The Greek Key

22

Newman arrived at the British Embassy at eleven, well after dark. The large villa on Sofias Avenue was surrounded by a stone wall, looming up behind a Turkish-style church. Patterson, his contact, was a pain in the neck.

Impatiently, Newman waited in the hall as the round-faced man in his forties carefully examined his press card and then his passport. A typical bureaucrat, Newman thought: inflated with a sense of his own importance. Smooth-faced, he turned the passport pages with irritating slowness.

'For God's sake,' Newman snapped. 'You knew I was coming. Tweed warned you.'

'It is my responsibility who uses the phone,' Patterson responded in his bland voice.

'It's just a phone…'

'It's the scrambler,' Patterson reminded him pompously. 'I have to log all calls, be very careful who uses it. You have no diplomatic status…'

' You won't have any if I report you're obstructing me. You're on probation, don't forget.'

The blow struck home. Patterson's well-padded face flushed, he ran a manicured hand over his slick black hair. 'No need to be rude,' he bleated.

'Just realistic. Let's get on with it. Now. Tweed is waiting. Or have you forgotten London is two hours behind us? He likes to get home early to work on files,' Newman lied.

The phone was in a small room in the basement. A table, chairs pushed under it, the phone with the red button the only object on the table top. Newman sat down, reached for the phone, then looked up at Patterson who still stood waiting.

'Piss off, there's a good chap. This is confidential. Leave the card and passport on the table. Shut the door on your way out.'

Pressing the red button, he dialled Park Crescent. Paula came on the line within seconds. She sounded relieved to hear his voice.

'We wondered what the devil was happening to you…'

'Nice to be loved. Tweed about? Firs on scrambler from the Embassy in Athens.'

'He's here. Take care…'

Tweed sounded as fresh as sea air at nine in the evening. Newman plunged straight into a terse report of what had taken place since his arrival. Tweed listened without interrupting. At the end of five minutes Newman concluded his story.

That brings you up to date. Doesn't really take us any further as to who killed Harry.'

'It might have done. You have a pipeline into this weird Gavalas clan – Christina. Whether she can be trusted is for you to assess. What do you think?'

'I'm leaning to the idea she has broken with the whole crew. But only leaning – she's pretty street-wise and could be a first-rate actress. Pity Harry hadn't told her who the mysterious Englishman who phoned him was. Could it have been one of the commando trio?'

'Yes. All three I visited had just returned from separate holidays abroad. All had a deep suntan – which they could have picked up in Greece. The timing is right, too. One of them could have been out there at exactly the time Masterson was killed. I have ihe feeling the solution lies in Greece. That raid on Siros all those years ago. What intrigues me is the missing body – who took the dead Andreas away from that gulch? And why? I may fly out to join you when the right moment comes. What's your next move?'

To explore that old silver mine in Devil's Valley. Something very strange about, that – the way Petros takes such precautions to keep strangers sway from the place…'

'Don't!' Tweed's tone was sharp. 'I don't like the sound of Mr Petros one bit. We may do it together later. You need plenty of back-up to go into a place like that. Harry Butler and Pete Nield would be useful. Plus Marler. At the moment Butler and Nield are on Exmoor, nosing around and picking up gossip about Barrymore, Reams and Robson. How are you finding Marler?' Tweed asked casually.

'A pain. But I can handle him. One thing I will give him – he's a good man to go into the jungle with. I'll keep you in touch…'

'Don't go.' A pause. 'At this stage it seems like a vendetta directed by Petros against whoever killed his two sons, Andreas and Stephen. His main suspects being on Exmoor. Is that how you see it?'

'With the little data we have to go on yet, yes. Especially now you've told me about this Anton character. Christina hasn't mentioned him, which I find odd. Butler and Nield are on the lookout for Anton, too, I assume?'

'Anton has disappeared. I suspect he's flown by some secret route back to Greece. He didn't pass through London Airport – I've had the security chief there check the passenger manifests.'

'But it backs up the vendetta theory.' Newman paused and Tweed said nothing. 'Or is there something more?'

'I think this business could be much bigger, far more serious than we realize. I can't figure out the link between Exmoor and Greece.'

'There has to be one?'

'If there isn't, then we're wasting our time. But who pushed Masterson over a Greek cliff?' Tweed paused again. 'After he'd visited Exmoor. We're missing something…'

Florakis – Oleg Savinkov, The Executioner – crouched at the top of the mountain above his farm. It was 2 a.m. and earlier he had received a coded signal he suspected emanated from inside the Soviet Embassy in Athens.

His suspicions were correct. But he would have been surprised had he known the hand which tapped out the message was that of Colonel Rykovsky, military attache. Rykovsky had waited until the Embassy staff had gone home: hence the arrangement made via Doganis for Savinkov to be ready to receive the signal at two in the morning.

Savinkov had placed the powerful transceiver given to him in a small depression at the mountain summit. The telescopic aerial was extended as he checked his watch by the light of a pencil torch. Time to retransmit the message to England. And for that elevation was needed to cover the long distance.

His bony face was tense with concentration as he sent out the call signal, received immediate acknowledgement. He began tapping out the coded message, keeping an eye on his watch as he operated. Three minutes was the maximum agreed time for any transmission.

It was unlikely Greek counter-espionage would have detector vans as far south as this remote wilderness, but Doganis had emphasized the importance of security.

Take no chances. You are the linchpin of the whole operation.'

'What operation?' Savinkov had asked.

'I don't know, but it's big, very big, It could change the whole course of history. That's all I've been told.'

The words echoed in Savinkov's brain as he completed tapping out the signal. He felt excited as he depressed the aerial, Sifted the heavy transceiver back inside the shabby suitcase. It was a long climb back down the mountain to the farm but he would be there long before daylight.

One thousand six hundred-odd miles to the north-west another hand on Exmoor was already beginning the task of decoding the signal which had just come in from Greece. The unbreakable one-time code had been used, the novel the series of numbers referred to was Sinclair Lewis' Main Street. Half an hour later the message was decoded, written on the pad which had a sheet of protective plastic beneath the sheet to avoid any risk of an impression of the wording reproducing itself on the sheet beneath the plastic.

All equipment and preparations should be made immediately. Possible that target will land in Britain on way to or when returning from Washington summit. Potential timing September or October this year. The Greek Key.