by Paul Moomaw
Chapter 36
Gotard hurt everywhere. Even opening his eyes sent pain shooting to his belly button. He lay on his back in the wheelhouse of the scow. Dupres sat on the bench seat, staring down at him.
“Nice fellow,” Dupres said. “Brought you inside himself.”
“Who?”
“Him.” Dupres pointed across Gotard’s aching body. “He said he didn’t want you to get wet.”
It was raining hard, and the wind and sea had picked up. The scow tilted, and Gotard slid against the wheel post. He winced, then sat up carefully, biting his lip to keep from whimpering. Rashid al Hamani stood a few feet away, leaning against the glass of the port window.
“He was the one who got you from behind,” Dupres said. “I saw the whole thing. You put up a hell of a fight. I was impressed.” The black case lay open, and he nudged it with his toe. “Interesting looking stuff here,” he said. “Very high tech. Makes me think of time bombs in the movies.”
Gotard lurched to his feet and slammed the case shut.
“Don’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong,” he said.
“Please have your man go out on deck,” Rashid said.
Gotard gave Dupres a shove. “You heard him,” he said. He started to shove again, and Dupres threw his hands up to fend him off.
“Why should I get soaked?” he said. “You go out there if you want.”
“I would like it if you would depart,” the Arab said. He smiled as he spoke, and made no move toward Dupres. The Frenchman glared at him, then looked away, spun around and slammed out the door.
Rashid bent over and opened the case. He lifted the black cylinder out and cradled it in his palms. It was shiny and smooth, half a meter long, perhaps eight centimeters in diameter. “Death can look so unassuming,” he said. “This arms the bomb out there.” He jerked his head toward the deck. “In the top of that device is a hole. This slides into the hole and locks with a half twist.” He held the cylinder vertically, mimed sliding it into a hole, and gave it a clockwise twist. “So.” He held the upper end toward Gotard. “You must notice two things,” he said. “First, this end contains a row of numbered buttons, and the other end does not. You do not stick the end with the buttons into the hole in the bomb.”
Gotard growled. “I am not a cretin,” he said.
Rashid shrugged. “The second thing you must notice is that this end of the cylinder also contains a small hole, right under the row of numbers. A special key goes into that hole, after you have placed this device into the bomb. You will be given the key at the proper time.”
“By you?”
Rashid shook his head. “Do not interrupt. When the time comes, you will arm the bomb with the cylinder, place the key into this little hole,” he waved the cylinder at Gotard, “enter a five-digit code using the row of numbers, and then turn the key counterclockwise, like this.” He mimed inserting the key, punching in numbers, and twisting the key. “You will receive the code when the time comes.” He paused and smiled. “From me.”
“Then I will have to stare at your face for a while,” Gotard said.
“Constantly. Every day and night.” The Arab replaced the cylinder, closed the lid of the case, and latched it. “Every hour that you are awake, I will watch you. It could be you will even see me in your dreams.”
Dupres banged at the door.
“Aren’t you finished yet?”
“You may come back in,” Rashid said.
“You the new captain?” Gotard asked.
“You wish him to stay out on deck?”
Gotard scowled. “Come in,” he said.
Dupres pushed through the door and closed it behind him. “About time,” he said. He shook his entire body, like a dog just back from a river. He nudged the black case with his toe.
“Does Fugger know about this?”
Gotard didn’t answer. Dupres kicked at the case again. “I think we need to talk,” he said.
“No we don’t.”
“Yes we do. About money, I think. Not too much, you understand. I’m feeling cooperative.”
“Fuck off.”
Dupres shook his head and made a clucking noise. “I’m feeling less cooperative by the moment.”
Gotard lowered himself to the bench seat. He glanced across the small enclosure at the Arab. Rashid cocked his head to one side and shrugged.
“I am not here,” he said, and turned his back on the two Frenchman.
“About the money,” Dupres said.
“I don’t have any money on me,” Gotard said.
“I can wait.” Dupres sat down next to Gotard. “I would trust you with my life, mon ami.” He smiled. Gotard smiled back, looking steadily into Dupres’ watery blue eyes. He slid his hand slowly under his coat, and wrapped his fingers around the knife that hung upside down under his armpit. Still gazing intently at Dupres, he pulled the knife free and plunged it into the other man’s side, sliding it between the ribs and into the heart he knew beat just beyond them.
