The Mediterranean Caper (14 page)

Zeno stared at Pitt speculatively. Then he gave an uncomprehending shrug and motioned to Darius. Darius nodded and a few seconds later the Mercedes turned onto the main road. The wheels sped over the worn two lane pavement. The trees, lining the shoulders like forgotten sentinels, flashed past in a blur of dust and green leaves. The air was cooler now, and twisting around in the seat, Pitt could see the setting sun's rays strike the bald, tree-bare peak of Hypsarion, the highest point on the island. He remembered reading somewhere that a Greek poet had described Thasos as “a wild ass's back, covered with wild wood.” Though the description was twenty-seven-hundred years old, he thought, it was still true today.

And then, Darius back-shifted and the Mercedes was slowing down. It turned again, this time leaving the highway, its tires crunching on a rough, gravel-strewn country lane that led upward into a wooded ravine.

Why Darius had left the main road before reaching Panaghia Pitt could not guess, any more than he could guess why Zeno acted the part of an armed undercover agent instead of a friendly tourist guide. That old feeling of danger tapped Pitt on the shoulder again, and he felt a tinge of uncontrolled anxiety.

The Mercedes bumped heavily over a dip, rose steeply up a long ramp and entered a large barn-like building through a doorway that had been designed to accommodate heavy trucks requiring high roof clearances. The weather-beaten walls of the wooden structure were covered with the remnants of gray-green paint, long since peeled and blistered from the fierce Aegean sun. An instant before the inside gloom enveloped the car, Pitt caught a glimpse of an overhead sign whose faded black letters were printed in German. Then, as Darius turned off the ignition, he heard the sound of rusty rollers creaking the door shut behind them.

“The Greek International Tourist Organization must work under a damn paltry budget if this is the best they can scrape up for an office,” Pitt said caustically, his eyes darting about the vast, deserted floor.

Zeno merely smiled. It was a smile that left Pitt's heart pounding against an enormous pressure, as if something was holding it, constricting its action. An inner coldness crept over him, bringing with it the acknowledgment of failure, the acknowledgment that he had somehow played into von Till's hands.

Pitt had been aware all along that G.N.T.O. guides do not carry guns or have the authority to make an armed arrest. He also knew that the guides drove around the island in boldly-advertised and gaily-colored Volkswagen buses, not black, unmarked Mercedes-Benz sedans. Time was getting expensive. He and Giordino must make a move, and make it soon.

Zeno opened the rear door and stepped back. He made a slight bow and gestured with the gun.

“Please remember,” he said, his tone rock hard. “No foolishness.”

Pitt climbed from the car and turned, offering his hand to Teri through the open front door. She looked up at him seductively for a moment and, squeezing his hand gently, slowly uncoiled from her sitting position. Then quickly, before Pitt could react, she threw her arms around his neck and pulled his head down to her level. Both pairs of eyes were open, Pitt's mostly from surprise, as she brazenly covered his sweating face with kisses.

It never fails, Pitt thought in detached fascination, no matter how cool or sophisticated they act toward the world, show a woman danger and adventure and they'll always turn on. It's really a pity, she's ready but it's the wrong time and the wrong place. He forced her back.

“Later,” he murmured, “when our audience has gone home.”

“A most stimulating little scene,” said Zeno impatiently. “Come along, Inspector Zacynthus rapidly loses all compassion when he is kept waiting.”

Zeno dropped about five paces behind the group, holding the automatic at hip level. Darius then escorted them across the football field length of the building, up a rickety flight of wooden stairs that led to a hallway, lined on both sides by several doors. Darius paused at the second door on the left and pushed it open, motioning Pitt and Giordino inside. Teri started to follow but was suddenly halted by a huge barrel of an arm.

“Not you,” Darius grunted.

Pitt whirled around, anger clouding his face. “She stays with us,” he said coldly.

“No need to play rescuing hero,” Zeno said lightly, reinforced with an expression of seriousness. “I promise you, no harm will come to her.”

