Dig Two Graves: Revenge or Honor (22 page)

“Dobos?” AJ asked.

“Yes and the other one is Anton Petru, a Corsican,” Gia replied. “He’s wanted in three countries. Make that four the Greeks want him now, too. He’s a bad customer according to Uncle Alessandro.”

“You said the police were watching the hotel. Is there anything new on that?” AJ asked.

“They were watching you and Ceres, as you suspected,” she said. “The Greek police contacted Polizia Provinciale and asked you be shadowed. They said you were under investigation for murder. That wasn’t quite right, of course. They were trying to track Dobos and Petru, and the best way to them was through you.”

“I guess I’m glad they were there. Ceres could be dead now if those cops hadn’t been on the ball,” AJ said. “I wonder if they were in Boston in July.”

“Uncle Alessandro called the detectives in Boston you told him about. They are still checking that, but it looks good. Two men fitting Dobos and Petru’s descriptions arrived in Washington, D.C., on June 30.”

“That’s only 450 miles from Boston, just over an hour flight time. I’ve flown it many times,” AJ said. “What’s with Dobos? Why’s he after us?”

“Well, now that we know who they are we can protect you and find out who’s pulling the strings,” Gia said, reaching her hand across the table.

AJ took her hand gently in his and smiled up at the glowing Italian girl.

They chatted amiably over breakfast. AJ hadn’t realized how hungry he was until the food arrived. He had two helpings of eggs, cheese, and fruit, much to the chagrin of the waiter. Gia said he was an American, and that seemed to explain everything. Gia, an early riser, who had her protein shake after her morning run, watched AJ put away more then she ate in a week.

“I was famished,” AJ said as he finally pushed the plate away. “Italians traditionally have a very light breakfast. I’m afraid these people may need counseling after seeing you eat,” Gia laughed. “More coffee?”

“No thanks. I should get back to the hospital,” AJ said, looking at his watch. Despite enjoying Gia’s company, he wanted to be there when Ceres woke. He owed him that.

“Very well. Let’s get going,” Gia said.

There were few people on the street despite the hour. The two headed down the sidewalk, arm in arm, glancing in the store windows and chatting like old friends. A block behind them, a dark blue Citroen van cruised slowly as if looking for a place to park. Behind his dark glasses and fake beard, the driver was thankful for the light traffic. It would make the job easier. The two were easy to spot among the hurrying pedestrians. They walked more slowly.

AJ and Gia stepped between two parked cars to cross the street. They looked for oncoming traffic then stepped into the street. The blue van accelerated hard, and its tires squealed as they lost traction on the cobbled street. The engine roared as the driver took careful aim. They’re not even looking this way, he thought.

AJ sensed it more than he heard it. They were both looking left and he turned his head. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the van and took action. Gia was on his left, the van to his right. AJ pivoted to face Gia and launched himself into her, throwing them both onto the hood of a parked Fiat.

The van sideswiped the car. It’s side mirror broke off against AJ’s back as the vehicle whizzed by. AJ landed on top of Gia, knocking the wind out of them both.

A crowd gathered around the two people sprawled on the hood of a severely dented Fiat Spider. AJ took a deep breath and regretted it. The pain in his back and side stabbed straight through him.

“You all right?” Gia said. “Ah, I think you saved our lives.”

 “Does everyone in Italy drive like the devil is chasing them?” AJ said, as he tried to get up.

“Only the good drivers,” Gia said, “Now shut up and kiss me.”

 She put her hands on AJ’s cheeks, pulled his face to her lips and kissed him.

George’s words burned in Christos’ ears. ‘We couldn’t find him. He’s gone.’ There had to be some trace. There just had to be.
They missed something. I know it
, he thought. He remembered his own words to the American colonel too. There’s still much to do here. First, he had to find his friend, even if it was just to bury him.

Christos watched the last American plane disappear into the orange western sky. He was back to where he and his small band had started, fighting the Germans alone. There were other American and even British commandos still in Greece, but the man assigned to help him was gone.

Turning, Christos surveyed the pack animals loaded with supplies. “Check those ropes. I don’t want to lose anything,” he said. “That’s food, ammunition, and bandages we need. We don’t know when we might get more.” The Andartes were always short of everything but courage. “Spiro,” he called to the youngest member of the group, “careful with that radio.” The young Greek hefted the heavy box radio onto a donkey’s back. “It’s more valuable than you are.”

The men laughed as the boy blushed. They knew the benefit of having the radio. It was a lifeline, an advantage and tool they had never had before.

“Lead that animal carefully Spiro. We can’t replace that thing.”

Spiro smiled back at him and said, “Yes, Christos. I will lead her gently, like my little sister.”

One of the older men laughed and said, “I’ve seen your sister. Be careful that she doesn’t bite you.”

The three men laughed, and Christos was glad to see they were relaxed. He had chosen the men well.