Dupres gasped and his eyes grew wide. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but only made a bubbling sound and then slumped against the bulkhead. He remained there, eyes closed, taking shallow, noisy breaths.
Gotard rose and grabbed Dupres by the coat. He looked over his shoulder at Rashid, who still had his back turned. “You want to give me a little help?”
“I am still not here,” the Arab replied. “What two Frenchman do to each other is not my concern.”
Gotard made a silent spitting motion toward Rashid’s back, and tightened his grasp on Dupres, who was beginning to whimper. Gotard dragged him out of the wheelhouse and to the rail, then shifted his grasp to the other man’s armpits. As he lifted him, Dupres opened his eyes and stared at Gotard like a sad child. Then, as his body began to slide over the railing, he closed his eyes tight again.
Gotard balanced himself against the rail and watched the body wash past the stern, only the head and shoulders above the water. He walked to the head, got the honey bucket and dipped it into the waves. He carried it back into the wheelhouse and sloshed water over the seat and decking. There was not much blood, he noted with satisfaction. A neat job. Then he glanced across at the Arab. But perhaps a job not finished.
He put the bucket down carefully, trying not to make any noise, then drew the knife again. Rashid did not move. Gotard grasped the weapon by the blade, balanced it in his fingers, and drew it back to his ear.
Die, he mouthed silently, and pitched the blade, aiming for the kidney. Suddenly the Arab spun around. He caught the blade on his forearm and knocked it aside, then whirled again, the movement carrying him across the short distance between them. A foot Gotard never saw slammed into his testicles. He screamed and doubled over, and Rashid grabbed his face with fingers that felt like steel cables, and that nearly twisted his head off his shoulders. The Arab slammed Gotard against the bulkhead. He held him there, pinned like a bug, for a moment, then let him drop.
“I will not kill you while there is work to do,” Rashid said, his voice mild. “Later I may, however.” He picked up the knife, opened the door, and tossed it into the sea. “For now, take us to your ship.”
Gotard turned his head carefully. His neck felt like someone was subjecting it to little shocks of electricity. He rose unsteadily and went to the wheel, unlashed it and checked his bearings. Half an hour should get him back to der Rattensinger. Then he would think about what to do with the Arab.
Chapter 37
Adam Pray woke alone. The smell of bacon and coffee filtered in from the small galley of the Broken Wing. He sat up and absently rubbed at his mouth, and yelped as his fingers pressed against the lower lip, where his nocturnal visitor had left her souvenir. A crust had formed that came off as he tugged at it. His fingertip came away red. He licked it and tasted blood.
Real, he thought. Or at least Demetria’s teeth, which he supposed meant that the rest of her had also been real. He let his mind wander back to the evening before, saw, ag
ain, her pale body approaching him, felt the texture of her skin and the odd smell of her perfume. The memory, vivid as it was, left him unaroused.
He got up and slipped on trousers and shirt from the day before, then padded barefoot to the galley. Julian stood with his back to him, hunched over the stove, creating the cooking smells that had nudged Pray from sleep.
“How do you like your eggs?” Julian asked, not turning around.
“Scrambled,” Pray said. “So much for my mastery of stealth.”
“When you lead my kind of life, you develop survival skills.”
Pray settled himself at the small table in the center of the salon. “Just what kind of life does my elder brother lead, I wonder?”
Julian turned, a spatula in one hand. He grinned and waved the utensil toward Pray. “I see Demetria left her calling card. Be my guest. She’s more than I can handle alone.” He turned back to the stove. “I dive, Adam. I live on a boat, and I explore underwater caves.” He scraped eggs noisily from pan to plate and carried them to the table. “Glad you said scrambled. These began life as sunny side up, but I got sloppy. Coffee’s on the stove, if you like.” He brought another plate, scraped half the eggs onto it, and sat down. “I’ve already made one dive this morning, in fact. Up and into the water before dawn. That’s the best time, you know. It’s eerie down there, with just a hint of a glow from the surface. I like to go down with no lights on, just floating, and pretend I’m in another world.” He got up again, poured two mugs of black coffee, and returned to the table. “Brandy in that cabinet,” he jerked a thumb over his shoulder, “if you want it. I have to pass. Got one more dive today.” He sipped at the coffee, grimacing at the heat. “Last of the season, in fact.”
