Brendan grudgingly ceded his spot on the dais to Constantinides. The lieutenant smiled at him, and then he spoke out to the hall. “My name is Lieutenant Giannis Constantinides. Forgive me for my lateness. I was told by Mr. Thackeray-Prentiss the meeting was to start at half past eight.”
People booed him. Brendan glared at the man indignantly. Even if there had been a miscommunication, which there hadn’t, he was fifteen minutes late.
Constantinides spoke over the commotion. “Family, friends—I know you are upset about the disappearance of Mr. Panagopoulos. Allow me to assure you his safe return is a top priority for the Hellenic Police. We have officers in all twelve of our jurisdictions searching for your loved one.” He raised a finger in the air. “I have no doubt he will be found.”
Sandy stood up again with steam rising from his ears. “You did nothing. You sent us away when we came to you. You told us Cal’s disappearance was a domestic dispute.”
The Panagopoulos clan rose up in a clamor to support him. Constantinides appealed to their patriotism by speaking to them in Greek.
Cal’s brother Yannis took him on. “Screw your Hellenic Police. We’re going to do our own investigation. We’ll get more done in one night than you’ve done in thirty-six hours.” The thirty-something Greek construction worker looked to Brendan, and people broke out in clapping and cries of support.
Constantinides glanced at Brendan with acrimony—the ringleader of the hostile audience in front of him. When the commotion trailed off somewhat, the lieutenant tried again. “It is my duty to advise you that any efforts to usurp the Hellenic Police’s investigation will be both counterproductive and actionable by our courts of law.”
They shouted him down. Constantinides forced a grin at their angry faces. Then he waved his hand dismissively and nudged past Brendan with some parting words. “This is what you want, Mr. Thackeray-Prentiss? A ragtag militia to find your fiancé? I wish you the best of luck.” He stepped down from the dais, avoiding gazes. When he had left, the room erupted in a rousing cry.
Brendan looked over the hall. It was a ragtag militia: Blue-collar Greek-American husbands. Their equally feisty wives. Cal’s Old World family—the men in moustaches and weathered shirts and trousers, the women in smock dresses and shawls. His well-clad college friends, who were strangers to pounding the pavement for any cause beyond a shopping jag in Manhattan, though they had taken to their feet in solidarity. Brendan’s spirited but flighty father. His teenage sisters, already absorbed in organizing an Arab Spring–style media campaign. And Grandmum, clapping a steady beat for justice in a dignified display. They all believed they could do the impossible. They all believed in him. Intoxicated by the collective energy, Brendan launched his fist into the air.
THE NEXT MORNING, Brendan set out from Hydra in a chartered yacht with a captain and a below-deck crew. Some of Cal’s relatives had ferried to Athens. They were organized in teams to overturn the city, alert the media, and placard the streets with posters, and others would go on to board planes to strategic points across the Aegean. Grandad, Grandmum, Brendan’s mother, and his sisters had taken the private jet to Istanbul where they might head off Cal’s Romanian captors at the Bosporus Strait, en route to the Black Sea. Betsy Schoonover, her husband, and Brendan’s college friends had been assigned surveillance of westward routes through Italy. Genie was leading a team of her cousins and uncles to Bodrum on the Turkish coast of the Mediterranean. Brendan’s father and his girlfriend had volunteered to fly south to Cypress where he knew some locals who’d been on a film crew for one of his documentaries. They would proceed to Cairo if necessary. Mrs. Panagopoulos and Cal’s sisters Ana and Lucy were staying back in Hydra in case any information turned up there.
That left a team of the campaign’s most strident supporters to accompany Brendan on his sea voyage to attempt to retrace the criminals’ route from Hydra to the island of Psara. Naturally, Mr. Panagopoulos and the brothers Sandy, Yannis, George, and Demetri insisted on being at the forefront of the action. Louis Jeffries had offered to come, and Brendan was glad for it. He could use his lifelong pal’s moral support. The brothers jeered at Derek coming along, but Derek had pleaded, and Brendan’s heart had thawed to him. The kid had been through a trial of contrition, which wasn’t to say Brendan trusted him completely, but it had earned his respect.
