The Angry Hills (24 page)

“Do as I say!”

“Very well, Konrad.”

Heilser went to the couch, stretched out and rubbed his temples. How his head ached! How it ached!

“Masterton! Linden! Come with us!”

Several guards surrounded the two men as they stepped from the cell. Mike’s and Ben’s wrists were handcuffed behind them.

They were marched down a long corridor, the sound of the guards’ heels resounding hollowly.

After a series of locked doors they emerged in the courtyard of the prison.

Two black cars were waiting.

“You, Linden, in the first auto!”

Mike sat between a pair of plainclothes Gestapo men. An armed soldier sat in the front seat alongside the driver.

The doors shut. The car moved slowly through the courtyard. The mammoth gates of Averof Prison opened. The cars rolled out, turned on their sirens and raced for the center of Athens and German Field Police Headquarters.

Near Concord Square they were forced to slow down.

Mike was thrown from his seat as the driver slammed on his brakes. A truck bolted over the intersection of Patission and Chalkokondili Streets and stopped directly in their path.

The driver leaned on his horn.

It all happened in seconds.

Two dozen armed Greeks swarmed from the truck and surrounded the two cars. The drivers and guards were dragged out, disarmed and forced to lay on their faces on the sidewalk.

“Morrison! This way!”

Michalis, a tommy gun cradled in his arm, pulled Mike from the car and pulled him along up the street. A car waited at the corner. Michalis pushed Mike into it.

Ben Masterton ran toward the crowd around Concord Square. “See you in Berlin, matey!” he yelled to Mike.

Mike looked back from his car as it ripped into motion. He saw the German autos being turned over in the street and the armed Greeks pouring back into the truck which headed in the opposite direction.

“Hurry! Dammit! Hurry!” Michalis roared at the driver in the voice that could be heard clear up to Salonika.

The phone rang.

Heilser staggered from the couch, groggy from the sedatives. He shook his head and lifted the receiver. “Yes?”

“Konrad, this is Zervos. I am at Anton’s Dress Shop.”

“What is it?”

“Lisa did not keep her appointment.”

“What!”

“I said, Lisa did not come today.”

“Why?”

“How should I know?”

“Get back here! Immediately!”

“Very well...”

Heilser could not understand what that meant. He walked to the basin and ducked his head under the coldwater tap. It cleared a little. He wiped his face and lit a cigarette and meditated.

A knock on the door. The brown-shirted orderly stepped in.

“Manolis Kyriakides to see you, sir.”

Heilser frowned. Lisa’s husband? What the devil! Maybe he knew...

“Send him in.”

“Yes, sir.”

Manolis Kyriakides was ushered in. At one time he might have been a handsome man, but now his eyes were shifty and frightened. He might once have stood tall and straight, but now he cringed in the attitude of a coward. Beads of sweat trickled down his nose and chin as he stood in front of Heilser with his hat in his hand.

“Well!”

“Herr...Herr...”

“What is it? Where is your wife?”

“The—the children—they—have been kidnapped!”

Heilser leaped to his feet and grabbed Manolis by the collar and shook him so violently the drops of sweat bounced from his face. Heilser backed him across the room and threw him into a chair.

Manolis trembled.

“Speak!”

“Water, please ...”

“Speak, I say!”

He emitted a feeble croak from his cracked lips. “They came last night.... Lisa—let them, a dozen men—shot the guards, took the children.” Manolis closed his eyes and wept.

“Last night!” Heilser screamed. “Why weren’t we informed immediately?”

“They—they—said they’d kill me if I came to you before...”

Heilser smashed Manolis’ face over and over. Manolis fell to the floor sobbing hysterically.

“Guards! Guards! Take him to Averof!”

Heilser sat at his desk pounding the marble top. Collaborators! Why do we have to have collaborators to win a war? Why do we have to cultivate them, coddle them, bribe them? Men like Zervos and Manolis Kyriakides...

Why don’t we have men like Ioannis Rodites and Stergiou serving us! Why not men like the mysterious priest, Papa-Panos and the fierce Michalis and the incredibly courageous Thanassis?

Why am I always surrounded with the dregs of humanity?

The door opened.

Zervos stepped in. “Konrad,” he said, “brace yourself. Morrison was in Averof. He has escaped.”

