The Mediterranean Caper (10 page)

Pitt grasped his scraped crotch and sat up, ignoring the stabbing pain and unable to believe his success. He was out, but was he in the clear? His eyes, now acutely used to the dark, darted around the immediate area.

The vaulted bars of the labyrinth faced onto the stage entrance of a great amphitheatre. The ponderous structure reflected a vaguely unearthly glow from the white light of the stars and the moon, whose imperfect circle peeped over a shadowed mountain summit. The architecture was Grecian but the massiveness of the construction signified Roman hands. The edge of the round stage was separated from the theatre's upper rim by almost forty rows of steeply banked seats. Except for the invisible flight of nocturnal insects, the entire amphitheatre was deserted.

Pitt slipped into the remains of his uniform. Knotting the damp sticky cloth of his shirt, he stiffly wrapped his chest with a crude bandage.

Just to be able to walk and breathe in the warm evening air gave him a new surge of strength. He had gambled back there in the labyrinth and without Theseus' string to guide him had beat the immense odds and won. Laughter rang from his lips and traveled in loud echoes to the last row of the amphitheatre and back. The pain and the exhaustion was forgotten as he visualized von Till's face at their next meeting.

“How would you like a ticket to see that?” Pitt shouted at his nonattendant gallery. He waited, caught in the mood of the eerie setting. There was no reply, no applause, only the silence of the warm Thasos night. For a moment he thought he saw a ghostly Roman audience cheering him on, but the toga-clad figures faded mutely away into the white marble, leaving Pitt with no answer to his lonely invitation.

He looked up at the maze of stars in the diamond-clear air to get his bearings. Polaris blinked its friendly light in return and advertised approximate north. Pitt's eyes scanned a full three-hundred-and-sixty-degree circle of sky. Something was wrong. Taurus and the Pleiades should have been overhead. Instead, they were far to the east.

“Goddamn,” Pitt cursed aloud, looking at his watch. It was 3:22. Only an hour and eighteen minutes before dawn. Somehow he had lost nearly five hours. What happened, he asked himself, where was the time lost? Then he realized that he must have passed out after colliding with the stairway.

There was no time to lose. He hurriedly walked across the stone-paved stage and presently discovered, in the little available light, a small path leading down the mountainside. He took it and set out on a race to beat the sun.

A quarter of
a mile down the steep slope the pathway turned into a road—no road, really, but two parallel tire-worn indentations in the ground cover. The tracks meandered downward in a tortuous series of hairpin curves. Pitt stumbled along at half trot, his heart pounding viciously under the taxing strain. He was hurt, not badly, but he had lost much blood. Any doctor who might have encountered him would have immediately confined his torn body to a hospital bed.

Over and over, since his escape from the labyrinth, pictures of the defenseless scientists and crew of the
First Attempt
being strafed by the Albatros flashed through Pitt's mind. He could see in perfect detail the bullets tearing into flesh and bone, leaving heavy red blotches on the white paint of the oceanographic research ship. The carnage would all be over before the new interceptor jets at Brady Field could scramble, providing of course the replacement aircraft had arrived from the North Africa depot before dawn. These visions and others drove Pitt on to efforts beyond his normal capacity.

He halted abruptly. Something moved in the shadows ahead. He left the vague trail and circled warily around a thick growth of chestnut trees, creeping closer to the unexpected obstacle. Then he raised up and peered over a fallen, decaying tree trunk. Even in the dim light there was no mistaking the shape of a well-fed donkey that was tethered to a solitary boulder. The unattended little animal cocked one ear at Pitt's approach and brayed softly, almost pathetically.

“You're hardly the answer to a jockey's prayer,” said Pitt, grinning. “But beggars can't be choosy.” He untied the lead rope from the rock and quickly made a crude halter. With no little amount of patience he managed to push it over the donkey's nose. Then he mounted.

“Okay, mule, giddy up.”

The little beast did not move.

Pitt pounded on the stout flanks. Still no movement. He kicked, bounced and prodded. Nothing, not even a bray. The long ears lay flat and their obstinate owner refused to budge.

Pitt did not know any Greek words, only a few names. That must be it, he thought. This dumb jackass was probably named after a Greek god or hero.

“Forward Zeus…Appollo…Poseidon…Hercules. How about Atlas?” It seemed as though the donkey had turned to stone. Suddenly an idea occurred to Pitt. He leaned over and inspected his mount's underbelly. It was void of exterior plumbing.

“My deepest apologies you gorgeous, ravishing creature,” Pitt purred in the pointed ears. “Come my lovely Aphrodite, let us be off.”

The donkey twitched and Pitt knew he was getting warm.

“Atlanta?”

Nothing more happened.

“Athena?”

