigh; he almost yelped. “Thanks, but the lady is tired, I’ll take her home after dinner.”

The officer glared at him, his head weaving back and forth.

The woman beside him said, “Klaus? Are you ignoring us?”

Thank God for Frenchwomen, puffy blond or not! “Enjoy your evening, my friend,” Zannis said, employing a particular tone of voice-sympathetic, soothing-he’d used, all his years with the police, for difficult drunks.

And it almost worked; the officer couldn’t decide whether he wanted to end this battle or not. Then he lurched, and his face lit up. What went on? Maybe his girlfriend’s hand had done something under the table, something more enticing than the aristocrat’s. Whatever it was it worked, and the officer turned away and whispered in girlfriend’s ear.

“Plat de la mer!” the waiter cried out, wheeling to a stop at the table, a gigantic platter of crustaceans held high, balanced on his fingertips.

A taxi was waiting in front of the brasserie, and Zannis directed the driver back to his hotel. A much-relieved aristocrat sank back against the seat and said, voice confidential, “Thank God that’s over. I was afraid you were going to shoot him.”

“Not likely,” he said. This thing in the holster is just for show. And so he’d believed, until his third and final meeting with Escovil. Who’d said, just before they parted, “Finally, I must say something a bit … sticky. Which is, you mustn’t allow Byer to be taken by the Germans, we cannot have him interrogated. So, if it looks like the game is up, you’ll have to, to, to do whatever you must.” Zannis hadn’t answered: at first he couldn’t believe what he’d heard, then he had to, but such madness, murder, was far beyond what he was willing to do.

At war, the city was blacked out; every window opaque, the occasional lighted streetlamp painted blue, car headlights taped down to slits, so the taxi moved cautiously through the silent, ghostly streets. When they reached the hotel and were alone as they approached the doorway, his companion said, “Not long now. Your friend has been brought to the hotel, and you’re meant to catch the early train.”

“The five-thirty-five.”

“Yes, the first train to Berlin. You have all the papers?”

“Stamped and signed: release from the Sante prison, exit visas, everything.”

The night clerk was asleep in a chair behind the reception desk, a newspaper open across his lap. They made sure they didn’t wake him, climbing the stairs quietly as he snored gently down below. When they reached the third floor, Zannis stood by his door and said, “Where is he?”

The aristocrat made an upward motion with her head. “Forty-three.”

In his room, Zannis shed his trench coat and had a look at his valise, which appeared to be undisturbed, but, he well knew, an experienced professional search would leave no evidence. The aristocrat, waiting at the door, said, “Ready to go?” In her voice, as much impatience as, true to her breeding, she ever permitted herself to reveal. These people were amateurs, Zannis thought, and they’d had all they wanted of secrecy and danger.

They climbed another flight, the aristocrat tapped twice on the door, then twice again, which was opened to reveal a darkened room. The man who’d opened the door had a sharp handsome face, dark hair combed straight back, and stood as though at attention. A military posture; he was perhaps, Zannis thought, a senior officer. The aristocrat and the officer touched each other’s cheeks with their lips, Paris style, murmuring something that Zannis couldn’t hear but certainly an endearment. So these two were husband and wife. The officer then said, to Zannis, “I can’t tell you my name,” as though it were an apology. “You are Zannis?”

“I am.”

They shook hands, the officer’s grip powerful and steady. “Your problem now,” he said, nodding toward the interior of the room.

In the shadows, the silhouette of a small man sat slumped on the edge of the bed. Zannis said, “Harry Byer?”

A white face turned toward him. “Yes,” the man said in English. “More or less.”

Zannis went downstairs to his room and collected his trench coat and valise. When he returned to Room 43, the officer said, “We’ve arranged a car. At oh-four-forty hours. A police car, actually. So your arrival at the Gare du Nord, which is closely guarded, will look authentic.”

“Stolen?”

“Borrowed.”

“Better.”

“And driven by a policeman. Well, at least somebody wearing the uniform.”

The aristocrat laughed, silver chimes, at the idea of whatever old friend this was, playing the role of a policeman. As she started to remove her earrings, Zannis noticed a bare ring finger. Now he realized that these two were probably not married but were, instead, lovers. This sent his mind back to Salonika and a fleeting image of Demetria, by his side, in an occupied city.

