From a distance it resembles one of those restaurants found in large Caribbean all-inclusives: a large polygonal roof, little ornamental ponds all around, and little wooden bridges like in a Japanese garden. There is a flagpole at the peak of the roof. This is where Nikolaus Strom was sighted an hour earlier. The man now being questioned is positive; he repeats, “He’s the one that was on TV. He was walking on his own towards the river, I saw him go by the windows.”
Agent Evangelos notes that the witness was having coffee with his girlfriend when he saw Strom emerge, like a ghost, from the fog. The witness is claiming a reward, and Agent Evangelos leaves Lieutenant Anastasis to explain that there has never been any mention of a reward, and now he is looking at this pastry shop, apparently parachuted onto a plain about fifty kilometres from Alexandroupolis. It is surrounded by a network of dried-up canals and side roads, dotted with little red signs warning of danger: “Landmines!”
‘How can that be?’ wonders Agent Evangelos. ‘Why would Strom decide to return to the Evros region?’
“You’re quite sure it was the person you saw on television?” Lieutenant Anastasis asks the witness who, in Agent Evangelos’s opinion, is fidgeting too much.
“Yes, I’ve told you already! And I want the money, it was me that saw the terrorist, me!”
“Who said anything about a terrorist?”
“Why, that guy is one! The guy you’re looking for. Give me my money, I’m entitled to it.”
Inside the pastry shop, which is set up around a wooden column with plastic windows in its canvas walls, families are ordering generous servings of cream cakes. A queue has formed in front of a vast glass-fronted counter chock-full of pastries adorned with figurines of Santa Claus and chimney sweeps on golden ladders. A priest, leaning towards his children, points to a fruit cake dotted with crystallized fruit. The waitresses speak Bulgarian to one another, and the coffee is very strong.
Outside, the fog is so thick that a superb sense of direction would be required to find the way to the river. Agent Evangelos looks at his watch. It will be dark in five hours. He tells himself it’s essential not to lose Strom this time, the way they did in Kavala.
Strom had been spotted for the first time in Samothrace. At this time of year strangers never go unnoticed on those sparsely populated islands. After the description of the wanted man was circulated, at least a dozen people called to say that they were sure they’d seen the man whose picture had been on TV the evening before. Agent Evangelos had found the evidence of a schoolteacher especially convincing. Her description was very precise, and she added that she found the man quite handsome. She even confessed that she sometimes got a bit bored all on her own during the long winters on Samothrace, since there were hardly any visitors, and she’d previously lived in the city. Evangelos had stopped listening to her, for he felt certain that they were on Strom’s trail. He therefore issued the order to search all the hotels in Kavala, knowing that the fugitive couldn’t have had a chance to rest since leaving the Europa Motel, where he first went to ground after his escape with Polina.
Agent Evangelos takes another look through the window; he can’t see anything, but he senses that the frontier is very near.
But why did the fugitive return to the region? ‘To tell the truth,’ thinks Agent Evangelos, ‘I’m not complaining. The directorate wants to arrest him for espionage. He must be crossing a military zone at this very moment. There’ll be no need to invent an entire scenario for the prosecution. It’s ready-made.’
Lieutenant Anastasis approaches, talking on his mobile, saying, “I think this is it, we have him, he’s apparently been spotted approaching the Turkish frontier by a Frontex patrol. In the very north, at the elbow in the Evros. They’ll intercept him very soon.”
“How’s that?” asks Evangelos. “Aren’t they sure he’s our man?”
“No, but it must be him – a man walking along the riverbank right in the military zone. The patrol’s post is on a hill; they picked him up on the infrared radar. The Turks seem to have detected his presence too: the guards on the watchtowers are observing him through binoculars.”
The radar! Of course! He’d forgotten the radar!
“But tell me, Lieutenant, what are the colours of the Frontex guys on patrol today?”
“Their colours?”
“I mean their nationality.”
“I really don’t know.”
“You weren’t just speaking to them on the phone?”
“No, it was the police station that called. Are you coming, Agent Evangelos?”
“Yes, we’re leaving right away, but I want to know which patrol is involved. Call Orestiada back right away, I want to know who’s on duty this evening.”
The lieutenant is already on the phone, and Evangelos is about to leave the pastry shop when a young man calls out to him – the one who saw Strom, still claiming his reward.