The plan was to follow a trade route through the Cyclades Islands and onward to the Northern Aegean Sea. Consulting with the harbor fuel attendant, they’d arrived at the disappointing conclusion that the rickety, little tugboat could likely make a trip of at least three days without stopping for fuel. Their modern, expedition yacht could gain on the Romanians’ progress in half the time, and they could hope the outlaws had anchored at some port in the Aegean en route to Psara. The strategy was to radio every passing boat along the way in hopes of sightings. The crooks could not have fled Hydra entirely unnoticed.
Cal’s father and brothers settled into the shaded, lower aft deck for rounds of rummy and bottles of Mythos from the yacht’s well-stocked bar. They had the right idea to get involved in something distracting, but Brendan was so pent up with anxiety, he couldn’t stop from planting himself at very pulpit of the bow, searching the seascape with a pair of binoculars like Captain Ahab. He pestered the crew in the above-deck wheelhouse at regular intervals just in case some news had come over the radio. Mere hours had passed since they motored out of the port of Hydra that morning, and they were deep in open sea, an everlasting plain of undulating, midnight blue seawater. Louis emerged from the cabin to join him on his lookout, carefully balancing in one hand his first tumbler of scotch on the rocks of the day.
“You’re really handling this like a champ,” Louis told him.
“Thanks,” Brendan said. “And thanks for coming along.”
“I’d follow you to the ends of the earth, my dearest bud.” Louis looked out to the blank seascape. “Which may just be where we’re headed.”
Brendan took up his binoculars. He thought he’d seen something on the northern horizon, though he couldn’t make out anything with his binoculars but open sea.
Louis sipped his scotch. “We’ve got a long trip ahead of us. What say we check out the main salon? They’ve got a billiard table and satellite TV.” Brendan stepped down from the pulpit, but he quickly looked out from the bow and shook his head. “Xbox?” Louis tried. “Take you back to college when I used to kick your butt in Street Fighter?” Still, Brendan resisted. Louis clamped a hand on his shoulder. “I heard they have a collection of 1,000 movies. I’ll even suffer through one of those subtitled, tragic, French, gay love stories you like so much.” He retreated from the suggestion. “Something lighter? A Seth Rogen film?”
“I can’t.” Brendan sighed. “I know it’s totally irrational, but I feel like if I miss something out here, I’ll never forgive myself.” He winced. A swoon of emotions was coming on. It didn’t help he hadn’t slept more than an hour or two the past few nights, and he’d barely eaten.
Louis brought out carefully, “You know it’s not your fault.”
“I don’t know that. Derek set up the fight, but I was the one who overreacted. If I hadn’t done that, Cal wouldn’t have run away.”
“And he would have come right back.” Louis shifted a bit in his houndstooth Bermuda shorts and crew neck pullover. “It’s not like me to get all mushy. But I was wrong about you two when you first told me you were getting married. I’ve seen what you guys have together. The way you look at one another. It’s the real deal, Brendan. I was a douche for not believing you. And whatever fight you had, Cal would have come around, just like you did. You don’t give up that easily when you have something that strong.”
Brendan dropped his head. The corners of his eyes burned. Louis’s big hand rubbed his back.
“I keep trying to believe that,” Brendan said through the tears. “But how can I know for sure? Maybe this is what Cal wanted. Maybe he wanted a way off Hydra, and he just disappeared. All bec
ause of me.”
“That’s your inner guilt monster talking,” Louis said. “You’ve got to send that guy packing. And it doesn’t help that you’re running on fumes.” He massaged Brendan’s neck. “Brendan, you need some sleep. You need to eat something. You’re the captain of this mission, buddy, and you won’t be any help to us if you don’t take care of yourself. You certainly won’t be any help to Cal.” He glanced at his watch. “Take a break. We only set sail from Hydra three hours ago.”
Brendan sniffed back his tears, collecting himself. He gazed out to the water. The rushing sea breeze braced him a little. “I’ll get some rest and something to eat. In a little while. Right now, I just need to be out here.”