Having supplies meant a great deal to the resistance fighters, but having a radio gave them the ability to call for more, a major improvement in their situation. Soon the small caravan of three men and a dozen animals set off for the Andartes base camp.

“I’ll meet you in two, maybe three days,” he said, and waved. He watched them leave and after a few minutes, all he could see was dust rising from the trail. He had one more job to do.

He checked his Sten gun and put it on the seat next to him as he climbed into the German half-track.

Christos looked over the controls, trying to remember what John had told him. The open vehicle weighed several tons. It had wheels on the front for steering and tank tracks in the rear to propel the vehicle. It had the cross-country capabilities of a tank with the handling of a truck.

“How did John show me how to do this?” he mumbled to himself. He pumped the gas pedal, pushed in the clutch, and then hit the starter button. The diesel roared to life. Christos smiled. Yes, all things are possible. He was not much of a driver, but John had taught him the basics. He gunned the heavy vehicle, ground the gears, and tore off toward the site of the battle.

The behemoth bounced and banged across the rough terrain. Christos guided the machine through a gap between the hills toward the still smoking ruins of the train. His progress along the hill’s edge was bone jarring as he crashed over the loose rocks that regularly fell from the hills.

Once away from the hills, though, the ride smoothed out and his forward progress quickened along with the pounding of his heart. Christos approached the wreckage of one of the German reconnaissance planes. He had never seen one up close, so he slowed to look at the pitiful collection of canvas and wood spars. He had expected it to explode or burn when it crashed, but it just sat there, another pile of debris on a forgotten trail.

The Storch had crashed nose first and lurched to the left. It rested on its bent prop and smashed left wing. One man was slumped over the seat. Another man, held tight at the waist, hung like a rag doll pushed through the closed canvas door. These things are just cloth. I have feared them, hidden like a child. He slowly moved away, closer to the wrecked train.

As he approached the smoking carnage, Christos thought of George’s words, ‘We searched for John everywhere, but couldn’t move the wreckage of the locomotive.’ That’s where he should start, Christos thought. He angled his big machine toward the front of the line of smoldering debris.

When he reached his journey’s end, Christos’ heart sank. The Americans had done a thorough job of it. A gut-wrenching stench of burning wood, heated metal, oil, and burned flesh assaulted him. The ground had turned to glass in places from the intense heat. Not a stick of the dozen or so railcars remained standing. Bodies littered both sides of the tracks. Christos choked on the smell of death and fire. He slipped a bandanna over his mouth and nose.

Arriving at the head of the death train, Christos left his engine running as he jumped out. Forlorn, lying completely on its side, the locomotive was barely recognizable. Huge chunks were missing from the immense tube that once had been the boiler. Wheels, the largest nearly as tall as the half-track, shared the rocky ground with dozens of dead men.

Gears, levers, gauges, and twisted sheets of steel decorated the landscape. Where should he look? There was so much debris scattered about.

Christos shook off the weight of his dread and sprang to work. The locomotive. Start with the locomotive. He dropped heavy steel towing cables from the sides of the half-track. Working quickly, he slipped one cable through each of the half-track’s rear tow points. He fed out the steel lines, metal splinters shredding his hands. He pulled both cables through the cab window, then climbed the overturned monster, pulled the cables out the opposite cab window and then back to the rear of the half-track.

He jumped behind the steering wheel and slowly, gears grinding in the lowest gear, eased forward. The cable’s slack disappeared until the motor protested against the overturned locomotive.

The half-track groaned, straining against the massive weight. Its tracks ground into the hard earth, chuttered and slipped then pulled again.

The hot exhaust billowed and choked him. The front of the half-track slowly rose off the ground as the weight behind him refused to budge. Christos eased off the accelerator. Slowly, he reminded to himself as he turned in the steel seat to watch behind. The sharp sound of tearing metal shrieked against his ears. Suddenly, one cable then the other snapped. They rebounded into the locomotive cab cleaving the window supports.

The cab collapsed in a cloud of black dust. The steel cables, twisting around one another, snaked toward Christos’ head. He threw himself to the floor, smacking his head against the seat to his right. The twisted steel hissed over his head. The flying knife sliced off the windscreen covering him in shattered glass and bits of metal. When the clattering subsided, Christos rose tentatively.

The windscreen was gone, sheared off only inches above his head.

He looked back at the locomotive. The cab had collapsed, but the black metal hulk remained rooted in the ground.

Christos smashed his fist into the back of the seat. “I’ll never move that,” he roared. Jumping down from his seat, Christos looked about. The shredded end of one of the cables lay on top of a huge curved piece of black steel. Perhaps I can move that, Christos thought.

He looked for an anchoring point, but the scorched and pitted surface offered no purchase. He went to the side furthest from the half-track pulling the cable behind him. Maybe I can slide the cable under the edge, he thought. Christos put the cable down by end of the huge curved piece of steel. He decided he would need to dig under the edge and retrieved a shovel from the half-track. Running back to the steel plate, shovel in hand, Christos caught a glimpse of something, a depression in the ground with a pointed black object in it. There was something familiar about it.

