Nick Carter

The Liquidator

Dedicated to The Men of the Secret Services of the United States of America

One

It’s not a long drive from Washington down to the Outer Banks; it just seems that way. Since this was a vacation, we backtracked a little and took the Annapolis-Bay Bridge across the Chesapeake to the Eastern Shore, then snaked down the highway through countryside as exciting as the stretch between Indianapolis and Terre Haute. There used to be a great ferry ride from Cape Charles across to Norfolk — long enough to relax, have a meal in the dining salon, and watch the seagoing traffic between the Atlantic and the bay. But no more. Now there’s a complex of bridges, like concrete strips across the water, and a couple of shocking plunges into the tunnels that supposedly allow the ships to pass without disrupting traffic. The trouble is, it seems as though every time a storm blows up, a barge breaks loose from its moorings, smashes some bridge pilings, and closes down the whole works for weeks at a time. I sometimes wonder how those people who commute from the Cape to Norfolk manage, but that’s their problem.

The best thing to do when passing through Norfolk is close your eyes. Then, heading south, forget the Great Dismal Swamp off to the right and concentrate on that great chain of islands that make up the northern half of the coast of North Carolina. Once you hit the Outer Banks around Kitty Hawk, you get the feeling you’re far out at sea with just a skinny strip of sand dunes and motels to keep you out of the water. As a matter of fact, you are pretty far at sea, but don’t believe that tourist-bureau nonsense about Cape Hatteras being the easternmost point of the U.S.; Philadelphia’s got it beat by a good hundred miles, just for starters.

But we weren’t stopping at Hatteras. Too many tourists, and Monica and I hadn’t taken this long weekend to mingle with a bunch of camera-toters. After driving forever along the straight, monotonous highway we reached the ferry to Ocracoke, the last stop on the Outer Banks. The late spring day was bright but sullen, with a light overcast that made the sun almost oppressive.

When we were underway, we got out of the rented yellow Mustang and stood at the blunt bow of the boat; there was enough of a breeze to toss stormlets of spray in our faces, but it was more refreshing than annoying. Monica was the kind of girl who didn’t worry about her makeup — or anything else — which was one of the reasons I’d brought her along on this little jaunt.

My boss back in Washington wasn’t happy about my choice for a long weekend; I couldn’t even tell him where I’d be staying because I’d never been to Ocracoke before; it’s not exactly on the tourist beat. I’d more or less promised I’d let him know once we found a motel, but we both knew I’d be likely to forget. It’s nice to know you’re needed, but somewhere you have to draw the line.

We settled for a place just outside what passes for a town on Ocracoke, a group of houses and shops arranged around a harbor that forms a perfect circle. I was pleased to find there was no telephone in the room, but we had an ice machine just outside. Some years ago a friend of mine wrote an article about this little out-of-the-way island, and since it stressed his major interest in life, I knew Ocracoke was not only bone dry but that there wasn’t even a man who could get you an odd bottle or two. But we had come well supplied, and Monica and I had no worries as we began our strenuous business of relaxing for a few days.

Monica worked at a health spa in Bethesda, and one look at that small but splendidly vibrant body was all the advertising the place would ever need. At twenty-five, with a couple of ruined marriages behind her, she had the naive high spirits of a teenager, but there was a streak of shrewdness in her that I appreciated. She never asked about my scars, the nasty ones not even the AXE supersurgeons could entirely remove. The place where she worked catered to that kind of Washington clientele — military brass, diplomats and their satellites, men and women in various governmental departments with titles that say nothing about their true functions. In other words, questions were discouraged, which was the main reason my boss had sent me to the place after one of my assignments left me in pretty bad shape.

Monica and I took a short swim in the chilly Atlantic, followed by a long, leisurely bake in the sun, then another brief dip and a hasty return to the motel as the sun started plummeting toward Pamlico Sound on the other side of the island. After showers we spent a fabulous hour in bed, then got up to find a place for dinner. There wasn’t much of a choice, but the fresh fish at the place we decided on was well prepared if not exciting, and we couldn’t honestly complain.

It went like that for a couple of days; we wandered the beaches, stopped to talk to surfcasters now and then, checked the souvenir shops, and agreed there didn’t seem to be anything worth buying at any of them. The weather never changed, always the mild haze that turned the blue sky a milky gray, and after a short while, it began to depress us both. By noon on the third day we agreed it was time to start heading back; we would stop somewhere else along the Banks for the night — no hurry, but we just wanted to get moving.

We’d heard about the Ocracoke ponies, a wild breed similar to those on Chincoteague Island, off Virginia, but hadn’t spotted any until we were on our way to the ferry. Then, as we were driving along the narrow two-lane blacktop, through the rolling dunes, Monica suddenly pointed across my nose to the left.

“Look!” she squealed. “Ponies! A whole herd of them!”

I turned my head just in time to see a couple sets of equine hindquarters disappear behind a towering, scrub-covered dune. “They’re gone,” I said.

“Oh, please stop, Nick,” the girl insisted. “Let’s See if we can find them again.”

“They’re wild; they won’t let you get anywhere near them.” I knew Monica was crazy about horses; she went riding regularly at a stable out in Maryland. To me horses are just a faster way to cover ground than walking if those are the only choices you have.

“Let’s try anyway.” She put her hand on my knee and gave me that little gamin grin of hers that says she knows damned well she’s going to get her way. “We’re not in any hurry, and we’ve never even looked at this part of the island.”

True enough, I admitted to myself as I eased over to the side of the road and stopped the car. With the engine silenced, the only sound was the soft sigh of a breeze through the scrubby red-brown shrubbery that somehow managed to thrive in the sandy soil. I looked at Monica, with her turned-up nose and bright eyes, her sunburned cheeks just beginning to peel at the edges. And then I looked at her amazingly full breasts, which were straining against the light knit shirt, and the faded denim shorts that clung to her hips like a lover’s embrace. I took her hand from my knee and kissed it briefly.

“Okay. Let’s start the big roundup,” I said, opening the door on my side.

“Take the camera. I’d love to get some pictures.”

“Got it.”

We walked, both of us barefoot, through the heavy sand in the general direction of the sound. There was a kind of path — or at least a ribbon of sand where no shrubbery grew — between the towering dunes on either side of us. I kept an eye on the spot where the horses had disappeared, but when we broke out into the open on the beach, they were nowhere to be seen.

Monica was racing ahead now, eyes scanning the ground; suddenly she dropped to her knees like an Indian scout. “Look!” she squealed. “Hoofprints!”

“What did you expect?” I asked, shuffling through the hot sand toward her. “Tire tracks?”

“No, silly.” She stood up and gazed down the long, straight strip of beach. “But we could follow them.”

“Sure. From now until next winter. And how much chance do you think we’d have of catching up with them?”

“Well...” She swung her head around, China-blue eyes narrowed. “They must have gone in behind the dunes somewhere.” She grabbed my hand and started to tug. “Come on, Nick.”

I let her haul me along. She headed down the beach, walking where the sand was firm and damp from the mini-wave action of the Sound. She kept a close watch on the jumble of hoofprints, then suddenly stopped and pointed inland.

“Look! They turned in there.” She started to run, and — oh, what the hell — I trotted along with her. Enthusiasm like that can be contagious.

When the tracks disappeared in the dense growth behind the dunes, I managed to keep from telling her “I told you so,” partly because I hadn’t, except in my head. Monica stopped abruptly, put a finger to her lips, then sighed.

“I wonder which way...” she started.

“It’s anybody’s guess.”

She nodded. “You’re probably right.” And then she brightened. “But look! We can climb up to the top of that monster dune and at least take a look around. Maybe we can spot them again!”

It was my turn to sigh, but since I’d come this far with her, there was no point in resisting now. She churned up the steep side of that dune like a fullback getting his legs in shape for the season, and if I’d been a few years younger, I would have felt compelled to show her I could do it too. Instead, I climbed at a more sensible pace; there are enough physical demands in my line of business without my having to show off. And besides, I didn’t have to prove anything to Monica.

She stood on tiptoe, the light breeze ruffling her blonde hair, and slowly turned to scan the stretch of ground below. I didn’t see a thing in the endless tangle of bushes and stunted trees between the two lines of dunes. A Panzer division could have been concealed down there, not to mention a dozen ponies.

“I guess we’ve lost them for sure,” I said.

Monica nodded. “Looks like it Damn! I just wanted to see them up close.”

“Well, next time.” I looked beyond her, over her head to the blacktop road in the distance. I could see the yellow Mustang parked where I had left it, but there wasn’t another vehicle or person in sight, not even a stray seagull. Behind us, out on the sound that stretched endlessly toward the invisible mainland maybe twenty miles away, a couple of toy-sized boats crawled across the water, but they had nothing to do with this remote and isolated spot.

I looked back at Monica, who was regarding me with that look I knew so well. She yawned, stretched, fluffed her hair with her hands. Her full breasts lifted under her shirt, nipples outlined starkly. She smiled sleepily, and I buttoned up the leather camera case so the sand wouldn’t get in it.

The top of the dune was hollowed out, a dish of soft sand that was at first hot against bare flesh. But then, as those hips began their rhythmic movement under me, I forgot all about the heat and everything else except what we were doing. She was a passionate, lusty girl, totally involved; she brought her legs up and wrapped them around my waist, pressing me to her with amazing strength, and then she started to buck violently, trying to pull all of me inside her. Then she gave a long, low howl of agony and delight, then slowly started to come down as I spent myself.

“That was good,” she murmured.

“Terrific,” I agreed, now aware of the sun burning down on me.

“I wish we could stay here all day.” Her arms were still around my neck, and her eyes were at half-mast as she smiled up at me.

“There are other places.” It wasn’t that I didn’t want to stay, but there was a curious kind of urgency in me that I couldn’t understand myself. Until I heard a distant sound drawing closer.

I looked off to my left, toward the end of the island where the ferry landing was. Up in the air, no more than a hundred feet above the ground, a helicopter was moving slowly in our general direction. It swayed gently back and forth, evidently scanning the two-lane blacktop. When it came to my yellow Mustang, it slowed even more, hovered, then dropped a little bit as if for a closer look.

Without ceremony I extricated myself from Monica’s embrace and scrambled to my feet; I was dragging on my pants when the chopper suddenly made a sidewise swoop and headed straight for our dune.

“What is it?” Monica asked, only half-alarmed as she raised herself up on one elbow.

“Yellow Mustang,” I gritted, cursing the rental agency for not supplying me with a less conspicuous car.

“What are you talking about, Nick?” The girl turned over, gazing up at the sky as the helicopter approached. I swear, naked and all, she was about to wave when I yanked her up and toppled her over the steep side of the dune. It wasn’t exactly the way to treat a lady you’ve just made love to, but as I dove after her, that was the last thing on my mind. When a strange aircraft comes looking for me, I don’t wave — I duck.

Two

For all the cover a short distance away, the place where we were didn’t have enough to hide a rabbit. This time it was my turn to do the running, dragging Monica in my wake; somehow she had managed to grab her clothes as I shoved her over the dune, and the knit shirt was streaming out behind her like a flag. Not that it made any difference; the guy in the chopper couldn’t have missed us, anyway.

He made a low pass over us, the wind from the rotors blasting sand up in our faces. Monica stumbled as she tried to cover her eyes; I stopped to help her, looking back, and at that moment the helicopter dropped to the ground a couple of dozen feet ahead of us.

It was time to quit running. I squinted against the sunlight reflected off the swishing blades, moving instinctively to put myself between the girl and the chopper; and it wasn’t just to conceal her nakedness. The near door of the round plastic bubble opened, and a man got out slowly. He was only a silhouette, but as soon as he started to walk toward me, I relaxed.

“Climb into your things, honey,” I muttered to the girl, and waited while David Hawk made a discreet approach. Fortunately for him, Monica was the kind of girl who needed about a second and a half to get dressed, so he didn’t have to avert his eyes any longer than that.

“Well,” he said at last, not quite harrumphing. The chief of AXE not only looks as though he should be preaching hellfire and brimstone to his congregation in a New England village, but he sometimes acts that way too — understandably in the presence of a naked female.

In the pause that followed I put on my own shirt. “What brings you to glorious Ocracoke?” I asked.

“You,” he said bluntly. “Why didn’t you leave word where you were staying here?”

“Because when I left Washington I didn’t know.”

“And when you did find out?”

“For only a couple of days it hardly seemed to matter.”

His flinty eyes flicked from mine to Monica’s, then back to me again. “You know better than that, Carter.”

There wasn’t any arguing with him. My only excuse was that I’d had too many of my brief vacations interrupted like this, but that was no excuse at all. We’re a small organization, as those things go, and when I’m needed I’m needed. Period.

“Sorry,” I said tersely. “Anyway, we were just heading back to D.C. when you... ah... spotted us.”

He grunted. “Mmm. Fortunate for all of us that we did, I suppose. If you’d been anywhere else but this end-of-the-world island I doubt we’d have made contact. But it was worth the attempt, and it worked. You’ll have to send the young lady to wait for you by the car.”

I didn’t ask why, just turned and nodded to Monica. To give her credit, she didn’t pout or protest. She just waved and trotted away.

Hawk didn’t waste time on preliminaries. “We need you in Washington right now, Nick; I won’t go into details until we’re back at the office, but the fact that I came here myself should tell you how important this matter is.”

“I see.” Not that the old man was just a desk commander, but you don’t often see the head of one of the world’s most important intelligence organizations out running errands.

“Does the young lady drive?”

“Yes.”

“Good. She can return the car to Washington then. You’re flying back with me.”

“I can drive and get there by nightfall.”

“Too late. By this evening you’ll be on your way.”

“Where?”

“Later. Get in the helicopter, and we’ll drop you out by your... fortunately conspicuous vehicle.”

I shook my head. “I’ll hike; it’s the least I can do after making the girl do it.”

Hawk gazed at me for a second, sucking on his cold pipe. “Don’t tell me,” he said with a twitch of the lips that served him for a smile. “Are you becoming a gentleman these days?”

There was no point in answering.

Monica took the news decently, though she made it clear she didn’t like the idea of missing the rest of our vacation. “I’ll see you as soon as I can,” I told her, meaning every word of it; girls like Monica are a rare find, especially for a man in my business. I grabbed my luggage, kissed her goodbye, and climbed into the helicopter. She waved once, then took off as if ready to race us all the way to Washington. The way she drove, I wouldn’t have bet against her if it hadn’t been for that long, slow ferry ride.

Hawk didn’t say another word to me until we were in his office at AXE headquarters on Dupont Circle. Behind the front of a worldwide news service lies a complex of sterile little offices, all painted the same depressing shade of jailhouse green and lit by endless rows of pale neon tubing. Hawk has one of the few window offices, but that doesn’t make it any more cheerful; it faces a blank brick wall that’s almost within touching distance.

I sat down in the hard, straight chair across from his plain steel desk. As usual, there were only a few neatly stacked folders on it, a couple of ordinary black telephones, plus the one you can’t see, a red one in a special compartment built into the side of his desk. Like Hawk, the office was strictly for business. No one was ever encouraged to linger and pass the time of day.

“You’re getting jumpy, N3,” the old man remarked.

“What makes you say that?”

“Just because a... let’s say... voyeur decides to take a closer look at the action on top of that dune, you acted as if you were in fear of your life.”

“If you hadn’t checked out my car first, I might have taken you for just another Peeping Tom. But either way, I’m no exhibitionist, so I would have gotten out of there no matter what I thought you were.”

Hawk nodded abruptly, struck a kitchen match and put it to the reeking bowl of his pipe. “When was the last time you sailed a boat, Nick?”

I had to think a moment. “The last time I was down in the Bahamas. Four months ago.”

“What sort?”

“Just one of those little catamarans the hotels rent out.”

“Nothing larger?”

“Not... let me think. Not since last summer. A friend of mine over on the Eastern Shore has a forty-two foot yawl. We spent a few days cruising the Chesapeake in her.”

“Handle the boat yourself?”

“Sure. You know I can sail. I wouldn’t try to skipper a 12-Meter in an America’s Cup race, but I can get by in just about anything one man can normally handle.”

“Yes, it’s in your file. Navigation?”

“That’s in the file too.”

He nodded. “Alex Zenopolis.”

I started to say something about my file again, but then the name penetrated and stopped me like a stone wall. “Alex,” I breathed. “It’s been years since I heard that name.”

“Well, he’s turned up in reports now and then since he defected to the Reds. Evidently worked himself up faily high in their intelligence apparatus.”

“I don’t remember seeing any of those reports.”

“Be grateful you’re in the field so much you’re not required to read every report.”

I was grateful, but wasn’t about to say so. “Too bad I didn’t see them; Alex and I were friends for a while.”

“Yes, I recall.”

“So what about him now?”

“Evidently he wants to come out.”

It was my turn to nod; I didn’t have to ask questions.

“Last night,” Hawk went on, “one of our men posted in Greece along the Albanian border received a hand-carried message purporting to be from Zenopolis. It was promptly passed on here.” Hawk opened the top folder and shoved a flimsy sheet of paper across the desk.

The message was understandably cryptic; all it said was that Alex Zenopolis, formerly of Greek intelligence, would personally contact U.S. agents in Greece within a week or so. Time and place to follow. Then he gave a signal of acknowledgment to be broadcast over a standard frequency at certain times.

I handed it back to the chief. “Do we have any idea where he is?”

“The last we heard, he was serving with some sort of liaison group operating between Yugoslavia and Albania.” Hawk permitted himself a wintry smile. “You can imagine the delicacy of that sort of operation.”

“I don’t remember Alex as being the diplomatic type.”

“No. On the other hand, we probably know less about what goes on inside Albania than we do about Red China.”

“So you think he might have something important to tell us?”

“There’s always that possibility. On the other hand, all he says is that he wants to contact us. Personally.”

“Which means face to face. In Greece.”

“And perhaps he merely wants to return to the fold.”

I shrugged. “All right. Either way, he should have something of interest to tell us.”

“Possibly a great deal.”

“You have anything more to go on than this message?”

“Not really. But I’m rather anxious to receive the next one he sends.”

“And in the meantime?”

“In the meantime you are going to take a crash course in sailing and navigating.”

“I don’t get it.”

Hawk got up from his creaky swivel chair and went to the row of gray steel filing cabinets that are the office’s only adornment. From a drawer he pulled out a rolled map, took it to the burn-scarred conference table behind me. I joined him there.

“Here,” he said, “are the Balkan states. Greece, Albania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Romania. Now our man, the one who received the message, was posted here.” He pointed to a spot close to where the borders of Yugoslavia, Albania, and Greece all come together. “You’ll note that there’s a large lake here, and all three countries share its shores. In very mountainous country.”

He didn’t have to explain. “Is there much border traffic along there?”

“Surprisingly little, considering the difficulty of guarding the terrain. But such an area would present many opportunities for a skilled and experienced man.”

“What about the messenger boy? Anything on him?”

Hawk shook his head, a little sadly I thought. “That’s a more or less open listening post. Not run by AXE, needless to say. Evidently the messenger knew exactly where it was and... ahhh... merely slipped the note under the door.”

Now I knew he was embarrassed, even if the operation hadn’t been under our control. So I kept quiet and let him go on.

“At any rate, given the nature of the work Zenopolis has been doing, it would be logical to assume he’s somewhere in this region.” He put a blunt, tobacco-stained finger on the lake.

“Don’t tell me I have to sail on that.”

“Not at all. As a matter of fact, if Zenopolis intends to come out in that area, we can’t have anything to do with him. Not there.”

“Why not?”

“Look at the location. In one direction a country as violently opposed to the Western nations as any in the world. Next to it Yugoslavia, cordial toward us these days, but still unquestionably allied with the other side. And Greece. An ally of ours, yes, but our relations under the present government are decidedly strained. And imagine how much those colonels who now rule it would love to get their hands on someone like Zenopolis.”

“I think I see. The only way to get him out fast, once he crosses the border, would be by air. And that would mean a long flight over either Albania or Greece, neither of which would be very anxious to let us get away with the prize.”

“And if the Greeks learn U.S. agents were involved in any way, there could be much worse trouble.”

“Exactly.”

“Which brings us back to the sailing lessons.”

Hawk ran his finger down to the western coast of Greece. “When we establish contact with Zenopolis again, we are going to insist that he break out through Albania as close to the sea as possible. It’s the only way we can afford to get involved with him at this point.”

“What if he does have some kind of vital information for us?”

“Then we may have to change our thinking. Meanwhile, you’re to be prepared to meet him somewhere in this area. You will then transport him across to Taranto, which is on the heel of Italy’s boot.”

“All right, but why me? Any agent could do this job, and I don’t imagine I’m the only one who can navigate a sailboat across... what?” I checked the scale of miles; the map showed a little piece of southeastern Italy. “Maybe seventy-five miles? A hundred at most?” I was beginning to get a little peeved, recalling my embarrassing flight across the sand with the nude Monica in tow.

“Oh, we have one or two agents who are better qualified in that respect than you are. But none of them knows Alex Zenopolis by sight.”

It took a moment for that to sink in. “But look,” I protested, “I haven’t laid eyes on the man in fifteen years. I could pass him on the street and not recognize him.”

“Let’s hope that’s not the case. I was looking at your personnel file earlier today, and in that time your appearance hasn’t changed to any noticeable degree.”

If the old man was trying to flatter me, he couldn’t have picked a better method. I’d been just a kid in my early twenties then, not long out of training, and pretty cocky about my looks and physical condition. In all the years since, I’d kept myself in shape, and as far as the looks were concerned I guess I have one of those faces that just don’t age much. My hair was still thick and dark, a little longer than in those earlier, straight-arrow, Eisenhower days. I weigh ten pounds more than I did then, but I put it on deliberately through a program of weight training, and there’s not an ounce on me I don’t want. If that sounds like bragging, so be it; a man who works hard to stay in condition ought to be a little proud of it.

“Okay,” I agreed with Hawk. “So maybe I will recognize Alex.”

“And even if you don’t, of course, you should be able to establish his identity by talking about old times.”

I wasn’t so sure of that; if the other side was throwing in a ringer, he was bound to be well briefed. But I wasn’t about to argue. “So what’s next, sir?”

Hawk walked back to his desk. “As soon as you pack some clothes you will fly by commercial airliner to Providence. Reservations have been made for you in the name of Daniel McKee. My secretary has the credit cards and other papers to back up the identity.”

“Providence?” My surprise must have been obvious.

Hawk chuckled and started guiding me to the door. “Your final destination is Newport. But in the city you loathe you’ll be met at the airport by a man named Nathaniel Frederick. He’ll brief you further.”

“Is he one of our agents?”

“Not at all. In fact, he’s exactly what he sounds like.”

“What’s that?” I didn’t trust the old man when he was smiling.

“Why, a retired New England schoolteacher, of course.”

Three

He was waiting for me when I walked into the terminal, a tall man with a ruddy complexion and tousled dark hair that had just a touch of gray in it. His handshake was cordially firm, but from the feel of his leathery palm, I got the impression he could squeeze a bar of silver into a roll of dimes. He had a merry, impish face, eyes dancing constantly, and his comfortably broad middle was no wider than his equally broad shoulders. Even before he spoke, I knew why he was working for AXE; Nathaniel Frederick was clearly a man who had been there and back, and had loved every minute of it.

“You’re lucky,” he was saying as we left the terminal and headed for his ancient station wagon parked just outside. “Your plane was on time. Usually the flights from Washington can be counted on to arrive at least an hour late.”

“Maybe you’re the lucky one,” I said. “You didn’t have to wait.”

“Oh, I don’t mind waiting.” He patted the black briefcase he held under one arm. “I always come prepared to while away idle moments.”

If that remark was supposed to make me curious, it worked. But I decided to hold back until I had a clearer picture of the man who looked like anything but a retired New England schoolteacher. As he started the noisy but smoothly-running engine, I studied his profile for a moment. No more than mid-fifties, I estimated, and that made me do some more thinking. Retired? He looked as though he could keep going until he was eighty, and probably then some.

He drove steadily, with casual skill, negotiating the streets and highways until we broke clear of the city. I knew almost nothing about this part of the country, except that once I’d been sent to Brown for a special course. It was the middle of winter, and winters in Providence can make a man long to be just about anywhere else. Once I’d been to Newport, cruising with some friends in a boat that could legitimately be called a yacht, but I never even made it ashore during our overnight stay.

“What’s the drill?” I asked as an opener.

Nathaniel glanced at me. He was definitely not the sort of man you would call Nat “Well, you’ll be staying at my house. I’m to take you out sailing every day until you’re as at home at the helm as I’m sure you are at the wheel of a car. Then there are various other things you’ll have to know...”

“Navigation,” I interrupted.

“Oh, that goes with the sailing, and if you need some brushing up on theory, I’ll help you with that, of course. But that’s the easy part.”

“Is that right?”

He grinned, his face lighted by the lights on the instrument panel. “You’ll have to memorize details — size, rigging, optional equipment, and especially prices — of virtually every sailing craft currently for sale in the United States and other parts of the world.”

“All that? What for?”

Nathaniel chuckled. “David told me he hadn’t had time to give you much of a briefing, but I didn’t realize he hadn’t told you anything.”

The man beside me was coming up with a surprise every time he opened his mouth. He was the only person I’d ever heard call the chief by his first name.

“He said you’d fill me in on the details.”

“Only of this part of the operation, of course. And that’s to turn you into a reasonable facsimile of a yacht broker, Mr. Daniel McKee. I don’t know why, and I never expect to find out, so whatever you’ve learned about your operation, please don’t tell me.”

I wasn’t about to, but my own curiosity made me determined to find out everything I could about this overgrown cherub. “I gather you’ve worked with Hawk before.”

“Oh certainly,” he admitted. “We go back to World War II, when both of us worked in Naval intelligence. Well, at least I did; David was... unattached, as we used to say.”

“Uh-huh. And now you teach school?”

“No longer. I retired several years ago.”

I eyed him openly, making sure he was aware of it. “You seem a little young for retirement,” I said bluntly, probing for a reaction.

He just nodded agreement. “That’s true. I’m only fifty-nine. But when my wife died, it made my position awkward at St. Dunstan’s.”

“That’s the school?”

“Yes. You see, boys at prep schools tend to grow attached to certain faculty wives. You know, the afternoon teas, the sort of open-house atmosphere that some places maintain. My wife, I can say without boasting, was perhaps the favorite of all the faculty wives, and when she was gone, I found there was too much... well, let’s say sympathy for me. It became very difficult to teach, and I found it disturbing to have boys in for bull sessions with only myself. So... I retired.”

