Jack Higgins (20 page)

He said calmly to Ciasim, “Now get this sty of a boat moving if you know what's good for you. Try anything funny and your sons will be the first to go. Understand?”

He meant it, nothing was more certain, so Ciasim did as he was told, touching me briefly on the shoulder before moving away.

As the engine rattled into life and the boys started to haul on the anchor, I went to the rail and looked down at the power boat. It had almost disappeared, but Morgan's face was still clear of the water. Strange, but he looked as if he was trying to tell me something and that wasn't possible because he was dead.

And then the power boat slid beneath the surface taking him with it. Poor old bastard. He was at peace now, but what a way to go. He had not deserved that. I'd owed him more than that. Much more.

Yanni was sitting up, clutching his right thigh with both hands, his face twisted with pain. “I'm sorry, Jack,” he said.

I ignored him, turned and looked at Melos standing by the wheelhouse, the machine pistol ready in his hands, and wondered how I was going to kill him when the time came.

Melos sat in the prow where he could watch Ciasim in the wheelhouse and made Yassi and Abu lie facedown on the deck at his feet, the first to die if anyone made any kind of a move against him. Which meant, of course, that for the time being, he was completely safe and he told me to get Yanni below and see to his leg.

“And don't forget, Savage. I want a good job done on him,” he warned. “We want him alive, that one.”

“You see, Jack,” Yanni said as I helped him below, “I have friends everywhere.”

He sat on the very edge of a bunk, his face twisted with pain and glanced across at Pavlo. “How is he?”

“Not so good. Let's have your trousers down.”

He unbuckled his belt. “I didn't believe it could be done, Jack. I didn't think it was possible to get anyone out of that place. A miracle.”

“You seemed to be pretty well informed,” I said.

He smiled faintly. “I have my sources, as they say.”

By then, I had Ciasim's medical kit open. Yanni sat
there, his trousers around his ankles, and I swabbed the blood away from his thigh and had a look. He was lucky. The bullet hadn't gone in. It had simply ploughed a furrow perhaps six inches long before proceeding on its way. Painful, but hardly mortal.

“I thought politics bored you,” I said. “You once told me life was a series of business deals.”

“I was raised by my uncle, Jack, who was an Athenian born and bred. He had a small bar near Ommonia Square. You know that section of Athens?”

“What I'd term the livelier end of town.”

“Exactly. My aunt married a baker who kept a pastry shop round the corner. They were killed during the war and we took in their only son, Michael.”

“Your cousin?” I strapped a gauze dressing across his wound with some surgical tape and stood.

He pulled up his trousers. “My brother, Jack, in all but name. He was a journalist. A good man, not like me at all. He was the kind of person you only meet very occasionally. The kind who can only tell the truth. They closed his newspaper down last year.”

“The government?”

“Is that what you call them, the colonels? After that, he started printing and distributing handbills.”

“Then what?”

“The usual story.” He stubbed out his cigarette carefully on the edge of the old wooden table. “Shot while resisting arrest.” His laugh was harsh and ugly. “Resisting arrest. He was the kind of man who couldn't bear to harm any living creature. Ten times, fifty times more worthy to live than me. You understand, Jack?”

Another man, this Kytros. A man with a conscience
.

“I'm not so sure,” I said. “He probably wouldn't agree with you. Not after tonight.”

He seemed both angry and dejected at the same time. “God, what a mess I've made of it. We'd no idea Melos was on board.” He hesitated, then said awkwardly, “I'm sorry about Morgan. I used him because he knew exactly where you were and it would have been too late to leave our move till you got to Kyros.” He shook his head. “But I never intended that to happen.”

He shuddered and I poured some of Ciasim's rot-gut brandy into a mug and gave it to him. “Melos is quite something when he gets going. Who is he exactly? No three-ring yacht captain, that's for sure.”

“As far as my information goes, he's a major in the security police.”

“And the crew of the
Firebird
? They're all his boys?”

“All that count.”

