The Angry Hills - Leon Uris [77]
The doors shut. The car moved slowly through the courtyard. The mammoth gates of Averof Prison opened. The cars rolled out, turned on their sirens and raced for the center of Athens and German Field Police Headquarters.
Near Concord Square they were forced to slow down.
Mike was thrown from his seat as the driver slammed on his brakes. A truck bolted over the intersection of Patission and Chalkokondili Streets and stopped directly in their path.
The driver leaned on his horn.
It all happened in seconds.
Two dozen armed Greeks swarmed from the truck and surrounded the two cars. The drivers and guards were dragged out, disarmed and forced to lay on their faces on the sidewalk.
“Morrison! This way!”
Michalis, a tommy gun cradled in his arm, pulled Mike from the car and pulled him along up the street. A car waited at the corner. Michalis pushed Mike into it.
Ben Masterton ran toward the crowd around Concord Square. “See you in Berlin, matey!” he yelled to Mike.
Mike looked back from his car as it ripped into motion. He saw the German autos being turned over in the street and the armed Greeks pouring back into the truck which headed in the opposite direction.
“Hurry! Dammit! Hurry!” Michalis roared at the driver in the voice that could be heard clear up to Salonika.
The phone rang.
Heilser staggered from the couch, groggy from the sedatives. He shook his head and lifted the receiver. “Yes?”
“Konrad, this is Zervos. I am at Anton’s Dress Shop.”
“What is it?”
“Lisa did not keep her appointment.”
“What!”
“I said, Lisa did not come today.”
“Why?”
“How should I know?”
“Get back here! Immediately!”
“Very well...”
Heilser could not understand what that meant. He walked to the basin and ducked his head under the coldwater tap. It cleared a little. He wiped his face and lit a cigarette and meditated.
A knock on the door. The brown-shirted orderly stepped in.
“Manolis Kyriakides to see you, sir.”
Heilser frowned. Lisa’s husband? What the devil! Maybe he knew...
“Send him in.”
“Yes, sir.”
Manolis Kyriakides was ushered in. At one time he might have been a handsome man, but now his eyes were shifty and frightened. He might once have stood tall and straight, but now he cringed in the attitude of a coward. Beads of sweat trickled down his nose and chin as he stood in front of Heilser with his hat in his hand.
“Well!”
“Herr...Herr...”
“What is it? Where is your wife?”
“The—the children—they—have been kidnapped!”
Heilser leaped to his feet and grabbed Manolis by the collar and shook him so violently the drops of sweat bounced from his face. Heilser backed him across the room and threw him into a chair.
Manolis trembled.
“Speak!”
“Water, please ...”
“Speak, I say!”
He emitted a feeble croak from his cracked lips. “They came last night.... Lisa—let them, a dozen men—shot the guards, took the children.” Manolis closed his eyes and wept.
“Last night!” Heilser screamed. “Why weren’t we informed immediately?”
“They—they—said they’d kill me if I came to you before...”
Heilser smashed Manolis’ face over and over. Manolis fell to the floor sobbing hysterically.
“Guards! Guards! Take him to Averof!”
Heilser sat at his desk pounding the marble top. Collaborators! Why do we have to have collaborators to win a war? Why do we have to cultivate them, coddle them, bribe them? Men like Zervos and Manolis Kyriakides...
Why don’t we have men like Ioannis Rodites and Stergiou serving us! Why not men like the mysterious priest, Papa-Panos and the fierce Michalis and the incredibly courageous Thanassis?
Why am I always surrounded with the dregs of humanity?
The door opened.
Zervos stepped in. “Konrad,” he said, “brace yourself. Morrison was in Averof. He has escaped.”
SIX
THE WINE CELLAR BENEATH Gyni’s Restaurant on Armodiou Place was pitch black. Mike and Lisa huddled in a corner. He drew her close and stroked her hair.
“They should come soon,” she said.
“It will be all right, honey,” he whispered. “It will be all right.”
Mike recounted the afternoon’s events. Enroute to Gestapo Headquarters, Michalis