by Paul Moomaw
“I wasn’t interested in selling my soul for a pair of those.” Pray pointed to the cuff links.
Parker’s eyes snapped. “Don’t knock what you don’t understand, Pray. I’ve done my duty, and I’m proud of these.” He shoved his wrist to within an inch of Pray’s nose, and grinned tightly as Pray flinched, “I took them right from the hands of a President of the United States. That will never happen to you, asshole.” The plane had come to a stop, and people were getting off. Parker stood up and smoothed his jacket. He looked down at Pray with contempt on his face. “And don’t go on about your holy principles. You jumped ship because your aunt died and left you enough money to be a playboy.” He started to shove past, but Pray stood up and blocked his path.
“Maybe you’re right,” he said.
Parker’s eyebrows shot up, and his face relaxed into a smile. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “Now you have me worried. When a man starts looking at himself honestly, he becomes dangerous.”
Pray stepped into the aisle and made room for Parker to pass. “Remember that,” he said.
Parker nodded. “I will.”
Chapter 13
A junior embassy officer whose name Terry Parker forgot as soon as he heard it held out the telephone.
Parker took it, sat down, and turned his back on the other man.
“This is Parker, Sir,” he said.
“I know who it is.” The Old Man sounded irritated. “What the hell are you doing in Bonn?
“I wanted a secure line. The embassy at Athens is a sieve.”
The Old Man grunted, which Parker took as a signal to continue.
“You remember the other day I told you about a man named Julian Pray?”
“The one whose brother used to be one of us.”
“Right. I ran into the brother, Adam, yesterday. He was on his way to Crete, to see Julian. We talked.”
There was silence on the other end.
“He knows something about the Fugger operation. I’m not sure how much.”
More silence, then, “How problematic is that?”
“I don’t know,” Parker bit his tongue and nodded as the Old Man made the predictable reply.
“Your business is to know things. Is this Pray loyal to old ties?”
What do I say, Parker thought, that he hates my guts? That he might sabotage even a clean operation just to screw me?
“He’s a bit of a joker in the deck,” he said finally.
“I like my poker straight,” the Old Man said. More silence, which Parker did not interrupt. He had come to recognize the pauses that signified the Old Man was ruminating.
“I’ll expect you to do whatever is necessary,” the Old Man said at length.
“Executive action authorized?”
“That will be your decision.”
And my neck if anything goes sour, Parker added silently. He said good bye and hung up, then glanced at his watch. He had time for a quick drink before the flight back to Athens.
Chapter 14
Lydia Kouris watched a yellow spider navigate a trench in the plaster of her bedroom ceiling. Her fingers toyed unconsciously with the short, soft thatch of hair that matted the buttocks of her lover.
No! Not lover. He called himself that. She labeled him carefully as her fiancee. That made what they were doing now somehow more acceptable. Fiancee meant business, a contract, not love. Contracts could be broken. Love was forever, and she did not want forever with a shopkeeper’s son.
Andreas, as was his habit on the three days a week her father left the island on business, had slipped into her house at the height of the day. He had tugged her into the bedroom, nuzzled her, stripped her, and squirted himself into her, moaning with the intensity of a hungry puppy. Now he lay sprawled across her, sleeping.
Lydia wriggled her hips and shoulders, trying to settle his weight farther down her body, so that she could breathe without pain. He had not brushed his teeth, and she gave herself a stiff neck trying to keep her nose away from his mouth. She itched, too, in the small of her back, and could not scratch.
“Andrea,” she said. “Get off.” His only response was to snore softly, his lips fluttering in little farts of foul air. No one ever snored in the movies, or the magazines. The women moaned, and screamed, at times even fainted. Lydia never felt like fainting, except perhaps now, from lack of air. Nor did the act she performed so predictably with Andreas bear any resemblance to what she had seen in the dirty books with pictures that her father kept hidden in his own room. Lydia had discovered them a fortnight after her mother’s death, when she had gone exploring to discover the cause of the peculiar sounds that emerged nightly from her father’s side of the wall.
