‘Kind of a new version of Ill Met by Moonlight?’ Mavros said, remembering the Dirk Bogarde movie about the kidnapping of a German general on Crete.

‘What?’ Jannet asked, his expression blank.

‘Mr Mavro?’ came a high voice from the kitchen.

He went to collect the coffees. ‘I hope you didn’t spit in them,’ he whispered.

The Fat Man was a dogged anti-American, as were all the comrades, and he regarded film-makers as the cream on the cake of worker exploitation.

‘No, but that can be arranged,’ Yiorgos riposted.

‘Let’s wait and see what the job is,’ Mavros said, grabbing the tray.

The Americans watched curiously as he handed over their cups and saucers.

‘My maid’s a bit shy,’ he said. ‘She was abused in her last position.’

‘How awful,’ Alice said, glancing towards the kitchen.

‘Here’s the thing,’ Jannet said, ignoring her. ‘I’ve got an actress — in fact, the female lead — who’s giving me the runaround. Cara Parks? Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of her?’

Mavros wasn’t going to play that dumb. Cara Parks was the next big thing in Hollywood, combining the physical allure of Kate Winslet with the smouldering looks of Sharon Stone.

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I saw her in Spring Surprise.’ The low-budget horror movie set in a machine factory had given the actress plenty of opportunities to exercise both her vocal chords and her stunning body.

‘That was nothing,’ Jannet said scathingly. ‘ Freedom or Deathis going to make her into a global star.’

‘OK,’ Mavros said. ‘And what’s her problem?’

‘Tell him, Alice,’ the director said, as if the details were beneath him.

‘Yes, Mr Jannet.’ The young woman looked at Mavros. ‘Like all actors in major roles, Ms Parks has a personal assistant, in her case a woman called Maria Kondos.’

‘A Greek-American?’ Mavros asked. The surname for a female would have been Kondou if she’d been a Greek native.

Alice Quincy nodded. ‘The problem is, Maria disappeared yesterday and no one has any idea where she is.’

Jannet put his empty cup down with a crack. ‘And Cara Parks, the self-centred bitch, won’t do anything until she’s found. She won’t even come out of her suite.’

Mavros wasn’t attracted to the case. The Greek-American had probably had a row with the star and gone voluntarily AWOL. Kriaras obviously wanted him on the job because of the production’s significance to the country and the Culture Ministry, not necessarily in that order.

‘We’re prepared to pay you two thousand euros per day plus expenses,’ Alice Quincy said.

Mavros heard a stifled exclamation from the kitchen. Years of extracting money from unsuspecting tourists who had wandered into the cafe had given the Fat Man a good command of numbers in English, and Mavros’s standard rate was 500 euros a day.

‘What’s more,’ Luke Jannet said, ‘we’ve got a limo waiting in the street and a Learjet at the airport.’ He caught Mavros’s eye. ‘You coming? We gotta haul ass.’

Mavros thought about it for a couple of seconds. Niki would be pissed off, but she’d approve of the money. The Fat Man would sulk because he wasn’t coming along. Tough.

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Give me a few seconds to toss some things in a bag.’

From The Descent of Icarus:

I hit a piece of rough open ground very hard. It was the worst landing I’d ever made, but I hadn’t broken anything and I told myself to keep calm. Small arms fire came at me from the east and I could hear shouts from my comrades across the dry river-bed. I used the gravity knife to cut away my parachute and then the first of the Cretans was on me. He wasn’t much more than a boy and he came at me with a rock held in both hands. I twisted out of the way, still on my knees, then a spray of blood came from his forehead and he crashed to the flower-dotted earth.

‘Over here, Rudi!’

I saw Peter Wachter crouching behind an olive tree, replacing the magazine of his MP40. The motionless bodies of the Cretans I had seen from the air were between us. I looked to my right. A weapons canister was dangling from an olive tree about fifty metres away, the lower end close to the ground. I pointed at it.

‘No!’ Peter yelled. ‘You’ll never make it!’

Bullets flew past me, proving his point. Although the sky was full of Luftwaffe aircraft — Auntie Jus dropping men, 109s strafing gun emplacements — I was on my own, caught in clear ground. I wouldn’t last long with only my short-range machine-pistol and my Luger. I started crawling towards the tree, the first of a row. Earth and stones were flung into my face by gunfire, pinging against my helmet. Already my throat was parched and my stomach filled with acid. My training drove me on — the often-repeated words about sacrificing everything for the unit’s greater good, the insignificance of my own life compared with the paratroopers’ ultimate victory. Then I saw two of my comrades. One had landed in the tree beyond the canister, a line of large, bloody holes almost cutting him in half. The other was lying face down on the ground, arms still outstretched and parachute in rags, obviously hit by an anti-aircraft shell not long after it opened.

I stopped behind a low furrow in the earth to catch my breath. Fire was still being directed at me from the heights above the airfield and I had to press on. Then I caught a glimpse of rapid movement to my left. I rolled on to my right side, levelling the MP40. What I saw made my heart stop. A young woman dressed in black was running towards me, her long skirt flapping and her raven hair streaming behind her. She was screaming like a banshee, an old-fashioned rifle raised to her shoulder. There was a puff of smoke then a loud report and a heavy round smashed into the earth a few centimetres in front of my chest. Reloading was obviously not an option for her, but she kept charging, the rifle now reversed with the butt towards me.

I knew I had to kill her, but I couldn’t. For all the savagery in her expression and her glaring eyes, she was beautiful and so young. I loosed off a blast above her head, which did nothing to stop her. The sound of firing all around had disappeared and all I could hear was her gasping breath and the words — clearly full of hatred — that she was shrieking at me. I fired again. She was so close that I couldn’t fail to hit her. The ancient rifle flew from her grip and she crashed to the earth, clutching her shoulder. I crept over to her and she spat in my face. That was enough. I turned my attention back to the weapons canister. Just before I reached it, a grenade exploded in the tree and I was showered by branches, which reduced the force of the shrapnel.

Stretching up, I cut the shrouds from the canister and it dropped to the ground. It had been damaged and wouldn’t open. I heard a burst of MP40 fire and turned to see another group of Cretans — old men in black jodhpurs and tasselled headscarves, and boys in shorts — crash to the earth. I pulled out my bayonet and inserted the blade in the canister catch. At last it sprang open and I found what I wanted — an air-cooled MG34 with a bipod and plenty of ammunition. I took a good position behind a tree trunk and set up the weapon facing the open ground. Another group of Cretans was advancing towards me, but that wasn’t the first of my problems — it wasn’t even the second.

The young woman I had shot was on her feet again and charging me, the rifle raised with her good arm, while behind me I saw heavily-built figures slipping through the rows of trees, wearing battledress and slope hats. They were the enemy I least wanted to face. They were the New Zealand Maoris.

Mavros managed a whispered conversation with the Fat Man in the kitchen, asking him to keep the plants watered if he was delayed.

‘What about your girlfriend?’ Yiorgos asked, smiling slackly.