“Steve was going to use these documents, you say. How?”
“He said he would hand them over to the American Embassy in Athens, with instructions that they should be transferred to the proper Greek authorities for action to be taken.”
“He would not give them to you?”
“I did not meet him,” Christophorou reminded Strang. “Besides, I am a journalist.”
“Yes. So I heard. Well—Steve is certainly being cautious. Or perhaps he didn’t trust your colleague. It’s a pity you didn’t see him yourself.”
“Stefanos Kladas probably wanted to make quite sure of my colleague’s credentials. After all, he has been away from Greece for ten years or more. He is out of touch. Trust is always a very delicate business when big stakes are involved.”
Trust, thought Strang, is more than a delicate business when involved politics are at stake. Steve did not trust Christophorou’s man at all. That is the unpleasant truth. Christophorou is trying to excuse his subordinate, but the man blundered. “So Steve wants to talk with his brother before he takes any action on those documents. How much success will he have in persuading Nikos to leave his friends?”
“None whatever.”
Strang looked at Christophorou. “You sound pretty definite.”
“Nikos Kladas is one of the top men in this conspiracy. So the police found out. They have proof. And now, various branches of Intelligence are—” Christophorou broke off, as if he had said too much. “You see, Kenneth, this conspiracy does exist.”
“I don’t doubt that.”
“And it is about to explode. You realise that?”
Strang said nothing. Steve’s documents are not mine to hand over, he told himself again. Yet there was an urgency, a desperation in Christophorou’s voice that was completely real. What do I do? Strang wondered.
“I haven’t had a proper night’s sleep for seven weeks,” Christophorou said. He passed a hand over his eyes, and then reached up to switch off the lamp beside his chair. He sat, staring at nothing, his face taut with worry.
“What about a drink? Shall I ring—?”
“Better not.” Christophorou lit another cigarette. Again he was deciding something. He watched the match flare down to his fingers. He blew it out. “Seven weeks,” he said bitterly. “Ever since two men were found by the police, on a lonely stretch of the Megara road. That is west of Athens, down by the sea. It was night; their bodies were lying on the roadway as if they had been struck down by a truck. Two local policemen—by pure luck—were cycling back to their village and saw the rear lights of the truck, standing, then backing toward them. As they approached, the truck stopped again and started away very quickly. They found the bodies almost at once.” He paused, stubbed out his cigarette.
“One, however, was not quite dead. He kept asking for the other man. When he heard the man had been killed, he began to rage. His talk was incoherent, wild. But he kept repeating the same wild ravings. Over and over again, the dying man repeated his story. The policemen listened. One of them, when they got back to their village, made out a report and sent it to Athens. There, the police studied it. And called in Military Intelligence.” Christophorou lit another cigarette.
“Who were the men?”
“A father and son. Originally from a small village in Sparta. They left Greece in 1945, and took refuge in Albania. But, of course, they had kept in touch with their friends. Last July, they had been ordered to work in Yugoslavia. There they had made all the contacts, all the preparations necessary for the assassination of—” He hesitated. He said, “Of a major political figure. They were experts in that line of business.” Christophorou shook his head sadly. “And the man who had chosen them for this assignment? A man who had once lived in the same village in Sparta—a comrade called Nikos Kladas.”
“Why were they killed? Had they failed in their mission?”
“No. When it was completed, they made their way back into Greece to report to Nikos Kladas. Once that was done, their work was finished. So were their lives. The son died, too; but he had lived, by sheer will power, long enough to implicate Nikos Kladas most thoroughly.”
“Belated patriotism.”
Christophorou shook his head. “Vengeance,” he said softly. “So there’s the story, Kenneth. By purest luck, three small pieces of information came to light. First, a conspiracy did exist, its plans completed, ready to go into action. Second, a man called Nikos Kladas, originally from the village of Thalos, in Sparta, who had been considered dead for the last fourteen years, was one of the important men in that conspiracy. Third, the members of the conspiracy were the extremest of the extreme left— frustrated Communists, possibly, who had turned impatiently from Karl Marx to follow the teachings of Nechayev.”
“Nechayev—the nihilist? But he was a raving lunatic!”
“Was he?” Christophorou almost smiled. “Lenin did not think so. Or else he would not have based his teaching partly on Marx, partly on Nechayev. One needs both of them, perhaps, if one wants complete power: the theorists and the terrorists—yes, they each serve their turn, depending on whether one wants skilful dialectic or violence. The only danger is that sometimes the terrorists cannot be kept under control. They swing loose and away—as they did in the bloody twenties in Russia.”
Strang looked at him in surprise.
“You never thought of that period, in that way? I suppose not. Most people think of it as a struggle between Czarists and Bolsheviks. But a struggle for power is not just one opposite against another.”
Strang now looked at him curiously. What is he trying to tell me? he wondered. Or was this simply an overflow from one of Christophorou’s particular interests—the study of anarchy, the history of violence?
“There are undercurrents, Kenneth, that can become very powerful.”
“An undercurrent isn’t a tide.”