The ears shot up and the donkey turned, looking up at Pitt out of big confused eyes.

“Come on, Athena, mush!”

Athena, much to Pitt's joy and relief, pawed at the ground a couple of times and then obediently began to amble down the road.

The early morning turned cool, and dew was beginning to dampen the forest trimmed meadows when at last Pitt reached the outskirts of Liminas. Liminas was an average Greek coastal village, a unique blend of modern construction built on the site of an ancient city, whose ruins rise here and there among the more recent tile-roofed houses. On the shoreline, jutting into the town with a jagged half-moon curve, a harbor full of flat-beamed fishing boats offered a picturesque travel folder scene with the smells of salt air, fish and diesel oil thrown in. The wooden-hulled boats lay dead along the beach like a pack of beached whales, their masts carefully stowed along the gunnels and their anchor ropes stretched loosely to seaward. In rows, behind the white sand beach, high vertical poles stood, supporting long fences of stinking brown fish nets. And behind those again was the main street of the village, whose shuttered little doors and windows offered no sign of life to the bedraggled Pitt and his plodding four-legged transportation. The white plastered houses with their tiny balconies made a restful real-life painting in the moonlight, a painting that had little bearing on the events which had brought Pitt to the village.

At a narrow intersection Pitt slid off the donkey and tied it to a mailbox. Then he took an American ten-dollar bill from his wallet and wrapped it into the halter.

“Thanks for the lift, Athena, and keep the change.”

He patted the animal affectionately on the soft rounded nose and, hitching up his disreputable looking pants, walked unsteadily down the street toward the beach.

Pitt looked for the telltale lines of a telephone, but could see none. There were no cars or other vehicles parked along the streets either, only a bicycle, but he was too physically drained to consider pedaling the seven miles back to Brady Field. A lot of good it would do, he thought, even if he could find a phone or someone who owned a car; he couldn't speak Greek.

The glowing arms and numbers on the Omega said 3:59. Another hot dawn would hit the island in forty-one minutes. Forty-one minutes to warn Gunn and the men on the
First Attempt
. Pitt looked across the sea, following the inward curve of the island. If it was seven miles to Brady Field by land, then it was only four miles in a direct line across the water to the ship. There was no time left to loiter, he would simply have to steal a boat. Why not? he reasoned. If he could kidnap a donkey he could pirate a boat.

Within a few minutes he found a well-used dory with a high flaring Carvel hull and a rust-coated one-cylinder gasoline engine. Fumbling in the gloom his fingers found the throttle linkage and the ignition switch. The flywheel was massive and it was all Pitt could do to crank it over. Every aching muscle strained at each silent revolution. Sweat broke from his forehead and dripped on the engine. His head throbbed and blurriness crept into his vision. Time after time he pulled the crank handle, rubbing the flesh from his hands. It seemed hopeless; the engine would not fire.

If the need for speed had been vital before, it was desperate now. Precious minutes were running down the drain as he attempted to get the balky engine into action. Pitt reached deep, drawing from the last untapped reservoir of his strength. Clenching his teeth he gave a mighty pull. The engine popped briefly and died. He pulled the crank again and slumped exhausted into the oily bilge water. The engine coughed once, then twice, wheezed, coughed again, caught and settled down to a popping thump as the solitary piston began to ram up and down inside its ring-worn sleeve. Too tired to rise, Pitt leaned over and cut the line with the faithful paring knife and kicked the gear lever in reverse. The shabby little boat, its paint peeling down the hull in scaly sheets, chugged backward into the harbor, circled in a hundred-and-eighty-degree arc past the old Roman breakwater and headed out to sea.

Pitt jammed the throttle full against its stop as the dory reeled through the low swells, making perhaps a top speed of seven knots. He hauled himself erect in the stern seat, clutching the tiller tightly between his hands, bleeding from the harsh rasping caused by the rusty crank handle.

A half hour passed, an interminable lapse of time under a cloudless sky and a brightening east horizon, and still the boat chugged steadily around the island. The progress seemed agonizingly slow to Pitt. But every foot gained was a foot closer to the
First Attempt
. He caught himself dozing off from time to time, head dropping on his chest, then reawakening with a start. He urged his hazy mind on, driving it with a frenzy he didn't know he possessed.

Then his dulled eyes saw it, a low, gray shape, resting beyond the next small point of land, just over a mile away. He recognized the two white, thirty-two point lights on bow and stern that signified a ship at anchor. The probing rays of the sun were rapidly stretching into the sky, clearly silhouetting the
First Attempt
against the eastern horizon; first the superstructure, then the crane and radar mast, then the indiscriminate piles of scientific equipment scattered around the deck.