Zannis crossed the room, the bare boards creaking beneath his weight, and shifted the room’s single chair so that he sat facing Byer. Then, very laboriously, in his primitive English, he explained how the operation would work. When he showed Byer his photograph in the Greek passport, he was rewarded with at least a flicker of hope in the man’s eyes. “It might even work,” Byer said. He took the passport and studied it. “I do speak a little French, you know. I took it at school.”

“He does,” the officer said. “If you speak slowly.”

Zannis was relieved and switched to a mix of the two languages, making sure at the end of every phrase that Byer understood what he’d been told. “At the borders, Harry, and on the trains-at least as far as Yugoslavia-you can’t say anything at all, because you’re supposed to be Greek. And nobody will speak to you, once you’re wearing these.” He took a pair of handcuffs from his pocket. Byer stared at them. Zannis said, “Better than a POW camp, right?”

Byer nodded. “What did I do, to be in the Sante?”

“You murdered your wife and her lover, in Salonika.”

After a moment, Byer said, “Not the worst idea.”

Zannis ignored the irony. “It had to be a murder of some kind, for the Germans to believe that we’d gotten the French police to arrest you, after you’d fled to Paris.” He paused, then said, “The only plausible crime would be a crime of passion. You don’t much look like a gangster.”

Zannis stood, took a cigarette from his packet, then offered the packet around. Only the officer accepted, inhaling with pleasure as Zannis extinguished the match. He started to speak, but something caught his attention and he looked at his watch and said, almost to himself, “It’s too early for the police car.” Then, to Zannis, “Can’t you hear it?”

In the silence of the room, Zannis listened intently and discovered the low beat of an idling engine. The officer went to the window and, using one finger, carefully moved the blackout curtain aside, no more than an inch. “Come have a look,” he said.

Zannis joined him at the window. Across the street from the hotel, a glossy black Citroen, the luxury model with a long hood and square passenger compartment, was parked at the curb. The air was sufficiently cold to make the exhaust a white plume at the tailpipe.

The officer kept his voice low, his words meant for Zannis and nobody else. “The only people who drive these things in Paris are the Gestapo and the SS. It’s the official German car.”

Zannis understood immediately, though he found it hard to believe. “We had a problem at the restaurant,” he said, “with an SS officer. It seems he followed us back here.”

“Why would he do that?”

“He wanted your woman friend. He was very drunk.”

“Then let’s hope it’s him.”

“Why?”

“Because if it isn’t, we’ve been betrayed.”

“Is that possible?”

“I’m afraid it is.”

The aristocrat joined them at the window. “What’s going on?”

“There’s a car out there. See it? Zannis thinks some SS man followed you home from the restaurant.”

The aristocrat peered past the curtain. She swore, then said, “Now what?”

“We’ll have to think of something.”

“Will they search the hotel?” she said.

Byer said, “What’s going on?” His voice rose to a whine. “What is it?”

The officer said, “Keep quiet, Harry.” Then, “They might search the hotel. Maybe he’s waiting down there for a squad to show up.”

“Is there a back door?” Zannis said.

“There is, but it’s padlocked. And, even if we got out that way, what happens when our friend shows up with the police car?”

They were silent for a moment. The officer again moved the curtain and said, “He’s just sitting there.”

“There were two of them, and their girlfriends,” the aristocrat said. “Maybe they’ll just go away. They have to assume I’m in this hotel for the night.”

“Maybe they will. Or maybe they’ll wait until morning,” the officer said.

“Could anybody be … that crazy?”

Nobody answered. Finally Zannis said, “Can you somehow contact your friend and warn him off?”

The officer looked at his watch. “No, he’s left his hotel by now. The police car is up at Levallois, in a garage. The owner helps us.”

Again, silence.

Zannis’s mind was racing. He had seen, when he’d first entered the hotel, a metal shutter pulled down over a broad entryway. Not a shop, he guessed, because the sidewalk ended at either side of the shutter and a cobblestone strip led to the street. “If Byer and I aren’t here,” he said, “would it matter if a Gestapo squad searched the hotel?”

The officer thought it over. “No, it would just be the two of us in a room. And, when our friend arrives, he’ll see the Gestapo vehicles and drive away.”

“I think we’d better do something now,” Zannis said. He put on his trench coat and grabbed the handle of his small valise.

“Good luck,” the officer said. He shook Zannis’s hand, and the aristocrat kissed him on both cheeks and said, “Be careful.”

“Let’s go, Harry,” Zannis said.

