WHILE THEY WALKED back to the water taxi dock, Brendan noticed Derek smirking.
“What?” Brendan asked.
“The guy’s kind of a dick, but you’ve got to admit, he’s smoking hot.”
Brendan smirked himself. “A kouklos,” he said.
Derek looked at him funny.
“It means something like a teen idol in Greek,” he explained. “Constantinides told me.” His lightheartedness evaporated as he remembered how angry he was at Derek. “He’s straight and married, so I’m afraid you don’t stand a chance. Though like you said, him being a dick, the two of you would make a great couple.”
Derek let his dig pass in silence. “At least he’s going to look into that boat. You lit a fire under him.” Derek said it with admiration. That was new.
They came up to the road that encircled the harbor. Some two dozen recreational boats lined the pier along the shore, and the big yachts had a separate quay farther out on the boatyard. Brendan spotted a docking station where a triple-decked fishing ship had anchored. The station had a pair of gas pumps on concrete platforms.
Brendan headed in that direction and waved Derek along. “I’m not so sure about Lieutenant Constantinides,” he said. “He hates my guts. Wouldn’t hurt to do some of our own investigating.”
When they reached the fueling dock, Brendan noticed a short, bespectacled, white-bearded man in a fisherman’s hat who looked like the attendant. He approached the guy in a friendly manner, introducing himself and Derek and explaining their situation. The fuel attendant looked like a decent guy. He was dressed in worn trousers and a long-sleeved pullover, and his face was weathered by age and the sun. Probably, he had worked at the fuel station for most of his life. Hydra was such a small island— Brendan figured the locals must have heard about his missing fiancé. The gas attendant was instantly polite, and one might even say solicitous. There was no denying there were benefits to being a wealthy tourist. The man seemed to follow everything Brendan was saying.
“We’ve been talking to anyone who might know what happened to Cal,” Brendan continued. “We heard a tugboat from Romania stopped by here yesterday morning, around the time when he disappeared.”
The old guy nodded his head. “Yes. I tell the warden this.”
“Do you remember what time?” Brendan said.
“Every morning, I am opening at six. She was here when I arrive.”
This was curious. Brendan recalled Louis had taken him down for his shave a little after eight o’clock. That was around the time when Derek had spotted the boat, before breaking into his hotel suite to do his dastardly deed. What was the tugboat doing hanging around the island two hours after it had stopped for fuel?
“Did they say where they were headed?”
A little wry twinkle lit up in the man’s eyes. “They say they are going to Athens.” He waved his hand dismissively.
“You think they had other plans?”
“I see this is not something they are wanting to say. So, well I am thinking, not every man is wanting to talk to strangers. And these are big Romanian men.” He emoted with a little pantomime. “They speak no Greek. They speak a little English. So I say to myself, what calls these men to Hydra? This, you see, is a very rich and beautiful island. Their boat is ancient. I know all kinds of freight boats bringing goods to market. This is none of these kinds of ships. And so I ask this men, from what places do they come to Hydra? This, the man will not answer, and by this I know he is a dishonorable.”
A shiver worked through Brendan. The story made him suspicious too. “How many were aboard the ship?”
The old man frowned. “There were two, the like of which could be brothers. Big, thick, with bushy beards. They dressed as businessmen. What business they had, I do not know.” He looked to Brendan confidentially. “We have many of this kind in Greece. Romanians with drugs and contraband goods.”
Brendan’s eyes widened. Though he wondered if there were national prejudices at play. He had heard the same version of denunciation of Greeks while traveling in Spain. “Where would men like that go?”
The attendant shrugged. “Who can say? There are two hundred islands in the Aegean Sea. If they are having illegal business, there are the big cities in Crete and Kalamata. Could be they were returning to the Black Sea and their own country.” He gave Brendan a clever grin. “Though I am hearing something to think different.”
Brendan bid the man to go on.
“I know a little Romanian. When I was young, I served the Hellenic Navy and knew Romanian sailors from time to time. This, the men do not know while they are talking to themselves. They are saying this and that about their route through the Aegean. And I hear them say ‘Psara.’ This, a small island, to the north.”