In the mist, the Jeep Cherokee looks like a sunken wreck in a pond. Lieutenant Anastasis is still on the phone; he has sent the witness packing and is holding the phone tucked into his shoulder with his chin; he pulls a face and speaks very fast: “Right away, do you hear?” Agent Evangelos tries to catch snatches of the conversation, he can hear a voice at the other end, someone shouting into the phone; it must be the captain. The jeep’s doors slam shut, the engine starts, and they’re off. The lieutenant is talking into his on-board radio; he has abandoned his phone for the radio; he is talking to Orestiada, steering with one hand as he insists, repeating, “Right away! Right away!”
Accelerating into the fog, the jeep bounces blindly over the ruts in the dirt road; it tears along, skids, and nearly slides into a ditch barely visible in the yellowish cone of the dipped headlights. The lieutenant drops the receiver and concentrates on the road. Agent Evangelos is hanging onto the strap; he too presses down his foot as if he were driving. Anastasis has turned on the flashing lights, for the jeep has reached the paved road.
Agent Evangelos wants an answer without any further delay; he repeats, “I want to know which patrol is involved.”
“The Germans, it’s the Germans from Frontex who spotted the fugitive,” the lieutenant finally answers.
“Shit! A German patrol arresting a German national; that opens the door to all kinds of problems.”
“I can imagine.”
The lieutenant is driving his Cherokee flat out; a dense fog passes overhead, turning blue with the reflection of the revolving beam.
“I don’t want them to intercept him; Strom is ours, we mustn’t let that damn Frontex patrol get to him first.”
Lieutenant Anastasis lights a cigarette, draws the cord of the radio receiver to him and calls the police station. He immediately hands the radio to Agent Evangelos, who says, “Captain, is that you, Captain? Captain, you must order the patrol to return to its observation post, yes, yes, that’s right, but they mustn’t lose sight of him, no, no, not tracking him from a distance, not on the ground, just on the radar.”
Agent Evangelos drops the radio, lets out a heavy sigh and says, hoarsely, “Please God, not the Germans.” Lieutenant Anastasis offers him his packet of cigarettes; Evangelos pokes around in it, and the two smoke silently, travelling at a hundred and sixty kilometres an hour on the road that runs next to the river, heading upstream. Outside, the fog hits the doors of the Cherokee, piles up on the bonnet, is shredded noisily by the wheels. ‘All this fog coming at the jeep, a grey mass rising over us, it’s the Evros frontier finally coming into sight.’
“Agent Evangelos? Agent Evangelos, would it bother you it if I put on some music?”
Lieutenant Anastasis hasn’t waited for an answer; he turns on the radio, and just as they reach the village of Tychero, to the music of a Cretan lyre, the Cherokee is going fast, it emerges, still dripping, from the fog, like a plane from the cloud ceiling. Just then Agent Evangelos’s mobile vibrates, and Sokratis Retzeptis’s name appears on the screen.
No doubt about it, the sun is shining. It would make sense to put down his bag. It would make sense for Nikos to hide out in this room with a view towards the river, which is obscured by a row of tall poplars. At a glance the village seems deserted. Then the bus arrives, stopping on the square; the road runs through its centre, and on it the traffic moves very fast. A girl has got off. Wearing a helmet down over her ears and with her head bobbing, she takes the first street on the right before entering a house with the only cast-iron balcony that overlooks the densely wooded hills rather than the river. A woman coughs somewhere, a rooster crows. In the bus station office, which also serves as a café, a few men are playing tavli.
Turkey is just on the opposite bank. Nikolaus can see the red roofs of houses through the trees, but he can’t see the river, only guess at its presence.
The girl in the helmet makes him think of other Greek girls, and of one especially – Christina’s daughter.
But it’s time to cross the Evros. A moment ago he had heard a helicopter and seen several police cars driving along the road. There isn’t a minute to lose; he must get off Greek soil.
Nikos leaves the village of Kastanies behind him and makes for the barrier of trees behind which he can see a red flag floating, with a white crescent and five-pointed star. The villages on the banks of the Evros know the conundrum of the river; they still must live with it. The migrants who come ashore one morning are a reminder of the unknown across the Evros. This morning there were five, sitting on the terrace of a café. But the café was closed and they were counting their remaining small change, hoping to complete the journey to the station in Alexandroupolis by bus. A week ago they were in Algiers. The charter flight to Istanbul costs a hundred dollars. The bus fare from Istanbul to Edirne costs twenty Turkish lira. The crossing of the Evros can be negotiated for six hundred dollars.
