Assignment- Mermaid

by Will B Aarons

  He called the Grand, left a message telling Link the time of departure for Egypt. It galled him to be saddled with the man, but he was aware that a modicum of diplomacy was required in dealing with the HRC. He could not allow them to get the idea that K Section was taking the whole show from them. If that happened, there would be no end of trouble, politically.

  He briefly regarded the street below. Bright clothing and jangly bric-a-brac hung on shopfronts that angled down the cobbled slope of a hill. Wooden Turkish balconies seemed closed and sinister. A gray-bearded priest in black robes and mushroom hat shuffled by.

  If there was a stakeout for him, he couldn’t tell it.

  But that didn’t mean a thing.

  He pulled the drapes and put his gun on the bed under his hand and tried to get some sleep.

  A shrill ringing awakened Durell, and he groped for the telephone. "Hello.”

  "In the lounge.”

  "Marty?”

  "Yo.”

  The line went dead. Durell fumbled the phone back onto its cradle, rubbed his face, looked around. The room was in total darkness. He twisted the switch of the bedside lamp, glanced at his wristwatch. It was fourteen minutes after nine. He’d slept longer than intended. He could not guess what had brought Marty from Athens, and he didn’t care for the nasty foreboding it sent through him. Then he became aware of a more immediate pang of alarm.

  He’d heard nothing from Sirena.

  He got up, thumbed aside a curtain. Daylight’s afterglow was a rusty remnant. First stars glittered in a sky the color of ripe grapes.

  He snugged his tie, slipped into his jacket, wondering what had happened to her. It couldn’t be anything good, he thought. The killers who had burned the villa might have caught up with her; the police might be holding her on suspicion or as a material witness.

  Or she could have copped out, washed her hands of this mess, after taking time to think it over. In which case he was minus a pilot, with precious little time to find a replacement—and the Nereid wasn’t going to wait.

  He took a somber breath and headed downstairs.

  The lounge resembled a medieval armory. It was decorated with lances, swords, maces and battle-axes. Along the walls were ranged shields that bore the coats of arms of the Grand Masters of the Knights of St. John. There were nineteen in all, from Foulques de Villaret’s three birds in 1310 to the outstretched arm of Villiers de L’Isle Adam in 1522.

  The room was not crowded, and Durell had no trouble finding Marty, even in the dim, golden light. The Athens Control sat in an upholstered booth at the rear. He sipped a milky ouzo and nibbled mezes of ripe olives and cheese bits. He wore a shiny maroon tie that brought out the color in his cheeks and made his red mustache glow.

  "You know we located theNereid?” Marty said.

  "Link delivered your message.” Durell waved a waiter away.

  "What do you plan to do about it?”

  "Board her in the canal,” Durell said.

  "Good. It’s what I expected. Very good. Damn good.” He leaned over his drink. "You will be careful?”

  Durell said nothing. Marty seemed nervous.

  Marty said: "You’ll leave right away, then?”

  "If my pilot shows up. She’s Sirena Alatis, Panagiotes’ girlfriend.”

  "My God.”

  "What’s eating you, Marty? You didn’t come to talk about the Nereid, or Aleksei Lazeishvili.”

  "Don’t let them catch you with her; the police have a way of putting two and two together and coming up with five.”

  Durell was blunt. "Get to the point.”

  "Panagiotes is a big shot, Cajun. And the police think maybe you killed him, you and the girl.” Durell stared at Marty in appalled silence.

  Marty continued: "Greek Intelligence touched base with me this afternoon—as you know, they have a line into the police here. The cops have been grilling this Sirena chick for hours. How much does she know about us?”

  "Not much. How did my name get into it?”

  Marty smiled sadly. "Rental car at the scene. Someone got the license number. They saw her in it with a man, 'fleeing the scene,’ as the police so colorfully put it.”

  "Do the cops know who I am?”

  "Not yet. That’s the thing, though. If you’re apprehended and go to trial, the stink could bring down the government. Just think of it: an American spy on trial for the murder of a Greek millionaire.”

  Durell’s tone was calm. "Can Greek Intelligence do anything for me?”

