Decision at Delphi (17 page)

He tried again, pressing harder with his thumb. It was stuck fast. Hell, he thought, that penknife really wrecked it. Yet it had opened easily enough at the customs shed. He stared at it, not quite believing his new thought: was it locked? He tried the key. It could turn. It could, and did, unlock.

His astonishment gave way to a vision of the little round man with his neat small hands hastily working on the broken lock, cursing at his bad luck in having damaged it, congratulating himself on his skill when he managed to fix it, smiling in triumph as he locked it, thinking now that nobody would ever guess.

The vision was too much for Strang. He began to laugh. He hadn’t laughed as much as this in weeks.

Then Alexander Christophorou slipped quietly into the room, looked at his helpless friend, and stood, astounded and worried.

“I’m all right,” Strang assured him. “Come in, Aleco. Let me tell you a funny story.”

The story was told, but Christophorou was more horrified than entertained. He looked at Strang incredulously; at the case, now safely locked, thanks to the expert; at Strang again. “Never,” he said at last,” shall I understand American humour.”

Strang began, with a trace of disappointment in Christophorou’s own sense of humour, to tell the story another way. But Christophorou cut him short. “I grasped its significance, Kenneth,” he said quietly. “But do you? They thought your luggage was worth searching.”

“I got that message, too,” Strang said abruptly. Had he appeared as stupid as that? “I have been put back on their doubtful list, whoever they are.” He looked at Christophorou, but there was evidently no explanation forthcoming about the people called “they.”

“In spite of all my efforts to keep everything as secret, as innocent as possible—” Christophorou was worried.

“I still think it’s comic, the expert who came prepared to botch a job.”

“I shall laugh later, I think.” Christophorou glanced at the case again. “At least you could not have had anything valuable in it, if you are so amused.”

Strang thought of the envelope now sitting in the manager’s safe. “That’s right,” he said cheerfully. “It wasn’t my case, anyway.”

“What?”

“It was Steve’s.”

Christophorou stared at him. “What?” he asked again. “When did he give it to you?”

“In New York.”

“And you have not met him since?”

“Yes. Briefly in Naples.”

“Were you seen together?”

“Obviously. Or why am I now back on that doubtful list?” Strang looked at Steve’s case and frowned. “George Ottway and his wife met us, by accident, in Naples. But I’m pretty sure Ottway is not going around talking about that.”

“No,” agreed Christophorou.

“Do you know Ottway?”

“By reputation. He is discreet.” Christophorou smiled. “He was with British intelligence at one time.”

Strang was startled, not so much by the information as by the casual way it had been dropped. But it was always easy to be indiscreet with other people’s secrets. Or perhaps Christophorou was really saying, “See, I am being frank with you. Be frank with me.” What is so damned painful, Strang thought, is that I like Aleco Christophorou, I like him and I trust him. But when I’m talking to him, I’m not talking for myself alone. If I were, it would be easy. I have no problems such as Steve must have, no emotional involvements in past politics, no secret fears for any brother whose war record in killing went far beyond military duty. So I hedge, and wait, and play safe for Steve. I wish to God he’d appear and do his own answering. He has weighed me down with more than that damned case. Strang looked over at it again, with annoyance and dislike.

Christophorou noted the quick glance. He sat down, and searched for his cigarettes. He had decided to stay a while, evidently. He looked at the case, too. “Nothing in it except unused film?” he asked, with a smile.

Strang smiled back. “That’s a pretty good guess.”

“Nothing else?”

“What else would you expect?”

Christophorou studied him thoughtfully. He appeared to be making a difficult decision. He said very quietly, “Documents. Photographs and letters, which Stefanos Kladas was bringing to Greece. So he told the agent who met him in Taormina when he first arrived there. They concern his brother, Nikos Kladas.” There was a definite pause. Another difficult decision was made. Then, grimly, Christophorou added, “I am interested in Nikos Kladas.”

“So he has got himself involved again, has he? What is it now?”

At first, Christophorou said nothing. He was studying Strang again. Then, slowly, he answered, “Conspiracy. Conspiracy against the state.”

Strang took a deep breath.

“I can only add,” Christophorou went on, “that it is a
serious conspiracy. Well-planned, well-organised, dangerous. Not only for Greece.”