Pitt talked to the noisy old engine, begging it for more revolutions. The lone cylinder snapped, crackled and popped in reply, turning the warped and bent propeller shaft until it rumbled ominously inside worn and exhausted bearings. The race against the dawn was going to be close.

The hot, orange ball of the sun was barely poking its dome over the watery horizon when Pitt abruptly slowed the little engine, tardily jammed the throttle in reverse and bored clumsily into the side of the
First Attempt
.

“Hello the ship!” Pitt shouted weakly, too fatigued to move.

“You dumb ass,” returned an irate voice. “Why don't you watch where you're going?” A shadowed face appeared over the rail and peered down at the dory, bumping against the big ship's hull. “Next time let us know when you're coming so we can paint a target on the side.”

In spite of the tension and fiery agony of his wounds, Pitt could not help smiling. “It's too early in the morning for jokes. Can the wisecracks and get down here and give me a hand.”

“Why should I?” said the lookout, straining his eyes in the early shadows. “Who the hell are you?”

“I'm Pitt and I'm injured. Now stop screwing around and hurry.”

“Is it really you, Major?” the lookout asked hesitantly.

“What the goddamn hell do you want?” snapped Pitt. “A birth certificate?”

“No, sir.” The lookout vanished behind the railing and a moment later reappeared on the boarding ladder with a boathook in one hand. He caught the dory on the aft port gunnel and pulled it to the ladder. Securing a line to the little boat's stern, he leaped on board, caught his foot on a cleat and fell sprawling on top of Pitt.

Pitt clamped his eyes shut, grunting from the impact of the other man's weight. When he opened them again he found himself staring into the yellow beard of Ken Knight.

Knight started to say something, but then he more clearly saw the bloody and ragged body beneath him. The sight of Pitt's condition made the young scientist wince and his face turned ashen. He sat rock-bound in unbelieving shock.

Pitt's lips twisted into a bemused grin. “Don't waste time sitting there like a broken crutch. Help me to Commander Gunn's cabin.”

“My God, my God,” Knight murmured, shaking his head dazedly and slowly from side to side. “What in the name of God happened?”

“Later,” Pitt snapped. “When there's time.” He swayed forward onto his hands. “Help me you dumb bastard before it's too late.” There was a desperation, a burning fierceness in Pitt's voice that startled Knight into action.

Knight half carried, half dragged Pitt up the ladder and onto the deck. He stopped at Gunn's cabin and kicked at the door. “Open up, Commander Gunn. It's an emergency.”

Gunn threw open the door dressed in nothing but a pair of shorts and his horn-rimmed glasses, looking like a confused professor who was just caught in a motel room with the dean of the university's wife. “What's the meaning…” He stopped suddenly, staring at the blood-caked apparition supported by Knight. His brown eyes swelled to immense proportions behind the thick lenses. “My God, Dirk, is that you? What happened?”

Pitt tried to smile again, but it was only a slight curl of his upper lip. “I'm a dropout from hell!” His tone was low, then it came on strongly. “Do you have any meteorological equipment on board?”

Gunn didn't answer. Instead, he ordered Knight to get the ship's doctor. Then the bespectacled little skipper led Pitt into the cabin and gently lowered him on the bunk. “Just rest easy, Dirk. We'll have you patched up in no time.”

“That's just it, Rudi, there is no time,” Pitt said, grasping Gunn's wrists with his ripped hands. “Do you have any meteorological equipment on board?” he repeated urgently.

Gunn looked down at Pitt, his eyes reflecting bewilderment. “Yes, we have instruments to record various meteorological data. Why do you ask?”

Pitt's hands released their grip and fell away from Gunn's wrists. A smug cold smile gripped his eyes and spread his lips as he struggled up on his elbows. “This ship is going to be attacked any minute by the same aircraft that raided Brady Field.”

“You must be delirious,” Gunn said, moving forward to help Pitt sit up.

“My body may look like hell, but my mind at this minute is sharper than yours,” Pitt said. “Now listen, and listen closely. Here's what has to be done.”

It was the lookout perched on the great A-frame crane who first spotted the little yellow plane against its vast blue background. Then Pitt and Gunn saw it too, not more than two miles away, flying at eight hundred feet. They should have seen it sooner, but it was coming at the
First Attempt
straight out of the eye of the sun.

“He's ten minutes late,” Pitt grunted, holding an arm aloft for a white-goateed doctor who worked quickly and skillfully at bandaging his chest.

The elderly physician, oblivious to Pitt's movements on the ship's bridge, cleaned and dressed the raw cuts without bothering to turn and look at the approaching plane. He tied the final knot tightly, making Pitt twinge and display a wry face. “That's the best I can do for you, Major, until you stop running up and down the deck, shouting orders like Captain Bligh.”