He spoke matter-of-factly, a little smile on his lips, but he swiped once at his eyes, then cleared his throat loudly.

“You... ah... still live on the campus?” I was less concerned with where he lived than how it might affect my cover; the last thing I wanted to do was have to cope with a bunch of curious schoolboys.

“Oh no. I took a house down by the yacht club on the Sakonnet. Not very large, but it suits my needs, and it’s close enough to the campus so I can expect friends to drop in from time to time. And I do keep busy, Mr. Carter, excuse me, Mr. McKee. Retirement, you know, is the time of life when a man finds the opportunity to do all those things he put off earlier.”

Okay, so he knew my real name. That was no surprise, not after learning how close he was to Hawk. But it seemed to me he was talking too freely to me, and I wondered how far he’d go.

“I guess you’ve done this kind of thing for Hawk before,” I remarked.

He glanced at me quickly. “Not exactly. That is, I don’t run a regular seamanship school for AXE agents, though I’ve taught one or two of your colleagues the fundamentals from time to time.”

“But you’ve... kept in touch all these years.”

He grinned. “You’re probing, Mr. McKee.”

It seemed like a good idea to be frank. “I always like to know as much as possible about the man I’m dealing with. Especially when he’s obviously an old pal of my chief.”

Nathaniel chuckled. “Well, there’s no reason not to tell you a little bit. I have some small talents in various fields that David has been able to make use of when I’ve been available. Aside from boats and sailing, I’m a pretty good photographer, thanks to the Navy and the training they gave me many years ago. And I do travel; even when I was still teaching, I usually sailed to Europe, the Caribbean, even across the Pacific, during those long summers that schoolteachers live for. On my sabbatical — God, nearly ten years ago! — I took my wife and two daughters — grown and left the nest now — on a cruise around the world. David asked me to look into certain things, make contacts... well, you know what I mean. I’m sure you don’t intend to ask me for details.”

“They must be in the agency files.”

“I hope not. The little chores I’ve done for your chief have been personal favors. For an old friend. And as an old friend, David assured me my name would never appear in any AXE file, not even in code. I trust him. Don’t you?”

I nodded. And realized at the same time that I trusted this man as much as anyone I had ever met in my life. Which, of course, bothered me, because a big part of my profession is to be suspicious of damned near everybody I come into contact with.

“That sounds like quite a cover,” I said. “You, the wife, the kids, sailing around the world. What ports did you hit?”

Nathaniel shook a gently chiding finger at me. “Now, now, Nick, don’t start pushing. That was years ago, and whatever little things I did for David are long finished. Besides, I always stayed clean, was never identified as an agent of any sort. And I intend to keep it that way.”

“In that case,” I said wryly, “you’d better remember to call me Daniel McKee.”

“Oh, I won’t forget.”

“And I’m a... yacht broker?”

“That’s the idea. Why don’t we wait until we get to my place before we discuss it any further? It’s starting to rain, and these pesky windshield wipers only smear the water around.”

My efficiency apartment would have fit into the kitchen of Nathaniel Frederick’s “not very large” house. It was a ramshackle structure, two stories, white clapboard, with a wide covered porch running along the back and overlooking a wide body of water. When we arrived, the rain was driving, and I wasn’t at all sure exactly where we were. But I wasn’t worried, not with Nathaniel.

By the time I’d been shown to my upstairs room and had washed up, my host had a fire going in the big, comfortable living room that evidently also served as a study. Books and papers were piled everywhere; one wall was lined with cork, on which were pinned blowups of some of the best boating photographs I’d ever seen. Scattered around on shelves and occasional tables were framed pictures of children in various stages of growing up, and on another wall was a painting of a woman, proudly white-haired but radiantly beautiful. It was only a head-and-shoulders portrait but I knew she was the sort of woman who would draw all eyes away from a parade of Playboy bunnies. My respect for Nathaniel Frederick went up a few more notches; if I’d lost someone like that I sure as hell wouldn’t go around smiling.

“You’re a bourbon man, I understand,” he said.

“You seem to know a lot about me.”

“Yes.” He was standing at a mellow old cellaret, pouring from a cut glass decanter into a jumbo glass.

“Water?”

“Just rocks, thanks.”

We took our drinks — I think his was sherry, but I couldn’t be sure — into the kitchen, where he opened a few cans and whipped up a quick supper that tasted like nothing that ever came out of cans. When I complimented him on it, he waved away the flattery.

“When you’re at sea for weeks at a time in a small boat, Mr. McKee, you devise all sorts of interesting things with beans and corned beef hash. Otherwise you have a mutiny on your hands.”

Afterward we went out to the back porch. The rain was still pelting down, and though the night was chilly, I felt warm and protected under the deep, sheltering roof. A short stretch of sand led down to the edge of the water, where dark wavelets lapped greedily at the shore.

Nathaniel pointed off to our right. “The yacht club. A small place, and we won’t go there right away. For obvious reasons, I keep my own boat at the marina, which is just beyond there. In a few days, when I feel you can pass as a yacht broker, we’ll give you a test at the club.”

“A test?”

“Why not? Did you think I was going to give you a crash course without a final exam?”

I hadn’t thought about that, but I had to agree it seemed like a good idea. On the other hand, I still didn’t know why. So I asked.

“Oh, it’s too late to discuss all that this evening, Mr. McKee. Come back inside a moment.”

We returned to the livingroom, where he took down a book from a shelf. I noticed that there were a number of identical volumes side by side; at least the dust jackets were all the same.

“At the risk of seeming immodest, I’d suggest that you take this with you for bedtime reading,” Nathaniel said. “Even though I wrote it myself, it’s not bad.”

The title was Lines & Spars, and in my hand it felt as heavy as the Manhattan telephone directory.

“Just to get you in the mood,” Nathaniel was saying. “Immerse yourself in the trivial details of fitting out and handling a sailing craft, as long as you can stay awake. But be careful, Mr. McKee.”

There was a different note in his voice that brought me up tense. “Careful?”

He smiled. “Don’t let the book fall on your face as you’re dozing off. It’s heavy enough to break your nose.”

The next few days were a madhouse of physical and mental exhaustion. We sailed Nathaniel’s thirty-nine-foot ketch up and down the Sakonnet River, which isn’t a river at all but an estuary where the tides boil in and out like Colorado River rapids. Well... maybe not quite that violently, but it’s quite an experience to be running with a pretty fair wind astern, all sails flying, and find yourself going backward with the tide. At one point even Nathaniel admitted defeat and turned on the auxiliary motor to help us make it to the dock. That made me feel better. There’s a kind of mystique surrounding deep-water sailors; you get the impression they’d rather drift forever than resort to their engines, but Nathaniel made no apologies.

“If you have to get somewhere,” he said, “get there the best way you can. We’re not racing, and we’re not showing off.”

To test my navigation and all-around boat-handling, we took a cruise that lasted a couple of days. First to Cuttyhunk, which isn’t all that far, but Nathaniel thoughtfully chose a day when the fog was so thick you could almost roll it into little balls and store it. He sat in the cockpit, not too close to me, and read a book while I struggled with the wind and tides and the fact that I could barely see as far as the bow of the ketch. I was pretty proud of myself when we made the buoy marking the entrance to the harbor, but my wily instructor had one more little surprise in store for me; he hadn’t mentioned that a good-sized set of waves breaks right through the harbor entrance, and when we arrived they were big enough to make a surfer’s mouth water.

So I did the smart thing, dropping the sails, no help from Nathaniel, and switched on the auxiliary. He didn’t say a word, but I got the impression he would have done the same thing.

From there we took off for Martha’s Vineyard, spent the night on board in the Edgartown harbor, and left early the next morning for Block Island, a stretch of blue-water sailing with no landmarks in sight. I learned some things about drift and compensation I couldn’t have taught myself in a dozen years, and when the high, dull red cliffs of the island came into view, I was more relieved than smug.

We rounded the island and went into Great Salt Pond, the natural harbor on the west side. It was still daylight, late afternoon, and Nathaniel suggested we go ashore.

“I figured we could make it back to Newport by tonight,” I said.

“No hurry. Have you ever been here before?”

“Never.”

“It’s an interesting place. Let’s go rent a couple of bicycles and take the tour.”

“Bicycles?”

“Of course! It’s the only way to travel when you’re not on the water.”

So we went ashore, tying up at a high dock that was built primarily to accommodate the summertime ferries that run between the island and the mainland. The little cluster of shops and food stands seemed to be closed, but Nathaniel knocked on the door of a weathered, sagging building. A woman opened up; she had a scarlet face, which meant she was either a lifelong lush or had some sort of terrible disease. Anyway, she beamed when she saw Nathaniel, gave him a hug and then escorted us to the rear of the building, where a shed housed a couple of hundred bikes stacked all over each other like jackstraws.

“Take anything you like, Mr. Frederick. Long as they run, huh?”

We dragged a couple of bikes out of the pile, checked them out.

“These will do nicely, Mrs. Gormsen,” Nathaniel said. “We’ll be back in a couple of hours, probably.”

“You stayin’ overnight or sailin’ out?”

“We haven’t decided. Do you want to feed us?”

The woman chuckled heartily. “Oh Lord no, Mr. Frederick. This time o’ the year we mostly live on frozen hot dogs we didn’t sell last summer. You’re welcome to it, but I don’t think you’d want it.”

“I won’t debate that point,” Nathaniel said, swinging a leg over the seat of his bike.

We traveled the main road, a potholed strip of blacktop that ran past vacant, shuttered old hotels and summer boarding houses, any of which might have had their quota of ancestral ghosts lurking behind the blind windows. Block Island is a high piece of land; we traveled past areas that looked like the moors of England, dotted with slate gray ponds. But we weren’t entirely isolated; when we were halfway down the island we encountered a young couple on a tandem bike, pedaling steadily and obviously having a marvelous time. We gave them room, and they waved and laughed, then disappeared into the deepening twilight.

“I didn’t think anybody visited here off season,” I said to Nathaniel.

“Oh, there are always a few oddballs. I rather like to see them around.”

We pedaled on until we reached the far end of the island, a high bluff overlooking the Atlantic. From where we stood, it was an impressive view, maybe a hundred feet down with the waves crashing relentlessly against the rocky shore below. Far off to our left was a lighthouse, its beam just beginning to circle through the gathering night. Nathaniel and I stood for a few minutes, taking in the cool, clean air blowing from somewhere like the Azores. Then we turned back to our bikes.

With the noise of the wind and the waves, we hadn’t heard the car approach; now it stood, headlights out, battered grill nosed against our bicycles. A man stood by the open door on the driver’s side, and behind the windshield I could make out a blur of a face, but I didn’t pay much attention to it. I was a lot more interested in the shotgun the man was pointing in our direction.

“Mr. Frederick?” he asked, his voice weak against the wind.

“Oh my,” Nathaniel said mildly.

“You remember me?”

“I’m afraid so.” Nathaniel didn’t move; he kept his hands at his sides and seemed almost relaxed. “It’s been so long, though...”

“A lot longer for me.” He moved the shotgun slightly in a way I didn’t like. “They didn’t believe me, you know. They thought I was working for your people instead of them, and it was more’n a year before they let me go.”

“You must have had a difficult time.”

“It was living hell! A whole goddam year on that factory ship, and it weren’t no pleasure cruise!”

“No, I don’t imagine so, Graves.” Nathaniel took a half-step toward the man and pointed at the shotgun. “Are you intending to use that?”

“I didn’t come out here for the fresh air.”

I could see now that he was a man in his late thirties, with big-knuckled hands and a seamed face roughened by wind and water. Under his nondescript windbreaker his impressive shoulder muscles bulged.

“How did you happen to find us here?” Nathaniel went on. Another half step.

“Been on the island a couple o’ weeks, ever since they turned me loose. My wife comes from here...”

“Oh, of course. And Mrs. Gormsen is your mother-in-law, isn’t she?”

“You catch on pretty good.” Graves moved forward. “I guess you and your friend best back up to the edge of the cliff there.”

“Are you going to shoot us or do you think you can make us jump?”

“Don’t make no difference to me, Mr. Frederick. I was fixin’ to pay a call on you over to Newport, but you saved me the trouble today.”

“If I’d known our Red fishing friends had let you go, I might have changed my itinerary.” Nathaniel kept that genial half-smile on his face, calm as though he were facing a classroom filled with eager pupils.

“Yeah, well I didn’t figure they’d send you a telegram. You set me up pretty good, Mr. Frederick, and I don’t forget nothin’ like that. Only reason they didn’t kill me was...”

“Because you weren’t terribly important, were you?” The change in Nathaniel’s voice was remarkable; now there was a sneer in it.

It got the reaction. Graves started toward him, his face livid even in the gathering darkness. He swung the shotgun up to use it as a club, and the retired schoolteacher dove in under it. He drove stiff fingers into the man’s gut, using his other forearm to block the blow from the shotgun barrel. Graves doubled over, eyes popping. Nathaniel hit him again in the same spot, this time turning his hand over and nearly lifting the man off his feet, fingers hooked under his sternum. Graves tried to screech, but only a strangled sound of agony came from his wide-open mouth.

Nathaniel took the shotgun from his hand as he let the man sag to the ground. There was a smile of mixed satisfaction and regret on his face as he looked at Graves, writhing in excruciating pain — and he looked a little too long.

The other car door opened, and a woman got out. I could tell it was a woman because she wore pink plastic curlers in her hair; otherwise she was dressed more or less like the man who lay at Nathaniel’s feet. She carried a pistol.

So did I. Wilhelmina, the Luger that was as much a part of me as my right arm, jumped from her shoulder holster. I dove at Nathaniel, knocking him aside as the woman aimed the big old revolver in our direction. Because of the wind and surf I hardly heard the sound of the shot, but felt the searing pain as a bullet ripped a gouge out of my upper arm.

Woman or no woman, I shot her. One clean shot, right through the heart; she was too close for me to miss, and I had no intention of just wounding her.

She dropped like a stone, the revolver falling from her fingers like a toy she’d suddenly grown tired of. Nathaniel was already getting to his feet, the shotgun pointed at Graves.

“Very nice, Mr...ah... McKee. She seemed to know what she was doing with that weapon.” He bent over the woman’s body and shook his head. Then he picked up her pistol and shoved it into his belt. “Now we do have a little problem.”

“Yeah.”

Graves was still writhing at my feet, trying to get up but unable to, any more than he could talk.

“Pity he involved his wife,” Nathaniel was saying. “Or at least I presume that’s who she was. Is that right, Graves?” He bent low over the other, man.

Graves nodded, his face distorted, neck corded.

“Then I suppose you’re not likely to forgive me for her death.” He shook his head pityingly. “No, hardly likely after your performance this evening. So...” He shrugged. “Sorry, Graves.” He reached for the man’s chest, dug relentless fingers under the ribs and kept pushing — higher and higher, probing for the heart until his hand was nearly buried in the flesh. Graves yowled faintly, legs thrashing; Nathaniel casually cuffed him across the face, never relaxing the pressure. Then the man lay still.

The retired teacher stood up, wiped his brow with the back of a hand. “I don’t know if he’s dead or not, but it’s not really important. Will you help me get them back into their unfortunate car?”

It wasn’t the most convincing accident ever staged, but the fact that the old Chevy’s automatic shift had a tendency to snap out of gear made it all a little less implausible. We switched on the ignition, rolled the car to the brink of the cliff, and pushed it over the side. Nathaniel didn’t wait to see it hit the rocks below; it was too dark to see much of anything, anyway.

I looked toward the lighthouse.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “If they’d heard anything, they’d have been here by now. Their concern is what’s happening out at sea, not along the shore. Shall we return the bikes to Mrs. Gormsen?”

The riding wasn’t easy in the dark; my bike light didn’t throw a beam much beyond my front tire, and Nathaniel’s didn’t work at all. But he seemed to know where he was going, and as we rode slowly across the island, he told me what Graves was all about.

“He was a fisherman, boatman, call him what you will. Worked mostly out of Montauk, at the tip of Long Island. Just across there.” He pointed to our left, where I knew there was a stretch of water separating Block Island from the mainland. “Some years ago the Reds recruited him. Common labor, you’d call him in the espionage business. His job was simply to keep his eyes open. There’s a lot of submarine activity around here, for instance; Block Island Sound is a principal access to the Atlantic from the New London sub base. There were other things. Graves worked on charter boats, and quite a lot of people with important government connections come out this way for a few days of relaxation. Even Nixon did when he was campaigning in sixty-eight, you know. At any rate, I was put on to Graves by our mutual friend in Washington, and since I was handy and knew a bit about boats, I was assigned the job of... neutralizing him.” He grinned over at me as we pedaled side by side. “Normally I don’t accept active assignments, but it happened I could use the money Hawk offered.”

“What was that business about a factory ship?” I asked, swerving to avoid a pothole the size of a backyard swimming pool.

“Ah yes, that was how they worked it. As you must know, the fishing fleets of many nations — Russia in particular — are working just a few miles off our shores. What rivalry there is economic rather than ideological, so there’s a fair amount of communication between the various boats, regardless of nationality or politics. So it wasn’t hard for Graves to deliver his reports to one Russian boat or another. But sometimes he would have messages that were urgent, and then he would signal with a light — right from those cliffs where his brakes failed and he and his wife plunged to their deaths...”

“About that,” I interrupted. “Maybe his death can be made to look like an accident, but how about hers? She’s got a nine-millimeter slug in her.”

“Yes, yes. Not very neat. However, at this time of the year that part of the shore is so deserted that if the car is underwater — and it should be — by the time the mishap is discovered there won’t be enough left of the bodies for the local authorities to suspect anything but an accident. If they do, well, that’s what our friend in Washington is for, isn’t it?”

I didn’t have to say anything; this mild-mannered schoolteacher who could kill in cold blood was way ahead of me.

“At any rate,” Nathaniel went on as we started down a long, gradual slope toward the cluster of buildings and docks beyond, “I managed to convince Graves that I was a sympathizer. It wasn’t difficult; he has that sort of mentality — believes schoolteachers are all Communists of one degree or another. Eventually I persuaded him to send a message that would bring one of the fishing boats inside our territorial waters — strictly forbidden, of course. A Coast Guard cutter was standing by, and there was a carefully orchestrated — and futile — chase while I pretended to take Graves prisoner. He escaped, made his way down to the harbor on the other side of this island and stole a power boat to make his getaway. He was successful, needless to say; he located one of the Red trawlers and was taken to the factory ship, which does a bit more than process fish. Frankly, we expected them to take him back to Mother Russia, but evidently their facilities are more sophisticated than we thought.”

We were nearing the row of weathered buildings close to the docks. “Why go to all that trouble?” I asked. “Wouldn’t it have been simpler just to arrest the guy? Or eliminate him?”

“Well, you know the man in Washington; he doesn’t explain anything he doesn’t have to. But my theory is that if we had arrested Graves and tried him, it would have been a senseless exercise. After all, he was merely a local fisherman doing a dirty little job on the side for extra money. A trial could very well have made a martyr of him, and these days we have more than enough of those. On the other hand, if we could convince the other side that he was a double agent, which we seem to have done to some extent, they would be forced to spend a great deal of time and effort in checking out their other common labor to be sure they weren’t all like Graves.”

It was exactly the way I had figured it, so I dropped the subject. “What about her?” We were slowing in front of Mrs. Gormsen’s shuttered hotdog stand and bike-rental emporium.

“I wouldn’t bother,” Nathaniel said. “We had no evidence that she was involved in any way.”

“Somebody told Graves we were on the island.”

“Yes, of course. But even if it was she, it wouldn’t necessarily implicate her. After all, visiting yachtsmen who rent bicycles aren’t exactly common at this time of the year.”

“Well...”

“But I suggest we return to our boat and make for home tonight. There’s no point in making too many assumptions, is there?”

Four

By the time we were back at the mooring late that night, Nathaniel seemed to have forgotten the ugly little incident on Block Island. He was as serene and self-possessed as ever as we walked into the darkened house, and when I did a quick check of the rooms, he looked at me with a kind of amusement.

“One cannot live in constant fear of assassination, you know,” he remarked. “Otherwise, what’s the point of living? We do the nasty little jobs we do and are more or less prepared for the consequences. So do a great number of other people in this world. And just imagine. Mr. McKee, how it would be if we all worried about who might be lurking around the next corner. Why, who would possibly have the gumption to run for president? Will you join me for a sandwich and some coffee?”

During the next few days, when we weren’t sailing I was studying, mostly catalogues and old clippings about the New York Boat Show. Nathaniel had a file drawer stuffed with working designs of every imaginable type of sailing craft, from day-sailers to ocean-going trimarans, together with photographs and advertisements from newspapers all over the country. We visited a number of boatyards in the vicinity, inspected hulls of those boats that were hauled out and the interiors of a whole lot of others. A couple of times he took me to Christie’s, a sprawling restaurant on a dock in Newport where the service and food were superb, and where you could run into a stray yachting Vanderbilt or a fuzzy-cheeked ensign from one of the local Navy bases. Nathaniel knew them all, and after a couple of visits I was pretty well established in my cover role as Daniel McKee, yacht broker from the west coast of Florida. I was even beginning to believe it myself.

The “exam” at the yacht club wasn’t all that easy. The members were men who knew their boats; they weren’t dockside cocktail-partiers, and the only yachting cap I saw was nailed to the wall above the bar. Nathaniel led the conversation at a big, round table, guiding it casually — maliciously, I thought — into technical areas where I was forced to come up with some answers. I guess I passed, because nobody in the crowd looked dubious. At any rate, when we left — very late — Nathaniel clapped me on the shoulder and looked very pleased. Walking back to his house, we stumbled in the sand a lot and I don’t know which of us held the other up.

It was still dark when an urgent pounding on my door woke me up. My head was a little fuzzy — they didn’t stint on the bourbon at that club — but I was on my feet instantly.

“What is it?” I demanded.

“Nick!”

“I’m Dan!” I snarled back.

“Yes, yes,” Nathaniel said. “But you have to get up and get moving.”

“Now?” I wondered what else he was going to put me through.

“It’s urgent. You’re to catch a flight for Tampa, and we barely have time to make it to the airport.”

“Tampa?”

“I don’t know why. David just called, and it’s top priority. Now get dressed. Hurry!”

Tampa, I thought as I shucked out of my pajamas. This was becoming one of the most confusing assignments I’d ever been on. And if the job was in Greece, I sure wasn’t getting any closer to it.

Five

Contact was simple; a message for Daniel McKee at the Tampa airport, informing me that reservations had been made in my name at a motel close by. I checked in and had just finished a quick shave — no chance before I left Nathaniel’s house — when there was a light tapping at the door.

I hesitated, looked at my suitcase where Wilhelmina lay in her special compartment. But I didn’t think I’d need the stripped-down Luger, not now. As far as I knew there was no reason for anyone to be looking for me who wasn’t likely to be friendly. Not at this point. Still, I opened the door with caution, and when I saw Hawk standing there I felt an odd kind of relief.

He came in without so much as a word of greeting, sat down on one of the pair of oversized beds and looked up at me. I swiped at a stray dab of lather, turned around the chair in front of the plastic-imitation-wood desk and planted myself in it facing him.

“This room has been thoroughly checked out,” Hawk said. “One of our electronics men spent last night here, and it’s been under surveillance ever since.”

I glanced automatically at the wall behind him; most motels seem to be built out of cheesecloth these days, and even a senior citizen without his hearing aid can hear everything that goes on in the next unit.

“Don’t worry,” the old man said. “We’ve booked the rooms on either side; no one will overhear what we say.”

That satisfied me; I never doubted the Chief’s ability to think of every detail.

“Zenopolis is doing it our way,” he said without further preliminaries. “The precise date hasn’t been set yet, but it will be within a week. He will cross the Albanian border and make his way to Korfu. Time and place of rendezvous to be established at that time.”

I nodded, then frowned. “How am I to be in contact with him?”

“Through his sister.”

Hawk said it so matter-of-factly it didn’t register at first. “How was that again?”

“His sister. Her name is Christina, and she is his only living relative. At present she is a student nurse in Athens, but she is taking a vacation on the western coast. You will pick her up, and... I don’t have to go into details.”

But he did anyway. Christina, it developed, was twenty-two, hadn’t seen Alex since he defected fifteen years earlier. But Alex, according to Hawk, wanted his sister to be present when we met; he had a bad case of suspicions, and after the preliminary negotiations with our people had insisted on bringing Christina into the deal. The only one he could trust, he said, and also, Hawk and I agreed, he was using her as a buffer between himself and possible betrayal to the Greek government.

“I won’t pretend to understand exactly what he’s doing,” Hawk admitted, “but it seems worth our while to go along with him as far as seems feasible.”

My assignment seemed relatively simple: I was to fly to Athens, hire a car and spend a few days nosing around boat yards along the coast. At Pirgos I would pick up the girl (“quite attractive, I’m told,” Hawk assured me), then rent a sail boat for a short cruise up to Korfu. There, on that island which lies more off Albania than Greece, the two of us would contact Alex Zenopolis.

“We’ve had several communications with him since you and I last spoke,” Hawk explained. “It’s none of our concern how he gets there, but now he indicates that he has information of critical importance to give us. Possibly, possibly not, but you’ll have to make every effort to get him away as planned; we have to assume he’s telling the truth until we learn otherwise.”

“I still say why not take him over to Taranto in a fast boat? This sailing business could take a couple of days.”

The old man shook his head. “It’s vital that you in no way allow attention to be drawn to you or to Zenopolis. He assures us that his breakout will go undetected for at least a few days, but he insists that our efforts on his behalf must be totally inconspicuous. There’s a time element involved, which he hasn’t explained fully; at any rate we have to respect his advice for now. No, Nick, you will take your rented sailboat to Taranto with a secret stowaway. You will not do anything to attract the attention of the authorities in Greece or any other country until Zenopolis is safely in our custody. At any rate,” he added with a tiny smile, “if it came to a chase across the water, no power boat you could obtain would be able to outrun the ships and planes the various governments would send after you.”

Either way, he had me. I thought that was all, but Hawk had another little surprise for me.

“By the way,” he said, glancing toward my open suitcase on a rack against the wall. “On this assignment you will carry no firearms. Or anything else that might be incriminating should you be caught and interrogated.”

“Nothing?” I demanded.

“You may carry your knife, I suppose, but not in that forearm sheath you use. As a yachtsman, you’d be expected to have a blade of some sort, though yours is hardly the sort of tool found aboard most boats. In the end, however, you may need it.”

