I’d like to be in the room when you tell Zannis that. But Escovil knew there was no point in starting an argument he couldn’t win. “Paris is a long way from here. Why wouldn’t you take Byer out by fishing boat, from the French coast?”
“Option closed,” Jones said. “For the time being. Somebody got himself caught up there and the Germans shut it down. We’ll get it back, in time, but right now you’ll have to use your escape line.”
“It isn’t mine.”
“Now it is.”
Oh piss off. “And why does Zannis have to go?”
“Because Byer will never make it by himself, speaks not a word of any continental language. He can read a scientific journal in German, but he can’t order lunch. And, more important, if he’s caught, we have to be able to show we did everything we could. We have to show we care.”
Escovil suppressed a sigh. “Very well, I’ll ask him.”
“No,” Wilkins said, now quite irritated, “you’ll tell him. ‘Ask him’ indeed.”
Jones said, “Do it any way you like, but keep in mind, Francis, we don’t take no for an answer.” He stood, collected Wilkins’s glass, then Escovil’s, and poured fresh drinks. When he’d resettled himself, he said, “Now,” in a tone of voice that was new to Escovil, and went on to explain how they thought the thing might actually be done. Bastards they were, to the very bone, Escovil thought, but at least, and thank heaven, smart bastards.
27 January. A telephone call from Escovil, early that afternoon. Could they meet? Privately? Zannis’s instinctive reaction was to refuse, courteously or not so courteously, because the word “privately” told the tale: the spies wanted something. And it wasn’t such a good day to ask Zannis anything, because he was miserable. He had waited for a call from Demetria, waited and waited, but it hadn’t come. Five long days had crept by, his heart soaring every time the telephone rang: It’s her! But it never was. Now, he would either have to assume she’d thought better of the whole thing, or was waiting for him-as he’d promised, very nearly threatened-to call her. Meanwhile, the spies were after him. Back in the autumn, in his time with Roxanne, he would have laughed. But the world had changed, the war was coming south, and only the British alliance might save the country.
And didn’t they know it.
“It’s really rather important,” Escovil said. “Is there somewhere …?”
Skata. “You can come to the office after six,” Zannis said, a sharp edge to his voice. “Do you know where it is?”
“I don’t.”
Oh yes you do. Zannis gave him directions, then said, “It’s very private here, once everyone’s gone home, you needn’t be concerned.” And the hell with your damn bookstores and empty churches.
And so, at five minutes past six, there he was. “Hello.”
He’d been drinking, Zannis could smell it on him. And there were shadows beneath his eyes, which made him seem, with his sand-colored hair swept across his forehead, more than ever a boy grown old. Beneath a soiled raincoat, the battered tweed jacket.
Once he was seated on the other side of the desk, Zannis said, “So then, what do you want?”
Such directness caused Escovil to clear his throat. “We must ask a favor of you.”
We. Well, now that was out of the way, what next? Not that he wanted to hear it.
“It has to do with your ability to bring refugees, bring them secretly, from northern Europe to Salonika.”
“You know about this?”
“We do.” Escovil’s tone was apologetic-the secret service was what it was and sometimes, regretfully, it worked.
“And so?”
“We need to make use of it, for a fugitive of our own. An important fugitive-that is, important to the British war effort.”
Zannis lit a cigarette. That done, he said, “No.” Lighting the cigarette had given him an opportunity to amend his first answer, which had been, Get out of my office.
Escovil looked sorrowful. “Of course. That’s the proper response, for you. It’s what I would say, in your place.”
Then good-bye.
“You fear,” Escovil went on, “that it might jeopardize your operation and the people who run it.”
“It could very well destroy it, Escovil. Then what becomes of the men and women trying to get out of Germany? I’ll tell you what: they’re trapped, they’re arrested, and then they are at the mercy of the SS. Want more?”
“No need,” Escovil said, very quietly. “I know.” He was silent for a time, then he said, “Which might still happen, even if you refuse to help us.”
“Which will happen.”
“Then …”
“It’s a question of time. The longer we go on, the more lives saved. And if some of our fugitives are caught, we can try to fix the problem, and we can continue. People run away all the time, and the organization designed to catch them adjusts, gets what information it can, and goes to work the next day. But if they discover an important fugitive, perhaps a secret agent, it suggests the existence of others, and then the organization starts to multiply-more money, more men, more pressure from above. And that’s the end of us.”
“He’s not a secret agent.”
“No?”
“No. He’s a downed airman. Who, it turns out, is a scientist, and shouldn’t have been allowed to join the RAF, and certainly shouldn’t have been allowed to fly bomber missions. But he escaped the attention of the department which-umm, attends to such individuals. And now they want him back.”
“And you can’t get him back on your own? You?”
“I don’t like saying this, but that’s what we’re doing.”
“And I don’t like saying this, but you’re endangering many lives.”
“Well, frankly,” Escovil said, “we do nothing else. We don’t want to, we’d rather not, but it seems to work out that way.”
Zannis thought for a time. “You have no alternative?”
“Not today.”
“I’ll tell you something, Escovil, if I find out you’re lying to me you’ll be on the next boat out of here.”
“I take your point, but that won’t happen. Don’t you see? It’s gone beyond that now. The war, everything.” He paused, then said, “And I’m not lying.”
“Oh, well, in that case …”
“I’m not. And you can assure yourself that the individual is precisely who I say he is.”
“Really? And how exactly would I do that?”
“Ask him.”
Zannis didn’t go directly home. He stopped at the neighborhood taverna, had an ouzo, then another, and considered a third but, nagged by guilt over putting off Melissa’s dinner, hurried back to Santaroza Lane. Then too, the third ouzo wouldn’t, he realized, have much more effect than the first two, which had had no effect whatsoever. His mind was too engaged, too embroiled, to be soothed by alcohol. It lifted briefly, then went back to work. Sorry!
He simply could not persuade himself that Escovil was lying. Years of police work had sharpened his instincts in this area, and he trusted them more than ever. After Escovil’s little surprise-“Ask him”-he’d gone on to explain the proposed operation, which was artfully conceived and made sense. Made the most perfect sense, as long as Zannis was willing to accept a certain level of danger. And who-given the time and circumstance-wouldn’t? Not him. He had to go to Paris. He had to go to Paris. And do what had to be done. And that was that.
Lying on the bed in his underwear, he reached toward the night table and had a look, yet again, at the photograph he’d been given. Yes, Byer was exactly who Escovil had said he was, bruises and all. And how had Escovil’s organization managed to get the photograph out of France? Escovil had claimed not to know and, as before, Zannis believed him. Next he studied the second photograph of Byer, the one in the Sardakis passport, a real passport photo, it seemed, and a real Greek passport. Perhaps for them not so difficult but, even so, impressive. So, was this a man who would murder his wife and her lover in a fit of jealousy? Well, it surely was-the owlish, seemingly harmless intellectual. Skata! He’d seen such murderers, that was exactly what they looked like!