A bass voice strikes up a chant that levels out over the river, the only material frontier, as the monotonous Orthodox chant overlies the call to prayer from the great Selimiye Mosque in Edirne. An Orthodox priest is saying Mass somewhere behind him, sheltered by the roof of the little chapel built on a hillock that rises above the plain. He can see the faces of the uniformed guards, incongruous figures adhering flatly to the busy landscape. At the first fork he keeps left, following a little road that traverses some trees before reaching a shallow, turbulent stream. At this spot the water is so low that the road crosses it with no need for a bridge. The two guards have vanished. The helicopter is back. Nikos doesn’t bother to look up; advancing across open ground, he reaches the middle of the ford, leaping from stone to stone, indifferent to the cold water that sometimes reaches his knees.
Now he is across; the helicopter clatters somewhere above the trees. On the opposite shore, Nikos starts running, leaving Greece behind. His head is suddenly spinning, it’s from fatigue; he has eaten nothing for the past twenty-four hours.
Then Christina’s laughter, Christina on the riverbank, calling to him in Greek. Yes, it’s really her. No, he won’t turn around, it’s her ghost, she doesn’t exist, she’s no longer part of his life, he won’t listen to what she’s trying to tell him, and anyway he doesn’t understand the language, he speaks no Greek, for once and for all. Now he hears only Christina’s laughter, carried on the wind, which is mild for the time of year. He is leaving his mother’s country behind. In a pile on the riverbank, like luggage too heavy to carry across, he is abandoning his memories, all the contradictions, all the parts of life he has never been able to draw together, and that horrible, grimacing head.
Nikos has crossed the wall; he has crossed his personal wall. His entire story remains in a pile on the riverbank. He has evaded the Greek police and will soon be in the hands of the Turkish army. He’ll explain to them, and ask to speak to his embassy.
Once, in Athens as a child, Nikos had approached his Greek grandfather’s garden fence. Over the railing he had seen the white dust from the marble works as it settled. It was a time when he spoke both languages, a time when the world was still comprehensible. For a long time he thought he’d gone beyond his great-grandfather’s garden fence; for a long time he thought he understood Athens – it was where he was from, and for a long time he believed he was at home there, picking up scraps of his mother’s language, all those inscriptions on the city’s walls, to continue the story that began when the marble-workers’ saws fell silent that day in July 1972, two and a half hours after midday.
Today, let Christina laugh; he is no longer part of her world, he is across the placid river, without a murmur, and he allows forgetfulness to mount inside him. The landscape is becoming blurred, the green of the trees is fading, the sky is tilting. On the shore, Nikos has fallen on his knees.
Christina, why are you laughing at me like that?
On the map of Greece, says Christina, the river Arda runs in the very north. It rises, like the Evros, in the Rhodope Mountains, and finally flows into the Evros a little way after the village of Kastanies, a few metres from the Turkish frontier, just before the fork you took to avoid the Turkish guard post. At that point, as you can see, the road crosses the Arda, and leads to a narrow strip of land that joins up with the Greek bank of the Evros. You’ll see the Turkish flag floating over a watchtower on the other side, which will tell you you’re not across the Evros. Continue in the same direction and it will lead you to the village of Marasia. Soon you’ll find me there, in the square, sitting under a fruit tree with big leaves, at the midpoint between both riverbanks. There’s rarely anyone around, as you’ll see. People don’t like to live on the frontier. But you’ll like it, I’m sure. There’s a little café, like the ones where we always meet. You’re still in Greece, my love.
Nikos’s head aches. He opens his eyes. There’s no helicopter in the sky any more. His throat is dry, he is chilled to the bone, he has no strength left. He struggles to his feet and takes a few steps, but he has to sit down. Again, he almost loses consciousness; his breathing is shallow. So just like that, he has committed an error. The stretch of river he crossed wasn’t the Evros. Now he’s done for. He has come up against a wall – especially since he is no longer alone. He sees them straight ahead: a man in his fifties with a short haircut and three days’ growth of beard. He is standing there in a large overcoat, leaning against the door of a Jeep Cherokee belonging to the Greek police. The man is watching him, smoking, looking tired. He doesn’t seem like a policeman.
The jeep is stopped on some railway tracks, on a level crossing, just opposite the abandoned railway station in Marasia, a little Greek village jammed in between the Arda and the Evros, on the Turkish border.
