‘The story,’ said Mallory.
‘Okay, okay. So I am in Trieste. In Trieste I am cook in café by docks, everything nice, when they tell me, Spiro, go on ship.’
‘Who tell you?’
‘SIS. Peoples in London. Spying peoples. They say Spiro, the King of Britains, big friend of the Kings of Greece, he need you stop listening to German mens talking in cafés, go to find cooking mans on Kormoran, arrange bad things. Then get on Kormoran and find out what goings on. So I find cooking man on Kormoran and give him accidents with open window and broken leg, and look at Spiro then, cook on this lousy God damned pig bastard ship Kormoran God rest his poor soul if his mother could see him now —’
‘The story,’ said Mallory.
‘The story, hokay. So I am working in the café with SIS and this guy, my contact, he say, get on this pig bastard ship Kormoran. So I go down to the port and it is a mess, you know, they are bombing him, and all the way down the back end there is this ship, this dirty little ship, and they say sure, the cook’s mate has fell down and broked his leg so we needs a cook’s mate and Spiro we know you are not a cook — normally,’ said Spiro, ‘I working as a thief, but the war, you know. So come aboard, they say. Well me I say I must go and kiss my girl goodbye, nice girl, very big moustache, but they say, no, come aboard now, so there I go, and they put me on that ship, slam door. Very strange ship. Outside dirty filthy like a latrine. Inside more tidy, clean, like German ship. And captain and officers stand-to-attention Heil Hitler sort of mens, must have all things regular and particular. Then big crateses arrives on an army sort of train, and more, gas bottles, I don’t know. Spiro had thinked, oh ho, stupid SIS peoples, false alarm. But then Spiro thinked, oh shits, if it ain’t a false alarm what in hells kind of alarm is this? But I carries on washing up, bringing bridge coffees, all that. Then,’ said Spiro, his vast black pupils swimming with sincerity, ‘come the miracles.’ He drew breath. He was panting. He was also, Mallory realized, very frightened.
‘It was morning,’ he said. ‘I took coffee to bridge. Ten fifty-five hours precisely. Kapitän Helmholz insist, exactly that time, no seconds before, no seconds after. Stupid bastards, dead now. So I get off bridge fast. And I am a little way down the stairs when bam! Something hit ship, then bam! Something else, and I can tell that all this is turning higgledy turvy and it is hot like hell and peoples screamings. So then I see the man go out of the radio rooms and up to the bridge, then one more bang and more broken glasses and he roll down stairses, head gone. Well I have seen before, bringing coffees to Sparks, that code machina, this seven-rotor Enigma, is in radio room, and SIS always pay good money for code machina. So I go quick double quick into the radio rooms and catches up the machina in his cases and jumps overboard double quick, big wind, everything terrible bright, and the case is a heavy thing and she wants to sink and it try to kill me but I do not let him. Well by the mercy of God the Creator the Redeemer may His name be blessed for ever and ever amen and also His holy saints’ — here he caught Mallory’s eye — ‘I am finding a big broken crate of wood, a hatch, who knows? And there is a great wind blowing. And it blow me far and away, and on to the shore of Kynthos. Now you tellings me, is that or is that not a miracles yes or no?’
‘Miracle,’ said Mallory. ‘Definitely.’
‘And the machine,’ said Carstairs. ‘What about the machine?’
‘Hah!’ said Spiro. ‘Well. I got him on beach. Very ill, I was. Lying with him, sleeping, very thirsty, sand in face, no move. Then a chap I think is there, speaking Greeks, give me drink of water.’ He was frowning, as if he did not remember properly. ‘Like dreams. Like dreams. Then I hear his voice loud, and other voices, not so loud, further away, and they are speaking Germans. I trying to get up, but no luck, fall on face bang, pass out again. And when I wakes up again I am in some ambulance, on some bed, and there are Germanses everywhere, but no machina.’
‘No machine,’ said Carstairs. ‘Then they’ve got it.’
‘Greeks man got it,’ said Spiro. ‘I spose. I never seen it no more. But I worry, I worry. I am thinking, if I wakes up, then they ask me questions, so I will be asleep and they will not ask me no questions and I will not be frightened. Because I am weak, you know, when I am tired like this, and I will tell anybody anything. So I make out I am knock out. So there.’
‘You pretended to be in a coma for a week?’ said Mallory.
‘Just about. Yes,’ said Spiro, with some smugness. ‘Eat, drink when nobody lookings. When you are very very frightens you can be very very brave.’
Carstairs said, ‘You are very brave and we admire you like hell, but we will tell you all about that later. Where is the machine?’
‘I remembers,’ said Spiro. ‘This chap who give me drink of water on beach. He said he was hiding this thing in a place that only he know, nobody else, ever. So is okay. He is a good guy, I think: hate Germans scums, fight for us, our side. And he give me his name. So now we go find him, tell him, British armies arrived, hand over, me old cocky. Everything hunky-boo.’
‘So what was his name?’ said Carstairs.
‘Achilles,’ said Spiro. Then, by Mallory’s computation about a thousand years later, ‘What wrong? You get problem?’
‘Yes,’ said Mallory. ‘Just a bit.’
Because Achilles was the name of the brother of Clytemnestra, who had been hanged in the Parmatia razzia. So it seemed very much as if the seven-rotor Enigma machine was somewhat lost.
In the dark very close behind them, someone cleared his throat. Mallory’s hand jumped automatically on the cocking lever of his Schmeisser.
‘Not today, thanks,’ said a voice. And Miller stepped into the lamplight, with Andrea close beside him.
‘I’ll go and find her,’ said Andrea.
‘Find who?’ said Carstairs.
‘Clytemnestra. Achilles’ sister.’
‘You heard.’
‘He wasn’t exactly whispering.’
Carstairs laughed, his short, patronizing bark. ‘Clytemnestra could be anywhere.’
‘We have a rendezvous,’ said Andrea. ‘The road’s open, again. We’ll take transport. We’ll find this machine.’
Carstairs nodded his head, wincing slightly. ‘I expect you will,’ he said. Then he swayed and lay down, suddenly.
‘What is it?’ said Mallory.
‘Giddy,’ said Carstairs. He tried to sit up, fell down again. ‘Christ.’
‘Stay there,’ said Mallory. You could not expect a man who had smashed himself unconscious on a rock to laugh lightly and carry on as if nothing had happened. ‘Andrea, get going. Miller, what’s your timing?’
‘Eight-hour fuses,’ said Miller.
‘Yes,’ said Mallory. ‘And the rest of it?’
‘Depends when they start pumping fuel,’ said Miller.
‘Any sign of anyone doing any rocket firing?’
‘Dunno,’ said Miller. ‘They’ve got one standing right there, pointed out of the roof. There weren’t no action we could see. But I guess they could have that sucker ready to go in, what, two hours, from a standing start?’
Andrea said, ‘I’ll be at the jetty by sunrise.’ There was no sound of movement. One moment he was there; the next, the darkness had flowed in to occupy the place where he had been standing.
‘Well,’ said Miller. ‘This is real nice.’ Miller was a man who believed in reconnaissance. On the way to the village, he had checked the place out. Once, it had probably been a thriving little community. Now, by the look of it, the original inhabitants had been displaced, the houses turned into dormitories for the men who worked inside the mountain, the church desecrated, a field kitchen on its mosaic floors turning out coarse bread and a soup whose smell did not inspire Miller to make its further acquaintance.