A moment later, Bethania bustled toward Sam and a squat, thick muscled biker, who had turned his bike off in front of the truck. The other motorcycles with their riders were grouped fifty feet beyond, engines running. The old woman carried the half case of cigarettes.
Taking the leader by the hand, she brought him to the back of the truck and lifted the tarp. Dale watched as the words were exchanged and the cigarettes given. When the motorcycles disappeared, three going up the hill and the others going down, Dale came out of the trees.
Sam ran to him. “Good thing you stayed hidden! They are looking for you!”
Sam climbed into the driver’s seat as Dale helped Bethania up on the opposite side. Sam with Bethania’s help answered Dale’s questions.
“Those are the New Dawn agents we’ve been telling you about. Many of them are foreigners and all of them from the mainland. They are not Corfiats!” Bethania said adamantly.
Sam, with his singled framed spectacles was driving now. “They will be back. Prepare to duck down. And then, Yiayia, you throw those things on him if we get stopped again,” Sam said as he nodded toward a blanket, jacket and Bethania’s characteristic red sweater.
“No! That cannot work,” Bethania remarked. “We need a story. He is a hitchhiker…”
“I’m a hitchhiker from South Africa and I speak Afrikaans. I speak English but not American English,” Dale said tentatively.
Sam said, “I like that. But you look American. Do something with your hair and you need a scarf. Yiayia, give him that one on your head.”
The scarf didn’t help.
Just outside of Avliotes, the truck was waved over. Without a word of explanation, Dale was dragged from the front seat and hauled across the graveled shoulder to the high grasses where two muscled men dropped him. Pain pulsated as grit and dirt mixed with blood where the skin was sanded away on the back of his legs and elbows. Still, Dale kept to his story. He reasoned, they wanted an American not an Afrikaner. Stereotypically, Dale looked the part. He had spent enough time in South Africa to play the part of an Afrikaner, as well.
Karlo, the point-man of this particular motorcycling threesome had Sam buttonholed against the tailgate while Bethania hovered about in the background. He was the same man who had received the cigarettes from her hours earlier. Sam stuck to the story too. Karlo, pushed Sam back into the truck cab telling him to “be off.” Bethania, climbing slowly into the passenger side protested.
“Mind your own business, hag!” he shouted in Greek although his face was only a few feet from hers. He jumped off the cab footstep and waved vigorously, pointing up the road to Avliotes. Sam put the truck into gear, starting forward as Karlo marched behind the truck toward Dale and his accusers.
Thrump-thru-rump. And again, thrump-thru-rump! Sam looked suspiciously at Bethania. The front right tire was flat. Looking past her, Sam saw Karlo look briefly back at them but he continued toward Dale and the others. “I need to check the tire,” he said to Bethania. She nodded.
They had gone but a dozen meters, not even on the main thoroughfare yet. Sam pulled on the emergency brake and turned off the engine.
The air was hissing to escape, as Sam inspected the tire. A thin metal rod looking very much like a woman’s sturdy bobby pin protruded from the tire valve. He pulled it free and the noise stopped. The tire was not completely flat but it could not be driven upon. He looked at Bethania. Her window was down. She was looking past him to the men standing over Dale.
“The hand pump, it’s in the back. I put it there, myself,” she told him.
He handed her the hairpin. “Yes, I saw you when we stopped at lunch. I’ll get it and I’ll tell the girls to stay quiet,” he replied as he started for the rear of the vehicle.
Dale stuck his head between his knees not wanting to pass out.
Who knows what they’ll do to me if I blackout?
Between kicks, Karlo asked Dale a number of questions including why he had no paperwork.
“I told your friends here… I was robbed in Athens and I came over here hoping to find work in the vineyards. My papers are gone and the way things are right now, I may never get it straightened out!” Dale gritted his teeth between thoughts.
Karlo lit a cigarette, turning his back on Dale’s beating. After some minutes he hailed Sam. “You! What are you doing with that wheel? Come here!” Sam was actually procrastinating at Bethania’s orders. The tire had been inflated but he was spinning it and fiddling with the decrepit car jack, trying to look busy.
