The Oracle (24 page)

He felt like a hunted animal, a scorpion trapped in a ring of fire. In his hands he clutched the deadly Pearson steel-plated bow with which he had riddled Vlassos’s body, gripping it spasmodically. He was prepared to fight to the death. He’d let himself be ripped apart by the dogs rather than surrender. The suspicion that Bogdanos had delivered him to his enemies began to worm its way into his mind, as the shouting of men and the barking of dogs grew closer and closer.

He heard a sound like snapping branches. He opened the door slightly and glanced towards the unbroken stretch of scrub and bushes that extended in the direction of the swamp. He could barely make out the shape of a man on the path, still at quite a distance, amidst the mist rising from the swamp on the rain-laden summer night. It could be none other than Admiral Bogdanos. Claudio couldn’t believe how – in that situation, at that time of night, with everything that had happened – his step could be so tranquil, so light and sure. Powerful yet unheeding at the same time.

When Bogdanos walked in, he nearly attacked him: ‘Why didn’t you let me slaughter that pig? And why did you make me come here? We’re surrounded. They’ll find us any minute.’

‘Let’s move to a safe place, son, and then I’ll explain everything. This old farmhouse was once a monastery and the well is connected to an ancient Roman cistern the monks used to store fresh water. Follow me, we don’t have much time.’

They walked out into the rear courtyard towards a well which seemed long abandoned.

‘I’ll lower you down with the chain. About halfway, you’ll find the entrance to the passage that leads to the cistern. Swing back on the chain and slide in, then wait for me there. I’ll lower the other end so I can drop down as you pull it taut. Take this torch. Leave me the bow – I’ll bring it down myself.’

‘All right,’ said Claudio. ‘But we’ve got to hurry: listen to those dogs barking. Damn, it’s like they were waiting for us this time.’

‘In a certain sense, they were. Our adversary is not only ruthless and brutal, he’s also quite intelligent. But he doesn’t know that it’s our game he’s playing. There you are, son: if I remember well, you’re at the right depth. You should have the opening right in front of you.’

‘I can see it, Commander.’

The torch beam wavered at the bottom of the well, its halo shining on the walls before disappearing suddenly, as if swallowed up into nothing. Claudio’s voice sounded suffocated: ‘You can drop down now, Commander, but first give me a length of chain. I need enough to pull it tight.’ Bogdanos dropped down another couple of metres of the chain. With Claudio holding it taut, he began to lower himself, the bow over his shoulder. The barking of the dogs was very close. Once he reached the opening, Bogdanos handed the bow to Claudio and let himself be pulled into the passage, taking care to collect the chain and not allow it to fall to the bottom of the well.

‘Why didn’t you drop it? It’s not like we can hoist ourselves out.’

‘You’ll understand soon,’ said Bogdanos. ‘Turn off that torch now.’

A group of police arrived just a few minutes later with the dogs. The hounds pawed the door of the farmhouse, then ran to the well, back and forth, whining and yelping.

‘They’re on to something,’ said one of the men.

‘You search the farmhouse,’ said their commanding officer. ‘I’ll check the well.’ He leaned over the side and flashed down a powerful beam of light. ‘There’s nothing here,’ he reported, after having carefully inspected it. He turned towards the house, waiting for his men to finish their search.

‘See,’ said Bogdanos, ‘if we had left the chain, that policeman would have seen the ripples on the water at the bottom and would have understood that someone had thrown or dropped something into the well. He would have become suspicious, perhaps even dropped down to inspect it. And a chain is always useful.’

They walked along the passage, lined with large clusters of maidenhair fern, lighting up their way with the torch. After about half an hour they reached the huge cistern, the
castellum aquarum
of the ancient Roman aqueduct.