“Steve didn’t know anything about a conspiracy. I’m sure of that.”

“He only knew that his brother Nikos had joined a group of people who seemed to him to be—undesirable. He could guess that there might be serious trouble, but he had no idea of the extent of his brother’s involvement. Or he would never have wasted any time on the idea of arguing with his brother. Yes, that is what he wanted to do: persuade his brother to leave his friends, get away to America, start a new life. And if persuasion failed, Stefanos Kladas was going to use these documents— whatever they are—to expose his brother’s friends.” There was a small smile hovering around Christophorou’s lips. “He blamed everything on those friends.”

“Steve was going to use these documents, you say. How?”

“He said he would hand them over to the American Embassy in Athens, with instructions that they should be transferred to the proper Greek authorities for action to be taken.”

“He would not give them to you?”

“I did not meet him,” Christophorou reminded Strang. “Besides, I am a journalist.”

“Yes. So I heard. Well—Steve is certainly being cautious. Or perhaps he didn’t trust your colleague. It’s a pity you didn’t see him yourself.”

“Stefanos Kladas probably wanted to make quite sure of my colleague’s credentials. After all, he has been away from Greece for ten years or more. He is out of touch. Trust is always a very delicate business when big stakes are involved.”

Trust, thought Strang, is more than a delicate business when
involved politics are at stake. Steve did not trust Christophorou’s man at all. That is the unpleasant truth. Christophorou is trying to excuse his subordinate, but the man blundered. “So Steve wants to talk with his brother before he takes any action on those documents. How much success will he have in persuading Nikos to leave his friends?”

“None whatever.”

Strang looked at Christophorou. “You sound pretty definite.”

“Nikos Kladas is one of the top men in this conspiracy. So the police found out. They have proof. And now, various branches of Intelligence are—” Christophorou broke off, as if he had said too much. “You see, Kenneth, this conspiracy does exist.”

“I don’t doubt that.”

“And it is about to explode. You realise that?”

Strang said nothing. Steve’s documents are not mine to hand over, he told himself again. Yet there was an urgency, a desperation in Christophorou’s voice that was completely real. What do I do? Strang wondered.

“I haven’t had a proper night’s sleep for seven weeks,” Christophorou said. He passed a hand over his eyes, and then reached up to switch off the lamp beside his chair. He sat, staring at nothing, his face taut with worry.

“What about a drink? Shall I ring—?”

“Better not.” Christophorou lit another cigarette. Again he was deciding something. He watched the match flare down to his fingers. He blew it out. “Seven weeks,” he said bitterly. “Ever since two men were found by the police, on a lonely stretch of the Megara road. That is west of Athens, down by the sea. It was night; their bodies were lying on the roadway as if they had been struck down by a truck. Two local policemen—by pure
luck—were cycling back to their village and saw the rear lights of the truck, standing, then backing toward them. As they approached, the truck stopped again and started away very quickly. They found the bodies almost at once.” He paused, stubbed out his cigarette.

“One, however, was not quite dead. He kept asking for the other man. When he heard the man had been killed, he began to rage. His talk was incoherent, wild. But he kept repeating the same wild ravings. Over and over again, the dying man repeated his story. The policemen listened. One of them, when they got back to their village, made out a report and sent it to Athens. There, the police studied it. And called in Military Intelligence.” Christophorou lit another cigarette.

“Who were the men?”

“A father and son. Originally from a small village in Sparta. They left Greece in 1945, and took refuge in Albania. But, of course, they had kept in touch with their friends. Last July, they had been ordered to work in Yugoslavia. There they had made all the contacts, all the preparations necessary for the assassination of—” He hesitated. He said, “Of a major political figure. They were experts in that line of business.” Christophorou shook his head sadly. “And the man who had chosen them for this assignment? A man who had once lived in the same village in Sparta—a comrade called Nikos Kladas.”

“Why were they killed? Had they failed in their mission?”

“No. When it was completed, they made their way back into Greece to report to Nikos Kladas. Once that was done, their work was finished. So were their lives. The son died, too; but he had lived, by sheer will power, long enough to implicate Nikos Kladas most thoroughly.”

“Belated patriotism.”

