by Gordon Kent
Beyond the far lip of the caldera was only sky. High above, an eagle circled. Piat drank a cup of tea from his thermos and started down. The sense of openness—freedom, even—Piat couldn’t think of the origin of the tag, but the words above him, only sky ran around and around his head. The Bible? The Beatles?
It was three-thirty before he arrived on the gravel and set up his rod. He fished the shallow water between the gravel and the crannog for fifteen minutes, hooking and releasing a half-dozen minute brown trout. Then he put on the light, stocking-foot waders, a wet task in the rain, and pulled his boots on over them. No choice there. His boots were in for a pounding.
He worked the seaward end of the gravel, moving slowly into the deeper water. The loch itself was quite deep and very clear, so that when the watery sun made momentary appearances, he could see the complex rock formations in the depths. Right at his feet was a hollow cone of rock thirty feet across and so deep in the middle that light couldn’t penetrate it, some sort of ancient volcanic vent. He cast to the edge of the vent and immediately caught a strong brown trout, perhaps a pound, which he watched rise from the depths to seize the sea-trout fly. As far as he could see, the loch was short on food for fish and long on fish, but watching the predatory glide of the brown to his fly was pure joy.
A younger and braver fisherman could walk out along the vent’s top ridge to fish the deeper water. Piat actually considered it for a moment while he landed the brown trout before deciding that the creeping cowardice of age was going to win this one. He released the brown. He’d eat in a restaurant for his last meal on the island, and they wouldn’t want to cook his fish.
The crannog rose like a temptation, only fifteen or twenty meters off shore, the perfect platform from which to fish the vent, and whatever further wonders might lurk in the loch beyond. Piat climbed out of the water on the shingle and eyed the crannog. The water was too deep to walk out directly—he’d be over the top of his belt at the midpoint, soaked to the skin and cold. But there were stones under the surface of the water, two sets of stepping stones. The stones themselves were well down, but he thought he could move from one stone to the next without going over his waders.
Piat knew he was going to attempt it. He laughed at himself while he drank some tea, because his failure to accept the lure of the vent ridge meant that he was going to try and prove himself on something just as ridiculous. Partlow had thought he was crazy for fishing in the rain. Piat raised his cup of tea to Partlow. Then he stowed it, put his pack under a particularly large clump of grass as the best shelter from the rain available, and studied the stones one more time.
The left-hand stones looked more accessible. They started in deeper water but stuck up higher and seemed to have larger and flatter tops. Piat waded out to the first stone and stepped up. The surface of the stone was covered in a dark olive slime and his hiking boots slipped badly. He moved cautiously to the next stone. The water came to the middle of his knee. He used his rod as a staff, heedless of the wetting of his reel, and took a long gliding step to the third stone. It was less slippery, and he paused to rest, sweat already pouring down his chest under his sweater.
The fourth stone was clearly visible now, a darker and larger stone that marked the halfway point. Piat knew the moment his boot touched the surface under water that this stone was slippery, and then he was in the water, his waders full and then his mouth. The water was cold—so cold that it hit him like an electric shock—and the bottom was ooze, not rock, so that his feet were sinking and he had no purchase.
Piat had long experience of his own panic reflex and he beat it down, kept hold of his rod and kept the other hand in contact with the stepping stone until he had control of his brain, and then he used the strength of his arms to pull himself up on the rock, heedless of the temperature of the water. The wind on his head was like a new shock of ice. He’d lost his hat, which was scudding across the loch on the surface of the water. Mud and ooze billowed around his thrashing feet. He pulled himself up by the strength of his arms, heaving the weight of his full waders to the rock.
He fell again, just one stone out from the shore, but he was prepared this time, and his fall merely caused him to sit down hard on the stone and take a new batch of cold water over his waders.
Close up, the crannog was composed of small, round rocks the size of his fist, raised in a low mound. Underneath the water, the mound of rubble continued, although he could clearly see a beam or heavy rafter of wood deep in the clear water of the leeward side.
