Alan Furst - Spies of the Balkans

The plane began to bump across the field, gathering speed, then, heavily loaded, it wobbled aloft and climbed into the gray cloud.

Melissa stood on her hind legs, tail wagging furiously, set her great paws on his chest and licked his face. “Yes, yes girl, I’m back, hello, yes.” The welcome from his family was no less enthusiastic-they knew he’d been up to something dangerous and were relieved that he’d returned. A demand that he stay for dinner was gently turned aside; he wanted to go back to his apartment, to his bed, because he wanted to sleep more than he wanted to eat. So he promised he would return the following night and, by the time he let Melissa out the door, his grandmother was already at her sewing machine, working the pedals, restitching the lining of his jacket. As he walked down the hill toward the waterfront, Melissa ran ahead of him, turning from time to time to make sure he hadn’t again vanished, a sickle slice of moon stood low in the night sky, the streets were quiet, it was good to be home.

The flight to Bulgaria had been uneventful. At one point-was it Germany down there? Austria? — a pair of patrolling Messerschmitts came up to have a look at them, then banked and slid away. Perhaps the French king had permission to fly his crates over Germany-from some office, in some building. Perhaps more than one office, perhaps more than one building, perhaps more than one country. Perhaps the French king could do whatever he wanted; it had not been easy for him to find room in his briefcase for the two thousand dollars. Zannis had, in time, accepted the pilot’s invitation to sit in the co-pilot’s seat. From there he watched the passage of the nameless winter land below, the hills and the rivers, and wondered what to do about the crates. Machine guns to Bulgaria? For who? To shoot who? So, say something to Lazareff? Who worked for the Sofia police. Tell them? Tell Bulgaria-the historic enemy of Greece? He’d given his word to the French king, he would keep it. Did that include the crates?

In the end, it didn’t matter.

Because the pilot landed at a military airfield north of Sofia, and a squad of Bulgarian soldiers was waiting to unload the shipment. The officer in charge at the airfield had no idea what to do with unexpected, and unexplained, passengers, and had pretty much decided to hold them at the base and await orders from above. But then, at Zannis’s insistence, he’d made a telephone call to Captain Lazareff, which produced a police car and a driver, who dropped them off at a restaurant in Sofia.

There, over plates of lamb and pilaf, accompanied by a bottle of Mastika, Lazareff and Zannis conversed in German, which excluded Byer, who, now back on solid ground, hardly cared. Lazareff inquired politely about the flight, Zannis responded politely that it had been smooth and easy. Lazareff suggested-still polite, though with a certain tightness at the corners of the mouth-that it would be better if Zannis were to forget he’d seen the plane’s cargo.

“What cargo?”

“You’ll tell your friend there? Whoever he is?”

“What friend?”

“Ha-ha-ha!”

More Mastika, tasting like anise, and lethal.

“By the way,” Lazareff said, “the situation in Roumania is a little worse than the newspapers are letting on. We calculate six hundred and eighty thousand troops, maybe sixty Wehrmacht divisions, artillery, tanks, all of it. They have to be fed, it isn’t cheap, so they’re obviously there for a reason. Probably they’re meant to intimidate us or, if it comes to that, invade. Or maybe they’re there to threaten the Serbs, or maybe Greece. Our response, so far, has been to tell Hitler that we’re not quite ready to sign his pact.”

“Not quite ready?”

“Not quite. We’ve destroyed the bridges over the Danube.”

“That would be a message, I’d think.”

“A tantrum. We’ve seen the materiel, struts and floats, that can be assembled into pontoon bridges.”

“I appreciate your telling me,” Zannis said.

“I expect your generals know all about it,” Lazareff said. “But I think you should know also, Costa, so you can make your own, personal … arrangements. If you see what I mean.”

From there, they’d moved to lunchtime conversation. And by midafternoon, after Zannis had telephoned Escovil, and with exit visas provided by Lazareff, Zannis and Byer were on the train to Salonika. At six-thirty in the evening, Byer was delivered to Escovil at the Pension Bastasini. “How did you get here so quickly?” Escovil said, accusation in his voice.

“It’s a long story,” Zannis said. “For another time.”

“You didn’t travel on the trains,” Escovil said. It wasn’t a question.

“You were watching, weren’t you.”

“Of course. So we’ll want you to explain.”

“Later,” Zannis said. “I’m going to see my family.” He was exhausted, at the last available edge of patience. Escovil knew what came next, so left it there and, a brief taxi ride later, Melissa came to the door to greet the returning hero.

Back at his apartment, the hero was exhausted-threw the mail on the kitchen table, washed his hands, and flopped down on the bed. But then, his mind charged with the images of the past few days, he realized he was not going to be able to sleep any time soon, so took off his shoes and socks and covered himself with a blanket. He tried to return to Inspector Maigret, waiting on his night table, but memories of the real Paris intruded and the book lay open on his chest while he brooded about them. Uncle Anastas was a shining example of survival, even prosperity, in an occupied city, but that was Anastas, who could deal with anything. So could he, come to that, but his family couldn’t. According to Lazareff, time was growing short, the Balkans would be overrun, and Zannis had to make plans to save his family. Where could they go? How, once he became involved in resistance and likely in hiding, would he support them? The Germans would eventually figure out who had shot their SS officer, would they dare to come after him in Greece? Maybe not, but they would be looking for him the day they entered the city.

For these problems he had no solutions, so tried Maigret again but couldn’t concentrate- Madame Cavard was who? Time was running short-so why was he alone on this bed? What was Demetria doing? In bed herself? In bed with Vasilou? What a bastard, the bully he’d heard on the telephone. So, there was also Demetria to save. What if he telephoned …?

He woke with a start, then turned off the lamp. While he’d slept, Maigret had disappeared. No, there he was, under the blanket.

10 February, 1941.

Well before dawn, Costa Zannis woke from a night of bizarre and frightening dreams. He lay there with his eyes open, supremely grateful that none of it was real and so, fearing that further horrors awaited him if he went back to sleep, forced himself to get out of bed. He washed, dressed for work, let Melissa out the door, and walked down to the waterfront corniche, to a kafeneion that stayed open all night for the stevedores and sailors of the port. There he drank coffee, smoked cigarettes and stared out the window, where the sky was streaked with red cloud as the sun, coming up over the Aegean, lit the whitecaps in the bay and the snow on Mount Olympus in the distance. The fishing caiques were headed out to sea, attended by flocks of seagulls, their cries sharp in the morning silence.

The kafeneion was quiet, only the sleepy waiter, a fiftyish prostitute with dyed-red hair, and a man dressed in merchant seaman’s sweater and wool watch cap. Zannis took a morning paper from the counter and looked at the headlines: somebody had taken a potshot at the mayor, the bullet punching a hole in his briefcase and coming to rest in the sheaves of official paper packed inside.