Berger was on edge, though he did his best not to show it in the office. It had been a shock for everyone when the police had arrived on Monday afternoon and told them that Maria Galanos had been found murdered in her flat. Apparently her parents had spent the weekend trying to reach her on the telephone; the concierge had finally relented on Monday morning and used her key to open the poor girl’s door. With Greek efficiency, it had taken the police most of the day to contact her employers.
Falana had fainted when she’d heard the news, and Berger had sent her home right away. But he knew that her alarm was felt by everyone else in the office, and even now, three weeks later, the atmosphere remained tense as well as mournful. In his experience, sudden deaths were upsetting; a murder had the added effect of being frightening.
Katherine Ball was due out in a couple of days, and Berger was looking forward to her arrival – her imperturbable confidence might rub off on his edgy staff. He wished it could rub off on him as well. Unlike the staff, he didn’t think Maria’s murder had anything to do with her personal life, or was the random act of some homicidal psychopath. He was sure that her real role in the office had been discovered, either because she had asked too many questions or because she had found something out which she hadn’t been able to tell anyone in time – Berger’s secretary said that Maria had been looking for him on the day he had gone away for a long weekend.
So perhaps there was a spy in the office after all, one prepared to kill to keep their identity secret. Which meant they might kill again. Berger had not felt so exposed for several years, not since moving out of his risky former life and joining the calm backwaters of charitable work. Or rather, calm no longer; he kept wondering if Maria’s death was not an end but a beginning, and if the killer would continue to kill anyone who might get in the way. In the way of what, though? Berger didn’t know, but it had to include the hijacking of the UCSO shipments.
He wanted back-up – protection, yes, but also someone with a fresh perspective who might see what was going on here in a way that Berger couldn’t. The people from the British Embassy who’d sent Maria had been no help at all. They’d just told him to keep his head down and say nothing about them to the Greek police while they awaited instructions from London. He’d heard no more from them. That wasn’t good enough for him. He hated returning to his former way of life, but he hated being in danger again even more.
The switchboard put him through right away. ‘Trade Affairs,’ a flat Midwestern voice announced. ‘This is Hal Stimkin.’
‘My name is Mitchell Berger. I run the UCSO office here in Athens. I’m Brown Book status.’ This was the register of former employees. ‘I need a meet – ASAP.’
There was a pregnant pause. ‘Well, Mitch. Give me a minute or two and I’ll get back to you. What’s your number?’
Berger gave him a number and the phone went dead. He could imagine the process now put in train – the encrypted email to Virginia, the internal call, the email back. Three hours later he was still musing on how long it would take when his phone rang. It was Stimkin. ‘OK, Mitchell. Now here’s what we’re gonna do…’
He was preoccupied for the rest of the day – even Elena, his normally timid secretary, commented on it when she brought him coffee at four that afternoon. He did his best to focus on work affairs – after Maria’s death he had postponed the planned shipment but needed now to reschedule it – but he was glad when the clock showed six o’clock. By then the office had emptied and he had the lift to himself as he left the building.
He had an hour to kill so he walked. Spotting any surveillance in Athens at that time of night was well-nigh impossible, though he felt pretty sure that if anyone were watching him it would be an individual rather than an organisation, and would therefore be easier to shake off.
Fifty minutes later, as he circled around his destination, he was confident he wasn’t being followed. He was heading for the Venus de Milo, a luxury hotel situated only a few hundred yards from the Parthenon. He’d checked the pavements behind him carefully as he’d walked, and been alert for a front tail as well; he’d detoured through a large department store that stayed open late, taking the lift up and the stairs down, then had a quick espresso in a coffee bar with a good vantage point towards the street. He’d even searched himself, against the remote possibility that a tracking device had been planted on his clothes. Nothing, and no one.
The bar in the Venus de Milo was humming, full of tourists staying at the hotel and locals from the offices nearby, willing to pay over the odds for a cocktail in order to enjoy the air-conditioning. A long mahogany bar hugged one side of the low room on the hotel’s ground floor. Berger spotted a tall frosted glass of beer sitting on the bar top in front of two empty stools. He sat down on one of them, and as the barman approached pointed to the full glass. The barman drew another beer from the tap and, as he put it down in front of Berger, a tall, heavy-set man sat down next to him.
‘I’m Stimkin,’ the big man said, taking a long pull from his waiting glass of beer. He didn’t shake hands. ‘You checked out fine, Mitch, but this is your first contact in five years. So what’s the big emergency?’
Inwardly Berger sighed. He’d seen enough of the world not to stereotype people, but he’d seen an awful lot of versions of Hal Stimkin before, especially in the Agency. He would be a former jock, probably a former football player, possibly ex-military; he’d have joined the Agency on the heavy rather than the cerebral side, but shown enough polish to rise in the ranks and become a Head of Station. He’d be a self-proclaimed ‘straight shooter’, which really just meant he not only lacked sophistication but was proud of the deficit. All in all he was about as far as you could get from the Ivy League WASP who, both in the old days and in the popular imagination, staffed the higher ranks of the CIA.
Berger gave a terse account of recent events to Stimkin, ending in the death of the planted MI6 agent.
‘Why didn’t you flag Six’s involvement to us?’
Berger shrugged. ‘To be honest, it didn’t seem relevant. They were just helping sort out a criminal situation. Nothing of interest to Langley.’
‘Let Langley be the judge of that, pal. Six must have thought it was more than that or they wouldn’t have bothered.’
‘My boss is ex-Six. They were doing him a favour.’
‘Oh, really?’ asked Stimkin, gesturing to the barman for two more beers. ‘That would imply they’re a lot nicer than we are. And they’re not.’ The second implication was clear: Stimkin thought there was more to this than met the eye. Perhaps he wasn’t so stupid after all.
Their beers came and they waited for the barman to move away. Stimkin said, ‘So, what do you want from us?’
‘Help,’ said Berger bluntly. ‘I need my back watched.’
‘And in return?’
‘You know everything that happens.’
Stimkin grimaced. ‘A bunch of hoods are ripping off your ships. Do we care who they are?’
‘Not if it’s that simple. I’m not sure it is.’
Stimkin nodded. ‘You could be right, bud.’ The big man would have seen Berger’s Agency CV, or at least a précis of it. He’d know Berger wouldn’t have spent twenty years doing the things he had done for the Agency if he were some sort of crank. ‘OK, so let’s keep in touch. I’ll brief Langley.’
‘And I get back-up?’
‘Let’s see. For now, sit tight.’
Stimkin looked at the bill the barman had placed next to their beers. ‘I don’t believe the Brits are just going to give up because one of their people got iced. They’ll be back as soon as the Greek cops get out of the way. I want to know when they are, understood?’
Berger had had enough. He’d left the Agency after all, he hadn’t been pushed out. And now Stimkin was acting as if he were some sort of underling or, even worse, a dubious source. He decided to beat Stimkin to the punch, and got down off his stool before the big man did. He said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got it, Hal.’ And he didn’t mean the bill; he figured Langley owed him that at least.