Green Neon

17 Let's go to the island, Gangster

At about 8 a.m. Christina woke Tom from his dreams.

"Will you come to the office with me? I asked a colleague to come over. He also represents opponents of the regime and knows the secret police quite well. Maybe he knows a way out."

Tom didn't think sandals were appropriate for the occasion, so he put on his black leather shoes.

The lawyer was a tall man of about 35 years of age with unruly short curls. His tailored three-piece suit and burgundy tie made him look confident. He spoke fluent English. After Christina had described what had happened to Tom, the man went to the window and looked out silently for a while. Then he sat down again at the small conference table.

His analysis was ready for print:

"First of all, I assume that you didn't give anyone your passport. That said, there are two options. One, you simply lost the passport. It could have been on the beach or on a bus. Finding it again is not very probable. So you won't be able to submit it and the secret police will have you in their hands. They will not torture you to get a statement because you are a foreigner and at some point they will have to let you go. But they can detain you for a while. If you are arrested, the German Embassy has a duty to get in touch with you and somehow they will get you home. But that can take a few weeks, maybe longer.

The second option: Have you ever considered that the secret police took the passport? If they've been watching you, which is what it looks like, they might have done just that. The consequences would be the same, only in this case it was planned from the start. I'm just wondering why they're interested in you."

"Maybe they want to use Tom as leverage against me," speculated Christina.

"Wouldn't there be an easier way to put pressure on you? What about the clients' meetings in your private apartment?"

"They are officially approved, which was a surprise to me at first, but now they can't use them against me. They may think I'm in contact with other wanted people."

"That doesn't get us anywhere," the lawyer stated. "The fact is: your lost passport gives them a pretext. The question is what to do to avoid imprisonment? I can think of two options. First: You can contact your relatives in Germany and try to get the German Embassy to intervene at the Greek Foreign Ministry. The problem is that the secret police don't always do what a ministry tells them to do. In any case, your release could be delayed. It may even be that things drag on longer because the secret police want to demonstrate their power. The regime is not yet consolidated. The institutions still have to fight for their power. It is therefore an open question whether an intervention would be helpful.

Second: You'll go to the appointment with the secret police next week and stick to your story. I estimate the chance that they will arrest you at 50 to 50. The fact that you, as a German, are a citizen of an allied nation and are so young speaks against an arrest. They could interview you again and then maybe let you go so as not to provoke diplomatic complications. If they do arrest you, it will certainly take a few weeks before they release you, but I don't think they will hold you for more than 2 months."

"Two months," Tom snapped. He realized that these prospects would justify an escape as suggested by the Old Man. The secret route via Patras became more probable in his calculations.

The lawyer opened his jacket and loosened his silk tie.

"Let's just pretend that I'm not a lawyer and we're just talking because Christina and I are friends. In that case I might have a completely different idea. Of course the new government is trying to control who is traveling in and out of the country. But our state is not as perfect as Germany. Neither are our borders, or at least not as perfect as that between the two German states. There should be an unofficial way with a bit of money, right?"