“You think so?”

“Yes. You see, Nick, we have to consider the possibility that this whole operation is a trap of some sort set up by the other side. As you know, we’re in a period of extraordinarily delicate negotiations with the Russians and Chinese. There is, in fact, a sort of tacit moratorium on our operations against those countries and their satellites. Should you decide, during your crossing from Korfu to Taranto, that Zenopolis is working for their purposes, to throw us into a bad light, let’s say, then you will see to it that he is... lost at sea.”

That didn’t faze me; I wasn’t given the rating of “Killmaster” because I flinched at the idea of sticking a knife into an enemy agent, even if he was a man who used to be a friend.

“Okay,” I said, getting up to walk over to my bag. I took out the Luger and handed it to Hawk. “Take good care of her; she’s treated me well.”

“It will be ready when you return,” he said, tucking the weapon into his briefcase.

I sat down again. “One more thing.”

Hawk quirked a shaggy eyebrow at me.

“What the hell am I doing in Tampa?”

“Of course. I was about to explain that. You will stay here for two days and familiarize yourself with the various marinas and yacht brokers.” He took a small envelope from his briefcase and put it on the bed beside him. “This is a list of brokers who have recently gone out of business; you have worked for all three of them and are now taking some time off while attempting to set up your own business. Perhaps we’re being overcautious, but if someone asks you who you worked for, you can give information that can’t be readily checked. It shouldn’t be necessary, actually; this operation will only take a few days. But it would be silly to have it blown through some chance encounter.”

“Boating people are pretty close all over the world,” I agreed. Nathaniel Frederick had convinced me of that.

“Precisely. In your travels along the coast of Greece you will possibly encounter other Americans who know this area. Better to be glib than to stammer and hedge, eh?”

So I did as Hawk told me, spending every daylight hour, and not a few after nightfall, prowling around marinas, salesrooms and boatyards like an out-of-work yacht broker. In my travels I picked up names of managers and salesmen, harbor-masters and the kids who manned the gas pumps at various docks. Maybe all of the detail would never be needed, but if some American at, say, Piraeus should start reminiscing with me about the nutty old character who worked at that boatyard outside Clearwater, I’d be ready with my own story about him.

At the end of the second day I drove across the Florida peninsula to Miami, where I took a plane that put me in Madrid early the next morning. There I got a connecting flight to Athens, and it was just coming up dark when I finished clearing customs — they weren’t at all excited about the double-edged knife I carried in my luggage when they learned my supposed business — and went out to find a taxi. The night had that peculiar clarity that you find, I think, only in Greece and the Levant; it’s as though the sky traps and distills all the exotic scents, those of olive and fig trees mixed with burning charcoal and roasting lamb, then chills them all just a little so they don’t become cloying. It’s a sort of elusive perfume that no woman could wear, but Athens does it with style and grace.

And then I checked in at the Hilton, losing it all in the anywhere-in-the-world blandness of American air conditioning. As a matter of fact, when I turned on the television set in my room, I got Gunsmoke. So much for the Cradle of Western Civilization.

I indulged myself the next morning with a quick tour of the city. It’s a terrible thing to say, but I’ve traveled so much that the cities of the world have begun to have a disappointing similarity to me. No matter where you go, it seems, there’s an American overlay on everything; the fawning rug merchant speaks English and makes sure you know about his brother in Akron, and though you may not actually see a Coca-Cola sign on any given street, there’s always the feeling that one is just around the corner.

So I’m cynical. I was also edgy. This assignment seemed almost too simple, and I had to psyche myself up, like the Super Bowl champion getting ready to take on the College All-Stars. The game should always be a cinch for the pros, which means they have to be especially careful not to consider it a walkover. My problem wasn’t exactly the same, but the casual life I was expected to live for the next few days, spiced with an encounter with a, hopefully, attractive girl, could easily make me lazy in the head if I wasn’t careful.

Besides, I missed Wilhelmina. At the time, I didn’t know how much; in a short time I was to find out.

I rented a Volkswagen from the local Hertz agency and started my yacht-broker’s tour. Piraeus was my logical first stop, and I spent an afternoon wandering around the docks of that busy port city. Playing the businessman-tourist, I asked questions, made a show of examining designs and rigging with an expertise I’m sure Nathaniel would have applauded. No one I encountered seemed to question my cover; I was Daniel McKee, on a busman’s holiday in the part of the world some people call a sailor’s paradise. Funny thing was, I’d only been in that part of the world once before, and it was a sailor’s paradise, but not the way they mean it now. To explain what I was doing in the US Army fifteen years earlier would be much too complicated. Just say it was a part of my advanced training with AXE, and even the Army can bend some rules when it seems advisable. The only time I wore a uniform during that stint was while I was going through Counterintelligence Corps School at Fort Holabird in Baltimore. That was mostly for show, the first thing they taught us was how to type, because of all the reports an agent had to fill out, and I wore the innocuous bars of a second lieutenant. Afterward, when I was assigned to a post in West Germany, any top brass who demanded to know what my rank was got the word that I was a major. That’s the way the CIC worked then, and I knew one or two corporals, operating in plainclothes, who also had the “rank” of major if anyone asked.

But rank had nothing to do with the way I met Alex Zenopolis and the operation we pulled off together. Briefly, our Army was being plagued by a heroin ring that was bringing the stuff into Germany and selling it to our troops. Nothing like the way it’s been in Vietnam in recent years, but still serious then. It was discovered that a handful of GIs were the suppliers, and they were getting the horse from a couple of Greek sailors who had connections in Turkey. The point of exchange was Naxos, the largest island in the Cyclades.

One of the GIs, a young sergeant, had picked up one of those cushy jobs every soldier dreams of; he piloted a small twin-engined plane that carried VIPs, brass and civilians, to sunny spots in places like the Greek islands and Lebanon. It was a cinch, returning empty to Munich, to set down at a small airfield on Naxos and take on a load of the white stuff. He didn’t have any customs to clear, and a couple of mechanics at his home base were in on the deal; they took the dope away and moved it out among the small-time pushers.

I wasn’t in on the preliminaries; it was mostly a job for the CIC people of the MPs, but when it became clear there were Greek military personnel involved it got a little touchy for the military cops. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t a CIC job either; the mission of the Corps is basically to stop any clandestine threat to the Army, but that’s pretty broadly interpreted. Either way, I was tapped for the job of putting the dope smugglers out of commission, and to make sure nobody in any of the governments involved made a big stink about it. Or heard about it, if I could help it.

It was a killing job; I knew it as soon as my briefing was over. And when I met Alex Zenopolis in Beirut, all I had to do was look at him to know he was a good man to have working with me. Alex was a bull of a man, a little taller than my own six feet-one and just about as wide. He was with his country’s Naval Intelligence then, but in a dark civilian suit he looked like a character out of a Humphrey Bogart movie, black hair and mustache, fierce eyes that looked as though they could pin you to the wall and leave you dangling there until he decided to let you go.

“You are Carter,” he said when we met at a noisy cafe. A Sinatra record was playing on a jukebox while an overfed belly dancer tried to compete with the music.

I admitted I was; I could still use my own name in those days.

“Very simple.” His English was good, but he didn’t waste words. “Two of our people meet two Americans at airfield. You and I, we eliminate them.”

“How do we know when the American plane will arrive?”

“There’s a place overlooking the landing site. Set up by us, a goatherder’s shack; he has gone to hospital, poor fellow.” Alex laughed, showing a large gap between his front teeth. “Little stomach problem, something in his drinking water. He is old man, but he will recover.”

“And how long do we wait?”

Alex shrugged massive shoulders. “Until they come. Are you in a hurry?”

We took a clackety old boat that seemed to stop at every island in the Cyclades, not to mention Crete, before we arrived at Naxos. Tourists we were supposed to be, and we didn’t speak to each other after we disembarked. I checked in at what passed for a hotel in the port city, then played the eccentric American who wanted to go off on a hiking trip up into the hills, a forerunner, I guess, of the present-day hippies who swarm all over the world with their knapsacks.

I found Alex at the goatherder’s cottage overlooking the landing strip. Fortunately he had a pack of worn but serviceable playing cards, and somehow had managed to lay in a tremendous store of ouzo along with the weapons we would need. The waiting, it was more than two days, wasn’t bad, but if we’d been playing pinochle for real money I would still owe Alex Zenopolis just about everything I’ve earned since then.

The field was in a long, narrow valley below us; it had been built by the Germans during the War and kept in more or less serviceable condition by the cropping of sheep and goats. At the far end from us was a steep drop-off; close to the edge was a large natural cave whose entrance we could see plainly.

“The sailors go in there,” Alex explained. “Our people, the defenders of our shores.” He spat on the dirt floor of the hut. “We Greeks have so many shores to defend; look at any map, Nick. And to think that scum like those defile their profession...” He spat again.

Alex, I realized, was an idealist. That worried me; even then I preferred to work with cynics, because they’re much more reliable.

The nights were the hardest, because we couldn’t use any lights. Alex didn’t talk much and neither did I. Occasionally I’d wander outside to marvel at the pale brightness of the ground under a dazzling moon. And it was on the third of those nights I saw figures moving at the end of the airstrip, hauling themselves up over the lip of the drop like mountain climbers reaching the peak of Mount Everest.

I ran back inside the hut and shook Alex awake. “They’re here,” I whispered. “Your boys, I’m pretty sure.”

Alex waved a hand and rolled over inside his blanket. “Okay, okay, young fellow.” He was maybe ten years older than I was. “They wait, like us. American plane don’t show up till daylight. Can’t land here at night.”

I wouldn’t swear to it, but it seemed to me that Alex was snoring as soon as he said his last word.

Maybe I got a total of half an hour’s sleep the rest of that night; I know I was awake and moving around the hut before dawn, waiting impatiently for the sun to start giving us some light. The moon was long gone, and I could barely see to the valley floor.

“We start now.” Alex’s calm voice in the silent hut was so startling I nearly jumped out of my skin. “Half hour to daylight.” He was on his feet, shrugging into a heavy, black leather jacket whose pockets were stuffed with ammunition. Under it he carried a Colt .45 automatic, but the weapon he relied most on was the M-1 rifle he had slung over one shoulder.

I had one too. I also had Wilhelmina, the Luger I’d recently acquired in Germany and which, in a sense, was becoming an intimate part of my family.

We moved cautiously along the near rim of the Valley, circling toward the heights above the cave entrance. We stayed far enough back from the edge so no one below could see us even if there had been light, and it was purely Alex’s judgment and instinct that told us where to stop.

“There,” he whispered, pointing toward the rim.

We crept over the rough ground, as much rock as foliage, until we could see the field below. We were maybe sixty feet above it, and from what I could see there was no way down.

“How do we...?” I began, but Alex put a finger to his lips, and teeth gleamed in the darkness.

From one of his many pockets he pulled out a thin length of nylon rope. Attached to one end was a grenade, and he placed a couple of others on the ground beside him.

“The airplane comes from there,” he said, pointing off to our right into the black void beyond the edge of the field. “Only way. When it touches down it must taxi to the far end and turn, yes? So at touchdown... no, they cannot get away.”

He began letting the slender line down the rocky cliff face, very slowly, until the end with the grenade attached was just above the top of the cave entrance. Then he paused, wiggling sausage fingers while he did some mental calculations, and drew the line up again. He made a mark on the nylon and slashed it with a knife. “Just right,” he announced, and took the rest of the line to secure it to a little bush a few feet back from the rim.

“Now what?” I asked. Nobody had told us who was to be in charge on this operation, but Alex seemed to know what he was doing, and I was willing to learn.

“This bad stuff for rock work, but I can rappel down.” He pulled on thick gloves, wrapped a length of the secured line around a thigh and looped it over his shoulder. “Now you go back to far end of field. Little path, used by goats, takes you down. When you hear grenade go off in the cave, you go down and persuade those fellows in the airplane that they got no place to go. See?”

I thought so. Obediently I trotted back in the direction we had come. It wasn’t hard to find the path Alex had mentioned, though as I looked down it in the gray light of false dawn I wished I was a goat. Unslinging my M-l, I lay on the rim of the cliff and waited.

At first it seemed like the persistent buzzing of a fly, and I was fighting off the temptation to swat at it when I realized I had dozed off. My eyes snapped open and I was looking into a piece of burning orange sun rising out of the distant sea. In the middle of the half-disc was a dark speck that kept growing larger as it headed straight for where I lay. I felt a quick clutch at my belly, forced myself to stay where I was as the twin-engined plane came into clear view, heading for a landing at the far end of the field.

I looked along the rim of the cliff toward the place where I’d left Alex. There was no sign of him at all until the plane’s wheels touched the grass, but then I saw a bulky figure rise and fling out a long, thin line of white. It snaked through the air, dropped quickly under the sputtering weight attached to its end, and finally whipped into the cave opening.

There was a long pause, too long, and I was beginning to think. Four seconds doesn’t seem like much time, but once I had an instructor pull the pin on a grenade and then toss it to me casually. I fielded it cleanly, and fired it over the concrete parapet into the practice pit as though I were the middle man on a double play. My elbow ached for days afterward — grenades are heavy, don’t forget — but I was mostly concerned about the cackling son of a bitch who had started the whole thing and figuring what was the best way to kill the bastard. Fortunately for him, and probably for me, I never laid eyes on him again after that day.

The cave mouth erupted in a shockingly loud blast, great streams of smoke and showers of fragmented rock bursting out on to the green field. Before I could move I saw Alex hurl himself over the cliff edge, banging against the rock outcroppings as he rappelled swiftly down to the ground.

I scrambled down the steep path, clinging to scrubby bushes as I went, and hit the valley floor at a run. The twin-engined American aircraft was taxiing toward me, engines roaring, but for the moment I wasn’t worried about being spotted; that explosion behind them had to be occupying all their attention.

As the plane slowed, I flattened myself inside a little cleft in the wall of the cliff, waited for the turn to begin, then stepped out and fired a couple of quick shots close to the plane’s nose. I saw a startled, pale face through the windshield, then a scurry of movement. A side door began to open as the pilot continued his turn, already revving up his motors for a takeoff.

The orders were not to shoot up the plane if we could help it; after all, it was US Government property. So I stepped behind its tail, out of range of the probable gunman at the side door. A sudden blast from the twin props nearly knocked me down, kicking up dust and blinding me for a moment. When I could see again, the aircraft was moving rapidly away from me; I had the M-1 at my shoulder, ready to shoot as a last resort, when Alex bolted from the ruined cave right into the path of the speeding plane.

In the early light he looked like a small mountain, all in black with his arms upraised like some ancient warrior trying to stay the fury of the gods. As the plane sped toward him it looked as though a collision was inevitable, but at the last instant it swerved aside, cutting engines and jamming on the brakes. Alex dove under a spinning prop, rolling away from the wheels.

I was running down the field toward the big Greek and the plane, and I saw the gun poke out of the side door before Alex did. I stopped, knelt and raised my M-l as the aircraft came to a bumpy halt close to the edge of the drop-off. A man stuck his head out, pistol aimed at my partner.

It wasn’t much of a target, and the plane was still rocking from its violent turn and abrupt stop, but there was no time to take careful aim. I squeezed off a shot, then another. The man in the doorway looked at me, and even at that distance I could see the look of blank surprise on his face as the blood began to spout from his neck. He started to swing the pistol in my direction, but suddenly it must have become as heavy as an anvil. His arm dropped, the gun fell from his hand and he slowly toppled out of the door to the ground.

Alex stepped on the man as he jumped up and into the cabin. There was a high, muffled cry, then a guttural laugh; a few seconds later another man came flying out to land face down on the rocky ground. Alex stood behind him in the doorway, holding his nine-pound M-l as easily as a policeman’s nightstick. Then he beckoned to me, but I was already up and moving toward the plane.

“That good shooting,” he said. “You damned near got the pilot, too.”

“How do you mean?” We were both watching the man writhing on the ground; the one I’d shot wasn’t moving.

“Hah! Your bullet goes through his neck and into plane, nicks this pilot fellow’s ear and smashes the window up front. Too bad.”

“Yeah. Any other damage?”

“None I could see. I guess your other shot got him in chest. Didn’t go through, anyway.”

“Or maybe I missed completely.”

Alex shook his head. “No, you don’t miss, Nick Carter. And I never forget that, you know?” He looked down at the pilot, who was trying to sit up. “You want this fellow alive?”

“As long as he’s not badly hurt, I guess we can use him back at headquarters.” I bent over, grabbed the man. He wore an Army uniform with sergeant’s stripes, and I knew his face as well as my own after studying his file. “Ragan,” I growled. “You want to live or die right here? It’s your choice.”

“Cheesus, yes!” He wasn’t much more than a kid, I recalled, and he looked younger than his picture. He stared up at Alex and shook his head wonderingly. “Crazy!” he murmured. “This guy is crazy.”

Alex laughed and knelt beside him, the barrel of his rifle touching the side of the young sergeant’s face. “You smart boy,” he said. “You know if you hit me, your plane get busted up same as me. And down you go.” He made an eloquent gesture with his hand, looking over his shoulder toward the lip of the drop-off. “So you stay alive, eh? Good boy.” He clapped him on the back, not gently, then grabbed a shoulder and hauled the sergeant to his feet.

“What about the cave?” I asked.

“All dead.” He patted the rifle butt. “After you go I will use other grenades to seal up cave. Make nice tomb. How about this one?” He nudged the dead man with his toe.

“No. I’d better take him with me. But how are you going to get away from here?”

“This is part of my country, Nick Carter. You don’t worry about me, eh? Now I help you tie up this boy so he don’t give you no trouble during flight.”

We decided to leave the thoroughly trussed Ragan just behind the pilot’s seat, where I could keep an eye on him. The body of the other man Alex slung in the back, like so much cargo. Before I got in, he fished in his pockets and brought out a couple of smallish packages.

“You take both; you Americans, you need the evidence. Us, we don’t know nothing about dope smuggling, eh?” He clapped me on the back. “Have a good trip, Nick Carter. If you as good a pilot as you shoot, you will have no problems, eh?”

The last I saw of him, he was trudging back toward the cave, the rifle carried carelessly over his shoulder; he looked like a hunter heading home after a successful day. He didn’t even turn to wave as I made my take-off run.

Six

When night falls along the shores of Greece it turns dark with great suddenness. I found a fairish hotel close to the docks, recommended by me to the captain of a charter boat I’d been talking to earlier. He offered to show me some of the nightlife, but I turned him down as graciously as possible; I was still in the process of psyching myself up for the assignment that still hadn’t really begun, and I didn’t want any friendly distractions.

My room was clean and neat. No television, for which I was mildly grateful. It had been a long day, and I wasn’t accustomed to the intense sunlight that can drain the strength from a man before he’s aware of it. In the morning I would travel across to Pirgos to make my rendezvous with the girl, and I was anxious to get moving.

I took dinner in a little tavern not far away. A party of Americans sat close by, and one of the women in the crowd kept glancing over at me. She wasn’t bad-looking in a sort of leathery way, as though she spent every daylight hour baking her hide and had left the oven on a little too long. But I ignored her, studying a cruising guide I’d picked up at the tourist office in Athens.

The woman wouldn’t stay ignored. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her get up and totter over on those high-heeled wooden clogs that women go for these days. She stopped across the table from me, staring and frowning as though I were some kind of odd specimen she’d come across in the jungle.

“Can I help you?” I asked politely. I didn’t rise.

She shook her sun-streaked brown-blonde hair. “I don’t know.” She pointed an accusing finger at me. “Galveston. Three, four years ago. You were a friend of Sue-Ellen’s, weren’t you?”

I froze, trying not to show it. “I’m afraid you must be thinking of someone else.”

Her frown deepened. “I swear I never forget a face. And certainly not one like yours.” Quick smile, to show she was appreciating me. “Come on, now. The name is... Nick? Yes. That was it, and give me a minute; I’ll come up with the last one.”

“I’m sorry, my name is Daniel McKee.”

She nodded knowingly. “Uh-huh. And mine is Jackie Onassis. What’s the matter? You here with your wife or something?”

“No, but...”

“Funny thing, we were just with Sue-Ellen today. On her yacht?” As she spoke, the woman’s accent seemed to become more and more southern. I wasn’t surprised; just thinking about Sue-Ellen was enough to put a little corn pone in my mouth.

“I really don’t...”

She went on as though she hadn’t heard me. “You know she finally got her divorce after that time, but I guess you know about that since you and Sue-Ellen were such close friends. Married again, of course, but her old Greek husband don’t spend hardly any time with her at all these days. I guess Sue-Ellen’ll be real glad to hear you’re around these parts.”

I was acutely aware of other eyes on me now, not only the rest of the talkative woman’s party but people at several nearby tables as well. I got to my feet. “Believe me, ma’am, I’m Daniel McKee.” I took a card from my wallet. “As a matter of fact, I happen to be a yacht broker. Maybe your friend Sue-Ellen would be interested in talking to me. Where is her boat, exactly?”

She looked at the crisp white card scornfully. Then she peered at my face, her eyes not quite focused. Finally she shook her head and backed a step away. “I could have sworn it was you, Nick Somebody. Only Sue-Ellen wouldn’t have any truck with any boat salesman. Not even for just a weekend.”

“Well...” I managed to look embarrassed, finally returning the disdained card to my wallet.

The woman shook a finger at me. “But maybe you’re not what you say, right? I remember that Nick, he was a crafty one, wouldn’t hardly give anybody the time of day. You stick around, Mister yacht broker; Sue-Ellen said she might drop in here later on. Then we’ll know for sure, huh?” She wobbled away back to her table.

I wanted to get away from here quick, but forced myself to finish my meal, ignoring the stares of the other men and women in the party. They were a prosperous looking crew, mostly in their late thirties and forties I judged, the sort who turn up at just about any tourist spot in the world. The sort who would be casual friends of someone like Sue-Ellen Baylor, or whatever her last name was these days, and make sure all their friends knew it.

But this was no evening to be thinking of Sue-Ellen or of her buddies, so I put her out of my mind as soon as I left the taverna after a smile and a nod to the woman in the American party. I could feel her appraising eyes on my back as I stepped out into the clear night air.

It was cool, a steady breeze blowing in off the water. Out in the harbor a big cruise ship was anchored, every light blazing, and even at that distance I could hear the thump and twang of an amplified rock band. Crazy, I thought; people come from all over the world to see Greece, and they stay aboard their ship to listen to American music.

I walked slowly, outwardly casual but jangling inside. The Sue-Ellen business was bugging me, and I caught myself checking dark side streets as I passed them. The dock area itself was well lit, with enough activity even at this time of the night to give me a sense of comfort. Still, I appreciated the presence of Hugo, snug now in his forearm sheath. Just the fact that there was someone nearby who knew who I really was, and especially my name, was all I needed to tune my senses up to that pitch I knew so well.

Not a soul approached by the time I got back to the hotel, and as I stood in its doorway for a last, leisurely look around the quiet little square, I saw no movement that looked remotely suspicious. Finally I shrugged, walked inside and up the single flight of wide stairs to my room.

They were waiting for me when I unlocked the door, and they were damned good. No threats, hardly any words; one of them slammed the door shut as I entered, the other turned on a light across the room. Both men were heavy set, wearing ordinary dark suits, and the automatics they carried were small but deadly.

I waited for one of them to talk, noting that my luggage was open on the bed closest to the window. I hadn’t bothered to unpack, and from what I could see my two visitors had been very neat in their search. So far.

“Mr. Daniel McKee?” The man furthest from me spoke; he was slightly taller than the other, his dark hair clipped short but sporting a glorious drooping mustache.

“Yes,” I replied evenly, slightly relieved that they hadn’t used my real name.

“You are back early.”

I could have sworn the man smiled, but with that mustache it was hard to be sure.

“Obviously,” I said.

He pulled a flat, worn wallet from his hip pocket and flipped it open. I saw a blurred picture and an official-looking card under badly scratched and yellowed plastic, and then he put it all away again.

“You are seeking some sort of business connection, Mr. McKee?” the man asked. His partner, standing against the squat wooden dresser near the foot of the bed, never said a word or moved a muscle.

“Not exactly.”

“You are... a yacht broker.” It wasn’t a question.

“That’s right.”

“You seek to buy or sell boats in Greece?”

“No,” I replied cautiously. “I was just looking things over. A sort of vacation, you know, combined with a little business.”

“You find much of interest in our boating industry?”

“Sure. Doesn’t everybody?”

The man guffawed, mouth wide; for a moment, when I saw the gap between his front teeth, I was forcibly reminded of Alex Zenopolis. But Alex, I told myself, was a good six inches taller...

“You will be in this country for long?” the man went on after he’d had his laugh.

“I don’t know. A few more days, maybe; I don’t have any special plans.”

“Yes, of course. Our country is a land of leisure... for visitors.” His dark eyes turned stormy as he said the last couple of words, and I kept a wary eye on the pistol he still held leveled at my middle.

“What was it you wanted, exactly?” I asked, trying to sound more nervous than demanding.

He gestured with the gun hand, but it didn’t give me any ideas about trying to take him; his partner was positioned well away from him and there was no way I could take them both without adding at least another scar to my hide. Besides, there didn’t seem any reason to. Not so far.

The man with the mustache shrugged. “To find out more about you, Mr. McKee. When any foreigner, pardon me, American, comes to this country and begins making inquiries, it naturally stirs the curiosity of my government.”

“You could have found out by just asking,” I pointed out.

“Oh, perhaps. But my country... please understand, Mr. McKee, we are in a highly precarious position, beset by forces on every side which are not friendly to us. So we are forced to be suspicious of everyone, and believe me, sir, we regret it much more than you do. So we use the most direct, even crude, means to learn what we feel we must know. Do you understand?”

“Sure,” I said sourly. “And I guess you’ve found out enough, haven’t you?”

“Well... perhaps.” To show his good faith, he put his gun away in a belt holster. “There’s only one more thing.”

“Oh?” I noted that his partner still held his automatic, though it wasn’t exactly pointed at me.

“If you wouldn’t mind...” He held his hands wide, showing his good will as he moved around the bed toward me. “A small search? Of your person?”

Christ! This was all I needed, with Hugo sheathed on my left forearm. I backed up a step. “I don’t see why that’s necessary,” I said, in my best imitation of a mildly outraged American tourist. “God knows, I’m not smuggling any boats out of your country!”

“Of course not. Nevertheless.” He was still walking toward me. “It would satisfy all of us, no?”

