Bloody Passage (v5) (17 page)

The launch started to burn furiously and there was a further explosion when the fuel tank went up, but by that time I was taking
Palmyra
through the passage between the Sisters and out to sea fast.

13
Rebel Without A Cause

I
switched on every light we had and told Nino and Barzini to rig the fishing nets from mast to stern again.

"Page eighty-three of my copy of Mao Tse Tung on Guerrilla Warfare," I told Barzini when he joined me in the wheelhouse. "When a fish wishes to hide, it finds a shoal of fish. He suggests the revolutionary does the same."

"Do we qualify?"

"Well, let's put it this way. There are a hell of a lot of tunny boats scattered around between here and an outer limit that varies between ten to fifteen miles. This way we look just like all the others, so if anyone is searching for us, good luck to them."

God knows why I felt so cheerful, but in any event, we were soon passing through the tunny fleet. It required some careful navigating and I had to keep a constant eye out for nets, but within an hour or so we were leaving their lights behind. I pushed the engines up to full power and pressed on into the darkness.

For most of the time I was alone, but finally Simone appeared with coffee and sandwiches. She put the tray on the chart table and I locked on to automatic steering.

"What happened back there on the train after we left?" she asked.

I told her. When I'd finished she said, "I'm glad you didn't shoot Masmoudi. He was rather nice. Not at all as that revolting little Zingari man described him."

"I see." I pulled her into my arms. "You fancied him, did you?"

"Very definitely," she said. "Only duty called."

"How's Wyatt?"

"Not so good. Barzini and Nino had to drag him every step of the way from the railway line to the beach. He should be in hospital, Oliver. He's a sick man."

"What's he doing now?"

"Sleeping. He was completely exhausted."

"Did he say anything?"

She shook her head. "Not a word. For most of the time he was conscious he just didn't seem to be able to take in what was happening. He's in the aft cabin."

"Okay," I said. "This is what I want you to do. Go back and stay with him. You use the other bunk. I don't want him left alone with Langley on any account. I'll join you later."

"But I don't understand," she said. "Why should Justin cause trouble now? It doesn't make sense."

"Sense or not, he's up to something. I've never been more certain of anything in my whole life, so you watch him."

She went out and I unlocked the automatic pilot and took the wheel again and sat back thinking about it all. What could Langley be up to? It was a puzzle certainly. Possibly Stephen Wyatt could provide some answers.

The door banged open and Barzini entered. "I'll take over. You get some sleep."

"I've told Simone to stay with Wyatt. I think I'll bunk in with her."

"You expecting trouble?"

"From Langley?" I shrugged. "God knows, but I don't trust that character an inch. Better to be safe than sorry. You watch yourself, too, understand?"

He took a .38 Smith and Wesson from his pocket and laid it to hand on the chart table. "I got a friend. No need to worry about me, so off you go."

When I went down into the saloon Langley was stretched out on one of the bench seats smoking a cigarette. He glanced up and smiled. "Looking for me, old stick?"

For a moment I was tempted to have it out with him, but have what out, that was the trouble. I could see his bland smile now. The simulated bewilderment.

"Not particularly," I said and I opened the door to the aft cabin and went inside.

I bolted it behind me. Simone was in one bunk, a blanket draped round her shoulders, and Wyatt was in the other. She wasn't sleeping, but Wyatt was dead to the world, the bruised face tired and full of strain.

I took off my ammunition belt and placed it with the two Sturma grenades on top of the locker. Then I took off my boots and climbed into the bunk beside Simone pulling the blanket over both of us.

She snuggled into me, my arm about her. "This is nice."

What she didn't see was the Stechkin ready in my left hand under the blanket. Not that it mattered, for after a while she began to breathe slowly and steadily and I knew she was asleep.

