After that, when the tanks came down and the fighter planes dived overhead, was something I did not want to think about.

  “Ferenc?”

  “What?”

  “Do we have any chance? Tell me the truth.”

  “There is no chance, Annalya.”

  “I thought not. We will all be killed?”

  “Perhaps. They may not want a massacre. The Russians got a fairly bad press after Hungary. They may just kill the leaders.”

  “Like Todor?”

  I didn’t answer her.

  “It would be horrid if we lost and they spared him.”

  “I do not understand.”

  She smiled. “My brother wishes to be a hero. He is a hero already. He has fought like a hero and he will fight like a hero again when the troops arrive. It is only fitting that he die like a hero. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where will the worst of the fighting be?”

  “In the center.”

  “Then I must be certain that Todor is here,” she said. “In the center. May it please God that he dies before he learns that we are defeated.”

  I went eastward on foot, walking toward the emerging sun. The night had been very cold, but the morning was warm in the sunlight, the air very clean and fresh. The hillside was green, but a deeper and much darker green than the fields of Ireland. I was in no hurry and had no special fear of being noticed. My clothes were the same peasant gear worn by the men working in their fields or walking along the road. I knew that they wanted me in Yugoslavia—the last moments in Tetovo, when Annalya and I had huddled together in the storm cellar waiting for a car to spirit us out of town, the army loudspeakers kept demanding that the villagers turn in the American spy.

  It was Annalya who decided that I had to escape and who dragged me away from the fighting, brought me and my leather satchel to relative safety in the cellar, and finally got us a ride south and east of Tetovo.

  “You wanted to make sure your brother was killed,” I said. “Why are you making sure that I get away?”

  “For the same reason.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Todor had to die in battle,” she said. “And you must escape. It would be bad for us if the enemy captured you. This way you are our American, mysterious, romantic. The government will know you were here with us and will be unable to lay hands on you. And our people will know you will return some day and resume the fight. So you must escape.”

  She accompanied me to the farmhouse but refused to go to Bulgaria with me. She felt she would be safe where she was and that she could not leave her people. Her place, she said, was with them. And, in that farmhouse, while other men drank bitter coffee in the kitchen, she asked me to go upstairs with her and make love to her. In a passionless voice she at once offered herself and insisted that her offer be accepted.

  It was both loving and loveless—and better than I had thought it would be. Until the moments our bodies joined, it was impossible to think of the act, let alone experience anything resembling desire. But then I was astonished by the urgency of it all. And I was more astonished yet at her cries at a moment of what might have been passion. “A son! Give me a son for Macedonia!”

  I did my best.

  IT TOOK quite a while to reach Sofia, but the city held refuge for me in a priest in The Greek Orthodox Church. I was sent to him by an IMRO member who was also a member of an organization called the Society of the Left Hand.

  My lack of knowledge of the Society of the Left Hand greatly inhibited conversation. I dared not espouse any particular political viewpoint lest it should develop that Father Gregor did not happen to be in sympathy with that point of view. Father Gregor’s housekeeper produced an excellent shashlik, and his cellar yielded up a commendable bottle of Tokay wine.

  “Ah, it is good. More wine?” He refilled our glasses. “At nine o’clock there is a broadcast of Radio Free Europe. Do you often hear it?”

  “No.”

  “For my part, I never miss it. And just as that program concludes there is a broadcast of Radio Moscow, also beamed to Sofia. This is another program I always enjoy hearing. Do you listen to Radio Moscow?”

  “Not often.”

  “Ah. Then, I think it shall be a treat for you. The juxtaposition of these two radio programs is a delight to me. One is dashed from one world to another, and neither of the two worlds reflected has much in common with the world one sees from Sofia.”

  The program came on and I heard my own named mentioned. I almost dropped my wine glass.

  “Yet another act of Russian provocation has threatened the peace of the world,” the announcer proclaimed. “This time the crime is espionage, a black art that seems to have been invented in Moscow. The criminal band operates under the leadership of Evan Michael Tanner, an American citizen corrupted by the communist lies and tainted by communist bribery. Through stealth and subterfuge this traitor to the peace of the world managed to get hold of the complete dossier of the British air and coastal defenses. The key defense secrets of this gallant European nation are even this minute moving behind the Iron Curtain toward the tyrant’s home base in Moscow.

  “Yet there is still hope for mankind. Tanner, it has been learned is on his way to a small city in northwestern Turkey, there to make contact with his superiors. Will he be intercepted? Free men everywhere, peace-loving men throughout the world, can only pray that he will…”

  British air and coastal defenses—but how could they have been stolen in Ireland? And if they had been stolen in England, why on earth would the tall man have run to Ireland with them? And for whom had he been working? And why? And—

  Gradually, as the announcer shifted to another point, I managed to work out at least a part of it. The only way it made any sense was that the Irish themselves had stolen the British plans. Then the tall man or some other member of his gang had filched the plans a second time in Dublin. That would explain why it was the gardai rather than some branch of British Intelligence that had picked up the tall man’s trail, arrested him, and eventually shot him dead.

