The Liquidator

by Nick Carter

  "So I can take Scylla instead?" I said, reaching for my wallet.

  The boatyard owner shook his head. "I could not do that, Mister McKee. I have given my word to the other two gentlemen."

  "But you promised me."

  "For some day soon when you would want Argos."

  "Can you call these other guys? At least ask them if they'd mind postponing their trip for a day or so?" I felt ridiculous, almost begging like this, but there was no other place in Pirgos where I could expect to charter a boat right away. The only alternative was to go back to Piraeus, where the Royal Greek Yacht Club could arrange charters at almost any port where they were available. But that would mean not only a delay of at least a day but, more important, would tip off my anxiety to start my "leisurely" cruise.

  Xefrates frowned, shuffled through some papers on his rat's nest of a desk, found what he was looking for and finally sighed resignedly. "I'm sorry. I do not seem to have taken their hotel."

  He sat there like a squat, regretful but implacable spider, and I was beginning to think this mission was a complete washout when Christina arrived.

  Xefrates almost jumped to his feet when the girl walked in, his dark face split in an idiot smile of appreciation. In faded blue shorts, a striped crewneck jersey and radiating let's-go eagerness, she was enough to make any man stand up.

  "Are we ready?" she asked, pecking me on the cheek and dropping her two small canvas bags on the dusty floor.

  I told her briefly of the complications. Christina's reaction was perfect; she turned to Xefrates, pouting just enough.

  "But that's not fair! My vacation will be over in a few days, and I was promised a nice little cruise."

  Xefrates was obviously flustered. He spouted some Greek at the girl, and she replied; I couldn't understand either one of them. But whatever she said, Christina had powers of persuasion that I couldn't begin to muster; within a few minutes Xefrates was nodding, a little sadly, but with a what-else-can-I-do shrug, and we were carrying our gear down to the dock.

  One of his helpers brought Scylla in from her mooring, and after he checked me out on the rigging and equipment, the sloop was provisioned and we put our gear below. Xefrates ran an efficient operation, and it was well before noon that we slipped away from the dock. Running under power from the thudding inboard engine, I picked my way through the clusters of boats moored in the cove, getting the feel of the sluggish helm. It wasn't until we were well beyond the buoy marking the cove's entrance that I gave the wheel to Christina and went forward.

  The jib went up first; it was self-setting, which made things a lot easier for single-handed sailing. Christina had told me she'd done a little sailing, but only on small boats, so except in emergencies I expected to all the serious work myself. When the jib started to fill, I turned back and told the girl to bring the sloop back up into the wind. She nodded, turned the wheel and held it, grimacing fiercely, until the bow swung around and the jib started flapping When I was satisfied she had us going more or less steadily in the right direction, I came back and hauled up the heavy mainsail. It wasn't easy by myself, even with a winch, but I finally got the heavy canvas snugged at the top of the mast and cleated the halyard.

  Scylla was rocking in moderately heavy swells, and I had to do a little dance as I maneuvered along the narrow walk-around past the cabin top When I got back to the roomy cockpit, Christina was having trouble handling the boat; I dropped-down beside her and switched off the engine. The silence was beautiful.

  "It is a big boat," she remarked quietly, gazing up at the big main as the wind began to fill it.

  "Big enough," I agreed, taking the wheel from her.

  The day was bright and brisk, the boat traffic moderate and pretty well scattered. Even this close to shore there was the feeling of limitless depths under our hull, the water a dark blue churned into mild foam as we ghosted through the swells. Christina raised her arms to push back her thick, glossy hair; in the sunlight I could see the coppery highlights in it. She took a deep breath, savoring the wind and the salt air, with her eyes closed; when she opened them again she was staring straight into mine.

  "Well," she said.

  "Yes."

  She looked behind us; the cove entrance was already just another indistinguishable part of the coatline. "We are alone at last." She smiled. "I mean truly alone."

