The 34th Degree

99

Andros was only too happy to step out onto the platia after spending too much time in a closed room with a nervous Stavros. He crossed the platia and approached the fountain as Eliot had instructed and stood behind two women. He bent down to take his drink. When he looked up, he saw a convoy of German trucks pull up in front of the town hall. They were the Alpine Corps they had spotted from the cave earlier, back from a fruitless excursion in the mountains.

A voice from behind him said, “Save some for the fish off Kalamata.”

Andros turned. Before him was a small, dark man with a gray mustache. The man took some water and then, in passing, whispered that they must get going. “Follow me at intervals.”

They crossed the platia and made their way past the cathedral, turning down a narrow alley. Although the streets were laid out at right angles, Andros quickly lost his sense of direction as he followed his conductor through the maze of alleys toward the edge of the town. The odyssey ended in a ghostly courtyard under a big moon. The warehouse in back could barely stand, its caved-in roof supported by rotting walls with broken windows.

The conductor creaked open the gate, and they walked around back. He knocked quickly four times and waited. A moment later, the garage door slid open.

The man who stood there in dirty overalls was wiping the grease from his hands with a blackened cloth. He wore a handkerchief knotted over his head in the manner of the Cretans, and his angry eyes looked Andros over from his soot-smeared face. “What do you want?”

The conductor answered, “We came to see Stella.”

“She’s inside, but I don’t know if she wants to see you.”

The conductor motioned for Andros to go inside while he stayed outside.

The warehouse was simply one large garage with two small rooms and a kitchen in back. In the middle of the garage sat the sorry-looking lorry, its condition hardly better than the garage’s. It was filled in back with sacks of grain.

Andros walked around the truck and opened the hood. “Stella looks sturdy enough for the streets in town,” he told the mechanic, “but how will she do in the mountain passes?”

The mechanic angrily retorted, “You don’t like the arrangements?”

“All I want to know is how she’ll do in the mountain passes.”

“You’ll never know.” The mechanic’s right arm came up holding a pearl-handled Colt revolver. “Spread your feet,” he ordered. “Hands against the wall.”

Andros did as he was told and could feel the rough hands run over his body. “If you’re looking for a gun, I don’t have one.”

The mechanic spun him around and pushed the cold barrel of the Colt under his chin. “The film, fascist,” he said, breathing heavily. “I want the film!”

“Too late,” said Andros with a smile. “It’s back at the camp.”

“Liar!” The mechanic kicked him in the groin.

The blow sent Andros doubling over in agony. He slid against the wall to the floor, groaning in pain.

The mechanic reached down and tore open his shirt, saw the film cartridge and negative taped to his chest, and ripped them off. “You’re in the hands of the National Liberation Front, traitor,” he told Andros. “And it is in the hands of the National Liberation Front that you will die. Now, get up and walk toward the kitchen slowly.” With the sharp point of his boot, he kicked Andros in his wounded leg. Andros roared in pain, his body writhing in agony.

“You call yourself the son of General Andros,” scoffed the mechanic, looking down at him. “You’re not much to look at.” He screwed up his eyes. “I said get up!”

Andros tried to brace himself, but the blow from the boot came too fast, crashing into his back with such force that he was sure his back was broken. In spite of the jarring pain, he managed to stand. He stood staring at the revolver, trying to piece together what was happening.

The mechanic barked, “I said move.”

Andros felt the hard barrel of the Colt press against his back, pushing him through the warehouse to the kitchen. There he saw Brigadier Eliot, sitting in a chair, sipping some tea, a Mauser on the counter beside him.

“Ah, you made it, Andros.” Eliot nodded toward an empty chair. “Please sit down.”

Bewildered, Andros sank down on the chair while the mechanic used one hand to keep the Colt revolver trained on him and the other to place the cartridge of microfilm and the negative on the counter for Eliot to see.

“Excellent work, Comrade Kalos,” Eliot said. “Although I must say, from what I heard happening out there, I wasn’t sure I was going to see Andros walk in here alive.”