“No? Given proper direction, it can become a tidal wave.”
“If you’re talking about nihilism, I don’t agree.”
“Not if all its forces were organised, and channelled?”
“Look—I don’t know much about this—”
“That’s another of its hidden strengths: people ignore it.”
“But it’s completely negative. What does it preach?”
“Complete freedom.”
“Yes, freedom from civilisation. Burn the books, destroy the records, abandon law, down with religion, down with all government, kill those who disagree or stand in your way, end the cities, return to the fields, wipe the slate clean, start all over again at the animal level.”
“That’s going very far back,” Christophorou said. “I think most nihilists would be content if they could recapture the Neolithic age, or at least a simplicity of life where corruption and decadence and oppression are ended. True, they would have to destroy much to get what they wanted. In the civilised world, evil and good are so often entwined round each other that the quickest way to end evil is to cut back both. Ruthless? Yes. So was the man who cut out his offending eye and cast it away.” Christophorou gave a short laugh. “Don’t Americans glorify the noble Indian? What could be more neolithic? Even mesolithic?”
“Look,” said Strang jokingly, “you aren’t trying to convert me, are you?”
“It’s a fascinating subject, you’ll agree.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Have you studied it?”
“Not studied. I did pick up a book on the history of nihilism yesterday. In Taormina.” Strang grinned as Christophorou looked surprised. “I went to the bookshop for a copy of The Possessed. I saw this history, and bought it. All I can say is that I’m damned glad there are not many nihilists around.”
“There do not need to be many. They have no armies, but what if they think they can use other people’s armies?”
“By a well-timed assassination?”
“By several well-timed assassinations.”
“You’re crazy!”
“Well-timed, we
ll-placed. Enough to set the Balkans and Asia Minor on fire. There is enough tinder lying around, you’ll agree. And as for Eastern Europe—suppose you were a Hungarian, or a Pole. You had a taste of Fascists and hated them. Nazis—you hated them. Communists—you hated them. And what do the democracies do? They send kind words, sympathy; food, which only helps your masters to sit more firmly on your back. But you are the one who suffers and is left to go on suffering. What would you believe in then? Nothing. What would you feel? A burning sense of injustice. Revulsion. Hatred. And there are the forces of nihilism.”
“Not all men, even in misery, turn negative. Some, yes. But not everyone.”
“How many people,” Christophorou asked gravely, “all through this world, see nothing ahead for them? Life is meaningless, a cruel joke where injustice is made into law, and religion only talks about the next world. But what about this world, where a man still has twenty, thirty, forty years to live? In conditions he never made or chose or wanted? Where he sees no hope of ever struggling free? Why must he live like this? The fools never ask that question; they are animals, willingly caged. But the men who do ask it find only one answer. They may hide it deep within them. But the answer is there, waiting. Destroy everything that has trapped us, caged us, made life meaningless. All gods have died, all reason disappeared from this world, leaving only one sovereign force—the Absurd. Destroy, and build anew.”
“And that’s their fallacy. They are already trapped in their own cage.”
Christophorou looked at him sharply.
Strang said, “A nihilist believes in nothing. A man who believes in nothing cannot build anything. Therefore, a nihilist can reduce everything to chaos, but he can only keep living in chaos.”
“I think that you must do a little more reading on the subject of nihilism.”
“Perhaps,” Strang said equably, but he hadn’t expected that kind of remark from Christophorou. That was always one way of dealing with a point that wasn’t too easy to answer. It was the kind of reply you’d be given at a dinner party where a self-appointed expert was brushing aside some unexpected opposition. “How interesting, Mr. Strang, but I think if you were to read more on this...” He smiled and shook his head.
Christophorou said, “You find nihilism amusing?”
“No.” Strang was deadly serious now.
“Some people find conspiracy a comic subject,” Christophorou observed with a touch of acid.
“Yes, until they are destroyed by it.”
“So you don’t laugh at me when I talk about men such as Nikos Kladas?”
“No, I don’t laugh at you,” Strang said quickly. He thought for a moment. “I think you might be in less trouble, though, if you had told Steve Kladas about the conspiracy and his brother’s connection with it. Steve wouldn’t have laughed at you, either.”
“I didn’t get the chance to see him,” Christophorou reminded him again.
“Your colleague did.”
“His assignment was simply to find out if Nikos Kladas was alive. Besides, he had not the authority to disclose—”
“You didn’t even know that Nikos Kladas was alive?”
“All that was known was a name.”
“There’s a sister still living in Sparta. She could have told you—”
“Nothing,” cut in Christophorou. “I went to see Myrrha Kladas just over six weeks ago.”
“Nothing?” Strang asked unbelievingly.
“That’s what she said.”
“She is a Communist?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then why—”
“She was too unhappy—uncertain—I think, afraid. When people have held extreme opinions, they always seem a little nervous about trusting.”
“Or perhaps one should never send an Athenian to argue with a Spartan.”
