The Angry Hills (2 page)

“Aha, my American writer friend, right on time, as usual,” he greeted Mike and waved to a seat. “Coffee, please, Tassos,” his high-pitched voice ordered. He dug through the stacks of papers on his desk and found the brief. As he opened the folder and thumbed through it, Mike once again found himself staring at the magnificent black pearl ring on the wrinkled little finger of the attorney. “Well,” he finally said, “everything seems to be in good order.”

“How much longer?” Mike asked.

“Always in a hurry, you Americans. One might get the idea you don’t like our country.”

“This is hardly the time for a leisurely visit and I do have a commitment for the first of May.”

“Oh, yes, you’re going to Hollywood to write a cinema—anything important?”

“Nothing but the money.”

“Money—trouble is, everyone is in a grand rush to get their money out of the country these days. Can’t say I blame them. The bank promised to have the final releases over here shortly for signature. When do you plan to leave?”

“I have a plane for London in the morning.”

Tassos slipped in quietly.

“Coffee—good. We’ll take it in the solarium, if you please, Tassos.”

The two sipped coffee and exchanged tobaccos. Morrison was quite proud of his blend—a special mixture put up at Grundel’s Pipe Shop in the Mission District of San Francisco. However, it was too weak for the old man. Morrison politely bowed out after a half pipeload of Stergiou’s mixture.

As they passed time, Mr. Stergiou gave Morrison a short course in the Byzantine art pieces that adorned his home. As Mike had surmised, the black pearl ring was a family treasure and hadn’t left his little finger for forty years.

“Your wife’s death must have been quite a shock. Her uncle was truly fond of her. He spoke often of his visits to America.”

“Yes—yes—it was—quite a shock.”

“I see. And the children, how old are they now?”

A small smile creased the lips of the proud father and in an instant he had his wallet out and pictures thrust before the old man’s nose.

Stergiou adjusted his glasses and nodded. “They are lovely children. I can well understand your anxiety to get back to San Francisco. I trust they are in good hands.”

“Yes, my parents. We have a place together in Larkspur. A little over the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. They—they moved in with us after Ellie’s death.”

The old man tapped his pipe empty in the ash tray, paused reflectively a moment, then spoke. “Mr. Morrison, I wonder if I could ask a favor of a personal nature?”

“If I can help.”

“I have a document, one of great importance to a client of mine. With things so disrupted these days I am a bit hesitant to use the mails. I wonder if you would mind delivering it for me personally in London?”

“Certainly. I’d be most happy to.”

The old man reached into an inside pocket of his smoking jacket and withdrew a small white envelope.

Not much of a document, Morrison thought. Stergiou held it in his hand for several seconds, then handed it to Mike. It bore a London address to one Sir Thomas Whitley.

“Normally,” the old man apologized, “I wouldn’t ask, but there is a great deal involved for my client and with the chaos of the day ...”

Mike grinned. “Nothing a bit off color, by any chance?”

“Oh, you writers all have suspicious natures. No, nothing like that but a bit out of channels, if you know what I mean. I would deem it a great favor if you took extra precautions. The document does have great value.”

Morrison was about to ask a question or two but decided not to. He slipped the envelope into his breast pocket. “I’ll guard it with my life.”

“Please do,” Stergiou said, and they both laughed.

Tassos crept into the solarium and plugged a phone in beside his master. The attorney spoke briefly and replaced the receiver with a sigh. “I am terribly sorry, Mr. Morrison. They are literally swamped at the bank. It will be several hours before they will be able to get the releases over.”

“I hope nothing fouls up. I do have that plane out in the morning.”

“I assure you I’ll stay right with it. The bank is working around the clock. Everyone is trying to get his money out of Greece these days. Could you return at—let’s say eight o’clock—that will give us a safe edge in time.”

“Yes, certainly.”

“I apologize for the inconvenience.”

Stergiou ushered Morrison down the long, statue-filled corridor and they exchanged good-byes. The instant the door closed, Stergiou spun about and shuffled quickly down the corridor and into his office. A stocky man, sporting a huge walrus mustache and bundled in an English mackintosh, sat behind Stergiou’s desk. Stergiou nodded to him and filled a fresh pipe from the cannister.