Slapping the sand from his greasy hands, Sam came forward as Karlo’s companions hefted Dale up. They passed Karlo and Sam, heading for the truck. The paisley scarf left in the dirt.
“Take him into town. We cannot… not now but we want to talk to him some more. You know the tavern behind Georgios?” Karlo said and then proceeded to give Sam directions. Sam nodded. He knew where it was.
As the sun was setting, making another gorgeous horizon, a synagogue was burning in Madrid, Damascus was being leveled and three motorcycles headed for a local restaurant in a northern town on the isle of Kerkyra.
Chapter 23 Winning the Lottery
“Mac, you said to stay under the radar but you didn’t say I couldn’t communicate at all!” Zeff said defensively while pulling his fingers through his hair.
Mac stood with arms folded just inches from the bulkier Zeff. Neither man knew who would win a physical scuffle although at first glance, if the argument came to blows, Mac looked the underdog.
The entire boat heard his response as his voice was near to a shout. “You gave away the farm!” The D’Almatan accent thickened beyond normal. “I don’t care if it was Merry’s friend! Merry knows not to show every ace in her hand but you…” spat Mac, turning to pace about the compact salon. Finally, Mac said, “I am thankful the internet, cell phones and every other piece of modern foolery has been down otherwise we would have some welcoming party tomorrow when we arrive at the backdoor!”
It was true that much of satellite communications had ceased some days before. An EMP (electromagnetic pulse) had been used against India by Pakistan causing a temporary blackout of satellite networking worldwide.
“Okay, I get it!” replied Zeff hotly. “I’ll go in with Tino. Let me go.” Zeff was afraid but he feared more his own wimpish behavior. He knew he was selfish and spoiled; the realization unfolded before him as he traveled with selfless Mac and the Serendipity crew and yet, he faced his self-interest indifferently. Being chicken-hearted was another story.
Am I really a coward? Si, es verdad!
The last months traveling from Mexico and now arriving at the Grecian Island of Kerkyra had been a love/hate journey of self revelation. Without the money, family notoriety and intellectual pride that had buoyed him for his first thirty years, Zeff found he was actually weak and morally shallow.
Tino and Junior had fled the salon where a meeting was being held for tomorrow night’s incursion onto Kerkyra. They went opposite directions once the information came forth that Zeff and Tina had been corresponding. Only Zeff who had naively mentioned the email texts was in the dark about Mac’s explosive response.
“Oh? I send you with Tino and now both of you get captured and tortured. That is a great suggestion!” huffed Mac.
At the word ‘tortured,’ Zeff’s eyebrows shot up.
Sí. Okay. I am a coward but I will go anyway.
Zeff could not fake his typically proud stance before Mac any longer. “I’m sorry. I think perhaps I should go alone. You need Tino.” Zeff labeled himself as Mac’s right hand man but the truth was Tino did the job of three men while Zeff was only three-quarters seaman.
Mac didn’t want to send either man to do a job that he, himself could do quickly and efficiently. He couldn’t go. Neither man could sail the boat to D’Almata. The final two hundred miles would be the trickiest because of international skirmishes erupting in open waters.
Mac stopped pacing. Standing before Zeff he said quietly, “In
the old days, I would just throw you over the poopdeck but we are short on crew. Besides, I like you and you are not ready to meet your Maker. So, I’ll send you ashore. If you return – good. If not, I’ll pray for your soul.”
Relieved, Zeff felt like he had won the lottery. Later as he lay his head on his pillow, he wondered about his joyful response to throw himself into danger to regain Mac’s approval. His own psychology training reminded Zeff that he was human to the core; his hope for acceptance and appreciation were embedded and one within the heart of man... within his own heart.
Closing his eyes, Zeff would have fallen into a restless sleep except he saw words written in gold lettering parading across his imagination:
Your regard the esteem of mere men... this Malak of D’Almata, and not Me? Fear rather Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell!