  "Uh-huh." I glanced toward the open companionway leading down into the main cabin and looked cautioningly at her. "Can you handle her for a little while? I want to check out some things below."

  Christina nodded and took the helm again. The only land in sight, other than the mainland behind us, was Zakinthos, and the island was miles off to starboard; as long as she held our general course there was no way she could get us into any kind of boat trouble. I went below to look for another kind of trouble.

  Maybe I was being overcautious, but I went over the entire interior of the boat in a search for possible bugs. It didn't, seem likely that anyone could have planted any listening devices on Scylla, but there was no sense in taking any chances. It was surprisingly roomy below, with a main cabin I could almost stand upright in. The galley was compact and obviously newer than the boat, with a formica top and tiny stainless steel sink. There was an electric refrigerator, which I'd told Xefrates I had no intention of using; it meant running the engines to keep the batteries charged, and that wasn't what I went sailing for. Anyway, the old, original icebox still remained, and there was a fifty-pound block in it to keep the beer cold.

  Also in the main cabin were a set of upper and lower bunks on the port side, and on the other a table with built-in upholstered seats on either side; the table portion could be lowered to turn the whole thing into a double bed.

  Up forward, through a short, narrow passage flanked by the head and a hanging locker for clothes, was the other cabin, which slept two on slightly curving bunks. To get in I had to almost crawl, since the headroom was drastically reduced under the forward deck. A hatch with a plexiglas cover provided the only light, and I propped it open slightly to get some air in the dank space. I made a mental note to close it if the weather started to get rough; even though we had an automatic bilge pump, there was no sense in taking on any water if we didn't have to.

  It took me nearly an hour to satisfy myself that Scylla was clean. Silly, I told myself, to be so damned cautious, but one of the first things I learned in the spy business was never to take anything for granted. Besides, there were those two guys who had tried to charter Scylla the day before, not to mention the "accident" that damaged the other boat. No, it was worth the hour. I opened a couple of beers and brought them back up to the cockpit.

  "I was afraid you had gone to sleep," Christina said.

  "Just making sure. Now we can talk." I sat well away from her, out of touching distance; it was time to get down to business.

  "No… bugs?" she asked lightly.

  "No," I said flatly.

  "Do you want to take the wheel?"

  I looked off to starboard. We were getting closer to the point at the southernmost end of Zakinthos, which meant in a short while we'd have to change course and head northwest. I checked the wind; we were on a broad reach, the wind coming from almost due north; the change in course shouldn't mean anything more than changing the set of the mainsail. The boat plowed steadily ahead, obviously happier under sail than power.

  "You keep it," I said. "You're doing fine."

  "And now we can talk?"

  "If you want to."

  She looked away, her eyes fixed on the compass mounted just ahead of the wheel.

  "Well?" I asked.

  "What is to talk?"

  "Why were you afraid of that car last night?" I started in bluntly.

  "The car?" She was stalling.

  "Outside my hotel. Is there any reason you should be followed?"

  Her eyes were wide when she looked at me. "But of course! Don't you know?"

  I sighed, touched her bare arm lightly. "Look, Christ
ina, we'd better get some things straight. You're on this trip because your brother insisted on it. But so far I don't know how much contact you've had with him, or how it was made. I'll be, honest; I don't like it. Alex is an old friend and I wish he hadn't brought you into this, but apparently he couldn't be talked out of it. What I need to know first is how much you've been involved in this business."

  She licked her lips, glanced again at the compass, then aloft to check the set of the mainsail. Finally she shrugged. "Okay. The first thing I know about Alex… coming back… is that one of your people comes to me when I am leaving the boutique. He gives me a message that Alex will be in contact." She turned to me. "You must know, McKee, that I hardly know my brother. I was only seven when he… went over to the other side. And before that he was always away, so I saw very little of him, ever. But then, our mother is dead now, and our father died many years ago, when I was a baby. So I suppose he… he felt that since I was the only member of the family left… he could trust me?" She finished on a questioning note, which wasn't very reassuring to me.