  The Radio Moscow program had an added kicker.

  “Continuing their program of harassment, agents of the American Central Intelligence Agency once again launched a desperate attempt to undermine the security of one of the peace-loving socialist republics of Eastern Europe. This time our sister nation of Yugoslavia was the victim. Playing on racial friction and decadent economic drives, CIA operatives under the direction of Ivan Mikhail Tanner sparked an abortive fascist coup in the Province of Macedonia. With tons of smuggled weapons and the tactics of Washington-trained terrorists, these social fascists were able to overcome the efforts of the fine people of several Macedonian villages. Through the efforts of people in the surrounding territory, and with the aid of crack government troops from Belgrade, the Washington-inspired uprising was quickly brought under control and the wave of terror ended forever.”

  I poured myself a fresh glass of wine. It was beginning to look as though there would be quite a delegation waiting for me in Balikesir. The British, the Irish, the Russians, The Turks, the Americans—and, of course, the nameless band that had stolen those plans in the first place.

  After the programs were finished, Father Gregor smiled and said, “I noticed that one man was mentioned on both programs, though in different contexts. A Mr. Tanner. Did you notice that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you find this amusing?”

  “I—”

  He smiled gently. “May we halt this masquerade? Unless I am very much mistaken, which, I admit, is of course a possibility, I believe that you are the Evan Michael Tanner of whom they speak. Is that correct?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  His eyes glinted brightly. “At any rate, I know that you are you. Are you really going to Ankara? Or was the report correct?”

  “I’m going to a small town. As they said.”

  “Ah. You have friends there?”

  “No.”

  “May I ask you a delicate question?”

  “Of course.”

  “You need not answer it, and I need not add that you have the option to answer it untruthfully. Is there, perhaps, the opportunity for you of financial profit in Turkey?”

  I hesitated for some time. He waited in respectful silence. Finally, I said that there was an opportunity for financial profit.

  “So I suspected. I presume you would prefer not to tell me your precise destination in Turkey?”

  Did it matter? The rest of the world already seemed to know. I said, “Balikesir.”

  Father Gregor got to his feet and walked to the window. While looking out it he said, “In your position, Mr. Tanner, I would have a great advantage. I am, as you no doubt know, of the Left Hand. I would be able to enlist the aid of other members of the Left Hand. If I were attempting to bring something into Turkey, they might help me. If, on the other hand, I were bringing something out of Turkey, they again might be of assistance.”

  I said nothing.

  “Of course, there is a custom in the Society. I would be expected to give the Left Hand a tithe of the proceeds of the venture. A tenth part of whatever gain I realized.”

  He put his hands together.” It would be possible to assemble a dozen very skillful men in Balikesir at whatever time you might designate. It would be possible to supply the material you might need for a proper escape. It would be possible—”

  “A plane?”

  “Not without extreme difficulty. Would a boat do?”

  “One that could reach Lebanon.”

  “Ah. It is gold, then?”

  “How did—”

  “What else does one sell in Lebanon? For many items Lebanon is where one buys. But if one has gold to sell, one sells it in Lebanon. One does not get the four hundred Swiss francs per ounce one might realize in Macao, but neither does one get the one hundred thirty francs one would obtain at the official rate. I suspect you might realize two hundred fifty Swiss francs an ounce for your gold. Is that what you had anticipated?”

  “For a priest,” I said, “you’re rather worldly.”

  He laughed happily. “There is only one thing.”

  “Yes.”

  “It would be necessary for you to join the Society of the Left Hand.”

  “I would have to become a member?”

  “Yes. You are willing?”

  “l know nothing about the Society.”

  He considered this for a few moments. “What must you know?”

  “Its political aims.”

  “The Left Hand is above politics.”

  “Its general aims, then?”

  “The good of its members.”

  “Its nature?”

  “Secret.”

  “Its numerical strength?”

  “Unknown.”

  We sat looking at each other.

  “You wish to join?”

  “Yes.”

  “That is good.” He went to another bookshelf, brought down a Bible, a ceremonial knife, and a piece of plain white cloth. I covered my head with the white cloth, gripped the knife in my right hand, and rested that hand atop the Bible.

  “Now,” said Father Gregor, “raise your left hand…”

  I ENTERED Balikesir in the afternoon three days later on the back of a toothless donkey. With the British air and coastal defense plans between my skin and my shirt, with the leather satchel abandoned in Bulgaria, with my face unshaven and my hair uncombed and my body unwashed, and with Mustafa lbn Ali’s passport clenched in my sweaty hand.

  For the remainder of the afternoon I wandered slowly through the downtown section. There could not possibly have been as many agents of various powers as I fancied I saw, but it certainly seemed as though the city was swarming with spies and secret agents of one sort or another.

  I had to dodge them all. But I also had to slip in and out of the streets of the city until I found that house high on a hill at the edge of town, the big house with the huge porch that Kitty Bazerian’s grandmother may or may not have recalled correctly. Then I had to break into the porch, remove the gold, accept help from the Society of the Left Hand, and, hardest of all, manage to avoid having the Left Hand walk off with every last cent of the proceeds.

