Ник Картер - Assassin - Code Name Vulture

“How do I know you are who you claim to be?” He sounded annoyed.

“You know that we risked our lives to free you. As a matter of fact, we lost a man,” I answered acidly. “I would think that would give us the benefit of the doubt.”

His face sagged from sudden weariness. “You’re right. Please forgive me. I have been through a great deal.”

“As for your handling Stavros alone, Mr. Minourkos,” I continued, “that’s pretty impractical. The man has an army around him.”

Minourkos raised his eyebrows and blew his cheeks out “All right, all right, Mr. Carter. I will go along with you and the girl. But if I see, at any point along the way, that your methods are not working I will take command of the situation.”

I smiled briefly. “That sounds fair,” I replied. “Were you abducted from Athens by Stavros?”

Minourkos got the straight-back chair he had been sitting on when I broke into the room. He sat down on it, facing us.

“You would not believe the cleverness of the man,” he began slowly. “I do not consider myself an innocent, Mr. Carter, but I have never met anyone like Adrian Stavros. I had been pursuing the idea of building a fleet of computer-run, underwater oil tankers. Stavros found out about this and wanted to help me with it — or so he said.

“At first I would not even see him, but he sent me a letter outlining some very good ideas. I finally invited him to my penthouse in Athens. We had a long talk.

“ ‘Mr. Minourkos,’ I recall him saying to me, ‘I have the same plan as you. If you will just allow me, I will make you immortal in the annals of shipping history. He was very persuasive.

“ ‘But, Mr. Stavros,’ I said, ‘there are complex engineering problems to be solved.’

“ ‘I have two engineers who can do it,’ he told me. Underneath the charm, even then, I saw something else in the man’s face, something I did not like, but I passed it off as undue excitement about the project.”

“Did he bring the engineers to you?” I asked.

“Oh, yes. They had imaginative ideas, too. I was convinced that they might have the skills to make it all happen. At that point, Mr. Carter, I let my guard down. He asked for a private meeting at the penthouse and I granted it. There were only my personal secretary and another aide present. He brought two men with him that I had not seen previously.”

“Is that when it happened?” Erika asked.

“Well, at first I suspected nothing,” Minourkos said, his face ashen as he remembered. “Then, almost without warning, Stavros asked my aides to go into another room. One of Stavros’ men followed. There were two gunshots.” Minourkos fell silent.

“He murdered them right there?” I asked.

“In cold blood. His henchmen knocked me down and kicked me almost unconscious. They took me into that other room and made me look at the bloody bodies. I will never forget it.

“Salaka, my secretary, lay in a pool of his own blood. The other fellow’s face was blown off. Stavros said I could expect the same thing if I did not cooperate.”

“What happened after that?”

“The next day they brought in a man who looked exactly like Salaka Madoupas. The man even spoke like Salaka and affected all his mannerisms. It was incredible, really incredible. It was like an awful nightmare.”

“Did they have a man to impersonate you?” Erika asked.

“No, they did not have to. I am rarely seen, except by close business associates. They brought in a recorder and played several tapes of my voice that they had recorded without my knowledge at previous meetings. Stavros pointed a gun at my head and said he could kill me right there and nobody would know for a very long time. But, he said, I would live if I did not give them too much trouble. They needed me, he said, for further recordings and for putting letters and such into my own words and thoughts. So they put me aboard a private plane and abducted me to this Godforsaken place.”

“Did Stavros tell you what he was going to do?” Erika asked, perplexed.

Minourkos grunted out a dry laugh. “He was quite candid. He said that they intended to overthrow the government of Greece in my name, that they would call upon my friends in the military and other fields by using the man who was impersonating my secretary to make phone calls and personal contacts. Because I have been a private person, nobody would think it unusual that I did not meet personally with them. And if someone insisted on seeing me, they might fly me to Athens and force me to meet with him and say things that they wanted me to say.

“They showed me another man who could forge my signature exactly. This man would write checks on my various accounts and spend my money for military coups that they were going to organize.”

“Did he give you any details?” I asked.

“Mr. Stavros, whom I am ashamed to admit has Greek ancestry, spoke freely to me, both in Athens and here. He said his plan is divided into three parts. First, he intends to get rid of the ruling junta and place men in power who feel an allegiance to me. They will feel this allegiance not because they are friends, for most of them will not be, but because Stavros will have promised them power and glory in my name.”

“Very clever,” I remarked.

“Secondly, his plan will involve forcing these new generals and colonels to demand that I, Nikkor Minourkos, be named president with full power over the junta. Stavros indicated that I might be used for this part of the plan, since my privacy would have to be abandoned at that point That is, I would be used if it was clear that Stavros could trust me to keep quiet about what was really going on. If not, he would find another imposter, this time for me.”

“It would work, too,” Erika commented. “Very few people know your face well enough to detect a slight difference between your features and those of an imposter.”

“Exactly,” Minourkos said. “It’s incredible that my pursuit of privacy has contributed to this horror. Anyway, the third phase of the plan would involve using me or the imposter as president of Greece for a short time, during which period I would appoint Stavros vice president He would be a citizen by then and his name would have been gradually introduced to the people of Greece. He would then be seen as the hero behind the coup. Then, announcing ill health, I would step down in favor of Stavros as president.”

Minourkos fell silent “It’s wild,” I said. “What makes Stavros think that the Greeks will stand by and watch something like that happen?”

“Why not?” Minourkos asked, his face lined with fatigue. “Remember what happened in April, 1967, when the junta was formed? That was not a bloody coup, but it was a coup. The government of the king was overthrown by force. Many articles of the constitution were suspended by the junta’s decree. It is ironic, is it not, that a man like this appears just when the constitution has been restored and when the junta has become more moderate and is setting up general elections for next year. If Stavros’ plan to grab power succeeds, Greece could end up with a tyranny more complete than Hitler’s or Stalin’s.”

Erika looked from Minourkos to me. “Then we must stop him, mustn’t we?”

Minourkos studied Erika’s face. “Yes. We must!” The stout Greek stood up and thrust his square chin forward. “This man is even using my family against my homeland. He boasts that my brother-in-law, General Vassilis Kriezotou, thinks I am behind this ugly plot and has thrown his support behind it because he thinks I want it. Yes, I will help you in any way I can. What do we do first?”

“We go to Athens,” I said. “That’s where we find and stop Stavros.”