Andreas groaned and shifted his weight back onto Lydia’s breasts. She gave him a shove, which interrupted the snores, but failed to move him. She grimaced and wondered if this was to be her life, spent on her back, carrying the burden of some man. They all seemed much alike: Andreas. Milos, who was now her gambros, her brother-in-law, but who still grabbed a feel of her with his fat, hairy hands any time he could, even when Irene was watching. Her own father. All his friends. She wondered if her mother had died just to get away.
The spider emerged from the crack and scuttled toward a corner of the room. Watching it, Lydia wondered what kind of crack she, herself, had fallen into. She tried again to think of it as a simple business deal, a family business—herself, Andreas, old Milos, and her sister Irene. It would afford her some little luxuries. A videotape machine to watch movies about exotic places and exciting people, people worth knowing. Maybe even, if Andreas stayed as foolish as he was now, and Milos made good on his ambition to become rich, extra cash to salt away and then, one day, just leave and go somewhere worth being. Maybe even America, or at least somewhere with an American. Someone like that blond fellow, whose name was Julian, who had a boat, and who always was pleasant to her, even if he had gotten himself into a little trouble over Dina Skevis. She spoke his name, trying to say it the way he did, with the funny sound at the front that had no real equivalent in Greek. Andreas muttered and began to snore again.
The spider had reached the window, and scrambled across the glass, looking for a way out. You and me, arakni, she thought. We both want out.
“I go,” she said in English, trying to mimic her teacher’s accent as closely as possible. “You go. He goes.”
Andreas raised his head and grunted questioningly, his eyes open but unseeing. Lydia patted his hair and pushed him gently back toward the pillow.
“Good morning,” she said. “Good afternoon. Good evening. My name is Lydia.” She looked at the window. The spider was gone.
“My name is Lydia,” she repeated. “I like Americans.” She closed her eyes and tried to sleep.
Chapter 15
Massive engines, more sensed than heard, fell still, and der Rattensinger came to a rest, its white hull and superstructure gleaming in the sun. A smaller craft, gray, with a half-cabin forward and a blue and yellow awning stretched over its open rear deck, approached the ship and snuggled against its side. Dieter Fugger leaned against the railing of der Rattensinger’s flying bridge, looking nautical in trousers, blazer and Greek fisherman’s hat of a matching pale blue, as the smaller boat make fast. A group of tourists, four men and two women, draped in scuba gear, appeared on deck. Fugger tipped his cap to them as they made their way forward, ducked under the rotors of a helicopter lashed to a landing platform just below the bridge, and clambered over the side. He ran a finger and thumb fussily down the crease of his trousers.
“The last batch of the season,” he said to Terry Parker. “I greet autumn with relief. Soon I can stop dressing like Captain Nemo. And it will be good to have my excursion boats free for other work. We have developed a backlog of the garbage you send us.” He stepped away from the railing. “Let me show you the business end of my ship.” He strode briskly off. Parker sighed and followed. He had no interest in the ship, and not much in Fugger, as long as the
German did his job and allowed Parker to perform his; but he supposed it could not hurt to humor him.
Between the bridge and the giant dome that dominated the stern of the ship a long cylinder, looking like a length of giant culvert, stretched down the center of the deck, which itself was jammed with large steel drums. Twenty feet above the top of the cylinder a catwalk connected the bridge to a railed platform that encircled the dome two thirds of the way up its sides. Fugger led Parker onto the catwalk. “The cylinder below us is the furnace.” He strode briskly along the catwalk. Where it connected with the platform, a door offered access to the dome. Fugger opened it and motioned Parker through.
“The operation begins here,” he said. “The barges bring the barrels of sludge to the stern, where a moving ramp carries them up to the deck.” He shook his head and clucked his tongue at Parker. “I must say, some of those barrels are quite decrepit. It is a very good thing that this goes on as far as possible from the tourist section.” He closed the door after both were inside, “This is the centrifuge,” he said, pointing to a cylinder of shiny steel that filled most of the interior of the dome. Two pipes of transparent plastic sprouted from the cylinder and buried themselves in the surrounding wall.
