The Angry Hills - Leon Uris [3]
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
THERE 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