He stripped. He wrung out each sodden garment and put the wool socks and the jeans and sweater back on under the now empty waders, made a bundle of the rest of the clothes and tied it around his waist. He was warmer already—his jacket and the waders were windproof, and the wool was warm even when wet. Just to make a point to himself, he made some desultory casts into the deep water beyond the crannog. Something made a sizeable silver flash on his fourth cast—
Gone. A sea trout, without question. A good fish. He cast again, and again, trying to relive the moment of the earlier cast and remember just what he had done, eventually wondering if he had imagined the whole thing. His head was cold, and that wasn’t good.
Time to go.
The crannog interested him, even while he stood shivering on it. Between casts and retrieves, he tried to imagine how it had come here, how much effort it would have taken people (how many people—a family? Two families?) to build—and why. For the fishing? And when?
He left his boots off for the return trip. With his socks worn over the waders, he had reasonably sure footing and made his way without incident. He was losing too much heat from his head. He drank the rest of his thermos of tea and ate a sandwich made of the leftovers from his attempt to find presents for Hackbutt and pulled the plastic bags over his head, and then his cotton shirt, now wrung out, and then another bag. Better than nothing.
The walk back out was easier than he had expected. Perhaps because it was downhill, or the psychological effect of having his car in sight from the moment he climbed out of the caldera, but the climb down served only to keep the worst of the chill away. The Land Rover’s heater was a magnificent, efficient machine and he was warm before he negotiated the mountain pass on the road back to Salen. The heater almost made up for the width of the monster, but as he negotiated lay-bys and oncoming headlights, he cursed the car again. Darkness was falling. He drove carefully, passed the Aros estuary with regret, and went straight to the hotel.
In the morning, he stopped at the bookstore on his way to his car. Donald was already at work and greeted him enthusiastically. “Did you get anything?” he called, as soon as Piat was through the door.
Piat recounted his adventures. He had recorded his catch on the tickets and produced them.
Donald laughed. “You climbed on the crannog, then?”
“Who built it?” asked Piat.
Donald shrugged. “We have some books—people always want to know. There are four of them on the island, more on the mainland of course.” He pulled out a battered Ordnance Survey map and flipped it fully open. “One here, on the Glen Lochs—that’s quite a walk. Some fishing if you like wee browns. One here, on Loch Frisa. The one you climbed, of course, down south. And one just above the town, here. Quite a story to go with the local one.”
Piat had watched Donald’s thick fingers moving over the map, thinking automatically no cover, no cover, visible from the road. “Hmmm?” he said. “A story?” Piat was a good listener.
“A local man, a farmer, had the notion that he could build a dam on the loch above the town and regulate the flow of water—perhaps he intended to build a mill. What he did in fact was to drain the loch. The crannog was revealed as the water ran out—and they found a boat, completely intact, all sorts of other objects.”
Piat made interested noises throughout. “Where are they?”
“Oh, as for that, you’d have to ask Jean or my daughter. Perhaps in the museum?”
Piat lef
t with two books on crannogs, one an archaeological report from a dig on the mainland and one more general. He stopped at the museum, but it was closed.
He made the ferry line with seconds to spare, checked in at Lufthansa two hours early in Glasgow, and landed in Athens via London and Munich in time to eat a late dinner on the Plaka and fall into a hotel bed. He had nine thousand, four hundred and twelve dollars and some change, a new wardrobe, a new historical interest, and a return ticket to Glasgow. It’d been cheaper that way. What the hell, he thought as he lay in bed. Maybe someday I’ll go back.
The next day, he splurged and caught the high-speed ferry to Lesvos, saving twelve hours. He called Mrs Kinnessos from Piraeus and told her that yes, he would be taking the house for another six months, even at the summer price, and he was absurdly pleased when she offered him a discount for his constancy. By the time the ferry reached Mytilene, he had made himself the middleman on a deal for some Roman statuary from the Ukraine headed to the United States. His cut would be seven hundred euros.
Molyvos seemed ridiculously crowded after Mull. He sat in the chocolate shop half way up the town with his laptop open, drinking Helenika and thinking about sea trout and crannogs.
