There was resentment in his voice. "I'm wounded, Carter."
I examined him. It was only a flesh wound and involved nothing vital. "You'll be all right," I said. "Stuff a bandage in that and call Hawk from here. Tell him the latest developments. I'll have Minourkos get a doctor to take care of your wound. Any questions?"
"Yes," he said. "Why don't you want me with you at Mykonos?"
"You need a little seasoning, Spencer. You're not going to get it all on this case. Stavros is too important to AXE."
"Shall I tell that to Hawk?" he asked sourly. "He recommended me for temporary duty on this assignment."
"Tell him whatever you like." I turned to the door, holstering the Luger. "Come on, Erika."
"What do you expect me to do, just wait until I hear from you?" Spencer asked.
I stopped and thought about that a moment "At breakfast time tomorrow you can leave. It will be too late for the newspapers to pick up the story. Let Minourkos call the police and tell them everything. Call Colonel Kotsikas and have him back up Minourkos. I'll be on Mykonos by then and will have found Stavros if he's there. It will be too soon for him to have received any news of what has happened here and at Kotsikas' place."
"What about Sergiou?" Erika asked.
"We'll send him home," I said. "He's done a good job, and he can go back to his family now."
"Carter," Spencer said.
"Yes?"
"I'll do better next time."
I looked at him. "Okay," I said. "Let's go, Erika. We have a vulture to catch."
Ten
The harbor of Mykonos lay like a massive cut sapphire in the early morning sun. It was an almost completely closed harbor with small fishing boats and launches inside and two large cruise ships anchored outside the sea wall. Ships didn't dock at Mykonos. Passengers had to climb down an uncertain gangplank, luggage in hand, to a bobbing launch that took them to shore in small groups.
Erika and I hadn't experienced that brief adventure. We had arrived at the new airport across the island just an hour previously and had taken a bumpy bus ride over primitive roads to the village. I sat now at a waterfront cafe under a sailcloth canopy, perched on a straight yellow chair, watching a half dozen mustachioed Greek sailors guide a newly painted fishing boat into the water just fifteen yards away. Curving away from me in either direction was the waterfront, a line of whitewashed buildings housing cafes, shops, and small hotels. I took a sip of Nescafe, the Greeks' token tribute to American coffee, and watched an old man in a straw hat selling grapes and flowers pass the place. In this atmosphere, it was difficult to remember that I was here to kill a man.
Erika wasn't with me. She had disappeared down the maze of whitewashed streets just off the waterfront to find an old lady whom she had known from a stay on Mykonos a couple of years before. If you wanted information of any kind on Mykonos, you went to the dark-haired, black-shawled old ladies who rented out rooms in their homes to visitors. They knew everything. Erika had gone to find out about the military camp on the island and to find out where the commander of this camp might live, for we would probably find Stavros there.
I was just finishing the Nescafe when Erika came swinging along the stone walk before the cafe, dressed in a yellow slacks outfit, her long red hair pulled back with a yellow ribbon. It was still difficult for me to understand why a beautiful girl like Erika would become involved in my world. She should have been married to a rich man with a villa and a long white yacht outside Tel Aviv. She could have had all that with her looks. Maybe she didn't know it Or maybe yachts were just not her style.
"You look like a tourist, Nick," she smiled as she sat down beside me. "Except for the jacket and tie."
"Give me another hour," I said. "What did you find out?"
She ordered a cup of hot tea from the waiter, and he left. "It was a good thing I went alone. Maria was very reluctant to talk at first These islanders are very distant with strangers and any person who doesn't live here is a stranger."
"What did she have to say?"
Erika began to speak, but had to wait until the waiter left her tea. When he was gone, she spooned a little sugar into the cup from an open bowl. "There is a camp near Ornos beach, and only a couple of islanders have been inside. The commander resides in a rented villa near the camp. His name is Galatis. One of the two local taxi drivers took two Americans to the Rhenia Hotel just at the edge of the village; Later the same man drove them to the villa of Galatis."
"Excellent intelligence work, Miss Nystrom," I said. "Come on, let's visit the Rhenia."
"I just sat down," she complained. "I still have a half cup of tea."
"I'll get you another cup later." I thrust a few drachmas onto the small table.
"Okay," she said as she hurriedly sipped some more tea and then rose to follow me.
We walked along the waterfront past the cafes and a small band to an open square where busses to outlying points stopped. The post office and the harbor police headquarters fronted the square, and there was a tarnished bronze statue of an ancient hero. We passed this square and turned off the waterfront into a short block and soon arrived at the Rhenia. It was a multi-level hotel built on a hill with an almost-tropical garden in front.
The slender young man at the reception desk was quite cordial. "Yes, two Americans checked in yesterday. Are they friends of yours?"
"What are their names?" I asked.
"Let me see." He took a register from under the counter and thumbed it open. "Ahh. Mr. Brown and Mr. Smith."
"Yes. They would be our friends," I said. "What room are they in? We would like to surprise them."
"They are in 312. But they have left already. They mentioned returning for lunch at the hotel before noon."
We checked the room anyway. I knocked on the door and then let myself in with a Lockpicker's Special supplied by the Special Effects boys. We closed the door behind us and looked around. Both big beds were still unmade, and there was a bottle of scotch half gone, sitting on the night table. Stavros was not much of a drinker, so I figured it was the gunman he had brought with him who had drunk the liquor.
Besides the scotch and a few cigarette butts, there was nothing else the two had left behind. Stavros had probably brought no luggage. What he had to do wouldn't take long. He had to inquire about that phone call from a man identifying himself as Minourkos, and he had to test the loyalty of Galatis, the camp commander. Galatis' life was in immediate danger if he had obeyed Minourkos' instructions not to move until hearing from him further. Since Stavros had arrived yesterday, Galatis might already be dead.
"We'd better get out to the villa," I said.
"I'm with you, Nick."
After a half hour search, we finally found a cab driver sipping an ouzo in a cafe. He didn't have any inclination to drive us to the villa until I showed him a wad of drachmas, whereupon he hunched his heavy shoulders and led us to the cab. It was a beat-up 1957 Chevrolet with most of the paint gone and cotton stuffing protruding from the upholstery. The cabby started the old engine, which emitted a loud belch just as we drove away.
Most of the drive was over a badly paved road along the rocky coast of the island where sheer cliffs dropped off into the Aegean Sea, When we were almost at Ornos beach, the driver turned into a pocked gravel road toward the camp and the villa. We got only a glimpse of the camp, green buildings crouching in the distance, as we passed a high, barbed-wire fence. We turned away from the fence onto a long drive that led toward the villa. When we reached the tiled-roof house, I asked the cabby to wait, and he seemed very content to do so.
We were ready for anything when I knocked on the ornate wooden front door. Erika had the Belgian revolver hidden behind her purse again, and this time she hoped to use it. She stood coolly beside me at the door, waiting. I had put the Luger into the side pocket of my jacket, and my hand was in there with it A servant, an elderly Greek, opened the door.