By then I was completely bewildered. I said, “That means Aleko is working for the government which doesn't make any kind of sense at all.”

He shook his head. “The present government is bad country. Powerful men who think they have not gone far enough. Men who would crush any kind of opposition without the slightest hesitation.”

“And Aleko represents them?” I said. “Is that what you are saying? It still doesn't explain Melos.”

“There are many like him in the army at the moment, in the government itself, who sympathise with the aims of Aleko and his friends. These men are preparing to take over, Jack, which is why it is essential that they lay hands on that list of names. It tells them who are their real opponents. If they can eliminate such individuals,
then nothing can stand in their way. Things are bad enough now, but if Aleko and people like him take over, it will be Germany in 1933 and the Nazis all over again.”

“Tell me one thing,” I said. “And give it to me straight. Are you a Communist?”

He smiled sadly. “If only it were as simple as that, Jack.” He shook his head. “I'm nothing. No, let me amend that. I'm a good Greek, if that means anything. I think people have a right to live in peace and to have a say in how things are run but perhaps that is too much to expect in this day and age.”

“You could have warned me,” I said. “Why didn't you?”

“I couldn't be sure of you and in this business I am not my own master. Anyway, we wanted you to succeed, we wanted Pavlo out of Sinos as long as we could have him.”

“You tried to be too clever, Yanni,” I said. “You and whoever gave you your orders. Now you've got nothing.”

Pavlo groaned. I examined him quickly. He was still unconscious, sweat on his face. I wiped it away and Yanni said, “Will he live?”

“If he's lucky. It's the lung I'm worried about. This sweating could indicate the start of pneumonia.”

“Did he manage to tell you anything?”

I turned, caught slightly off guard by the question. I suppose he saw his answer in my face.

“God help you, Jack, if they even suspect that you have such information. They have their own ways of dealing with that kind of situation and it is anything but pleasant.”

“And what makes you think I wouldn't tell them?” I demanded. “Remember me, Yanni? Jack Savage is the name. I used to have a salvage business in Cairo worth better than two hundred thousand quid and I wasn't interested in politics.”

He stared at me, shocked, incredulous. “I don't believe you, Jack. You wouldn't. I know you too well.”

“A little while ago you were telling me you left me in the dark because you couldn't be sure of me. Make up your mind.”

I was suddenly angry, tired of the whole damned business and of men and their silly little games. Schoolboy games that ended in death for too many people when played on the adult level. To hell with them all. What did it have to do with me?

“You try and save Greece if you want to,” I said. “I've got more important things on my mind,” and I left him there and went up on deck.

 

Melos still sat in the prow, the boys on the deck in front of him. He was smoking a Dutch cigar and looked remarkably relaxed.

“How about Kytros?” he demanded.

“He'll live.”

Inside the wheelhouse, Ciasim's head seemed disembodied in the light from the compass. He was still wearing his wet-suit and it occurred to me that he must be cold.

I said, “I'll take over. You go and change.”

Melos cut in sharply, “He's all right where he is. You worry too much, Savage. These Turks are like pigs rot
ting in a field. They can exist where others die. Animals.”

He spat over the side. Ciasim didn't move a muscle. I went below and got the brandy bottle and a mug. Kytros was sitting beside Pavlo, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

“Trouble?” he said.

I shook my head. “The usual thing. Greek and Turk. Do what you can for him. I'll be back in a little while.”

I half-filled the mug with brandy and Melos said sharply, “Never mind him. I'll have that.”

I gave it to Ciasim anyway. “Go on,” I said. “Shoot us all for a cup of brandy.”

He glared and then for some reason saw the humour in the situation, however grim, and laughed. “Yes, you are right, Savage. We still have a use for you. So live a little longer.”

“As long as I can survive you,” I said, “I'll be satisfied.”

“Which is unlikely, I assure you,” he said and laughed again.

But there was some small comfort in the thought and I held on to that and bided my time.