Brendan felt invigorated. The fuel attendant’s story could be confirmed when Constantinides got back to him about tracking the tugboat’s ports of call. He thanked the man effusively, and he and Derek headed to the water taxi dock farther out on the harbor.
A short while along, Brendan’s cell phone rang. He pulled it out and saw a name in Greek on the screen. “This could be Constantinides,” he told Derek. Brendan quickly took the call.
“Lieutenant Constantinides?”
“Greetings, Mr. Thackeray-Prentiss. I am afraid I have bad news about the Romanian tugboat. It appears the IMO number was a fake. They can find no record of it in our databases. But I must assure you we will do everything in our power to locate it. We have sent notifications to every jurisdiction of the Hellenic Police and Navy.”
Brendan stooped down to a squat on the dock. He was sick to his stomach. Cal could be in the clutches of Romanian gangsters, being tortured, even killed. And now the unregistered boat had a day and a half lead on any pursuit, in a vast sea, with many hundreds of islands where the criminals could hide, and waterways to places much farther away, anywhere in the world. Frightening facts from TV crime shows thundered in his head: Most kidnapping victims not recovered within seventy-two hours are never found. Most are killed within hours of their abduction. Nearly all of them are sexually assaulted.
Chapter Sixteen
CAL SAT SLUMPED in the lifeboat with a tarp drawn over his head, wallowing on an endless plain of seawater as thick and lustrous as latex paint. The ancient Greeks had called the Aegean “the Great Green,” though that seemed like a misnomer to Cal. The water was much more of a rich, almost Technicolor blue, darker in its troughs, aquamarine when the sun glowed through its frothy peaks. Meanwhile, he was Odysseus, abandoned by mankind and the gods, condemned to drift eternally on the deserted sea. This, he realized was a touch histrionic, but for a young man who had never ventured out on his own for longer than an afternoon’s bike ride through the sturdy and predictable Central New York State countryside, the circumstances evoked a rather extreme grade of despair.
Against his hopes, he’d found no emergency radio in the dinghy, and then the outboard motor had conked out early in the evening, run out of gas. Cal had proceeded to shoot off every round from the flare gun, hoping to arouse a rescue from whatever naval force held purview in his location, but to no effect. To temper his panic, Cal had eaten all twelve noisome packets of doughy rations in the dinghy’s survival kit and slugged down all but one can of water. He was a lousy survivalist.
The sky was just brightening. Based on the dusky conditions when he escaped from the capsizing tugboat, he’d only been lost at sea for ten, maybe eleven hours at the most, and he’d already run through all of his supplies. The dinghy was equipped with oars, but Cal saw no point in using them when he had no idea which way led to land.
His solitude provided generous time for self-reflection. How had his life come to this? Marooned in a boundless body of water when he was supposed to be enjoying the crowning moment in his twenty-four-year lifetime? Cal had never been prone to self-pitying, and he continued to resist it, even then. He could not lose himself to hopelessness. His family would never give up looking for him. As for Brendan, Cal
didn’t know what to think. But more than anything, he wished he would awaken from his nightmare to the sight of Brendan helming a motorboat, racing to his rescue, to scoop him out of the sea, and then he’d take him in his arms, apologizing for how wrong he’d been, how wrecked with grief he was since Cal had disappeared.
Cal searched the horizon. He searched the sky. He had to believe in miracles—a passing boat or a low-flying plane spotting him out on the water. The world was vast. He’d never realized how many voids of emptiness it contained, how easily a person could be lost forever. How long could a man live without food? How long could he live without water?
His glance landed on a speck on the horizon. Cal blinked, rubbed his eyes, and focused sharply on it, praying it was not some trick of sunlight against the glassy sea, a mirage. He unfastened the oars from inside the boat, hitched them to their casters, and rowed vigorously in the direction of that spot of hope.
Cal lumbered through the waves while the muscles of his arms burned and his shoulders throbbed. He was encouraged by his progress and the sight that grew larger in his vision. Another boat. Not much bigger than his own. Suitable for a single fisherman. He cried out toward it. He was going to be saved.