Mystified, Zeff open and closed his eyes once again trying to recapture the mental marquee. Forgetting where he was, he sat up banging the cabin overhead. He recalled that Mac was above deck on watch, Zeff pulled on his shorts and grabbed up his Spanish Bible. Rubbing the growing bump on his forehead, he went up in search of Mac and the God he served.
Chapter 24 Ridiculous!
It can be said that Kerkyra is more ethnically diverse than mainland Greece. Avliotes is typical of that diversity. Invaders, conquerors and foreign cultures had overtaken the city many times. Because of their history, the citizens had evolved into a sturdy group. They would not be easily defeated militarily again. On that note, it could be said that the town’s people understood the mounting threat of the battle within personified by the New Dawn agents. Most of the people resisted their flatteries and veiled threats but as always, there were an influential few who either from fear or desire for personal gain joined with evil, like human cells siding with an encroaching cancer.
Leaving Dale and the little girls at Sam’s business connection’s warehouse, Bethania and Sam went to the bar behind Georgios. Together they went in. The tavern was the typical island style of white plastered walls and low ceiling with dark wooden beams running the length of the big room. Even in better times, this establishment had never been a tourist attraction. Avliotes was inland and the tourist spots were not the same as the locals’ hangouts. There were a dozen or more men drinking and gambling. In difficult economic times, men drank and gambled still.
A quick study of the room showed there were no agents dressed in ominous black as the riders of the café racers had been. Sam went to the bar and asked about the men.
You mean Karlos? No, he isn’t here.
Seemingly, nothing came of their trembling appearance at the seedy saloon behind Georgios.
Debating with some heat from both Bethania and Sam, they returned to the warehouse. Their discussion covered the topic of the Jewish Messiah. Sam had never associated with orthodox Jews. His family was the moderate sort who stood proudly Jewish with other westernized, politically liberal Jews. These were relative moralist similar to other group-types like American motorcycle gangs who when separated from their bros’ wouldn’t stand for anything except to facilitate a run for cover. Since Biblical times, every generation of Jew eventually came to the crossroad of truth. The decision to stand and take their medicine as the whipping boy of humanity or slink away into hopeful obscurity was the epiphany point. For a Jew to choose Jesus as Messiah in Sam’s mind was like being bludgeoned to death only to be resurrected to be beaten again… Neither Christians nor Jews were very popular at the moment. Sam saw no benefit in identifying with Christians as a group or especially with their celebrated leader – Jesus the Jew!
Its not that Sam didn’t believe in a sovereign God, he did. The problem with Sam and many other young Jews was his inability to reconcile a loving and so-called merciful God with what he processed as reality.
If our God is real, the one true God then why has He scattered us throughout the globe? Why are we persecuted? It’s obvious that Jews have the corner on both wealth and genius; even our dissenters acknowledge the facts! And yet, our weaknesses - our underbelly is always revealed and while our leaders plan for peace, our God allows war. Everyone loses but the Jews lose most!
Sam had explained his conclusions to Bethania and she laughed softly. “You sound like our prophet Ezekiel from the scriptures,” she said. “Our God tells the prophet that Israel will be scattered into the nations but He – God will be a holy place for them. God is the Jews’ refuge! He will use them to establish His own purposes and He will show the weakness of our ethnic pride…”
“Enough! Bethania your scriptural knowledge is beyond me. I really don’t remember reading these ideas,” said Sam but he wondered how his thoughts could be found pre-recorded in ancient texts that he had never read. Instead of allowing for a sovereign God... the God of the Jews, Sam groped about for another explanation-
Was there a universal amoeba mind allowing osmosis thought to meld the mental processes of humanity?
Ridiculous!
Chapter 25 A Short Time Ago
“You know, Anna,” began Jellybean in her scratchy voice. “Your beautiful island and your interesting ancient history have made such an impression on me. I think I should put more than a token smattering of Greek recipes in my heirloom cookbook.”
The women were driving through Avliotes after dropping Guppo at his family home on the western extremity of town. His mother was excited about seeing her son but not as happy as he was to see her. Also, she had no notion he had gone missing from her eldest daughter’s house two days previous and so had not been anxious for the boy. Guppo for his part had left word with the other geese herder, that he was catching a ride home with the Americans.
