"Okay, okay," Murdock said. "Tell her she's not under arrest. We just want to ask some questions, okay?" When Papagos had spoken to her and she'd calmed down again, he added, "Ask her about this Vlachos character. What does she know about him?"
After speaking briefly with the girl and getting a considerably longer and more emotional reply, Papagos turned to Murdock. "Interesting, Skipper. She met the guy through her boyfriend Trahanatzis a couple of months ago. She doesn't really like him, though."
"Why not?"
"Well, I'm reading between the lines here, but I get the impression that Vlachos is a libidinous son of a bitch. It was supposed to be a cozy, romantic weekend, with Nikki and Trahanatzis and Vlachos and his girlfriend, Maria. Vlachos wanted to turn it into an old-fashioned orgy, but Nikki here just wanted to screw with her boyfriend. Trouble was, Trahanatzis was awfully eager to impress Vlachos and was pressing Nikki to, uh, be extra nice to him."
"Cute. Get her to tell you about Vlachos. Why doesn't she like him?"
Papagos rattled off the question in Greek. Nikki's reply was a long one, accompanied by quick, nervous hand gestures. Once the words started coming, there was no stopping them.
"She says he was boorish and loud and… and arrogant. Sounds like he thinks of himself as a real stud, a God's-gift-to-women kind of guy. And he's prejudiced. It seems Nikki here has some friends, neighbors of her family's back in Lankadas, who are Muslims. Nice people, she says, just plain folks who helped out her father once when he was in some kind of trouble. Financial, I think. Anyway, Vlachos was always going on about Muslims… 'Turks,' he called them. Thought they were all terrorists and ought to be butchered like pigs. Uh… that's a pretty strong insult to a Muslim, Skipper."
"I know. Go on."
"That's about all. Something about the other three hiding all her clothes to make her fuck Vlachos. I'm not sure if she's telling the truth there, or making up a story to explain why she didn't have anything on when they dragged her out from under the table. I do know the poor kid's scared half to death. She's not faking that."
"Does she know where Vlachos is from?" Murdock asked.
A moment later, Papagos turned to Murdock, his eyes sparkling. "Bingo, Skipper. She says he never told her, but he speaks kind of clumsy Greek, like it's not his native tongue. Seems he speaks Macedonian, though. So does Nikki, enough to know he speaks it with a northern accent."
"Macedonian, eh?" The language, like the people, was Slavic, more closely related to Bulgarian than to Greek.
"Well, well," Roselli said. "A Macedonian who arranges sexy weekends aboard his yacht with members of the DEA."
"He was DEA too, remember," Murdock said. "Ask her, was he the only one she knew from up there?"
"He's the only one she knew well. She says there were these four other guys, all Greek Macedonians and all members of the DEA, that Vlachos and Trahanatzis entertained a lot. She only met them a couple of times, and Trahanatzis didn't seem to want her around those times."
"Nice guy."
"Yeah. Sounds like a real sweetheart. Anyway, sometimes they got together on Vlachos's boat. Usually it was ashore, at some restaurant or other."
"Sounds like those four might be people we'd like to meet," Frazier said from behind the wheel. "If we could get names, I'll bet a month's paycheck that they're the same as four of the names on that list of DEA agents assigned to Kingston's flight."
"At least we have a direction to go in with our questions." Murdock reached into his trousers and extracted his wallet. They'd all been issued 100,000 drachmas — about 400 American — in spending money by their embassy contact aboard the Jefferson that morning. Murdock counted off 20,000 drachmas and handed them to the girl. "Tell her she's been an enormous help," he told Papagos. "Tell her we're sorry about what happened on the boat, but that Vlachos is a bad man and we're trying to find him. She can have the money to buy herself clothes, or to get her home, or for whatever else she needs."
"What about Solomos, Lieutenant?" Magic asked. "That bastard's going to be looking for her."
"I know. Can't be helped, though. Damned if we can adopt her. Tell you what, Nick. Tell her to try to stay away from the DEA and the soldiers, but that if she can find a local cop, someone from here in Salonika, she might be able to get him to help her." People were people, whatever their language. Just as Solomos didn't like the idea of Americans intruding on his turf, the chances were good that local cops didn't care for the elite Dimona coming along and carrying out paramilitary operations in their territory.
It was the best he could do for her… and he hated taking the added precaution of having Papagos tell her they were hunting for Vlachos, not that they already had him. If they did pick her up, that was what she would tell them… another fiction that might delay a police search by a precious few more hours.
If they were lucky, Jaybird, Mac, DeWitt, and Vlachos were already at the new hotel, waiting for them, while the police were searching the streets.
Nikki couldn't know about any of that, of course. She did seem grateful, though, now that these mysterious foreigners were letting her go when she'd been imagining the worst. When they all got out of the car, she came up to Murdock, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him on his cheek. "Sas ejharisto poli, kirie," she said, her eyes shining.
"Hey, L-T," Roselli called. "Who's your friend?"
"She says thank you very much," Papagos added.
"How do you say, 'You're welcome'?"
"Parakalo."
"Parakalo, Nikki."
"Hey, L-T," Roselli said, grinning as the girl hurried off, bare feet slapping on the concrete. "I think she kind of likes YOU."
"Shut up. Let's find that hotel."
13
They left the parking garage in two groups to avoid attracting attention, sticking to side streets where possible and taking separate routes to the hotel. Frazier led Magic and Razor, while Papagos stayed with Murdock. Navigation through the city streets actually proved to be relatively simple, since both the communications antenna above the fairgrounds to the northwest and the huge sports stadium to the east were easily recognizable, easily spotted landmarks.
Murdock and Papagos were delayed only once, waiting for a few minutes in an alley as a police car cruised slowly past on Papaphi Street. They found the Dimitriu without trouble and slipped up the fire escape in back, to find that Frazier, Brown, and Roselli had gotten there just minutes before them, while Sterling, DeWitt, and MacKenzie had arrived with their prisoner nearly an hour earlier.
"So that's Stathis Vlachos," Murdock said.
"I think he may be starting to come around," DeWitt said. "From the size of that lump on the back of his head, I'd say Jaybird damned near took his head off."
"Stepano?" Murdock said, jerking his head toward the room's single small window. "Let's talk. Over here."
"Yes, sir."
Murdock began filling him in on what the SEALs had learned from Nikki in the car, speaking quietly so that if the prisoner was awake, he would not hear. "So he's Macedonian," he concluded. "Or, I should say rather, at least he speaks Macedonian. Don't know how much English he has, but the girl said his Greek wasn't all that good. I think he's from up north."