  I didn't make an issue of it. "What contact have you had with him since?"

  "Two, three times, I have had messages; I do not know how he got them to me. I simply found them slipped under my door when I got home from classes or work."

  "What did they say?"

  "I do not have them with me. He advised me to burn them."

  Thank God for that, I said to myself. "But you do remember."

  "Of course. He said he was coming back, that American agents would meet him, and that he wanted me to be there."

  "I still don't understand why you."

  "Nor do I."

  "Does he want to take you with him?"

  "I cannot say. The plan, as I know it, is for me to sail to Korfu with you, meet Alex there and then return to Athens. Holiday finished." She smiled mistily. "As I recall, so dimly, my big brother was always a pig-headed person, always demanding his own way. Perhaps he simply wants to see the last remaining member of the family."

  It was pretty clear we weren't getting anywhere along this line, so I changed direction. "Let's go back to the tan car last night. You were afraid. Why?"

  "I don't know. I have never been involved in this sort of thing before, so perhaps I am too much aware of… things."

  "This is a silly question, but I have to ask it. You haven't mentioned this to anyone? I mean, just something like hearing from your brother after all these years?"

  She shook her head emphatically, then had to wipe some strands of hair away from her mouth. "No. I… I do not have any close friends, McKee. No one I would be likely to talk to."

  I looked at her. "That's kind of strange," I said bluntly. "No close friends?"

  She flushed under her tan. "Oh yes, I see. Well, I was… somewhat involved with a young man until quite recently. I am no longer. And I do not have any close girl friends. My work and my new university; I have changed my life quite a bit, so there is no one I would tell such a thing to."

  "But you were still afraid."

  She shrugged again. "You are a spy, McKee, and I feel sure that is not your real name, but no matter; don't you become suspicious about things like that car last night?"

  "Uh-huh. But not necessarily. This is a top secret operation, Christina; nobody should know anything about it except the few of us involved."

  "Yes, I suppose…"

  "All right, let's forget that. Maybe someone has leaked some details of this operation. Our job is to carry it through anyway. We have a couple of days at sea to talk, so start by telling me how Alex is supposed to contact you in Korfu."

  She hesitated, fighting the wheel as the wake from a large power boat rocked Scylla. Then she sighed and slumped against the orange life preserver she was using as a backrest. "We have agreed on a date and a time to meet. It is a taverna in Korfu."

  "Oh great!" I threw up my hands. "Just where anybody looking for him would expect to find him, coming from Albania."

  "Oh, but not one will be looking for him, McKee."

  "How do you mean?"

  "In his last message he told me that time was most important. For at least two or three days after he leaves, they will not know he is missing."

  "And how does he manage that?"

  "He did not say. His messages have been short."

  "Yeah, I guess they have. Korfu." I got up, went below and returned with a bundle of rolled-up charts. When I found the one with Korfu on it I only had to look for a moment to know it was all wrong. "We're not sailing into there," I said.

  She looked at where I was pointing. "Why not?"

  "Because when your brother and I leave, we'll have a long run, fifteen or twenty miles in either direction, until we reach the open sea. No matter what he says, somebody might be looking for Alex before we can get across to Taranto."

  She looked at the chart. Korfu, the principal city of Korfu, was tucked midway along the island's east coast. Across just a few miles of water were the coasts of both Greece and Albania, and I wasn't about to try a getaway with a defector from both of those countries in a boat that could do a red-hot four or five knots. Not from there, at any rate; it would take me a good piece of a day just to get out into open water from Korfu. Maybe if I hadn't had my visit from the two heavies, one dead now, a couple of nights ago, I would have risked it. But now it was out of the question.

  "But what else can we do?" Christina asked.

  I took a long look at the chart. On the seaward coast of Korfu was a tiny town called Ayios Matthaios. "Do you know this place?"