 

A couple of miles out of Kyros, Melos gave Ciasim a new course that took us round to the south side of the island, a wild and rugged coast of high cliffs and scrubland with beaches that were virtually inaccessible from the land side.

There was a bay called Paxos, a place I knew well because of its unusual situation. The entrance was a narrow passage between two jagged peaks known to local
fishermen as the Old Women of Paxos. Inside, there was an enormous landlocked lagoon fringed by white beaches and backed by a scattering of stunted pine trees.

There was a heavy coastal mist that morning which didn't help on the way in, for it was a tricky passage at the best of times and doubly so in the dim light of early dawn.

We found the
Firebird
anchored close to the shore, the
Gentle Jane
tied up on the starboard side which was something of a surprise. Ciasim cut the engine of the
trenchadiri
and I got the fenders over the side and stood ready to throw a line.

There was plenty of activity on the deck of the
Firebird
as we got closer. Kapelari and Christou stood waiting by the ladder, Kapelari holding a sub-machine gun and then Aleko appeared.

“Did you get him?” he called. “Did everything go all right?”

Melos grinned up at him. “What do you think?”

Before Aleko could reply, a door banged, Kapelari was pulled out of the way and Sara appeared at the rail, a coat thrown over her shoulders.

“Savage?”

She was smiling and then she took in the scene below. Yassi and Abu still flat on their faces, Melos holding the machine pistol jauntily. Her smile faded.

“I know, angel,” I called. “We've been had. All of us.”

 

Looking back on it all, the one thing I find difficulty in understanding was the fact that they hadn't bothered to bring a doctor along, although it had been Aleko himself who had pointed out during the planning stage that it
would probably be essential. It had been obvious from the beginning that some deterioration in Pavlo's condition must be expected.

I suppose the real truth of the situation was that they had no real interest in his personal survival after he had told them what they wanted to know. The mistake we had all made was in miscalculating so badly what a terrible effect the trip out would have on him.

When Ciasim and I took him up from the cabin, we carried a dying man. We passed him over the rail to Christou and one of the stewards, a man called Lazanis, who took him below at once.

Kapelari waved the sub-machine gun threateningly and Ciasim and I helped Yanni Kytros up between us. Yassi and Abu followed, watchful and wary like a couple of young tigers waiting to see which way they should jump. Neither of them showed the slightest sign of fear which didn't surprise me in the least as it isn't a characteristic the Turks have much time for.

Yanni Kytros seemed in a bad way, face screwed up in pain and he obviously had difficulty in putting any weight on his right leg. Not that it earned him much sympathy. Melos gave him a shove in the back that sent him staggering across the deck and told Kapelari to take him below with the two Divalni boys, which left Ciasim and me with Sara and Aleko.

She turned on her brother-in-law looking genuinely bewildered. “For heaven's sake, Dimitri, what's all this about?”

“Later.” He patted her cheek as if to soothe her. “Later, I will explain everything.”

And now she looked angry. “Not good enough, Dimitri, I want to know now.”

Melos took her roughly by the arm, for the first time showing his real authority. “You always did have too much to say for yourself. From now on you speak when I tell you to, understand?”

He was hurting her which was obvious from the pain on her face. I took a quick step forward, but Aleko was there before me.

“Take your hands off her,” he said sharply and did a little arm twisting himself on Melos who cried out and staggered back.

A nice touch of melodrama, but Aleko looked angry and for once, genuinely formidable. It struck me then that if he could ever shake off that neurosis of his he would be hell on wheels.

Possibly the same thought came to Melos because he tilted his machine pistol to include Aleko and said viciously, “I am in charge of this operation, Mr. Aleko. You would do well to remember that.”

I suppose anything might have happened then if Lazanis hadn't arrived to say that Kytros and the Divalni boys were securely under lock and key in separate cabins.

Melos turned to Aleko. “Take this lot down to the saloon and hold them there. Lazanis will be on the door with orders to shoot anyone who tries to leave before I come. Which means,” he added pleasantly to Ciasim, “that those boys of yours will go the same way, so behave yourselves.”