The Angry Hills (9 page)

After an hour men began passing out. But they remained standing unconscious—there was no place to fall. Everyone began stripping, literally tearing his clothes off. Their bodies became slimy and rancid-smelling. The odors of urine and dung added to the agony.

In the next hour Mike buckled over a half dozen times. Soutar rubbed his temples and the back of his neck. When he blacked out Soutar slapped him back to consciousness. Now, nearly half the men were unconscious and the others groaned in agony.

The sweat fell into Mike’s eyes, blinding him. Each jerk of the train sent stabbing pains through him and a wall of men bashing against him.

In the late afternoon Soutar began to weaken. Mike had marveled at the stamina of the little Scotsman. He held Soutar up by the scruff of the neck. Soutar wheezed and gasped for air.

The blistering heat continued through early evening.

Soutar and Morrison alternated in keeping one another alive. There were two dead men in the car now.

Evening...

A fragment of blessed relief as it began to cool. The smell was long past the unbearable stage. Mike and Soutar had vomited till there was nothing left.

Men began to fall atop one another. The weak ones on the bottom, close to death, unable to move...

Darkness finally came. By now Mike would have jumped off a rocket to the moon.

“We go now,” Soutar gasped.

“Suppose—suppose they stop the train?” Mike croaked.

“They won’t risk it for one or two strays. If they stop they’ll have a mass outbreak, and they know it....”

Mike lifted Soutar to his shoulders. Soutar smashed the butt of his pistol into the screen. It ripped away.

“You go first—double back down the track for me. Allow a good two or three minutes for the train to pass.”

Mike nodded.

“Give us a hand, lads, we’re going to break for it.”

Several pairs of hands were on Mike, lifting him. Mike caught hold of the top beam of the car. He swung his legs through the small opening. His hands slipped from the beam and the soldiers shoved him through.

The cool rush of night air was like a tonic. Mike’s head cleared. He clung to the outside of the car, hoping the train would slow for a curve. But his grip gave way and he was hurled into space.

The ground came up and hit him with horrifying force. He bounced and rolled over a dozen times. Mike lay still for a few moments and then scampered down the rail bed and fell flat as the train sped past.

He looked down the line. He heard the crack of a rifle report. Mike didn’t move until the sound of the wheels died and all he could hear was his thumping heart and muted breath.

Crouching, he scooted up to the tracks. How strange, how very strange, he thought. He felt no pain at all. Everything was wonderful and he felt lightheaded, as though he had drunk a half dozen martinis. He moved down the rail as if walking on a cloud. He felt good—real good...

He followed the ribbons of steel. It was dark, save when a quarter moon flirted in and out of a mass of clouds.

“Soutar,” he called in a loud whisper, “Soutar!”

He heard a moan from the tall grass beyond the tracks. Mike crept toward the sound.

Soutar lay face down. Mike knelt beside him and turned him over. He was dead.

Mike went through his pockets. They were empty. He took Soutar’s pistol and put it in his belt. He dragged the body over the tracks towards a woods. Soutar’s legs dripped blood.

In the woods Mike dug a shallow grave, rolled the body into it and covered it with loose earth and branches.

Athens—Athens—get to Athens—Dr. Harry Thackery... Mike tried to stand but tottered against a tree. The woods started to spin as he wavered, trying to keep himself upright. I’ve got to get to the water—clear my head—stop the spinning...

He staggered through the woods to the beach. Down the beach he saw the lights of a village. People... Greek people—friendly—they’ll hide me—get to the village...

The lights of the village began to spin madly.

Hurt—hurt in the jump...

On hands and knees he crawled closer to the lights, leaving a trail of blood in the sand. He touched his face—it was a gory mess.

At the first cottage, he struggled to his feet and fell against the door. He began to pound on it with inhuman force.

“Help me!” he screamed. “For God’s sake, help me!”

The door opened.

Mike Morrison pitched in, unconscious.

Part 2

ONE

T
HE PHONE RANG.
K
ONRAD
Heilser grunted, rolled over and fumbled for the lamp on the night stand. He pulled the receiver to his ear and dropped back on the pillow.