‘Ingenious, isn’t it?’ observed Bogdanos. ‘When it rained enough or when the snow melted and the water level in the wells rose, they’d channel the water towards this cistern. The sediments deposited, and then the water could be used to feed other wells in areas which were dryer or had been contaminated by salt water.’ He walked all around the cistern and started down one of the passages which branched off from it. ‘There must have been much more water back then; the level’s very low now, as you can see.’ Claudio followed him in silence, gripping the big bow in his right hand. The ferns got smaller, then disappeared entirely and were replaced by lichen, as the tunnel evidently led them away from the damp area of the swamp.

‘We’re almost out,’ said Bogdanos, turning back. A few minutes later he stopped in front of a dark opening and gestured for Claudio to come closer: ‘Come along, son. This is the well we’ll use to get out. It’s crumbling; you can use your hands and feet to climb up.’

Claudio went up first and Bogdanos soon joined him. They found themselves in the middle of a patch of brambles not far from the sea, just a couple of dozen metres from the state road for Komotini. They went on until they reached the sea shore. Lights twinkled on the beach, perhaps a small drink stand, and they could hear the notes of a song mixing with the roll of the tide. Bogdanos sat on the sand.

‘How do you feel? Sit down, come on, sit down here.’

‘Commander,’ he said, dropping to the sand, ‘why did we fail this time?’

Bogdanos lowered his head. ‘The risk we took was great, my boy, although we came out well. But now, you see, we’ll have to suspend our work for some time. The entire Greek police force will be looking for us, because we’ve plunged the stick right into the hornets’ nest. Vlassos will be protected around the clock, and Karamanlis is no fool. He won’t let himself be taken by surprise. Our goal has been accomplished: the third message has been delivered. You’ll see, it won’t be long before it starts to take effect.’

‘I don’t know how you can be so sure. I keep thinking about the two of them getting away. I haven’t been a human being for a long, long time, Commander, and maybe I never will be again, and they are to blame. Only them. At this point, I want the game to end, understand? With you or without you, I have to finish this game. I’ll never have any kind of life until I do.’

Low on the horizon, misty with clouds and vapours, the large red moon was setting, projecting long, bloody wakes on to the sea. Bogdanos turned suddenly towards him: ‘You have to wait until it’s time, my boy. You must wait – do you understand me? There is no other way. I stopped you from killing Vlassos because just one more minute would have led Karamanlis straight to you. What we did was well done. Your arrows struck their mark; I helped Karamanlis put him on the boat. He was bleeding like a stuck pig.’ He reached out to stroke the grip on the Pearson bow. ‘This is always the best weapon,’ he said. ‘Precise, silent. Modern technology has built jewels of such perfection . . . once a bow had to be greased, heated over a fire . . .’

‘I want him dead.’

‘You’ll have him.’

‘When?’

‘Not now.’

‘When?’

‘And not here.’

‘Well then?’

‘First we have to gather them all together. All three, including Vlassos, if he lives. We have to lead them far away from here. Very far from here, where they can count on no one’s help, and they will be at our mercy. Trust me. At the right moment, each one of them – without knowing why – will follow the trail that will lead to their deaths, all together. On the same day. At your hand. But the days will be very short ones, the sun will be low and pale on the horizon. Just like the days of the massacre, the days in which they spilled the blood and the tears of an innocent creature, trampling her body and her soul.’

Claudio didn’t answer, watching the rim of the moon as it sank into the liquid boundaries of the horizon. The tears which flowed from his eyes were more bitter than the waves coming to die at his feet.

‘Commander.’

‘Yes, son.’

‘Who was the man I killed in Macedon?’

‘You recognized him, didn’t you? It was the man speaking English who collaborated with Karamanlis that night.’

‘Yes, I recognized him. But who was he?’

‘Do you really want to know?’

‘Yes.’

‘It was James Henry Shields.’

‘Shields? You don’t mean . . .’

‘Yes. He was Norman’s father.’

He lowered his head, burying it between his knees. ‘It was Norman, then . . . who betrayed me?’

‘No. It was Michel.’

Claudio twisted his back as if whiplashed, then bent over again and wept silently.

