The Forty Column Castle (12 page)

I slumped back against the seat. I felt forsaken by all the ancient gods of the island.

He pulled around the block, found the sparse shade of a young mimosa tree and parked.

“Stay here while I call.”

I put my sunglasses back on and didn’t reply. What was there to say? I reflected on
the irrational world I was in and the rational world I had left. Maybe it wasn’t as
rational as I thought it was. Maybe it was crazy, and I was an ostrich with my head
in the sand, like millions of other people. Maybe the world had never been rational.
I had the unnerving feeling that the glue that held me together was unstuck and small
pieces of my sanity were flaking off and blowing away.

Zach walked back to the car from the telephone booth. He wore the boat shoes, floral
shirt, baseball cap, looking for all the world like an American tourist, not a guy
on a mission to clear out a terrorist cell on the most beautiful island in the Mediterranean.

“Your turn,” he said, as he slid behind the wheel. “Remember, sixty seconds. You don’t
want to give away our position.”

“What happens after sixty seconds?”

“Electronic positioning equipment will trace the call to the exact location from which
it is placed. Please do not try anything funny, like calling anyone else. I need to
trust you.” His eyes held mine. “And you need to trust me.”

I nodded, got out of the car and hurried over to the phone. I would have to trust
him. I would make one call to Yannis. I called his office, but the phone rang and
rang and rang. He wasn’t going to pick up. I tried his home. No answer.

I hung up and walked back, no spring in my step. I got into the car and closed the
door and sat there staring straight ahead. “He wasn’t there. What do we do now?”

Zach passed me a bottle of water. “Let’s go to the beach near the Forty Column Castle.
We could rest on the beach for a while, walk around, look at the dig, ask a few questions.”

I remembered our beach time this morning and looked at him.

One side of his mouth twitched up. “This time we really will rest and catch some rays.”

I smiled. “Sure, why not?”

The beach Zach had in mind was on the west side of Pafos north of the Agora, castle
and mosaics sites. We bounced along an unpaved road we accessed from a residential
side street and pulled into a sandy parking lot that sat far back from the water’s
edge. The site wasn’t great for swimming because of the rocks in the water along the
beach. The shore was peppered with only a few European bathers, taking the sun. Cypriots
didn’t swim this time of year, the water was too cold and most of them would be working
or keeping house this time of day.

I hopped out and stood by the open door, checking out the scene. There were two other
cars in the parking lot. I had put on my back up pair of bikinis when I dressed at
the beach this morning after that incredible swim. I wasn’t sure what Zach would do,
since he’d have to wear a suit at this beach.

He opened both car doors to serve as a dressing room, pulled out a pair of Speedos,
and started to undress. I watched from across the front seat. It was a welcome diversion
from the nightmare. He glanced at me and saw that I was watching. He flipped off his
hat, unbuttoned his shirt one button at a time, pausing a mini-beat between buttons,
shrugged it off and threw it on the seat. His muscles flexed and bunched, his chest
and back a rich tan. He didn’t have an ounce of fat on him.

Fear heightened sensibilities still gripped my insides. But the promise in his eyes
soothed my frazzled nerves and diverted my attention away from the nightmare.

He slipped off his shorts. His long, bare legs were heavily muscled. He turned full
frontal toward me, knowing I was watching him. And grinned.

I could feel the steam rise in me from far down in my toes. Bracing his arms on the
car door frame, he leaned his head against it, looking into my eyes. He was something
else. How I would ever survive the extremes of emotion I was living through today,
added to the sexual juices that this man stirred up in me, I didn’t know.

My tongue slid over my lower lip. His eyes fixed on my face and what I was doing with
my lips and tongue. I pulled my pants down, dropped them to the ground. Taking my
time, I unbuttoned the shirt and let it drop on the ground. He watched, no longer
grinning, with a light in his eyes that said unguarded, all out sex. I was ready.

He straightened and looked around the parking lot. Not a soul in sight. He waved his
head toward the back seat. We got in and shut the doors. No kissing for openers this
time. Our bodies molded together like spoons stacked in a drawer. This time it was
like he was trying to calm me, caress me into thinking this was the most important
happening in the world, and it would go on forever. There was nothing else.