SIX

T
HE WINE CELLAR BENEATH
Gyni’s Restaurant on Armodiou Place was pitch black. Mike and Lisa huddled in a corner. He drew her close and stroked her hair.

“They should come soon,” she said.

“It will be all right, honey,” he whispered. “It will be all right.”

Mike recounted the afternoon’s events. Enroute to Gestapo Headquarters, Michalis had led a daring ambush in downtown Athens. In only a matter of minutes he had been transferred to three different cars, the last taking him to this temporary sanctuary.

She told him everything. Papa-Panos had convinced Michalis, Thanassis and Dr. Thackery to let Lisa remain alive in the hope that Morrison would contact her in the event of trouble. Papa-Panos was proven right. Axiotis, the aged jailer at Averof, had delivered the note to Lazarus in Chalandri. In an hour the message was in Lisa’s hands.

Then Lisa pulled her coup. Before she would turn over the information to Thanassis and Michalis, she demanded the freedom of her children as ransom for the information on Mike’s whereabouts. Within another hour the raid on Manolis’ home was over and the children were hidden in the pump house in Chalandri.

Mike looked up at the faces of three angry men in the cellar of Gyni’s. They were furious with him because he had permitted emotions to complicate his grave situation. They lashed out at him for forcing them to risk the daylight ambush on the Gestapo. At this point they demanded he turn over the Stergiou list, insisting that he had bungled long enough.

Mike refused, unless Lisa and her sons were permitted to leave Greece with him.

Michalis, Thanassis and Dr. Thackery were faced with the choice of executing both of them and losing the Stergiou list or getting the four of them out of Greece. An impossible task...

The trapdoor opened. The beam of a flashlight pierced the darkness of the wine cellar.

Mike could make out the stocky form of Michalis and the long thin form of Dr. Thackery as they threaded their way through the rows of wine kegs.

Mike pressed Lisa’s hand....

The flashlight found them. The two men stood over them.

“Very well, Morrison,” Dr. Thackery said. “A British submarine will pick you up within forty-eight hours.”

“The children?” Lisa asked.

“They are safe. They will join you once we get you clear of Athens,” Michalis said.

“If we get clear of Athens,” Dr. Thackery added. “Heilser has the city closed tighter than a drum. Nothing can get through the blockade. You have only a fifty-fifty chance, Morrison. You also have forty-eight hours to reconsider turning the list over to us. We will hide you and Lisa in the hills....”

“Not on your life, Dr. Thackery.”

“All right—we try for the submarine. I hope we can clear you out of Athens.”

“Wait a minute,” Mike said. “Wait a minute. I may possibly have an idea....”

Julius Chesney drummed his fingers slowly on the table. He looked at Thanassis dubiously.

“This is risky, very risky...”

“It is risky for me too,” Thanassis said.

“I’ll have to think about it,” Chesney wheezed.

“Yes or no. They are due to leave within forty-eight hours.”

“You make it very difficult, dear fellow. If it wasn’t for the money...”

“That’s why I came to you with this proposition. I’ve heard of your love for drachmas.”

Julius Chesney’s jowls quivered as he emitted his nasty little laugh. “Agreed,” he said.

“And half of what you collect from the Germans belongs to me,” Thanassis said.

“Agreed,” Chesney nodded, “agreed.”

“Here is the information to date, then. Morrison and Lisa Kyriakides are now in Athens. I do not know where, inasmuch as I have not seen Michalis since he made the ambush. A British submarine will be here to get them sometime within forty-eight hours.”

Chesney nodded.

Thanassis continued. “I will give you their route from Athens and contact point with the submarine just as soon as I learn it.”

“Just how do your people expect to get them out of Athens?”

“That is the problem, Mr. Chesney. I will not know until I see Dr. Thackery or Michalis.”

Chesney thought of the drachmas and laughed again. He extended his fat hand over the table. Thanassis eyed him with suspicion for a moment, then shook his hand.

Thanassis arose. “Remember,” he said, “half the money is mine.”

“Tell me, Professor Thanassis, just why are you doing this?”

“Because they don’t have a chance.”

“Do find your own way to the door,” Chesney wheezed. He was clearly wedged into his seat. “Bad heart, dear fellow—bad heart.”

Chesney’s slitted eyes followed Thanassis as the scholarly appearing man turned and walked from the room.

Chesney struggled to his feet and waddled to the phone, searched out a number and dialed with a pencil, unable to fit his finger into the dial holes.