Louis patted his back. “Whatever you need, bud. But make sure it really is just ‘a little while.’” He glanced to one side. “Looks like you’ve got another visitor. You want me to scare him back into his rat hole?”
Turning that way, Brendan saw Derek. He was slumped and forlorn, wearing a black T-shirt and jeans, staring at the two of them from the railing near the yacht’s cabin. Brendan had the impression he’d been there awhile. Derek had his arms crossed over himself for warmth, and he reminded Brendan of a gecko, watching from the borders, expressionless, waiting for an opening to insert himself in the conversation.
“No. It’s all right.”
“Okay,” Louis said. “I’ll give you guys some privacy.” He went to the cabin, giving Derek a dubious glare along the way.
Derek crept over to Brendan’s side. Like Brendan, he looked wasted and delirious from the past few days, his black hair spiky and clumped, his beard-stubbled face drawn. Strangely, that brought Brendan some comfort.
“The captain thought he had a lead after radioing a freighter. It passed by some ship with a Romanian flag,” Derek said. “Turns out it was just a recreational sailboat. Totally legit.”
Brendan frowned. “It’s going to be a long day.” His empty stomach cramped, and he couldn’t stop himself from yawning.
“I know nobody wants me to be here,” Derek said. “When I pass by Cal’s brothers, they look at me like they’re sizing up how to chop me into cutlets.”
“Yeah, well—”
“Means a lot to me you let me come along.”
Brendan glanced at the little guy. Derek’s skinny arms were goose bumped, and he was trembling and probably didn’t even realize it. It was pretty brisk out on the deck, and they were both underdressed. Brendan had come out in an untucked Oxford shirt and shorts.
“You really loved Cal, all this time,” he said.
Derek nodded. “I did. I never told him though. At least not the way I meant it.”
“He loves you too,” Brendan said and added, pointedly, “as a friend.”
“You think he’ll ever forgive me?”
Brendan mulled it over. Cal would be mad. For days. Weeks even. But of course he’d eventually forgive Derek. Cal’s heart was big and generous.
“Yeah.” Brendan stared out to the water. They were approaching a minor island. It was all brown cliffs, shaved of vegetation by the wind and sun. It looked like it was uninhabited.
“Can I tell you something?” Derek said.
Brendan nodded.
“Here’s the weird thing,” Derek began. “I was in love with Cal all this time, keeping it a secret, like it was something too sacred to even speak about. Like it would disappear if I ever shared it with another person.” He struggled to find the words. “Now that it’s out in the open, it’s like I’m free. Like it doesn’t control me anymore. I don’t know. Maybe it wasn’t love. Maybe it was an obsession. You think there’s a difference?”
Brendan remembered having a similar conversation with himself when he realized how his feelings for Thiago had fallen away. Though he had no idea if that was the same thing Derek was going through.
“It’s not that I don’t care about Cal anymore,” Derek went on. “Believe me, I do. But maybe it wasn’t him I was in love with. It was more the idea of him. That I had someone to love, and he would love me back. And that would make me a worthwhile person.” Derek shook his head. “I don’t know if I’m making any sense.”
“No, you are,” Brendan said. “I mean, you can’t go for years being in love with someone you can never have. That’s just…crazy.”
“Well, I never said I wasn’t crazy.”
Brendan grinned. Derek grinned back.
“Cal’s the nicest and sweetest and most honorable guy in the world,” Derek said. “But I think I’m coming around to seeing he’s not for me. And I’d never do anything to stand between the two of you. Never again, I mean. You believe me, don’t you?”
Brendan put his arm around Derek’s shoulder. “I do.”
Derek leaned into his embrace. “I just pray to god we’ll find him.”
Brendan squeezed him tighter. So did he. “Hey, you want to go up and see if we missed any news in the past thirty seconds?”
“Sure.”
They went into the cabin and climbed the stairs to the wheelhouse on the upper deck where the captain and the first officer navigated the vessel. It had a high-tech console and a big swiveling leather chair and a panoramic view of the sea. Brendan immediately tuned in to the sound and sight of the captain talking on the radio. He was a thirty-something South African dude named Wes, and he was conversing with someone in Greek. The first officer, a young Turk named Ahmed, stood close by. Brendan and Derek halted at the landing, waiting out the radio parlay.