“This is Zervos,” a voice said. “Forgive me for disturbing you, Herr Oberst, at this hour. I only this minute returned to Athens.”

“Where are you?” Heilser mumbled, still half-asleep.

“Headquarters.”

“Come up to my hotel at once!” He hung up rudely.

The naked woman next to Heilser cuddled up and groaned. He threw off the blanket and got out of bed. The girl’s eyes opened.

“Where are you going, darling?”

“Business. Go to sleep.”

She propped herself against the headboard and reached for the box of candy on the night stand. She pouted a bit to show her disappointment at his leaving. Deceitful little fool, Heilser thought, as he walked to the closet and took out a robe. The girl stretched her naked body sensuously to attract his attention but forgot to stop chewing the chocolate.

Lovely to look at, the little bitch, but she was becoming quite dull. Completely without imagination, she had no new tricks to hold him. He’d get rid of her next week and find another woman. One more on his intellectual level. One not so obviously greedy for the comforts he could offer. He walked toward the bathroom. The woman snuggled down beneath the sheet.

“Come kiss me, darling,” she invited.

“Go to sleep.”

The German splashed some water on his face and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He applied some lotion to his hair and stared into the mirror for a long time. The usual look of self-admiration was gone. Zervos, the Greek pig, would be coming up with more bad news. Of that, Heilser was certain.

Zervos had botched the job miserably. First, he had allowed the old attorney, Stergiou, to commit suicide and so take the secret of the list to his grave. Second, Soutar had escaped. Third, the American, Morrison, had upset everything.

That damned American! There was nothing worse to contend with in this business than a desperate amateur. All the pieces fit together now. The American was used by Howe-Wilken and Soutar as a last-ditch measure. Already Heilser’s office had been bombarded by a dozen inquires on Morrison’s whereabouts.

Heilser had told the American Embassy quite truthfully that he wished he knew where Morrison was and that he was looking for Morrison day and night. He did not, however, mention what would happen when he found Morrison. The Embassy even went so far as to oblige Heilser with two pictures of the American. One from a dust jacket of a book, another from a passport.

Unfortunately one could not identify his own mother from such photos.

The trained agent takes certain paths, certain risks. The trained agent puts his mission above his life. Not so the desperate amateur. He will be unorthodox, develop the cunning of a wild animal to keep alive.

Heilser reconstructed the chain of events. First Mosley’s call from Kalámai informing him that Morrison had not escaped from Greece and had been located in the B.E.F. After the call Heilser and Zervos had dashed to Corinth to await Morrison. Morrison had never showed up. Then, Mosley’s body was discovered near the beach at Kalámai and Heilser knew the desperate amateur had won a round.

Next, Soutar’s body was found near the rail bed outside Nauplion. Heilser had questioned every prisoner and guard who rode the train. Working sixty hours without sleep, Heilser was able to establish the fact that Morrison had been on the train with Soutar and that they had tried to escape a few moments apart. Soutar had failed, Morrison had succeeded.

Here the trail ended.

A strange, unaccountable disappearance. Zervos had been sent to Nauplion with a team of men to question everyone there and in the nearby villages.

Heilser threw down the hair brush in disgust. He knew the price of failure to turn up the Stergiou list. He knew the work involved in trying to locate a desperate amateur.

Zervos stood in the drawing room with his hat in his hand. His envious eyes moved around the luxurious suite and stopped at the liquor cabinet.

He poked his head toward the half-opened door leading to the bedroom. He could see the white sheets rustle.

Soon my time will come, Zervos thought. Reward from these German louts is small but a man can make his own rewards. He, Zervos, had played the right side. He had seized a grand opportunity. German occupation was a fact. A man does not want to be a government clerk all his life. To sell information was the right thing to do. Soon he would have a suite like this. The art collection he had taken from Stergiou’s home was but the beginning of a fortune. Other things would come his way, now that he was a respected citizen.

He thought of some of the wealthy Greek citizens. He, Zervos, had the power of the German police behind him. Soon he would be paying friendly visits to these wealthy compatriots of his. He would advise them, in a nice way of course, that they were suspect by the Gestapo. But he, Zervos, could be their friend and benefactor and could arrange protection for them. Unfortunately, such protection would cost quite a sum of money.