“Hello...”

“Hello, Konrad?”

“Yes.”

“This is Chesney, Julius Chesney.”

“What is it?”

“Could you and Zervos come up to my place right away?”

“At this hour of the morning, Julius?”

“It concerns a mutual friend of ours. An American chap, I believe....”

“I’ll be right over.”

“Yes... And Konrad, dear fellow, do bring your check book with you.”

Chesney studied the harassed face of Konrad Heilser. Usually the German was a picture of complacency but now he was tense and drawn and snappy. Zervos, the diamond display case, sat beside him.

“Drink?”

“Scotch, double,” Heilser said.

Zervos agreed to the same.

Chesney waddled to the bar.

“Now then, Konrad. What I am about to say is of great interest to you....”

“Get to the point. If you know something about Morrison, how much do you want?”

“You are getting ahead of yourself, Konrad. Very well. I am about to fall heir to complete information on his whereabouts. I want fifty million drachmas for the information—not a drachma less.”

“Fifty million! Are you insane?”

“Don’t tempt me, dear fellow. I’m liable to ask for the Acropolis too.”

“Fifty million is out of the question.”

“Then, gentlemen, let me say it is beyond my bedtime. I believe you know your way to the door?”

Heilser fumed. Again he was in the clutches of the dregs of humanity. Fifty million would wipe out the personal fortune he had worked so hard to gather in Greece. He thought quickly. He’d force half the amount from Zervos—and he’d see to it that Chesney never left Greece alive. He looked at Zervos. The fat man shrugged.

“He drives a hard bargain, Konrad. We have little choice.”

“Very well,” Heilser muttered. “Where is he?”

Chesney held up his fat palm. “Ahhhh, not so fast, not so fast. You will cable the money to my bank in Argentina. As soon as I receive confirmation of the deposit...”

“You swine!”

Chesney laughed and cracked his knuckles and reached for the platter of olives on the table. “I may add, dear fellow, that you must move rather quickly. A British submarine will pick him up within forty-eight hours. And, Konrad, as an extra little bonus, I will also deliver Lisa Kyriakides and her children at no extra charge to you.”

The German snatched his hat from the table. “You will receive confirmation of the deposit by tomorrow, noon.”

They started to leave but Zervos was puzzled about something. “Just why do you want your money in Argentina?” he asked.

“It is like this, Mr. Zervos. I don’t trust you. I trust Herr Heilser, but I don’t trust you. And it is my very candid opinion as a learned correspondent that Germany is going to lose this war.”

He popped an olive into his mouth.

SEVEN

P
APA-
P
ANOS HELD A
flickering candle. Lisa, Mike, Dr. Thackery and Michalis stood in a tight circle. Thanassis stood a few paces behind them, leaning on a wine keg.

“Set your watches, everyone. It is now exactly twelve, noon,” Dr. Thackery said.

They strained their eyes in the poor light.

“Today it will be dark at ten minutes past seven,” Dr. Thackery continued. “At seven-thirty we begin to make the move from Athens. By eight-fifteen we should reach Chalandri and pick up your two boys, Lisa.”

She nodded.

“From Chalandri we dash for the coast. We will be traveling on secondary roads and it will not be too fast.” He unfolded a map and placed it on the cement floor. Everyone knelt over it. Thanassis moved from the wine keg and bent over Lisa’s shoulder. Dr. Thackery’s pencil traced a line. “At this point along the Gulf we will have to take off by foot. You will be met by a man—he will take you to the rendezvous cove. The man’s name is Meletis. Now, after you reach the Gulf it will be over an hour’s hike. You reach the Gulf no later than ten-thirty.”

Dr. Thackery drew an X on the map. “This is rendezvous point. Sheltered cove here—quite isolated. A sentry will be on the hill behind you with a beacon light. A few minutes before midnight he will blink three times to the submarine. This signal will be repeated every five minutes until the submarine surfaces and returns the signal. A party will row ashore in rubber boats and take you aboard. Is that all clear?”

Everyone nodded.

“Where are you going now, Thanassis?” Michalis asked.

“I must go out for a while,” he replied.

“Are all your arrangements completed?”

“All my arrangements are quite completed,” Thanassis answered. He turned on his flashlight and made his way through the cellar to the ladder and disappeared through the trapdoor.