The Mediterranean Caper Read online

  “I met von Till over dinner last night, and we didn’t part the best of friends. In fact, he even sicced his dog on me.”

  Pitt knew Zac would not appreciate the humor.

  But what the hell, he thought, why go through the whole maddening story again. He began to wish longingly for a drink.

  “From sex with the niece to dinner with the uncle, and all in the same day.” Zac shook his head incredulously. “You are indeed a fast worker.”

  Pitt merely shrugged.

  “It’s a pity,” Zac continued. “You could have been a great help to us on the inside.” Ho puffed on his pipe until the embers in the bowl glowed a vivid orange-red.

  “We’ve had the villa under constant surveillance from a distance, but could detect nothing out of the ordinary.

  Two hundred yards; that was as near as we could get without arousing von Till’s suspicions. We thought our little masquerade as tourist guides had finally paid off when you and his niece were apprehended by Colonel Zeno.”

  “Colonel Zeno?”

  Zac nodded, then paused deliberately for effect.

  “Yes. He and Captain Darius are members of the Greek Gendarmerie. Technically, Zeno outranks me a few steps, you might say.”

  “A rank of Colonel in the police? Pitt asked.

  “Isn’t that a bit unusual”

  “Not if you understood their law enforcement system. You see, with the exception of Athens and a few other larger cities which have their own metropolitan bureaus, the Greek rural and suburban areas are policed by the Gendarmerie; a branch of the national army, and a very elite and efficient outfit.”

  In spite of his hatred for Zeno and Darius, Pitt was impressed.

  “That explains their presence, but what about you, Inspector? A narcotics agent after illegal drugs in Greece is the same as an FBI agent after a spy in Spain; it’s just not done.”

  “In an ordinary case, you’re quite correct” Zac’s face turned grim and his voice hard. “But von Till is not an ordinary case. When we get him behind bars and put an end to his filthy smuggling operation we will automatically cut international crime by twenty percent And that, I assure you, is no small margin.” An inner anger had taken control of Zac and he stopped for a moment, taking several deep breaths until it subsided. “In the past, each country worked separately, using INTERPOL channels to relay vital information across national borders. For instance, if I learned through the Narcotics Bureau’s undercover sources that an illegal shipment of drugs was bound for England, I would simply send my information to INTERPOL London, who in turn would alert Scotland Yard. Time willing, they’d set a trap and apprehend the smugglers.”

  “Sounds like a neat and workable arrangement.”

  “Unfortunately it has yet to work with von Till,” Zac said quietly. “No matter how many warnings, how many traps, he always manages to evade the nets and come up like the proverbial sweet smelling rose, fresh out of the excretion barrel. But this time it’s going to be different.” He pounded the desk for effect “Our governments have allowed us to form an international investigation team that can cross any border, use any police facilities, and have at their command, men and equipment of the military.” Zac sighed heavily, then went on apologetically.

  “I’m sorry, Pitt, I didn’t mean to be long winded. But I hope I’ve answered your question as to why I’m on Thasos.”

  Pitt studied Zac carefully. The Inspector looked like a man who was not used to failure. Every movement, every gesture was thoughtfully planned in advance; even his words carried an air of confident forethought.

  Yet, Pitt could not help detecting a glimmer of fear behind Zac’s eyes; a fear of losing the game to von Till. Pitt began to wish more than ever for a drink.

  “Where are the other members of your team?” Pitt asked. “So far I’ve only seen three of you.”

  “At this moment a British inspector is on board a Royal Navy destroyer, trailing Queen Artemisia, while a representative from the Turkish Police Bureau is observing her from the air in an antiquated, unmarked DC-3.” Zac spoke woodenly, as if quoting from a legal document. "Two detectives of the French Surete Nationale are also on hand, posing as Marseille dockworkers, awaiting the Queen's arrival for refueling.”

  A feeling of detached unreality began to creep

  on Pitt. Zac’s words were becoming dull and unmeaning, Indifferently, almost, with a kind of hazy academic interest, he wondered how much longer he could stay awake. Ho had had only a few hours sleep in the last two days and it was catching up. Pitt rubbed his eyes and shook his head vigorously, then forced his mind back to alertness.

