Thomas Greanias - The 34th Degree

Franz walked in, carrying the bloodstained uniform she had hidden in her dresser.

“Ah, I see now.” Ludwig’s eyes flashed hurt and finally anger, as if the myth she was in his eyes had evaporated.

She sensed that something had snapped inside him. Any affection he ever had for her was broken, and she felt defenseless. “Ludwig, please, I can-”

“You told Andros about Corfu, didn’t you?” His stern blue eyes were looking right through her.

“No, I didn’t,” she replied truthfully.

He seemed genuinely puzzled. “Where did Andros say he was going?” he demanded. “Come, now, it’s too late for him. But not for you or your parents.”

“Salonika,” she lied. “He hopped a train to Salonika and jumped off halfway. He said the British had a caique by the sea to take him to Turkey. But you’re too late, Ludwig. He’s long gone, and your secrets are with the Allies. He’s a hero. He’s beaten you.”

As she spoke, the phone rang.

Ludwig looked at her and said, “We’ll see about that,” and picked it up. “Put him through.” He paused. “Yes, I know who you are.” He started writing out numbers on a pad of paper. “North of Monemvasia? Excellent. Of course. Double your usual reward.”

He hung up, a sinister smile crossing his face as he looked at Franz. “That was our friend the Minotaur. Seems that Herr Andros has made fools of us all. While our eyes were on the Turtle Dove, he slipped out last night on the Independence. Fortunately, he’s still within our grasp if we strike before tonight.”

“No, Ludwig!” she screamed. “Please-”

“You lied to me,” he told her coldly, ignoring her pleas and handing Franz the orders he had written. “Relay the coordinates of this rebel camp to our Luftwaffe base on Karpathos. I want Stukas for this job. Meanwhile, have Colonel Ulrich and his paratroopers drop in north of the encampment for the mop-up.”

Franz hesitated. “But Colonel Ulrich is dead, sir.”

For a moment Ludwig looked confused. “Yes, of course,” he said, regaining his senses. “I don’t know where my head was. Tell the new one, Colonel Spreicher, to have his Fallschirmjager on the next Junkers 52 transport available. And inform the airstrip to have my personal plane ready. We’re flying out to Corfu: you, me, and Fraulein Vasilis here. We’ve wasted enough time in Athens. There are fewer than forty-eight hours before my birthday-I mean, before the Fuhrer’s weapons conference.”

“Zu Befehl,” said Franz, and walked out, taking the bloodied uniform with him.

When Ludwig turned to her, his eyes had a deathly glaze. He looked at her triumphantly, and she turned cold inside. For a wild moment she sensed it was no longer Ludwig behind those eyes but someone else. Someone hideously evil. The Baron of the Black Order. Ludwig von Berg, she realized, was gone forever.

“Your friend is quite a clever man, love,” he told her. “Clever and foolish. And to leave you behind,” he added, “knowing you might suffer the same fate as your parents. That’s not very nice, is it?”

Aphrodite realized she hadn’t seen her mother or father since last night. A terrible fear gripped her, and her voice trembled. “Where are they?”

“In the garden, love.” The Baron sat back and folded his hands.

Wordlessly, she stood up and walked through the French doors onto the patio and around the back into the garden.

As she entered the garden, she saw them hanging from separate mango trees, the bodies of her mother and father. They were under the watch of two SS guards with gray-green uniforms and Schmeisser machine pistols. At the foot of each tree was a sign in Greek that said SUCH

Aphrodite screamed, breaking the silence of the morning and bringing the Baron out from his study.

“They’re so sorry they couldn’t say good-bye,” he told her, calmly gripping her arm while giving the guards parting instructions: “We’re leaving now. Permanently. See that our hosts here remain available to visitors for the rest of the day. Their presence is such an eloquent warning to others against future disobedience in the New Order.”

I t was midday siesta at the National Bands base when Erin Whyte walked into Chris’s kaliva and found him fast asleep. He had taken off his seaman’s shirt from the night before and looked handsome yet sad as he lay sprawled across the hard cot: an angel with broken wings. She decided not to disturb him and left the Special Forces uniform she had brought with her on top of the small, rough-hewn table. Then she went out in search of Colonel Kalos and Stavros Moudjouras.

She found them not in their shepherd’s huts but a mile away, outside in a clearing they had converted into a firing range. Instead of German cutouts in front of sandbags, they had placed empty bottles of brandy on top of barrels at the target end. Stavros stood at the designated firing line with a special collection of weapons laid out on a crate while Colonel Kalos blew the tops off the bottles with an American Colt. 45. Looking on were young Michaelis and a dozen EDES and ELAS andartes.

“Not bad,” said Stavros, rendering his verdict on his rival’s performance. “But a Colt’s no good in Greece if you don’t have bullets, and a forty-five-caliber can’t chamber Axis ammunition.” The ELAS kapetanios reached over and picked up the standard Wehrmacht pistol, the Walther P-38, tiny in his giant hand. “Now, this fires the nine-millimeter Parabellum round, which we can take off any dead German, and it can be fired single or double action.”

Stavros fired the full eight rounds of the magazine at the bottles, the slide clicking forward after the last round was unloaded. The ELAS andartes on hand applauded, but he missed three bottles.

“I’d stick with your Sten if I were you,” Kalos commented, to the howls of the EDES andartes. “Good for spraying bullets when you’re outnumbered, at least, and it can chamber Axis ammunition as well.”

Erin cleared her throat and broke up the gathering. “Now that we’re all familiar with the weapons of the enemy, I suggest we move on to winning the war.”

“Ah, Captain Whyte,” said Kalos. “Perhaps you might try?”

Erin paused, feeling the enthusiastic glances of Michaelis and the others. There was nothing in the world she’d like better than to show up these macho Greek males, but this wasn’t the place or the way to do it.

“Don’t make the lady embarrass herself, Kalos,” said Stavros, who had already reloaded the Walther and was gamely offering it to her.

It was a challenge she couldn’t refuse without losing the respect of the others, she realized. And to lose their respect would mean losing her best defense against unsolicited physical advances or, worse, challenges to her authority. Reluctantly, she took the Walther and ran her hand over its smooth black steel barrel.

“You boys make it look so easy,” she lamented as her arm swung up effortlessly. Without taking any apparent aim, she blew away the three remaining bottle tops. She laid down the gun and smiled at the slack-jawed Stavros. “But then, it is.”

Young Michaelis’s dark, animated eyes grew wide in wonder. The rest of the Greeks were silent. Now that she had succeeded in securing their attention, it was time to get down to business.

“Stavros, Kalos, you come with me on patrol,” she said sharply, with an authority nobody questioned. “I have your new orders from the Middle East GHQ.”

S tavros could only wonder what Cairo was going to ask of them this time. They found a small, private clearing a mile away and squatted in a circle. Michaelis, who had insisted on coming along, was watching their horses on the other side of some pine trees, playing with the portable transmitter in Captain Whyte’s saddle sack.