In the dark lobby at the foot of the staircase, the night clerk snored on, dead to the world. Zannis shook him by the shoulder and he woke with a start and said, “What … what do you want?” His breath smelled of sour wine.

“Is there a garage in this hotel?”

“Yes.”

“What’s in there?”

“A car, belongs to the guy who owns the hotel. He can’t drive it-the Bosch tried to confiscate private cars, so some people hid them.”

“Is the car locked?”

The clerk sat up straight. “Say, what do you think-” Zannis drew the Walther and showed it to the clerk, who said, “Oh,” then, “The key’s in the office, in the desk.”

Zannis gestured with the Walther and the clerk stood up, went into the office behind the reception desk, and searched in the bottom drawer until he found car keys on a ring.

“And next,” Zannis said, “I’ll want the key for the back door.”

“On a nail, just next to you.”

“Harry?”

Byer came around the desk; Zannis gave him the key. “Run this upstairs. Tell them to open the back door and get out right away.”

Byer hurried off and Zannis turned back to the clerk. “The shutter over the garage doorway, it’s locked?”

“Of course.”

“From inside? Is there an entry from the hotel?”

“No, it has a lock at the bottom, you have to go out to the sidewalk.”

“Get the key.”

Muttering under his breath, the clerk searched the middle drawer, threw pens, a rubber stamp, an ink pad, and miscellaneous papers on the desk. At last he found the key, and started to hand it to Zannis, who waved him off. “Is there gas in the car?” Zannis said.

“Yes.”

“Battery connected? Tires still on?”

“I charge the battery twice a week, late at night. The boss wants it ready to drive.”

“He does? Why?”

“The hell would I know? Maybe he wants to go somewhere.”

Zannis heard Byer, running down the stairs, likely waking every guest in the hotel. This will not work, Zannis thought. There was no way he could get this man back to Salonika. A moment later, Byer, breathing hard, arrived at the reception. “They said thank you.”

“Now it’s time,” Zannis said to the clerk, “for you to go outside, unlock the shutter, and roll it up.”

“Me?”

“You see anybody else?”

“Why can’t your pal do it?”

Zannis rapped him on the shoulder blade with the barrel of the Walther, just hard enough.

The clerk mumbled something Zannis was not meant to hear and said, “All right, whatever you want.”

Keeping Byer behind him in the darkened lobby, Zannis unlocked the hotel door and watched as the clerk went out the door and turned left, toward the shuttered garage. Across the street, the Citroen idled, but Zannis could see only dim shapes behind the steamed-up windows.

The clerk came quickly through the door. “Done,” he said. “That Citroen out there, are they …?”

“Go back to sleep,” Zannis said.

“What about the boss’s car?”

“Send me a bill,” Zannis said. “After the war.” He turned to Byer. “Ready, Harry? We’re not going to run, we’re going to walk quickly. You get in the back and lie on the floor.”

“Why?” Byer’s eyes were wide.

“Just in case,” Zannis said.

Keeping Byer on his left-the side away from the Citroen-and the gun in his hand in his coat pocket, Zannis walked through the hotel door. The shutter was rolled up to reveal an old Peugeot sedan, the metal rims around the headlights spotted with rust. He thought he might get away with it: the SS officer hadn’t seen him in his trench coat, the seductive Didi wasn’t with him, and the people in the Citroen wouldn’t be able to see much of anything through the cloudy windows.

On the first try, wrong key-trunk key, of course-then the driver’s door opened, Zannis unlocked the back door, and Byer, as ordered, lay flat on the floor. As Zannis settled behind the wheel, the driver’s door of the Citroen swung open and the baby-faced SS he’d seen at the brasserie started to get out, then turned his head as though somebody in the backseat had spoken to him. Zannis searched for the starter button, found it, and pressed it with his thumb. Nothing. Betrayed. By night-clerk malice, or by an old car on a damp night, it came to the same thing.

“What’s going on?” Byer said.

Zannis pressed again.

Now the other SS officer climbed out of the Citroen. From the Peugeot’s engine, a single, rather discreet, cough. The SS man heading for the garage wasn’t in a hurry. A little unsteady on his feet, he kept one hand out of sight behind his leg. Zannis held the button down, which produced a second cough, another, and one more. Then the engine grumbled and came to life. Zannis shoved the clutch pedal to the floor and put the car in what he thought was first gear. It wasn’t. As the clutch pedal came up, the Peugeot stalled. The SS man, now ten feet away, was amused and shook his head-a world populated by fools, what was one to do?