As if to emphasize the point, the wind picked up suddenly, moaning as it found its way around and through the rigging of the Broken Wing. The craft heeled slightly.
“And then what?” Pray asked.
“A winter off, relaxing and doing what I damn well want, and with money. You can’t imagine how good that feels.” Julian smiled lopsidedly at his brother. “You’ve never really had to worry about money, have you, Adam?”
“I manage to anyway.”
Julian shook his head. “I’m talking basic survival money. A dollar for a can of beans, that kind of thing. Seems like if there was any justice in the world, our dear aunt would have left her riches to me.”
“Maybe she couldn’t find you.”
“You did.”
Pray nodded. “To tell the truth, for all that she used to make fun of Dad and look down her nose at his being a cop, I think she never forgave you for breaking his heart.”
Julian laughed, a loud, hard-edged bark that shook his body and spilled coffee on the table. He gazed at Pray and shook his head gently from side to side, still smiling, but with something sad or angry—Pray couldn’t decide which—glinting in his eyes. “To get your heart broken, you have to have one.”
“He does, Julian. Maybe not the biggest in the world, and a little bound up with rules about how life should be, but a heart all the same. And if you didn’t break it, you surely bruised it.” Mine, too, he added silently.
“I am a little ashamed of myself where you’re concerned,” Julian said, as if he had read his brother’s thoughts. “But don’t feel too sorry for poor, sad Dad. He won’t feel sorry for you, not ever. And all he cares about me is that I wouldn’t—still won’t—follow his damned rules. He couldn’t stand it that he had bred a dreamer. He kept trying to break me down, make me into his idea of a realist.”
Pray sipped at his coffee and wondered how he could make his brother see the tender part their father had shown him. “You remember the stone cairn you built on the beach when you were a kid?” he asked.
Julian laughed. “My pirate’s lookout.”
“Dad still goes out their and keeps the thing repaired. It looks like new.”
“It doesn’t mean a damn thing to me any more.”
“It does to him.”
“But God knows what.” Julian leaned across the table and trapped Pray’s wrist briefly under his fingers. “Let me tell you a story about that cairn, Adam.” He leaned back, stared at nothing, or at something only he could see. “We used to go out there a lot when I was a little kid. One day, I was maybe eight or nine, I don’t remember for sure, I found a bird. It was hurt, and I wanted to take it home and make it well. I suppose it would have died anyway, but I wanted to, don’t you see? I begged Dad, and pestered him where he sat in the sand, and finally he got up. I still see him, standing there, so tall, looking down at me. I thought he was going to let me take the bird home. And then he said, ‘You have to learn that life is not fantasy,’ and he took a rock off the cairn, a big one, and dropped it onto the bird. Then he smashed them, rock and bird, under his big, ugly shoe, while I screamed for him to stop.”
The pain in Julian’s voice beat at Pray like fists, and he stared at his feet, flinching from it. Finally he forced himself to look up. Julian stared back at him, his eyes wide, a track of tears moving down his face.
“I never went to the beach again,” Julian said. He reached for Pray’s mug, and rose quickly from his chair. “Anyway, that’s all in the foggy, foggy past, isn’t it?” He busied himself at the stove, pouring coffee, and when he turned back his face was dry. “Today is today,” he said, sitting down again. “And it’s time to get on to the business at hand. Diving.”
“A little rough for that, isn’t it?”
“Not down there. That’s one of the beauties of it. It can be all ruffled up on top, and below it’s quiet and dreamy. It’s the time I have to spend on the surface that makes me quit for the winter. The Mediterranean can get pretty fierce.” He took a sip of coffee, crossed his legs with one knee cocked high, and placed the mug on it. As the boat swayed, he shifted and kept the mug balanced, grinning at Pray as he did. Then a gust of wind sent the Broken Wing lurching in an unexpected direction, and the mug fell, spilling coffee down Julian’s trousers as he grabbed for it and missed.