Christophorou shook his head. “Vengeance,” he said softly. “So there’s the story, Kenneth. By purest luck, three small pieces of information came to light. First, a conspiracy did exist, its plans completed, ready to go into action. Second, a man called Nikos Kladas, originally from the village of Thalos, in Sparta, who had been considered dead for the last fourteen years, was one of the important men in that conspiracy. Third, the members of the conspiracy were the extremest of the extreme left— frustrated Communists, possibly, who had turned impatiently from Karl Marx to follow the teachings of Nechayev.”

“Nechayev—the nihilist? But he was a raving lunatic!”

“Was he?” Christophorou almost smiled. “Lenin did not think so. Or else he would not have based his teaching partly on Marx, partly on Nechayev. One needs both of them, perhaps, if one wants complete power: the theorists and the terrorists—yes, they each serve their turn, depending on whether one wants skilful dialectic or violence. The only danger is that sometimes the terrorists cannot be kept under control. They swing loose and away—as they did in the bloody twenties in Russia.”

Strang looked at him in surprise.

“You never thought of that period, in that way? I suppose not. Most people think of it as a struggle between Czarists and Bolsheviks. But a struggle for power is not just one opposite against another.”

Strang now looked at him curiously. What is he trying to tell me? he wondered. Or was this simply an overflow from one of Christophorou’s particular interests—the study of anarchy, the history of violence?

“There are undercurrents, Kenneth, that can become very powerful.”

“An undercurrent isn’t a tide.”

“No? Given proper direction, it can become a tidal wave.”

“If you’re talking about nihilism, I don’t agree.”

“Not if all its forces were organised, and channelled?”

“Look—I don’t know much about this—”

“That’s another of its hidden strengths: people ignore it.”

“But it’s completely negative. What does it preach?”

“Complete freedom.”

“Yes, freedom from civilisation. Burn the books, destroy the records, abandon law, down with religion, down with all government, kill those who disagree or stand in your way, end the cities, return to the fields, wipe the slate clean, start all over again at the animal level.”

“That’s going very far back,” Christophorou said. “I think most nihilists would be content if they could recapture the Neolithic age, or at least a simplicity of life where corruption and decadence and oppression are ended. True, they would have to destroy much to get what they wanted. In the civilised world, evil and good are so often entwined round each other that the quickest way to end evil is to cut back both. Ruthless? Yes. So was the man who cut out his offending eye and cast it away.” Christophorou gave a short laugh. “Don’t Americans glorify the noble Indian? What could be more neolithic? Even mesolithic?”

“Look,” said Strang jokingly, “you aren’t trying to convert me, are you?”

“It’s a fascinating subject, you’ll agree.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Have you studied it?”

“Not studied. I did pick up a book on the history of nihilism yesterday. In Taormina.” Strang grinned as Christophorou looked surprised. “I went to the bookshop for a copy of
The Possessed.
I saw this history, and bought it. All I can say is that I’m damned glad there are not many nihilists around.”

“There do not need to be many. They have no armies, but what if they think they can use other people’s armies?”

“By a well-timed assassination?”

“By several well-timed assassinations.”

“You’re crazy!”

“Well-timed, well-placed. Enough to set the Balkans and Asia Minor on fire. There is enough tinder lying around, you’ll agree. And as for Eastern Europe—suppose you were a Hungarian, or a Pole. You had a taste of Fascists and hated them. Nazis—you hated them. Communists—you hated them. And what do the democracies do? They send kind words, sympathy; food, which only helps your masters to sit more firmly on your back. But you are the one who suffers and is left to go on suffering. What would you believe in then? Nothing. What would you feel? A burning sense of injustice. Revulsion. Hatred. And there are the forces of nihilism.”

“Not all men, even in misery, turn negative. Some, yes. But not everyone.”

“How many people,” Christophorou asked gravely, “all through this world, see nothing ahead for them? Life is meaningless, a cruel joke where injustice is made into law, and religion only talks about the next world. But what about this world, where a man still has twenty, thirty, forty years to live? In conditions he never made or chose or wanted? Where he sees no hope of ever struggling free? Why must he live like this? The fools never ask that question; they are animals, willingly caged. But the men who do ask it find only one answer. They may hide it deep within them. But the answer is there, waiting. Destroy everything that has trapped us, caged us, made life meaningless. All gods have died, all reason disappeared from this world, leaving only one sovereign force—the Absurd. Destroy, and build anew.”