The starter worked once again and this time Zannis found first gear and gave the engine as much gas as he dared. The SS man’s hand came out from behind his leg, Luger pistol held casually, barrel facing down. He changed direction in order to block the Peugeot and held up his other hand-the amiable traffic cop. Zannis slammed on the brake, the Peugeot lurched to a stop and then, looking sheepish and embarrassed, he cranked the window down. He had almost hit a German officer, what was wrong with him?

The SS man smiled, that’s better, and, obviously very drunk from the way he walked, approached the driver’s side of the car. He was just starting to bend over so he could have a word with the driver when Zannis shot him in the face. He staggered backward, his hat fell off, blood ran from his nostrils, and Zannis fired twice more; the first clipping off the top of his ear, the second in the right eyebrow. That did it, and he collapsed.

Zannis hit the gas pedal, first gear howling. As he swung into the street, the baby-faced SS scrambled out of the Citroen. Idiot. Zannis snapped off two shots but the car was moving and he didn’t think he’d hit him. Or maybe he had, because the last Zannis saw of him he was limping back to his car. Just as, in the rearview mirror, Zannis saw the two puffy blondes take off like rabbits, high-heeled shoes in hand, running for their lives down the dark street. Go fuck Germans and see where it gets you, Zannis said to himself.

From the back, Byer said, “What happened? What happened?”

Zannis didn’t answer. Finally put the Peugeot into second gear-he could smell burning clutch-then third, and turned hard right into a side street, then right again, so that he was now headed north, toward the Porte de Clignancourt.

Slowly, Zannis worked his way through the back streets, which angled off the main boulevards, so, a series of diagonals. But Zannis couldn’t have gone much faster if he’d had to-the untaped headlights were turned off, and it was hard to see in the blacked-out city. After ten minutes of driving, he stopped the Peugeot so Byer could move to the passenger seat and Zannis told him the details. Byer took it well enough; after everything he’d been through since the Wellington went down, this was but one more nightmare. As Zannis again drove north, he heard the high-low sirens in the distance, converging on the hotel, but he was well away from it. A few blocks on he passed a pair of French policemen, in their long winter capes, pedaling easily on their bicycles. One of them gave him a sour look, and Zannis wondered if Paris was under curfew, often the case in occupied cities. He didn’t know but, if it was, it was a German curfew, and the policemen couldn’t be bothered to stop him.

Of course that would change, violently, in the morning. The Gestapo and the French Surete would turn Paris upside down, looking for him-they’d have a good description-and for the Peugeot. Maybe, he thought, he should have tied the clerk to a chair, evidence that the man wasn’t complicit in the crime, but he hadn’t thought of it and he’d been intent on escaping from the hotel. In any event, the escape south by railway was no longer possible, he’d have to find another way to get out of the country.

He reached Saint-Ouen soon enough, wondering if Laurette, his lover when he’d lived here, was still in the apartment they’d shared. It didn’t matter if she was; he couldn’t go anywhere near her. Moments later, at the edge of Saint-Ouen, he entered the vast flea market, a labyrinth, endless twisting lanes lined by shuttered stalls. Clignancourt didn’t precisely have borders, it faded away to the north in a maze of alleys and storage sheds, and here Zannis found an open courtyard behind a workshop with boarded-up windows. He parked the car and lit a cigarette. Dawn was still hours away, and ten in the morning farther yet. He was very tired, nothing more than that, and, in time, both he and Byer dozed, woke up, and dozed again.

10:15 A.M.

Zannis left Byer in the Peugeot and made his way to stall number fifty-five of the section known as Serpette. The market was nearly deserted, many of the stalls unopened, only a few shoppers wandering listlessly among the aisles, past old chinaware, old clothes, old maps and books, antlers for the wall above the fireplace, a collapsible opera hat. You had to be clever here, to find that priceless object, its value unknown to the owner of the booth, then you had to bargain hard to get the meagre price lower, so the antiquaire never suspected you were cheating him out of a fortune. Day in, day out, year in, year out, the devious customers carried off their treasures, displayed them in their parlors, and boasted to their friends.

Zannis was relieved to find his uncle, seeing him from behind as he sat with two friends, playing cards on a mahogany tabletop held up by three upended fruit crates. Zannis’s heart lifted-that bald pate, freckled and scarred, with its fringe of wiry gray hair, could belong to no one else. “Anastas?”

