The Greek Resistance

I’ve recently been fascinated with the life story of John Kiriakou, and what follows is a dramatized retelling of a real-life event drawn from his life. While grounded in historical fact, my retelling takes liberties with reconstructed dialogue and interior monologue to bring this historical episode to life.

***

The question that occupied young John Kiriakou as he neared adulthood in small town Pennsylvania was simple: how can an ambitious young man, raised in a Greek-American family of modest means, find his place in the world? 

Fascinated with international relations in high school, perhaps imagining himself a player on the international stage, he studied diligently and ultimately earned a spot at Georgetown University majoring in Middle East studies and Arabic.

At university, his social life rivaled his academic one: he was gregarious and had a natural ease with people. He also exuded an all-around simple American patriotism that he picked up from his parents, who had a deep appreciation for their adopted homeland. Spotting this, Jerrold Post, a psychology professor, suggested he apply for a government position and gave him a recommendation.

Fate worked its course and ten years later, John Kiriakou found himself stationed at the US Embassy in Athens, putting his people and language skills to work. With his Greek roots, he moved through the city like a local, and fluent in Arabic, he cultivated contacts among the many Middle Eastern diplomats based in the city.

He lived in a lovely rented house in the leafy northern Athens suburb of Kifissia, up the mountains north of the city. As a matter of operational security, each morning he drove down the hill to the Embassy by a different route. Trained to be observant, he noticed the same red car parked across the street from his suburban home for a few days in a row.

***

Savvas Xiros grew up in a small town in North Greece. In contrast to Kiriakou, his childhood aspirations were modest. He worked as a painter and a restorer of religious statues, the kind displayed by every Orthodox Christian church. In 1980, his older brother told him there were more work opportunities in Athens and helped him move to the city.

City life was hard for laborers without connections. The newspapers told of a Greek economic miracle but Savvas's own life gained no benefit from the new buildings and billboards popping up in Athens. All the wealth in Greece was controlled by the elites, the same elites who had run the country under the ten-year military dictatorship. He would never accept their help even if they offered. Savvas, and everyone else remember on November 17, 1973, the military junta's soldiers opened fire on students at Athens Polytechnic, and any bridge to reconciliation has been burned forever.  

A professor in Athens started a revolutionary group named November 17th to avenge their death, and began posting anonymous manifestos to the Greek people. Savvas’s older brother had joined their movement, and soon Savvas joined in, attending meetings and then moving on to robbing government banks and post offices to raise funds for the inevitable revolution.

Decades passed. The Greek government’s new slogans and faces did not change the underlying fact: the same greedy millionaires remained in charge, propped up by the British and the Americans.

On an early morning in June 2000, Xiros sat in a café in Kifissia. He held a cup of Greek coffee and a newspaper that he was, in fact, not reading. Instead, his eyes scanned the intersection where the neighborhood's traffic merged onto Kifissias Avenue for the straight shot drive down into Athens.

A large white BMW appeared, riding low to the ground. Its license plates started with “YHB-”, the prefix of the cars at the American embassy. Stravvas made a note of the time and the fact that the car appeared armored. Minutes later, a white Rover with a “YBH-” number, a British Embassy plate, passed, moving more spritely. The foreign driver appeared to enjoy the morning scenery as if he was driving through the English countryside and not an occupied country.

Xiros checked his watch, folded the newspaper, left a few coins on the table, and departed. His math was already done. Now, he only needed to convince the others.

***

Sunny skies in Athens usually meant another afternoon of duty-free alcohol at a diplomatic party. And it was always sunny in Athens in the summer. The British and the Americans were close allies, and Kiriakou attended the endless calendar of parties to mark all the arrivals, departures, and birthdays at the British Embassy. 

He sipped his drink slowly. He needed to drive back up to Kifissia after the party. Operational security. He didn't worry about the traffic police, as he kept an envelope of cash in the glove compartment just in case he was stopped.

A hand landed on his shoulder.