“Did you give it to him?” the man asked.

Stergiou paced nervously before the desk. “Yes, I gave it to him, Major Wilken.”

“Good.”

“I don’t like it,” Stergiou said.

Major Howe-Wilken of British Intelligence arose and walked to the window and clasped his hands behind him. “Soutar and I have been under surveillance from the moment we landed in Greece. I’d wager my last quid on it. If my guess is right, Konrad Heilser is hiding out somewhere in Athens this minute directing their operation. If he is, Mr. Stergiou, our lives aren’t worth a snuff.”

“Then why didn’t you pass the list to your military for delivery?”

“I regret to inform you that the situation at headquarters is one of utter confusion. I wouldn’t wager that the military could get the King of Greece out of the country.”

“In other words, Major Wilken, we are stewing in our own juice.”

“Precisely. The Germans have a devilish way of gathering friends in front of their army.”

Stergiou grunted and beat his fist on the desk softly. Howe-Wilken walked over to the man. “Oh, come now,” he soothed, “we are not absolutely certain we’ve been watched. This is just an extra precaution. Soutar is out now arranging a plane to fly us out tonight. If all goes well, we should be safely in London tomorrow.”

“And if all doesn’t go well?”

“Then, our American friend, Mr. Morrison, will deliver the list for us. Just a precaution, mind you. Fortunately he is above suspicion.”

“I don’t like gambling with that list, Major. If the Germans suspect for a moment, he wouldn’t have a chance—and you know the consequences of the names falling into their hands.”

“Alas, my dear friend Stergiou,” the major sighed, “gambling is an occupational hazard of my profession.”

TWO

T
HERE WERE TWO OLD
scores to settle and two wounds still unhealed. Konrad Heilser leaned back in the broken armchair, closed his eyes and hummed in rapid rhythm to the Bach fugue scratching out on the record player. His finger brushed down his pencil-line mustache in a motion of habit.

Howe-Wilken and his Scottish partner, Soutar, had made a fool of him twice. Eight months had passed since his first encounter with them in Norway. After the German liberation of that country, the two British agents had arrived and escaped by submarine, leaving in their wake a network of underground operators. A half dozen times he had cornered them in Norway. A half dozen times they had eluded him. It was only a damnable last-minute quirk of fate that prevented Konrad Heilser from blocking their exit from Norway.

The next time he ran into them was late last summer—Paris. Again the duo, Howe-Wilken and Soutar, led him up a blind alley while they escaped.

The German cursed softly at the thought of having been ordered from Paris to assignment in this cesspool. This time there would be a different fool. This time they would not escape.

It had been a stroke of luck, indeed, when Zervos, the government clerk, got wind of Stergiou’s plan and made contact with the Germans.

Heilser slipped into Greece ahead of the German invasion and with Zervos’ help got the rat pack working with him. The traitors, the opportunists, the cowards. All of them anxious to throw in with the Germans in time. Heilser and his Greek friends had done their job well. The British were confused, not knowing whom they could trust and whom not to trust. Heilser and his Greek friends had increased that confusion. The confusion that comes before defeat. Soon the confusion would be a stampeding panic.

As the record ran out Konrad Heilser stood up, flicked off the machine and lit a cigarette, the last of his pack. He walked to the mirror over the dresser and looked into it, steeped in self-admiration. He ran a brush over his already plastered-down thick black hair.

It was small wonder he felt a glow of accomplishment. No stone had been left unturned. With meticulous thoroughness he knew every move and every plan of the British. He had woven a web around them from his garret hide-away. How convenient indeed for his two old friends, Howe-Wilken and Soutar, to show up for the Stergiou list. It made everything so simple. An unexpected pleasure.

Heilser turned the record. He checked his watch, walked to the garret window and threw back the threadbare curtain. He looked down on a filthy cobblestone alley. Greece was hardly worth the conquering. A filthy, decadent race living on the past glories of two thousand years. Again, the thought of having to leave Paris angered him. If those spaghetti-eating louts of Italians hadn’t been pushed from Greece and run halfway through Albania he would still be in France.