  "Maybe. But the politicians who boss the ministry are pressuring just to get rid of you.” Marty paused, sighed. "I’ve got to tell them something, Sam, take something back that our friends can use for ammo.”

  "Tell them Panagiotes may not be dead.”

  "They’re going on the theory that he is. Who else could it be?”

  "I don’t know.” Durell stabbed a finger at the table. "But somebody almost ran me and Sirena down in his yacht. I was diving, beyond the surf-line. I have a hunch it was Panagiotes in that yacht.”

  "Why not the killers, after you?”

  "For one thing, they didn’t leave a car behind at the villa; for another, a hundred-foot yacht is a cumbersome thing to steal, too difficult to dispose of, and a most awkward weapon to kill with. Why didn’t they heave to and blast us with guns? They used guns at the villa. But the yacht didn’t even circle once to check if we were dead or alive. It had the earmarks of a man running for his life, and the devil take whoever got in the way.” Durell sat back, drew a breath and frowned.

  "Doesn’t that presume that someone set out to kill Panagiotes from the start?” Marty asked.

  "Maybe. We could be dealing with two threads here, instead of one,” Durell replied. "While we’re after Lazeishvili, someone else is after Panagiotes. But why?”

  "Humm.” Marty rubbed his chin. "I wonder if that has anything to do with a piece of information that came in just before I left Athens.”

  "What?”

  Marty’s smile was really a smile, for a change, as he said: "We just found that Panagiotes owns the Nereid.”

  "Looks as if the two threads just came together,” Durell said.

  Then he saw Marty’s eyes narrow as the man glimpsed something at the entrance to the lounge. "Here comes trouble,” Marty said.

  Durell craned around, saw a tall, mustached Greek in a gray-green police uniform.

  Beside him stood Sirena, her finger aimed at Durell.

  6

  Durell lunged for the rear entrance, joggled a patron, sent a chair crashing.

  "Statamatíste! Stop!” the officer commanded in two languages.

  Marty’s feet pounded behind. The two of them blurred through a doorway into the night. An ancient wrought-iron lantern, stuck to the wall above, shed dim light across the cobbled alley.

  Without a word, Marty went one way, Durell the other, skipping down stone steps, he faded into a dark recess, as the lounge door burst open behind him. The cop came out quickly, cheeks and eyes shadowed by his cap visor. His arm trailed Sirena into view. She did not seem to resist. The Greek said something that Durell could not hear. She made no audible reply.

  Nothing moved in the alley.

  Beyond the crenellated ramparts down the hill, the harbor mirrored countless boat lights. Tall palms leaned in a wind that did not touch the fetid space where Durell watched and waited. The alley air was rank with odors of garbage, dog feces, dead cats.

  He knew he must get Sirena away from the cop.

  He did not believe the officer had got a good look at him, and having her with him would be like waving a red flag at the police—but he had no choice.

  At this late hour, only she could get him to the canal before the Nereid vanished once more.

  The officer came down the steps, eyes swinging right and left. He clearly believed Durell could not have reached the end of the alley. Down there bouzoúki music blared, Vespas stuttered. Strollers crowded the walk and street.

  Durell did n
ot know where Marty had hidden, but it must be nearby. Marty would make a dash when he did, or vice versa. Durell knew that; it was standard evasion. But who would go first? The cop wore a pistol.

  The officer moved a bit away from Durell, looked back.

  Sonorous tones of the nightly son et lumi&re show wafted from the municipal gardens, once a moat, that fronted the Grand Master’s Palace.

  Sirena just stood there, at the bottom of the steps, a soft figure in the lantern’s golden light.

  Durell kicked over a garbage can and ran for it. The officer whooped a command, then shouted away from Durell, as Marty made his dash.

  Durell cut left, into a lane the width of a donkey cart, hustled twenty yards further, burst onto the busy square that fronted the hotel. The shortcut of the lane had been a pleasant surprise, considering the policeman’s gun.