And I wanted it to go on forever.

After, we slumped in the seat, draped over each other in a protective cocoon. The
heat, the climax, the extremes of the day overtook me, and I fell into a delicious
half-doze with Zach wrapped around me.

“Claudie.” He whispered in my ear. “You okay?”

“More than okay. Can’t you hear me purring?”

He kissed my ear. I turned over to face him. We smiled lazy smiles at each other.
He cupped by neck and caressed my cheek with his thumb. I sighed many unsighed sighs.
A sea breeze from the open windows flicked over my hot skin, cooling some of the slick
sweat that covered us both.

“Want more?” he said to me, his face a whisper from mine.

I nodded.

Cramped as we were in that back seat, the thought that someone might find us at any
time and the shear wantonness of what we were doing added to the thrill. We took our
time and used our mouths and bodies to work out the seductive chemistry between us
until we were both spent once more.

“God, you are incredible,” he said in a husky voice.

I traced the outline of his lips. “So are you.”

The crunch of footsteps going by outside the car gave us pause. Zach looked up over
the seat. The footsteps kept going, unaware of two lovers in the backseat of a Honda
SUV.

“Want to sit up?” he asked.

“Okay, sure. I don’t know how th
e
two of us managed all that in this back seat, being the size we are.”

“We didn’t think once we got started.”

He helped me into a sitting position, and I pushed my hair from my eyes. My top knot
had come undone, and my hair fell around my face and shoulders. He swept his hand
through my hair, pulling it off my shoulders and planted a kiss on my neck.

“Maybe,” I said, “we should rent a hotel room and get this out of our systems.”

“I don’t know if that’s possible. You have the most luscious body I have ever had
the pleasure of lusting after.” He passed my shirt. “Not that I want to stop, but
there’s a couple coming up from the beach, and it looks like they might be headed
for that car.” He nodded in the direction of one of the two other cars in the lot
and passed me a bottle of water, warm but thirst quenching.

The sunburned couple got in the car and left, never noticing us, intent upon their
own life, their own pleasures. The few bathers still on the beach were packing to
leave.

We sat, sharing the bottle of water, looking out to sea. Zach placed his arm around
my shoulder, and we watched in silence together. The steam in the back seat of the
rented Honda SUV gradually dissipated.

“Doesn’t it look like diamonds,” I said, “the way the sun catches the light on the
water?”

“Yes, millions of them.”

“That has always been Cyprus for me, the diamonds, the breathtaking blue of the sea,
the gentle waves. The endlessness of it. Always changing, always the same.”

“You waxing poetic on me?”

I laughed. “It’s a state of mind I escape to sometimes.”

“You are more breathtaking than the sea,” he said and kissed my temple through my
hair.

“You want to go for a swim?” he asked after we sat for a while longer enjoying the
silence and the sea and each other.

“Sure. The beach here is rocky. We’ll need to be careful.”

“I know.”

My bikini was wedged under the front passenger’s seat, and I wiggled into it. Zach
found his Speedo suit and slipped it on.

We walked barefoot to the beach, treading carefully on the pebbles. I spotted a clear
path through the seaweed and rocks out to open water, and we swam out together. The
shock of the cold water cooled my body and my brain.

Rolling over onto my back, I looked at the beach. The tops of the buildings in the
distance marked where the main street ran parallel to the beach. Above the roofs of
the houses and stores the dim outline of mountains rose like a mirage. The lighthouse
near the Forty Column Castle loomed on the south horizon. The sun moved lower in the
sky in its never ending cycle, the shoreline remained unchanging, the rocks and waves
coupled in an eternal dance with the sea. The beautiful scenery hadn’t changed, but
I had.

“Where to now?” I asked after we had dried off and dressed by the car. We were the
last to leave the beach.

“Let’s walk over to the ruins and get a drink at the harbor. We still need to kill
some time before we make our round of calls. We can blend into the tourist crowd.
You hungry?”