His uncle turned, his eyes widened with disbelief, then he shouted, “Constantine!” rose to his feet, and embraced his nephew. Strong as an ox, Uncle Anastas, who held him tight while Zannis felt, on his cheek, tears from his uncle’s eyes. “Oh my God, I thought I’d never see you again,” Anastas said. Then took him by the arms, stepped back, stared at him lovingly, and said, “Constantine, my own nephew, what the fuck are you doing here?”

“A long story, uncle.”

“My brother’s son,” Anastas said to his friends. “Look at him.”

“A handsome boy,” one of them said, in Greek.

“Are you still playing, Anastas?” said the other.

“I fold my cards,” Anastas said, wiping his eyes.

Uncle Anastas wanted to show him off at the antiquaires’ cafe but Zannis told him, as gently as he could, that they should close the booth and speak inside, so Anastas shooed his friends off, lowered the shutter over the front of the stall, then went to the cafe and returned carrying coffees spiked with Calvados. Zannis had meanwhile discovered-lying on a demilune table artfully coated with dust-a copy of that morning’s Le Matin. On the front page a headline: SS MAJOR SHOT BY JEWISH GANGSTERS!

His uncle, having had time to think things over on his walk to the cafe, was good and worried by the time he returned. He waited one sip of coffee, then said, “You better tell me the story, Constantine.”

Zannis held up the newspaper.

“Skata! You’re not a Jew.”

“Not a gangster either.”

Anastas switched on a lamp with a colored-glass shade, read the first few sentences of the article, then said, “Well, it’s in the Zannis blood. I got my first Turk when I was sixteen. A gendarme, but only a corporal, not a major.”

“I remember the story,” Zannis said.

Anastas put the paper down and looked puzzled. “But tell me something, why did you have to come all the way to Paris to do this thing? You could’ve waited, you know, they’ll be in Greece soon enough.”

“I came up here to rescue an Englishman, Uncle Anastas.”

“Oh, I see. You’re involved in … secret work?”

“Yes.”

“Bad business, dear nephew, they kill people who do that.”

“I know. But what happened last night was accidental-we were supposed to leave here quietly. Now we’re stuck.”

“Oh, ‘stuck’ I don’t know. All sorts of people in hiding here, waiting for the war to end, waiting for the Americans to stop sitting on their asses and do something.”

“I can’t wait, uncle. I have to get out, and I have to get my Englishman out.”

Anastas thought it over, finally said, “Not easy.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“But not impossible. Do you have any money?”

“Plenty. Grandma sewed it in the lining of my jacket.”

“Because that’s what it takes. And if you don’t have enough-”

“No, uncle, I have a lot. In dollars.”

“Dollars! Skata, I haven’t seen dollars in a long time. How much, hundreds?”

“Thousands.”

“Constantine!”

“It’s the war, uncle. Everything’s expensive.”

“Still, you must be very important. I mean, thousands.”

“The English do not want this man captured.”

From outside the stall, a low two-note whistle. Zannis could see, in the space between the bottom of the shutter and the ground, a pair of shoes, which then moved away. “What goes on?” he said.

“Police.” He tugged the little chain on the lamp, darkening the stall, then rested an elbow on his knee and rubbed the corners of his mouth with thumb and index finger. “What to do with you,” he said. “Where have you hidden your Englishman?”

Zannis described the building and the courtyard.

“He’ll be safe there, but not for long. When these clowns go away, you’ll bring him to my apartment.”

“Thank you, Anastas,” Zannis said.

“What the hell, you’re family. And maybe I have one idea.”

“Which is?”

“I know somebody.”

“Always good, to know somebody.”

“You’d better,” Anastas said. “Otherwise …”

In the apartment, Zannis and Byer settled down to wait. Byer would sleep on a chaise longue, Zannis on a tasseled couch. And, later that morning, one of Anastas’s card-playing friends took a can of blue paint and a license plate over to the courtyard where they’d hidden the Peugeot. He then drove the newly painted car to a nearby village, parked it on a mud flat by the river, and took a train back to Paris. “I suspect it was gone before I got on the train,” he told Anastas. “Into a barn until the war ends.”