  He slowed, but not soon enough, where taxis disgorged guests and diners in a constant stream. A whistle pierced the air from the direction of the tiled fountain. Two more green-uniformed cops lurched into the chase. Durell guessed they had been stationed there to cover the front entrance. They must have seen him charge out of the lane.

  Shops lined the square, their wares spilling in piles and heaps into the paths of hopeful customers. There were ceramics, icons, daggers, trays, pots, jewelry, and Durell mixed most of them in the gutter as he dodged pedestrians, coffee drinkers and hustlers in dark glasses. The cops came on amid howls of dismay and a storm of curses.

  Durell cornered into a shop crammed with Turkish brass and copper, long-handled coffee pots called brikia, skewers for souvláki, samovars.

  The proprietor was fat and brown, with small and cunning eyes. He came from the rear of the store.

  "Yes, sir. May I help you?” he asked in French.

  "Where is your back door?” Durell replied in kind.

  The fat man breathed loudly. "You wish to buy fine brass? Copper?”

  "Non, non!” Durell glanced over his shoulder.

  The man waddled nearer Durell on small feet clad in carpet slippers. "This tray, sir. It served Suleiman the Magnificent—”

  Durell’s grip clamped around the man’s lapels. "Show me through the rear. Quickly!” He gave the rotund figure a regretful shove, another shove, in the small of the back, and the shopowner stumbled hurriedly ahead. Waterpipes, basins and letter-openers tumbled and clattered.

  "This way, this way!” the man shouted in a voice that had become cranky.

  They hurried through an apartment where a woman and her daughter worked a carpet loom by the light of a kerosene lantern. The fat man shrugged as their eyes rounded at him. The police made a racket back in the showroom. The woman babbled a question from her loom.

  Then Durell was in a dark room, that smelled of cold grease, spices, charcoal. He was stumbling over things. Through a door, up a stairway, onto a flat rooftop. Dark phantom shapes of laundry danced in the salty breeze. The hotel loomed overhead. Street-glow radiated above housetops as if from a river of molten gold.

  The woman’s shouts mixed with sharp, snarling syllables of the two policemen.

  The fat man blew out his cheeks, panted, pointed. "Down there,” he said.

  Durell saw that stairs led back into the alley where he had started. He moved to them swiftly and silently, aware that the cops below soon would emerge onto the roof. Cautiously, he bent and looked, then smiled with satisfaction.

  Sirena still stood there, uncertain what to do. But the cop who had brought her had bounded off on the chase.

  She was all alone.

  He came out of nowhere, grabbed her wrist and gave a running yank.

  "Sam!”

  "Shut up.”

  The streets narrowed and twisted as Durell pushed deeper into the maze of by-lanes and footpaths in the heart of the Turkish Quarter. Iron lamps fastened to stone walls for hundreds of years cast a wan light here and there. In other places the blackness was relieved only by a pale luminescence of fiery stars. They came out in the shadow of an immense curtain wall once defended by English knights.

  Their soles rattled on the cobbles.

  Sirena’s breath gusted between her teeth.

  A police whistled shrilled from behind.

  There were no sidewalks here. Blank walls sheer to the cobbles confined the direction of their flight as relentlessly as a river gorge.

  A cloying fragrance of bougainvillea snatched abruptly at Durell’s awareness. He found the source in the black patch of a yawning entranceway on his left. He pulled Sirena with an unceremonious jerk, angled through, found himself in a small, starlighted garden. Flagstones scuffed underfoot. There was a smell of fruit left too long in the bowl; the rotund slickness of a fig squashed underfoot. Out of the side of his eye lie saw where the garden surface gave way to an enormous rectangular void. Steps led down.

  Sirena stumbled, sucked an alarmed breath. Durell caught her, steadied her momentarily. She had said nothing since that first encounter. She didn’t speak now, but the desperate cling of her fingers, the starry mirror of her upturned eyes said reams. She was deathly afraid, but she would not whine.

  It was a flying staircase that turned sharply against blank stone, like a basement wall, then bottomed out beneath a vaulted half-ceiling.

  Durell stopped and listened from behind a drapery of shadow.

  Twinkling music, traffic noise, as if from another, distant world.