“We aren’t processing now,” Fugger said. “But I always keep a little sludge on hand to show my visitors.” He stepped to a control panel and hit a switch. A low whine filled the room, rose in pitch, and then abruptly disappeared.
“Nice and quiet, yes?” Fugger said. “We use an array of microphones and speakers that catch the sound, split it, and cancel it out against itself. Noise disappears; voices and music come right through. I understand there is a similar system available in your country for truck drivers. It might work on helicopters, too, I suppose.” Fugger pointed to one of the plastic pipes. “Now watch.”
As he spoke, the pipe filled suddenly with fluid of a green so intense it seemed to glow.
“That is the liquid we spin from the sludge. Lovely, isn’t it?”
“As beautiful as liquid emeralds,” Parker said.
“And as deadly as greed. You are surrounded by it. The dome walls are hollow. We store this liquid in them, then spray it in metered amounts into the furnace when we bake the sludge. It seems to work better that way.” He led the way out of the dome and back to the catwalk.
“The furnace,” he said as they moved backtoward the bridge of der Rattensinger. “is just a big, cylindrical oven, one hundred feet long, twelve feet in diameter. It bakes the sludge at two thousand degrees Fahrenheit, and what comes out the other end is a glass gravel, completely inert and safe.” He paused, then shrugged. “Safer, at any rate, than the stuff we dump in caves.”
“That brings me to the reason for my visit,” Parker said. “You’re going to have an increase in business.”
“It’s all I can do to handle what I have now,” Fugger said. “Even with my excursion boats freed for real work, it will require time just to catch up.”
“Buy another boat, then. And count on a twenty percent increase in traffic.”
“If I say no?”
“That wouldn’t be a good idea.”
Fugger sighed. “I suppose not. I am in too deep, as they say in the crime movies.”
“There’s another thing,” Parker said.
Fugger cocked his head toward the other man and waited.
“Julian Pray.”
“What about him.”
“Does he know CIA is involved?”
“He knows only what I tell him, which is next to nothing.”
“He’s an uncontrolled element. I worry about that.”
Fugger slapped Parker lightly on the shoulder. “You must not. I understand men like him. He will be no problem.”
Parker brushed lightly at the shoulder Fugger had touched. “You take too much for granted,” he said.
“I have not achieved my place in the world by taking things for granted, Mr. Parker.”
The American shrugged. “Maybe. But now his brother is also in the picture.”
“Adam Pray, yes,” Fugger said. “I have met him. Nice enough, but naive, I think. He struck me as a bit simple, in fact.”
“He was CIA until a couple of years ago. Fell into money and quit.”
Fugger smiled and clapped his hands. “Wonderful. Maybe he can help me buy those new boats I seem to need.”
“Not funny,” Parker said. “I want you to be very careful about Adam Pray. You may be right about his brother. I don’t know him. But I know Adam.”
“Ah, cloak and dagger. What makes him so dangerous?”
“Let’s just say he doesn’t like me. If he shows his face to you again, I want to hear it. Immediately. Understand?”
“So you can put on a wig and a beard?”
“So I can kill him,” Parker said. He looked at his watch. “I’ve spent enough time here,” he said.
“Then I suppose you must climb into your little helicopter and go,” Fugger said.
Parker nodded. “Send that French ape of yours, Gotard, to the flight pad. I need to talk to him.”
Fugger shrugged and nodded, and led Parker back across the catwalk to the bridge. Gotard was there, writing in the ship’s log.
“Herr Parker wishes to speak with you,” Fugger said.
Gotard cocked his head to one side and sneered. “Perhaps I do not wish to speak with him.”
Parker stepped next to Gotard and, without speaking, slammed the heel of his palm into the Frenchman’s forehead. Gotard staggered back and shook his head, but made no move to retaliate.
“You don’t need to speak with me,” Parker said. “You only have to listen. Come here.” He turned and headed for the steps that led to the flight pad where his helicopter waited. Gotard shook his head again and blinked, and scowled after the retreating figure.
“I will kill that piece of shit,” he said.
“Kill him later,” Fugger said. “Right now, he has the money, so he is the boss.”
