88
I t was midday siesta at the National Bands base when Erin Whyte walked into Chris’s kaliva and found him fast asleep. He had taken off his seaman’s shirt from the night before and looked handsome yet sad as he lay sprawled across the hard cot: an angel with broken wings. She decided not to disturb him and left the Special Forces uniform she had brought with her on top of the small, rough-hewn table. Then she went out in search of Colonel Kalos and Stavros Moudjouras.
She found them not in their shepherd’s huts but a mile away, outside in a clearing they had converted into a firing range. Instead of German cutouts in front of sandbags, they had placed empty bottles of brandy on top of barrels at the target end. Stavros stood at the designated firing line with a special collection of weapons laid out on a crate while Colonel Kalos blew the tops off the bottles with an American Colt. 45. Looking on were young Michaelis and a dozen EDES and ELAS andartes.
“Not bad,” said Stavros, rendering his verdict on his rival’s performance. “But a Colt’s no good in Greece if you don’t have bullets, and a forty-five-caliber can’t chamber Axis ammunition.” The ELAS kapetanios reached over and picked up the standard Wehrmacht pistol, the Walther P-38, tiny in his giant hand. “Now, this fires the nine-millimeter Parabellum round, which we can take off any dead German, and it can be fired single or double action.”
Stavros fired the full eight rounds of the magazine at the bottles, the slide clicking forward after the last round was unloaded. The ELAS andartes on hand applauded, but he missed three bottles.
“I’d stick with your Sten if I were you,” Kalos commented, to the howls of the EDES andartes. “Good for spraying bullets when you’re outnumbered, at least, and it can chamber Axis ammunition as well.”
Erin cleared her throat and broke up the gathering. “Now that we’re all familiar with the weapons of the enemy, I suggest we move on to winning the war.”
“Ah, Captain Whyte,” said Kalos. “Perhaps you might try?”
Erin paused, feeling the enthusiastic glances of Michaelis and the others. There was nothing in the world she’d like better than to show up these macho Greek males, but this wasn’t the place or the way to do it.
“Don’t make the lady embarrass herself, Kalos,” said Stavros, who had already reloaded the Walther and was gamely offering it to her.
It was a challenge she couldn’t refuse without losing the respect of the others, she realized. And to lose their respect would mean losing her best defense against unsolicited physical advances or, worse, challenges to her authority. Reluctantly, she took the Walther and ran her hand over its smooth black steel barrel.
“You boys make it look so easy,” she lamented as her arm swung up effortlessly. Without taking any apparent aim, she blew away the three remaining bottle tops. She laid down the gun and smiled at the slack-jawed Stavros. “But then, it is.”
Young Michaelis’s dark, animated eyes grew wide in wonder. The rest of the Greeks were silent. Now that she had succeeded in securing their attention, it was time to get down to business.
“Stavros, Kalos, you come with me on patrol,” she said sharply, with an authority nobody questioned. “I have your new orders from the Middle East GHQ.”
89
S tavros could only wonder what Cairo was going to ask of them this time. They found a small, private clearing a mile away and squatted in a circle. Michaelis, who had insisted on coming along, was watching their horses on the other side of some pine trees, playing with the portable transmitter in Captain Whyte’s saddle sack.
“Here are your orders,” Whyte said, passing specially marked envelopes to him and Kalos after opening one for herself. “They’re in Greek but encoded in the C cipher,” she added, “so it may take a minute for you to translate. Read them, memorize them, then destroy them.”
“We’re just going to blow another damn bridge,” Stavros muttered, tearing open his envelope. He hated codes and ciphers, in part because he was a poor reader even without the extra burden. He often relied on Michaelis, who had at least some schooling. “I don’t see the reason for…”
But even Michaelis would not understand this message, Stavros realized with a shock, because the code had come from Moscow. Stavros looked up at Captain Whyte and then glanced back at his note, which read: We have discussed the possibility of the day when you would fulfill the mission for which you were originally trained. That day has come. Now that Stalin has dissolved the Comintern, you and your comrades in the Central Committee in Greece will take your orders directly from me. With the liberation of Greece at hand, the British will attempt to install the king and his monarcho-fascist government. They will use Zervas and his EDES swine or the front they call the National Bands of Greece as their means. You will not let that happen. You will assume command of the EOE and will not give up your arms until Greece has popular rule as well as national liberation. Such a democracy leaves no room for any resistance movement other than the National Liberation Front. It alone is the legitimate representation of the Greek people and must be recognized as such. Toward that end, immediately upon destroying this order, you are to kill the following three monarcho-fascists: the agent code-named Theseus; the son of General Andros; and the British liaison officer to the EOE. Fulfill your orders and your transgressions will be forgiven. Fail and you will bear the punishment of all comrades who have renounced their faith.
THE MINOTAUR
The Minotaur is in Greece, thought Stavros, trembling at the return of the Soviet agent he hadn’t heard from in so long. Too long, really. He glanced up to see Kalos walking back to the horses. Captain Whyte was smiling at him.
“Have it memorized?” she asked him. “Good. Now burn it.”
Stavros struck a match and touched it to the order. He watched it burn into nothing as he slowly turned the implications over in his mind. He knew he needed to redeem himself before his comrades, but was murder the way to do it? He could understand killing the son of General Andros. But kill Theseus, a woman? Kill Colonel Doughty, their most respected military adviser, and probably destroy any chance of future arms supplies?
This is madness, he thought, and yet the terrifying realization gripped him that if the Minotaur could so manipulate events that a British officer could hand out her own death sentence, he could do anything.
Captain Whyte could see his confusion. “Is there something you don’t understand?” she asked.
“Yes,” Stavros replied, slowly raising his Sten gun and training it on her.
Captain Whyte took in the barrel of the ugly submachine gun and then looked into his eyes. Without even a trace of fear in her voice, she calmly stated, “So, I’ve finally met the Minotaur.”
Stavros, aware that his own voice was trembling, said, “I’m not the Minotaur.”
“You’re not?” she asked.
Unable to bring himself to pull the trigger, Stavros lowered the barrel. “No,” he said, and sighed. “I’m not.”
“I’m disappointed,” she replied.
“So am I,” said Kalos, who stepped forward from the pine trees, pointing one of his pearl-handled Colts at Stavros and the other at Captain Whyte. “She is our enemy, comrade. She has to be stopped, just like Andros must be stopped.”
“You?” said Stavros in disbelief, shocked to discover that the right hand of General Zervas was a Communist. “You are the Minotaur?”
“I answer to him, as do you,” Kalos replied as he moved slowly and deliberately toward him and Captain Whyte. “My orders are to kill you if you should fail in your orders.”
“But killing our British military advisers?” Stavros asked, glancing at Captain Whyte. “How can this possibly advance our cause?”
“She and the colonel were getting suspicious, about to send some damaging reports about me and the Minotaur to the foreign office in Cairo,” Kalos explained, the barrel of his Colt now at the captain’s back. “And I don’t need to remind you, Stavros, that when the liberation comes and the Germans are gone, the British will try to reinstall the king and his monarcho-fascist government. We cannot let that happen.”