Captain Wes glanced at Brendan while a staticky Greek voice came over the radio. Brendan didn’t like his grim look.
The captain finished up the conversation and directed nautical instructions to Ahmed, who made some adjustments at the console. The captain then turned his attention to Brendan.
“We just received a transmission from the Greek Navy. They found a tugboat that fits your description in the Icarian Pelagos.”
Brendan’s lungs froze over. He could sense by the captain’s tone it was not good news.
“We’ve set a course to get there straightaway,” Captain Wes continued. “Should be five, six hours at the most. Now I don’t want you to get too alarmed, Mr. Thackeray-Prentiss. The navy is still sorting things out. Nothing has been confirmed yet.”
“What is it?” Brendan said.
Captain Wes hesitated for a breath. “The boat collided with a beacon tower. Sometime last night. They found it capsized, nearly drawn under.”
“Th-they found passengers?”
Captain Wes nodded. “Three men. All Romanian. All trapped in a cargo hatch. They were nearly dead from hypothermia, but they got them to a naval hospital in time. They’re in stable condition and being held for questioning.”
Brendan was confused. “They think it’s the boat, that it’s the guys who took Cal?”
No answer. Just a steady gaze from the Captain.
The wheelhouse blurred and spun in Brendan’s vision. He brought out the words he had to ask. “Then what happened to Cal?”
Captain Wes bit his lip. “They’re bringing divers over to search for other passengers.” He caught Brendan’s glance gravely. “But they found Mr. Panagopoulos’s wallet, passport, and shorts aboard the ship.”
Chapter Eighteen
CHRISTOS NICOLAOU GATHERED the mooring lines to tie his fishing boat to the jetty of his seaside cabin. The American boy nearly tripped over himself trying to help him. Christos mildly shooed him away. Greek-Americans, they had the brass balls to call themselves. The only Greek thing about the boy was his proper, straight nose and his thick, curled hair. He spoke the language in a sloppy jabber and chattered on like all of his kind—happy as a lark in June from the opportunity to show off his credentials to a native of the Old Country.
This was why Christos made his home in the remote countryside of northwestern Samos. It was far enough away from town to rarely have to trouble with the touristas, or the locals for that matter, but it was a short enough drive when he couldn’t avoid h
aving to travel there for goods. He was a seventy-year-old widower, and his wife of forty years had been the one person he’d ever tolerated, and even then not without some effort, may Petrina’s soul rest in heaven. As far as Christos was concerned, Greeks belonged in Greece and Americans in America, and he didn’t hold well with either.
Still, there was respect owed to a young man fished out of the sea when he had expected to bring home a grouper or a mullet like every other morning he’d motored his boat out for a catch. The boy glowed like a Cherubim fallen from the sky. He tempted superstition.
Many nights, sitting alone in his whitewashed spiti, Christos had wondered what was left for him in this world. He had outlived his wife by three years now, and how quickly those years went by. They had never had a son or a daughter, and Christos never blamed Petrina for that, barren as she was. He lived on his meager government pension and sold whatever fish he didn’t need to a market in town. It was not much of a life. He had no friends to care about him, just a fellow fisherman or two with whom he exchanged a nod when their boats crossed paths on the open sea. Christos had to admit a hermit’s life came with a price. Some days it was hard to dredge up the spirit to get out of bed.
Now, he had found this boy. Bothersome as he was with his constant blabber, he made for a pretty sight for the eyes. That radiant hair, as though spun from gold. Those bright, aquamarine eyes. He brought a grin to Christos’s face, which hadn’t happened in a long while, maybe not since Petrina had fallen sick with cancer.
The right thing to do would be to take the boy to the police station in town to let them sort out getting him back to where he belonged. Christos’s chin trembled as he wound one of the boat lines to its bollard. Thinking about giving up the boy made his heart cave in. He had found him. The boy was his treasure.
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