There was a stunned silence as the four standing guards stared at the corpse.
“You killed him!” someone said.
Another said, “She’s hard as nails!”
“I’ll break her in two!” One of them came forward, swinging wildly at her.
She ducked, turned, and drove her knee into his testicles. The blow brought his head forward and down, and she followed by delivering a chin jab full force, using the weight of her body to drive the heel of her hand up into his chin, spreading her fingers so as to reach his eyes. She dug them deep into the sockets, and he cried out in pain. Then she pulled his skull forward and drove it into her knee again, knocking him unconscious and dropping him to the floor.
The remaining three guards closed in on her.
She felt a terrific pain as one of them seized her by the hair from behind and pulled her head back. In one rapid and continuous motion, she grabbed his wrist and arm with a firm grip and swiveled into him, twisting his arm.
“Hey, what are you doing?”
She stepped backward as far as possible with her right foot, jerked his hand from her head, and twisted it down and back between her legs. This sent him headfirst toward the ground.
“Stop her! She’s breaking my arm!”
One of the two remaining guards moved in to help. Keeping a firm grip on her captive’s wrist and arm, she followed up with a smashing kick to his face, sending him into his friend’s arms with enough force to make them both stumble backward and crash both heads against the wall. They dropped to the floor, unconscious.
The last guard came forward, fury in his bloodshot eyes. She stepped out of his reach, wrapped her chains around his neck, and pulled as hard as she could. For a wild moment he spun in circles, practically carrying her on his back as he tried to pry the chain loose, choking desperately. He slammed her against the wall, but she wouldn’t let go. Finally, he dropped to the floor.
Breathing hard, feeling dizzy, she looked around at the bodies strewn across the cell. She threw up. Doubled over, she could see blood dripping down the insides of her thighs, and the horrible pain between her legs made her fall to her knees.
There was no time for pain, she told herself. In a few minutes Frederick would be back.
She dragged herself over to the guard who had unlocked her leg chains and found the key. With a little work, she managed to unlock the wrist chains. As she rubbed her sore wrists, she heard a soft groan. She looked over to see a semiconscious guard starting to stir.
Oh, God, she thought, it wasn’t over. Not as long as they knew about the LaRoche family. She would have to make sure they were all dead. If only she hadn’t broken…
She found a half-empty bottle of beer on the floor, smashed it, and picked the most useful shard of glass. Crawling on all fours, she approached the semiconscious guard and slit his throat. The moaning stopped instantly.
She proceeded to move from one unconscious guard to another, slitting their throats, even the one whose skull she had crushed and the one she had strangled. She couldn’t afford to have one of them wake up on this side of death. She didn’t want to think about what they would find on the other side.
When she was finished, she found a guard who looked about her size. She stripped off his uniform and put it on. She slipped her swollen feet into the oversize jackboots, snatched a cap, and stood up, leaning against the wall to keep her balance. She rolled her hair up into a ball and put the cap on.
She waited by the door, drawing deep breaths, waiting for Frederick to return. He would open the door and see the bodies strewn across the floor. That moment of confusion would be her chance. She would kill him. She would snap the neck of Frederick Hoffer, a preacher’s kid like her, and she would feel no remorse. Then she would kill the sentry at the back door and stumble into the misty night.
A few minutes later, she heard the echo of Hoffer’s steps coming down the hallway. The key hit the lock, and she held her breath. The door opened, and a hulking figure entered the cell and turned toward her. But it wasn’t Hoffer.
It was Stavros.
She woke up, gasping for breath, wet strands of hair plastered across her face. She sat up in terror.
It was early morning, still dark, and she realized she was in her hut at the National Bands camp in the middle of nowhere, drawing deep breaths. It was only a dream-this time.
But it had happened for real once before. That meant it could happen again.
68
W hen Andros opened his eyes the next morning, he found himself lying on a green divan in what he discerned by the architecture to be an old Turkish house in the Plaka district. The living room bay protruded over a lonely street like the poop of an ancient galleon, affording the man who had knocked him out an unobstructed view on three sides of the neighborhood.
He remembered the night before in the Royal Gardens: the meeting with the shoeshine boy, the fight with the German soldiers, his capture by the Gestapo, and the rounding up and shooting of innocent Greeks. Their haunting cries echoed across his conscience. He could also feel a throbbing pain where the butt of a Schmeisser had crashed against his skull.
“Bastards,” Andros said, touching the cold, wet cloth wrapped around his head.
The man turned from the window. “Like I said last night, we bastards just saved your life,” he said in English. “Good thing our uniforms put the fear of God into them. They didn’t see your face.”
Andros sat up. The dawn’s early light revealed a land of saddle rooftops covered with crumbling brown tiles, clotheslines that crisscrossed over twisted alleys, and the whitewashed facades of houses with yellow oak doors and green-shuttered windows. He looked at the man. “British?”
“SOE. The name’s Jeffrey. Burger to the Germans. Have some tea. The others will be in shortly.”
“I see.” Andros felt his head and looked resentfully at Burger, or rather Jeffrey, who now poured some tea from the tray on the table. “You make a rather realistic Nazi.”
“Thank you. And you were rather dumb. Your little escapade in the Royal Gardens made the morning papers.”
Andros picked up the copy of Eleftheron Vima on the table. The front page carried an official notice by the German garrison commander whom Andros had seen at von Berg’s party. During the night of May 29-30, two German sentries were slain in the National Gardens by unknown terrorists. A strict inquiry is being instigated and the perpetrators will be punished with death. The German military authorities have endeavored to act in every respect favorably to the Greek people. On the basis of the facts and ascertainments set forth above, the conduct of the city at large toward the German armed forces has again become less friendly. Furthermore, the press and public opinion among all classes are still sympathetic to resistance workers and British agents who are in hiding. Cooperation will be sought to locate and punish the instigators. In the event the orders of the German armed forces are not obeyed, the severest sanctions will be regretfully imposed. Athens, 30 May 1943.
Andros was still reading when a voice said, “Next time don’t try to help orphans and widows. Do your job, and nobody else will get hurt.”
Andros looked up to see Brigadier Andrew Eliot walk in from the kitchen, again dressed as a priest on this quiet Sunday morning. With him were the other former Gestapo agents, now dressed as peasants. They sat down around the coffee table.
“And how are you feeling this morning?” asked Eliot.
Andros heaved a heavy, heart-aching sigh. “Considerably better than those poor souls in the Royal Gardens last night.”
“An unfortunate consequence of your bloodlust against the Germans. I gather you derived some pleasure from your first enemy kill of the war?”