Alan Furst - Spies of the Balkans

“We drink to that,” Anastas said. And they did.

2:30 A.M. The glossy black automobile was surely worth a fortune, Zannis had never seen one like it and had no idea what it was. It rolled to a stop in front of Anastas’s apartment building in Saint-Ouen, the back door swung open, and Zannis climbed in. The interior smelled like expensive leather. The driver turned to face him, holding him with his eyes for a long moment, likely making sure Zannis knew who he was dealing with. He knew. He recognized the breed: confident young men to whom killing came easily and smart enough to profit from it. Then the driver rested his hands on the wheel but the car never moved, simply sat there, the huge engine purring softly.

Zannis had known corrupt men of every sort, high and low, over the years he’d been with the police, but the friend of the friend, sitting next to him, was something new. He looked, Zannis thought, like a French king; prosperously stout, with fair, wavy hair parted to one side, creamy skin, a prominent nose, and a pouch that sagged beneath his chin. “I’m told you wish to leave France,” he said, his voice deep and used to command.

“That’s right.”

“The price, for two individuals, is two thousand dollars. Have you the money with you?”

“Yes.”

“I believe you are the man who shot a German officer. Did you do this because you have a hatred of Germans?”

“No. My friend was lying on the floor of the car, the officer would have seen him, so I had to do it. Why do you want to know?”

“To inform certain people-the people who need to know things. They don’t care what is done, they simply require information.”

“Germans?”

The man was amused. “Please,” he said, not unkindly. Then, “It doesn’t matter, does it?” It was as though he enjoyed innocence, found Zannis so, and instinctively liked him. “Now,” he said, “there are two ways for you to leave France. The first choice is a freight train controlled by Communist railway workers. Traveling in this way you may go to Germany, Italy, or Spain. However, once you’ve crossed the border-there will be no inspection of papers-you are on your own. Hopefully, you’ve made arrangements that will allow you to proceed from one of those countries.”

“I haven’t.”

“I see. In that case, you may wish to travel by airplane.”

“By airplane?” Zannis was incredulous.

“Yes, why not? Are you reluctant to fly?”

“Just … surprised.”

The man’s shrug was barely detectable. “If you wish to leave tomorrow, and for you that might not be a bad idea, the plane is going to …” He leaned forward, toward the driver, and said, “Leon?”

“Sofia.”

“Yes, Sofia.”

“That would be best,” Zannis said.

“Very well.” He held out a hand, creamy and fat, palm up, and said, “So then …”

Zannis had removed the money from his jacket lining and put the thick wad of bills in the pocket of his coat; now he counted out two thousand dollars in fifty-dollar bills. The man next to him, the French king, stowed the money in a leather briefcase, probing first to make room for it. Then he gave Zannis directions: the name of a village, how to identify the road that led to an airstrip, and a time. “All memorized?” he asked Zannis.

“Yes, I won’t forget.”

“When you describe your adventures in France, as no doubt you will have to, I would take it as a personal favor that you remain silent about this particular chapter, about me. Do I have your word?”

“You have it.”

“Do you keep your word?”

“I do.”

“Then good evening.”

Uncle Anastas had a friend-also an emigre Greek, it turned out-who owned an ancient truck, and he picked them up at dawn. A few minutes later they joined a long line of produce trucks, coming back empty after delivery to the Paris produce markets, and the soldiers waved them through the control at the Porte Maillot. Then he headed northwest from Paris on the road that followed the Seine, with signs for DIRECTION ROUEN. A wet, steady snow that morning, from a low sky packed with gray cloud. “We won’t fly today,” Byer said, staring anxiously out the window.

“We may have to wait,” Zannis said. “But I expect we’ll take off.”

“Not in this.” After he spoke, Byer swallowed.

Zannis studied him. What went on? “Everything all right?” he said.

Byer nodded emphatically. Nothing wrong with me .

It was hard to see, the windshield wiper smeared snow and road grime across the window, not much more than that, and the driver leaned forward and squinted, cursing eloquently in Greek. Finally he found the route departementale for La Roche-Guyon, the truck skidding as he made the last-minute turn. The narrow road wound past winter farmland for a long time, then it was Zannis who spotted the stone marker with a number chiseled into it, and the truck drove, in low gear, up a muddy, deeply rutted path. Finally, when they knew they’d taken the wrong turn, they saw an airplane in a plowed field. A compact twin-engine aircraft, a workhorse used for a few passengers or a small load of freight, with a white cross in a red circle insignia behind the cockpit. Swiss markings , Zannis thought. What a clever king . Two men were loading crates into the plane, through a cargo hatch on the underside of the fuselage. “You can walk from here,” the driver said. As he worked at getting the truck turned around, Zannis and Byer trudged across a field, wind-driven snow in their faces. When they neared the plane, one of the men saw them, stopped loading, and waited until they reached him. “You are the passengers?”

“Yes.”

“Bad morning.”

“Will we be able to fly?” Byer said.

“Me?” The man grinned. He had high, sharp cheekbones, hair sheared off close to the scalp, and, Zannis could hear it, a hard Slavic edge to his French. A Russian? A Serb? He wore a leather jacket and a dirty white scarf spotted with oil-a cinema aviator-with a holstered revolver on his hip. “You give us a hand,” he said. “We’ll take off sooner.”

The crates were heavy, MAS 38 stenciled on the rough wooden boards. Zannis wasn’t certain, but he had a pretty good hunch he was loading French machine guns. When they were done, the pilot’s helper headed toward a farmhouse on the horizon. The pilot rubbed his hands and looked up at the sky. “One of you can sit on the crates, the other can use the co-pilot seat.” He led them around the plane, to a door behind the cockpit with a short steel-frame ladder propped against the bottom of the doorway.

Standing at the foot of the ladder, Zannis waited for Byer to climb up. When he didn’t, Zannis said, “Time to go.” He sounded cheerful, but he knew he had trouble.

Byer stood there. He was in a trance, face dead white, eyes closed.

“Harry?”

No answer.

“Let’s go,” Zannis said sharply. No nonsense, please . The pilot was staring at them through the cockpit window.

But Byer was rooted to the earth. Zannis guessed that something had happened to him when the Wellington went down, and now he couldn’t get on the plane.

The pilot’s patience was gone, the engines roared to life and the propellers spun. Zannis tried once more, raising his voice over the noise. “One foot in front of the other, Harry, your way back to England. Think about England, going home.”

Byer never moved. So Zannis took him by the back of the collar and the belt, hauled him up the ladder, and shoved him into the plane. Then he sat him down on a pile of crates. From the cockpit, the pilot called out, “I have a bottle of vodka up here, will that help?”

“No, it’s all right now,” Zannis yelled back, closing the door, pulling a bar down to secure it.