“Time for a dip, Nancy,” he teased. “There are some amazing fish out there today.”
“You’re on, Devlin,” Nancy said. Grabbing the mask, she raced him to the clear turquoise water.
With the help of the snorkeling gear, she spent the next half hour exploring the underwater world of the Aegean Sea. A school of tiny silvery fish fluttered past her, tickling her legs as they went. Lingering over a clump of seaweed, she discovered fish in dazzling shades of blue, orange, and yellow. She carefully avoided a group of pincushiony sea urchins, whose spines could sting.
Mick was just pointing out a tiny gray octopus when Nancy caught sight of a diver out of the corner of her mask.
Turning her head, she saw that he was wearing a black wet suit, mask, and scuba-diving equipment—she couldn’t make out his features at all. Nancy was about to look away when she noticed a strange contraption in the diver’s arm. It looked like a cross between a rifle and an archery bow.
A second look made her gasp. The man was holding an underwater spear gun!
Grabbing Mick’s arm, Nancy twisted around in the water to point out the armed diver.
Just then the diver aimed the gun and fired! With a burst of bubbles, a sharp spear torpedoed straight toward Nancy and Mick!
Chapter Thirteen
Nancy felt her whole body go tight. Pressing her hands against Mick’s side, she pushed—as hard as one could push underwater—sending him in one direction while she moved in the other. A split second later she felt a rush of water as the spear zoomed past her.
Mick’s arms flailed for a moment. Then Nancy saw him start swimming off in the opposite direction from the diver. Following his lead, she kicked frantically through the water behind him.
Quickly she turned back to see if another spear was coming her way. The masked diver was loading another one!
Without a moment to waste, she and Mick pushed above the surface and swam, trying to put distance between them and the diver. Nancy knew that they could move more quickly if they weren’t under the surface, but with every stroke she took she thought about the sharp end of that spear.
Her muscles were screaming from exertion when she ducked her head under the water to check on the man with the spear gun. She was just in time to see the second spear veer off to her left. Then the diver turned and swam away from them.
Breaking through the surface, Nancy took a deep breath. “That was close,” Mick said, coughing as he propped his mask on his head. “Did you get a look at that guy?”
Nancy pulled off her own snorkeling gear. “No, but there he is again!”
The diver had surfaced near a small motorboat that was floating some twenty yards away. Nancy watched as he tossed the spear gun into the boat, then heaved himself aboard. His head was covered with the black hood of a diver’s suit, but Nancy was able to see that he was a man of medium build. A moment later the boat’s engine roared to life, and the masked man sped away.
“Guess he’s not going to stick around for a chat,” Mick said, smiling weakly.
“No, but I think his message was clear. Someone wants us out of the picture.” Nancy frowned. “I just wish I knew who that someone was.”
When Nancy and Mick finally waded to shore, they found their friends playing cards, oblivious to what had transpired out in the sea.
“I can’t believe all that action was going on while we were sitting here,” Bess said, brushing sand from her legs.
“It’s a good thing both you and Mick are good swimmers,” George said, scanning the nearby water.
“Thank goodness you weren’t hurt,” Zoe added.
Nancy combed her wet hair and pulled it back into a ponytail. “I just wish I had seen the face of that man with the spear gun.”
“Well, let’s think about it,” Kevin said. “Who could get their hands on a black wet suit?”
Mick dried off, then pulled a blue T-shirt over his head, “Theo has one. I saw it stashed in the cabin of his boat.”
“But no one has seen Theo all morning,” Zoe said defensively. “Besides, you would have recognized the Sea Star.”
“He could have borrowed a boat from one of his friends at the marina,” Nancy pointed out, then added, “But we also saw Dimitri wearing a wet suit just this morning.”
George snapped her fingers. “That’s right! A black wet suit. He could have jumped in a boat after he disappeared down the beach.”
“But he said he’d been hired to spend the hour photographing some tourists underwater,” Bess added. “That’s why he was wearing the wet suit.”
“We should check out his story, just to be sure,” Nancy said.
Mick looked out over the sea, a serious expression darkening his handsome face. “Do you think that those criminals decided to come after us?” he asked after a moment.
Nancy winced. “I sure hope not. First of all, I’m not sure they’d be able to find us that easily. And if the police are looking for them, my guess is that they’d want to lay low.”
“But it is a possibility,” Bess said, her brow furrowed in concern. “I think we all need to be careful.”
“I don’t intend to mess with those terrorists again,” Nancy assured her friends.
Just then she caught sight of a young man in a black wet suit coming down the path from the hotel. At first she was alarmed, but that feeling faded when she realized it was Theo. He waved and headed right for them.
“Theo’s finally turned up,” Nancy whispered to her friends, “and he’s dressed for the part.”
“Yásou!” Theo called out cheerfully. “I’ve just come back from Dragonisi. I caught a few fish this morning, too.”
“Why are you wearing that?” Zoe snapped at him. She looked as if she didn’t know whether she should attack or defend her friend.
Theo glanced down at the wet suit. “I was snorkeling,” he said, confused.
“You hate snorkeling,” Zoe retorted.
“I changed my mind,” Theo said. He looked from Zoe to the others on the beach. “What’s going on here? Why are you all so serious?”
Jumping to her feet, Zoe went nose-to-nose with Theo. “Nancy and Mick were just attacked by a man with a spear gun—a man in a black wet suit.”
“You must be joking!” he said. Then, realizing that they were serious, he said, “Wait a minute. You don’t think that I—”
Zoe jabbed a finger at his chest. “And you’ve been spending a lot of time on Dragonisi—where three international terrorists were hiding out!”
“What?” Theo looked completely baffled. “What is she talking about?”
Although Nancy wasn’t happy that Zoe had told Theo about the terrorists, she couldn’t let the subject drop now. She told Theo about the letter from Mick’s diplomat friend and about the cushions from the Sea Star that she and Mick had found in the terrorists’ cave.
“I never met those people—I swear it,” he insisted. “A lot of things have disappeared from my boat over the past few weeks. First there were the missing cushions, then fishing equipment and cans of food. I thought the other fishermen were playing tricks on me. Then I realized everything disappeared while I was anchored near Dragonisi.”
“That explains about the orange cushions,” Mick said to Nancy. “And the terrorists probably stole the canned food and fishing stuff, too.”
Nancy still wasn’t convinced. “But what about the red-haired girl?” she asked. Theo blanched at the question, but she didn’t back off. “We saw you with a young woman—a petite girl with red hair who looked just like the female terrorist.”
“She’s not a terrorist!” Frustrated, Theo rubbed his hands over his eyes, then peeked out through his fingers at Zoe. “I have been taking snorkeling lessons from a diving instructor on Dragonisi. A pretty girl, a redhead. But her name is Eleni. And she would never hurt anyone.”