  Because I did not trust them an inch.

  There was a moon three-quartets full that night. Around nine I began hunting for the house, and it took me until an hour before dawn to find it.

  The house needed painting badly. Some of its windows were broken, a few boards loose on its sides. I approached it very cautiously and came close enough for a quick examination of the porch. The floorboards seemed to have remained undisturbed for a long period of time, and the concrete sides were uniformly black with age. There was one part where the porch might have been broken and recemented years ago—perhaps when the gold was originally hidden away there, or perhaps later when someone else had beaten me to the punch and removed the treasure. There was only one sure way to find out, and it was too close to dawn for me to make the attempt.

  I drifted downtown again. I wasted the day wandering through the markets, killing time in a filthy movie house, sitting over cups of inky coffee in dark cafes. At night I returned to the house. I had purchased a crowbar and small flashlight at the market and had walked around all day with them hidden in the folds of my clothing.

  In the darkness I went up onto the porch and worked at the boards. It was hellish work—I had to be silent, I had to be fast, and I had to be prepared to melt into the shadows at the approach of a car or a pedestrian. I finally cleared out a large enough area so that a man could slip through. I turned on the flashlight and looked inside.

  The beam was weak. But it was enough. I was looking—wide-eyed, suddenly breathless—at the gold of Smyrna!

  I spent the rest of the night beneath the porch.

  There were sacks and boxes and little leather purses, and everything was stuffed with gold coins. The great majority were British sovereigns with the head of Queen Victoria, but there was a scattering of Turkish pieces and a handful of pieces in each lot from other nations. Counting this treasure was out of the question. Instead, I incorporated the small bags inside the larger gunny sacks and tried to calculate the total weight of the treasure.

  My guess placed it somewhere between 500 and 600 pounds. I was sitting in the exhilarating presence of somewhere around a quarter of a million dollars in gold.

  The Society of the Left Hand made 1 contact in the market a day later. A furtive little man with smallpox scars on his chin flashed me one of the secret signs—a particular arrangement of the fingers of the left hand that Father Gregor had taught me. I returned the sign. He nodded for me to follow him and I did.

  He led me up on street and down another until we reached a large old house in the Arab section.

  “We have rented this house,” he said. “You will come inside?”

  I went inside and met my four companions. There were three others, I was told. One waited in the harbor at Burhaniye with the boat they planned to use. Two others had left to make arrangements for a car. Had I found the gold? I said I had. Would we be able to get it out? I said we would.

  They were all delighted.

  “We will. help you,” the scarred one said. His name was Odon; the others had not volunteered their names. “And we will be content with a tenth of the proceeds.”

  He was the least convincing liar I had ever met in my life.

  “Where is the gold?”

  I explained its approximate location.

  “And how much is there?”

  I told him my estimate.

  “We will go tonight,” Odon said. “We will purchase a car. One of our men has a Turkish driver’s license and a passport to match it. There is no chance we will be questioned. We will go to the house and load the gold into metal strongboxes. You understand? We have the boxes in the garage. Come, I will show you.”

  There were two dozen steel strongboxes in the garage on top of a huge workbench. The bench overflowed with rusted hardware and tools—long rattail files, rusted padlocks, nuts, bolts, washers.

  “Have we enough boxes?”

  I calculated quickly. “Yes. They’ll hold the gold.”

  “Good. We will fill them at the house. You understand? Or, for safety’s sake, you will go beneath the porch and fill them. Then, when you are ready, the car will return for them, and we will all go at once to Burhaniye. Before dawn we will all be on our way.”

  That night clouds concealed the face of the moon. It was a bit of good luck. After midnight we drove to the house. Odon stayed in the car with two of the others. Another pair remained at the house—we were to stop for them before making the run to Burhaniye. I scurried onto the porch, opened up my little rabbit hole, and dropped down into my burrow. Another man passed the strongboxes down to me one at a time.

  “Shall I wait with you?”

  “No,” I said. “Go back to the car. Come for me in an hour.”

  I had finished packing the boxes by the time the car returned. Odon came to me from the car and suggested that I hand them up one at a time, and he would trek them back to the car.

  That would make it a little too easy. I hopped out of my burrow. “I’m too exhausted to lift another thing,” I said. “Send one of the other men to do the lifting. I’ll wait in the car.”

  They brought the boxes out quickly enough, one man handing them up, two others relaying them to the car. Odon placing them in the trunk, but they made enough noise to wake corpses. He drove well, at least. He put the gas pedal on the floor, and we were back at home base in no time at all.

  Odon stuck the car in the garage. “Get the others,” he told one of the men. “And hurry. We have to be on that boat before dawn. There’s no time.”

  l got out of the car. I passed the hardware bench, scooped off a curved linoleum knife. As I walked around the car I stuck the knife into the left rear tire, pulled it out fast, and pocketed it. The tire did not blow but went down fast, almost instantaneously. I let one of the others discover it.