  Christina shook her head. "I have never been to Korfu."

  "Well, we'll sail in there and leave the boat. I guess we can get a car of some kind to take us to Korfu."

  "But… McKee?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Why would we go to a place like that? You are supposed to be a tourist, and me… well. No tourist would sail to a remote place like that and drive to Korfu. Unless we were in some sort of awful hurry."

  She was right. If we were going to play this out all the way, particularly at the crucial stage, we couldn't afford to do anything out of line. I unrolled a couple of other charts, checked a few things. "Okay, Christina, you have a point. Tonight we put in somewhere on Celphalonia. That's the next big island after Zakinthos. Tomorrow night, Preveza, and the next afternoon Ayios Matthaios. But when we get there we'll have some kind of trouble with the boat; that'll be our excuse, and I'll make it look legitimate. Overnight in Korfu, then back to…"

  She was shaking her head so violently that I had to stop talking. "What's wrong?"

  "No!" she gasped. "No, not there!"

  "But why not? It's the best damned place I can see, even if it is hard to pronounce."

  "I don't mean there." She pointed at the chart. "Not Ayios Matthaios." Her finger moved back up along the coastline. "There."

  "Preveza? What's wrong with that?"

  For no reason I could begin to understand she buried her face against my shoulder, clutching at my arm. "No, McKee, or whatever your name is. Please! Wherever we stop, let it never be Preveza!"

  Ten

  So we scratched Preveza. Christina's objection was so hysterical that I decided not to probe, at least not then. Afterward, she seemed ashamed at her outburst, as though she wished she could take it back. But whatever she meant by it, I was grateful; it showed that she was under pressure, no longer the gorgeous water-skiing goddess who could casually pick up the American tourist and take off for a little cruise. It brought things back into focus, and that was good for me.

  We spent the rest of the first day enjoying the open sea, staying well away from Zakinthos and, when the sun began to drop over the open Mediterranean, heading for Argostilion, the major city on Cephalonia. At dockside we took on more provisions, canned goods, ice, a lot of alcohol for the galley stove, then found a restaurant where we had a glum supper. Christina was silent, concentrating on her dish of indistinguishable vegetables and spices, as the sun disappear
ed outside.

  "I suppose," she said, "we will sleep aboard?"

  "That was the plan."

  "Yes." She said it with a resigned sigh.

  "Is that a problem?"

  "No." She said it too quickly. "Can we go out into the harbor and anchor?"

  "Maybe. I'll check with the harbormaster; we can probably pick up a vacant mooring."

  "Couldn't we just… go on?"

  "You said we had three days. What's the hurry?"

  "Have you ever, sailed at night? Out on the open sea, with the sails filled by a gentle wind?"

  The words sounded strange, coming from Christina. "Yes," I replied.

  "Then can't we, McKee?" Her hand snaked across the table to lay fingers on my arm. They were cool, trembling slightly.

  "You mean you want to sail all night?"

  "It would be pleasure."

  "Well… why not?"

  Just then a waiter brought us Turkish coffee, and while I was filtering the sediment from the bottom of the cup through my teeth Christina got up to attend to herself. When she returned, all legs and tan, she dropped into her chair so abruptly I thought she would break it.

  "McKee!" she hissed. "There was someone!"

  "Uh-huh. What kind of someone?"

  "A man! Leaning against the wall right outside the ladies' room!"

  "So?"

  "But I have seen him before! Last night, in Pirgos!"

  That got my attention. "Where in Pirgos?"

  "It was…" She hesitated, put a finger to her mouth and gnawed on the nail. "In my hotel, after I left you. He was talking to the desk clerk when I arrived there."

  I stood up. "He is still there?"

  "No! When I left he had gone. McKee! How can they follow us like this?"

  "Don't be too sure he's following us."

  "But he must be!"

  "Okay, okay. Relax." I got up. "Let me make a little visit of my own."