1885, I came to save Greece

Chapter 152 Sailing into the Depths of Darkness

The air in the coffee shop was heavy.

Constantine, disguised as an engineer named "Karl," listened quietly to Stavros's outpouring. He didn't interrupt or offer comfort, only occasionally raising a technical question about port operations to keep the conversation within the bounds of a "professional" exchange.

Stavros felt that the person in front of him looked somewhat familiar, but he rarely saw the Crown Prince, so he didn't mind telling this "German colleague" who seemed to be the only one who could understand his worries all his observations over the past few weeks, the workers' private complaints, and even the names and activity times of a few suspicious people that he had secretly noted down.

"...Every midnight, a few small fishing boats would dock at the old pier of Pier No. 3. They wouldn't unload their fish, only some small boxes wrapped in tarpaulins. The harbor's night patrol never went there." Stavros lowered his voice, a resolute glint in his cloudy eyes.

Constantine downed the already cold coffee in one gulp.

"Mr. Stavros, thank you for the information. For an engineer, the safety and condition of the workers is everything." He stood up and nodded to Sophia.

Sophia stood up as well, and placed the child, whose fever had subsided somewhat, along with a cloth bag containing a few silver coins, into the young mother's hands. She didn't speak, but simply patted the woman's shoulder.

"Mr. Karl, are you leaving?" Stavros asked with some reluctance, feeling that he had finally found someone he could talk to.

"I'm going to the port authority to ask about work." Constantine adjusted his hat, which covered half his face. "If the workers in a place are being devoured by the devil, then the engineer sent by God has to do something."

After saying that, he and Sophia walked out of the coffee shop, their figures quickly merging into the noisy crowd in the port area.

Stavros chewed on Karl's last words, then slammed his limp to the ground and turned to face all the workers: "Did you all hear that! A German cares more about his home than any of us do! From today onward, anyone who touches that damned thing again, don't blame me, Stavros, for disowning my brothers!"

……

Meanwhile, at the other end of the port of Piraeus, an invisible net is being quietly cast.

Alexandros Dimitriopoulos, the sharpest blade in the Royal Intelligence Service, sat in an unassuming attic. Before him lay a huge map of the port, marked with intricate symbols by fine lines of different colors.

"Target spotted." A voice came from the shadows in the corner.

Alexandros picked up a high-powered telescope and pointed the lens at a foreman below who was distributing wages. The man, named Koster, was short in stature but had unusually sharp eyes; he was one of the suspicious individuals Stavros had mentioned.

After paying the workers, Koster didn't leave. He walked behind a pile of goods, and several workers followed him. They whispered among themselves, and items were quickly exchanged between them.

"Follow him." Alexandros put down his binoculars, his voice completely calm.

Two agents disguised as dockworkers followed Coster at a distance.

This foreman was exceptionally cunning. He first went into a tavern and had a drink; then he went to a bakery and bought two loaves of bread; he even took a detour to the public toilet. He circled the port area for a full two hours, like a wary mouse.

But the ones following him were wolves.

The wolves were never in a hurry; they simply maintained their distance, appearing alternately at the edge of their prey's field of vision with different faces and from different angles. A newspaper boy, an old man mending fishing nets, a shoe shiner sitting by the roadside—they were all Alexandros's eyes.

Two days and two nights.

Koster's patience had run out. At midnight on the third day, he finally left the port area and entered the residential area behind it. He walked into a dead end and knocked on an inconspicuous back door.

The person who opened the door was a man wearing a port authority uniform.

The agent lurking on the opposite rooftop used a German-made night-vision binocular to clearly photograph the man's face—Andrei, a third-class inspector from the port authority.

Andrei handed Koster a tarpaulin-wrapped package, and Koster in turn handed him a heavy money bag. The transaction was completed quickly, without a single unnecessary word.

Andrei returned to the port authority building. An hour later, he reappeared and met with a sailor in a secluded dockside tavern.

The sailor handed him another identical oilcloth package, and in exchange, Andreas stamped his cargo inspection document. On that document, the port of origin for the cargo ship was listed with one word: Smyrna.

All the clues here form a closed loop.

A note with a secret message was delivered to Constantine, who was "consulting" at the port authority, through the hands of a flower girl.

Constantine unfolded the note and glanced at it.

Inside the port authority office, officials were still showering the generous "German engineer" with attention. Constantine wore a professional smile, but his fingers were under the table, crushing the note into powder.

A low-level inspector can break up a smuggling chain from Smyrna to Piraeus. If he didn't have a much bigger protector behind him, would he dare risk his life doing this kind of business?

Constantine made an excuse to leave the office. He walked to the end of the deserted corridor, wrote a few words on a sticky note, tucked it into an engineering manual, and handed it to the "driver" waiting outside the door.

The driver took the manual and quickly drove away.

Half an hour later, the new order reached Alexandros in the attic.

"Keep digging deeper. I want the whole fish, not just the scales."

A cold glint appeared on Alexandros's lips. He knew that His Highness was truly enraged.

He immediately changed his strategy. The minor figures, Koster and Andrei, were temporarily sidelined. All surveillance was focused on the mysterious delivery sailor.

Late that night, after completing his transaction with Andrei, the sailor did not return to any of the merchant ships anchored in the harbor. Like a ghost, he wandered through the dark streets and arrived at a long-abandoned fishing boat dock.

He jumped onto a dilapidated fishing boat, untied the mooring ropes, and started the noisy diesel engine.

The fishing boat, without its lights on, slowly sailed away from the harbor by the moonlight, heading into the dark depths of Saronic Bay.

The sea was deathly silent.

A moment later, another black speedboat, also disguised as a fishing boat, glided out of the shadows. Its engine had been specially modified, making a sound so faint as to be almost imperceptible.

The Clippers maintained a safe distance, like a shark lurking underwater, silently following its prey.

The night was as dark as ink, and the waves crashed against the hull of the ship.

The agents stood at the bow of the ship, staring at the faint trail of diesel engine exhaust in front of them, and no one spoke.

They are heading into an unknown darkness.