Solo - Jack Higgins [65]
He returned to The Times. Baker went to the desk, picked up the red telephone and asked to be put through on the scrambler, to the British Embassy in Athens.
Captain Charles Rourke was leaning against a pillar reading a newspaper when Morgan emerged from Immigration and Customs. The captain was wearing a crumpled linen suit of a type favoured by many Greeks during the heat of the summer months which was supposed to help him merge effectively into the background of the crowded concourse.
Professional soldiers in civilian clothes usually manage to recognize each other for what they are. On this occasion, Morgan's task was made easy for he had an encyclopedic memory for faces and remembered Rourke's from the front row of a study group on methods and technology of urban guerrilla warfare, that he'd lectured to in 1969 at Sandhurst.
Ferguson being careful. Not that it mattered. He went to the exchange counter and passed two hundred pounds sterling, for which he received the appropriate rate in drachmas, then walked out of the entrance and hailed a cab.
He'd last visited Athens a few years previously for a NATO conference. He remembered the hotel he'd stayed in at that time. From what he recalled, it would suit his purpose admirably.
'You know the Green Park Hotel in Kristou Street?'
'Sure,' the driver said and pulled away.
Behind them, Charley Rourke was already into the back of a black Mercedes and tapping the driver on the shoulder. 'That cab up ahead. The green Peugeot estate. Where he goes, we go.'
He remembered Morgan now and that course at the Academy. It was really rather amusing turning the tables like this. He leaned back with a smile and lit a cigarette.
Morgan checked his watch. It had been necessary to advance it two hours which meant it was now a quarter to five, Athens time.
'Is there still time to catch the hydrofoil to Hydra tonight?' he asked.
'Sure,' the driver said. 'Summer schedule. They run later, these light nights. The last to Hydra leaves the Piraeus at six-thirty.'
'How long does it take?'
'Gets in eight o'clock. It makes a nice run. Plenty to see. Doesn't get dark this time of year till around nine-thirty.' He glanced briefly over his shoulder. 'You want I should take you to the Piraeus?'
Morgan, aware of the Mercedes behind, shook his head. 'No, I'll leave it till tomorrow. The hotel will do fine.'
'Heh, for an Englishman you speak good Greek.'
It didn't seem politic to mention that it had been gained during three hard years chasing EOKA terrorists in Cyprus.
Morgan said, 'I worked in Nicosia for a few years, for a British-owned wine company.'
The driver nodded wisely. 'Things are better there now. I think Makarios knows what he's doing.'
'Let's hope so.'
He'd little time to waste, he knew that as he paid off the driver at the Green Park Hotel and the black Mercedes drifted past and pulled in at the kerb a few yards away. As Morgan turned and went up the steps to the revolving door, Rourke got out of the car and went after him.
Once inside, Morgan didn't go to the desk. Instead, he crossed to the mezzanine. Rourke paused for a moment, pretending to examine the daily currency exchange rate on the foyer bulletin board, only going after him when Morgan had moved round the corner of the first landing.
Once on the mezzanine floor, Morgan, who knew exactly where he was going, darted past the souvenir shop and took the narrow back stair which led directly to the twenty-four-hour restaurant on the lower level. He threaded his way between the tables and was leaving by the side entrance of the hotel while Rourke, still on the mezzanine floor, hesitated, not knowing where to go next.
He approached the young lady in the souvenir shop. 'My friend just came up ahead of me. He had a brown leather bag and wore a raincoat. I seem to have missed him.'
'Oh, yes, sir. He went down the restaurant stairs.'
Rourke, seized by a sudden dreadful suspicion, went down them two at a time. By then, of course, Asa Morgan was long gone, already half-way across the park in the