He looked more carefully then dropped to his knees and dug carefully with his hands. It’s John’s knife, he thought staring at the tapered diamond shape.

Christos dug with his shovel and found that the hollow led to a hole. He dug in the dry dirt until he saw a hand. “Oh God,” he said. “Let it be him. Let him be alive.”

His labor soaked him, sweat burning his eyes. The hole was about a foot deep and four feet wide. He dug carefully around the exposed arm to remove enough soil to reach the torso. When at last he scooped out one more shovelful John’s head fell out.

Christos reached and checked for a pulse. John was alive but barely breathing. He poured a canteen of water over his face. John sputtered, choked, and with a huge intake of air, shuddered. His eyes fluttered open and he looked into Christos’ smiling face.

“It’s about time,” John said weakly. “Where am I?”

“You’re trapped under this piece of the metal. I found you here,” Christos said.

“It took you long enough. I almost suffocated in there. What the hell happened?”

“When you opened fire, so did your men. Something hit the locomotive and it blew up.”

“Must have been the bazooka. This looks like a piece of the boiler. Its curved like the boiler was.” John said.

“I have to dig to get you out. Rest while I work. Here take some water,” Christos said, pouring water from his canteen onto John’s lips.

It took another hour to free John and Christos tried to fill John in while he worked.

“What happened to me?” John said.

“I don’t know. I guess when the beast exploded that covered you.” Christos said nodding toward the huge curved black steel plate behind them.

“Did the men get away?”

“Who?”

“My men, did they get away?” he said.

“Yes. They left hours ago,” Christos replied.

“Good. How about Solaris and the major?”

“Major?”

“The second man, the short one with the baby face. He wore a Greek Provincial uniform with oak leaves. Did you see him?” John said grabbing Christos’ shirt. “What happened to them?”

“I saw both men but couldn’t make out their faces. The man with Solaris was familiar, but I can’t say who he was. What name did he use?”

John screwed his eyes shut, dropped his head, and let out a sigh. “He didn’t say his name. Solaris almost said it but the major cut him off. He’s the one behind the prisoner exchange though. He has the crates of gold we’ve sent back and he wants the rest.”

“I saw Solaris go down. The other man ran and went down, too. You shot them?

“Yeah, both of them, where are their bodies?”

“We didn’t find them, John,” Christos replied as he eased his friend out of the hole.

“What?” John said between clinched teeth.

“One thing at a time my friend, right now let me get you out of here,” Christos said.

Christos eased John out of the pit he had dug. His friend was weak. Christos pulled John free of the steel plate, and his friend cried out in pain. Once John was free of the pit, Christos saw the lower third of John’s shirt was blood soaked.

“Let me check your wound,” Christos said.

“You didn’t find them? I hit them both. I know I did. We have to look again. I’m not letting those sons of bitches get away,” John said as he tried to stand. He got to his knees before he collapsed onto Christos, who caught him and put him on the ground.

“Don’t be stubborn. Let me look at this,” Christos said as he pulled John’s shirttail out. Three jagged pieces of shrapnel protruded from John’s lower back, the largest the size of Christos’ finger. Blood oozed around the edges but the serious bleeding had stopped.

“I’ll get some water and bandages,” Christos said as he rose.

He sprinted to the half-track and quickly returned with a medical kit and an extra canteen.

“Here,” he said thrusting a canteen into John’s hand, “Drink. You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

Christos broke open the German medical kit. Inside were gauze, field dressings, antiseptic sulfa powder, and even some forceps. He had what he needed to tend to his friend. Christos ripped open the back of John’s shirt then tore open the sulfa powder with his teeth. He sprinkled the yellow grey powder over John’s lower back.

“You’ve got to tell me what happened,” John said.

“Shut up,” Christos replied. “I’m trying to save your life.”

John winced as Christos pulled metal fragments from his back. Christos pulled out piece after piece of steel. As John’s flesh released a piece, Christos tossed it on the ground and went to work on another.

Through clinched teeth John said, “How did they get away?”

“Many German planes came and the little American planes went up to fight them.” Christos replied.

“What happened?”

“Two little German planes, the ones that look for us, landed.”

“The observation planes?” John asked.

“Yes. They landed and two men got in one of them,” Christos said.

“Please tell me our fighters shot them down,” John said.

“The American planes killed all but one of the Germans. They don’t know which one escaped,” Christos answered. “I passed one of them on the way here. There were only two men in it. Both were dead.”

“Oh no!” John said.

“I get the big one now, John. This will hurt. Stay still,” Christos said.

Christos grasped the largest fragment with the bloody forceps. The shrapnel was at a steep angle and resisted Christos’ efforts. It was big and it was deep. Christos’ digging went on and John passed out.