3
A week later, Clyde Partlow was sitting at a computer in an office that was, by CIA standards, big. Not as big as the director’s, but big. No private dining room, but a private john. Partlow was a somebody, so all the more reason that he read reports direct from the computer screen. Partlow sneered at the old fogeys who still insisted on hard copies and who had to telephone for help if their screen coughed up an error message. After his fashion, Partlow was with it.
His right hand was on a mouse so that he could scroll down easily. On the screen was something that called itself a “draft contact report,” typed into a template so that the form number was at the top and the headings were boxed. The ones that interested Partlow were the operation number and the “task number served.” Together, they interested him deeply.
He began to read. Almost at once, the slight frown of concentration that had puckered his smooth, sleek face deepened to a scowl of concern. Another paragraph, and the scowl began to take in anger, then anxiety, then despair. He scrolled down faster, clearly glossing text, whipping to the next page and then right to the end. He read the final paragraph and then sat back and pressed his forehead. He breathed deeply and rubbed his fingers and thumb back and forth across his forehead as if smoothing the wrinkles that the reading had created. He breathed out, the air expelled in little puffs, lips pushing out and in. He shook his head.
Partlow hadn’t got where he was by wasting energy on his feelings. He’d never been known to blow up at anybody and he’d never been known to weep with gratitude or joy or even grief. He gave congratulations well and he censured well, right up to and including firing people. They always left thinking that there was nothing personal about good old Clyde. So now, instead of doing what his adrenal gland and the atavistic, caveman part of his brain wanted to do, he sat back and read the entire four-page document with care.
When he was done, he called up his address book, picked a name, tapped it into his telephone and waited. When a voice at the other end said, “Defense Intelligence Agency, Petty Officer Clem speaking this-is-not-a-secure-line, sir, to whom may I direct your call, sir!”
“Captain Alan Craik, please.”
Mike Dukas was sitting late in his office because he was the Special Agent in Charge, Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Naples, and he and about half of his responsibilities were behind schedule. Down the hall, his assistant, Dick Triffler, was spending valuable time filling out paperwork for a three-year antiterrorism self-study that nobody would ever read; beyond him, two special agents were together in an office, trying to hammer out the charges against a sailor who had got drunk and beaten up a Turkish police cadet.
Dukas heard the ping of his secure telephone; he hit the button without taking his eyes off what he was reading. He was always reading now—reading or writing or going to meetings; the good days of getting out into the field were over. He sighed, looked up at the screen of the secure telephone, and read, “From: Defense Intelligence Agency, Captain Craik.”
He hit the talk button and said, “Al, that you?”
The answer came like static from deep space, Craik’s voice laid over it like an alien signal. “Mike?”
“Yeah. Al?”
“Hey, Mike.”
“Would you like to move to a conversation, or you want to stay with IDing each other?” He heard Craik laugh, and then they spent thirty seconds on how-are-you-how-are-thekids-how’s-your-wife. Their spat—if that was what it had been—in Reykjavik was forgotten. Then Craik said, “I just got off the phone with Clyde Partlow.”
“Better than getting on the phone with Clyde Partlow. Now what?”
A barely perceptible pause, but enough to sound a warning. “He wants Piat back.”
“Oh, shit. What the hell for?”
“Wouldn’t I like to know! Of course he didn’t say. He just asked if I knew where I could get hold of Piat again.”
“And you said, ‘Oh, sure, my pal Dukas carries him around in his back pocket.’ Right?”
“I said I’d see.”
“Al—” Dukas had been trying to read a report while they talked; now, he tossed the stapled papers halfway across his desk. “I’m not Piat’s personal manager.”
“Chill out, okay?”
“Once, as a favor, I found him for you. Twice is too much like a job.”
“I think he wants him again because something’s wrong.”
“Contact didn’t work.”
“Or it worked for a while and then it went bad. It’s been more than a week, after all.”
“Piat could be anywhere.”
“Yeah, but I’ll bet you know how to reach him.”
Dukas saw his number two, Dick Triffler, appear in his doorway, and he waved him in and pointed at a chair. “So maybe I know an address in cyberspace where sometimes he takes messages. So?” He mouthed “Al Craik” at Triffler, who raised his eyebrows.