  “Zac, old buddy,” It was the first time Pitt had called him by name. “I wonder if you would do me a personal favor.”

  “If I can,” Zac grinned hesitantly, “old buddy.”

  "I want Teri released in my custody.”

  “Released in your custody?” Zac arched his eyebrows in accompaniment to wide innocent eyes. Steve McQueen couldn’t have done it any better. “What lecherous scheme do you have up your sleeve?”

  “No lechery,” Pitt said seriously. “You have no choice but to release her. Once free, it will take Teri all of twenty minutes to storm back to the villa—hell hath no fury like the wrath of a woman humiliated demanding that Uncle Bruno do something about her shameful captivity. The old boy will put his shrewd

  mind into gear and, within the hour, your little underground spy network will be blown from Thasos back to the States.”

  “You underestimate us,” Zac said urbanely. “I’m well aware of the consequences. Plans have been made for just such an emergency. We can be out of these quarters and working under a different cover by morning,”

  "Too late,” Pitt countered sharply. “The damage is done. Von Till will be wise to your presence. He’s sure to double every precaution.”

  “You have a very convincing argument.”

  “You’re damn right I have.”

  “And if I turned her over to you?” Zac asked speculatively.

  “As soon as Teri is missed, if she hasn’t been already, von Till will turn Thasos upside down in an exhaustive search. The safest place to hide her now is on board the First Attempt. He won’t think to look for her there, at least not until he’s sure she isn’t on the island.”

  Zac stared a long moment at Pitt, examining every inch of the man as if he were seeing him for the first time, wondering why someone with an excellent position and influential family would take such difficult and dangerous risks, never knowing when a miscalculation might spell the end of his career or even his death. Zac idly tapped his pipe against an ashtray, knocking the loose ashes from the round briar bowl.

  “It will be as you say,” Zac murmured. “Providing, of course, the young lady will cause no trouble.”

  “I don’t think so,” Pitt grinned. “She has other things on her mind besides international drug smuggling. I’d say that sneaking off to the boat with me holds more interest than another dull evening with Uncle Bruno. Besides, show me a woman who doesn’t crave a little taste of adventure, now and then, and I’ll show you a—”

  He broke off as the door opened and Giordino walked in, followed by Zeno. Giordino had a wide grin stretched across his cherub face and he clutched a bottle of Metaxa Five Star brandy in one hand.

  “Look what Zeno found,” Giordino flicked off the bottle lid and sniffed the contents, screwing up his face into a mock look of ecstasy. “I’ve decided they’re not such bad guys after all.”

  Pitt laughed and turned to Zeno. “You’ll have to excuse Giordino. He always comes unglued at the mere sight of booze.”

  “if so,” Zeno grinned beneath his moustache, “We have much in common.” He stepped around Giordino and set a tray with four glasses on the desk.

  “How’s Darius?” Pitt asked.

  “He is on his feet,” Zeno replied. “But he will be limping for a few days.”

  “Tell him I’m sorry,” Pitt said sincerely. “I regret-�
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  “No regrets are necessary,” Zeno interrupted. “In our line of work these things happen.” He passed a glass to Pitt, noticing for the first time the blood stained shirt. “You seem to have your injuries also.”

  “Courtesy of von Till’s dog,” Pitt said, holding the glass to the light.

  Zac nodded silently. He now grasped more fully Pitt’s hatred for von Till. He relaxed, hands banging limply over the arms of the swivel chair, secure in the knowledge that Pitt had revenge on his mind, not sex.

  “After you get back to your ship, we’ll keep you posted by radio on von Till’s activities.”

  “Good,” Pitt said simply. He sipped the brandy, enjoying the fiery lava-like liquid that trickled down his throat into the stomach. “One more favor, Zac. I’d like you to use your official status and send a couple of messages to Germany.”

  “Of course. What do you wish to say?”

  Pitt had already picked up a pad and pencil off desk. “I’ll write everything down including names addresses, but will have to fake my German spelling.

  When Pitt finished he passed the pad to Zac. “Ask them to forward their reply to the First Attempt. I’ve add NUMA’s radio frequency.”

  Zac scanned the pad. “I don’t understand your motives.”

  “Just a wild hunch.” Pitt poured another shot Metaxa in his glass. “By the way, when will the Queen Artemisia make her detour by Thasos?”

  “How . . but how do you know that?”

  “I’m psychic,” Pitt said briefly. “When?”

  “Tomorrow morning.” Zac looked at Pitt long and consideringly. “Sometime between four and five A.M. Why do you ask?”

  “No reason, just curiosity.” Pitt braced himself for the burn and downed the drink. The jolt was almost too much. He shook his head from side to side, blinking away the tears that burst from his eyes.

  “My God,” he whispered hoarsely. “That stuff goes down like battery acid.”

  13

  The eerie, phosphorescent froth gradually diminished and fell away from the old straight up and down bow of Queen Artemisia as the aging ship slowly lost way and came to a stop. Then the anchor clattered down into ten fathoms of water, and the navigation lights blinked out, leaving a black silhouette resting on an even blacker sea. It was as though the Queen Artemisia had never been.

  Two hundred feet away, a small wooden packing crate bobbed lazily on the swells. It was a common type of crate, one of empty thousands that float in cast off neglect on every sea and waterway of the world. To the casual eye, at least, it looked like ordinary flotsam; even the stenciled letters that advertised “THIS END UP” pointed incongruously downward toward the seabed. There was, however, one thing that made this particular crate quite different; it wasn’t empty.

  There must be a better way, Pitt thought wryly from inside the box as a wave bumped it against the top of his head, but at least this was a damn sight better than swimming in plain view when the morning light appeared. He took a mouthful of saltwater and coughed it out. Then he puffed lightly into the mouthpiece of his flotation vest, increasing his buoyancy, and returned his gaze to the ship through a jaggedly cut peephole.

  The Queen Artemisia lay silent, only the faint hum of her generators and the slap of the waves of her hull betrayed her presence. Gradually the sounds faded away and the ship became a part of the silence. For a long time Pitt listened, but no other sounds traveled across the water to his bobbing outpost No footsteps on a steel deck, no masculine voices shouting commands, no clank of human operated machinery, nothing. The silence was total and very puzzling. It was like a phantom ship with a phantom crew.

  The starboard anchor was down, and Pitt made his way toward it, slowly pushing the box from within. The light breeze and the incoming tide worked in his favor, and soon the box gently nudged the anchor chain. He swiftly removed the U.S. Divers air tank and attached its backpack webbing through one of the big steel chain links. Then using the regulator’s single air hose as a line, he slipped his fins, mask and snorkel over the second stage mouthpiece and let the whole package dangle just beneath the surface.

  Pitt grabbed the chain, looking up at the seemingly endless links that vanished into the darkness, and felt like Jack climbing the beanstalk. He thought of Teri, lying asleep in a cozy bunk back on the First Attempt. He thought of her soft and fluid body and he began to wonder what in hell he was doing here.

  Teri had wondered too, but over a different question. “Why take me to a ship? I can’t go out there and meet all those brainy scientists looking like this.” She lifted the hem of her transparent negligee, displaying her legs to the thighs.

  “Oh what the hell,” Pitt laughed. “It’ll probably be the sexiest thing that’s happened to them in years.”

  ‘What about Uncle Bruno?”

  “Tell him you went shopping on the mainland.

  Tell him anything. you’re over twenty-one.”

  “I guess it would be fun to be naughty,” she giggled. “It’s just like a romantic adventure story in the cinema.”

  “That’s one way to look at It,” Pitt had said. He’d figured she would think that, and he’d been right.

  Pitt went up the anchor chain, copying the style of a Polynesian native climbing a palm tree after coconuts. He soon reached the hawserhole and peered over the rail He hesitated, listening and watching for any movement in the shadows. Not a soul was visible. The foredeck was deserted.

  He swung over the side, crouched low and moved silently across the deck to the foremast. The blacked-out ship was a blessing. If the cargo loading lamps had been on, the midships and foredeck would have been bathed in a flood of white light; not the best circumstances for sneaking around unnoticed. Pitt was also thankful that the darkness blotted out his dripping water trail across the foredeck. He paused, waiting for the expected sounds and movements that never came. It was quiet, far too quiet. There was something else about the ship that didn’t jell in Pitt’s subconscious mind, but he couldn’t pin it down. It eluded him for the present

  Pitt reached down, unsheathing the diver’s knife strapped to his calf, and moved aft, holding the seven inch stainless blade well out in front of him.

  It seemed incredible, but Pitt had a clear view of the bridge and, as far as he could see, it was abandoned. He melted into the shadows and climbed the ladder to the bridge, his feet padding noiselessly on the steel steps. The wheelhouse was dark and empty. The spokes of the wheel reached out in dark loneliness, and the binnacle stood like a mute, brass-plated sentinel. Pitt couldn’t make out the wording, but he knew from the angle of the pointers that, the telegraph stood at All Stop. In the dim light from the stars he was able to make out a rack attached to the ledge below the port window. His fingers. played over the contents; Aldis lamp, flare gun, flares. Then he got lucky. His hand touched the familiar cylindrical shape of flashlight. He slipped out of his swim trunks and wrapped them around the lens till the light offered nothing but a faint glow. Then he checked every foot of the wheelhouse; deck, bulkheads, equipment The tiny indicator lights of, the control console showed the only glimmer of life.

  The curtains were drawn in the chartroom at the back of the wheelhouse. It was inconceivable that any chartroom could be so clean. The charts lay in orderly stacks, their fields of squares and numbers crossed by precisely drawn pencil lines. Pitt slipped the knife back in its sheath, propped the flashlight against a copy of Brown’s Nautical Almanac and scanned the chart markings. The lines coincided exactly with the Queen Artemisia’s known course from Shaughai. He noted the fact that there were no mistakes or erasures by whoever figured the compass corrections. It was neat, too much so.

  The log book was open at the last entry: 03.52 hour’s - Brady Field Beacon bearing 312°, approximately eight miles. Wind southwest, 2 knots. The God’s protect Minerva. The time showed that this entry had been made Less than an hour before Pitt swam out from the beach. But where was the crew? There was no sign of the deck watch and the lifeboats
were secure in their davits. The abandoned helm didn’t make sense. None of it made sense.

  Pitt’s mouth was dry—a dusty cavern in which his tongue lay like a rubber sponge. A hammer pounded in his head, blurring his thinking, He left the wheelhouse, softly closing the door behind him, and found an alleyway leading to the captain’s cabin. The door was ajar. He gently eased it full open and stepped soundlessly and sideways into the steel cubicle.

  A movie set, it looked like a movie set That was the only way Pitt could describe it. Everything was neat and tidy, and exactly where it should have been. Across the far bulkhead, the Queen Artemisia loomed in tranquil splendor from an amateurish oil painting, Pitt shuddered at the choice of colors; the ship sailed on a purple sea. The signature in the lower right corner was signed by a Sophia Remick. There was the usual photograph on the desk with a matronly, round-faced woman staring out of a cheap metal frame. The inscription read: To the Captain of my heart from his loving wife.

  It was unsigned, but obviously written by the same hand that had autographed the painting, And next to the photograph, on an otherwise barren desk top, a carefully laid pipe reposed in an empty ashtray. Pitt picked it up and smelled the blackened bowl; it hadn’t been smoked in months. Nothing looked used or handled. It was a museum without dust, a house without odor. And, like the ship herself, quiet as a graveyard.

  He returned to the alleyway, closing the door behind him, almost wishing some strange voice, any voice, would shout, “Who goes there?” or “What are you doing here?" The stillness made his sweat run cold. Pitt began to imagine vague shapes in shadowy corners. His heartbeat thumped at an accelerating pace. It couldn’t have been more than ten seconds that he stood there not moving a muscle, forcing his mind back into rational control.

  It’ll be dawn soon, he thought. Hurry, must hurry. He ran down the port alleyway, ignoring any attempt at stealth and secrecy, and threw open the other cabin doors. Each small compartment was like the black Hole of Calcutta. One quick sweep of the hooded light told the same story as the captain’s cabin He also searched the radio cabin. The transmitter was warm and pre-set on a VHF frequency, but the radio operator was conspicuous by his absence. Pitt slipped the door shut and headed aft.