One moment I was asleep and then awake, everything crystal clear and sharp. Simone was still dead to the world, her back toward me, but when I turned, Wyatt was lying on his side watching me. His left arm hung down to the floor and he was holding one of the stick grenades. He was still very pale and the bruising on his face looked ghastly, but a lot of the strain had gone. He seemed himself again, if I can put it that way, although that was obviously only an impression.

I said, "A nasty little toy if it's handled the wrong way."

He glanced down at the Sturma and frowned as if surprised to find it there. Then he put it down on top of the locker. "Who are you?"

There was a knock at the door and Barzini called, "Open up in there. It's coffee time. You having an orgy or something?"

As I got up to open the door, Simone awakened and stretched her arms. Barzini entered with a coffee pot in one hand and several cups in the other. "We're fresh out of cream," he said. "You'll have to drink it black and like it."

It was certainly strong enough and had the effect of a shot in the arm. "Where's Langley?" I said.

"Took over the wheel twenty minutes ago. Winds four to five with rain squalls. Bit of a sea running, but nothing to write home about."

Wyatt was sitting up, drinking his coffee, eyes watchful. I said, "How do you feel now?"

He came straight to the point. "Who in the hell are you? What is all this?"

"My name's Grant," I said. "This is Aldo Barzini and Simone Delmas. Your father sent us to get you out."

A look of complete astonishment appeared on his face. "My father?"

"Dimitri Stavrou."

"Oh, him." He leaned back against the bulkhead and laughed weakly. "So that's it? So it is just a dream after all." He looked me straight in the face and said calmly, "All right, Mr. Grant, how did he tell you to dispose of me? A bullet in the back of the skull? A knife in the ribs?"

I stared at him in astonishment and then some sort of light began to dawn. Simone said, "What's he talking about, Oliver?"

I'd pushed the Stechkin into my belt earlier. When I took it out Wyatt flinched, expecting the worst. Instead, I turned it butt first and put it into his hand.

"There's the safety catch," I said. "All right? Now I'll make a bargain with you. I'll tell you my side then you tell me yours. I've an idea we're both in for a surprise."

He fingered the Stechkin, a frown on his face, then said slowly, "Fair enough."

I said, "You were in Viet Nam?"

"That's right--paratroops, only don't start waving any flags."

"So was I for a while, among other things. I had a reputation for being able to get people out of places. People like you. Later, in civilian life, I made quite a living out of it."

"I get it. My stepfather hired you?"

"Not exactly. He tried to, but I'd decided to retire from the game. I wasn't interested."

"So how did he persuade you to change your mind?"

I told him in a few crisp, uncomplicated sentences. When I finished his face was bleak. "Typical of the bastard," he said. "The kind of nastiness he's been famous for all his life."

I said, "Al Capone must have loved him."

"I know one person who didn't. My mother. He treated her like a dog, Mr. Grant, for years. Used her only to further his own ends. She lived in total terror of him until the day she died. Trembled at the sound of his voice."

"But he told me he loved her," Simone said. "That was why he wanted you out of Ras Kanai. He looked upon it as some sort of sacred duty."

Wyatt laughed again. "He really does get better and better. When I got back from Nam I returned to Yale for a while, but it wasn't my scene anymore. You know how it is? I bummed around the Mediterranean for a while and then got mixed up with some Libyan students who didn't like the Quadhafi regime. The rest, as they say, is history."

"And your stepfather, he tried to get you released?" Barzini asked.

"Oh, sure." Wyatt was getting angry now. "But not because he wanted to do me any favor. That man wouldn't have sent flowers to my funeral. He hated my guts because I'd told him where he stood in my book on several occasions, some of them public. He only became interested in my welfare after my mother's death."

"I don't follow," I said.

"It's really quite simple. Like one of those big insurance policies, I'm worth more dead than alive, at least as far as my stepfather is concerned. You see, when he ran into trouble in the States and was deported, my mother was still left with her rights because she was American-born. So, he put everything in her name, and I mean everything. From a financial point of view a very lucrative thing to do under the circumstances. No risk to it, after all. As I've said, she was terrified of him. When he snapped his fingers she'd crawl."

