“Me?” Alex laughed. “Because I, my friend, helped set it all up, until I knew what I was doing.”
“You mean you didn’t know?”
“Do not sound so skeptical, Nick. I am an expert in my field, and like many such experts I was not told any more than I needed to know about the over-all purpose of any plan.”
“But you found out?”
“Yes. I found out. And I found out I could not live with the knowledge I had. So...” He looked around at the dark, oppressive sky above us. “And so I am here.”
Before daylight came he took the wheel, but I didn’t even try to sleep. There were too many questions to ask.
“You told our agents in Greece that nobody would miss you in Albania for several days. How did you manage that?”
“Oh well, that was not too hard. It is a country all mountains, you know, the roads very bad. I have had great freedom to travel in the course of my duties. Back and forth over the mountains; I have never been to South America, but from what I have read there are countries like Chile and Peru with much the same conditions. All the time there are cars and buses going off the roads to plunge down some remote mountainside. Not found for days, quite often.”
“But they’d be looking for you, wouldn’t they? Even down a mountainside?”
“Ah yes. My driver and I, we picked up an old man on our last journey. A big old man, nearly as big as me. I had promised him a ride down to the coastal area; I make many friends among the people of Albania in my travels, you know? I put my uniform jacket over his shoulders to keep him warm in the cold mountains. Didn’t bother to take my papers from the pocket, it is not such a long journey. And then my driver makes the wrong turn and I somehow manage to jump clear before the car goes over the mountain. Much fire far down below. The old man will never be cold again, eh?”
I was at the helm again, fighting the heavy seas, when Christina came up on deck. Her face was swollen, and it wasn’t from sleep. She didn’t speak to me, but took her mug of coffee and leaned against the cabin top looking forward.
“Hey,” I called softly.
It took a long time for her to respond, but in the silence she finally turned around to face me.
“Get a good night’s sleep?”
“I suppose so,” she said indifferently. “How long before we reach Taranto?”
“Probably some time tomorrow morning. We haven’t had much luck with our weather on this cruise.”
“No. We haven’t.” She went below without another word, and I was alone for a long stretch of hours until the sun came out again.
Alex surprised me by coming on deck in broad daylight, but his explanation made sense. “Look, my friend, we are halfway to Italy, eh? If they think I am aboard this boat... poof!” He made a dive-bomber motion with his hand. “I do not like to be down there when the sun is shining. Not if I don’t have to be.”
Christina joined us a short while later, bringing steaming cups of coffee and a neatly arranged plate of sliced Spam and feta cheese. Alex applauded when he saw it.
“Now that is my good Greek sister!” he roared, grabbing a handful and stuffing the meat and cheese into his mouth. Christina smiled wanly. I made her take the wheel while I went below to shave and change my clothes.
I was just scraping the last of the lather from under my nose when I heard the distant roar of powerful engines. There was the scramble of feet on the cockpit deck, and I looked out the door of the head in time to see Alex dive into the main cabin.
“What is it?”
“Big power boat. Coming right up on us.” He took his revolver from a shelf above the galley sink, checked the load and went back to the companionway.
I dropped my razor, wiped the last of the shaving cream from my upper lip and got the .45. A lousy weapon at more than twenty feet, but it was all I had. I pushed past Alex and went up into the cockpit, where Christina was letting the helm come up into the wind as she stared at the boat overtaking us.
“Keep her moving,” I ordered, and tucked the pistol under my shirt.
It was a big, black-hulled cruiser, slicing through the swells as though they didn’t exist. From our angle all I could see was the bow and a little bit of the cabin, with a big spot-light mounted on top of it. It bore down on us like a halfback in pursuit of a tackle who had lucked into a fumble and couldn’t get his feet unstuck from the grass. Once more I cursed Hawk and his whole sailboat plan.
I pulled the gun free, held it down by my leg, out of sight. The boat sped closer, moving too close to our stern before it slowed a little and veered off to one side. I was ready to raise the automatic and fire when I saw the man at the wheel.
“Allo, beautiful baby!” he called through the spray his hull kicked up. “Next time you in Paxos, leave that dumb American behind, okay?”
The Frenchman with the mop of hair and the shy-confident smile waved, blew a kiss at Christina, and kicked a lot of water our way as he gunned his engines, headed off at right angles to our course.
“Son of a bitch,” I breathed, tucking the pistol back in my belt. “Bet he’s heading for Bari.”
“What?” Christina asked. She was pale and shaking, and I didn’t blame her.
“Never mind. I’ll take the wheel.”
By dark we still hadn’t made a landfall, but I knew we were on course for the heel of Italy’s boot. With no sign of pursuit so far, I decided I could relax; I went into the forward cabin to see if I could get a solid four or five hours’ sleep. For a little while I heard Christina in the main cabin, making coffee and rattling plastic dishes, doing the cleaning up that all women seem born knowing how to do. Then I heard her go up to the cockpit, and there was total silence except the lap of the waves against the hull an inch or so away from my head...
It was a nightmare, and my first thought was that it was about due. There was cold breath on my face, the chill of steel against my throat. I tried to struggle up out of sleep, but in the pitch darkness the nightmare wouldn’t go away. I felt the edge of the blade slice the flesh, and I knew I was awake.
I must have yelled as I flung myself away from the knife. For my violent effort I got a bang on the head from the ribs bracing the hull of the boat next to the narrow bunk. I was stunned, felt my hair yanked and my head pulled back. The knife started to draw deep across my Adam’s apple, and then it was gone with an explosive grunt from somewhere behind me.
There was a dim light, my pencil flash I realized, and in the ghostly glow I saw two contorted faces bending over me. They were like nothing I’d ever seen before, eyes wide, mouths straining, and no sounds emerging but labored wheezes that sounded like an old engine about to give its last gasp.
I jerked upright, grabbed for the .45 and found it still tucked securely in my belt.
“Don’t worry, Nick,” Alex growled. “She didn’t get it.”
He was holding his sister with an oak-stump forearm across her throat, and as I watched he coldly twisted her fingers until she dropped a knife, Hugo, from her hand.
“What the hell?” I said.
“Wake up, Nick.” He shoved the girl across the narrow cabin to the other bunk, “Do you want to kill her, or shall I?”
I looked at her in the faint light, her face covered by the thick curtain of hair. “Kill her?”
“Sure.”
“Your sister?” I was still half-asleep.
“Sister?” He snorted and grabbed her chin, making her look up into the light. “She is no sister of mine, Nick Carter. And now she is about to be dead.”
Seventeen
“Yes,” she said. “Kill me.” Her head drooped against Alex’s bear-paw as though there was no way she could hold it up any longer, or didn’t want to.