Beyond the trees, Nikos can see Turkish sentries moving around on the top of their watchtower. He can make out the colour of the uniforms; the sunlight glints on the lenses of their binoculars.
Yes, they were waiting for him there, on the Greek side of the frontier. Any attempt to escape would be pointless. He stands up and walks towards the jeep. He reaches the man, who jettisons his cigarette. Without a word, he opens the rear door and gestures to him to get in. Inside is another, younger policeman in a black leather jacket. He doesn’t turn around, but their eyes meet in the rearview mirror. He seems tired too, but he does look like a policeman. He handcuffs Nikos.
The jeep drives one or two kilometres along the Evros, passing through Marasia. There is no sign of Christina on the village square, and Nikos can see clearly that there is no café.
But now he knows that she was right. Nikos is no foreigner, for when the man asks his name he answers in Greek. And he begins to tell him the whole story in his language, the language he shares with Christina.
It’s an extraordinary day for Athens, thinks Agent Evangelos. Outside, far below on Alexandras Avenue, the demonstrators’ numbers are swelling. From his office window, on the eighth floor of the GADA, the big cube of glass, asbestos and steel that houses the headquarters of the Attica General Police Directorate, Agent Evangelos observes the crowd. The Metro station at the corner of Panormou Avenue is surrounded by a cordon of blue-uniformed police. The riot squads are on a war footing too – at least four units, a hundred or so men in green fatigues: there are a lot of toughs wearing helmets in the streets today. Agent Evangelos sees them regrouping behind buses with shatterproof windows, carrying their shields. They have been ordered to fire tear-gas cartridges if the crowd makes the slightest breach in the security barriers. They will shoot in any case, Agent Evangelos doesn’t doubt it for a moment. Just then he reads a single slogan on the banners being unfolded on the avenue: “No Wall!”
Standing there in front of the window, Agent Evangelos is puzzled. This disturbance isn’t his problem, but he finds it difficult to comprehend. ‘So the spokesman for the Ministry of Public Order and Citizen Protection just had to announce the arrest of a German national in connection with the construction of the wall? Was such a simple announcement all that was needed to stir up so much opposition to closing the frontier to migrants? I’m more surprised than anyone,’ Agent Evangelos tells himself, ‘though I should have expected that kind of reaction.’
However, a few minutes from now, as planned, Strom will be questioned in this room.
This sudden wave of opposition to the construction of the wall doesn’t suit the government. The frontier is a business. Agent Evangelos reflects on power, on the only established power in Greece: he reflects on the power of money, thinking about one of its most influential representatives, a man who wants to control everything, who has foreseen everything – everything, that is, except the re-emergence of the “No Wall!” movement. Yet, there, beneath the windows of the police, the opposition to the wall is growing, swelling, and may very well explode in the face of power. Not that a few days of rioting in Athens are anything to fear. Power doesn’t care about the usual list of bus shelters burned or small businesses ruined. From its lofty height, it contemplates the recurrent spasms of the ailing heart of the metropolis, the inevitable confrontations that will end in the nth siege of the Athens Polytechnic, the university sanctuary where photocopiers now spit out almost nothing but pamphlets by the hundreds – an inviolable refuge where the corridors serve as an arsenal for Molotov cocktails. But power fears something entirely different, something taking the form of a more widespread citizen’s movement of opposition to the wall, something resembling an international protest.
It seems that French and Italian demonstrators are organizing a sit-in at the watchtowers on the frontier around Orestiada. The Turkish border guards must have a grandstand view. Soon, after Strom’s interrogation, Agent Evangelos will call Anastasis. He’ll tell the lieutenant: “After the migrants and Frontex, you’re going to come across a new species of fauna in the Evros natural reserve: anti-wall demonstrators chaining themselves to a strip of land between Greece and Turkey. Can’t you just imagine?” Still by the window, Evangelos hears the first shouts, a dog barking, and sees a liver-coloured dog in front of the riot squads; he recognizes it, always the same one, barking, barking.
Agent Evangelos has placed a document in a transparent sleeve on the desk: Nikolaus Strom’s statement. It has already been typed, and awaits only his signature.
His superiors have asked Agent Evangelos to make the situation clear to Strom. “The German must sign it, he has no choice. If he refuses, then…”
“Then what?” asked Evangelos.
“He’ll sign it whatever, it’s in his best interest, isn’t it?”