"Heh, I'm beginning to see a little light here," Barzini cut in. "She decided to get her own back."

"That's it. She had cancer. She knew she was going so she had a will drawn up privately leaving the whole thing to me. Unfortunately, under the trust laws, I don't inherit till my twenty-fifth birthday and that isn't until next year."

"And if you die before then?" Simone said.

"Everything legally reverts to Dimitri--no problems." He chuckled. "God, but I'd have liked to have been there when the lawyers told him what she'd done. They say he was like a madman for three days."

"How long ago was this?" I said.

"About nine months."

I said to Simone, "And you knew nothing about this?"

"Not a word, I swear it," she said. "I was only with him for six months, remember."

Wyatt carried on. "He tried to get me to go and see him, made all sorts of promises, but I wasn't having any. Then somebody took a shot at me one night. I was still at Yale then. I figured there was a contract out on me and started running."

"Which was why you came to the Mediterranean? To hide?"

"I know, don't tell me. I certainly chose one hell of a public way of doing it. Face on the front page of every newspaper in the world. Show trial in Tripoli." He shook his head. "It's kind of funny when you look at it. When he finally found me I was as far off as ever."

There was a heavy silence as we all sat there thinking about it. Finally, I said, "If you made it to that twenty-fifth birthday of yours, what would you do?"

"Well, I'll tell you," he said. "That money was screwed out of people. Prostitution, drugs, protection --you name it and he had a finger in it, no matter how rotten. It seems to me that it would be kind of appropriate if it went back to people in some way. I know several relief organizations who could do one hell of a lot with five million dollars."

Simone's breath hissed between her teeth sharply. Barzini said with a kind of awe in his voice, "How much did you say?"

"Give or take a few bucks."

There was another long silence. Simone looked at me, I turned away, stood up and lit a cigarette. "Oliver?" she said.

"You're going to hand me over anyway, aren't you, Mr. Grant?" Wyatt's face was calm and one corner of his mouth lifted in a slight, ironic smile.

I turned, my back to the door. "What else can I do? He has my sister."

Simone plucked at my sleeve and I turned on her savagely. "The purpose of the exercise wasn't to take sides, it was to save Hannah. You know that as well as I do."

"You're living in a fool's paradise, Mr. Grant," Wyatt said. "You won't get your sister back. He never intended it All he wants is me--dead. Do you know what a truly evil man is?"

Barzini said, "I think maybe it's time we put Langley under wrappers."

"A good point," I said. "Any further discussion can come later."

"Who's Langley?" Wyatt asked me.

"Let's say he plays for the other team." I took the Stechkin from him and stuck it in my belt. "Sorry to be an Indian giver, but I've an idea I'm going to be needing this. You stay with him, Simone."

I opened the door and went out, followed by Barzini. The saloon was deserted and Barzini called, "Heh, Nino, where are you?"

"In here," Angelo replied from the forrard cabin.

The door was slightly ajar. I pushed it open and found Nino on the floor, hands lashed together, mouth taped, eyes blazing. Angelo slipped from behind the door and rammed the muzzle of an Uzi sub-machine gun under my chin.

"One move out of you, buster, and I'll blow the top of your head off."

He took the Stechkin from my belt and stuck it into his hip pocket then got a handful of hair and twisted me round, still keeping the muzzle of the Uzi tight under my chin.

Aldo had the Smith and Wesson in his hand. Angelo said, "Put it on the table slowly or he gets it. I'll only tell you once."

"I'd do as he says if I were you." Langley spoke from the companionway. He stepped in holding a revolver and plucked the Smith and Wesson from Barzini's hand. "That aft cabin ventilator's as good as a voice pipe, old stick," he told me. "You're slipping, aren't you, or perhaps you never really had it in the first place?"