Andros nodded reluctantly. “As you like, Baron.”
As Andros walked away, von Berg turned to Peter and said, “Follow him. Don’t let him out of your sight.”
82
N asos was waiting by the car and opened the rear door for Andros. Once behind the wheel, he started the engine and looked in the rearview mirror. Andros nodded numbly and they began to move slowly down the drive to the gate, where the sentry raised the bar and let them through.
“Everything go as planned?” Nasos asked.
Nothing had gone as planned; Andros was still sorting out what had just happened. But he could see his driver’s anxious eyes in the mirror and knew he had to provide some reassurance if they were to complete the last leg of this escapade.
“Not quite, Nasos, but we’ll see.”
The lights of the Vasilis estate faded behind the stately cypress trees as they moved on into the darkness. Kifissia was silent this time of night. A few minutes later, Nasos looked up into the rearview mirror and said, “We are being followed.”
Andros turned and could see two headlights in the distance. “You know the plan.”
Nasos nodded. “Yes, next bend in the road, you jump out and I drive on home. Later, I slip out through the back on foot.”
“You sure you won’t join us in Cairo?”
“I will join Colonel Psarros’s men in the hills,” Nasos replied. “I still have some thrasos left in me.”
Andros sensed both sadness and strength in the voice of his father’s faithful driver. He put his hand on the old man’s shoulder. “Take care, my friend.”
They came around the bend, and Nasos slowed momentarily while Andros opened the door and jumped out. He barely made it into the shrubs and ducked before the lights of the oncoming car passed over his head and moved on.
He sat there waiting. A moment later, he could hear the low hum of a car and saw the two flashes of light as the Gestapo car that had picked him up the night before in the Royal Gardens came around the corner and braked to a halt.
Lieutenant Jeffrey was behind the wheel. The rear door opened, and Eliot poked his head out. “Come on, inside now. We’ll barely make it to Piraeus in time as it is.”
As they moved off, Eliot looked at Andros and saw the wine-soaked shirt. “Good God, Andros, you’re bleeding.”
“Relax, it’s not mine.”
“Did you find the text?”
“Found where it is, among other things.”
“That will have to do,” Eliot said, handing over several envelopes. “Here are the orders you are to pass out when you reach the EOE base. And here are your false identity papers for the ship, just in case there’s a last-minute dock inspection, and some stevedore’s clothing. Change now.”
“I want to wait for Aphrodite,” Andros said, unbuttoning his dress shirt. He knew she’d said she wasn’t coming. But there was always a chance she’d change her mind. “She might be right behind us with her family.”
Eliot glared at him. “I told you not to muck things up, Andros. What if, in attempting to escape, she tips off von Berg? Where will that put us when we arrive in Piraeus?”
Andros thought of Werner and Hans on the floor of von Berg’s study, of the film negative that von Berg was sure to miss, and finally, of the determined look in Aphrodite’s eyes when she told him she wasn’t coming.
“You needn’t worry,” Andros replied. “I don’t think things could get any more mucked up than they already are.”
83
I t was after blackout when the Mercedes arrived in Piraeus and drove down to the docks. Straight ahead was the Turtle Dove, guarded by a dozen SS, who blocked the quay with their two Kubelwagen.
Andros was alarmed and asked, “Where’s my family?”
“Safely stowed aboard,” Eliot reassured him. “No need to worry. I’ll handle this.”
Jeffrey stopped the car, and a young SS captain walked up with his pistol. When the German saw the green piping of Eliot’s uniform, he stepped back in fear and clicked his heels. “Standartenfuhrer. An unexpected privilege. How may I help you?”
“Keep your eyes open,” Eliot replied in perfect German. “There is devilry afoot tonight, and we expect something to go down before dawn. Nobody but nobody is to enter that ship without your inspection.”
“ Zu Befehl, Standartenfuhrer.” The SS captain motioned one of the Kubelwagen to back away and allow the Mercedes through.
“Carry on,” said Eliot, and they proceeded down the quay toward the dock where the Independence was moored.
Jeffrey stopped the car, and Andros got out, joining the other stevedores in carrying the last consignments aboard the ship. The ship’s engines rumbled as Andros quickly made his way to the bridge.
Tsatsos was ecstatic. “You made it!”
“How much longer can we wait?” Andros asked, hoping against hope that somehow Aphrodite would arrive shortly.
“We can’t wait any longer,” said Karapis, the first mate. “The port authority has cleared us. It’s now or never. If they decide to inspect, they’ll discover you.”
Andros looked at the nervous faces of the crew and realized that too many other lives were at stake besides Aphrodite’s. Who was he to say that his beloved was more important than them or their loved ones? Or the men who would soon embark on the greatest invasion in human history?
“All right, then,” Andros said angrily. “Let’s go.”
Tsatsos shouted the orders, and slowly, the Independence moved out to sea.
Andros reached into his stevedore’s shirt and drew out the film negative he had stolen from von Berg’s safe. When von Berg noticed it was missing, Aphrodite would bear the brunt of his wrath. Andros wished he could sneak back to the Vasilis estate and put it back in the Baron’s safe.
But it was too late to turn back now.
Tsatsos got off the radio and turned to him, his face aglow from the compass, and exclaimed, “By God, Christos, we did it!”
But the words rang hollow in Andros’s ears. Three days ago he had come to Athens in the hope that he could once and for all exorcise the demons of his past. All he had managed to do, however, was destroy any future happiness he and Aphrodite might have shared if the war ever came to an end.
He looked back helplessly at the shrinking harbor, worried sick about her. Any hope he had of saving her was vanishing before his eyes. A gnawing sense of hopelessness and despair began to haunt him, the same emptiness he’d felt two days before when he stood at his father’s grave. Aphrodite seemed forever beyond his grasp.
Finally, he said, “I’ve failed, Tsatsos.”
84
B aron von Berg stood on the front steps of the Vasilis estate, bidding farewell to the last of his guests. “Good night…So good of you to come…Good night…Yes, thank you, the food will help so many of the city’s starving children…Good night.”
Franz walked up from behind. “The Independence just left Piraeus.”
“And the Turtle Dove?”
“Under guard since dusk. Nobody is getting aboard unless we know.”
“Good. Where is Andros now?”
“According to Peter, he headed straight home.”
“I’d be very much surprised if he remains there. What about Aphrodite?”
“Upstairs in her room. I have guards posted outside her door and below her balcony.”
“I’ll deal with her in the morning, before we fly to Corfu,” von Berg concluded. “First I want a word with her parents.”
85
T he spray of salt water slapped Andros’s face as he stood at the rail of the Independence, watching the black mass of mountains of the Peloponnese move against the starry sky. In the ship’s wake lay the island of Hydra, sleeping on the Aegean.
Andros tried to light a cigarette but couldn’t. To his dismay, he realized he was using the phony lighter containing the secret camera. He had left the lighter Aphrodite had given him in his tuxedo, which was in Eliot’s car back in Athens. His folly was complete, he decided. Not only had he not come out of Athens with Aphrodite, but he had lost his only token of their relationship.