Yes, Strom will sign all right. But Agent Evangelos will contravene his orders. He will disobey them, for he wants to discover the truth about the severed head; he wants to discover the killer’s identity, whether it was Polina or Nikolaus Strom; he wants to know the precise circumstances of Batsis’s decapitation. There will be a statement, which he’ll take down. ‘It’ll be up to me – me, Agent Evangelos – to write out the true account of the murder on the Evros. Then, once Strom has finished, I’ll place the other document before him, the statement prepared in advance; he will be obliged to read and sign it. The truth will remain between us two, but it will have been established, and I intend to make use of it in my own way. I’ll administer justice in my own way, the way it should have been done.’
In a few moments, Nikolaus Strom will enter the room, probably worn down by three nights and three days spent in a permanently lit cell. Agent Evangelos has made sure to soften him up. He wants him to be on tenterhooks, his nerves already frayed. But it’s an entirely different person who is brought before Evangelos a moment later; Strom is perfectly calm. He stands there, his features drawn, his eyes brilliant with fever, a man marked by fatigue, but calm, seemingly at peace, as if relieved, greeting him in Greek with a smile, not a defiant smirk – no, a confident smile, the smile of a man who seems to have been looking forward to this moment.
“Sit down! Officer, remove his handcuffs!”
Outside, the clamour of the crowd is rising. A gust of fresh air enters through the half-open window. The officer has closed the door behind him. Agent Evangelos sits across from Nikolaus Strom. He looks at him, he looks at the man and thinks to himself, ‘It’s true, he’s a bit Greek. He’s half Greek, I tend to forget that.’
“Do you feel up to speaking Greek? Maybe you’d prefer English?”
“Greek is fine.”
“Great! We met earlier, three days ago, but let me introduce myself: Agent Evangelos, from Directorate C of the National Intelligence Service. Do you know why you’re here, in this office?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me.”
“You arrested me in connection with certain events that took place in the Evros region. I didn’t kill that individual.”
“What individual?”
“I don’t understand.”
“You say you’re not responsible for the death of some person or other. What person are you referring to?”
“But… The man… the man I struggled with —”
“You don’t know his name?”
“I know nothing about him, it was night, I had no idea who he was, he jumped on me, and then…”
“You killed him?”
“I don’t think so. I wasn’t the one who killed him.”
“I don’t believe you. No one will believe you.”
“I didn’t kill him, I’ve never killed anyone.”
“You fought with this individual outside the Eros brothel, and ended by striking him with an axe.”
“I swear to you, it wasn’t me who struck him with the axe.”
“You cut off his head, you beheaded Andreas Batsis, born in Piraeus on 9 January 1976.”
“It wasn’t me, it was —”
“You killed that man with a blow from an axe, why deny the obvious?”
“It wasn’t me. It was… It was that girl. She was out of her mind, she had a crazy look in her eyes.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere! I was sure you’d accuse that poor girl. What do you know about her?”
“Nothing, nothing! I’d never seen her before.”
“You didn’t know who she was, yet you combined forces with her in disposing of a headless corpse, after which you made your escape together —”
“We were both terrified. I was acting impulsively, on reflex. I saw right away that I was in a situation in which the only solution was to escape. And I felt sorry for the girl. She’s a prostitute, she —”
“Keep to the point! I know who the girl is, and I know her story. It’s yours that interests me.”
“But it was you who asked if I knew who she was —”
“Let’s continue. You killed Batsis. The girl, who was completely under the influence of drugs, helped you to move the body and —”
“No, I didn’t kill that man.”
“Well, that poor girl, for whom you felt such sympathy, is the one who insists it was you who took the axe to the victim.”
“I don’t understand. Why would she?”
“Now listen to me. I’m going to ask you to go over everything from the start, and I’ll take down your statement. I’m going to write out everything you tell me. Please begin with the reasons for your presence in Greece. Tell me why you went to that brothel – the Eros, isn’t it?”
“The Eros, yes. But I’d never been there before.”
“I don’t care. I’m not asking you to justify anything, I’m just trying to establish the facts, do you understand?”
“Yes.”
An explosion rings out below, followed by two others. Agent Evangelos gets up, closes the window and sees the demonstrators running to take shelter in front of the football stadium across the road; he sees the riot police charging, batons raised.
“Do you know what’s going on outside, down in the street?”
“No.”
“Those are the ‘No Wall’ people.”
“The what?”
“Demonstrators shouting ‘No Wall! No Wall!’ They don’t want your wall.”