Gotard sat for a moment longer, his face a mask. Then he stood up and strode outside, his body tight with anger. Fugger watched him descend to the deck and approach Parker, who leaned against the Plexiglas door of the helicopter he had flown to the ship. The two men faced each other. Parker appeared to be doing most of the talking, and Fugger could see Gotard’s body begin to relax. At length he nodded abruptly and held out his hand. Parker hesitated briefly, then shook hands with the Frenchman. Gotard nodded again, wheeled away from Parker, and returned to the bridge. He was smiling.
“What did he want?” Fugger asked, as they watched the helicopter’s rotors begin to turn.
“Ask him.”
“I asked you.”
Gotard tossed his head. “A favor he asked me to do for him the next time I am off the ship. He said I am not to discuss it, and as you told me, he is the boss.”
Chapter 16
Adam Pray had worked up a sweat reaching the small grove of olive trees above the town of Sitia, but the climb had helped work out the kinks from a 70-odd mile bus trip half way across the island of Crete from the airport at Iraklion. Now he settled cross-legged against a gnarled tree, cooled by its shade, and by the breeze that swept up the hillside from the sea below. Somewhere on this ancient island, he should find Julian, or at least Milos Argyros, who would point him to Julian. That was the theory, anyway. Pray sighed and gazed at the town below. In the distance, two tiny twin islands punctuated the sparkling sea. Closer in lay the half-sunken steamer Argyros’ brother, Nikos, had told him about. Somewhere around, there should be another boat, one with Julian aboard.
Pray smiled as he remembered still another vessel. He had been six, and Julian about fourteen. They had built the craft—Julian really, with Adam holding things—from scavenged planks, nails and wire from their father’s workshop, and rope that Julian had stolen from a local hardware store. One of their mother’s old sheets had served as a sail. They had named it the Sea Turtle, and launched it one muggy summer day, Julian pushing th
e craft through the breakers while Adam half stood, half squatted in the middle, hanging onto the mast, a little afraid but trusting Julian utterly. The afternoon land breeze had carried them smartly out to sea. Then, of course, with the primitive sail and no rudder at all—a minor oversight on Julian’s part—they had been unable to return to land.
The Coast Guard had rescued them, and their father had taken a belt to Julian. Adam had insisted on being punished as well, and when his father refused, had kicked him in the shins.
“I’ll whip you for that,” his father had said.
“Then you have to do it twice,” Adam had replied, but in the end his father had not punished him at all.
Pray settled himself more comfortably against the tree. It felt good to sit in the shade and let his mind wander. At some point he understood his eyes were closed, and felt a vague surprise at how well he could still see the trees around him, although they looked a little odd, and he thought about opening his eyes to compare, but somehow kept forgetting to, especially after the moon rose in the middle of the grove.
The moon was white, and pale, and staring at him with cold blue eyes. Her lips were so dark Pray could not tell if they were red or black, and when she parted them her teeth were huge. Something moved among the trees, in and out of the shadows cast by the moon’s icy light, and Pray saw that it was his brother, progressing in odd, jerky steps, dressed in a white garment that hung crookedly on him, as if it should belong to someone else.
Pray stood up, or rose somehow, and was moving toward his brother. He tried to call Julian’s name, but although his mouth formed the word, he couldn’t tell if he was managing to say it or not.
“You cannot have him,” the moon said.
“He is my brother.”
“He was your brother. Now he belongs to me.”
“Who are you?” Pray asked the moon.
“I am the White Goddess, the mother of all, the giver and taker of life,” the moon said. “I am Pasiphae, goddess of the moon that eats the sun and spits it out again. I am the great hen partridge, enslaver of men and hated of Zeus. I am cold, pale Freya, whom Odin betrayed. I am Nimue, and Rhiannon, and the white serpent who holds the world in her coils. I am the baleful black Morrigan, the hag Caridwen, who gobbled up Gwion and spat forth Taliesin. I am the great white sow who eats the world.” The moon rolled her cold eyes down and stared at Julian. “And this one belongs to me.”