Craik’s artificially tinny voice said, “Get a message to him.”
“What—‘Go see Clyde Partlow’? That wouldn’t even get him off a bar stool.”
“Persuade him.”
“Al, I know where you’re coming from, but why should I persuade Jerry Piat to do anything? The man’s a loner, a renegade, a goddam outsider! He doesn’t want to go see anybody! Piat’s opted out and he knows the price and he’s willing to pay it.”
“Will you try?”
“Al, I got an NCIS office to run!” He winked at Triffler. “Sitting right here is Dick Triffler, who would take my place if I took the time to persuade Jerry Piat. Do you want the US Navy to have to depend on Dick Triffler?”
“Say hello for me.”
“Al says hello.”
Triffler smiled. “Tell him I said hello.”
“Triffler says hello. We all cozy now? Okay. Listen, I’ll do this much: I’ll send Piat a message. If he’s willing to listen, I’ll try to talk to him. By phone. But I can’t devote my life to this, Al. Neither can you, for that matter. It isn’t as important as running the Naples office of NCIS. It isn’t as important as being the collections officer for DIA.”
“It’s important enough for Partlow to have messaged the head of NCIS to ask for special cooperation, attention Michael Dukas, NCIS Naples.”
Dukas flashed Triffler a look of disgust. “This was your idea?”
“This was Partlow’s idea. He asked me to call you before the message got to you so you wouldn’t take it the wrong way. Mike, I know it’s an imposition; I know you’re working your ass off; but so am I. I’m just the messenger here. Don’t take it out on me.”
Dukas sighed. “So Partlow wants me to bring Piat in. Even if I have to take time away from my job. And NCIS has already said that’s what I should do. Are you in it with me?”
“Not this time. I got
no authorization, no orders.”
“You know, I thought I might actually take Saturday off this week and take my wife to Capri, which I’ve been promising to do for two years?”
Craik made sympathetic noises, and they tossed stories about overwork back and forth, and they parted friends. Dukas, when he had hung up, looked at Triffler with an expression of disgust. “I’ve been drafted,” he said. His hand was still on the secure telephone.
Triffler, an elegant African American who played Felix to Dukas’s Oscar, merely smiled. “Al got another wild hare running?”
Dukas grunted and held up a finger, as if to say Wait until I check something. He picked up the phone, and, shaking his head at Triffler’s pantomimed offer to leave, called his boss in Washington. After a few pleasantries, Dukas said, “I hear I’m being ordered to run an errand for the CIA.”
A brief silence, then his boss’s voice: “Not my doing.”
“Higher up the line? The DIA?”
After another hesitation, “Higher than that.”
When Dukas had put the phone down in its cradle, he turned to Triffler. “What’s the Pentagon’s interest in sending me to do the CIA’s work?” He cocked a cynical eye at Triffler. “You remember Clyde Partlow?” Dukas told him about the Iceland trip and the new request to find Piat. “Piat isn’t exactly my asshole buddy.”
“So you send him an email, and if he doesn’t answer, you’re off the hook.”
“Well—” Dukas hitched himself around toward his pile of paper. “Apparently I’m getting orders to bring Piat in. I may have to leave the office.”
“And put me in charge for a day? Lucky me!”
Dukas waved a hand at the pile of paper. “My son, one day all this will be yours.”
“What’s your wife going to say?”
Dukas groaned.
Piat’s Ukrainian deal went down without a hitch, and the seller paid up, just like that. He’d been home for ten days, and Mull seemed very far away. Now Piat sat on the precarious balcony of his favorite chocolate shop and drank his second Helenika of the day, closed his laptop with a snap, and contemplated the archaeological report he had bought on Mull about Scottish crannogs. He was bored and he had nothing better to do than read it. He’d glanced through it on the plane—very dry, almost no analysis at all—and now he turned to the color plates of the finds. Most of them were dull, and worse, unsaleable—who would buy a three-thousand-year-old bundle of ferns once used as bedding? But there were valuable items, as well: a single gold bead, a copper axe head, a remarkable slate pendant shaped with sides so well smoothed he could almost feel them under his hands.