Andros glanced at the mechanic and realized he was looking at Colonel Alexander Kalos. He then looked at Eliot. Suddenly, he saw it all. “You’re the Minotaur.”

Eliot smiled with satisfaction. “Ever since that fateful autumn afternoon on the campus at Cambridge, when I had the unexpected pleasure of running into an elderly gentleman by the name of Orlov,” he explained. “For me, an ungrateful son of a barrister and disillusioned veteran of the Great War, what he offered was the opportunity of a lifetime. Two years later, I joined the British Secret Service.”

“As a spy for the enemy,” said Andros.

“That, I suppose, depends on your point of view.” Eliot smiled. “The way I see it, as the ranking SOE officer in Greece at this moment, I can persuade the Foreign Office in Cairo to support ELAS and the nascent democracy growing in Greece. Even if they don’t, I can ensure that the National Liberation Front’s army has the weapons it needs to boot Zervas out with the rest of the fascists.”

Eliot put his cup of tea on the counter next to the Mauser and the cartridge of microfilm. “The irony is,” he went on, “if Commander Lloyd had reached the monks in Meteora before von Berg, I already would have had the Maranatha text, and the OSS wouldn’t have sent you in. None of this would have happened.”

Andros wasn’t sure what Eliot was talking about, but the British brigadier and Soviet spy had confirmed that a text did exist. At least Prestwick and Donovan hadn’t lied to him about that. But Andros realized the text contained more than the Germans’ enciphered defense plans for Greece. The Maranatha text, as Eliot called it, had to be a religious document, if it involved monks from Meteora.

“Since when is an atheist like Stalin so interested in a religious text?” asked Andros, stalling while he tried to think of a way out.

“From his seminary days in Tbilisi,” Eliot said. “He has a thorough understanding of how men use religion to manipulate and oppress entire societies. He simply stripped it of its stained-glass facade. And for that, he’s called a cruel dictator while those pious bastards in the Church of England have their rings kissed by the royal family and are called holy men of God. Isn’t that the case with the Greek Orthodox Church?”

Andros said nothing.

“Nevertheless,” said Eliot, “you’ve surpassed my expectations for an OSS man by actually managing to break into von Berg’s safe in Kifissia.”

Andros glanced at the counter on which Eliot had placed the film negative and microfilm cartridge. If the Maranatha text wasn’t in von Berg’s safe, where was it? The answer, he guessed, was on the film negative and not the microfilm exposures Werner made him shoot. Furthermore, wherever this Maranatha text was, there he would probably find Aphrodite.

Eliot could see his mind at work. “When we picked you up after the party and drove you to Piraeus, I was tempted to take the film from you then and there. But then I would be failing in my duties as a British agent and would tip my hand to my underlings in the car, whose loyalties to the Crown are quite unquestionable.”

“And because you knew you had Kalos at the National Bands base.” Andros looked at Kalos, who had pulled a bottle of brandy from the sideboard and was pouring himself a glass.

“And Stavros, before he buckled,” said Eliot, who picked up his Mauser and pointed it at Andros. “As they were the ones going to make the actual raid to steal the text, I was confident it would eventually come back to me if they succeeded. They would steal it-all for Mr. Churchill, of course-and Stavros would kill Doughty and the other British officers.”

“But why?” asked Andros, beginning to worry about Erin back at Theo’s.

“Doughty was getting suspicious,” Eliot explained. “According to Kalos here, he was about to telegraph some reports to the Foreign Office that, if interpreted with other goings-on in Greece, would implicate me.”

Andros said, “So you gave the Nazis the location of the base.”

“That’s right,” Eliot replied.

“Then von Berg’s men blew up the base and we came here,” Andros concluded. “So I suppose there never was an escape route for us tonight.”

“Oh, but there is,” said Eliot. “Can’t risk it being said that I haven’t been faithful in my capacities as chief of SOE Athens. I’d let you go right now if you didn’t know Kalos’s identity. Unfortunately, my role as the Minotaur calls for me to kill you.”