Bogdanos stretched out a hand towards his shoulder, but didn’t dare touch him. He stood up. ‘I must go, I can’t make Karamanlis suspicious. I have to give him proof that he can trust me.’ He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the blood from a small wound on Claudio’s arm, cut by the brushwood.

‘We won’t see each other for many days,’ said Bogdanos. ‘On the night of the eleventh of November, be at the Cimmerian promontory in Ephira. It will be nearly the anniversary of the battle of the Polytechnic. Until then, watch yourself and make no errors. Before the year is out, justice will be done, but we still have a long way to go. It will all happen far from here. Very far from here.’

Claudio lifted his head and looked at him: ‘Commander, if something should happen to me . . . If I should fall into their trap, be killed . . . would you finish this task?’

Bogdanos shot him a fiery look: ‘Do not even say such a thing. You will strike, when the time is right. You will strike with a steady hand, for Heleni, for yourself and . . . for me. Farewell, my son.’

‘Goodbye, Commander.’

He stepped into the shadows and Claudio was left alone with the waves on the beach and the ravaged clouds in the sky. He dragged himself under a rocky spur that had kept the sand dry during the rain. Fatigue overwhelmed him, and he fell asleep. He dreamed that the sun was rising and that Heleni was emerging nude from the waves and was running towards him as bright as the morning star.

C
APTAIN
K
ARAMANLIS SAT
at the wheel of his squad car, so agitated that he was just about to light up a cigarette from the pack he always carried in his pocket even after he had quit smoking. He restrained himself; the last word had not yet been said. Not all of the patrols had reported in: there was still hope, after all. He turned on the light in the car and scanned a topographical map of the zone, marking all the areas his men had already sifted through. There wasn’t much left, unfortunately. When he raised his head, he saw standing before him, in the brief, blinding beam of his headlights, none other than Admiral Bogdanos. He started involuntarily. He took a toothpick from his pocket and, chewing it in place of the cigarette, got out of the car: ‘Where did you come from?’

‘Did you get him?’

‘No, we didn’t get him. At least not yet. But just how did you get here?’

‘I’d say they haven’t a chance. If I managed to get out, so will he.’

‘You’re trying to tell me that you slipped out of the encirclement unnoticed? I can’t believe that.’

‘Don’t. Ask your patrols whether anyone saw me. You won’t get an answer.’

‘So what you’re saying is that a man – who we’re presuming is wounded on top of everything else – has managed to give a dozen patrols and sixty men the slip?’

‘Don’t ask me, Karamanlis. He’s already shown that he’s uncommonly clever. Maybe he was helped by the rain, the darkness . . . maybe your men made a mistake. Lots of things could have happened. I did find something.’ He handed him the bloody handkerchief. ‘As you can see, I wasn’t mistaken when I said he was wounded. It was near a grove of willows on the north-east part of the lagoon. If you get it analysed we’ll learn his blood type. And if I’m not mistaken you still have a medal with Claudio Setti’s blood type. If you haven’t kept it, I hope you’ve written the type down somewhere. If they coincide, I’d say that gives us some solid proof. At least we’ll know who we’re looking for.’

Karamanlis gave him a strange smile: ‘Thank you. I will certainly make every effort. But, as usual, I won’t know where to look for you to inform you of the outcome of our investigation.’

‘Don’t worry. I’ll find you. Haven’t I always found you?’

‘You have.’

‘Goodbye.’

‘Goodbye, Admiral.’

Karamanlis got back into the car and called in all the patrols, one by one, without much conviction. Something told him all the reports would be negative.

When his assumption was disappointedly confirmed, he switched off the radio and went back to the hospital. It was nearly morning and Vassilios Vlassos had already been moved to the ward after an operation of nearly four hours. He had needed another transfusion and had not yet fully regained consciousness.

‘He suffered an incredible trauma,’ the surgeon told Karamanlis. ‘Anyone else’s heart would have given out, but he seems to be doing well. He’ll be feeling better in a few days. We’re going to have to keep him on a drip until the sutures in his intestine have healed completely. He has lost a testicle, unfortunately; one of the arrows crushed it completely.’