Robbie's arm, the doctor told him, would probably never regain its full former strength, because muscles and ligaments in it had been badly torn; but he had been lucky that the bullet had not shattered the bone, as he might then have had to have his arm amputated. He had sustained no permanent injury but the wound was inflamed, so he must remain where he was for several days.
He sent a message to Stephanie and asked for news of her. Then he was given another draught and slept again.
It was late afternoon when he was roused by the nurse looking into his cubicle. 'He's awake,' she said to someone behind her, 'but don't stay too long.' She stepped aside and Mahogany Brown came in. With a grin he sat down beside Robbie's bed, asked how he was, then said:
'Well, we fixed them. The boys went in with the Greek security people last night and caught every group cold. You were right about their intending to put nuclear bombs down those deep holes and start a chain reaction of earthquakes. What a night and day it's been. First scotching this Czech racket in the small hours, then the good news coming in that our sub. is out again in neutral waters and heading for home.'
Robbie said how pleased he was, then asked if the police had got Barak.
'He's dead,' came the prompt reply. 'The beam you were tied to hit him on the temple. His buddy got a broken jaw as a result of resisting the police and, like you, was brought to the prison hospital. He's only a few cubicles away.'
'So I'm in prison,' Robbie said.
'Why, yes. What did you expect? The police here are holding you for Cepicka's murder. But not to worry. I've already had a word with my Chief about how I met up with you, and found you were on a private venture gunning for the Czechs. When you are taken back to Athens, that will all be sorted out and you'll be given a clean bill for having killed Cepicka during your endeavours to prevent Greece being blown off the map.'
'It's good of you to have spoken to your Chief,' Robbie said gratefully. 'And I've certainly no right to complain about being under arrest. If the police hadn't come along to pick me up, I'd probably be dead by now. I wonder, though, how they managed to trace me. Do you happen to know?'
Mahogany Brown grinned broadly. 'Sure. I put them on to you.'
'You what?' exclaimed Robbie indignantly, pushing himself up with his good elbow. With an 'ouch' of pain, he quickly sank back again as the American replied:
'If you'd lunched at the Ariadne, as you told me you were going to, you'd have still more to thank me for. You'd have escaped getting a bullet through the arm and what I gather must have been a pretty sticky time while Barak had you cornered. I tipped off the police to pick you up at the Ariadne. As you weren't there and didn't come into the Candia Palace at seven o'clock, they alerted all stations to keep a look-out for you. They might not have found you for days, but for a lucky break. Your girl friend left her car with the lights on in the middle of a quarter of a mile of rubble. A patrolman went over to investigate, checked the car number with the one I'd given when I filed your description, and jumped to it that the pair of you must be somewhere in the offing. He telephoned his H.Q., and they sent out a search party. They spotted chinks of light coming from your hide-out and that was that.'
'But why?' Robbie asked in a puzzled voice. 'What conceivable reason had you for turning me in?'
'It wasn't you I was worried about. It was Mrs. B. who had to be put out of circulation. You admitted to me that you'd told her about your earthquake theory, and I wasn't trusting you not to tell her that I had fallen for it. Knowing that, she might have managed to get a message through to her pals, alerting the whole set-up that we were on to them. If a tip-off had got through, they could have dumped their bombs in the sea before our people had the chance to get them with the goods.'
'You're talking nonsense,' Robbie protested. 'She was on our side and doing her utmost to help me.'
The American gave a disbelieving shrug. 'She was Barak's wife and we knew that she was being used to keep tabs on you.'
'She was to begin with; but, as I told you, Barak tried to kill her. Naturally, that altered everything. After that--'
'It altered nothing. Communists, like other people, may change their sex relationships, but they don't stop being Communists. She was still selling you down the river.'
'She was not! I swear she wasn't!' Robbie cried indignantly.
'She was. We have proof of that. On Barak's body the police found a letter. It was from her, admitting that she'd slipped up, but asking to be taken back into the good books of the Party. As the price of her pardon, she offered to sell you out to him.'
'But . . . but,' Robbie stammered, 'she wrote that with my knowledge. We'd planned to lure Barak here and get the truth out of him, but he turned the tables on us. That's how it was that our car happened to be left outside for so long with the lights on. He prevented her from coming out and driving off in it.'
'Where were you at that time?'
'Hiding just outside. Our plan was that she should tell Barak that I'd be back in half an hour, and then leave him there. We hadn't counted on his bringing another man with him. We thought that, after he had waited there for a couple of hours and I hadn't shown up, he'd get sick of waiting and come out on his own. Then I meant to sand-bag him from behind.'
'Very nice. But it didn't work, eh? And I don't have to be a crystal-gazer to tell you what happened. Instead of coming out, she stayed there chatting with him about this and that for a while. Then he told her to open her pretty mouth and let out a yodel or two, so that you'd hear and think he was beating her up. You fell for it and came bursting in to rescue her. Isn't that just what you did?'
'Yes. That's why I went in. But you are utterly wrong about her. She didn't lure me into an ambush. The cries I heard were because she was being tortured.'
'So you say.'
After thinking hard for a moment, Robbie exclaimed triumphantly: 'Her hand is the proof of it. That fiend Barak had broken two of her fingers. When they lugged me up into that room, her hand was all out of shape and bleeding. You have only to go over to the woman's ward to check on that. When I came to in the night and asked about her, the nurse told me that Stephanie had suffered no other injury but, as I feared, some fingers on one of her hands were broken.'
Mahogany Brown stood up. 'I've a lot to do, so I must get along now. But listen, pal. You say the nurse told you about this hand. Well, it could easily have been crushed by a falling brick, and there's only your word for it that she got her injury any other way. I know you're nuts about this dame, and you're not the first guy who's been prepared to swear black is white in the hope of getting his sweetie out of trouble. But it's just no good. She's in this up to the neck.'
Robbie was appalled at the thought that Stephanie was believed to have aided her husband and that there might be no way in which her innocence could be proved. 'What . . . what d'you mean to do with her?' he asked hoarsely.
The American's reply was shattering. 'Why, she'll be shipped back to Athens with the other saboteurs we've caught in Crete. Maybe she'll get a prison sentence, maybe the Greeks will be satisfied by ordering that she's to be repatriated to her own country. Anyhow, except in a Court of Justice, you won't be seeing her again, so the sooner you forget her, the better.'
Epilogue
It was a week later, the 7th of May. Robbie had been back in Athens for two days. On his second day in hospital in Crete, a senior police official had taken a long statement from him. The following morning the British Consul had come to see him, with a message from his uncle that his case would be put in good hands and that he was not to worry. The Consul had then offered his services, if there was anything he could do. Robbie had asked him to find out about Stephanie, and had later received a note informing him that she was being flown back to Athens under escort that evening, with the other Czech prisoners.