DURING HIS LABORIOUS trek, the owner of the boat must have spotted him and heard his cry. He motored over to rendezvous on the water. Cal rejoiced and tears sprouted from his eyes. His savior was a kind-looking, Old World fisherman, captaining a modest, aluminum skiff. What grace of fate it was that he had ventured out on the open sea so early in the morning.
The fisherman’s boat came about, and the man looked him over with wonder and a touch of forbearance. Cal figured he had to look pretty scary after being detained in a tugboat freight hold for two days and spending the night on the open sea. Besides, he was wearing a rumpled, loud print madras shirt and oversized trousers that made him look like a hobo. The fisherman had a full head of white hair, a bushy, white horseshoe moustache, and a weathered complexion as dark as terracotta. Cal’s Greek was a little rusty, but he tried to string words together as best as he could.
“Thank god! You won’t even believe what I’ve been through. Oh, thank you, sir! I’m so glad to see you.”
“Amerikanos?” the fisherman asked.
“Yes. But my grandfather is Greek. He lives right here in Hydra. Alekos Panagopoulos. Do you know him? I’m here for my wedding. I’m supposed to be getting married to my boyfriend, and I end up getting kidnapped and then stuck in a dinghy in the middle of the Aegean Sea. Can you believe that?”
The fisherman stared at him as though he was dangerous. Cal realized he was probably babbling like a lunatic and not getting half of his Greek phrases right.
“I’m sorry. I’m just so excited to see another human being. Wait until my family finds out I’m all right.”
The fisherman garbled a question in Greek. Cal looked at him blankly. The man tried again, “Travmaties. Wound?”
“Wounded?” Cal said. He collected his Greek. “No. I feel healthy as can be. These Romanians had me tied up so my wrists are a little chafed.” He showed the scrapes and bruises to his companion. “But that’s nothing, really. I’m just happy to be alive. I’m pretty well fed and hydrated too. They don’t advertise how awful lifeboat rations taste. I guess for good reason. But I ate them all.”
The fisherman brought out a long wooden hook from his boat and caught the grab rail of Cal’s dinghy to bring it up snug to his skiff. He waved Cal aboard. Cal climbed over the gunwale and into the hull. As soon as he’d righted himself, he threw his arms around the fisherman in a great big hug. The man smelled like wool, and tobacco, and a little bit like chum. All those familiar scents were wonderful.
“Thank you, my friend.” Cal gulped back tears. He’d been afraid he would never see another soul again.
The fisherman gently broke off their embrace, patting Cal on the head. “I take you Samos.”
“I’ve never been to Samos. That sounds great. Hey, if you have a radio, maybe you could call me in to the authorities? Everyone back in Hydra must be worried sick.” Cal noticed a microphone on a cord in the boat’s console. The fisherman stared at him, at a loss. Maybe Cal hadn’t said it right. He didn’t want to be rude and insist on using the man’s equipment. His companion stepped around him and pointed to Cal’s boat.
“You need anything?”
“Gosh no. Just leave the whole thing here. I don’t mind if I never see it again.”
The man guided Cal to the stern to sit at the skiff’s bench amid the bait and tackle equipment. Then he got behind the console, motored on the engine, and they went hurdling over the water en route to glorious, solid land.
Chapter Seventeen
THE PREVIOUS NIGHT, back in Hydra, Brendan returned to the hotel and summoned all of the wedding guests to the dining pavilion for a town hall meeting of sorts. The information he’d uncovered about Cal’s disappearance needed to be shared. Derek’s testimony and confession was another item for the agenda, and though he offered Derek no forgiveness, he assured the twerp he would appeal for leniency if the Panagopoulos brothers demanded bastinado as punishment for his outrageous actions. The more important matter was for everyone to come together behind a plan for finding Cal. To the turncoat’s credit, Derek offered no resistance to doing the noble thing.
The pavilion was packed with Cal’s family on one side and Brendan’s family and friends on the other. Even Brendan’s mother showed up, masked by oversized sunglasses and ready to get to business after a two-martini lunch. Brendan had asked Lieutenant Constantinides to come, though he’d promised everyone an eight o’clock start, and by twenty past, the lieutenant was nowhere to be found. The mood was tense with swells of ill-humored murmuring like a suburban mob gathered for a referendum on a halfway house moving into the neighborhood. The only overt act of misbehavior came from Riley, who wanted to videotape the proceedings on her phone and post them on social media. Her father Roger quickly confiscated her phone and Daryl’s, to the girls’ pouty dismay.