“I don’t see why...?”

The partner had his gun up again, pointing it in my direction.

“Please, Mr. McKee,” the mart with the mustache was saying. “We do not wish to insist.”

He was stepping around the foot of the bed, arms out placatingly and looking about as friendly as a rhinoceros.

“Hold on!” I cracked.

“Yes?” Mustache stopped, but he didn’t seem to be taken aback in any sense.

“You say you’re police, or whatever. Can I have a closer look at that card you showed me?”

That stopped him. He glanced quickly at his partner, then started to move in my direction. His mistake. I took a half-step to my right, putting him between me and the one with the drawn gun. Before either of them knew what was happening, I had a grip on Mustache’s wrist, turned him and held him against my chest. He was solid and heavy, but the hold I had turned him limp.

“Mr. McKee...” he gasped.

I was glad to hear that; whatever was going on, he evidently didn’t know who I really was.

“The wallet,” I rasped in his ear.

He started to dig in his hip pocket for it. I was so intent on keeping my hold on him that I didn’t notice what the other man was doing. Not at first. Then I saw him calmly fitting a silencer to the muzzle of his pistol. Before I could react, he took careful aim and plunked two shots into the bulky chest of the man I held. I’m ashamed to say that my first reaction was relief that neither bullet went through the body and hit me.

Mustache sagged, his weight suddenly doubled, in my arms. I let him drop; obviously he was no good to me as a shield any more.

The other man waved me back. “I take him. You don’t worry... Mr. McKee.”

I didn’t like the way he grinned at me, especially when I caught a glimpse of metal teeth framed by rubbery lips. “What the hell,” I said, trying to get back into my role as businessman-tourist. It was clear he didn’t intend to shoot me.

“Fonny things happen sometimes, Mr. McKee,” he was saying as he bent over the lifeless body at my feet. Some blood was leaking out of the neat punctures in Mustache’s chest, but it was all being absorbed by the material of dark suit jacket.

“Uh-huh,” I responded, holding my left arm out a little in case I needed Hugo in a flash. It was then that I wanted Wilhelmina so badly I could taste her. “What the hell are you going to do?”

The gunman looked up, his little eyes dead as a snake’s. “You want to know, Mr. McKee?”

I didn’t say anything.

He heaved the dead man to his feet, ducked his thick body and took Mustache over his shoulder. “There is fire escape,” he announced, as though I didn’t know it, and headed toward the window overlooking the little square below. After only a moment’s pause he stepped over the sill and out on the iron grating. The body on his shoulder thumped painfully against the raised window sash, but Mustache couldn’t have minded.

The gunman paused for a second after he had his burden outside, and when he looked at me his smile was almost friendly.

“We see you again some time, eh Mr. McKee?” He patted Mustache’s body on the rump. “And next time, we don’t make stupid mistakes, eh?”

Seven

I went to the window and watched the stocky gunman clamber down the fire escape like an ape, apparently heedless of the burden he carried. If I’d had Wilhelmina... but no, I told myself, what good would that have done? The last thing I wanted to do here was attract attention to myself in any way. Especially the attention of the authorities.

And of course I knew that the two jokers who’d been searching my room had nothing to do with the Government; legitimate agents working in their own country don’t go around shooting their partners when they get in a jam.

I checked through my luggage and the rest of the room, the adjoining primitive bath. Nothing seemed to be missing, and since I was carrying nothing incriminating I wasn’t about to do too much worrying about that. Except that I had to wonder who that pair were, and why they had been here. I wished I’d had a good look at the card Mustache showed me, but it was too late for that now. And it probably didn’t make any difference. Somebody, some organization, was interested in Daniel McKee, yacht broker, and that was enough, all by itself, to make me worry. More than ever, as I undressed and got ready for bed, I missed Wilhelmina.

The rendezvous was set for the next day, and I was up early in the morning for the easy three-hour drive across the Peloponnessos. The huge, mountainous peninsula was all green and white, lush green hillsides and clusters of chalky dwellings; the road was good, and I wished I had some time to linger and be an honest-to-God tourist. But I was too impatient, too eager to reach my destination; the memory of what had happened in my room the night before wouldn’t let go, and I felt it was somehow damned important that I make contact with Christina. Then we could get, as they say, the show on the road.

Pirgos is a shabbily sparkling town, with a splendid natural harbor. Before I did anything else, I prowled the docks until I found a place where I might rent a sailboat for a week or two. Elgon Xefrates was the genial owner of the establishment, a fireplug of a little man with tombstone teeth that he showed all the time in a dazzling smile.

We didn’t make a deal right away; I still had to play it cool, but I wanted to be damned sure I could get what I needed on short notice. Elgon assured me that he would have a seaworthy craft for me whenever I wanted to take it out. That was one matter out of the way.

Another hotel, not much different from the one in Piraeus, except that there was one big, lumpy bed in it and the bath was down the hall. Well, I was only staying for one night, and maybe not even that.

It was late afternoon, and I’d done my tourist routine for as long as I could stand it when I finally approached the Taverna Zakinthos. A big, open-air establishment, it had a splendid view of the harbor and the big, mountainous island a few miles offshore. I sat down at a tippy metal table on the terrace, took off my battered yachting cap and put it on the seat next to me. The late sun was slanting across the Ionian Sea, falling down behind the boot of Italy which would be my destination a couple of days later. I waited for Christina with as much patience as I could muster, hoping she wouldn’t keep me waiting too long. It was damned uncomfortable, having some unknown girl to deal with who knew more about the details of this mission than I did. Especially after that run-in with the two pros in my hotel room the night before.

From the taverna I could see the late afternoon water traffic moving in the harbor. It wasn’t crowded, but there was a constant coming and going of boats of all descriptions. A black-hulled outboard runabout appeared, towing a girl on water-skis. They zoomed close to the row of fishing boats tied up along the quay, the girl with one arm raised above her head, dark hair streaming behind her and a look of ecstasy on her spray-flecked face. In the runabout both the driver and the other man watching the skier from the stern were grinning encouragingly at her. Some of the fishermen on the dockside boats looked up from their chores; a few stood in automatic appreciation at the sight of the bronzed, bikini-clad body swooping past them, and some ragged cheers went up.

Then a grizzled, stumpy man wearing a cap with impressive gold insignia on it rushed to the quayside, gesturing violently. The man at the wheel of the runabout didn’t see him at first, but some instinct made him turn to pay attention to where he was going; he swerved sharply, slowing at the same time, as he saw he was approaching the end of the harbor.

“Damned fools,” I muttered to myself. They should know better than to water-ski in a harbor anyway.

The girl was trying to shorten up on her towrope; she seemed the only one of the jolly trio who knew what she was doing, and in spite of the boat’s change of speed and direction she appeared to be in control.

And then, for no reason I could see, she just fell. Down she went into the water, automatically kicking free of the skis as she released the tow rope. The cheering stopped, but the harbor official kept up his fist-shaking at the men in the runabout. It came to a near stop, its engine muttering, made a slow circle and approached the girl.

She was treading water easily, clinging to the skis, but as the boat approached I could hear her voice lifted in anger. I knew a little Greek, but I was pretty sure what she was saying wouldn’t be found in any of the standard texts. She shoved the water skis at the man in the stern; he took them with a look of bewilderment on his face. But when he extended a hand to help her aboard she shrugged, turned and swam toward a crude wooden stairway along the quay.

The driver maneuvered the runabout cautiously after her, both men pleading openly. She ignored them, her face mirroring her lofty contempt. As she reached the stairway and began to climb out of the water, the man in the stern again reached for her; she shook off his hand, flipped water from her streaming hair so that he was spattered thoroughly, then went up a few more steps until she was well above them. At that point she turned and said something, snapping it out like a sergeant giving orders to the most inept recruit in his platoon. Both men looked crestfallen, then sullen; between them they handed the girl a garment of some sort and a big, bulging straw bag. When she had them, she turned away without so much as a farewell glance and climbed quickly to the top of the quay.

Like most of the other customers at the Taverna, I had gotten up from my table for a better look after the girl fell. From where I stood I had a pretty good view of all the action, and I was standing close by when she reached the top of the broad stone quay. She paused for a moment, deliberately not looking back, until she heard the sudden roar of the outboard as her two disconsolate escorts hot-rodded back out of the harbor in search of their lost egos. Then she put the straw bag down at her feet, raised her arms and dropped the terrycloth shift over her head, wriggled only as much as necessary until the garment was settled just south of her hips. She thumbed her sleek wet hair free of the shift’s collar, reached down into the bag and took out a monster pair of dark glasses. It was only after she put them on that she looked at the handful of us who stood watching her.

There was neither phony modesty nor haughty indifference in her attitude; she simply smiled faintly, gave a suggestion of a shrug and picked up the bag. As she passed me, so close I could smell the mixture of salt water and suntan lotion that beaded her skin, she hesitated for a fraction of a beat, then kept going, straight for the Taverna.

I watched her — I’d have blown my cover for sure if I hadn’t, because everyone else certainly was — as she mounted the couple of wide, shallow steps to the stone terrace and took a table with no umbrella to protect it from the sun. A waiter was there before she sat down, and as he returned to the gloomy interior of the taverna to fetch her order I walked slowly back to my own table. I felt a certain amount of sophomoric regret that she hadn’t chosen a table next to mine, but common sense reminded me that I wasn’t there just to admire the local water goddess.

She had a glass of the region’s wine, a potent squeezing of the grape that I’d already sampled, and decided to stick to ouzo; at least the pale, milky stuff sent out its own warning signals before you swallowed it. We were seated so that it was possible to look at each other without making a big deal out of it, and after a while it became obvious that she was flicking her eyes in my direction frequently. Okay, I could accept that; the only other customers in the place at the moment were a handful of tourist couples and a few locals, businessmen, to judge by their sober clothes, none of whom would interest the girl, or who would have the guts to approach her after that performance in the water a few moments earlier.

One of her long, bare legs was twitching impatiently. Every few seconds she fluffed out her wet hair, drying it in the sun; from where I sat I could see copper highlights appearing in the black velvet, and each time she raised her hands her breasts were outlined starkly against the clinging fabric of her shift. I looked away; the last thing I needed was that kind of distraction. Besides, I told myself, she was probably a high-class call girl on an afternoon off, looking for reassurance. I checked the rest of the taverna more closely and concluded with no immodesty that I was the best prospect in sight.

I checked my watch, then the rapidly falling sun out over the sea. Both told me it was getting late, and I wondered when my contact was going to show up.

She was getting to her feet, a gold-tipped cigarette dangling from her lips. For a moment she stood, surveying the quayside street as though she were looking for something, then turned and walked, still barefoot, into the dim interior of the taverna. As she passed my table she smiled vaguely, not quite looking at me.

I raised a hand to adjust my sunglasses, and the waiter hovering nearby mistook the gesture for an order; in a moment he had another ouzo in front of me. He was a young man, barely out of his teens, and as he set the drink down he glanced toward the girl’s table, then into the back of the taverna, his eyebrows working furiously as though he were doing an imitation of Groucho Marx at his most lascivious. Before I realized what he was doing, he also put down a glass of the wine the girl was drinking, then hustled away before I could object.

She was back almost as soon as he had left, sliding into the seat opposite me. Before saying a word she took a sip of the wine, gave a low, gusty sigh of appreciation and leaned back in the chair. It was only then that she looked at me.

“You are the one who has the car?” she asked. Her accent was emphatic, but she seemed to be comfortable with the English language.

“I have one,” I agreed. The Volkswagen was parked close by, in plain sight of our table.

“I thought it must be yours,” she said matter-of-factly. “The rental plates, and the fact that you are an American.”

“Does it show that much?”

She shrugged, making a show of indifference. “Oh, one learns to tell.” She looked around at the other nearby tables. “Those over there, they come from England.” She nodded slightly to indicate a middle-aged couple sipping vermouths at a shaded table. “He has retired and devotes himself to whiskey; look at those ruby cheeks! And any woman who looks like that, with a face like a hatchet and that fantastic tweed suit here in the sunlight of Pirgos! Could one imagine they come from...” She waved a frustrated hand in the air. “Argentina?”

I had to smile. “Not likely.”

She put her elbows on the table and leaned toward me, giving me all the wattage of her smile as though she had just discovered something totally enchanting. “So you have the car?” She glanced toward the VW.

“Yes. That’s mine.”

“Then perhaps you wouldn’t mind... I lost my ride.”

“So I noticed.”

“It is just a little public beach, not far away. Those fellows in the boat, they invited me to come water-skiing with them and I said why not.” Her shoulders were going up and down now like pistons on a bunch of locomotive wheels. “But they don’t know how to run that boat, you know? Fools! Coming right into the harbor like that... you saw?”

“Uh-huh.”

“So I left them; I do not trust them even to take me back to the little hotel on the beach where I am staying. So I am... what do you call it? Forlorn?”

“Not exactly, but you have the right idea.”

She leaned across the table toward me. Standard move, I thought, as her breasts pushed against the nubby fabric of her shift. “You are long in Pirgos?” she asked.

“I don’t expect to be.”

“Oh. Where do you go from here?”

I pushed back a little in my chair. She was asking too many questions, even for a hooker. “Haven’t made up my mind yet,” I said carefully.

“Perhaps...” She was thrusting even closer to me, as though the table weren’t there. Her eyes glittered as though they had their own internal circuits. “Korfu wouldn’t be bad?”

“It’s a possibility,” I acknowledged. No sense in lying.

“Then perhaps you would like a companion?”

The question wasn’t exactly unexpected, but I didn’t have an answer. I looked at her for a long, deliberate moment before I replied. “You want to go to Korfu?”

“I wouldn’t mind.”

“Why?”

It was her turn to hesitate. She looked away, twitched those marvelous shoulders indifferently. “It is a nice place to be.”

“So is this.”

Suddenly she grinned, like a small girl caught in a harmless lie. “But Korfu is much better, no?”

I was getting some tingles. “Maybe...”

She reached across the table and touched my hand. “You would not mind having me as a companion for a few days, would you?” Her grin widened even more. “Mr. McKee?”

I hadn’t mentioned my name.

Eight

It was hardly the most subtle contact I’d ever made, and it worried me as I drove the girl to the hotel where she’d parked her clothes. We didn’t talk much in the car; I didn’t encourage her, and she didn’t offer. But before we arrived at the stretch of public beach, lined by small second-rate hotels, where she had taken off on her water-skiing expedition, I slowed down so I could look at her.

“So you’re Christina,” I said. She hadn’t even told me that much, so far.

“Of course. Do you have the boat?”

“I have one lined up, yes.”

“Then perhaps we should... court. Isn’t that the word you use?”

I frowned, “Maybe. Depends on what you mean.”

“I mean that we should be seen in public, obviously attracted to each other.” She took my hand, placed it on her warm, bare thigh. “Like this, no? American tourist, Greek girl on vacation. Isn’t that the way it was planned?”

She knew a hell of a lot more about the plans than I did, obviously, but she was making sense. “What do you hear from Alex?” I asked bluntly.

It was as though her skin suddenly turned to marble, cold as a tomb, but she made no move to push my hand away. “We will talk about that later.”

“Why not now?”

Her smile was like a death mask. “Because you and I, Mr. Daniel McKee, know nothing about Alex. For now we celebrate the discovery of each other, and tomorrow when we set out on our little cruise to Korfu will be time enough to speak of such matters.”

For an amateur, she seemed to have a pretty good idea of how things worked in my business. I had to go along with her. For the moment, anyway.

Her hotel was a featureless little place, pink stucco with a broad terrace overlooking the narrow strip of beach. We went through the ritual of having a drink at one of the terrace tables, holding hands and looking into each other’s eyes a lot. Every once in a while I checked to see if anyone was paying attention to us, but saw no one who showed more than the expected interest in Christina. Finally, when the sun was about to plunge into the sea, she rose, pulling me to my feet with her.

“We will have dinner?”

“Of course.”

“Of course,” she echoed. “Come for me in an hour and a half. Perhaps... you could arrange for us to sail tomorrow morning?”

“I don’t know.” I nuzzled her ear, as I was expected to, but mostly because I wanted to be sure no one could hear what I had to say. “Don’t rush it, sweetheart. I wouldn’t want to arrange to leave tomorrow until it’s damned obvious you’re coming with me.”

“So let’s make it obvious now.” She thumped her groin into mine in the most obvious manner, lifting a leg slightly to rub a bare knee against my thigh. It was only a brief gesture, but no one watching could have missed it. Or its implications.

“Yeah,” I said, and I had to clear my throat before any more words would come out. “We’ll be set to leave in the morning.”

She looked as good in her midnight-blue dress as she had in a bikini; it was obviously something bought off a rack, but Christina had the ability to make anything she wore look as though it had been run up for her by Givenchy. We went to a small restaurant near her hotel; it was nothing special, and as far as I could see there were no other foreign tourists there. When I was sure no one could overhear us I asked her if there was some reason why we were in this particular place.

She blushed, just a little through her tan.

“I really don’t know this town,” she said. “This is my first time here.”

I thought about that for a few seconds, then leaned back in my chair and grinned across the table at her. “Just a couple of tourists, aren’t we.”

“Yes...”

It was my turn to get things moving. From a manila envelope I’d dropped beside my chair I took a chart and unfolded it “Show me a few things about this coast,” I said in a low voice. “Or tell me what you don’t know. Either way.”

The chart took in the west coast of Greece — from the Peloponnesos past the islands of Zakinthos; Cephalonia; Ithaca, from where Ulysses sailed to make war on Troy and returned after all those years to history’s most faithful wife, Levkas; and a lot of other smaller islands and mainland ports until there was Korfu, shaped like an axe with a warped handle, the blade aimed at the coast of Albania.

“It would be a nice cruise,” the girl said carefully.

“Uh-huh. Any stopovers you’d prefer?”

“No. None in particular. But I think perhaps... three days would be a nice time to take.”

My gut tightened, not for the first time on this mission. More delay, more time with nothing happening.

“Sure you want to go with me?” I was back playing the role again.

She focused her great, dark eyes on me. “But of course, Daniel McKee.”

After dinner we walked, threading our way through narrow alleys flanked by solid rows of dark houses that seemed to lean over us, blotting out the clear Ionian sky. Christina was soft beside me, her hip pressed against mine, and I had to keep reminding myself to stay alert for a possible tail.

There was no one, no one I could see. I didn’t like it.

“Did you... uh... stay at your hotel long enough to hear from...?”

She pressed her lips against mine, but hers were cold and carried a warning. “Do not talk now,” she murmured. “Tonight is for us.”

I couldn’t tell if she was talking to me or to some kind of bug planted on her. Either way, I couldn’t object.

We walked along the quay where I had first seen her, decided not to revisit the taverna where we had met, then hip-rubbed in the direction of my hotel, which was only a couple of blocks away. As we were approaching the dimly lighted entrance, a tan Mercedes pulled out of a side street, roared toward us, then slowed abruptly. It passed at a crawl; I looked idly at the car, but could see nothing in the back seat except an indistinct blob. The driver, a hat pulled low over his eyes, looked stolidly ahead. When the Mercedes was a short distance ahead of us, it slid over to the curb on the opposite side of the street. Only a scattering of other cars were parked nearby, and Christina and I were the only pedestrians in sight.

The girl clutched my arm, dragging me to a halt. “McKee!” she whispered urgently. “Who are those people?”

“Nobody I know.” I kept my voice light; it was bad enough dealing with a rank amateur without scaring her to death.

“But they saw us and stopped.” I could feel her shudder, her body pressed close to mine. “Why are they waiting over there?”

The Mercedes was just across from the entrance of the hotel, its engine rumbling softly with thin trails of vapor drifting from the exhaust.

I turned to the girl, put my arms around her. “Don’t start worrying about everybody you see, Christina. Tonight is ours... unless.”

“Unless what?”

“You don’t have a husband, do you? Or a boy friend?”

She shook her head, eyes probing mine questioningly. “No. Would I be on vacation alone if I did?”

I nodded agreement. “So what’s to be afraid of? We’ll have a nightcap in my room, then...”

The girl shut off my words with a sudden, fierce kiss. It caught me off guard, but I recovered quickly and held her hard against me. After a long moment she dragged her mouth away from mine and began to nuzzle my neck, lips close to my ear. “Is your room safe to talk?” she murmured.

“I wouldn’t bet on it.” There was no point in mentioning my visitors of the night before, even though that had been half a country away.

Slowly she pulled back so she could look at me, eyes shining, mouth wide in a numbing smile. “So we shall have that nightcap, Daniel McKee. And afterward, we shall see...”

As we went into the hotel the tan Mercedes remained where it was, like a squat, lurking dragon breathing exhaust-pipe smoke.

Christina was neither shy nor wildly eager, but she was hardly indifferent either. She was the kind of girl who could never be indifferent about anything, whether brushing her teeth or making love to a stranger. She sat easily on the edge of the lumpy bed that dominated the room while I poured brandy into a couple of glasses. She took hers, tasted it, ran her tongue lightly over her lips like a cat.

The only chair in the room was too low and in a poor location. Breaking one of my basic rules, I perched on the broad windowsill, after being sure the window shade was tightly closed; even then I knew my silhouette made a perfect target if sniping was in order, and trusted my own instinct that no one wanted me dead. Not yet.

“Well,” I said, lifting the thick hotel-room tumbler in a toasting gesture.

“Well?”

It was my first really good look at Christina Zenopolis; the other times I’d been dazzled by too much sunlight and all that damp, toasted flesh; in the restaurant earlier the lights had been dim and there’d been a table between us. Here the light was subdued, but not too much so, and there was nothing to interfere with the view. Even the unadorned, dark blue dress she wore was almost as revealing as the afternoon’s bikini, and somehow more exciting. With her thick dark hair and wideset, startlingly blue eyes, she was a visual treasure, and so far she’d shown a mind and spirit to go with the looks. For a moment I regretted that we weren’t just what we seemed to be, and immediately told myself to stop being a damned fool.

“So you’re a student,” I remarked, making the kind of conversation anyone listening might expect a tourist to ask the girl he’d picked up and taken to his room.

“Yes.”

“What are you studying?”

She shrugged and took a healthy swallow of her brandy. “I was once hoping to be a nurse, but I had to stop.”

“Why?”

“It was...” She frowned. “Oh well, I finally admitted to myself that I could not stand being around sick people for the rest of my life. You know?”

“I suppose so.”

“And so I... well, I just study. Perhaps I will be a biologist, perhaps an archaeologist. There is no hurry to make up one’s mind, is there?”

“I imagine your folks would like you to.” I said it with a knowing grin, but I also knew she didn’t have any folks.

Christina looked at me sharply. “I do not have any parents, McKee. Surely you know; I must have told you that earlier.”

I nodded. “I guess you did. Sorry. But how do you... ah... how do you make a living?”

“Oh, I work in a boutique in Athens. It’s very close to the Hilton. They’re very nice about giving me time off when I don’t have to go to classes.” She leaned forward, the modest neckline of her dress gaping open just a fraction. “Isn’t that nice, that I should be taking a vacation now?”

“Couldn’t be nicer,” I replied, and taking my cue I stood and went to sit beside her on the bed. She didn’t move or seem surprised, but there were no automatic caresses either. I was getting to like this girl better and better.

“And you, McKee, have you found what you look for in Greece?”

“In a way.”

She laughed. “I was talking about your business.”

“Wasn’t I?” I grinned back at her. “Well, actually, I’ve only been here a few days, but I’ve met some people, looked at boats. I had some idea that maybe I could find a yacht-designing genius in your country, someone who might be able to come up with something new and exciting. So far... but whether I find what I’m looking for or not, I’m learning a few things about Greece. Most of them I like.”

This time she kissed me, her lips cool and light on mine. I started to put my arm around her, but she pulled away, not much, just enough to let me know this wasn’t the time.

“So tomorrow you will sail away?” she said.

“That’s the idea. Funny thing, in my country and probably in yours too, when boating people see a man arrive in a car and start asking questions, they don’t tend to talk much. But when the same person shows up in a boat and asks the same questions they’ll talk their heads off.”

“Yes, I can see how that might be.” She took another swallow of her brandy. “And you honestly wish to take me with you?”

Now I was certain she was talking for the benefit of possible bugs, because she knew damned well I had to take her with me. “I would like to very much. Three, four days only, just coastwise sailing. No hurry.”

She appeared to be thinking it over; then she nodded slowly. “Yes. That would be very, very nice.” And with that she rose, put the empty brandy glass down on a nearby dresser and picked up the white wool stole she wore against the evening chill. “I must be getting back to my hotel now, McKee.”

My surprise must have shown clearly, but she stifled my protest with a fierce frown. “Do you... have to?” I said lamely.

“Oh yes. This has been most pleasant, McKee. I feel we have come to know each other well in so short a time, and there is so much to look forward to. No?” She tilted her head to one side and gave me a teasing little smile. “Once we are alone at sea, I am sure we will find a great deal to talk about.”

She got the message across, and I made no objections. Christina wouldn’t hear of letting me drive her back to her hotel, but I made damned sure the tan Mercedes wasn’t across the street before I put her in a cab. I watched until she was out of sight and saw no sign of a tail picking her up, but I still felt a cold worry in my gut; Christina was my only way of contacting Alex, and if anything happened to her...

All I could do now was hope she knew what she was doing, because I sure as hell didn’t.

Nine

Elgon Xefrates was waiting for me when I arrived early the next morning, but he wasn’t the friendly, smiling man I’d met the day before. He shook his head sadly when he saw me get out of the car and enter his small, cluttered office.

“So sorry disappoint,” he started right in, eying the white duffel bag I carried. “Your boat will not be ready to sail today. Tomorrow, perhaps two, three days. I cannot say.”

“What the hell’s the matter,” I demanded.

“Accident last night.” He shrugged and pointed vaguely over his shoulder. Through the window behind him I could see the bustling boatyard, the docks and the small cove beyond where several dozen boats, mostly small, were moored. I recognized the thirty-two-foot ketch he’d shone me the day before, snugged up against the dock with a long, thick snake of hose pouring over the side and down into the cabin.

“What happened?”

“Someone comes into mooring late, I think. Must have rammed your Argos pretty hard; this morning we find her with much water, some planks sprung forward. You see, we are pumping her out now.” He pointed unnecessarily.

“It can’t be too badly damaged if it didn’t sink overnight,”

“Perhaps not; we will have to haul her out to be certain.”

“Can I go take a look? Maybe I can get an idea...”