  Nearby in this sunken courtyard a fountain burbled gouts of shining water.

  Hurrying feet slapped past the narrow gate above.

  Durell leaned back in the shadow beneath the vaulted recess, touching the rough-hewn stone. His shirt was damp and sticky beneath the arms. He held Sirena protectively, the rich curvature of her form flattening against him, the long shape of her thigh a sensual pressure on his leg. The air was still and warm, damp and perfumed.

  He felt her arms slide around his neck, glanced down at the perfect oval of her face. A ribbon of loose hair lay across her cheek, shining like silk.

  "Sam . . . ?” Her lips came toward his.

  "Be still.” Durell’s voice was edgy. He cut his eyes back toward the street.

  Her embrace tightened a bit, the press of her body

  was a fraction more urgent. She put her cheek against his chest. "You think I betrayed you?” she whispered.

  "You brought that cop.”

  "It isn’t what it seems.”

  "Nothing ever is.”

  He peered into the gloom behind them, further beneath the arched ceiling. There was not a glimmer of light; he could make out nothing back there. He listened for the police, as Sirena’s heart thudded against his ribs.

  She spoke again: "Should we have run away like that?”

  "Yes.”

  "It could cause us more trouble, you know.”

  "One problem at a time, please.” He looked down at her. "Why did you come? You could have fought and screamed.”

  "What would you have done, if I had?”

  "Hit you, most likely. Tried to knock you out and drag you away.” His voice was grave. "You’re going to fly me to Egypt. Tonight. One way or another.”

  "I’ll take my chances with you, Sam,” she said. "Our fates are linked now, don’t you know? The gods have decreed it.”

  "You don’t believe in Zeus and that crowd?”

  "Why not? I don’t disbelieve. They were good enough for everybody once.”

  He stared at her briefly. "You’re a nut,” he said.

  There came a distant clang of emergency bells, and he felt her stir tensely against him. "Probably more police coming to join the hunt,” he murmured.

  "They threatened to take me to the island of Kos, where the jail is,” Sirena said, her tone indignant.

  "So I’m supposed to forgive you for fingering me,” Durell said.

  "I don’t need anyone’s forgiveness.”

  "What did you tell them?”

  "What you said: I was swimming when the villa burned. Didn’t hear or see
a thing until I returned. Then I caught a lift into town and reported it to the police as soon as I could.” She turned thoughtful. "Somehow they found out who I rode in with, and that we left the house together—I suppose it was the old man in the lane who told them.”

  "Maybe,” Durell said. "But he seemed to pay us no attention. I doubt he’s in the habit of memorizing the license plates of cars he passes in the lane.”

  "Then how did they know?”

  "Possibly an anonymous call. From the men who burned the place. They could have found the Simca in the olive grove.”

  "Why would they blame it on you?”

  Her naiveté brought a grim smile to his lips. "It hasn’t made my job any easier, has it? With a little luck, they’ll have the police chasing me off the island, and never even show themselves.”

  "Who are those men?”

  "You don’t have to know.”

  "I want to; I can’t stay angry at the wind.”

  "They might as well be the wind, for all you can touch them, Sirena.”

  "I—I just feel sad.”

  "For Panagiotes?”

  "He was a good friend.”

  "I hope your other friends don’t pull guns on you.” "What if they did? What’s life without fire and passion?”

  "Keep your voice down.” Durell studied her; even in the darkness her face looked like one of those little dolls they sold to tourists on Sokrátous Street, flawlessly beautiful. He had a thought, shook it away. "Let’s go,” he said.

  "The police—”

  "It won’t get any safer.”

  She clung to him. "I don’t want safety.” She looked up, into his eyes. "If I wanted safety, would I fly you tonight?”

  "What do you want?”

  "Don’t you know?”

  She raised on her toes, her face the hue of pale twilight, stars glimmering in her black eyes. The kiss of her pink mouth was hot and moist, her lips furiously impatient as she turned herself between him and the rough wall. There was no mistaking her desire. Her embrace begged him to crush her against the stones.

  Durell resisted his impulses, whispered against her ear: "It’s only the excitement of danger.”