“Good day! Splendid to see you again.” Stephen Saunders, the British military attaché, was smiling at him. They were neighbors in Kifissia; their backyards almost touched. “Have another drink?”

“Not today,” John explained, “operational security.”

Saunders looked him up and down, appraising his counterpart. “Attending an Embassy luncheon armed?”

“A pistol here,” John said proudly, feeling his hip holster. “And a snub nose at my ankle. One can never be too careful."

“And I saw your car. Built like a tank,” Saunders laughed and nodded toward the parking lot. “Americans take everything too seriously. This is Greece, an EU country, a NATO member. Relax and enjoy yourself.”

“It's wonderful to be in Greece,” John said. ”My family was from Greece, and the souvlaki in Athens is to die for.”

They talked about the food and sights in Athens until they parted to mingle with other guests. The Americans always took "business" more seriously than the British.

But Saunders was right about one thing. The Brits had been in Greece for a long time, had occupied Athens in 1944, and Cyprus for a century. They knew the place.

That evening he looked out the upstairs window. The red car was gone. He had not seen it for days. He decided he had been imagining things.

***

Two men on a motorcycle were still common enough in Athens that few people looked twice. Savvas Xiros drove. Dimitris Koufodinas sat behind him. Their scout had missed the car, and now they were searching Kifissia Avenue for a “YHB” plate.  

As a white car with a “YHB” number came into view, a foreigner at the wheel, he motioned to Koufodinas and said, “Car on the right side.”

Behind him, Koufodinas pulled out his heavy rifle. Savvas eased the motorcycle to a halt next to the white car. A heavy shot rang from the G3.

“Fuck!” 

Sannas looked back and saw Koufodinas struggling with a jam.

“The pistol!” 

Koufodinas drew his backup gun and stared at the foreign man behind the blown-out driver's side window, still struggling with his seatbelt. 

He declared, “The Greek resistance will execute its sentence on behalf of the Greek people.” 

The shots rang out rapidly as he emptied the magazine into the man. 

Sannas hit the gas, and then they were gone, weaving through the traffic, before abandoning the stolen motorcycle on a roadside and disappearing into the morning pedestrian crowds.

***

That morning John had overslept. It was already past eight. He thought of the excuses he would tell when he arrived at the embassy. He rushed to get ready, then went out to his car. No matter how busy he was, he never let his procedure slip. He held the special mirror on a stick and used it to study under the car for bombs and devices. He opened the hood. Everything was fine He scanned the street, no red car, or anyone else looking his way.

He was late, so he abandoned the usual zig-zag and drove straight down Kifissias Avenue. The armored BMW was heavy and slow to accelerate, but he forced it through every gap.

The avenue was lined with concrete barriers. Once you were on it, there was no easy exit until the city. Traffic thickened, then stopped to a slow crawl, moving just a car length or two at infrequent intervals.

He turned on the radio. “Traffic update. Avoid Kifissia Avenue, as there is a traffic situation.”

Ten minutes later, the announcement became “Avoid Kifissia Avenue due to a security situation.” 

Just as he heard, “Avoid Kifissia Avenue, as there is a terrorist situation,” flashing lights appeared ahead. The line of cars crept forward. As Kiriakou’s car approached a stopped vehicle with its windows smashed, he saw a “YBH” license number. He had a “YHB place. The terrorists had mistakenly confused an innocent Greek civilian’s car with an American diplomat's car. 

And then he noticed it was a white Rover that looked like the one his neighbor drove. Then he recalled the British used “YBH” plates. The back window was splattered with so much blood the occupant could not have survived.

After he cleared the jam, he called his station chief, trying to calm the panic in is voice. “I think Stephen Saunders was just assassinated.”

A call to the British Embassy confirmed Stephen Saunders had not arrived for work that morning.

***

Three months later, November 17th's second manifesto appeared in a Greek newspaper. The group had identified a “big American spy” but found his car armored and the man armed, so they carried out the revolutionary sentence on the military officer at the British Embassy instead. The American, they wrote, was next.