“It’s not my wall.”
“It could have been.”
“I’m sorry, but what happened had nothing to do with the wall.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“I was driving along that road and I saw that sign, saying Eros, so —”
“You’ll tell me all about that later. So you were in the Evros region to investigate the construction of a wall, isn’t that right?”
“I was scouting things out, preparing to offer a surveillance system to the army. That was my job.”
“And you thought your wall wouldn’t upset anyone?”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“Would you like us to switch to English?”
“No, it’s not my language, but —”
“Nikos, may I call you that? Can I call you Nikos, like your woman friend Lazaridou?”
“You talked to Christina? But why? You had no right, she has nothing to do with this business!”
“What business?”
“The wall, the fight, everything! Please leave Christina out of all this.”
“You see how everything is connected: your woman friend, the wall, the fight.”
“I’ve told you the truth about that man’s death. I’m innocent.”
“Okay, that’s your version of the facts, I’m taking note of it. What about the wall?”
“I’ve nothing to say.”
“Tell me, Nikos, when did you recognize that you were being led up the garden path by the colonel?”
“I don’t know any more. Maybe the day when he failed to turn up for our meeting without calling to explain. But even before that I felt I was being watched. I had a feeling of being very alone, suddenly, just like that. People stopped answering my phone calls. I lost contact with Athens, though everything seemed to have begun on the right foot. I’d made an excellent offer, the colonel and I had checked things out on the frontier, at Nea Vyssa, on the right bank, west of the river, near that triangle of land along the Turkish border.”
“The Karaağaç Triangle, as they call it on the other side. Now, tell me how you ended up in that brothel… By the way, if I’m using a typewriter, it’s because we haven’t got a spare computer. Mine isn’t working just now, and we’re poorly equipped – the crisis, you know. Maybe you’ve heard about it?”
Nikolaus Strom is holding his head in his hands. Outside, it sounds like a war. The detonations from the tear-gas guns shake the windowpanes; the roar of the crowd is rising; it reaches the eighth floor of the GADA building and enters the office of Agent Evangelos, who is sitting at his typewriter.
“You’ll sign the statement once we’ve heard your entire confession.”
Confession of Nikolaus Strom, born 21 April 1971 in Hamburg. Office No. 78, GADA, Athens, 7 January 2011. Interrogation conducted by Agent Evangelos of Division C of the National Intelligence Service.
In May 2009, Nikolaus Strom submitted a bid to the Greek Ministry of Defence for the construction of a wall along the river Evros.
In the past, Strom had already sold security systems for use in frontier zones in Israel and Turkey, in southeastern Anatolia.
He defended the quality of his bid, making two excellent arguments: his experience, and an unbeatable price. According to Strom, the budget announced by the Greek government, which at the time was seeking European financial assistance to build the wall, was extremely inflated.
Strom believed that his Greek descent through his mother would work in his favour.
As soon as his bid reached the Ministry of National Defence it was studied by the high command of the Greek Armed Forces. Colonel Alecos Papadopoulos, of Frontier Security, took personal charge of the file. Strom’s bid, which was considered interesting, underwent an initial assessment that resulted in a recommendation to pursue it further, as was communicated in a letter addressed to Strom’s residence in Athens.
Following his initial communications with Colonel Papadopoulos, which were never by email but always via telephone, Strom visited the Evros region on two occasions between 2009 and 2011.
On 1 December 2010, Strom was invited by Colonel Papadopoulos to carry out an initial survey of the site, in the commune of Orestiada, along twelve and a half kilometres of land frontier. This meeting took place, and Nikolaus Strom obtained a verbal assurance from the colonel that a contract would be signed. Subsequently, however, Strom lost all contact with the colonel, who became unreachable and failed to attend a second meeting arranged to take place in Orestiada on 17 December 2010. Distraught, Strom remained in the region attempting to contact the colonel, without success. During this entire period, but especially on the days preceding the scheduled meeting with Colonel Papadopoulos, Strom sensed that he was being followed.
On 20 December 2010, Nikolaus Strom received a phone call from Colonel Papadopoulos arranging to meet that evening in a “bar” situated alongside National Road E90, just outside the village of Didimoticho in the direction of Orestiada. The colonel claimed that this was the most discreet location in which to discuss the proposal, adding that the premises were secure and under his control. Strom therefore rented a car and followed the Colonel’s instructions.
