"Is that when it happened?" Erika asked.
"Well, at first I suspected nothing," Minourkos said, his face ashen as he remembered. "Then, almost without warning, Stavros asked my aides to go into another room. One of Stavros' men followed. There were two gunshots." Minourkos fell silent.
"He murdered them right there?" I asked.
"In cold blood. His henchmen knocked me down and kicked me almost unconscious. They took me into that other room and made me look at the bloody bodies. I will never forget it.
"Salaka, my secretary, lay in a pool of his own blood. The other fellow's face was blown off. Stavros said I could expect the same thing if I did not cooperate."
"What happened after that?"
"The next day they brought in a man who looked exactly like Salaka Madoupas. The man even spoke like Salaka and affected all his mannerisms. It was incredible, really incredible. It was like an awful nightmare."
"Did they have a man to impersonate you?" Erika asked.
"No, they did not have to. I am rarely seen, except by close business associates. They brought in a recorder and played several tapes of my voice that they had recorded without my knowledge at previous meetings. Stavros pointed a gun at my head and said he could kill me right there and nobody would know for a very long time. But, he said, I would live if I did not give them too much trouble. They needed me, he said, for further recordings and for putting letters and such into my own words and thoughts. So they put me aboard a private plane and abducted me to this Godforsaken place."
"Did Stavros tell you what he was going to do?" Erika asked, perplexed.
Minourkos grunted out a dry laugh. "He was quite candid. He said that they intended to overthrow the government of Greece in my name, that they would call upon my friends in the military and other fields by using the man who was impersonating my secretary to make phone calls and personal contacts. Because I have been a private person, nobody would think it unusual that I did not meet personally with them. And if someone insisted on seeing me, they might fly me to Athens and force me to meet with him and say things that they wanted me to say.
"They showed me another man who could forge my signature exactly. This man would write checks on my various accounts and spend my money for military coups that they were going to organize."
"Did he give you any details?" I asked.
"Mr. Stavros, whom I am ashamed to admit has Greek ancestry, spoke freely to me, both in Athens and here. He said his plan is divided into three parts. First, he intends to get rid of the ruling junta and place men in power who feel an allegiance to me. They will feel this allegiance not because they are friends, for most of them will not be, but because Stavros will have promised them power and glory in my name."
"Very clever," I remarked.
"Secondly, his plan will involve forcing these new generals and colonels to demand that I, Nikkor Minourkos, be named president with full power over the junta. Stavros indicated that I might be used for this part of the plan, since my privacy would have to be abandoned at that point That is, I would be used if it was clear that Stavros could trust me to keep quiet about what was really going on. If not, he would find another imposter, this time for me."
"It would work, too," Erika commented. "Very few people know your face well enough to detect a slight difference between your features and those of an imposter."
"Exactly," Minourkos said. "It's incredible that my pursuit of privacy has contributed to this horror. Anyway, the third phase of the plan would involve using me or the imposter as president of Greece for a short time, during which period I would appoint Stavros vice president He would be a citizen by then and his name would have been gradually introduced to the people of Greece. He would then be seen as the hero behind the coup. Then, announcing ill health, I would step down in favor of Stavros as president."
Minourkos fell silent "It's wild," I said. "What makes Stavros think that the Greeks will stand by and watch something like that happen?"
"Why not?" Minourkos asked, his face lined with fatigue. "Remember what happened in April, 1967, when the junta was formed? That was not a bloody coup, but it was a coup. The government of the king was overthrown by force. Many articles of the constitution were suspended by the junta's decree. It is ironic, is it not, that a man like this appears just when the constitution has been restored and when the junta has become more moderate and is setting up general elections for next year. If Stavros' plan to grab power succeeds, Greece could end up with a tyranny more complete than Hitler's or Stalin's."
Erika looked from Minourkos to me. "Then we must stop him, mustn't we?"
Minourkos studied Erika's face. "Yes. We must!" The stout Greek stood up and thrust his square chin forward. "This man is even using my family against my homeland. He boasts that my brother-in-law, General Vassilis Kriezotou, thinks I am behind this ugly plot and has thrown his support behind it because he thinks I want it. Yes, I will help you in any way I can. What do we do first?"
"We go to Athens," I said. "That's where we find and stop Stavros."
Six
Less than forty-eight hours later we arrived in the capital of Greece. I booked adjoining rooms in a small hotel called the Odeon at 42 Pireos, just a short distance from Omonia Square. The weather was balmy and a pleasant relief from the heat of Paracatu.
The newspapers in Athens were full of commentary on the quickly changing political scene. News had sifted back from Rhodesia that my friend Alexis Salomos had been killed, and speculation was rife. It was generally known that there had been an attempt on his life before he had left for Rhodesia. One paper in particular, however, had avoided any mention of the death of Salomos. It was also running regular editorials denouncing the leadership of the ruling junta, attacking a leading general or colonel in almost every issue. Salomos had mentioned to me that this publisher was unscrupulous and had been the first to support the original hard-line junta after the coup in 1967.
"It is quite clear that the publisher has been bought off with my money," Minourkos remarked, sitting on a reclining chair in my room on the sunny afternoon of our arrival. "And look at this headline in another paper: MINOURKOS DECRIES JUNTA COMMUNIST AFFILIATIONS. Mr. Stavros has been busy."
Erika took a cup of thick Greek coffee from a tray that had been brought to us and served it to Minourkos. He accepted it with a somber face. Erika took a cup herself and sat beside me on a short sofa.
"I just hope nobody has seen you yet," I said to Minourkos, "particularly one of his men. Your life wouldn't be worth a drachma if Stavros learned you were here in Athens."
"He will find out as soon as he contacts Paracatu," Minourkos reminded me.
"Yes, but that might not be for several days, if we're lucky. And even then he wouldn't know definitely that something was wrong without sending somebody there from Rio. That somebody would have to be a subordinate because Ubeda is dead."
"What do we do first, Nick?" Erika asked. "We can't just storm the penthouse the way we did the plantation. It will be too well protected."
"I could place a call to the penthouse," Minourkos suggested, "to see how they are handling contacts with outsiders. But they would recognize my voice."
I handed him a napkin from the tray. "Raise the tone of your voice and speak through this. Tell them you want to speak to yourself. When they refuse, ask for your secretary, Salaka Madoupas. Tell them you are a visiting newspaper editor from Salonika, and you would like a statement about Nikkor Minourkos' political ambitions."