Thomas Greanias - The 34th Degree

“Keep your eyes open,” Eliot replied in perfect German. “There is devilry afoot tonight, and we expect something to go down before dawn. Nobody but nobody is to enter that ship without your inspection.”

“ Zu Befehl, Standartenfuhrer.” The SS captain motioned one of the Kubelwagen to back away and allow the Mercedes through.

“Carry on,” said Eliot, and they proceeded down the quay toward the dock where the Independence was moored.

Jeffrey stopped the car, and Andros got out, joining the other stevedores in carrying the last consignments aboard the ship. The ship’s engines rumbled as Andros quickly made his way to the bridge.

Tsatsos was ecstatic. “You made it!”

“How much longer can we wait?” Andros asked, hoping against hope that somehow Aphrodite would arrive shortly.

“We can’t wait any longer,” said Karapis, the first mate. “The port authority has cleared us. It’s now or never. If they decide to inspect, they’ll discover you.”

Andros looked at the nervous faces of the crew and realized that too many other lives were at stake besides Aphrodite’s. Who was he to say that his beloved was more important than them or their loved ones? Or the men who would soon embark on the greatest invasion in human history?

“All right, then,” Andros said angrily. “Let’s go.”

Tsatsos shouted the orders, and slowly, the Independence moved out to sea.

Andros reached into his stevedore’s shirt and drew out the film negative he had stolen from von Berg’s safe. When von Berg noticed it was missing, Aphrodite would bear the brunt of his wrath. Andros wished he could sneak back to the Vasilis estate and put it back in the Baron’s safe.

But it was too late to turn back now.

Tsatsos got off the radio and turned to him, his face aglow from the compass, and exclaimed, “By God, Christos, we did it!”

But the words rang hollow in Andros’s ears. Three days ago he had come to Athens in the hope that he could once and for all exorcise the demons of his past. All he had managed to do, however, was destroy any future happiness he and Aphrodite might have shared if the war ever came to an end.

He looked back helplessly at the shrinking harbor, worried sick about her. Any hope he had of saving her was vanishing before his eyes. A gnawing sense of hopelessness and despair began to haunt him, the same emptiness he’d felt two days before when he stood at his father’s grave. Aphrodite seemed forever beyond his grasp.

Finally, he said, “I’ve failed, Tsatsos.”

B aron von Berg stood on the front steps of the Vasilis estate, bidding farewell to the last of his guests. “Good night…So good of you to come…Good night…Yes, thank you, the food will help so many of the city’s starving children…Good night.”

Franz walked up from behind. “The Independence just left Piraeus.”

“And the Turtle Dove?”

“Under guard since dusk. Nobody is getting aboard unless we know.”

“Good. Where is Andros now?”

“According to Peter, he headed straight home.”

“I’d be very much surprised if he remains there. What about Aphrodite?”

“Upstairs in her room. I have guards posted outside her door and below her balcony.”

“I’ll deal with her in the morning, before we fly to Corfu,” von Berg concluded. “First I want a word with her parents.”

T he spray of salt water slapped Andros’s face as he stood at the rail of the Independence, watching the black mass of mountains of the Peloponnese move against the starry sky. In the ship’s wake lay the island of Hydra, sleeping on the Aegean.

Andros tried to light a cigarette but couldn’t. To his dismay, he realized he was using the phony lighter containing the secret camera. He had left the lighter Aphrodite had given him in his tuxedo, which was in Eliot’s car back in Athens. His folly was complete, he decided. Not only had he not come out of Athens with Aphrodite, but he had lost his only token of their relationship.

Thank God his family was safe on the Turtle Dove.

Andros removed the microfilm cartridge from the lighter and looked at it in the moonlight. In all probability, the information it contained was worthless. All it confirmed was what his OSS masters had known all along: that the Allies were invading Sicily, not Greece. Clearly, they had expected him to be captured and to spill their precious lie to the suspicious Baron von Berg. Only, he had escaped, and von Berg presumably was more suspicious than ever. To top it off, he had seen nothing resembling an ancient Greek text and was beginning to wonder if it even existed. He put the microfilm in his pocket and grasped the hollow shell in his hand. Cursing the name of Jason Prestwick, and himself for his naivete, he hurled the good-for-nothing lighter into the sea and went up to the bridge.

Karapis stood by the helmsman while Tsatsos scanned the darkness with his night glasses. Andros moved to the chart table and examined their route, trying to push Aphrodite out of his mind.

“I still don’t understand,” Andros said a minute later. “According to the charts, there’s nothing north of Monemvasia.”

“Ah, nothing now,” said Tsatsos, handing him his night glasses. “But soon you’ll see.”

Andros took the night glasses and looked out at the wall of mountains to the starboard side. Still a monolithic mass, he thought, until he saw a flicker of light, and then the wall seemed to part like angels’ wings, revealing something like a valley of stars between two dark peaks.

“The Villehardouin Gorge,” Tsatsos explained. “It starts wide by the sea and narrows through the mountains for twelve miles, with only a stream at its bottom. The National Bands base is situated in a defensive position on the high ground between the gorge and the sea.”

Andros continued to scan the shore until he saw a light. “I see something. The signal, I suspect.”

He gave the glasses back to Tsatsos, who looked for himself. “That’s it,” said Tsatsos, lowering the glasses. “We’ll signal back while you and Karapis get ready. Remember, once you’re ashore, send Karapis back immediately. We must make up for lost time.”

Andros nodded and went to the deck, where the crew lowered a lifeboat and its pilot, Karapis, into the water. Andros climbed over the side and descended a rope ladder one sagging rung at a time. Then he dropped into the bobbing boat, and they cast off.

As they peeled away, Andros could see Tsatsos standing by the rail on the deck of the Independence, waving good-bye. “You’ve made an old sailor proud, Christos!” he called out as he was swallowed by the darkness.

Andros waved back dutifully and said, “Farewell, old friend.”

The sea was rough as they approached the cliffs along the coast, but soon they rounded a promontory, and Karapis eased the small boat into the inlet of a bay.

“An ancient Minoan harbor abandoned for centuries,” Karapis informed Andros. “Guillaume de Villehardouin used it in the twelfth century as a secret supply dock during his three-year siege of Monemvasia. The two piers were built later by the Venetians. One of them is a good six feet underwater, so we have to watch it going in to keep from ripping the hull.”

Andros could see the other pier, an old, crumbling stone peninsula jutting into the water, and on it a row of dim, ragged figures holding torches.

E rin Whyte stood at the end of the pier and watched anxiously while the boat carrying Chris came in from the sea like a phantom raft crossing back over from beyond the river Styx. What had happened in Athens, she wondered, that he should return alive yet alone?