Christophorou looked at him. “No one,” he said a little stiffly, “would have had much success with Myrrha Kladas. In fact, I regard it as a triumph that she did give us one small piece of help. At the end of our talk, or rather my talk, for she kept mostly silent, she suddenly said, ‘My brother Stefanos in New York is coming to Greece. Speak with him.’ And the interview was over.”
“A nice sisterly touch, that, shifting the responsibility on to Steve.”
“I was grateful for it. Without it, we could never have arranged that meeting in Taormina, never have learned that Nikos Kladas is known to be alive.”
“Could the villagers in Thalos not tell you anything about Nikos?”
“Very little. They distrusted the Kladas family who came back from America. He was only remembered as a boy of sixteen or seventeen who went off with his older brother to fight the Italians. Nothing had ever been heard of him since. They all thought he was dead, like so many others.”
“Well,” said Strang slowly, “your one hope seems to be Steve. Only, this time, tell him everything.”
“I’ve told you, Kenneth. I’ve told you much too much.”
“I’ve been wondering about that,” Strang said. But he had been worrying about that, too.
“In desperate situations, one has to use one’s own judgment; one has to talk, even to the point of being indiscreet.”
“I understand. The word got through. What do you want from me, Aleco?”
“Anything you can tell me about Stefanos Kladas and his visit to Greece—his friends, his problems. Anything.”
“But he said practically nothing—”
“What is ‘practically nothing’ to you might mean a great deal to us. You see—all trace of Stefanos Kladas has been lost. He has disappeared. Completely, this time.”
That had been a swift jolt, in spite of Christophorou’s quiet bedside manner. Strang’s mind and face went blank for a moment. Then, remembering Steve’s past performance, he said wryly, “He is getting to be pretty good at that, isn’t he?”
“But this time he may not have arranged his disappearance.”
“What?”
“The Sicilian police are working on his disappearance now. The Italian police have been alerted. So have our police. So has your embassy.”
“Good God!”
“Stefanos Kladas took the morning train to Messina on Saturday. And that is all that is known.”
“He was travelling by train?” Strang couldn’t believe it. That train, after a halt at Messina, crossed on the ferry to Italy. It was a slow way to reach Greece.
“Yes. Taormina station was the last place he was seen.”
“He never reached Calabria? What’s the name of that place over on the mainland—Reggio?”
“The Italian police searched. They report no sign of him.”
“When did they start looking?”
“Sunday morning. We wasted no time. When I left you on Saturday night, I got the local police to make inquiries at the Catania airport. That drew a blank. So then they checked at the Taormina station. By Sunday morning, the search had spread across to Calabria.”
“Then Steve must have got off the train at Messina before it went on to the ferry for Italy.”
“Why should he get off at Messina?”
“He might have taken passage on a freighter to Greece.” But even as he spoke, Strang felt his doubts increase.
“All sailings from Messina on Saturday have been checked. No freighter picked up any passenger.”
Strang rose to his feet. With his doubts came fears. He was remembering a yacht, possibly the Medea, possibly sailing from Messina, possibly bound for Greece. How did that sound? Too many possibles_ And yet, he was remembering, too, the strange household on the street that led up to the Greek theatre in Taormina. They were more than strange, since Mr. Private Private had shown a capacity for searching other people’s luggage. Where had they gone when they had left at four o’clock on a Saturday afternoon? To Messina, where the Medea was waiting for them? “How far is it, by car, from Taormina to Messina?” Strang asked suddenly. “Thirty miles?”
Christophorou was startled; then
interested. “About thirty miles,” he agreed. “Why do you ask?”
It could have been the Medea, Strang thought. Now, that was more than a possibility. “What would these people do with Steve? Kidnap, question him? Would they even kill him?”
Christophorou’s grave dark eyes only looked at him sombrely. “I overworry. So you told me in Taormina.”
“I was a damn fool in Taormina,” Strang said angrily. The interested spectator, the man who talked down worry, the reasonable-explanation guy. “We went to two very different schools, you and I,” he told Christophorou, “and I don’t mean the kind where you learned to speak English from old Tommy, either.” He went over to his case for his emergency flask of brandy. “How much time have you got?”
“Time? It’s running out fast.”
“No, no, I mean how much time have you got right now? Can you spare me another half hour?” He handed Christophorou a water glass with a couple of inches of brandy. “Not just for a drink,” Strang said, noticing Christophorou’s slight impatience, “or for some general chitchat. I am going to tell you a very odd story. It’s more like a theme running through a piece of music, all dependent on two people. One is Steve Kladas; the other, a woman I have never even seen, Euphrosyne Duval, whose husband, Etienne Duval, left her an outsize fortune. And there’s a sort of counterpoint to this theme which I heard from Caroline Ottway in Taormina. It deals with Steve and his brother during the occupation, when they fought in the mountains. Nikos Kladas called himself Sideros then.”
“Sideros!”
“You recognise that name, I see.”
“Many people have good reason to remember Sideros.” Christophorou was still staring at Strang. “But Sideros is dead. He is officially listed as dead.”