When he arrived, he noticed a neon sign advertising the Eros brothel. Looking for the entrance, he walked around the building, which was poorly lit, and stumbled into some sheets hung out to dry. At that moment a light went on and he saw a terrified young woman who seemed to be escaping from something or someone. She was holding an axe, as if to defend herself. When he stood up and told her she had no reason to fear him, she brandished the axe and began shouting.
Seeing that the girl was “terrified”, as he put it, and feeling threatened by the axe, Strom stepped to one side and grasped the young woman’s arm, at which point she dropped the axe.
A man came on the scene. He attacked Strom, throwing him to the ground. Strom resisted, struggling with the unidentified man, who attempted to strike him with the axe. The young woman then kicked the unknown man in the back, allowing Strom to free himself. The axe had fallen to the ground again. Picking it up, the girl delivered a heavy blow to the neck of the assailant, who was attempting to get to his feet. The man collapsed, and blood spurted out, for his head was almost severed from his body.
In their panic, Strom and the young woman joined forces to carry the corpse along a dirt path. In this process, the head became detached from the rest of the body.
Strom and the girl then made their escape on foot. They finally reached a small, deserted railway station. Nikolaus Strom explained to the terrified girl that they had to wait. Retracing his steps, he found his car. But before reaching the car park he discovered that the body had disappeared. Only the head remained, farther up the path, near the brothel. He recognized the man’s face; he had seen those features somewhere before.
On reaching his car, Strom put his bloodstained jacket in the boot and drove to the hotel in Orestiada, where he changed his clothes and settled his bill. He then found another hotel on the outskirts of the village, the Hotel Europa, and went back to fetch the girl. They spent twenty-four hours in this hotel room. The girl was panicking. Strom did not know what to do. The next day he told her he was going to buy each of them a warm coat and hire another car. He planned to leave the region, drive to Thessalonica and enter the Republic of Macedonia.
In Orestiada, Strom observed that there was considerable activity around the police station. He encountered several patrol cars, and did not dare to rent a car. He began by hiding his vehicle in a wooded area near the river, and burned the bloodstained coat that was still in the boot. By the time he returned to the Europa Hotel on foot, night was falling. He regretted having brought the girl along, for she seemed most unresourceful, though he now admits that he was afraid that she would go to the police and tell them everything.
When he reached the hotel room, the young woman had disappeared. Overcome by fear, he packed his bag and walked to the bus stop farthest from the town centre. He took the first bus to Alexandroupolis. It was then he realized that he had left his mobile on the bedside table in the Hotel Europa.
The following day, Strom took time to reflect. Telling himself that the police must already be looking for him, he tried to cover his tracks and avoided major roads. After spending three days hiding in Alexandroupolis, he decided to travel to Kavala by way of Samothrace. He thought that in Kavala he would have a safe hiding place in the Imaret Hotel, where he had stayed as a guest in the past, and where he hoped no one would think of looking for him. When the police came to search the hotel, he managed to make his escape on foot. He planned to cross into Bulgaria and go to the German Embassy in Sofia.
Directorate C of the National Intelligence Service
Report of 7 January 2011 – GADA-ATH
File No. ZYAXB-28265-10
Written statement of Nikolaus Strom, national of the Federal Republic of Germany. Interrogation conducted by AE in GADA, 07/01/11
BORN: 21 April 1971, Hamburg, Germany
NATIONALITY: German (Father – Hans Strom, 1938); Greek (Mother – Melina Tsaltas, 1946)
MARITAL STATUS: Single
PROFESSION: Salesman
INTERROGATION OF THE ACCUSED: 3 January 2011/Nea Vyssa military zone/Orestiada/Evros Administrative Unit
DETENTION: Isolation Cell – GADA-ATH, 03/01/11–07/01/11
STATEMENT OF NIKOLAUS STROM
I acknowledge that I visited the Evros region on two occasions, between 2009 and 2011, with the objective of gathering technological and security data.
I acknowledge that on 3 January 2011, I illegally entered a Greek military zone, on the territory of Nea Vyssa, Commune of Orestiada, Evros Regional Unit.
I acknowledge that on 3 January 2011 I ignored the signs forbidding access to the above military zone.
I acknowledge that on 3 January 2011 I photographed military installations, such as watchtowers, cameras and access roads.
I acknowledge that on 3 January 2011 I photographed the technology of a barbed-wire wall intended to secure 12.5 km of frontier between Greece and Turkey.
