“What is it?”
“Do not leave me here, Nick. I cannot go back to Athens now, not ever.”
“Look, it’s not possible...”
“But why not, Nick?” Alex broke in. “My sister, she is in danger, eh? We must take her with us.”
“Alex, from here, if we’re lucky it will be a good two days before we can reach Taranto. The whole idea of this operation is that we do nothing that looks out of the way. If Christina goes with us, with me, it could blow the whole thing.”
“And if she stays, probably she dies. No, my friend, I could not allow that. My fault, yes, that I brought her into this business, but now the two of us must do what we can to be sure she does not suffer because of it.”
Her hand was trembling on my back, and that more than Alex’s logic was what decided me. “Okay. Let’s get under way. Right now.”
Sixteen
I cleared the harbor under running lights, using the inboard auxiliary. When there were no other boats in sight, Alex crept up into the cockpit and sat down at my feet.
“You do not know these waters,” he announced. “The light buoys, they tell you where not to go. I will tell you where to go.”
Under his guidance we chugged along the still sound that lay between the island and the mainland; one cluster of brilliant lights, he told me, marked the border between Albania and Greece. “Such fortifications they have! Not even a baby eel could get past them on the darkest night of the world.”
“How did you manage it?”
“Not there, my friend. But where they put so much men and equipment to safeguard their borders, then there must be other places where there cannot be so much. Perhaps not even enough, eh?”
“I thought the Albanian coast was pretty well guarded everywhere.”
“Yes... pretty well. But maybe not well enough.”
“Like the northern border?”
“Ah?”
“Along Yugoslavia? And that part of Greece?”
Alex sat up a little straighter. “Do you know about that then, Nick Carter?”
“Enough,” I lied. “You said you had something vital to tell us when you came out. You’re out. What is it?”
He chuckled and pointed ahead. “When we clear that strait there, where we run under the guns of the Albanians so close you can smell the powder in their artillery shells, then I will tell you one or two things. It will be time for you to know.”
He was right about being close to the Albanian coast; as he pointed out the navigation lights I had the feeling I could almost reach out and touch the shore on either side. A tanker coming through the passage from the other direction scared the hell out of me for a little while; it seemed to fill the space with no room for even our small boat. Alex advised me to ignore it.
When we cleared the strait and headed out into the open sea I almost heaved a sigh of relief again, but didn’t. The wind had freshened and, once we were free of the barricade of Korfu, was blowing directly in our teeth. As we started to buck in the heavy chop, Alex went forward to raise the jib, then the main. He handled both the way you drop a couple of hamburgers on the grill and stand back to watch them char.
“We sail, Nick Carter. You are a good sailor?”
“I manage.”
“Good. This is still your pleasure cruise, and when the daylight comes I must go below again. If anyone approaches... well, my beautiful sister could not bear to be parted with you, eh? You will wave and be happy, and if they look unfriendly you will shoot them and kill them.”
“Alex?”
“Yes?”
“What the hell is all this about? We’ve cleared the strait now.”
“Yes. And I should tell you, because if I do not survive you must know. You know what I have been these many years?”
“A defector.”
“Oh yes, that, but do not be so disapproving, my friend. In my country... well, look at it today. Is a Communist a greater menace than one of those loyal to the present government? Or the one just past? No. I make no excuses for myself, Nick, understand that. I found unbearable corruption in my own country, and so I went to Albania where they were very happy to use my services. They are strong people, those Albanians, sometimes called the Mongols of Europe. Different from everyone else, do you know?”
I did, vaguely. They were strong, secretive, hostile to outsiders and fierce fighters who had resisted centuries of would-be conquerors. More than half the people were Moslems, and they fought in their mountains as fanatically as their brothers did in the desert countries of the Near East.
“What happened?” I asked. “What made you come back.”
“Ah well, my friend, it would take weeks to tell you all about that. Communism, you see, is the great leveler; even in Albania it makes petty bureaucrats of the proud warriors. But that is not the answer to your question, eh?”
“No.”
“So I will tell you, and you must listen closely. The great World Communism movement has drifted to almost a standstill; your President meets with leaders in China and Moscow, and the war in Vietnam is over. For the moment.” He chuckled. “Yes. But there are members of that great Movement who are not pleased with such developments, my friend. They are still listening to Marx, to Lenin, to Stalin, and they believe that Communism must always expand until the system controls the entire world. At one time, believe me, I was almost one of those. But not now, Nick, not now. At any rate, they are still active, those fanatics, and they are preparing a monstrous action which may well further their cause better than twenty Vientams.”
“What’s that?”
“Do you know the two lakes along the border between Albania and Yugoslavia? Just next to Greece?”
“I do.” Hawk’s map lecture was clear in my memory.
“There is an army there, right now. They belong to no country; they are Greeks, Albanians, Yugoslavs, but they are all dedicated Communists of the old, hard-line school. In... yes... two days, they, will launch a series of guerilla attacks from that no-man’s land between three countries that will totally confuse the world powers. They will be led, no, advised, as you Americans coined the expression so nicely, by a contingent of the Vietcong...”
I let go of the wheel as I snapped around to look down at Alex’s broad calm face. “What!?”
“That is right, my friend. Who is better fitted to conduct such military actions than the Vietcong? With their primitive weapons and their puny, underfed troops, they have fought the French and the Americans to a standstill for as long as we can remember. Is it unthinkable that they should lend their knowledge and their idealism to such a group as has been gathered in that remote terrain between Lakes Ohrid and Prespa? Think of the opportunities! On one side a staunch ally of the United States, though a military dictatorship these days; on another the most repressive Communist regime in the western world, and on the third Yugoslavia, more compatible with the West than with the Russians. Who will act to retaliate against them once their forays begin? From which country do they conduct their operations? And even if they can be found, what will any of the Great Powers do? Will the United States napalm them? Will the Russians send in tanks through Yugoslavia? No, my friend. And yet something must be done, eh? Because together with this campaign of terror and death there will be a campaign of propaganda that will not permit the world to ignore what is happening in our little corner of the world. Action must be taken, sooner or later, and that must inevitably lead to conflict between the West and the Communist powers.”
“Sounds pretty grim,” I admitted. “But how do you know all this?”