It would not be long now—a suite—a girl in the bedroom to please him... Perhaps he’d become the owner of an entire hotel. He would be rich and powerful. Not bad—not bad at all for a government clerk.

Zervos’ dream vanished as Heilser entered and shut the bedroom door. For a second they exchanged stares of mutual hate, distrust and fear. The German opened the conversation with the customary sharp, “Well!” It never failed to make the fat Zervos flinch.

Zervos shrugged his shoulders and flopped his hands to his side in a helpless gesture. “He has disappeared into thin air. We have turned Nauplion inside out.”

“Ridiculous!” Heilser said sharply. The German lit a cigarette and walked to the liquor cabinet. He offered Zervos a drink only because he did not want to see him drool.

The fat man stood awkwardly examining the strange labels. One day he’d understand and enjoy these labels. He spotted a familiar-looking bottle of
retsina
and guzzled a half tumbler full then wiped his lips with his sleeve.

“I tell you, Herr Oberst, the man has vanished.”

“Oh, shut up. There is nothing mysterious about it.” Heilser set his Scotch and water on the table and started to pace. Then he sat at a desk and opened a large map of Southern Greece and drew a circle around Nauplion and its environs. “Someone inside this circle knows the answer.” Heilser flipped the pencil on the table.

“But we have questioned a thousand people....”

“Then we question ten thousand more!” Heilser squashed his cigarette. “Do you know what kind of a man we are up against? We are up against a cornered rat. Nothing is more dangerous, more ingenious than a man who fights for his life.” Then Heilser began to recite, as though he were speaking to himself: “One of two things will happen—we find him or he will come to us. He will try to get to Athens sooner or later. He will try to contact someone here. It will not be the Embassy. It will be someone Soutar told him to contact. Who will it be? Any one of a dozen known sympathizers of the British whom we already keep under scrutiny.”

Heilser lit a cigarette and sipped his drink. “But we cannot wait for him to come to us. We go to him, slowly, quietly. We must not frighten him into the hills. He jumped a train moving at full speed. Unless he is a circus acrobat he is badly hurt and cannot move far or fast. I say he is still in or about Nauplion.”

“If you say so, Herr Heilser.”

“We agree on one thing, at least.” He looked at Zervos and sighed in disgust. “It is obvious that I must go to Nauplion at once and conduct the search.”

He arose and walked toward the bedroom. “We will find our Mr. Morrison, Zervos—we will find him if we have to look under every stone in your filthy country.”

“Yes, sir.”

Heilser opened the door and looked into the bedroom. “Wait in the lobby. I’ll be down in an hour or so.”

TWO

W
HEN HE OPENED HIS
eyes, everything around him was a dazzling white. The white-washed walls reflected a wash of golden sunlight. He shut his eyes, raised his hand to shade them, and opened them slowly again.

Staring down at him was a somber picture of Christ and a flickering candle burned beneath the picture. Transfixed, he looked at the picture several moments, then his eyes wandered to a half dozen ikons surrounding the picture.

He glanced around at the walls and stopped again and again to gaze at pictures of men with bushy beards or olive-skinned women with startlingly big black eyes. Scattered around the room were rudely built chairs and tables with a large loom in the center.

The brightness made a blur of everything and his eyes began to water. He felt numb. In an instant his mind flooded with recollections and he bolted up, then groaned, overcome by dizziness, and flopped back on the bed—a six-foot-wide bed built over an oven.

He heard a rustle at the other end of the room and sensed the presence of another person.

A handsome tanned girl of twenty stood over him. She had huge black eyes and a heavy bosom, and her jet-black hair fell softly onto a pair of smooth brown shoulders. He could see the separation of her breasts inside a low-cut blouse trimmed in fancy embroidery as she leaned over him. She wore a multi-colored skirt with a wide belt that reached clear up to her short bolero jacket.

“Help me up—I’ve got to get to Athens....”

“Calispera,” the girl whispered and ran from the room like a startled fawn.

Mike tried to struggle up but the slightest movement brought stabbing pains all over. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted his clothes on a chair near the bed. He reached out and worked through the pockets until he felt a pistol which he placed beneath his pillow.