I acknowledge that on 1 December 2010, I abused the trust of Colonel Alecos Papadopoulos, who knew nothing of my true intentions, having been informed that I was a journalist reporting for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. During a press tour of the military frontier zone organized by the Greek army I recorded his words without his knowledge and illegally took a series of photographs.
I acknowledge that, under the cloak of my own commercial activities, which are related to military security, I attempted to assemble as much economic information of a political or commercial character as possible, including proprietary technological, financial and commercial data, in addition to government information, all of which were liable to contribute directly or indirectly to increasing the productivity and improving the competitiveness of German industry.
I acknowledge using or seeking to use illegal, clandestine, coercive or deceptive means to obtain economic information.
I hereby plead guilty to the charges of economic and industrial espionage on behalf of German industry and with the complicity of the Federal Republic of Germany, under the aegis of various private companies acting directly on behalf of German intelligence, starting with my own company, Security Fence Material GmbH.
Signed: Nikolaus Strom
Agent Evangelos leans over the top of his tiny desk, saying nothing more. Elbows on the desk, he observes Nikolaus Strom reading and rereading the statement. Outside, the noise of the demonstration has moved away, and the clean-up trucks are already at work on Alexandras Avenue. At this moment, the battle with the riot police must be raging in the Exarcheia district.
He observes Nikolaus Strom, whose face gives no hint of surprise.
“So?”
“What happens if I don’t sign?”
“The question is superfluous, Nikos.”
“I was just asking out of curiosity,” says Nikolaus Strom, picking up the pen from the desk.
“Just sign! Once you’ve done that, I’ll explain a few things.”
Nikolaus Strom signs. He signs, and looks at Agent Evangelos with the same peculiar expression as when he entered the office an hour before.
Agent Evangelos verifies the signatures, asks him to initial two pages at the bottom, watches him as he does so, and senses Nikos’s weariness, his enormous fatigue.
“Good! Now listen. To answer your question, if you had refused to sign I would have done everything in my power to make you do so. I’d have told you that you didn’t have any choice, that the alternative was to go on trial for Batsis’s murder.”
“I wouldn’t have believed you. Otherwise, why would you have offered me an arrangement like that? It’s in your interest to keep that man’s death secret. My guilt is of no interest to you.”
“No,” answers Agent Evangelos. “but the truth is of interest to me. Your confession was essential, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t think you killed that man. I believe you; you didn’t lie to me.”
“This business about spying is ridiculous. No one will believe it.”
“You prefer the story about a businessman who decapitates a man in front of a brothel in the open countryside three kilometres from the Turkish border, with a hooker as his accomplice?”
“You just said that you believed in my innocence.”
“Anyway, you’ve signed.”
“What’s going to happen to me now? And the girl? Will she be tried for murder?”
“At this very moment, she must be moping somewhere in Moscow. There won’t be any trial for Batsis’s murder.”
“You already released her?”
“That murder is of no interest to anyone. And you’ll be tried for espionage by a military court. The affair will create an uproar; the finger will be pointed at Germany.”
“Germany? I don’t understand. And why a military court?”
“You are accused of espionage, Nikos. Merkel will have her knickers in a twist when she’s told that a German national was wandering about in a prohibited military zone on the Greco-Turkish border, in possession of memory cards with tons of photographs of the security installations.”
“You know I’m not a spy! Germany, as you say, will be able to prove my innocence.”
“Maybe. But whoever invented that fairy tale knows what he’s doing, and it’s in Greece’s interest.”
“Who are you talking about?”
“Let it drop! For as long as your trial lasts, Germany will be in a position of weakness. And then, to start with, the facts are that you’re a German, that you’ve shown an excessive interest in the Greek frontier – and may I remind you that you were in fact arrested in a military zone?”
“Why such a scenario?”
“Don’t complicate things. Just be satisfied with the spy story, and take what comes. You’re getting off easily, after all.”
“Is that all?”
“No, you know as well as I do that it’s a matter of politics. Germany will exert pressure, and Greece will make a gesture.”
“And the wall will be built in the meantime, won’t it?”
“Ah, now you’re beginning to see the light!”
“A Greek wall, built by Greeks.”
“The costliest wall.”
“The costliest wall, built with European funds.”
“Yes, Nikos. But tell me, did you ever discover the name of your rival?”
“My rival?”
“The individual who was awarded the contract for the wall.”
“No, but it must be someone influential.”
“Yes, someone extremely influential.”