His eyes were cold. “You know more about my boats than me Mr. McKee?”

“Of course not; I didn’t mean that. Look, you said you had another boat I might take. What about that one?”

“Ah, but after you departed yesterday two gentlemen came along and chartered it. You said you preferred Argos at any rate.”

I did; she was smaller, easier to handle single-handed, and seemed generally in better shape. Still... “Have they taken her already?”

“Scylla? Not yet, no.”

“I need a boat,” I said flatly.

Xefrates looked surprised. “But you said there was no haste, Mr. McKee.”

“Things have changed. I’d like to do business with you, but if you can’t keep your word I’ll have to go elsewhere, Mr. Xefrates.”

If I’d expected panic from the fireplug-shaped man I was sadly mistaken. He simply looked at me for a long moment, then shrugged. “That is your; privilege.”

“Look, I’ll pay whatever you ask for Scylla. Let the others wait a day or so for Argos to be repaired.”

“It is that important to you, Mr. McKee?”

“It is.” I grinned. “You’ll understand why before long.”

Xefrates looked thoughtful, his eyes somber, and then his dark, beard-stubbled face exploded in a sudden smile. “Ah! Perhaps I do understand.” He tapped a stub of pencil against his tombstone teeth. “It is possible that the other gentlemen would understand also.”

“When did they say they’d start out?”

“Only some time today. In fact, since it was so late when they came yesterday that I had no chance to take them out on the boat. Usually I must be certain that someone knows how to handle one of my lovelies before I allow them to take her away. Except when they possess such... what is the word? Credentials? Yes, credentials such as you, Mr. McKee.”

Among the other documents I’d been provided with was a photostat of a certificate that said I’d been twice across the Atlantic in small boat races, once as navigator and the other as sailing master. I was just as glad that Xefrates hadn’t asked me to maneuver Scylla, a broad-beamed sloop with enough room in the cockpit for a flock of goats to be carried as cargo, around the congested cove.

“So I can take Scylla instead?” I said, reaching for my wallet.

The boatyard owner shook his head. “I could not do that, Mister McKee. I have given my word to the other two gentlemen.”

“But you promised me.”

“For some day soon when you would want Argos.”

“Can you call these other guys? At least ask them if they’d mind postponing their trip for a day or so?” I felt ridiculous, almost begging like this, but there was no other place in Pirgos where I could expect to charter a boat right away. The only alternative was to go back to Piraeus, where the Royal Greek Yacht Club could arrange charters at almost any port where they were available. But that would mean not only a delay of at least a day but, more important, would tip off my anxiety to start my “leisurely” cruise.

Xefrates frowned, shuffled through some papers on his rat’s nest of a desk, found what he was looking for and finally sighed resignedly. “I’m sorry. I do not seem to have taken their hotel.”

He sat there like a squat, regretful but implacable spider, and I was beginning to think this mission was a complete washout when Christina arrived.

Xefrates almost jumped to his feet when the girl walked in, his dark face split in an idiot smile of appreciation. In faded blue shorts, a striped crewneck jersey and radiating let’s-go eagerness, she was enough to make any man stand up.

“Are we ready?” she asked, pecking me on the cheek and dropping her two small canvas bags on the dusty floor.

I told her briefly of the complications. Christina’s reaction was perfect; she turned to Xefrates, pouting just enough.

“But that’s not fair! My vacation will be over in a few days, and I was promised a nice little cruise.”

Xefrates was obviously flustered. He spouted some Greek at the girl, and she replied; I couldn’t understand either one of them. But whatever she said, Christina had powers of persuasion that I couldn’t begin to muster; within a few minutes Xefrates was nodding, a little sadly, but with a what-else-can-I-do shrug, and we were carrying our gear down to the dock.

One of his helpers brought Scylla in from her mooring, and after he checked me out on the rigging and equipment, the sloop was provisioned and we put our gear below. Xefrates ran an efficient operation, and it was well before noon that we slipped away from the dock. Running under power from the thudding inboard engine, I picked my way through the clusters of boats moored in the cove, getting the feel of the sluggish helm. It wasn’t until we were well beyond the buoy marking the cove’s entrance that I gave the wheel to Christina and went forward.

The jib went up first; it was self-setting, which made things a lot easier for single-handed sailing. Christina had told me she’d done a little sailing, but only on small boats, so except in emergencies I expected to all the serious work myself. When the jib started to fill, I turned back and told the girl to bring the sloop back up into the wind. She nodded, turned the wheel and held it, grimacing fiercely, until the bow swung around and the jib started flapping When I was satisfied she had us going more or less steadily in the right direction, I came back and hauled up the heavy mainsail. It wasn’t easy by myself, even with a winch, but I finally got the heavy canvas snugged at the top of the mast and cleated the halyard.

Scylla was rocking in moderately heavy swells, and I had to do a little dance as I maneuvered along the narrow walk-around past the cabin top When I got back to the roomy cockpit, Christina was having trouble handling the boat; I dropped-down beside her and switched off the engine. The silence was beautiful.

“It is a big boat,” she remarked quietly, gazing up at the big main as the wind began to fill it.

“Big enough,” I agreed, taking the wheel from her.

The day was bright and brisk, the boat traffic moderate and pretty well scattered. Even this close to shore there was the feeling of limitless depths under our hull, the water a dark blue churned into mild foam as we ghosted through the swells. Christina raised her arms to push back her thick, glossy hair; in the sunlight I could see the coppery highlights in it. She took a deep breath, savoring the wind and the salt air, with her eyes closed; when she opened them again she was staring straight into mine.

“Well,” she said.

“Yes.”

She looked behind us; the cove entrance was already just another indistinguishable part of the coatline. “We are alone at last.” She smiled. “I mean truly alone.”

“Uh-huh.” I glanced toward the open companionway leading down into the main cabin and looked cautioningly at her. “Can you handle her for a little while? I want to check out some things below.”

Christina nodded and took the helm again. The only land in sight, other than the mainland behind us, was Zakinthos, and the island was miles off to starboard; as long as she held our general course there was no way she could get us into any kind of boat trouble. I went below to look for another kind of trouble.

Maybe I was being overcautious, but I went over the entire interior of the boat in a search for possible bugs. It didn’t, seem likely that anyone could have planted any listening devices on Scylla, but there was no sense in taking any chances. It was surprisingly roomy below, with a main cabin I could almost stand upright in. The galley was compact and obviously newer than the boat, with a formica top and tiny stainless steel sink. There was an electric refrigerator, which I’d told Xefrates I had no intention of using; it meant running the engines to keep the batteries charged, and that wasn’t what I went sailing for. Anyway, the old, original icebox still remained, and there was a fifty-pound block in it to keep the beer cold.

Also in the main cabin were a set of upper and lower bunks on the port side, and on the other a table with built-in upholstered seats on either side; the table portion could be lowered to turn the whole thing into a double bed.

Up forward, through a short, narrow passage flanked by the head and a hanging locker for clothes, was the other cabin, which slept two on slightly curving bunks. To get in I had to almost crawl, since the headroom was drastically reduced under the forward deck. A hatch with a plexiglas cover provided the only light, and I propped it open slightly to get some air in the dank space. I made a mental note to close it if the weather started to get rough; even though we had an automatic bilge pump, there was no sense in taking on any water if we didn’t have to.

It took me nearly an hour to satisfy myself that Scylla was clean. Silly, I told myself, to be so damned cautious, but one of the first things I learned in the spy business was never to take anything for granted. Besides, there were those two guys who had tried to charter Scylla the day before, not to mention the “accident” that damaged the other boat. No, it was worth the hour. I opened a couple of beers and brought them back up to the cockpit.

“I was afraid you had gone to sleep,” Christina said.

“Just making sure. Now we can talk.” I sat well away from her, out of touching distance; it was time to get down to business.

“No... bugs?” she asked lightly.

“No,” I said flatly.

“Do you want to take the wheel?”

I looked off to starboard. We were getting closer to the point at the southernmost end of Zakinthos, which meant in a short while we’d have to change course and head northwest. I checked the wind; we were on a broad reach, the wind coming from almost due north; the change in course shouldn’t mean anything more than changing the set of the mainsail. The boat plowed steadily ahead, obviously happier under sail than power.

“You keep it,” I said. “You’re doing fine.”

“And now we can talk?”

“If you want to.”

She looked away, her eyes fixed on the compass mounted just ahead of the wheel.

“Well?” I asked.

“What is to talk?”

“Why were you afraid of that car last night?” I started in bluntly.

“The car?” She was stalling.

“Outside my hotel. Is there any reason you should be followed?”

Her eyes were wide when she looked at me. “But of course! Don’t you know?”

I sighed, touched her bare arm lightly. “Look, Christina, we’d better get some things straight. You’re on this trip because your brother insisted on it. But so far I don’t know how much contact you’ve had with him, or how it was made. I’ll be, honest; I don’t like it. Alex is an old friend and I wish he hadn’t brought you into this, but apparently he couldn’t be talked out of it. What I need to know first is how much you’ve been involved in this business.”

She licked her lips, glanced again at the compass, then aloft to check the set of the mainsail. Finally she shrugged. “Okay. The first thing I know about Alex... coming back... is that one of your people comes to me when I am leaving the boutique. He gives me a message that Alex will be in contact.” She turned to me. “You must know, McKee, that I hardly know my brother. I was only seven when he... went over to the other side. And before that he was always away, so I saw very little of him, ever. But then, our mother is dead now, and our father died many years ago, when I was a baby. So I suppose he... he felt that since I was the only member of the family left... he could trust me?” She finished on a questioning note, which wasn’t very reassuring to me.

I didn’t make an issue of it. “What contact have you had with him since?”

“Two, three times, I have had messages; I do not know how he got them to me. I simply found them slipped under my door when I got home from classes or work.”

“What did they say?”

“I do not have them with me. He advised me to burn them.”

Thank God for that, I said to myself. “But you do remember.”

“Of course. He said he was coming back, that American agents would meet him, and that he wanted me to be there.”

“I still don’t understand why you.”

“Nor do I.”

“Does he want to take you with him?”

“I cannot say. The plan, as I know it, is for me to sail to Korfu with you, meet Alex there and then return to Athens. Holiday finished.” She smiled mistily. “As I recall, so dimly, my big brother was always a pig-headed person, always demanding his own way. Perhaps he simply wants to see the last remaining member of the family.”

It was pretty clear we weren’t getting anywhere along this line, so I changed direction. “Let’s go back to the tan car last night. You were afraid. Why?”

“I don’t know. I have never been involved in this sort of thing before, so perhaps I am too much aware of... things.”

“This is a silly question, but I have to ask it. You haven’t mentioned this to anyone? I mean, just something like hearing from your brother after all these years?”

She shook her head emphatically, then had to wipe some strands of hair away from her mouth. “No. I... I do not have any close friends, McKee. No one I would be likely to talk to.”

I looked at her. “That’s kind of strange,” I said bluntly. “No close friends?”

She flushed under her tan. “Oh yes, I see. Well, I was... somewhat involved with a young man until quite recently. I am no longer. And I do not have any close girl friends. My work and my new university; I have changed my life quite a bit, so there is no one I would tell such a thing to.”

“But you were still afraid.”

She shrugged again. “You are a spy, McKee, and I feel sure that is not your real name, but no matter; don’t you become suspicious about things like that car last night?”

“Uh-huh. But not necessarily. This is a top secret operation, Christina; nobody should know anything about it except the few of us involved.”

“Yes, I suppose...”

“All right, let’s forget that. Maybe someone has leaked some details of this operation. Our job is to carry it through anyway. We have a couple of days at sea to talk, so start by telling me how Alex is supposed to contact you in Korfu.”

She hesitated, fighting the wheel as the wake from a large power boat rocked Scylla. Then she sighed and slumped against the orange life preserver she was using as a backrest. “We have agreed on a date and a time to meet. It is a taverna in Korfu.”

“Oh great!” I threw up my hands. “Just where anybody looking for him would expect to find him, coming from Albania.”

“Oh, but not one will be looking for him, McKee.”

“How do you mean?”

“In his last message he told me that time was most important. For at least two or three days after he leaves, they will not know he is missing.”

“And how does he manage that?”

“He did not say. His messages have been short.”

“Yeah, I guess they have. Korfu.” I got up, went below and returned with a bundle of rolled-up charts. When I found the one with Korfu on it I only had to look for a moment to know it was all wrong. “We’re not sailing into there,” I said.

She looked at where I was pointing. “Why not?”

“Because when your brother and I leave, we’ll have a long run, fifteen or twenty miles in either direction, until we reach the open sea. No matter what he says, somebody might be looking for Alex before we can get across to Taranto.”

She looked at the chart. Korfu, the principal city of Korfu, was tucked midway along the island’s east coast. Across just a few miles of water were the coasts of both Greece and Albania, and I wasn’t about to try a getaway with a defector from both of those countries in a boat that could do a red-hot four or five knots. Not from there, at any rate; it would take me a good piece of a day just to get out into open water from Korfu. Maybe if I hadn’t had my visit from the two heavies, one dead now, a couple of nights ago, I would have risked it. But now it was out of the question.

“But what else can we do?” Christina asked.

I took a long look at the chart. On the seaward coast of Korfu was a tiny town called Ayios Matthaios. “Do you know this place?”

Christina shook her head. “I have never been to Korfu.”

“Well, we’ll sail in there and leave the boat. I guess we can get a car of some kind to take us to Korfu.”

“But... McKee?”

“Yeah?”

“Why would we go to a place like that? You are supposed to be a tourist, and me... well. No tourist would sail to a remote place like that and drive to Korfu. Unless we were in some sort of awful hurry.”

She was right. If we were going to play this out all the way, particularly at the crucial stage, we couldn’t afford to do anything out of line. I unrolled a couple of other charts, checked a few things. “Okay, Christina, you have a point. Tonight we put in somewhere on Celphalonia. That’s the next big island after Zakinthos. Tomorrow night, Preveza, and the next afternoon Ayios Matthaios. But when we get there we’ll have some kind of trouble with the boat; that’ll be our excuse, and I’ll make it look legitimate. Overnight in Korfu, then back to...”

She was shaking her head so violently that I had to stop talking. “What’s wrong?”

“No!” she gasped. “No, not there!”

“But why not? It’s the best damned place I can see, even if it is hard to pronounce.”

“I don’t mean there.” She pointed at the chart. “Not Ayios Matthaios.” Her finger moved back up along the coastline. “There.”

“Preveza? What’s wrong with that?”

For no reason I could begin to understand she buried her face against my shoulder, clutching at my arm. “No, McKee, or whatever your name is. Please! Wherever we stop, let it never be Preveza!”

Ten

So we scratched Preveza. Christina’s objection was so hysterical that I decided not to probe, at least not then. Afterward, she seemed ashamed at her outburst, as though she wished she could take it back. But whatever she meant by it, I was grateful; it showed that she was under pressure, no longer the gorgeous water-skiing goddess who could casually pick up the American tourist and take off for a little cruise. It brought things back into focus, and that was good for me.

We spent the rest of the first day enjoying the open sea, staying well away from Zakinthos and, when the sun began to drop over the open Mediterranean, heading for Argostilion, the major city on Cephalonia. At dockside we took on more provisions, canned goods, ice, a lot of alcohol for the galley stove, then found a restaurant where we had a glum supper. Christina was silent, concentrating on her dish of indistinguishable vegetables and spices, as the sun disappeared outside.

“I suppose,” she said, “we will sleep aboard?”

“That was the plan.”

“Yes.” She said it with a resigned sigh.

“Is that a problem?”

“No.” She said it too quickly. “Can we go out into the harbor and anchor?”

“Maybe. I’ll check with the harbormaster; we can probably pick up a vacant mooring.”

“Couldn’t we just... go on?”

“You said we had three days. What’s the hurry?”

“Have you ever, sailed at night? Out on the open sea, with the sails filled by a gentle wind?”

The words sounded strange, coming from Christina. “Yes,” I replied.

“Then can’t we, McKee?” Her hand snaked across the table to lay fingers on my arm. They were cool, trembling slightly.

“You mean you want to sail all night?”

“It would be pleasure.”

“Well... why not?”

Just then a waiter brought us Turkish coffee, and while I was filtering the sediment from the bottom of the cup through my teeth Christina got up to attend to herself. When she returned, all legs and tan, she dropped into her chair so abruptly I thought she would break it.

“McKee!” she hissed. “There was someone!”

“Uh-huh. What kind of someone?”

“A man! Leaning against the wall right outside the ladies’ room!”

“So?”

“But I have seen him before! Last night, in Pirgos!”

That got my attention. “Where in Pirgos?”

“It was...” She hesitated, put a finger to her mouth and gnawed on the nail. “In my hotel, after I left you. He was talking to the desk clerk when I arrived there.”

I stood up. “He is still there?”

“No! When I left he had gone. McKee! How can they follow us like this?”

“Don’t be too sure he’s following us.”

“But he must be!”

“Okay, okay. Relax.” I got up. “Let me make a little visit of my own.”

But when I got back into the little passageway off the main dining room, there was no one there at all, and I found the men’s room empty. Christina was looking anxiously in my direction when I returned, and I shook my head as I sat down. “Nobody. You’re positive it was the same man you saw at your hotel?”

“Yes.”

“Describe him.”

She hesitated, biting her lip. “He was... shorter than you, but very wide. Dark suit, dark hair. Balding, I think, but he wore a hat so I couldn’t be sure.”

“Just what did he do?”

“He was just... standing there. Talking to the desk clerk...”

“What language?”

“Oh, Greek. Yes.”

“Did he speak to you? Do anything?”

“No, nothing like that. He simply looked; I could feel his eyes on me all the way up the stairway.”

I laughed. “I can hardly blame him.”

“But he’s here!”

“Uh-huh. That’s not funny, is it? Okay, Christina, an all-night sail it is. But you’re going to have to spell me at the wheel if I can’t keep my eyes open.”

She smiled. “I promise, McKee, that I will do everything I can think of to keep you awake.”

By the time we headed back to the boat, Christina’s fleeting spell of lightheartedness was gone; at every turn she kept glancing back over her shoulder until I had to tell her to knock it off. When we were aboard and clearing the harbor, she scrutinized every craft we passed, then kept an eye on anything that moved. It was almost dark, but a number of other boats were still scudding back and forth. One was a good-sized power boat that skimmed close to us, jammed with shrieking revelers who obviously couldn’t have cared less where the party was. Several of them waved at us; I waved back, but Christina seemed to try to shrink down out of sight.

“Cut that out!” I snapped. “You’re just attracting attention to us. The wrong kind.”

She glowered at me, then straightened, waved feebly at the retreating cruiser. As we watched, the speeding boat headed for a huge motor yacht, nearly as big as a cruise ship, that was idling along well out to sea. Every porthole was ablaze with lights, and even from that distance I could hear the throb of rock music coming faintly across the water.

“Looks like some kind of party,” I remarked.

Christina nodded. We watched the power boat slow, come alongside the motor yacht. Lines were lowered and attached, and the smaller boat, still filled, was hauled up to the main deck level. There were whoops of laughter, and through my binoculars I saw one woman stand up, nearly falling overboard.

“Damn fools,” I muttered.

“Yes,” the girl beside me agreed. “Tourists.”

I grinned at her. “That’s me.”

“No you are not, McKee. You are a spy.”

I winced. “Okay, then, Miss Assistant Spy. Take the wheel while I go below and break out some warm sweaters for us. It’s starting to get chilly.”

Her smile was loaded with meaning. “But I am not at all cold.”

She wore a light shirt, buttoned carelessly over the top of her bikini and the same faded blue shorts. I made a point of showing my appreciation of how she looked. “Let’s keep it that way,” I said, and went below.

When I got back she was half-curled up on the wide built-in seat that ran all the way around the cockpit, legs tucked under her and her head propped up on one elbow.

“That looks comfortable, but I don’t want you running my boat like that during the night. Too easy to go to sleep in that position.”

“Aye aye, Captain,” she responded, flipping me a little salute.

I tossed her a sweater and dumped a blanket on the seat beside her, then went forward to check the jib. It was bellied nicely by the quartering breeze, and when I tested it I found the self-setting rig wasn’t at all fouled up. The anchor was rigged, ready to go over the side if we had to stop, though in these deep waters there weren’t many places where our line would reach bottom. I remembered to close the forward hatch, mentally accepting Nathaniel Franklin’s pat on the back, and edged back to the cockpit.

“Everything shipshape, Skipper?” Christina asked.

“Uh-huh.” I eyed her curiously. “You sound as though you’ve been seeing too many let’s-go-Navy movies.”

“I was taught to sail by an American ensign.”

“Hah! You mean those swabbies can actually sail?”

“Well, it was a tiny little boat. There was barely room for both of us on it.”

“That must have been cozy.” I dropped down on the seat next to her tucked-under feet.

Abruptly she sat up straight, her eyes fixed on a flashing light off to starboard. “What is that?”

I didn’t have to check my chart. “It’s the light off that headland we saw when we went into port. Once we’ve put that behind us, we head north again.”

“I see. You are right, McKee, this would be no time to be paying no attention. Do you wish to sleep? You have had a long day.”

She sounded almost prim as she spoke, her eyes fixed straight ahead, both hands on the spoked wheel.

“No. Not now. I’ll just sit here and... enjoy the view.”

Christina didn’t acknowledge the clumsy remark.

For a long time neither of us spoke; then she started to wriggle, conscious of my steady gaze.

“Why do you look at me so much?” she demanded irritably.

“I didn’t think you minded. Last night, in the street, you were... a very different girl.”

“That was acting.”

“For the men in the tan Mercedes?”

“Of course.”

“And now you’re not?”

She turned her head to face me, and in the gathering darkness her eyes were steady and sober. “McKee, I would perhaps like to go to bed with you. Some time. If it were necessary to make love with you in order to convince anyone that we are what we pretend to be, then I would not hesitate. For a time I was in love with a fellow student, and I can honestly say he was not nearly so attractive as you. And yet...” She shrugged and glanced aloft again, then back at me. “I am not a tramp, to tumble into bed with the first American tourist, or spy, call yourself what you will, I meet. Do you understand?”

“Sure.” I shifted slightly away from her, though not out of touching distance. “It also explains why you suddenly decided to sail all night long.”

It was too dark to see if she flushed, but from the way she ducked her head I could see she was embarrassed.

“That is true, McKee. In part. If I am to be firm in my resolve, there is no point in risking unnecessary temptation.”

“But only in part?”

“Yes. I have been doing some thinking since we spoke earlier today.”

“About what?”

“About the way you have altered our plans.”

“How do you mean?”

“Alex... he is highly cautious. Suspicious. I know just from the brief messages I have received from him.”

“I’ve sort of gotten that impression myself.”

“So I think... it would be unwise to make such a change.”

“You mean we should go into Korfu as planned?”

“I think it would be best, yes.”

Funny thing was, I’d been doing some thinking along the same lines myself, and decided I was being too careful. If there was a security breach, and a pursuit of some kind, it wouldn’t make that much difference if we were between Korfu and the mainland or on the open sea; they’d catch us, either way.

“So do I,” I said.

Her eyes widened in surprise, as though she’d been expecting an argument. “You do?”

I explained my reasoning. She nodded.

“The problem is,” I went on, “we’re going to have to kill a day or so after we get to Korfu at the rate we’re going. The logical place to put in tomorrow would be Preveza...”

I could feel her tense at the name, and again wondered why she didn’t want to go near the place.

“But,” I went on, “since that’s out, the next stopover short of Korfu should be Paxos. We could probably stay over there an extra day, but as long as you think we’re being tailed I don’t like to spend too long in any one port.”

“Yes, I see. Oh, perhaps I am imagining things, McKee, but since I saw that man in the taverna back there in Argostilion I do not think so, not so much.”

Maybe it was time to tell her about my own encounter, but I didn’t think so. Not yet. The more I saw of this girl, the more complicated she became, and that was true of the mission, too.

“Okay,” I said, “we’ll worry about that tomorrow. Now, tell me how Alex plans to contact you next.”

“I... I am not supposed to tell. Not even you.”

“That’s foolish. You said something about a taverna in Korfu, but no more. Suppose you fell overboard or something.”

She smiled. “I swim like a fish.”

“It wouldn’t do you much good if you fall in at night while I’m asleep below. You can’t catch a boat under sail, believe me.”

“It won’t happen, McKee.”

“Don’t be too sure. Anyway, I’m going to sleep up here.”

“You will be cold.”

“At least I’ll have company. It’s lonesome down below.”

She laughed.

“So let’s get back to cases. Your contact with Alex.”

“Really, McKee. I may not say.”

“You’d better think again, sweetheart. If there are people after us, we could get separated, or worse.”

She hesitated, chewing at her lip. Finally she shook her head slowly. “Perhaps tomorrow. Let me think, McKee.”

“Get this straight, Christina. “My orders are to rendezvous with Alex, pick him up and get him over to Italy. Right now you’re the only contact I have with him, so we’d better trust each other or turn around right here and say the hell with it”

She started, her eyes widening in fear. “You wouldn’t!”

“Damned right I would.” I was bluffing, but from her reaction she seemed to be partly convinced.

“Please, McKee. All of this is so new to me; I don’t know what to do, who to obey. Must we be in conflict?”

“It’s up to you,” I said flatly.

“Then I will tell you.”

I waited until the silence grew thick enough to cut with a knife.

“Tomorrow,” Christina said in a small voice.

I glowered at her, then sighed, stretched out on the cushioned seat and grabbed a life preserver for a pillow. “Wake me when you get tired,” I growled.

“Yes,” she said softly.

“And keep a sharp eye on that compass.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Eleven

The morning came up blustery, with dark clouds scudding low overhead. By daylight there was a heavy chop working, and the heavy, broad-beamed boat rocked and dipped like a runaway hobby horse. Christina had gone below to sleep, but in a short while she emerged on deck again, pale and anxious.

“Are we all right?” she asked, looking at the clouds with alarm.

“Nothing to worry about.” I had to yell above the rising shriek of the wind and the rattle and creak of the rigging. An abrupt shift in the wind started the big mainsail flapping like a tethered, frantic eagle; I fought the helm until we were on a heading that filled the canvas again.

Christina steadied herself with a hand on the cabin top and looked all around, slightly wild-eyed. “Where are we? I don’t see any land.”

“Oh, it’s over there somewhere.” I waved vaguely to starboard.

“But don’t you know?” There was a tiny edge of panic in her voice.