“It won’t work,” Andros said. “Stavros told us about your plans to destroy Zervas and consolidate power.”

“Stavros can talk all he wants to the Gestapo,” said Eliot. “Kalos, the phone, please.”

Kalos pulled a phone from beneath the sideboard and handed it to Eliot, who put his Mauser on the counter while Kalos covered Andros with his Colt.

“You don’t mind if I make a local call, do you?” Eliot asked Andros as he dialed. A moment later, he cleared his throat and spoke in precise German. “You may be interested to know that none other than the Communist terrorist Stavros Moudjouras is at this moment hiding out in a room over Theo’s taverna. If you move quickly, you may yet catch him.” He hung up and looked at Andros. “I hate loose ends.”

“I suppose you’d include me in that category?”

“Most definitely.”

Andros realized that it was now or never. If he didn’t get out of there this minute, Erin and Stavros would be caught by the Gestapo, and they’d all be dead.

“Can I at least have some brandy?” Andros asked. “Or a cigarette?”

“Kalos, give him a cigarette.”

Kalos extended an open carton of black-market cigarettes while Eliot kept Andros covered with the Mauser. Andros withdrew a cigarette and allowed Kalos to give him a light. Kalos produced a familiar-looking gold lighter. “A gift from Brigadier Eliot,” he said, and flicked it open. “You like it, heh?”

It was Aphrodite’s lighter, the one Andros had left behind during his escape from Athens. Seeing it in the filthy hands of this criminal only furthered his resolve to get out of there somehow. He leaned forward to touch the end of his cigarette to the flame and then sat back and inhaled. He glanced out the window. It was pitchblack outside. Erin and Stavros were either worrying about what had happened to him or had no time to worry because the Germans had gotten to them.

“Well, Mr. Andros,” said Eliot, raising the Mauser, “I’m afraid it’s time to die.”

“Can’t I finish my cigarette?” Andros inhaled and held his breath as he looked into the Mauser’s barrel.

A curious look crossed Eliot’s face, and he lowered the Mauser. “Fine,” he said. “Two more breaths.”

Andros exhaled smoke and casually leaned over to tip the ashes of his cigarette.

Eliot smiled. “You have one breath left.”

Andros nodded and quickly swung his arm to knock aside Kalos’s revolver. He then kicked the chair out from under Eliot, who crashed to the floor. Eliot reached for his Mauser, but Andros stepped on the outstretched arm until the grip loosened around the pistol. He bent down to pick it up when Eliot grabbed his legs and pulled him to the floor. An unbearable shock of pain jolted Andros.

“Kalos!” called Eliot.

Andros looked up in time to see Kalos walk up holding an ax over his head. Raising his trembling arm, Andros fired a bullet into Kalos’s chest. Kalos stumbled backward and was brought to the floor by the weight of the ax.

Eliot tightened his grip around Andros’s legs, sending further ripples of pain up his spine.

Andros swung the butt of the Mauser against Eliot’s skull and heard a sickening crack. He could feel the man’s arms loosen from around his legs.

When Andros stood up, he saw that the Minotaur was dead. He also smelled something burning, and when he turned, he saw that his cigarette had started a fire by the baseboard. A curtain of flame shot up the wall and started licking the ceiling. It wouldn’t be long before the entire tinderbox of a warehouse came crashing down on him.

He thought of Erin and Stavros at Theo’s taverna. I have to get back to them before the Gestapo does, he thought. No time to waste.

Grabbing the microfilm cartridge and negative from the counter, he headed toward the garage. There was the lorry, pointed toward the closed garage door. He ran over and climbed into the cab behind the wheel. He turned the key in the ignition, and the engine roared to life. Then he shifted gears and stepped on the accelerator.

The lorry lurched forward and crashed through the door. Suddenly, he was in the courtyard and could see the moon through the windshield. He shifted to high gear and headed straight for Theo’s taverna.