“Even for me,” he said, and stooped to retrieve the mug. “So it’s good that I get to pack it in after today. And..” He glanced over his shoulder toward the bulkhead beyond which, Pray assumed, Demetria lay still asleep. “I’ll have a playmate.”
“What will you do besides play, do you think?”
“Whatever the good Herr Fugger says. He pays the salary. I’ll wash his damned windows if he wants. It beats hiding from creditors.”
“There are people who wonder just what you do for him.”
“Let them. I do an honest day’s work for decent pay.”
I know a cop who doesn’t think so, Pray thought.
“Don’t give me your doubting look,” Julian said.
“I didn’t know it showed.” Pray got up and refilled his mug.
“Look, baby brother,” Julian said. I sell knowledge. That’s all. I find caves, explore them, measure them, record their points of interest. Fugger pays for the information.”
“Do you know what he does with it?”
“He says he uses it to find places to take his tourists diving.”
“What if that isn’t all?”
“Not my business.”
“Have you ever seen any tourists diving in those caves?”
Julian slammed his mug down. The report echoed through the cabin.
“Butt out, Adam! I needed a job, and Fugger gave me one. He can be selling my information to the Eskimos for all I know or care.”
“You know a man named Londos?”
Julian shook his head, looking ruefully at his mug. It had cracked, and coffee leaked from the side. “Never heard of him.”
“He’s a cop. He says Fugger dumps toxic waste in those caves.”
“I don’t believe it. And if I did, I wouldn’t give a damn.” He glared at his brother, then sighed and looked away. “I need the money, Adam. And it’s perfect for me. Fugger pays me to do what I was doing anyway, exploring caves.” He jump
ed to his feet and crossed to a small, dented file cabinet that stood in a corner of the cabin. He opened the single drawer, pulled out a folder, and returned to the table.
“Look at this, Adam,” he said, and opened the folder, revealing a stack of large photos, some in color, some in black and white. Most were of necklaces, earrings, rings, an odd head-dress, and other pieces whose purpose Pray didn’t recognize, although they were clearly jewelry. One, in the soft colors that labeled it as a print from early in the century, was of a statue, a woman. She held a sword or a long knife of some kind in one hand, and had a large snake wrapped around the other arm.
Julian picked up the photo of the statue. His fingers brushed lightly around its edge, caressing it. “Have you heard of the treasure of Priam?”
“The stuff Schliemann found at Troy.”
Julian laughed. “Right. The stuff. The priceless stuff. It’s what I looked for, Adam, for God knows how many years. I’ve been skulking around these islands for years, living from hand to mouth, dodging creditors, finding a piece of something now and then, and trying to stay out of sight of the gendarmes long enough to sell to the shops. That’s how I met Milos Argyros. He pays decent prices when I have something he wants, and he keeps his mouth shut. But I kept thinking, if I could ever find this I wouldn’t have to work another day of my life if I didn’t want to.” He laughed. “Then it turned out that the Russians have had it all along. They liberated it at the end of World War II.” Julian picked up the photo of the statue. “But they didn’t get this. It’s around here, somewhere, and I’m going to find it. I may have to search the whole damned Aegean, and some of the Mediterranean. It was part of the treasure Schliemann spirited out of Troy, which pissed the Turks off no end. Being a good German, he sent it eventually to Berlin. It lay around in a museum for years. Then, at the end of World War Two, the Russians got everything except this lady. A Nazi officer was supposed to deliver all of the treasure to Martin Bormann. Instead, he loaded it into a steamer trunk, put it in his car, and headed south. He left a trail, some documented, some more rumor, as far as Macedonia and the Aegean. He was killed in Edirne, on the Turkish-Bulgarian border. That’s documented; and the Russian records show the Turks lost the treasure to the Bulgarians, who traded it to the Soviets. I expect the Kremlin made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. They kept good records, and the statue wasn’t on the inventory. It seems to have gotten as far a dumpy little Greek fishing town called Makri near the Turkish border, then headed south on a boat from there. That’s the end of the trail.”