But even Greece would have its compensations. As soon as German troops liberated Athens a suite at the Grande Bretagne would be in order. Canaris, yes, even von Ribbentrop himself would hear of Heilser’s splendid work. And, with the delivery of the Stergiou list, there would be a promotion. Perhaps the entire Secret Service for all of Greece would be the reward. Then, of course, there were the Greek women. This last thought made him tingle with impatience and excitement.

In the alley below, Heilser spied the figure of the fat Greek pig, Zervos, wending his way along the slime-covered cobblestones. Zervos brushed past some ragged urchins and disappeared into the house.

Heilser heard the man’s footsteps grow slower and slower as he labored his way up the last flight of steps to the fifth-story attic. He could hear Zervos’ wheezing breath through the flimsy door. The Greek knocked.

Zervos flopped into the armchair, fighting to regain his breath and mopping his wet face. Heilser stood over him.

“Well!” the German demanded.

“All three of them are blanketed. Howe-Wilken left by car in the direction of Stergiou’s house.”

“And the Scotsman, Soutar?”

“He arranges a plane to fly them from the Tatoi airdrome at midnight.”

Heilser closed his eyes and put his forefinger to his forehead. He must conceal the anxious rumbling inside him from the Greek pig. He must not show anxiety before his inferior.

“The names?”

“No doubt Howe-Wilken goes to get the list now. Stergiou has contacted no one else. Tassos assures us of that.”

“Good—good.” The churning heightened, the coup was near at hand.... “And the military situation?”

“Latest information indicates the British will not make a stand before Athens.”

‘Then we strike!” He paced the floor rapidly. “Dispose of both Wilken and Soutar. I want Stergiou alive.” He turned to Zervos. “I’ve waited for eight long months for this moment.... Watch those two; they are slippery. One mistake and I’ll have your throat slit.”

Zervos, the fat man, knew this wasn’t idle chatter. He nodded and struggled out of the chair, still mopping his face. “One more thing disturbs me.... An American has visited Stergiou three times this past week.”

Heilser’s face reddened and a frown showed the crow’s feet etched deeply in the corners of his eyes. “An American—what American?”

“We made a routine check,” Zervos said. “The man is a writer—a small writer of no consequence—by name, Michael Morrison. His visa is quite in order. He is here to settle an estate. The bank bears this out. There is some nine thousand American dollars in his name. By appearances, Stergiou is doing the necessary legal work to transfer the money.”

The pounding in Heilser’s chest slowed. “Not getting a little jumpy—eh, Zervos?”

“Perhaps—perhaps not. We’ve no reason to suspect the man.”

Heilser walked to the window and stared down at the alley. A mist was beginning to fall. “Go on.”

“There is nothing more to say. He has a plane out for London in the morning. He stays at a hotel in Kifissia.”

“Yes—yes...” Heilser mumbled half to himself. “It would be like Wilken and Soutar to pass off the list. A neutral above suspicion... Their plane at Tatoi a blind...”

The record ended.

Heilser shut off the machine, picked up the record and began to toy with it. Then he placed it gently on the dresser and stood frozen. The cigarette between his fingers burned down until he felt its heat on his fingers. He opened his fingers and watched the burning butt fall to the floor. With the ball of his foot he squashed the butt, then ground it into powder.

THREE

M
ORRISON WAS COMPLETELY UNAWARE
of the tall thin blond man wearing a New Zealand uniform who picked up his trail the instant he left the attorney’s mansion. Nor was he aware of the half dozen pairs of eyes focused upon the house from points of observation nearby. Mike walked through the plush Kolonaki sector toward Concord Square across town, drawing his topcoat about his neck against the mist.

Concord Square was filled with the usual midafternoon crowd either scurrying to and from the subway or settled in the many coffee houses to argue the day away. The flower stalls were a blaze of color that helped offset the drizzly overcast.

He stopped to find his bearings and immediately fell prey to one of those sidewalk shoeshine hustlers who have the knack of spotting an American a mile away. The tall blond man in New Zealand uniform took up his vigil from a sidewalk table at one of the coffee houses.

The earlier undercurrent of tension was more perceptible, Morrison thought. Although the chatter was foreign, he could still deduce from snatches of conversation around him that the British were going to withdraw from Athens. People walked as if in a stupor and their faces betrayed a mixture of fear and confusion and disbelief.