Pitt studied Zeno's face carefully, finding no sign of treachery. For some strange reason Pitt experienced a marked degree of trust in his captor.

“I'll take you at your word,” he growled.

“Don't worry, Dirk.” Teri threw an icy look at Zeno. “As soon as this stupid inspector, whoever he is, finds out who I am, we'll all be free of these wretched people.”

Zeno ignored her and nodded at Darius. “Guard our friends here, guard them closely. I suspect they're very cunning.”

“I'll be alert,” Darius promised confidently. He waited until Zeno and Teri, padding the dusty floor in her bare feet, were gone. Then he closed the door and leaned lazily against it, arms folded across his massive chest.

“Personally speaking,” Giordino muttered, for the first time since the ride from the ruins, “I prefer the accommodations at the Hotel San Quentin.” His gaze focused on Darius. “At least the roaches weren't king size.”

Pitt grinned at Giordino's insulting comment to Darius and scanned the room, taking in every detail of its construction. It was small, no larger than nine by ten feet. The walls consisted of warped boards nailed crudely to warped support posts that stood facing inward at irregular intervals, in rotted and barren starkness. The room was void of any furniture and windowless; the only available light came through large horizontal cracks in the walls and a jagged hole in the roof.

“If I was to guess,” said Pitt, “I'd say this place was a deserted warehouse.”

“You're close,” Darius volunteered. “The Germans used this building for an ordnance depot when they occupied the island in forty-two.”

Pitt pulled out a cigarette and casually lit it. To offer Darius a cigarette would have immediately put the brute on his guard. Instead, Pitt took a step backward and began tossing the lighter in the air, each time tossing it a little higher till he noticed Darius following it out of the corner of one eye. Once, twice, four times the lighter sailed into the air. On the fifth toss it fell through Pitt's fingers and clattered on the floor. He shrugged stupidly and bent down, picking it up.

Pitt charged Darius harder than he had ever charged any halfback, any quarterback, in his Air Force academy days. Lunging forward from a football crouch, his feet dug firmly into the coarse-grained wood of the floor, he thrust his head and shoulder like a battering ram, backed with every driving ounce of power his muscular legs and one hundred and ninety pounds could muster. At the instant before impact, he drove upward, catching Darius in the unprotected stomach just above the beltline. It was like running at full speed into a brick wall, and Pitt gasped at the shock: it felt as if his neck was broken.

In football terminology it was called a running block, a vicious, maiming block, and it would have put most unprepared men in a hospital bed: all others it would have left on the ground in momentary stunned helplessness—all others, that is, except Darius. The giant merely grunted, doubled over slightly from the force of the blow and grabbed Pitt by the biceps, lifting him off the floor.

Pitt went numb. The shock and the pain that erupted from his arms and neck gave way to utter surprise that any man could not only take such a charge and remain standing but shake it off like a love tap. Darius pushed him against the wall, slowly bending Pitt's body, like a vertical pretzel, around an upright support post. The pain really began to come now. Pitt clenched his teeth and stared into Darius's expressionless face, only a few inches away. His spine felt as if it would snap at any second. His vision began to fade. Darius just stood there, eyes gleaming, and increased the pressure.

Suddenly the pressure stopped and Pitt dimly perceived Darius staring back, his lips working, fighting for breath. Mutely Darius mouthed an agonized groan and sank to his knees, weaving silently from side to side.

Giordino, blocked by Pitt's frontal assault, was forced to stand by helplessly till Darius swung sideways, pinning Pitt to the wall. Then, without hesitation, he hurled himself across the room, his legs jackknifing open, his feet imbedded in Darius' kidneys. He braced himself, half expecting the giant's body to absorb most of the force from the violent blow. It didn't work out that way. It was as if a handball had struck a backstop: Giordino rebounded off Darius with a tooth-loosening jolt and crashed jarringly to the floor, badly stunned. For a moment he lay quite still, then dazedly he began struggling to his hands and knees, shaking his head back and forth to clear the waves of blackness that threatened to engulf his conscious mind.

