Dennis Wheatley - Mayhem in Greece

'No, I don't think there's anything to be gained by doing that. Quite apart from getting all I can out of Barak, I've got a personal score to settle with him and I don't want any interference.'

It was half-past-six by the time they were back in Heraklion. Parking the car in Morosini Square, they went over to a caf6 to have a drink. They noticed then that little groups of people were standing about, either moodily or arguing excitedly together. As they gave their order to a waiter, they learnt the reason. At midday Russia had issued an ultimatum to the United States. Either the submarine must be surrendered intact within seven days or mines would be exploded in the ice under which she lay, to drive her out.

That was grim news. Actually to attack the submarine would almost certainly lead to war. The Americans were a proud and courageous people. In every country, there was always a 'peace at any price' party, but the majority would not submit to the humiliation of allowing their warship to be destroyed without retaliating. The Russians must realize that so, had they really wanted a 'showdown', surely, instead of issuing an ultimatum, they could have blown New York off the map without warning. Even so, things had now reached a point where an impatient finger on a trigger might cause that to happen at any moment.

When Stephanie and Robbie had talked over this latest news and finished their drink, it was time for him to walk up the street to the Heraklion Club. Next day, there might be a letter for Stephanie from Barak; so it was agreed that, after she had called at the G.P.O., she should come in the car to their usual meeting place at ten o'clock. If there were no letter, and Mahogany Brown had not asked Robbie to give him his help in some way, they would spend the day motoring to the east along the northern coast of Crete, to see other remains of the Minoan Age and the bay of Malea with its scores of windmills.

Robbie found the entrance to the Club without difficulty and a lift took him up to the premises, which proved to be airy but bleak. Mahogany Brown was waiting for him at the cloakroom counter and led him straight down a long passage, past a room in which some men were playing billiards, to the restaurant. It was a large, lofty room that had only about twenty tables in it, although it could easily have held double that number. There was a bar in one corner and, beside one end of it, a serving door to the kitchen, which stood open, revealing a chef and three women all talking at the tops of their voices. Apart from them and a solitary waiter the place was empty, as it was well before the hour at which the Greeks usually dine.

The waiter served them drinks and they carried them over to a table in a far corner of the room, then got down to exchanging information. It soon transpired that all the groups which either of them had investigated were carrying out exactly similar operations, the drilling of a single, deep hole about a foot in diameter, with long screws having in their centre a hollow eight or more inches across. It was not until Robbie gave an account of the conversation he had overheard at Gortyne that morning between the two Czechs that Mahogany Brown showed sudden interest.

'So he wanted to drop one down the Zeus Grotto, eh?' he said. 'Well, anyway, that confirms my guess that they mean to put something down those holes. But what? Have you any sort of idea?'

Atom bombs,' replied Robbie promptly. 'Or rather, I suppose, by this time they've got cobalt bombs.'

'I thought of that. But there'd be no sense in it. Even the site we saw today on the bay of Mesara is several miles from our big, new air base, and none of the others are anywhere near important military installations. What would be the point of blowing great holes in the Greek coastline and several of the islands?'

'At one time, I thought they might be installing some form of radar gadget which would, in some way, assist Russian submarines,' Robbie remarked.

That would make more sense, but why the holes?'

'I don't know a thing about science, so I couldn't even make a guess. From tonight's news, though, it looks as if we may soon be given the answer in a way we won't like. Or are you still of the opinion you expressed at lunch?'

Mahogany Brown shook his fair, crew-cut head. 'What I said at lunch was all hooey, except for one thing. That was that, if the big bang is coming, we're as well placed here to survive as anywhere, except the outspots like darkest Africa or Peru.'

'You think it really looks like war, then?'

'I wouldn't wager more than evens that it won't come to that. We've been at maximum alert since midday, and whatever declarations may have been made from the White House, I wouldn't put it past one of our top brass in the Pentagon letting off the fireworks rather than risk letting the Russians have first crack at us.'

'If we are as near the edge as that, why in God's name don't your people go right into these sites and stop the Czechs doing whatever they are at?' Robbie asked.

'Because the Greeks won't let us.' Mahogany Brown beckoned the waiter over to replenish their drinks, then he went on: 'That's the big handicap the West has been up against all the time. Moscow has only to say the word to get done in any of the Iron Curtain countries anything the Kremlin boys want—and done at once. But N.A.T.O. has to say "Please may we?" to the Governments of each separate sovereign State in the Alliance when she wants some action taken in that State's territory. To get a reply usually takes months and, when it does come, often as not it's "No".'

'Yes, I realize that. But surely, in a case like this, you could have got the Greek Government to send their own people in to inspect these sites and find out what the Czechs are up to?'

That's what my Chief tried to do. But the Greeks wouldn't wear it. The trouble is that West and East have played at Brinkmanship for so long that most people simply won't believe that it will now ever come to a hot war. Stockholders get the jitters, but they do that anyway every year or two when there's a threat of depression, or it looks as if a disarmament agreement is at last going to put half the world's heavy industry out of business; tourists get out in a hurry because, rather than face even a remote possibility of being cut off in a foreign country, folk naturally incline to beat it for their homes. But Governments don't scare all that easy. The Greeks are getting what they regard as a lot of money for nothing out of this tobacco-oil deal and, so far, they've had only a ten per cent payment on signing of contract so, naturally, they don't want to upset the Czechs before they get the rest.'

'One couldn't blame them for that if the Czechs really were prospecting for oil. But we know they are not. They are not using the right kind of apparatus. If your Chief made that clear

to the Greek Government-'

'He has, but it's cut no ice. The Czech story is that they are using an entirely new process, and it is their secret. That's why, when it was tentatively suggested to them that they should allow 7an inspection, their refusal sounded quite reasonable to the Greeks. And Greece is a poor country, remember. Think what it would mean to the Greeks if the Czechs really did strike oil. Looked at from their point of view, one can't expect them to risk busting their chances of a bonanza just because an American sub. has got herself stuck in Soviet waters and there is one more of those recurrent crises that we've had during most of our lives.'

They went out to the kitchen, where the fat, cheerful chef produced in a ladle for their inspection various bits and pieces from his row of big, bubbling pots. Mahogany Brown chose one of those mysterious stews. Robbie hesitated over chicken; but as, owing to lack of corn, the hens in Greece were always so small and skinny he settled for fried meat balls.