“Harder than I thought,” Anastas said at dinner. His French wife had prepared steaks, with spinach and onions sauteed in oil, and they drank a very good red wine in unlabeled bottles. “The man I know …?” Anastas paused to chew his steak, then took a sip of the wine. “Well, he had to go to a man he knows.” Anastas met his nephew’s eyes, making sure he understood the magnitude of such an event. “So prepare to pay, nephew.”

“When do I meet him?” Zannis said.

“After midnight, two-thirty. A car will come for you.”

Byer looked up from his plate and said, “Thank you, madame, for this wonderful dinner.”

“You are welcome,” she said. “It is in your honor, monsieur, and Constantine’s. To wish you safe journey.” She smiled, warm and affectionate. If the occupation had affected her, there was no evidence that Zannis could see.

“We drink to that,” Anastas said. And they did.

2:30 A.M. The glossy black automobile was surely worth a fortune, Zannis had never seen one like it and had no idea what it was. It rolled to a stop in front of Anastas’s apartment building in Saint-Ouen, the back door swung open, and Zannis climbed in. The interior smelled like expensive leather. The driver turned to face him, holding him with his eyes for a long moment, likely making sure Zannis knew who he was dealing with. He knew. He recognized the breed: confident young men to whom killing came easily and smart enough to profit from it. Then the driver rested his hands on the wheel but the car never moved, simply sat there, the huge engine purring softly.

Zannis had known corrupt men of every sort, high and low, over the years he’d been with the police, but the friend of the friend, sitting next to him, was something new. He looked, Zannis thought, like a French king; prosperously stout, with fair, wavy hair parted to one side, creamy skin, a prominent nose, and a pouch that sagged beneath his chin. “I’m told you wish to leave France,” he said, his voice deep and used to command.

“That’s right.”

“The price, for two individuals, is two thousand dollars. Have you the money with you?”

“Yes.”

“I believe you are the man who shot a German officer. Did you do this because you have a hatred of Germans?”

“No. My friend was lying on the floor of the car, the officer would have seen him, so I had to do it. Why do you want to know?”

“To inform certain people-the people who need to know things. They don’t care what is done, they simply require information.”

“Germans?”

The man was amused. “Please,” he said, not unkindly. Then, “It doesn’t matter, does it?” It was as though he enjoyed innocence, found Zannis so, and instinctively liked him. “Now,” he said, “there are two ways for you to leave France. The first choice is a freight train controlled by Communist railway workers. Traveling in this way you may go to Germany, Italy, or Spain. However, once you’ve crossed the border-there will be no inspection of papers-you are on your own. Hopefully, you’ve made arrangements that will allow you to proceed from one of those countries.”

“I haven’t.”

“I see. In that case, you may wish to travel by airplane.”

“By airplane?” Zannis was incredulous.

“Yes, why not? Are you reluctant to fly?”

“Just … surprised.”

The man’s shrug was barely detectable. “If you wish to leave tomorrow, and for you that might not be a bad idea, the plane is going to …” He leaned forward, toward the driver, and said, “Leon?”

“Sofia.”

“Yes, Sofia.”

“That would be best,” Zannis said.

“Very well.” He held out a hand, creamy and fat, palm up, and said, “So then …”

Zannis had removed the money from his jacket lining and put the thick wad of bills in the pocket of his coat; now he counted out two thousand dollars in fifty-dollar bills. The man next to him, the French king, stowed the money in a leather briefcase, probing first to make room for it. Then he gave Zannis directions: the name of a village, how to identify the road that led to an airstrip, and a time. “All memorized?” he asked Zannis.

“Yes, I won’t forget.”

“When you describe your adventures in France, as no doubt you will have to, I would take it as a personal favor that you remain silent about this particular chapter, about me. Do I have your word?”

“You have it.”

“Do you keep your word?”

“I do.”

“Then good evening.”

Uncle Anastas had a friend-also an emigre Greek, it turned out-who owned an ancient truck, and he picked them up at dawn. A few minutes later they joined a long line of produce trucks, coming back empty after delivery to the Paris produce markets, and the soldiers waved them through the control at the Porte Maillot. Then he headed northwest from Paris on the road that followed the Seine, with signs for DIRECTION ROUEN. A wet, steady snow that morning, from a low sky packed with gray cloud. “We won’t fly today,” Byer said, staring anxiously out the window.

“We may have to wait,” Zannis said. “But I expect we’ll take off.”

“Not in this.” After he spoke, Byer swallowed.

Zannis studied him. What went on? “Everything all right?” he said.