It was too late. Darius was the first to recover, triumph etched in every scar of his ugly face. He lunged at Giordino, the great mass of his weight crushing the smaller man beneath him. There was an evil grin on Darius' face now, a sadistic sign of the violence yet to come. Iron hands clasped together, fingers interlocking, around Giordino's head and squeezed—squeezed with the unrelenting pressure of a closing vise.

For what seemed like unending seconds Giordino lay inert, fighting off the shooting pain that burst in his skull from the crushing palms. Then he stirred, slowly raised his hands and grabbed Darius around the thumbs and pulled downward. For his size Giordino was strong as an ox, but he was no match for the man who towered above him. Darius, seemingly oblivious to the bone-twisting pull, hunched his shoulders and exerted an even greater effort.

Pitt was still on his feet, but just barely. His back was a spreading sea of pain that flowed to every part of his body. Numbly he stared at the murderous scene on the floor. Move you stupid bastard, he screamed to himself, move fast. He clutched the wall with both hands, preparing to launch himself at Darius. Something gave behind him, and he swung around, new hope ablaze in his eyes.

A wall plank had torn loose from the support post and was dangling at a crazy angle, one end still held by rusty nails. Frantically he jerked at it, first one way then the other, until metal fatigue broke the nails and the board, about four feet long and an inch in thickness, tore free from the post. God, if only it wasn't too late. Pitt raised the board above his head and, drawing on the last of his ebbing strength, brought it down on the back of Darius' neck.

Pitt would never again forget the shock of hopelessness and despair that flooded through his mind at that moment as the rotted plank shattered with all the harmless force of a piece of peanut brittle around the giant's shoulders. Without turning, Darius let loose of Giordino's temples, giving his victim a brief respite, and struck Pitt with a sweeping backhand blow that caught him in the stomach and sent him reeling across the room to fall limply against the doorway and melt slowly down to the floor.

Somehow, clutching the doorknob, Pitt pulled himself to his feet and stood there swaying drunkenly, conscious of nothing, not even the pain, the blood that began to seep through the bandages onto his shirt and Giordino's face, now turning blue under the tremendous hands. One more try, he told himself, knowing it would be his last. Pitt's mind slowed down. The forgotten words of a marine drill sergeant he once met in a Honolulu bar returned and pounded into his brain. “The biggest, toughest, meanest sonovabitch in the world will always go down, and go down fast, from a good swift kick in the balls.”

Weakly, he staggered behind the crouching Darius, who was too intent on killing Giordino to notice him. Pitt aimed and kicked Darius between the legs. His toe collided with bone and something that was rubbery and soft. Darius released Giordino's head and threw his monstrous hands upward, fingers clawing at the air. Then he rolled over on his side, twisting about the floor in silent agony.

“Welcome to the land of the walking dead,” Pitt said, lifting Giordino to a sitting position.

“Did we win?” Giordino asked in a whisper.

“Just barely. How's your head?”

“I won't know till I look for it.”

“Don't worry.” Pitt grinned. “It's still attached to your neck.”

Giordino gently probed his hairline between his fingers. “Christ, my skull feels like it has more cracks than a broken windshield.”

Pitt cast a wary look at Darius. The giant, ashen faced and breathing heavily, was stretched out full length on the dusty floor, both hands clutched over his crotch.

“The party's over,” Pitt said, helping Giordino to his feet. “Let's disappear before Frankenstein recovers.”

Suddenly, the ominous click, the hollow thud of the door flung open against its stop, froze Pitt and Giordino in their tracks. They had no warning, not even a moment to brace themselves, nothing except the knowledge that time had run out and they could fight no more.

Then a tall, thin man with large sad eyes sauntered easily into the room, one hand shoved casually into the pants pocket of an expensive ivy-league suit. He stared at Pitt pensively for a long moment over the bowl of a long-stemmed pipe, gripped tenaciously between uncommonly even teeth. Like an account executive who just stepped out of an advertising agency, he looked suave, neat and citified. His free hand, in a practiced gesture, reached up and removed the pipe.