Brendan stood on a dais, which was to be for the head table at the wedding dinner. He was joined by Derek, Grandad, and Cal’s father. With it looking like Lieutenant Constantinides would never show up, Brendan started the meeting. He told the room of sixtyish people about their lead on the unregistered, Romanian tugboat and his disappointing dealings with the police. The Greek guests groaned and hailed curses at the absent authorities. It was a tough lead-in to Derek’s part of the program. Brendan gestured to Derek, and he stepped forward and spoke about his sighting of the tugboat and then, in a pained and tearful voice, what he had done to instigate the fight between Brendan and Cal.
Three of Cal’s brothers shot up to their feet with their chests puffed out, and they hurled threatening expletives at Derek. He had dishonored their baby brother and sent him off on his fateful, solitary trek down the beach. Mr. Panagopoulos, who had heard Derek’s confession previously, was a moderate man, and he reined in his sons by shouting them down at the necessary decibel level. Derek had been beloved by Cal’s family. He’d been Cal’s best friend for five years. After his confession, he’d no doubt become persona non grata to all of them, though Mr. Panagopoulos appeared to be generous in his understanding of the follies of young men.
Brendan gave Derek a nod of respect and retook the floor. “I’m sure everyone is shocked by what Derek did, but that’s a small part of why we called everyone together. Cal’s been gone now for thirty-six hours. We suspect foul play. The police have put out some kind of all-points bulletin to their departments across the country, but we can’t just wait around for something to turn up. We’re going to need everyone’s help to find Cal.”
Cal’s oldest brother, Sandy, spoke first. “We’ll storm the goddamn parliament in Athens.” That brought out a favorable commotion.
Riley jumped in. “We’ll Facebook, Tweet, and Instagram it.” Cal’s local family stared at her. She tried to explain. “The FBI does it. That’s how you find people these days.” She p
assed a wrathful glance at her father who held her phone.
Any and all ideas were welcome to Brendan. Derek had volunteered for the task of taking down notes, and he was scribbling everything onto a pad of hotel stationery.
Grandad stepped forward, in his element at the fore of the convocation. “I have assurances from the U.S. Secretary of State. He is holding the Greek Prime Minister to the grindstone until Cal is found. The Secretary has also sent a directive to our military forces to do their own surveillance on the Romanian vessel of interest.”
Genie stood up. “In thirty-six hours, they could be anywhere. Europe, Africa, the Middle East.” Cal’s mother moaned and broke into tears. Genie reseated herself at her side and took her hand.
A hollow ache grew in Brendan’s stomach from the sight of Cal’s mother. He drew a steadying breath. He needed to be a man of action.
“You’re right, Genie,” he said. “We have no idea where they went. All we have is some conjecture from the fuel attendant at the harbor. He thought he heard the kidnappers say they were headed to Psara, and the local police there are checking it out. But they could have stopped along the way or changed plans entirely. That’s why I’m proposing we spread out in a circumference around Hydra to conduct our own search. We’ll need teams of people. Some to canvas Athens. Some to the big islands like Rhodes and Crete to the south and west, and Andros and Mykonos to the north. We’ll use my grandfather’s jet, and we’ll book tickets for others on commercial airlines. I also looked into chartering a private boat to trace a likely route through the Aegean. We’ll need some people to stay in Hydra in case new information turns up here.”
Cal’s family muttered to each other in what sounded like agreeable discussions. Brendan’s father gazed at him in admiration, and then he crumpled into tears, garnering a strained brushing of his back from his girlfriend, Gabriela.
Then Lieutenant Constantinides strolled into the dining hall en route to the dais, as smooth and debonair as ever in a tailored suit and tie. People jeered at him. Incapable of governing herself any longer, Riley wrestled her phone out of her father’s hands and started snapping photos like an investigative reporter. Brendan’s mother slid her sunglasses down her face for a looksee.
Irresistible Page 13
