Three Miles: Part 3

Did you miss the other parts?

Part 1

Part 2

“Astynomía!” barked the person behind the blinding flashlight.

Max froze and put her hands up in the air when she recognized one of the few Greek words she had learned.

Police.

The others in her group followed suit, putting their hands in the air.

“Do you speak English?” Ellen inquired haughtily.

“Come out!” they heard in heavily accented English. They filed out of the alley, hands in the air. Max discreetly grabbed her backpack.

“Thank God,” Max heard Robert whisper to his wife. “We’re safe now.” Max wasn’t so sure, though. She remembered the warning from the shopkeeper at the market. “The police are not your friends.”

As they emerged from the alley, the area seemed to be consumed in growing chaos. A helicopter swept the area from the sky with an enormous spotlight, illuminating clouds of what Max assumed to be teargas and individual battles between the well-equipped police and people dressed in head-to-toe black who had their faces covered with bandanas.

“Identification!” barked the police officer.

“We’re Americans,” Will informed him in a self-important tone. Max cringed, knowing that often Americans were thought to be unpleasant travelers. She hoped the officer didn’t hold it against them.

She pulled a photocopy of her passport out of her purse and presented it to the officer. The others were digging through their belongings for their own passports as the Greek cop left to check out her ID.

“We need to go,” she whispered urgently. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

“That’s ridiculous,” snapped Ellen. “He’s one of the good guys. Your little survivalist adventure is over.”

Joan’s eyes met Max’s, and they had a moment of silent communication. The police officer was no longer paying attention to them. He was having a heated discussion with a person in black and was completely distracted. Max said, “Do what you want. I’m out of here.”

“What about your passport?” Ellen asked, certain this would deter her.

“It was just a copy. I have another,” replied Max, who always kept multiple copies of her passport as well as the deeply hidden real deal

Ellen scowled in disapproval, then fixed her expression and turned back toward the authorities, gazing at them hopefully. Robert folded his arms and stood staunchly beside her. Will seemed to be on the fence, and you could see it in his stance as he turned to the side, one foot toward the police officers and one toward Max.

She didn’t care. They were making their choice, and she was making hers. She quietly backed away while the police officer’s attention was elsewhere, and Joan and Savannah joined her. They silently melted into the darkness around the corner.

The three women quickly crossed the street to head in whatever direction the riot was not. When they heard Ellen begin protesting loudly, they stopped and looked back. Ellen and Robert were being unceremoniously shoved in the back of a large van by the police. Will decided which way he wanted to go, and it was not in the van. He began to run, and Max got a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach when she saw a young police officer take note of him. It only took a few steps for the well-equipped officer to knock Will to the ground with his baton, and two other Athenian cops immediately joined him to kick the American huddled on the pavement.

Max’s eyes locked with Ellen’s in the back of the van. Ellen looked terrified, pale beneath her tan, dirty white socks bunched around her slender ankles. “I’m sorry,” Max mouthed, not even sure why she said it.

Savannah opened her mouth in protest and took as step as if to rush to Will’s assistance. Joan and Max grabbed her arms and pulled her away, hearing Wills’s grunts of pain behind them. “We have to get out of here,” Max told Savannah. “There’s nothing we can do for them until we get to the embassy.”

Savannah muffled a sob, and the trio hurried deeper into the dark side streets of Athens until the sounds of the riot were too far away to hear.

Later, Max would regretfully remember one of the survival philosophies that had slipped her mind in her rush to get away. “Don’t run away from danger. Run toward safety.”

Chapter 7

They moved away from the riots rapidly, not really paying attention to where they were headed. Suddenly Max realized that the neighborhood had deteriorated dramatically. Graffiti was always plentiful in Athens but everything within human reach on these buildings was covered with layer after layer of it, most with no nod to artistic flair. There were many buildings that were abandoned, stone edifices with boarded up windows and doors, and dark, empty spaces.

She stopped, becoming aware of Joan’s hard breathing and Savannah’s broken sniffles. “It’s going to be okay,” she said, as much to herself as to them. “Once we’re at the embassy we can get help for them. It wouldn’t do us any good to get arrested along with them.”

Savannah leaned her head on Joan’s shoulder, her entire body convulsing as she dissolved into tears. Joan patted her back absently and met Max’s eyes. “What now?” she asked.

“I need to look at my map. I’ve gotten lost,” Max admitted. “I was in such a hurry to get away from those cops that I didn’t pay attention to what direction we were going.”

“That’s okay,” Joan consoled her. “We didn’t get arrested. We’re better off lost than in jail.”

Privately, Max wasn’t so sure how much better off they were. If she wasn’t mistaken, they’d stumbled into Exarcheia, a self-governing neighborhood known for its student anarchists.

During the day, it was a lively enclave filled with artists and musicians and bohemians. At night, it was much different. There was an air of unease and danger for those who didn’t belong there.

This neighborhood had been the site of the infamous Polytechnic Uprising that took place in the 70s, and a more recent explosion of rage after a 15-year-old boy was killed by police in 2008. That event had caused a wave a rage and riots across the nation.

Max pulled up Google maps on her phone, where she confirmed that now, here they were, American capitalists in the center of Greek anti-capitalism.

In fact, they’d probably stumbled across the worst possible place for an American citizen to be in the city of Athens at this moment, particularly judging by the graffiti around her.

She glanced up at her companions, ready to share her discovery, when she realized how exhausted they both were. They needed rest, she realized.

She began to look in earnest for a place where they could get off the street. An alleyway beckoned and she saw that the entry to an abandoned building was wide open. She popped her head in and scanned with her keychain flashlight. “Hello?” she whispered. “Yassas?”

The building appeared to be empty, and the floor appeared to be solid. That was all you could ask for in a hiding place during a situation like this, she imagined. She beckoned Joan and Savannah inside. She picked up a a wooden chair that had been left behind laying on its side. She picked it up and tested it, finding that it was sturdy enough. She unwrapped one of the rain ponchos she had purchased at the market, spread it across the dirty floor, and sat with Savannah while Joan gratefully took the chair, perching on it tentatively then relaxing with a sigh when it held up.

Max distributed the three water bottles and dug in her backpack for some snacks. She offered her companions their choice of paprika Pringles, dried fruit, and salted almonds. While everyone ate and rested, she unfolded her map to figure out how to get to the embassy safely.

“I’m just going to rest my eyes for a few minutes,” she thought to herself, leaning against the wall. She thought of her daughter, back home in America, staying with her best friend while her mother was away. She had to get back for Ariel. She would get back for Ariel.

It felt like she had just blinked when she awakened to a barrage of angry Greek words she didn’t understand…

If you want to read about the rest of Max’s escape from Athens, name your price for the novella here.