“Don’t worry.” I checked my watch; it was close to six in the morning. Once during the night I’d estimated our speed, and figured we were roughly opposite Preveza, but that was very roughly. I didn’t tell the girl. “If it looks like we’re getting into trouble, all I have to do is head east and we’ll strike land.” Not, at the moment, an inviting prospect, since the wind was from that direction now, and it would have meant a laborious series of long tacks to buck it. I knew enough, thanks to Nathaniel, to realize that the underpowered auxiliary engine wouldn’t be of much help in this kind of sea; without the stabilizing effect of the wind in the sails, Scylla would go more up and down than forward.

“But... can’t we find out exactly where we are? With that... what do you call it? Trident?”

I chuckled. “Sextant.” I glanced overhead. “And until there’s some sun to take a fix on, the answer is no.”

She frowned, clearly worried, took her bracing hand away from the cabin top and immediately staggered backward, nearly falling through the open companionway behind her.

“Watch it!” I shouted. “Let’s not have any broken legs on this little pleasure cruise. Come over here and sit down.”

She did as she was told, lurching across the open cockpit and almost crashing into the compass binnacle. I grabbed her arm, pulled her down beside me.

“Stay put. For God’s sake don’t break the compass, because then even I’d start to worry.”

She smiled fleetingly and pushed her hair back from her face. Her skin was damp, and it wasn’t from the spray that was occasionally breaking over the side. I knew the look.

“Feeling a little queasy?”

“Queasy? I don’t know the word.”

“Sickish.”

“A... a little. It is so stuffy down there, and the boat jumping around so much.”

“Uh-huh. Well, stay up here until we’re out of this. Take the wheel.”

“Me?” She pulled her hands away as though afraid to touch it.

“Why not? Best seasick cure in the world, keeping busy up on deck.”

“I am not seasick!”

“Whatever you want to call it. Either way, I guarantee in a few minutes you’ll feel fine. Take it. I have work to do.”

She did as she was told, sliding over to the spot I vacated as I stood up. For a moment she looked dubiously at me, then took a deep breath and gripped the wheel with both hands. I went below to the head.

When I returned a few minutes later she was smiling faintly, lifting her head to catch the breeze and the salt spray. The treatment had worked quicker than I’d thought it would.

“Feel like talking?”

“Talking?”

“Uh-huh. You know.”

“Oh yes.” She lifted herself out of the seat to get a better look at the compass face. “A little later, eh McKee? I’m a little busy right now.”

I let it go at that.

By noon the day was calm and sunny again; I took a fix with the sextant and a silent prayer that my rudimentary navigation would be at least reasonably accurate. I was surprised to find we had come further than I expected; Preveza should lie almost due east of us. It was a small island, no more than four or five miles long, and wouldn’t be hard to miss. The wind was still blowing from the east, and though the sea was calmer there was still a nasty little chop. With a sigh I set to work on the first of our tacks. This was not going to be a day for pleasure, or even the business at hand.

I went below, set up the chart for our area on the broad table in the main cabin and marked our present position. From here on in I’d have to mark our deviations precisely as we tacked back and forth against the wind, keep track of the precise time spent on each tack and hope my estimations of distance covered were reasonably accurate. It wouldn’t have been easy even with an experienced hand at the helm, but with Christina spelling me there it made things much more complicated and uncertain; after all, she’d never sailed out of sight of land before. On the other hand, I wasn’t exactly an old-timer at deepwater sailing myself.

We hit the little island on the nose, late in the afternoon. The day had turned golden as we powered our way into the lovely little harbor of Porto Gayo. At first glance it seemed like a primitive, undeveloped place; all we could see was the silver-green of olive groves that stretched in all directions as far as we could see. Then as we drew nearer we could make out the low buildings, white and brown and pink, with bare masts of moored boats bobbing in the harbor.

The town was small but busy; most of the houses stretched along the waterfront. A stone quay bordered the harbor; on the shoreward side was a row of small shops, tavernas, and a couple of tiny hotels. Without discussing it, Christina agreed to spend the night aboard Scylla; the harbormaster assigned us a mooring well away from shore, which suited me fine. Our boat, carried a tiny dinghy slung in davits at the stern, and getting into the bathtub-sized little boat was a major feat of balance and timing. With the two of us crammed in it, we rode so low in the water I expected us to be swamped before we could make the couple of hundred yards to the quayside.

“Lucky there aren’t any water-skiers here,” I commented.

“Oh?” Christina seemed cheerful now, the worries of the morning and the fear of the night before completely forgotten.

I shifted my weight just a little; the dinghy rocked and shipped some water over one side. The girl looked alarmed, then laughed.

“Yes, I see what you mean. Perhaps we should be sure to get back to our boat before dark, eh?”

“Won’t make any difference; we can sink in daylight or night time.”

“And we can always swim.”

“Sure.” Our knees were sort of interlocking, it couldn’t be helped, and it seemed to me that she was exerting a little extra pressure. Maybe.

We took a long walk through the little town and a short way outside, playing tourist with a vengeance. The countryside was green and stony, rising abruptly from the sea like the top of a sunken mountain that most of the Greek islands actually were. From the dusty road we could look up and see a hillside dotted with chalky boulders, some as big as the cottages that stood among them, the dwellings distinguishable in some cases chiefly by the dark squares that marked their windows. A wheezing old car that looked like a pre-War Citroën labored past us, crammed with grownups and children. The local rich folks, I presumed; the others we saw on the road were either walking or driving horse-drawn carts. Mostly they paid no attention to us; the men short and stocky, many with great mustaches, the women in the peasant’s standard dress of ankle-length black, usually with matching shawls that nearly hid their faces. It was something that had already puzzled me about Greece from the time I first began to read about it: why such a sunny land with its bracing air and sparkling waters should be populated by women, and many men, in perpetual mourning. If I’d been feeling philosophical I might have asked Christina about it, but I had other things on my mind. Sailing gives you an appetite that can turn the most finicky eater into a glutton, and I was starving.

We found a taverna overlooking the quay, and the dinner was so surprisingly good that we lingered over it until well after dark. The place was obviously designed for touring yachtsmen; the menu was partly in English, decorated with crudely drawn anchors and seashells. In the beginning we were the only ones in the place, but shortly afterward a group of men and women clattered in, their sunburned faces and well-pressed nautical clothes branding them plainly. From the snatches of talk I heard it seemed to be a mixed group of Americans and British, with an Italian woman and two apparent Frenchmen included. Nothing out of the way, I told myself, and glanced at Christina.

She was staring straight ahead, as though at something beyond my left shoulder, but I could tell by the set of her chin and the shallowness of her breathing that she was tense.

“What is it?” I asked, leaning forward so we couldn’t be heard.

“I... it is nothing.” She smiled briefly. “I seem to suspect everyone. I will be glad when this is all over.”

“Will you?”

“Yes.”

I reached for her hand across the table. “I’m not sure I’ll be.”

She looked at me for a long moment. “No,” she said finally. “Perhaps I won’t be either.”

No one spoke to us until we were having coffee, but then one of the Frenchmen across the room got up and made his way deliberately to our table. He was a slight man with a mop of sandy hair and a shy smile that was full of confidence.

“Excuse me,” he said, looking mostly at Christina. “You are Americans?”

“I am,” I said. “She’s not.”

“My friends and I were wondering if you would care to join us for a drink.” He was still looking at Christina; I couldn’t blame him. I queried her with my eyebrows.

She shook her head firmly. “I am terribly sorry,” she said with cool politeness. “But we must go to bed early; it has been a long day.” She stood up with the fluid grace of a princess dismissing an unworthy admirer. “Will you pay the check, Daniel? We must be going. I shall return in a moment.”

The Frenchman retreated, with a visible effort to retain his nonchalant composure. I smiled to myself as I laid out the drachmas; the girl was still surprising me. Watching her move toward the rest room, I enjoyed the view, even from the rear, of nicely filled white slacks with a loose blue shirt over them. The simple costume made it clear what she wasn’t wearing underneath, and suddenly, recalling the previous night, I wasn’t looking forward to this one.

The waiter came, took my money, and gave it to the plump, mustached woman behind the cash register. He was taking a long time about it, and I was starting to get impatient. When he finally returned I was already on my feet, but as he departed I sat down again. Christina still hadn’t come back.

“It must be my impatience,” I told myself, and deliberately didn’t look at my watch. I checked the table across the room; they were looking in my direction, and the young Frenchman was grinning.

I made myself sit still, sipping at the dregs of my coffee while my gut tightened as the minutes ticked by. I was recalling her alarm when she saw the man at the restaurant in Argostilion and was starting to get as jumpy as she had been.

The woman behind the register was looking at me questioningly. I looked back, finally got up and approached her.

“I hope you speak English.”

“But of course,” she replied.

“The young lady.” I gestured toward the rest room — or at least the corridor leading to it. “We’ve had a long day of sailing and maybe she’s not well...”

“But of course,” she repeated and heaved her black-clad bulk off the high stool to waddle toward the ladies’ room. A moment later she returned, shrugging. “No one there,” she declared.

“Where the hell...?”

“Rear door, perhaps.” She glanced toward the table where the Frenchman was looking suspiciously smug, like a man who has everything sorted out and is in no hurry to put. the pieces together.

Except that I didn’t believe it for a minute. No one had left that table, and it seemed damned unlikely that Christina would have ditched me for an evening with a casual pickup. Not now, anyway. I ignored him.

“Thank you,” I said to the woman and hurried out of the taverna. When I came to the spot where we’d left the dinghy, I wasn’t surprised to find it there; she certainly wouldn’t have gone back to the boat alone. But as I looked out over the darkened harbor, I could make out a dark shape drifting close to Scylla. It was a small outboard boat, its prow nudging the hull of the sloop, and from the way it bobbed and dipped, I got the impression it had been left there only moments ago. As I watched, a light gleamed through the ports of the main cabin, and there were no doubts left.

I got into the dinghy, cast off, and rowed as quickly as possible across the crowded harbor. The thumping of the oars in the oarlocks seemed like thunder in my ears, but just as I paused to figure a way to muffle the sound, a motorboat roared by. Its wake nearly swamped me, but I kept control and used the noise to stroke the rest of the distance to Scylla.

I tied up at the bow, then eased up onto the forward deck. The surface was damp with dew, and as I lay there, I could feel the moisture soaking through my shirt. It didn’t bother me; I was more concerned with the fact that no light came through the plexiglas hatch cover right in front of my nose. That meant the doorway between the cabins was closed.

I eased the hatch open, thankful I hadn’t dogged it down from the inside earlier. It swung up silently, and I let myself down between the two narrow bunks below. The hatch swung closed again, slowed by my hand until it snugged shut. I moved toward the doorway, checking Hugo in its forearm sheath as I put my ear to the thin wooden panel.

If my Greek had been better, I might have been able to tell what they were saying, but the man’s words spewed out too rapidly for me to take in more than a few fragments of the conversation. But his voice made it clear that he was threatening someone, and when I heard Christina reply, there was no question who. I heard the sound of a hard slap and a muffled cry. I started to slip my knife into my hand when a ton of bricks dropped on me from above.

He had come through the hatch I’d just closed and again hadn’t dogged. In the darkness I couldn’t see a thing except a bulky shadow pressing down on me; in the cramped space between the bunks I couldn’t even roll over to get at the man. A blast of garlic-laden breath almost suffocated me, and that gave me the strength of desperation. I heaved up, like a mustang with a burr under its saddle, trying to shake the foul-smelling man loose from my back. His head thumped against the low ceiling; he grunted heavily while his hands still sought a grip around my throat. I bucked him again, started to slam him over onto one of the bunks when the door swung open.

The light in the main cabin was dim, but after the total darkness, I was blinded for a moment. All I saw was a silhouette and the gleam of metal in his hand. I lashed out with my feet but couldn’t quite reach him. There was the chilling click of a hammer being drawn back; I wrenched my body around, trying to get the man on my back between me and the gun, but I knew it was too late.

The shot was like a thunder clap in the cramped little space. For a moment I froze, waiting to feel where I had been hit. But there was no pain, not even the early numbness that precedes the agony of a serious hit. As I looked again at the silhouette in the doorway, I saw him stagger back. The man who had jumped me relaxed his grip, and I tore free, intent on the gunman.

I kicked the pistol from his hand and shoved him backward. In the dim light beyond I saw Christina, her hand twined in his hair, tugging at it with all her might. But in the struggle her free arm flailed out behind her and hit the kerosene light, knocking it loose from its gimbals.

Flaming liquid spilled over the table, then to the deck, licking along the planking toward us in the sudden darkness. I pushed the man aside, heedless now even of Christina. Fire aboard a boat is maybe the most terrifying thing there is, especially when you’re trapped below and the fire is headed straight for the gas tanks.

I grabbed blankets from the bunks and threw them over the biggest burning areas; as they smoldered, I turned on the water in the galley sink, then dove into the big hanging locker and hauled out the foul-weather gear to toss over other burning spots. The whole business couldn’t have taken more than a minute and a half — otherwise we’d have lost the boat and probably our lives — but when I finally had the fire out, our visitors were gone. I heard the outboard start, tried to get up to the cockpit, but crashed into Christina.

“McKee!” she shrieked, throwing her arms around my neck. “Oh God! McKee!”

“Yeah, yeah.” I patted her absently, listening to the fading sound of the motor. “What happened here?”

“I... they took me away from the taverna. The man had a gun and...”

“Okay.” I pushed her away, just a little, so I could bend down and check the deck underfoot. “Get me a flashlight, huh?”

For all the fire and confusion, there wasn’t much damage to speak of. Luckily the table that had taken the first wave of burning kerosene was formica-topped; a few swipes with a rag would clear away the smudges. The planking in the deck that ran through the middle of the cabin was always damp from bilgewater sloshing just below, and only the paint was scorched. When I was satisfied there was nothing left smoldering anywhere on board I turned the light on Christina.

“Sorry,” I said curtly. “Since the bully boys have gone, I figured it would be better to make sure we don’t explode before getting around to questions.”

The girl nodded heavily, head slumped between her shoulders as she sat on the portside bunk. “I understand.”

“Want to help me now?”

“Help you?”

“We’re not going to stay here tonight, sweetheart. Let’s go pick up some other mooring — unless you want to sail all night again.”

“Oh, God no, McKeel.” She buried her face in her hands. “So much...”

“Well don’t cave in now. Come on. Bring the dinghy around from the bow and tie it at the stern while I get the engine started.”

In a way, it would have made better sense to take off that night, but I was beginning to get some more crazy feelings about this operation. If they wanted us, they could get us. Especially out on the open sea. So maybe a different location for the rest of the night would be just as safe. Anyway, I was tired, too.

We found a mooring at the outer fringe of the harbor, tied on to it and finished cleaning up. We put another lantern in the bracket, and while Christina scrubbed the table top, I made a thorough check of the rest of the cabin, clearing away the last of the broken glass and other debris. I found the gun I’d kicked from the man’s hand, an old .32 revolver with only one other cartridge in the cylinder. Not much use, but I stuck it on a shelf in the galley, just in case.

“You don’t ask any questions,” Christina said quietly.

“I was waiting for you.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Maybe what the hell happened.”

“It seems so... silly.”

“Silly?”

“Yes. You see, the man, the one with the gun, grabbed me back at the taverna. A coarse man, no better than a hoodlum, do you know? He and his companion forced me to come back to the boat...”

“Why? And why here?”

“That is what is so silly. They thought you were a rich American, cruising around to find boats to buy. They thought you had much money hidden aboard here, and they were trying to force me to tell when... well... you came along.”

I looked at her skeptically. She looked as delicious as ever, and with her hair drooping beside her face, she invited sympathy and reassuring caresses. When I didn’t say anything, she looked up at me. “What is it, McKee?”

“Nothing,” I said, almost convincing myself. It could have been true, after all. And what reason would the sister of Alex Zenopolis have to be playing such an elaborate game with me? I managed a sympathetic smile. “Well, it’s over now. One of those things, I guess. How do you feel?”

Slowly her head came up, and she tossed the hair back from her face. It would have taken most women hours in a beauty parlor to achieve the same change in appearance.

“Like a nightcap,” she said, and grinned.

There was brandy aboard, and a bottle of bourbon I’d located in Athens. It seemed like a good time to break it out.

“Which will it be?” I asked, holding up both bottles.

“Ah! You have bourbon!” Her eyes danced in the dim light.

“Don’t tell me you learned other things from that American ensign.”

“We learn many things from the Americans.” She sank down on the narrow bunk opposite the table, looking up at me. My throat went dry, and I needed that drink.

After I poured a couple of healthy jolts, she patted the bunk beside her. “Sit down, McKee.”

I did. Her hand came to rest casually on my thigh and the cool warmth of her seemed to radiate through the thin dark blouse she wore. I cleared my throat.

“Here’s to... Paxos.”

“Yes,” she murmured, and took a long, slow swallow.

“Now,” I said.

She turned to me in mock surprise. “Right away?”

“Yes. You promised. About your contact with Alex.”

For a moment she stared, then slowly shook her head. “Must we? Now?”

“What better time?”

“Oh... later?” She moved closer, and somehow a couple of the buttons at the top of her blouse had managed to work loose. There was a delicious swelling of flesh at the opening, and my left hand lifted of its own accord to gently cup the breast that pressed against my chest. “Yes,” she breathed. “Yes...”

I moved away. “What is it with you?” I snapped. “Last night you were playing virgin; tonight you’re a whore again.”

She didn’t react as I’d expected; her eyes stayed at half-mast as she took my hand and replaced it on her breast. “Do not try to understand me all at once, McKee. Trust me. Trust my instincts.”

“Your instincts?”

“Later, McKee. But now...” Another button opened, then another; at the same time she leaned forward to press her lips softly against mine. For the moment my questions were forgotten.

Her tongue darted against mine, probing, reaching. My hand slipped inside the open blouse, felt the nipple growing and hardening under my fingers. She gasped, then slid her hand up my thigh. There was no mistaking my interest, and she chuckled deep in her throat.

Peeling back the blouse, I kissed her shoulder, the deep, shadowed cleft, one breast, then the other. Then I pulled back to look and admire; the nipples stood stiff and erect, tilting up slightly as though reaching for my mouth. Christina’s hips were moving slowly while her hand crept inside the waistband of my trousers. I sucked in my belly to give her a little more room, and she took full advantage of it...

Don’t ask how I managed to turn out the cabin lamps — boating people are so damned casual about just dropping by — and turning that table and benches into a bed, but in a few moments we were lying naked together, her body clamped against mine from toes to shoulders. We explored each other with growing hunger, and her tongue was busy and deft; and then when it seemed as though we would both burst with the urgent wanting she opened herself to me.

She gasped as I thrust, taking it slow; she said something I didn’t understand and tried to pull me deeper inside. I resisted just enough to show who was boss, then began the long, slow movements that probed ever deeper with each stroke. She raised her legs, clasped them around my back, jerking her hips upward to meet my deepening thrusts. She began to moan, pulling me down to kiss me with growing fierceness as her movements became quicker, more frantic.

When it happened she threw her head back, eyes and mouth wide open, hands clawing at my shoulders, her hips pumping like pistons. It seemed to go on forever, our mutual gasps blending as I exploded inside her, and when at last we were both drained I lay helplessly across her, aware of that delicious weakness and the slipperiness of sweat-soaked bodies. It was a long time before she spoke.

“McKee?” she said, her voice husky.

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

I chuckled. “Thank you.”

“No. You can’t understand.” There was an odd note of resignation in her voice.

“Try me.”

She shook her head. “No. I cannot say.”

“Say what?”

“What I wish to.”

She was going around in circles again, but I resisted my exasperation. I rolled partly off her, but she clung with astonishing strength.

“No! Do not leave me!”

“I’m not going anywhere. The night has a long way to go, Christina.” I reached over the side of the bed and found a glass on the floor, picked it up and took a long swallow of bourbon. As the liquid burned its way down my throat to my stomach I could already feel my strength returning...

“Yes,” the girl breathed, reaching for the glass and raising her head to sip. “It is our night, and I fear it will be the only one, McKee.”

She was right, as I found out too damned quickly, but even Christina didn’t know how right she was.

Twelve

They were waiting for us in Korfu, right down to the tan Mercedes parked conspicuously by the principal docks. Two men, indistinguishable in dark suits with hats hiding most of their faces, sat gazing impassively as Christina and I walked along the harborside promenade, a couple of seagoing tourists pleasantly exhausted from the night of love and the long, slow day of sailing to what some call the most beautiful of all the Greek islands.

We had picked a mooring place at the northernmost part of the harbor, away from the bustling activity at the center. Out on the water, everywhere we looked, there were boats of all sizes and types, from tiny daysailers to native fishing craft to huge ocean-going yachts. The late afternoon sun was casting long shadows as we strolled past the rows of stalls offering native clothing, jewelry, art objects, food of all kinds whose smells mingled with the salt air and the indefinable odors of the mountainous countryside that loomed behind the town. There was the steady racket of motor scooters, cries of the stall vendors and music coming from the open doors of every other eating establishment. We were almost beginning to be caught up in the festive atmosphere ourselves when I spotted the Mercedes.

I gripped Christina’s arm warningly, urging to keep moving without breaking stride. At first she didn’t understand, but when she saw the car she stiffened; I dragged her forward.

“Don’t look at them. Keep moving.”

“But... how did they get here? With that car?”

“There are ferries, aren’t there?”

“Oh. Yes. But why do they just... sit there?”

“More important, how did they know we’d be here?” We were almost opposite the car. The men inside slowly turned their heads as we passed by, but there was no change in their expressions.

Christina shrugged resignedly. “Everyone comes to Korfu. Or... did you tell that man where you rented the boat?”

I thought for a moment. “Probably. At least I said I’d probably be heading north.”

“Did you have to tell him?”

“Couldn’t avoid it. He wanted to know where I planned to go, and if I’d said I wanted to cruise the Cyclades he’d have thought it was strange.”

“Why is that?”

“Look at a map. Pirgos is a long way from the Aegean; it would have made more sense to charter a boat at Piraeus if that was where I planned to go.”

“Of course. And those men... could they have been the ones who tried to rent this one?”

“Uh-huh. And probably damaged the one I was Originally going to take. Only that doesn’t make so much sense either.” It didn’t. If they wanted Alex, and by now I was convinced that no matter what Hawk had told me, there must have been a leak somewhere, why would they have tried to delay us back at Pirgos? The only answer I could think of was that if we stuck to travel by car it would be easier to follow us. It wasn’t a very satisfactory answer.

When we were well beyond the Mercedes I steered the girl toward a little stall that featured a mind-numbing display of multi-colored scarves. “Buy one,” I said. “Buy two, but take your time.”

While she picked over the merchandise, to the smiling delight of the wrinkled old woman proprietor, I looked casually up and down the promenade. The men in the Mercedes hadn’t moved, but I wasn’t that much concerned about them; they had made themselves so conspicuous that I was certain there had to be others. But there was such a busy, constantly moving crowd it was just about impossible to pick out anyone who looked remotely suspicious; there were as many dark-suited European types as gaily dressed tourists, and my chances of finding the man who’d killed his partner in my room were damned slim.

And all day Christina had evaded my questions about her contact with Alex.

When she had picked out a couple of scarves we walked on. As I held her arm lightly the girl was trembling.

“What is it?”

“It... it is becoming chilly, I think.”

“And...?”

“It is time, I think.” She took my hand, turned over the wrist and looked at my watch. “Yes. We must go.”

“I thought it wasn’t until tomorrow.”

“Today I am to... make the contact.”

“But we weren’t even supposed to be here today.”

“But we are.” Her smile was genuine, and a little too smug to suit me.

“Well you tricky little bitch.” I laughed. “Do we walk?”

“No. We take a cab.” She pointed ahead, toward a busy corner where a broad street ran back into the town from the promenade. “There should be one waiting there.”

Once again she surprised me; I’d been expecting more evasion, but now she was evidently taking me along after all. I didn’t say anything, but I pressed my free left arm against my side; Hugo nestled reassuringly in his sheath.

There were half a dozen cabs at the corner, parked in front of a big, sprawling old hotel that looked like the restored ruins of a Greek temple, its marble facade dingy with age. “Any particular one?” I asked as we approached the corner.

“Oh...” Christina stopped, closed her eyes and waved her forefinger in a little circle, then pointed. “That one,” she said, opening her eyes again.

That one was a dusty old Ford, manned by a bored-looking driver who was busily picking his teeth and ignoring the passersby. Several of the other drivers stood on the curb beside their cabs, bowing and gesturing, but Christina sailed past them to open the rear door of her choice. The burly man behind the wheel looked up reluctantly; he didn’t seem at all eager to take on any passengers. Must have been a New York taxi driver, I reflected, as I followed Christina into the musty rear of the cab.

The driver didn’t look around, but sighed and shifted heavily in his seat. Christina leaned forward and said something in rapid Greek. He nodded reluctantly, started the engine and put the car in gear.

After a U-turn we made our way through the heavy traffic along the wide street; soon it narrowed, and the rows of elegant shops were succeeded by a district of block-like houses, built side by side with hints of cool courtyards behind the solid array of blank facades. A black-clad woman riding a burdened donkey came toward us, unconcerned by the traffic backed up behind her. As we passed her, the driver spat out the window and muttered something; I didn’t have to know the language to understand what he said.

The street began to climb steeply; the houses became farther apart and we saw children playing in dusty yards, chickens pecking at the ground, nondescript dogs too indifferent to do more than lift their heads and stare at the passing cab. Soon the town was behind us, and the paved street gave way to a smooth dirt road that began to wind back and forth up the steep, tree-covered hill.

We drove in silence until we reached a crest. The driver slowed as we approached a small grove clustered around what appeared to be a temple of some sort, or possibly a tomb. Either way, it was of white marble, with columns in front flanked by sculptures with a basin in front that looked like a bird bath. The cab driver passed it, then made an abrupt left and came to a stop on a little turnout.

“Oh, what a superb view!” Christina cried.

From where we were parked we could see the entire town and the harbor below us, like a picture post card in the golden light, but I wasn’t interested in gorgeous views at this point. I leaned over to whisper to Christina. “Does he speak English?”

She shrugged. “I do not know.”

I took a chance. “Is this... the place?” I was annoyed; it was a hell of a place to make any kind of contact. The road wasn’t exactly busy, but there was a fairly steady stream of traffic going back and forth.

As I spoke to the girl I was aware that the taxi driver was slowly turning to look back at us. The toothpick still in his mouth, he began a long, slow smile.