Byer nodded emphatically. Nothing wrong with me.

It was hard to see, the windshield wiper smeared snow and road grime across the window, not much more than that, and the driver leaned forward and squinted, cursing eloquently in Greek. Finally he found the route departementale for La Roche-Guyon, the truck skidding as he made the last-minute turn. The narrow road wound past winter farmland for a long time, then it was Zannis who spotted the stone marker with a number chiseled into it, and the truck drove, in low gear, up a muddy, deeply rutted path. Finally, when they knew they’d taken the wrong turn, they saw an airplane in a plowed field. A compact twin-engine aircraft, a workhorse used for a few passengers or a small load of freight, with a white cross in a red circle insignia behind the cockpit. Swiss markings, Zannis thought. What a clever king. Two men were loading crates into the plane, through a cargo hatch on the underside of the fuselage. “You can walk from here,” the driver said. As he worked at getting the truck turned around, Zannis and Byer trudged across a field, wind-driven snow in their faces. When they neared the plane, one of the men saw them, stopped loading, and waited until they reached him. “You are the passengers?”

“Yes.”

“Bad morning.”

“Will we be able to fly?” Byer said.

“Me?” The man grinned. He had high, sharp cheekbones, hair sheared off close to the scalp, and, Zannis could hear it, a hard Slavic edge to his French. A Russian? A Serb? He wore a leather jacket and a dirty white scarf spotted with oil-a cinema aviator-with a holstered revolver on his hip. “You give us a hand,” he said. “We’ll take off sooner.”

The crates were heavy, MAS 38 stenciled on the rough wooden boards. Zannis wasn’t certain, but he had a pretty good hunch he was loading French machine guns. When they were done, the pilot’s helper headed toward a farmhouse on the horizon. The pilot rubbed his hands and looked up at the sky. “One of you can sit on the crates, the other can use the co-pilot seat.” He led them around the plane, to a door behind the cockpit with a short steel-frame ladder propped against the bottom of the doorway.

Standing at the foot of the ladder, Zannis waited for Byer to climb up. When he didn’t, Zannis said, “Time to go.” He sounded cheerful, but he knew he had trouble.

Byer stood there. He was in a trance, face dead white, eyes closed.

“Harry?”

No answer.

“Let’s go,” Zannis said sharply. No nonsense, please. The pilot was staring at them through the cockpit window.

But Byer was rooted to the earth. Zannis guessed that something had happened to him when the Wellington went down, and now he couldn’t get on the plane.

The pilot’s patience was gone, the engines roared to life and the propellers spun. Zannis tried once more, raising his voice over the noise. “One foot in front of the other, Harry, your way back to England. Think about England, going home.”

Byer never moved. So Zannis took him by the back of the collar and the belt, hauled him up the ladder, and shoved him into the plane. Then he sat him down on a pile of crates. From the cockpit, the pilot called out, “I have a bottle of vodka up here, will that help?”

“No, it’s all right now,” Zannis yelled back, closing the door, pulling a bar down to secure it.

The plane began to bump across the field, gathering speed, then, heavily loaded, it wobbled aloft and climbed into the gray cloud.

Melissa stood on her hind legs, tail wagging furiously, set her great paws on his chest and licked his face. “Yes, yes girl, I’m back, hello, yes.” The welcome from his family was no less enthusiastic-they knew he’d been up to something dangerous and were relieved that he’d returned. A demand that he stay for dinner was gently turned aside; he wanted to go back to his apartment, to his bed, because he wanted to sleep more than he wanted to eat. So he promised he would return the following night and, by the time he let Melissa out the door, his grandmother was already at her sewing machine, working the pedals, restitching the lining of his jacket. As he walked down the hill toward the waterfront, Melissa ran ahead of him, turning from time to time to make sure he hadn’t again vanished, a sickle slice of moon stood low in the night sky, the streets were quiet, it was good to be home.

The flight to Bulgaria had been uneventful. At one point-was it Germany down there? Austria? — a pair of patrolling Messerschmitts came up to have a look at them, then banked and slid away. Perhaps the French king had permission to fly his crates over Germany-from some office, in some building. Perhaps more than one office, perhaps more than one building, perhaps more than one country. Perhaps the French king could do whatever he wanted; it had not been easy for him to find room in his briefcase for the two thousand dollars. Zannis had, in time, accepted the pilot’s invitation to sit in the co-pilot’s seat. From there he watched the passage of the nameless winter land below, the hills and the rivers, and wondered what to do about the crates. Machine guns to Bulgaria? For who? To shoot who? So, say something to Lazareff? Who worked for the Sofia police. Tell them? Tell Bulgaria-the historic enemy of Greece? He’d given his word to the French king, he would keep it. Did that include the crates?