I smiled. “Starved. You kidding? After all that exercise?”

He smiled back, and the glow in his eyes told me he had had as much fun as I had.

We could see the tops of the arches in the Forty Column Castle from where we stood.
The walk was short. The evening, lovely. We could watch the sun set. I was putting
a romantic spin on the whole affair, wasn’t I?

He held out his hand, and I took it, still glowing from the intimacy we had shared.
Don’t overdo this I warned myself. Enjoy this for what it is. Let it go when it’s
over.

We walked south along the goat path that wound through rocks and over the beach to
the ruins of the Odeon, an amphitheater that dated back to the 2
^nd
century AD. We stopped, so I could show Zach how the acoustics worked. I stood center
stage. He sat halfway up the amphitheater. I talked in a normal voice and gave a blow
by blow description of our lovemaking session in the car. He heard every word and
clapped in appreciation. Those Romans knew how to build a theater.

We headed for Saranta Kolones, Greek for the Forty Column Castle, not one column of
which was still standing. Only a few arches and the massive walls remained of the
Byzantine fortress, destroyed by an earthquake in 1223. On our way we passed the tents
of the archaeological dig at the ancient Roman villa where they had uncovered spectacular
mosaics. The tents served to protect the excavation and the diggers. When I had helped,
one of the archeologists had splashed water on the mosaics to show how the colors
came alive. Photos in books did not do justice to the real mosaics.

The sun set, the breeze died. The light was clear and low horizon clouds made the
western sky glow with gold and crimson. We walked in silence for most of the way,
hand-in-hand when the path was wide enough.

A kaleidoscope of images tumbled through my mind -- my aunt gripping the bars in the
jail cell, the interlude in the back seat of the car, the bottoms of the shoes lying
in the garden at the safe house, Zach’s naked body standing in the waves of Lara Bay,
the rifle crack of flying bullets, the message to kill the man who was with me. The
images were at odds with the peacefulness of the scene through which we now strolled.

Where was my aunt? What was she doing and how would I ever help her? I hoped she was
safe, but when my mind replayed the frightening images of the last two days, fear
spiked through me again and scorched my nerves.

As we passed the castle I shivered, remembering the excavators’ stories of how they
had found people buried in place as they fell inside the castle during the earthquake.
They had lain as they had fallen all these years. Stories abounded in the local community
of lost treasure yet to be found. As far as I knew it was all myth and rumor. That
all was so very long ago and so very far away from my predicament. No one was hanging
around the site. Work had stopped for the day. Not that I had entertained hope of
finding the American couple around the dig.

“Have you ever eaten at Hondros?” Zach asked.

“Many times. Let’s go there. Good Cypriot food.”

“I don’t think we’ll be recognized but keep your hat on just in case. Besides it looks
good on you.”

He had donned his Panama for the walk over and looked the tourist. The floral shirt
put him over the top. The short gravel road we followed from the castle brought us
to the main paved street out of lower Pafos. On the corner sat the Hondros restaurant.
I was primed for a glass of wine and good food, especially Cyprus chips.

The waiter seated us, and we studied the menu. It was too early for Cypriot diners.
A party of Brits sat at a table across the room enjoying cocktail hour. We sat facing
the street, everything open air. Our drinks arrived, a Keo for Zach and a glass of
red wine for me.

As I sipped the wine I engaged in some serious people watching. A scruffy looking
guy in fatigue shorts and flip flops walked by, trailing a group of people that included
three gray-haired ladies.

I grabbed Zach’s arm and in a low voice said, “There’s Lonnie and look who’s with
him.”

“The widows.”

“I’m going to talk to them.” I got up to go but didn’t make it half-way out of my
seat before Zach had his hand on my arm to restrain me.

“Wait. Let me go. They don’t know me, and they might have heard about you.”

He gave me a hard stare. “You wait here.” His look softened. “Please. Stay here until
I get back, okay?”

I nodded and smiled and as soon as he left the restaurant, I looked around for a pay
phone. The waiter said there was a pay phone on the corner half a block down. I told
him we both would be back and took off down the street. First I dialed Yannis’s number.