Three days before when Anna drove into Evangelos, Tina – not surprised but overjoyed nonetheless to see her cousin, had a house full of children. With the addition of the Klein children, Liraz and Adi, Tina had 20 orphans. All the children were either homeless or without immediate family on Kerkyra.
After greeting and eating some lunch, Tina had explained, “It has become a real operation as you might imagine!” She laughed nervously, “I never planned this but it reminds me of what happened to you and Dale in Philly when neighbors found out you took in stray Pits,” she said to Anna. Dale and Anna had taken in a Pitbull puppy left abandoned on the sidewalk and then they took in another that had been left tied to a streetlight, finding suitable homes for both. Meanwhile word got out that Dale was rescuing Pitbulls… There was a time when they had 17 dogs about their property. Only after they moved across town when Gwyneth was born did people stop dropping unwanted Pitbulls into their yard in the middle of the night.
“Funny about that boy, Dale,” commented Mr Adams. “He never saw a dog he didn’t like.” It was a genuine observance. Anna agreed with a nod but she thought about the times when dogs had to be euthanized because they had been abused beyond recovery or the dog had been wrongfully but irrevocably trained. Happily, most of the dogs were paired with caring owners within a few months of being abandoned on their doorstep.
Missing Dale, Anna had sighed but since then, she had kept busy “helping” with the orphans. At the time she said to Tina, “And so, you have never met a child you didn’t like? I think I understand.”
In response, Tina laughed her nervous laugh, flashing white straight teeth. She was a trim gal with alabaster skin framed by wavy, almost black hair and dark eyes. Compared to Anna, whose light brown locks and blue eyes gave her a “northern” appearance, Tina had the true Mediterranean look. At almost twenty-four years of age, Tina had been raised in both Greece and America. Loving the comforts of the good ‘ol USA, she loved Greece as well. The conveniences, the consistency and the easy money to be made and spent in America had their place but as a down-to-the-bone Greek, Tina called Kerkyra home. Her previous visits as a child and teenager prepared her. She adjusted readily into village life although never intending to make her visits permanent. Then the twins came along; lovable, gentle babies left at her doorstep with a simple
note attached to the wicker basket. Click and Clack she called them because their baptismal names were wieldy and cumbersome even for her knowledgeable tongue.
Like so many Greeks, Tina was a practical person. Her love for the boys and later for all the children she became responsible for was not so emotional as it was conscionable. Her love was based on commitment rather than affection. When she stepped into the shoes of accountability – accountable to her own conscience, Tina realized that she had found her niche. The old proverb that it is better to give than to receive became reality for her. She found an abiding joy in giving to the children. As the needs of her orphanage grew, Tina endeavored to make others realize that it was better for them to give than to receive as well.
That first day, Tina showed Mr and Mrs Adams and Anna around and introduced the household members – the orphans to them. Gwyneth fell in with the flock of children as if she had known them all her four years. That evening before bed, the older children put on a drama for Tina’s guests. There were several methods Tina used to persuade outsiders to donate goods, money and talent to her orphanage. Drama and music were useful tools although one eleven year old who learned to play the mandolin before joining Tina’s “family” was presently the sole musician.
A short time ago, Tina’s operation would have been considered illegal and perhaps it was illegal, even now. No one cared. A short time ago when life was prosperous, donors would have been loading Tina with goods and money to assist with her efforts but not now. A short time ago, Greece led the dirge into a global economic depression. Austerity measures would not correct the declination. Instead, austerity was the new reality for all but the very few elite. Since the Greek Civil war there had not been such a need for Tina types and the relief their efforts could bring.
Because donations were meager and the drama was fun and the mandolin was novel, Tina won over the Adams’ and Anna.
Tina had a van. She traded her small, gas efficient Japanese car straight across for the larger gas guzzler because she needed it.
Desperado Dale (Scenic Route to Paradise) Page 10