Thomas Greanias - The 34th Degree

“Franz, come with me.”

Franz followed von Berg out of the library, down the corridor, and toward the party out back. There, from the top of the steps overlooking the garden, von Berg could see Aphrodite dancing with Chris Andros.

A phrodite could barely contain her hysteria. Chris had returned only seconds before Ludwig appeared with Franz at the top of the steps. Now Ludwig was motioning for Peter to come over.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” she asked Chris as they danced.

He looked over her shoulder at Ludwig and Franz. “Not exactly. But I got enough.”

She could smell sulfur from his hand. He had fired a gun. He had killed somebody in her family’s home. Dear God in heaven. “What happened?” she asked him. “Something went wrong, didn’t it?”

“Von Berg came in just as I was leaving,” Chris explained. “I managed to slip around the corner and climb back up the balcony to your room.”

“What about Hans?”

“What’s done is done,” he replied. “I stuffed the uniform into the same drawer I took it from. You’ll have to take it with you when you leave tonight.”

She decided now was the time to tell him. “I’m not coming.”

He looked at her incredulously. “What do you mean, you’re not coming?”

“You got what you wanted,” she said coolly. “Now leave me alone.”

“You’re what I want,” he pleaded with her. “That girl in Bern-she was nothing.”

His voice was rising with his passion, and she glanced around to make sure nobody had overheard him. He was losing his head and becoming unreasonable. She would have to do the thinking for both of them.

“I know that,” she said. “But the Baron isn’t about to let me out of his sight for one second. If I stay here at the party, at least you might still have a chance of getting out of Athens alive.”

Chris put his two firm hands on her shoulders and pulled her close to his desperate face. “You’re coming with me to Piraeus,” he said, shaking her. “You hear me? We’ve got less than an hour to get there, and I’m not leaving you behind!”

But she was staring at a red stain on his white tuxedo shirt. “Your shirt, Christos,” she gasped. “There’s blood!”

His eyes dropped to his shirt and came up horrified. “Aphrodite,” he gulped, “you’ve got to help me!”

She glanced around helplessly and then saw Ludwig, Franz, and Peter starting toward them. “Oh, God, Christos, I don’t know what to do!”

“Come with me to Cairo!”

But she would have none of it and grabbed a glass of red wine from a floating tray and flung it at him. The wine splattered across the front of his tuxedo, and she smashed the glass on the ground, bringing the dancing and music to an abrupt halt.

“I hate you, Christos!” she screamed. “I could never marry you!” Andros, his white shirt drenched in red, watched in horror as she turned around and ran up the steps of the garden into the house.

“Aphrodite!” he called.

But it was too late. She was gone by the time von Berg came up to him.

The Baron glanced back at the house and then looked him over curiously. “I can see you’ve had a little too much wine tonight, Herr Andros.”

Andros nodded grimly as he borrowed a white linen napkin from a passing orderly and patted the stain. “She’s right, you know,” he said. “I never should have come back.”

Aware of his guests, von Berg suggested, “Perhaps you should leave, Herr Andros. We can discuss business first thing tomorrow morning before you depart on the Turtle Dove.”

Andros nodded reluctantly. “As you like, Baron.”

As Andros walked away, von Berg turned to Peter and said, “Follow him. Don’t let him out of your sight.”

N asos was waiting by the car and opened the rear door for Andros. Once behind the wheel, he started the engine and looked in the rearview mirror. Andros nodded numbly and they began to move slowly down the drive to the gate, where the sentry raised the bar and let them through.

“Everything go as planned?” Nasos asked.

Nothing had gone as planned; Andros was still sorting out what had just happened. But he could see his driver’s anxious eyes in the mirror and knew he had to provide some reassurance if they were to complete the last leg of this escapade.

“Not quite, Nasos, but we’ll see.”

The lights of the Vasilis estate faded behind the stately cypress trees as they moved on into the darkness. Kifissia was silent this time of night. A few minutes later, Nasos looked up into the rearview mirror and said, “We are being followed.”

Andros turned and could see two headlights in the distance. “You know the plan.”

Nasos nodded. “Yes, next bend in the road, you jump out and I drive on home. Later, I slip out through the back on foot.”

“You sure you won’t join us in Cairo?”

“I will join Colonel Psarros’s men in the hills,” Nasos replied. “I still have some thrasos left in me.”

Andros sensed both sadness and strength in the voice of his father’s faithful driver. He put his hand on the old man’s shoulder. “Take care, my friend.”

They came around the bend, and Nasos slowed momentarily while Andros opened the door and jumped out. He barely made it into the shrubs and ducked before the lights of the oncoming car passed over his head and moved on.

He sat there waiting. A moment later, he could hear the low hum of a car and saw the two flashes of light as the Gestapo car that had picked him up the night before in the Royal Gardens came around the corner and braked to a halt.

Lieutenant Jeffrey was behind the wheel. The rear door opened, and Eliot poked his head out. “Come on, inside now. We’ll barely make it to Piraeus in time as it is.”

As they moved off, Eliot looked at Andros and saw the wine-soaked shirt. “Good God, Andros, you’re bleeding.”

“Relax, it’s not mine.”

“Did you find the text?”

“Found where it is, among other things.”

“That will have to do,” Eliot said, handing over several envelopes. “Here are the orders you are to pass out when you reach the EOE base. And here are your false identity papers for the ship, just in case there’s a last-minute dock inspection, and some stevedore’s clothing. Change now.”

“I want to wait for Aphrodite,” Andros said, unbuttoning his dress shirt. He knew she’d said she wasn’t coming. But there was always a chance she’d change her mind. “She might be right behind us with her family.”

Eliot glared at him. “I told you not to muck things up, Andros. What if, in attempting to escape, she tips off von Berg? Where will that put us when we arrive in Piraeus?”

Andros thought of Werner and Hans on the floor of von Berg’s study, of the film negative that von Berg was sure to miss, and finally, of the determined look in Aphrodite’s eyes when she told him she wasn’t coming.

“You needn’t worry,” Andros replied. “I don’t think things could get any more mucked up than they already are.”

I t was after blackout when the Mercedes arrived in Piraeus and drove down to the docks. Straight ahead was the Turtle Dove, guarded by a dozen SS, who blocked the quay with their two Kubelwagen.

Andros was alarmed and asked, “Where’s my family?”

“Safely stowed aboard,” Eliot reassured him. “No need to worry. I’ll handle this.”

Jeffrey stopped the car, and a young SS captain walked up with his pistol. When the German saw the green piping of Eliot’s uniform, he stepped back in fear and clicked his heels. “Standartenfuhrer. An unexpected privilege. How may I help you?”