“So,” he said. “It was you they sent. You don’t look one little bit different, all these years, Nick Carter.”

Thirteen

Before I could say anything he had the car in reverse, backed out into the road and continued along the road. Give her credit; Christina seemed as astonished as I was. She squeezed my hand hard, staring open-mouthed at the back of the driver’s head.

“Al...” she began, but I silenced her with a look.

“Yes. It is me.” The driver took off the flat, checkered cap he wore; his head was bald, but he was sitting straighter behind the wheel now, and even from the rear and after fifteen years I could see the bull strength in the neck and shoulders. “Naxos.” He named the year and the month. “You and me, Nick. Grenades in a cave. I stop the airplane, you shoot the man who was going to kill me. What they do to that sergeant boy, anyway, when you get him back to Germany?”

I didn’t reply. Not to his question, anyway. “I’d like a better look at your face,” I said carefully.

“Sure. We be where we going pretty soon, then I turn around. Fifteen years, I change some, yes?”

It was hard to tell. All I’d seen when we got in the cab was a heavy face with the usual thick black mustache. I definitely wasn’t expecting to find Alex Zenopolis on a street corner in the middle of Korfu, and certainly not today.

“I’ll let you know. Where are we going?”

“You and my sister will have drinks at tourist place a little way from here. Very sensational view, American bar with martinis and daiquiris. You still like bourbon best of all, Nick?”

I was remembering the story a World War II flyer told me, about how he was shot down over Germany and when they took him in for interrogation after he was captured, the man across the desk from him told him things about himself even he’d forgotten.

“My name is Daniel McKee,” I said evenly. “I’m a yacht broker from Florida, and a daiquiri sounds mighty good.”

The driver laughed heartily, shrugged massive shoulders and speeded up, rounding a curve as the road began to ascend again. He didn’t speak until we pulled into the shrubbery-screened drive that led to a low, sprawling restaurant that was all but hidden from the road. We stopped in front of a deep, shadowed porch, and as an attendant started down the wide steps toward us, the driver turned to look at me. He smiled, showing the wide gap between his front teeth.

“Half an hour I wait. No more. You have big night ahead of you.”

The attendant opened the door; Christina and I got out and went inside. Alex, by then I’d decided I might as well call him that, was right about the view from a sheltered terrace cantilevered over the slope on the far side of the restaurant. Candles flickered in windproof holders on each table, and in the gathering darkness the water far below turned gleaming silver, shading into pewter and then gradually deepening to black. From where we sat the lights of the town were invisible, but out in the harbor were hundreds of tiny gleams like a congress of fireflies. Neither of us spoke, and I don’t think Christina paid any attention to the view at all.

Alex was waiting for us at the entrance. We were back on the road before he spoke.

“You still doubt me, Nick Carter?”

“Only a little,” I admitted.

“Good. I tell you, your people never so much as hinted that you were to meet me. Good security; if I don’t look anything like Alex Zenopolis who is to know besides you, eh?”

“Uh-huh.”

He shifted his bulk in the seat ahead of us. “Christina, my sister. Forgive I do not speak much to you. I remember you only as a little girl.”

She rattled something back at him in their language. He laughed.

“No, we speak English. Better for Nick, eh?”

I had to take the risk some time. “Okay, Alex. What do we do next? Why are you here now?”

“In our business we do not keep exact timetable. Remember we wait three days for those smugglers?”

“Yes.”

“So I have to leave Albania a day early. Is okay; we were to meet like this tomorrow. Same place, same time. Little Christina, she knows nothing more than that, eh my sister?”

“That is right.”

“Do we leave tonight?” I asked.

“No. You and my sister, you finish your little love affair with big night on the town. You dance, you eat, you hold hands, and then tomorrow you say the sad farewell as you sail away and the little student returns to Athens with the slightly broken heart. Is that not so?”

It was what I’d had in mind. On the off-chance that we were wrong about being followed, the idea was to keep our brief affair as believable as possible.

“And what do you do in the meantime, Alex?”

“Tonight I drive you two around from place to place. Then I return you to your boat. You will show me where it is moored. Before dawn I will come aboard, and no one will see me. I am the stowaway, yes?”

“How are you going to do it?”

He shrugged. “I swim. I know how to be like invisible fish in water in dark.”

I was silent for a moment. We passed the little temple; several cars were parked at the lookout opposite, and one couple stood, hand-in-hand, in front of the columns. I envied them; Christina’s hand was cold in mine.

“How did you get hold of this cab?” I asked.

“I am not without contacts here, my friend. There are others I can trust on this island. Do you wish to know some more?”

“No,” I said.

“Okay. No problems?”

“I hope not.” I was far from satisfied, but I kept my doubts to myself.

It was the grimmest night of celebration I’ve ever spent. We had dinner at the Pavileon, eating outdoors under trellised vines with a view of the island’s most exclusive beach. We ate langouste taken live from the water in their cages only a few feet away from our table. The lights were subdued, the crowd rich and making sure everyone knew it. I recognized at least two movie stars, including an actress I’d been in love with as a teenager. All these years later she looked, close up, even better than she had then.

Later we went to the discotheque at the Palace Hotel, where against my will I gyrated with Christina on the dance floor. It was so jammed it didn’t make any difference what we did, but even in that crowd the girl attracted more than her share of male attention. I didn’t like it, but not for the usual reason; there was an air of controlled desperation in her movements and expression, as though she were listening for the sound of disaster. Anyone who looked at her closely would get the impression that she was on drugs of some sort, but I supposed in that crowd that wouldn’t be too unusual.

There was another place, and a few more after that, always with the implacable Alex on hand to taxi us around the busling city. Twice I spotted the tan Mercedes, but it didn’t bother me much; I was on the lookout for other watchers. Several times I was on the verge of warning Alex, but the man was so confident and, as I vividly remembered, so damned capable I decided to keep quiet. I was both right and wrong.

At two in the morning, it felt much later, Alex announced it was time to head for the boat. There was a launch service from dockside, so we didn’t have to struggle with the miniature dinghy. We stood on the well-lighted quay as I thrust a wad of paper money at our “driver” and asked him to return in the morning. The young man waiting in the launch watched us disinterestedly, yawning hugely.

“No,” Alex spat. “Tomorrow I go across the island, visit my mother.”

“Okay. There are other drivers.”

“Yes.” He made a deliberately insulting show of counting the money, grunted and backed away so quickly I had to jump aside. Christina and I watched him drive away, then smiled ruefully at each other as we stepped into the launch.

During the short ride we made small talk, mostly for the helmsman close behind us.

“He was so bad,” Christina said. “I am sorry I picked him.”

“Oh well. It was a good night anyway, wasn’t it?”

For answer she kissed me, softly on the cheek, then with more passion just under the line of my jaw. “But,” she said sadly after a little while, “we will not need him tomorrow anyway. When does my flight leave? Two?”

“I think so.” Some time during the evening she had gone to a phone and made reservations to fly back to Athens. “Wish you could stay another day or so.”

“But it is not possible. And you must sail to Italy, too.”

“I’m in no hurry.” I rubbed her shoulders, enfolding her in my arms and holding her close. The helmsman slowed the engine, all his attention on his approach to Scylla riding at her mooring.

“But... I am. Unfortunately.” Christina sighed and pulled away from me as the launch slid to a stop alongside the darkened sloop; only its riding lights were burning, low-wattage electric bulbs that drained very little from the batteries.

I paid the launch boy and we went below. As we entered the pitch dark cabin Christina stopped abruptly in front of me on the companionway.

“What is it?” I hissed, my left arm automatically away from my side, Hugo ready to be dropped into my hand from the sheath.

“I... it is nothing.” She moved on into the cabin.

I quickly looked around; the light coming from the dock-side wasn’t much, but there was no place to hide, either. I went forward, checking the head and hanging locker, then the other cabin. No one. Christina was lighting one of the kerosene lanterns when I returned.

“We won’t want those tonight,” I said.

“But...”

“If Alex is going to swim out here and sneak aboard, let’s not put a spotlight on him. Okay?”

“Oh. How foolish of me.” She extinguished the light, then turned to me in the cramped space between the bunks and the table. For a moment she was in my arms, her head pressed against my chest, and through the thin fabric of my shirt I could feel the sudden, hot tears.

“What is it?” I soothed, stroking her hair softly.

“Oh... so many things, McKee. Or Nick Carter, or whoever you are.” She knuckled her eyes and sniffled. “Last night I said it was our only time together. And I was right but I didn’t think it would be because of this. I had hoped, all day today, that my... my instinct was wrong. But it was right, wasn’t it?”

A short while ago I’d been bone-weary after the long day of sailing and the festive evening, but as we stood pressed together in that narrow space I felt all the tiredness drop away. “He won’t be here for hours,” I said softly.

For a moment she held me hard against her, then abruptly pulled away, “Can we have some bourbon, McKee? And let us sit well apart here in the dark until Alex comes. No matter what I feel for you I do not want to make love when at any moment my, brother may be joining us.”

It was nearly five when Alex climbed silently over the stern of the boat, ducking around the davited dinghy and crawling through the cockpit to the companionway. I had Hugo in my hand as his head appeared in the opening.

“Hold it!” I hissed, letting the faint light gleam; on the blade.

“Is only me, Nick.” Alex shoved a black waterproof bag ahead of him, then slid headfirst down the short ladder into the cabin. I flicked a penlight on him for an instant; he was in a wet suit that covered everything but his face. I snapped off the light.

“You weren’t seen?”

“Impossible. You put this boat in a good place, my friend; the only others I had to pass were small craft. No one aboard them at night.”

It hadn’t been any accident, but I didn’t have to tell him that. “You want some dry clothes?”

He indicated the bag on the deck in front of him. “I have. Maybe a towel. Two towels.” He stood up, his bulk almost filling the space in the cabin. “I was big man when you first knew me, Nick. Now I am a little bit bigger.” He started to strip off the wet suit, heedless of his sister. She went into the head for towels.

When he was dry and dressed in his dry clothes, we sat in the main cabin with drinks in our hands. Already the sky was starting to turn gray outside, but the weariness that had left me hours earlier seemed to be gone forever.

“We’ve got some time,” I said. “Time to talk.”

Alex took a monster swallow that emptied his glass of bourbon, held it out for more. “No talk. You and me, we got plenty of time, Nick. For now we sleep a little. Then when you go to pick up tickets for my little sister, Christina and me, we have some time together. Okay?”

I took the launch to shore a little after nine. The airline office was within walking distance, so I didn’t bother looking for a cab. It was an overcast day but not windy; the water lapping against the stone quay seemed gray and lifeless. It matched my mood.

After picking up Christina’s ticket I wandered along the promenade aimlessly. This morning there were few strollers in sight. Too early. But the tan Mercedes was parked conspicuously, where the driver and his companion could see my boat. It didn’t worry me; unless they used binoculars they couldn’t tell what was going on there, and it wouldn’t make any difference if they could. Alex had crawled into the chain locker ahead of the forward cabin, made a nest for himself in the cramped space among the damp metal links and announced that he would not come out until we were at sea on the way to Taranto. “When you hide, my friend, you hide. Good night.”

I poked listlessly through the souvenir stalls, looking for something to give Christina. Nothing seemed right. I turned back, heading for a big, old hotel not far from where Scylla was moored. I had agreed to stay away while brother and sister had their reunion, and I wondered what they could talk about after all these years.

A bar was open and I wandered in, the only customer in the cavernous, high-ceilinged room. The barman offered a Bloody Mary, he knew a hungover tourist when he saw one, but I decided to stick to bourbon. Normally I’m not a morning drinker, but as far as my system was concerned this was still last night; I hadn’t slept at all.

I had a couple of slow ones while I watched the minute hand of an electric clock, the kind they used to have on classroom walls in schools, and maybe still have, click around the dial. It wasn’t even eleven o’clock when a uniformed bellman came into the bar, looked around and settled on me.

“Mister Carter?”

I almost said yes before I realized what he’d said. Then I shook my head.

“You... are not Mister Carter?” He was a wizened little fellow, his English impeccable.

“Afraid not. The name’s McKee.”

“But there is a telephone call for the gentleman at the bar. The lady said the name was Carter.” He looked around again, emphasizing that I was the only other person there.

The lady. The damned little fool, I fumed. She must have been up on deck and seen me going into the hotel. And where else was I likely to be but at the bar? I choked back my anger, realizing that something must have happened to make her call me, and in the troubled state she was in she had made a stupid mistake.

“Well,” I said amiably, standing up, “I’ll take the call if the lady insists. Show me the way.” I threw some money on the bar and followed the bellman.

He showed me to a row of house phones along a narrow corridor that led to rest rooms and the rear of the hotel. “Take any phone, and the operator will connect you,” he said. I waited until he drifted away, then lifted the receiver. The operator came on immediately. I told her who I was, wincing as I gave my right name, and she asked me to wait a moment. I leaned against the wall, tired and disgusted by this whole slipshod operation.

The soft sound of a door opening behind me didn’t register at first. Then I heard the squeak of a shoe, the telltale rustle of clothing as an arm was lifted high. I started to turn, the phone receiver clubbed in my hand, but I was far too late; something smashed against my skull and I dropped to my knees. The only pain I felt was the contact with the marble floor, and I was worrying about those knee injuries from high school football days when the second blow connected and there was nothing left to worry about.

Fourteen

I didn’t waste time trying to figure out where I was. The first thing I checked was my knife, and to my surprise I found Hugo still in his sheath under my jacket sleeve. I wasn’t tied up, and I seemed to be lying on a bed of some sort. Painfully I opened my eyes; the light was subdued, like daylight on a cloudy afternoon...

Afternoon! I looked at my watch and groaned. It was past two, and I’d been due back at Scylla by noon. I tried to sit up, but a hand pushed me back on the bed. My eyes wouldn’t focus; all I could see was a blurred head above me at some impossible height, pulsating in time to the pounding at the back of my skull. For a moment I lay still, willing myself to be calm and see what the hell was going on. Then I tried to push the hand away, but it was hard and firm against my chest. A small hand...

I opened my eyes wide; the face above me began to swim into focus, a face surrounded by a halo of soft blonde curls. Then I saw lips, curled in a smile, above them a nose bent a little bit out of line, and snapping dark eyes that were no more friendly than that smile.

“Sue-Ellen,” I croaked. “What the hell...?”

“Just stay lyin’ down like a good boy, sweetie. I wouldn’t want you to jump up all ugly and fierce like.”

“Get your hand off my damned chest. I want to sit up. If I can.”

“Okay, honey, you try. But real slow like, you hear?”

Her strong brown hand eased its pressure as I cranked myself into a sitting position. I wasn’t on a bed after all, but a huge white couch that could have slept six with no crowding. Cautiously I looked around; if it hadn’t been for the round windows we could have been in any run-of-the-mill Park Avenue living room. And then I realized that the gentle rocking under me wasn’t just my head.

“Your boat?” I asked.

“Sharp as always, aren’t you, Nick? Uh-huh, it’s my boat. Or my husband’s, whoever he is.”

I was too mad to smile. “What the hell is going on here, Sue-Ellen? Who slugged me?”

“Oh, one of my watchdogs. How’s your head feel, hon?”

“How do you expect?” I tried to stand up, but with her forefinger she poked me back onto the couch. Sue-Ellen, I remembered, had been Texas All-College Girl Rodeo Champion when she was at SMU, and she hadn’t softened up any after ten years and at least three husbands I knew of.

“Too bad. Want a little bourbon and branch?”

“Not right now.”

“Had enough this mornin’ did you?”

“Not exactly.”

“Well, that’s what it looked like when you passed out by the phone back at the hotel. Lappin’ it up at the bar and all. Lucky one of my watchdogs came along and got you out before the police came along and arrested you for D and D.”

“So one of your watchdogs slugged me.” I sneaked a look at my watch again; it hadn’t gotten any earlier.

“Oh don’t worry, sweetie. Your little Greek tart’s just waitin’ back on that dinky old tub you’re travelin’ in. Fit to be tied, the way she keeps comin’ out on deck and lookin’ toward the dock like one of those wives of a whalin’ captain on a widow’s walk.”

“Come on!” I snapped. “What do you want with me?”

Her grin was pure imp, laced with pure whore. She was dressed in a bikini bottom and a shirt she hadn’t bothered to button. Her breasts were small, I recalled, but as firm as melon halves. At thirty or so she had the muscular belly of a professional acrobat, and though her legs were beautifully proportioned they had the strength of a lifelong bronc rider, which she was. Sue-Ellen barely topped five feet, but more than once I’d discovered that to subdue her I had to forget she was a girl. She liked that.

She dropped down on the couch beside me, letting the shirt fall open to expose a breast. “You got me in a heap o’ trouble last night, Nick. You know?”

“Me? How?”

“Well... what was it? Couple o’ days ago this friend of mine saw you in... where was it? Piraeus?”

I nodded. It hurt. “I remember.”

“Well, Rhonda, she said you pretended you didn’t remember her. Or me. But the way she described you I knew it had to be Nick Carter. Right? Ain’t nobody like you, hon.”

“I...” It was hard to know exactly what to say. Sue-Ellen knew I did something for the government, because for a time her father had been a Senator on one of the committees that dealt with the CIA and other alphabet security agencies. “You know there are times I can’t say hello, even to old friends.”

“Uh-huh. Not to old friends like Rhonda, who don’t know beans. But when you show that good-lookin’ face all over Greece like you’ve been doin’, I know you aren’t on any secret mission or whatever you do for Uncle. Pretty man like you, you’ve got to use disguises, because those bad boys in the Kremlin or wherever, they’ve got the zap on you.” She pointed her finger at me and snapped down the thumb-hammer. “So I got to talkin’ a little that night, told ’em what a great... well... friend you were. The bourbon braggin’, you know?”

I knew. Much too well. Once or twice I’d almost fallen for Sue-Ellen, but each time her spoiled-little-rich-girl routine, fueled by booze, had rescued me.

“So last night, when we all saw you hoppin’ around those dance floors with that ugly ol’ Greek girl and you didn’t even say hello, well, that burned me.”

“But I didn’t see you!”

“No? Not even when I was bumpin’ my ass against yours for a couple of minutes steady? In that whatchamacallit discothèque, I forget which?”

“I guess... they were all pretty crowded.”

“Not that crowded, buddy boy! If you don’t know my ass, who does?” She slid closer to me, emphasizing her words appropriately.

“What... what about your husband?”

“Oh, him. Achillion, he’s off buyin’ some ships in Japan or somewhere. He hasn’t been near me more’n half a dozen times since we been married.”

“So he leaves you here? With watchdogs?” My head was clearing rapidly now; in an odd way the crack on the skull was counteracting the effects of no sleep and too much bourbon.

“Uh-huh. He let me have this big old yacht and a crew I pay to play deaf and dumb, but there’s these two heavies who follow me most everywhere I go.” She giggled and snuggled close to me. “But not here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, he thinks he’s foolin’ me, but everywhere I make port around here I see ’em. Them and that big old tan car of theirs.”

“Big... Mercedes?”

“Uh-huh. You noticed it too? Everybody does.”

“Were you in... Pirgos a couple of nights ago?”

“Planned to be, but I didn’t make it. Why? Were you?”

“For a little while.”

“That where you picked up your little whore?”

“She’s not a whore. And she’s not little.”

“No, she ain’t little. But I could bulldog her with one hand tied behind my back.” She was fumbling with my belt buckle.

“I have to get out of here.”

“No way. We’re gonna have us a party, Nick Carter. A private one, right now. And later on all my buddies are comin’ back aboard and I’m gonna show ’em nobody snubs Sue-Ellen Barlow in front of all her friends.”

I pulled away from her. “Do you mean that’s why you had me slugged and brought here?”

“Well... it was maybe a little drastic, hon. But I stayed up all night with those people and I could see ’em snickerin’ because I’d bragged on you some and then you made a fool of me in front of everybody. So when my watchdogs said they seen you goin’ into the hotel bar there, I just kind of acted on impulse. Those watchdogs, they’re good for somethin’, aren’t they?”

“Yeah. I guess they are. Where are they now?”

“Oh, I got one standin’ outside the door there.” She gestured vaguely. “In case you’re too anxious to get back to your Greek tart.”

“She was supposed to catch a plane.”

“Well she can wait for another one, can’t she?”

It was hopeless, I saw, to try to reason with Sue-Ellen. I stood up, brushing aside her clawing hands, and walked quickly toward the door. When I opened it, I saw the brutish face of one of the men from the tan Mercedes staring at me. In his hand he held a .45 automatic, and it was aimed straight at my chest. He looked eager to use it. I closed the door again.

“Hon, you think I’d let you run out on me after I went to all this trouble? Come on now.” She was lying on the white couch, the shirt on the carpet beside her, a hand tucked inside the band of the minimum bikini bottom.

There had been a time when Sue-Ellen was fun and games, raunchy but healthy. Now it was obvious she had changed, to say the least; I might have had fun with her, but her games turned me off.

I walked over to her, pulled down on her bikini. She arched her strong, narrow hips to help. I flipped her over on her stomach.

“Mmm. Want to start that way, like an ol’ bull and a heifer?”

“Why not?” I made a lot of noise unzipping my trousers, and when I saw that her eyes were closed I quickly picked up her shirt. “Give me your hands,” I ordered, touching the inner part of her thigh to keep her mind on what she thought I was doing. She did as she was told, wiggling her bottom in anticipation.

With a sudden movement I seized both her wrists and wrapped the cloth around them. Before she realized what was going on I had her secured, her arms lifted up painfully high behind her back.

“Nick!” she yowled. “You son of a bitch!”

She fought, as I expected, but I yanked her to her feet; she was small enough so that I could get her on tiptoes without any strain, and in that position she couldn’t use her wiry strength against me.

“Now let’s get the hell out of here, Sue-Ellen,” I hissed in her ear. “I’ve got things to do; we can play some other time.”

“You bastard!” she screeched, lashing back at me with her heels. I pulled her a little higher and she choked with pain. “Dino!” she yelled. “Dino, come in here!”

That was something I hadn’t figured on. The door burst open and the watchdog pounded into the room. Even though Sue-Ellen was in front of me, she wasn’t big enough to make any kind of shield, not at that range.

“Shoot the son of a bitch!” the girl screamed. “Blow his goddam head off!”

Dino smiled as he slowly brought the .45 up. He had plenty of time to aim and squeeze the trigger.

But not as much as he thought he did. I shrugged and released Hugo into my left hand. Still holding Sue-Ellen with my other hand, I slung the double-edged knife underhanded straight at his throat; I didn’t wait to see if it hit the target, but dragged the girl down and away as the automatic thundered in the confined space.

When I looked up, the watchdog was still upright, a look of utter surprise on his face. He looked at the smoking .45 in his hand, then slowly raised the other to touch the hilt protruding from his neck. For a moment I thought he was going to fire again, but a sudden gush of blood from the hole my knife had made settled everything. He toppled slowly to the floor, landing on the thick carpeting with hardly a sound.

I still kept my grip on Sue-Ellen as I walked over to look at the new corpse. First I pried the gun loose from his fingers, started to toss it aside and thought better of it. It might come in handy, and I wasn’t going to have to pass through customs on the trip coming up. Then I pulled the knife from Dino’s throat; he made a gurgling sound, and a lot more blood spilled out.

“Damn you, Nick Carter,” Sue-Ellen snarled. “Look what you’ve done to my wall-to-wall rug!”

But even the rich and tough Texas girl was shaken by what had happened, and I took advantage of it. First I kicked her in the tail, not too gently, and made her get back into what passed for her clothes. She obeyed sullenly, speechless for a little while. I checked the dead man’s pockets, just as a matter of routine, but found nothing to indicate he was anything but what Sue-Ellen had said.

“What are you going to do with it?” I asked her, pointing to the corpse.

“Me? What do you mean me?”

“He’s your boy. On your boat”

“Well you killed him!”

“In self defense. After you’d had me kidnapped.”

“Huh! Achillion, he’ll take care of that mess.”

“Only he’s in Japan. Your watchdog will start to smell before your husband gets back, you know.”

She stared at the bulky body on the rug and gnawed at a fingernail. “Yeah...”

“Where’s your crew?”

“I sent ’em mostly on shore leave. Except a couple o’ fellas in the engine room and one in the galley.”

“They don’t hear?”

“I told you. They’re deaf and dumb. Oh, not literally, Nick; they’re just trained not to pay attention to anything that happens on this big old tub. You know?” She was losing most of her Texas accent and, strangely, I liked her better for it.

“Will you take some advice? From an old friend?”

“Maybe.”

“Get hold of your deaf and dumb crew and get the hell out of this port. Dump the body or whatever you think is best, but if you report this to the police you’ll have nothing but trouble. Did this guy have any relatives?”

“How would I know?”

It figured. “Okay. Do as I told you. It’s up to you now, Sue-Ellen.”

“Yeah...” She was still staring at the corpse, and she looked liked a little girl who had started to play a practical joke and wound up way over her head. Which was about the size of it, in a monstrous way.

“Is there a boat I can take? Back to my sloop?”

“Uh-huh. Tied up alongside out there.” She gestured vaguely.

“Then I’m going.” I hefted the heavy automatic.

Suddenly she rushed to me and flung her arms around my waist. “Oh, Nick! I’m so damned Sorry!”

“Me too.”

“Won’t you stay and help?”

“No way, sweetheart. I’m... in the middle of something.”

“Honest?”

“Honest. And if you ever see me again, anywhere in the world, you’d better figure the same thing before you pull a stunt like this again.” I tapped her nose with the muzzle of the .45.

She kissed the warm metal and looked up at me. There were real tears in her eyes. “How about in Bari next week?”

“What?”

“I mean, I’m supposed to meet some people there. And if you’re still in this part of the world and... and not working.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake!” But then I had to laugh. I kissed the top of her blonde head, she’d been a redhead the last time I’d seen her, patted her marble-hard bottom and went to the door. “Maybe,” I said.

I took the overpowered runabout over to Scylla; it was mid-afternoon by then, the sky still bleak above, and the boat looked ominously quiet. As I climbed aboard I cast the runabout adrift; someone would pick it up in the busy harbor, and I doubted it made much difference to Sue-Ellen or her absent husband whether it was ever returned to them or not. There were plenty more where that came from.

“Hello? Christina?”

The companionway was open, but there was no sign of life in the gray darkness down there. I pulled the .45 from my jacket pocket as I approached the door, but I was a fraction too late. As I peered inside I found myself, for the second time that day, staring into the black tunnel of death.