In the end, it didn’t matter.

Because the pilot landed at a military airfield north of Sofia, and a squad of Bulgarian soldiers was waiting to unload the shipment. The officer in charge at the airfield had no idea what to do with unexpected, and unexplained, passengers, and had pretty much decided to hold them at the base and await orders from above. But then, at Zannis’s insistence, he’d made a telephone call to Captain Lazareff, which produced a police car and a driver, who dropped them off at a restaurant in Sofia.

There, over plates of lamb and pilaf, accompanied by a bottle of Mastika, Lazareff and Zannis conversed in German, which excluded Byer, who, now back on solid ground, hardly cared. Lazareff inquired politely about the flight, Zannis responded politely that it had been smooth and easy. Lazareff suggested-still polite, though with a certain tightness at the corners of the mouth-that it would be better if Zannis were to forget he’d seen the plane’s cargo.

“What cargo?”

“You’ll tell your friend there? Whoever he is?”

“What friend?”

“Ha-ha-ha!”

More Mastika, tasting like anise, and lethal.

“By the way,” Lazareff said, “the situation in Roumania is a little worse than the newspapers are letting on. We calculate six hundred and eighty thousand troops, maybe sixty Wehrmacht divisions, artillery, tanks, all of it. They have to be fed, it isn’t cheap, so they’re obviously there for a reason. Probably they’re meant to intimidate us or, if it comes to that, invade. Or maybe they’re there to threaten the Serbs, or maybe Greece. Our response, so far, has been to tell Hitler that we’re not quite ready to sign his pact.”

“Not quite ready?”

“Not quite. We’ve destroyed the bridges over the Danube.”

“That would be a message, I’d think.”

“A tantrum. We’ve seen the materiel, struts and floats, that can be assembled into pontoon bridges.”

“I appreciate your telling me,” Zannis said.

“I expect your generals know all about it,” Lazareff said. “But I think you should know also, Costa, so you can make your own, personal … arrangements. If you see what I mean.”

From there, they’d moved to lunchtime conversation. And by midafternoon, after Zannis had telephoned Escovil, and with exit visas provided by Lazareff, Zannis and Byer were on the train to Salonika. At six-thirty in the evening, Byer was delivered to Escovil at the Pension Bastasini. “How did you get here so quickly?” Escovil said, accusation in his voice.

“It’s a long story,” Zannis said. “For another time.”

“You didn’t travel on the trains,” Escovil said. It wasn’t a question.

“You were watching, weren’t you.”

“Of course. So we’ll want you to explain.”

“Later,” Zannis said. “I’m going to see my family.” He was exhausted, at the last available edge of patience. Escovil knew what came next, so left it there and, a brief taxi ride later, Melissa came to the door to greet the returning hero.

Back at his apartment, the hero was exhausted-threw the mail on the kitchen table, washed his hands, and flopped down on the bed. But then, his mind charged with the images of the past few days, he realized he was not going to be able to sleep any time soon, so took off his shoes and socks and covered himself with a blanket. He tried to return to Inspector Maigret, waiting on his night table, but memories of the real Paris intruded and the book lay open on his chest while he brooded about them. Uncle Anastas was a shining example of survival, even prosperity, in an occupied city, but that was Anastas, who could deal with anything. So could he, come to that, but his family couldn’t. According to Lazareff, time was growing short, the Balkans would be overrun, and Zannis had to make plans to save his family. Where could they go? How, once he became involved in resistance and likely in hiding, would he support them? The Germans would eventually figure out who had shot their SS officer, would they dare to come after him in Greece? Maybe not, but they would be looking for him the day they entered the city.

For these problems he had no solutions, so tried Maigret again but couldn’t concentrate-Madame Cavard was who? Time was running short-so why was he alone on this bed? What was Demetria doing? In bed herself? In bed with Vasilou? What a bastard, the bully he’d heard on the telephone. So, there was also Demetria to save. What if he telephoned …?

He woke with a start, then turned off the lamp. While he’d slept, Maigret had disappeared. No, there he was, under the blanket.