Fifteen

“Put it down very slowly, Nick. I will kill you if you don’t.” Alex was glaring up at me from the main cabin, the revolver rock-steady in his hand. I didn’t doubt him for an instant, and did as I was told.

“You don’t need that,” I said.

“Now I do. You have destroyed everything. Everything!”

“I hope not.” Cautiously I eased down the short ladder as he backed up to keep a distance between us. It was the first time I’d seen him standing up in a decent light, and though he was thicker through the middle than he’d been fifteen years ago I wasn’t tempted to try to take him. Even if he hadn’t had a gun. “Where’s Christina?”

“Forward. Crying.”

“Look, Alex, there was a problem...”

“McKee? Nick?” Christina’s voice came from the forward cabin, and a moment later she appeared. “What happened to you?”

How do you explain to a desperate man and a girl you semi-love that you’ve been kidnapped by a spoiled rich-bitch because... well, I did the best I could. At the end it was Alex who was grinning, Christina who looked dubious.

“Do you mean, those men in the car, they were watching her?”

“And I guess me, a little. The hotel in Pirgos.”

She nodded, and her smile wasn’t pleasant. “So you break hearts wherever you go, eh Nick Carter?”

Her brother snapped his head around at her and told her to be quiet. Then he put his gun away.

“Let’s get back to business, Alex,” I said. “It’s too late to get Christina on a flight back to Athens today without having it look funny...”

“She has already been ashore to cancel her reservation. Now it is for noon tomorrow. Until then we will all stay aboard. You say you were taken to this woman’s yacht as though passed out drunk. Fine. Christina is devastated. You are sick. I think a quiet night for all of us.” He turned to head forward to his chain locker hideaway.

“Maybe we could use the time better than that,” I said. “What did you mean I’d ruined everything?”

“Perhaps not all. Either way, you and I cannot talk until we are at sea. Not even my sister must know what I have to tell your people; there is too much danger for her.”

“Then for God’s sake why did you bring her into this in the first place?” It was my turn to get mad.

He straightened up, filling his end of the cabin like a genie coming out of a magic bottle. “Because she is my family. Perhaps I never see her again; in this world who can say? Can you understand, Nick Carter, how this can be?”

Almost. I’d never had a family to speak of, but I sort of got the picture.

Darkness came with merciful swiftness on that cloudy day. I got a few hours’ sleep, even with Christina pottering around the cabin with slam-bang petulance, and when I finally got up it was night, black as the inside of a pistol barrel.

“Christina?”

“Yes?” She was up on deck, seated behind the wheel with a black shawl wrapped around her shoulders like an old peasant woman. I went up to join her.

“You don’t have to be mad at me. I’d hate us to part with you feeling this way.”

“Oh, it is not so much that, N... McKee. But today I was prepared to go, to leave you, to leave my brother whom I knew for only a few brief hours... and now this. This waiting. What is the word? Anticlimax?”

“It’s a good Greek word.”

That brought a ghost of a smile to her tight lips. “I should know, shouldn’t I.”

“Anyway, you don’t have to worry about those people in the tan Mercedes any more. They weren’t following you; you can go back to Athens and... that will be that.”

“Yes. Perhaps.” She turned to me, her face taut. “But McKee... there was the other... in the taverna and my hotel.”

“You’re sure it wasn’t one of the same people?”

“Why should it be? Why would that woman’s bodyguards follow me?”

“Oh, maybe nothing better to do,” I said lightly, not believing my own words for a minute.

“You do not believe me.”

“Of course I do.”

“Oh no. You are a spy; you expect things like that, and when they try to kill you with a gun you use a woman’s body to protect you while you kill them.”

When I was telling Alex the story of my problem with Sue-Ellen I’d forgotten all about Christina’s presence; now I was sorry I’d gone into all the details.

“Come on,” I urged her gently. “This is an ugly business, Christina. Be glad you’re out of it as of noon tomorrow.”

“Am I? Will I ever be?”

“I don’t see why not...”

From the way she reacted we must have heard it at the same time, the quiet approach of a boat at our bow, the soft bump and the quick scramble of leather-soled shoes on the forward deck. I slid off the seat into a crouch, reaching for dead Dino’s .45 at the same time. There was just enough light to see a couple of indistinct shapes ahead of the thick mast, moving slowly in our direction.

“Nick...!” Christina hissed.

The last thing I wanted to do was shoot; the sound across the quiet harbor would have been like cannon fire. I slipped Hugo down into my left hand and waited.

“Mister McKee.” The voice came from the other side of the mast, soft but clear.;

I didn’t answer.

“The girl is in my sights. You will answer or she is dead.”

I glanced over my shoulder. Christina still sat frozen behind the wheel, a hand at her throat:

“Okay,” I replied.

“We only wish to speak to her. If you do not move, we shall not. Is it agreed?”

I recognized the voice; it had been in my room in Pirgos a few nights earlier, apologizing while its owner lugged a dead body out to the fire escape.

“What do you want from her?”

“Only a few words. If you have a gun, please drop it, Mister McKee. We do not wish a disturbance, do we?”

“Talk, then.”

“In private. Miss Zenopolis, will you please come forward?”

Christina started to get up, but I gestured to her to remain where she was.

“She’ll talk where she is. You told me you were police?”

“So you remember me, Mister McKee?”

“Yeah.”

“Very good. Then you will have no objection. Miss Zenopolis?”

I saw the other shadow edging along the walkaround and started to ease the .45 up in his direction. Noise or no noise, I wasn’t going to let them take us.

“No, Mister McKee,” the man behind the mast said. “I can see you very well. Drop it now.”

I did. Maybe I could have gotten one, but not both. But as I laid the automatic on the deck I felt the shape of a flashlight under my hand. I didn’t stop to think if either man could see what I was doing, but picked it up and flicked on the four-cell beam.

The man at the mast flung a hand over his eyes, and I quickly swung the light to the other. For a moment he stared, blinded, then staggered back and dropped overboard. Before I heard the splash I drilled the light back at the other man, at the same time reaching back to drag Christina down into the cockpit behind me.

“Drop the gun!” I ordered, keeping my voice low as I retrieved the .45. He did as he was told, his weapon falling to the cabin top with a dull clunk. He still held a hand in front of his face. I stood up, moved toward him, Hugo in my hand.

If I’d been willing to shoot him he would have been dead, but with a sudden move he turned and dove over the side. There was a big splash, then silence. I went to the side to see where he was; my light picked up some underwater movement, then lost it. I started forward, but Christina grabbed my arm.

“Nick! Nick!” To my ears her voice carried over at least a couple of miles of water, with a thousand ears listening. “That is the man! The one who was following me!”

“Which one?”

“The... the first one. The one who fell first.”

I snapped off my light and ignored the sound of a boat pushing off from the bow of Scylla, because I had seen very clearly the face of the man the light had hit first. He had a glorious drooping mustache, and only a few nights ago he had died in my arms, shot through the chest by his partner.

“So where the hell were you?” I demanded after I’d crawled into the forward cabin and opened the door of the chain locker.

“Me? I’m not here. Remember?”

“Sure. So they kill your precious sister and you stay in this hole like a rat?”

“If they kill you both, then maybe I come up by the forward hatch and kill them, yes. Then there is no other way. But I have great regard for you, Nick Carter; I hear those stupid shoes and I know you can handle them without revealing myself.”

“You could have killed them with a knife. From behind. I didn’t want to shoot, so they got away.”

For the first time Alex looked uncertain. “Yes. Maybe you are right. But...” He looked beyond me at his sister, who was clinging to my shoulder.

“Nick?” she said. I was annoyed that she used my real name; all we had had together was when I was McKee, and now I felt as though we didn’t really know each other at all.

“What is it?”

“Do not leave me here, Nick. I cannot go back to Athens now, not ever.”

“Look, it’s not possible...”

“But why not, Nick?” Alex broke in. “My sister, she is in danger, eh? We must take her with us.”

“Alex, from here, if we’re lucky it will be a good two days before we can reach Taranto. The whole idea of this operation is that we do nothing that looks out of the way. If Christina goes with us, with me, it could blow the whole thing.”

“And if she stays, probably she dies. No, my friend, I could not allow that. My fault, yes, that I brought her into this business, but now the two of us must do what we can to be sure she does not suffer because of it.”

Her hand was trembling on my back, and that more than Alex’s logic was what decided me. “Okay. Let’s get under way. Right now.”

Sixteen

I cleared the harbor under running lights, using the inboard auxiliary. When there were no other boats in sight, Alex crept up into the cockpit and sat down at my feet.

“You do not know these waters,” he announced. “The light buoys, they tell you where not to go. I will tell you where to go.”

Under his guidance we chugged along the still sound that lay between the island and the mainland; one cluster of brilliant lights, he told me, marked the border between Albania and Greece. “Such fortifications they have! Not even a baby eel could get past them on the darkest night of the world.”

“How did you manage it?”

“Not there, my friend. But where they put so much men and equipment to safeguard their borders, then there must be other places where there cannot be so much. Perhaps not even enough, eh?”

“I thought the Albanian coast was pretty well guarded everywhere.”

“Yes... pretty well. But maybe not well enough.”

“Like the northern border?”

“Ah?”

“Along Yugoslavia? And that part of Greece?”

Alex sat up a little straighter. “Do you know about that then, Nick Carter?”

“Enough,” I lied. “You said you had something vital to tell us when you came out. You’re out. What is it?”

He chuckled and pointed ahead. “When we clear that strait there, where we run under the guns of the Albanians so close you can smell the powder in their artillery shells, then I will tell you one or two things. It will be time for you to know.”

He was right about being close to the Albanian coast; as he pointed out the navigation lights I had the feeling I could almost reach out and touch the shore on either side. A tanker coming through the passage from the other direction scared the hell out of me for a little while; it seemed to fill the space with no room for even our small boat. Alex advised me to ignore it.

When we cleared the strait and headed out into the open sea I almost heaved a sigh of relief again, but didn’t. The wind had freshened and, once we were free of the barricade of Korfu, was blowing directly in our teeth. As we started to buck in the heavy chop, Alex went forward to raise the jib, then the main. He handled both the way you drop a couple of hamburgers on the grill and stand back to watch them char.

“We sail, Nick Carter. You are a good sailor?”

“I manage.”

“Good. This is still your pleasure cruise, and when the daylight comes I must go below again. If anyone approaches... well, my beautiful sister could not bear to be parted with you, eh? You will wave and be happy, and if they look unfriendly you will shoot them and kill them.”

“Alex?”

“Yes?”

“What the hell is all this about? We’ve cleared the strait now.”

“Yes. And I should tell you, because if I do not survive you must know. You know what I have been these many years?”

“A defector.”

“Oh yes, that, but do not be so disapproving, my friend. In my country... well, look at it today. Is a Communist a greater menace than one of those loyal to the present government? Or the one just past? No. I make no excuses for myself, Nick, understand that. I found unbearable corruption in my own country, and so I went to Albania where they were very happy to use my services. They are strong people, those Albanians, sometimes called the Mongols of Europe. Different from everyone else, do you know?”

I did, vaguely. They were strong, secretive, hostile to outsiders and fierce fighters who had resisted centuries of would-be conquerors. More than half the people were Moslems, and they fought in their mountains as fanatically as their brothers did in the desert countries of the Near East.

“What happened?” I asked. “What made you come back.”

“Ah well, my friend, it would take weeks to tell you all about that. Communism, you see, is the great leveler; even in Albania it makes petty bureaucrats of the proud warriors. But that is not the answer to your question, eh?”

“No.”

“So I will tell you, and you must listen closely. The great World Communism movement has drifted to almost a standstill; your President meets with leaders in China and Moscow, and the war in Vietnam is over. For the moment.” He chuckled. “Yes. But there are members of that great Movement who are not pleased with such developments, my friend. They are still listening to Marx, to Lenin, to Stalin, and they believe that Communism must always expand until the system controls the entire world. At one time, believe me, I was almost one of those. But not now, Nick, not now. At any rate, they are still active, those fanatics, and they are preparing a monstrous action which may well further their cause better than twenty Vientams.”

“What’s that?”

“Do you know the two lakes along the border between Albania and Yugoslavia? Just next to Greece?”

“I do.” Hawk’s map lecture was clear in my memory.

“There is an army there, right now. They belong to no country; they are Greeks, Albanians, Yugoslavs, but they are all dedicated Communists of the old, hard-line school. In... yes... two days, they, will launch a series of guerilla attacks from that no-man’s land between three countries that will totally confuse the world powers. They will be led, no, advised, as you Americans coined the expression so nicely, by a contingent of the Vietcong...”

I let go of the wheel as I snapped around to look down at Alex’s broad calm face. “What!?”

“That is right, my friend. Who is better fitted to conduct such military actions than the Vietcong? With their primitive weapons and their puny, underfed troops, they have fought the French and the Americans to a standstill for as long as we can remember. Is it unthinkable that they should lend their knowledge and their idealism to such a group as has been gathered in that remote terrain between Lakes Ohrid and Prespa? Think of the opportunities! On one side a staunch ally of the United States, though a military dictatorship these days; on another the most repressive Communist regime in the western world, and on the third Yugoslavia, more compatible with the West than with the Russians. Who will act to retaliate against them once their forays begin? From which country do they conduct their operations? And even if they can be found, what will any of the Great Powers do? Will the United States napalm them? Will the Russians send in tanks through Yugoslavia? No, my friend. And yet something must be done, eh? Because together with this campaign of terror and death there will be a campaign of propaganda that will not permit the world to ignore what is happening in our little corner of the world. Action must be taken, sooner or later, and that must inevitably lead to conflict between the West and the Communist powers.”

“Sounds pretty grim,” I admitted. “But how do you know all this?”

“Me?” Alex laughed. “Because I, my friend, helped set it all up, until I knew what I was doing.”

“You mean you didn’t know?”

“Do not sound so skeptical, Nick. I am an expert in my field, and like many such experts I was not told any more than I needed to know about the over-all purpose of any plan.”

“But you found out?”

“Yes. I found out. And I found out I could not live with the knowledge I had. So...” He looked around at the dark, oppressive sky above us. “And so I am here.”

Before daylight came he took the wheel, but I didn’t even try to sleep. There were too many questions to ask.

“You told our agents in Greece that nobody would miss you in Albania for several days. How did you manage that?”

“Oh well, that was not too hard. It is a country all mountains, you know, the roads very bad. I have had great freedom to travel in the course of my duties. Back and forth over the mountains; I have never been to South America, but from what I have read there are countries like Chile and Peru with much the same conditions. All the time there are cars and buses going off the roads to plunge down some remote mountainside. Not found for days, quite often.”

“But they’d be looking for you, wouldn’t they? Even down a mountainside?”

“Ah yes. My driver and I, we picked up an old man on our last journey. A big old man, nearly as big as me. I had promised him a ride down to the coastal area; I make many friends among the people of Albania in my travels, you know? I put my uniform jacket over his shoulders to keep him warm in the cold mountains. Didn’t bother to take my papers from the pocket, it is not such a long journey. And then my driver makes the wrong turn and I somehow manage to jump clear before the car goes over the mountain. Much fire far down below. The old man will never be cold again, eh?”

I was at the helm again, fighting the heavy seas, when Christina came up on deck. Her face was swollen, and it wasn’t from sleep. She didn’t speak to me, but took her mug of coffee and leaned against the cabin top looking forward.

“Hey,” I called softly.

It took a long time for her to respond, but in the silence she finally turned around to face me.

“Get a good night’s sleep?”

“I suppose so,” she said indifferently. “How long before we reach Taranto?”

“Probably some time tomorrow morning. We haven’t had much luck with our weather on this cruise.”

“No. We haven’t.” She went below without another word, and I was alone for a long stretch of hours until the sun came out again.

Alex surprised me by coming on deck in broad daylight, but his explanation made sense. “Look, my friend, we are halfway to Italy, eh? If they think I am aboard this boat... poof!” He made a dive-bomber motion with his hand. “I do not like to be down there when the sun is shining. Not if I don’t have to be.”

Christina joined us a short while later, bringing steaming cups of coffee and a neatly arranged plate of sliced Spam and feta cheese. Alex applauded when he saw it.

“Now that is my good Greek sister!” he roared, grabbing a handful and stuffing the meat and cheese into his mouth. Christina smiled wanly. I made her take the wheel while I went below to shave and change my clothes.

I was just scraping the last of the lather from under my nose when I heard the distant roar of powerful engines. There was the scramble of feet on the cockpit deck, and I looked out the door of the head in time to see Alex dive into the main cabin.

“What is it?”

“Big power boat. Coming right up on us.” He took his revolver from a shelf above the galley sink, checked the load and went back to the companionway.

I dropped my razor, wiped the last of the shaving cream from my upper lip and got the .45. A lousy weapon at more than twenty feet, but it was all I had. I pushed past Alex and went up into the cockpit, where Christina was letting the helm come up into the wind as she stared at the boat overtaking us.

“Keep her moving,” I ordered, and tucked the pistol under my shirt.

It was a big, black-hulled cruiser, slicing through the swells as though they didn’t exist. From our angle all I could see was the bow and a little bit of the cabin, with a big spot-light mounted on top of it. It bore down on us like a halfback in pursuit of a tackle who had lucked into a fumble and couldn’t get his feet unstuck from the grass. Once more I cursed Hawk and his whole sailboat plan.

I pulled the gun free, held it down by my leg, out of sight. The boat sped closer, moving too close to our stern before it slowed a little and veered off to one side. I was ready to raise the automatic and fire when I saw the man at the wheel.

“Allo, beautiful baby!” he called through the spray his hull kicked up. “Next time you in Paxos, leave that dumb American behind, okay?”

The Frenchman with the mop of hair and the shy-confident smile waved, blew a kiss at Christina, and kicked a lot of water our way as he gunned his engines, headed off at right angles to our course.

“Son of a bitch,” I breathed, tucking the pistol back in my belt. “Bet he’s heading for Bari.”

“What?” Christina asked. She was pale and shaking, and I didn’t blame her.

“Never mind. I’ll take the wheel.”

By dark we still hadn’t made a landfall, but I knew we were on course for the heel of Italy’s boot. With no sign of pursuit so far, I decided I could relax; I went into the forward cabin to see if I could get a solid four or five hours’ sleep. For a little while I heard Christina in the main cabin, making coffee and rattling plastic dishes, doing the cleaning up that all women seem born knowing how to do. Then I heard her go up to the cockpit, and there was total silence except the lap of the waves against the hull an inch or so away from my head...

It was a nightmare, and my first thought was that it was about due. There was cold breath on my face, the chill of steel against my throat. I tried to struggle up out of sleep, but in the pitch darkness the nightmare wouldn’t go away. I felt the edge of the blade slice the flesh, and I knew I was awake.

I must have yelled as I flung myself away from the knife. For my violent effort I got a bang on the head from the ribs bracing the hull of the boat next to the narrow bunk. I was stunned, felt my hair yanked and my head pulled back. The knife started to draw deep across my Adam’s apple, and then it was gone with an explosive grunt from somewhere behind me.

There was a dim light, my pencil flash I realized, and in the ghostly glow I saw two contorted faces bending over me. They were like nothing I’d ever seen before, eyes wide, mouths straining, and no sounds emerging but labored wheezes that sounded like an old engine about to give its last gasp.

I jerked upright, grabbed for the .45 and found it still tucked securely in my belt.

“Don’t worry, Nick,” Alex growled. “She didn’t get it.”

He was holding his sister with an oak-stump forearm across her throat, and as I watched he coldly twisted her fingers until she dropped a knife, Hugo, from her hand.

“What the hell?” I said.

“Wake up, Nick.” He shoved the girl across the narrow cabin to the other bunk, “Do you want to kill her, or shall I?”

I looked at her in the faint light, her face covered by the thick curtain of hair. “Kill her?”

“Sure.”

“Your sister?” I was still half-asleep.

“Sister?” He snorted and grabbed her chin, making her look up into the light. “She is no sister of mine, Nick Carter. And now she is about to be dead.”

Seventeen

“Yes,” she said. “Kill me.” Her head drooped against Alex’s bear-paw as though there was no way she could hold it up any longer, or didn’t want to.

I pushed her brother’s hand away and retrieved my knife from the slanted deck between us. “No sister, Alex?”

“Of course not.”

“How do you know?”

“I know the first minute I see her walking toward my taxi. My sister only a baby last time I see her, but she was like me. Pretty, yes, but with fat legs, a body like mine. Not so big, maybe, but could not grow to be so perfect at this.” He ran the weak beam of the pencil flash down the length of the girl’s huddled body for emphasis, and I had to agree that there wasn’t much resemblance. Anywhere.

I reached over and made her look at me. “Were you trying to kill me?”

“Yes.” She said it without hesitating.

“Why?”

“Because I had to.”

“And Alex too?”

“Of course.” She didn’t have anything to hold back.

“How?”

“After you were dead I would call to him.” She pointed to my belt, where the .45 was snagged.

“And then what?”

“Oh, kill me! Please!”

“Come on, Christina. Then what?”

She took a deep, shuddering breath. “And then... I was to throw the body of my bro... of Alex overboard and bring yours to the coast of Italy. Taranto if possible, but anywhere.”

“What was the purpose?” I hated to dig at her like this, but now was the time to get some truth.

“I... I was to say that Alex was false. That you two fought, killed each other, and... oh well. Isn’t it obvious?”

“You’re working for the other side?”

“Not by choice!” She lifted her head, looked wildly from me to Alex, then into the depths of the open chain locker. “What else could I do?” she sobbed.

It was Alex who showed his sympathy. “What do they have on you?” he asked.

“My son,” she murmured.

“Son?”

“Yes. I was... I am from Bulgaria. My parents were Greek, but they emigrated during the Civil War. I was born in that foul country, but I grew up as a Greek.”

“And your son?”

“I have one. He would be four years old now. The State owns him. And me.”

I stuck Hugo back in the sheath, checked the .45 and laid it on the bunk beside me. “Christina? Is that your name?”

“Oh yes. That was the trouble!”

“It was?”

She raised her head, looked straight at me, then up at Alex. “I am Christina Calixos. I am twenty-four years old. When I was nineteen I had a child, no husband. The State took it away from me. I could not even see him. When my mother and father died I had nothing left, so I got across the border to Greece where I hoped I would be more free and somehow recover my son. For nearly a year I lived in terror because I had no papers; then I was at Preveza.” She looked at me. “At Preveza I was on the beach when a young girl drowned. There was a great crowd, and nearby there were her possessions. I looked, saw that her first name was Christina. I took them, and I became Christina Zenopolis. I had to leave nursing school, even take a lover and move to another part of Athens so no one would be likely to question my identity. And it worked, until they found me.”

“They?” I prodded.

“Yes.” She glanced at Alex. “It was... what? Two months ago? Six weeks? Never mind. They found me, and they told me who I was and all about my son at the State home. And what would happen if I did not cooperate with them. Then I knew very little about Christina Zenopolis, but now I know her better than I do myself. They knew you were coming out, Alex. I don’t believe they knew exactly how they were to use me, but as it turned out they were very lucky, weren’t they?”

Alex tugged at an end of his mustache. “Yes. They were very lucky. And if I hadn’t insisted on contacting you?”

“They knew every move you were making, I suppose. I cannot say. But I do know...” She turned to me. “Nick? That man who fell off the boat when they attacked us? You thought you had killed him several nights earlier.”

“Not me. His partner.”

“Oh. Yes. But they told me how it was to be done, with a wax bullet filled with blood, of the type used by some stage magicians? They knew you wouldn’t be fooled by blanks.”

“It sounds damned complicated to me,” I said. “Why didn’t they just cut off Alex and be done with it?”

“That I cannot say. I had only the small assignment to carry out...”

“A couple of murders.”

“Yes! Two deaths of people I didn’t know, for the life of my son! Would you choose otherwise?”

“Okay, okay.” It was hard not to respond to her passion, but as I sat there across the narrow space from them I saw Alex kneading his ex-sister’s shoulder thoughtfully. Somehow it made it easier for me to go on. “Let me get this straight. You weren’t followed by anybody when we were... together?”

“No, no. They were made up, to make you think I was in danger. And those people who came aboard last night... well, you know.”

“So you’d have to come along on the trip with us.”

“Yes.”

“And kill us.”

For a long moment the only sound in the cramped space was Christina’s harsh breathing. Then Alex cleared his throat like an alligator rumbling for its monthly dinner.

“You are satisfied, Nick Carter?”

“More or less.”

“Then why you don’t go topside and see where the hell this boat is going?”

We crossed the heel of Italy’s boot just after dawn, and we were halfway to Taranto when the first helicopter flew over. During the night I’d laid out the three orange life preservers on the forward deck as we’d arranged, and when the chopper spotted us a hand flew out to let us know he was locked on to Scylla. Less than an hour later another chopper, or maybe the same one, dropped down in the wide bay close alongside to take aboard Alex and Christina. It left Hawk with me and the hobbyhorsing sloop; the weather had picked up nasty again, and before my boss had been in the cockpit for more than five minutes his face was starting to match the churning green of the water all around us.

“How long will it be before you can bring this thing into port?” he asked.

“Maybe a couple of hours.”

He paused before responding. “Oh. I see.”

“Was there something you wanted to talk to me about?”

“Well, possibly. I gather that the girl turned out to be one of them?”

“She was. I wouldn’t bet on it now, though.”

“Oh?”

“Young love.” I’d seen the way Christina and Alex had looked at each other before they’d transferred to the helicopter.

“But... they’re brother and sister!”

I filled in the details. Hawk nodded wisely. “Perhaps she can help us too.”

“If you can do something about her kid.”

“It’s possible. I’ll have to work on that.”

We sailed along in silence for a while before he spoke again. “And how are you, N3? No wounds? No bruises?”

“Nothing to speak of. Much.”

“Good. When we get back to Washington tonight I must talk to you about...”

“Wait a minute.”

“Yes?”

I patted the wheel. “I have a boat to return.”

“That can be taken care of.”

“I’d rather do it myself. I may have to come back this way some time.”

“Well...”

“Yes?”

“Oh, I suppose you’re right. How long will it take?”

“A few days. Depending on the weather.”

“All right. But don’t take any longer than necessary, Nick. You’re needed.”

“I won’t,” I promised, and started mentally charting a course to Bari. For a little while I’d almost been hooked on Christina, but even Sue-Ellen had never held a knife to my throat. It was time for a little fun-and-games. My way.

Content

Nick Carter
The Liquidator

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen