Taking the notebook, Mr Adams did a thoughtful examination of the cover and pages again. “Yes, I know but it is very interesting and the notes here would be even more interesting to someone who knew these Ionian Islands well.”
“According to Tina, we should be expecting Merry and her husband anytime now and then we’ll be gone from here… Such a shame that we cannot put this document into the proper hands,” Bean commented. “We used quite a bit of that jewelry for Tina’s orphanage. I don’t suppose we could give the rest to her and just take the information with us for future purposes,” added Bean.
Bernie peered at his ex-wife from the lip of his coffee cup. He had spent a lot of thought on how to proceed with the expensive baubles and new currency. The wealth was obviously donated by concerned people for a specific and worthy reason.
If the cause was for something as frivolous as saving an endangered island pinebush or restoring a religious monument, Bernie would have taken the treasure without qualm, apportioning it as he or Bean saw fit. In his short life of ninety years, he had seen that in the long run conservatism only slowed the rot but like mold on a wedge of cheese, eventually the moldering was complete. In theory, Mr Adams had known according to the laws of physics that conservation was ultimately futile. Such physical laws as the Second Law of Thermodynamics proved everything ended in chaos although any given arrangement began with order. Harvard had taught him that. He had explained to Bean after she overheard his recent discussion with Anna that the order they spoke of was represented by the wedge of cheese and the decay symbolized chaos. Having meditated and theorized and experienced his findings, Bernie concluded that only eternal elements remained untouched by the laws of physics… untouched by the moldering.
Eternal things included among other attributes love, kindness, justice and according to Dale - God. Any of these are sound investments...
“Bernie! Mr Adams, you are letting your mind wander,” said Bean irritably. She had been talking but then realized he wasn’t listening.
“I was not letting my mind wander!” he retorted.
“Yes, uh-huh!”
“No… Not so!”
“Hmm-emh!”
“Well, I’m getting up there… In another decade, my age will have three digits. So, I like to mull over my responses… To think about priorities. Not be so hasty,” Bernie said.
Placated, Mrs Adams said, “Please, honey don’t tune me out when I speak. I was saying that there might be another holocaust just like the one we saw when we were young. If so, this journal and the hiding places it details on these islands and the best routes of escape could be very useful… to the Jews or anybody else trying to survive a pogrom.”
Bernie was agreeing by bobbing his head and yet, his mind was relaying another message.
She said ‘honey!’ Bean hasn’t called me ‘honey’ in fifty years! She called me ‘honey!’
Forty-five minutes up the road, Karlo and his number two man sat at the tavern behind the more respectable Georgios having their final drink before ambling off to bed. Kerkyra was quickly becoming a dead-end for Karlo’s career aspirations. An old girlfriend had been from the island and she had raved about it being like paradise. Remembering her promising description, Karlo shook his head in disgust.
After two years, he was ready to move on. The light at the end of the tunnel was the tip-off that there were some important papers and a small fortune smuggled onto the island from France. Two parties were looking for the package and both had asked him to locate it. He was on the payroll of one and the other offered a sizeable sum in exchange for the sealed papers.
“If the seal is broken, I will give you only half but if the document remains sealed then I will give you what I promised,” the woman had told him. When she had first contacted Karlo to arrange a meeting, he had expected a tall blonde Russian or someone similar meeting him on an isolated beach. Instead, they met in the city in the Jewish quarter. She was a petite brunette; very young with beautiful eyes, he imagined – if only she would have removed the oversized sunglasses. She gave him his instructions and also, 1000 new Euros. “In good faith” she had said.
Karlo left the mysterious young lady but five minutes later, his boss André from Athens called.
“The authorities let an important parcel slip through the airport,” said his superior. He explained that it had been less than an hour ago. Karlo took note of the courier’s description: Dale Merriweather was a young American. He carried a pink carry-on backpack. The parcel was in the backpack.
“The chief wants that backpack! You get it for him and the sky’s the limit. He rewards his agents very well,” said André before he hung up.
An easy job on a small island, Karlo assumed but now a full week had come and gone. Karlo had people planted strategically all over Kerkyra but the Ionian Islanders were more Greek than most… more so than his own mother. Besides the generosity and industriousness of the typical Greek, Kerkyrians were superstitious and suspicious. They didn’t bully well either and because intimidation was Karlo’s modus operandi, his efforts had been wasted.
Money talks but in really cruel times money beckons. Karlo’s breakthrough came when the barkeep from the saloon behind Georgios asked the Georgios’ waitress where she got the teardrop earrings. The pair were gold, he determined. She told him her boyfriend whose uncle owned the pawnshop had given them to her. While Karlo slept the morning away, the bartender paid a visit to said pawn shop in pretence of looking for an inner tube for his bike. He took bottles of retsina with him and before long, the barmaid’s boyfriend’s uncle was bragging about the bartering he had done with Tina Evangelos, “the orphan lady”.
“She took beds and toys and books and two high chairs! I tied the bunk-beds on top of her van, myself,” he said. “Cash? No she didn’t have cash but somebody must have died. There was an old man with her. I think he was French… He didn’t speak Greek so he wasn’t from Greece” He spit at this declaration and then said, “She had jewelry… I can sell it on the mainland next time I go…” The pawnbroker would have talked for another hour but the barkeep left; the men forgetting about the inner tube.
In a foul mood, Karlo and two mean-spirited New Dawn agents came into Georgios taverna for dinner. Halfway through their meal, the bartender from across the alley came forth with hints of news. Karlo had promised money to anyone who could give him a lead to where the American was hiding. Missteps had been made but there were two reports matching Dale’s description which kept Karlo looking on the northern extremity of the island, including the Avliotes area.
Karlo passed some bills. The bartender told him what he had heard. Karlo was sure that Tina who ran an orphanage had no link with the American and the huge sums of money that were involved with the missing parcel. He dismissed his rat and the barkeep returned to his hole.
“The old man is a Frenchman… the island has a French presence but perhaps there is a connection after all,” he said with a shrug to his fellow agents. Karlo sat picking his teeth as he thought about the sealed document and also the other things that allegedly were inside the pink carry-on. His “friend” that worked airport security had told him that the bag was filled with jewelry… At least, that is what his contact had heard from the other airport workers.
In the end, Karlo decide he had nothing to lose. He would go to the orphanage and find out what this “Tina” might know. If she knew nothing, he would find out where the rich old Frenchman lived and go visit the man’s jewelry box. As a last resort, they would return to town to visit the pawnbroker before he took his newly acquired goods to sell on the mainland.
Karlo communicated his win-win plan to the other two. The men laughed so boisterously that the pigeons sleeping on roof wire, shifted uncomfortably. Leaving Georgios’, the men crossed the back alley wanting a few stiff drinks from their favorite bar before heading to Evangelos for an evening of wicked fun.
Chapter 28 Tonto
There was a waning moon. Mac had anchored i
n various Kerkyra coves dozens of times and many of those times, under cover of darkness. The particular lagoon he maneuvered into, had never been used by Mac before. He eyed it and scouted it over the years, planning to use the inlet on some nefarious adventure but instead tonight he dropped anchor for a rescue endeavor. It was 1am, Merry had watch when Tino and Zeff dropped the skiff over the starboard rail. Mac had given final instructions, going over a map marked with key landmarks that would help Zeff find his bearings and find the tiny village where Tina and Anna hailed from.
Mac decided to let Zeff go it alone. Tino might have to go later if Zeff failed to return but for now, just Zeff.
Unfortunately, Junior who thought of Mac as a real man, one who was not afraid to fight or stand or pray, decided that he – Junior had been overlooked. Mac hadn’t mentioned Junior going ashore at all. Junior sensed a slight. Hadn’t he acted in espionage as courier back in the states for Mac? He had!
Junior continued to be short and slim for his age. Mac reassured him that if he lived to be 18, the boy would experience a phenomenal growth spurt but at 14 Junior was small. He hid easily in the stern of the skiff under the sail bag and life vests. Half way to shore he popped up, pretending that he had just awakened from sleep.
“Ah, there you are,” he yawned at the other two. Involuntarily, Tino cursed and Zeff, already on pins and needles - shrieked.
After some discussion, Junior reassured them that going ashore with Zeff had been a last minute decision. Mac had been busy finalizing the plans so he had fallen asleep while waiting, Junior explained. Tino was positive his young cousin was lying but it was time to deposit Zeff and Junior was obstinate about going too.
As for Zeff, he was secretly grateful to have a companion. Junior had proven himself resourceful many times on deck and on shore. He did not consider that perhaps the teen was going against an order, even if it was an unspoken order of Mac’s. Zeff had seen all the movies but he had never anticipated playing the main character - the protagonist in a reality TV scene minus the cameras. Junior might prove to be the sidekick Zeff needed to return victorious.
Even the Lone Ranger had Tonto... mused Zeff as he watched Junior push Tino and the skiff into the surf.
Once on the beach, Zeff led Junior off the sand and into some boulders. They stood concealed but surveying the beach. Short rapid waves pitched at the surf line making a rumbling noise as pebbles and sand were churned. There were no lights from sand or sea. Mac’s choice of a secluded cove had been a good one.
“According to Mac and Google, there is a dirt road inland that runs parallel with this beach. If we follow it south there is a huge olive grove that has a pickers’ path running through it…” Zeff explained to Junior.
Junior remembering Zeff’s terrifying response in the skiff when he popped up from the rigging, said, “Mac always prays before he starts.”
Zeff furrowed his brow. He had already prayed with Mac but he asked, “What do you mean? Before he starts... Starts what? Besides, I pray all the time.” And yet, Zeff knew Mac prayed aloud, with and without the crew before he made any major move. Zeff didn’t know how to pray. He had been talking to God but until last night, he hadn’t considered his seemingly one-sided discussions as real prayer.
Junior did his best to explain Mac’s reasoning. Finally he said to Zeff, “I’ll pray!” He began, “God, we know you’re everywhere even in the shower. So, will You go before us and help us find Merry’s brother? He looks just like her but he isn’t a girl and he is probably taller. We’ve never been on this island before and there might be some really violent people who would like to cut our throats or shoot us or drag us behind a racing sports car...”
Zeff’s mind began to parade pictures that made his palms sweat. “That’s enough!” he interrupted.
“Amen!” said Junior with a shrug. “I think I covered everything.”
Climbing abruptly from the rocks, Zeff said nothing.
After some searching, they came out of the brush onto a sandy track. They headed south hoping to arrive in Evangelos, a few kilometers east of Avliotes by dawn.
Chapter 29 Lights Out
Zeff had happened upon a hand painted sign written in three languages “Evangelos .5 km.” He saw it when he paused to check his bearings with a penlight Mac had given him. Soon after, they arrived in the dark unnoticed except by a dog in the distance barking hysterically.
Zeff had heard that it was always darkest and coldest before the dawn. From his experience, he believed it true. This morning seemed no exception. A wet salty chill hung in the air. All the village looked lumpy and black with the exception of one large house set back from the main street. Light poured from two large metal checkered windows. The curtains were not drawn. This oddity was invitation enough.
Zeff and Junior spoke in whispers and then headed for the light. As they drew near, Junior tugged at Zeff, pulling him behind several wooden barrels on the far side of the street.
“Do you see those bikes?” asked Junior in a whisper. He pointed toward the side of the house. In the very dark, the motorcycles were defined, smaller shapes than the bigger lumpy shadowed houses. Zeff had not seen them. “This is not good. Zeff, let me go around back. I’ll come right back. Give me that light,” he said.
“Como? What happens if you don’t come back?” Zeff asked alarmed but resolved that Junior should go.
Junior laughed. Zeff could see the narrow shoulders shake silhouetted in the light of the windows. “You’ll come get me!” Junior whispered before darting across the street toward the opposite side of the house from where the motorbikes were parked.
Zeff still crouched behind the barrels nodded at Junior’s reply while wondering how he could rescue the boy. Zeff began to pray. “God, we know you’re everywhere even in the shower…”
Behind the house, Junior ducked under a half dozen windows when he came up short under the back corner window. He had seen nothing yet but now he heard children crying. A curtain fluttered. The window was open and Junior peeked over the exterior sill. The room was filled with bulky dark shapes. A bedroom, he decided. There were at least three children crying. Junior was about to turn the flashlight on when he heard the consoling voice of a girl.
“Hush, hush, hush!” said the voice, followed by Greek words Junior didn’t understand. Crying turned to whimpering. There was jostling and finally when he couldn’t stand it anymore, Junior turned on the flashlight.
Hoping not to alarm the young inhabitants of the room, Junior lit his face first before slowly moving the beam to the room’s occupants. His plan fell short. The beam elongated his face; he looked like a ghoul. A pillow, hard like a stuffed placemat bounced from his head. Another hit him in the face before he could drop below the window frame. An older girl came to the window, “Elias! Is that you?” she called softly.
“I heard the crying.” Not sure what was said, Junior answered as if his response was explanation enough for his presence at her window. He stuck his head up and flashed the penlight into his face again.
After a gasp and a brief pause, she asked, “Are you a Brit? You are speaking very good English.” Two other children, little boys about 3 or 4 years old in Junior’s estimation stood at either side of the dark haired girl. The boys wore camouflage colored thermal underwear. She was wrapped in a turquoise blue terry cloth robe. Junior was self-conscious as she was a pretty petite teen.
“Uh? No I don’t think so. Actually, I… we – my big friend and I are looking for someone. Her name is Tina Something or other. She lives in this town. Do you know her?” Junior couldn’t take his eyes from the girl. He licked his lips and pushed his hair about with his free hand hoping to help his appearance.
“Tina? Tina Evangelos? Is that the name? You are American!” she whispered loudly. “It is good you and your big friend have come. It is chaotic here and the New Dawn agents are tormenting us. They came at midnight while we were sleeping.”
Junior thought for a minute. “Listen, how many are
in your family? My friend will need to know. Also, how many new dons are there?” he questioned.
“There are just three New Dawn agents but as for us… We are 18. This house is an orphanage,” she reported but then her eyes went wide and before he could duck and run, a strong hand covered his mouth.
The man said something in Greek. The girl, who had stepped away from the window, hissed a reply.
“You’re American?” asked Dale as he restrained Junior’s wild struggling. Junior quit his snake like wiggle to nod vigorously. Dale held him firmly by his thin shoulder but released Junior’s face.
“I’m Dale Merriweather. I’m married to Tina’s cousin,” Dale said quietly waiting for the boy’s response.
“Merriweather? You’re Merry’s brother, Dale? We’re looking for you!” spouted Junior none too quietly.
“Merry? Merry, my kid sister? So the guy from D’Almata sent you knocking? Tina was right! We’ll talk later. Right now I need to get Tina and these babes away from the New Dawn terrorists… That’s what they are!” Dale whispered fiercely.
Junior told Dale about Zeff. Dale told the girl to get dressed and if possible to escape to the neighbors’ through the window with the children.
Junior said, “I’ll come back and help you.” Then he turned and led Dale back to Zeff.
Twice, Zeff had seen people inside crossing in front of the windows. From his position he was sure there was some sort of argument or domestic dispute unfolding in the house. He thought to move closer to have a better view but his common sense told him to await Junior’s return. Shadowy movement caught Zeff’s eye. When the figures were silhouetted in front of the house widows, he saw that it was Junior and another man. A moment later and they were with him behind the wooden barrels.
“Here is my friend Zeff,” Junior said to Dale by way of introduction as they squatted. “Zeff, this is Merry’s brother, Dale! God answered your prayers!” Junior said excitedly.
Zeff’s face could not be seen as the morning was still more than an hour away. He was astonished. He coughed and then said, “Yes, God is all about answering prayers.” He stuck out his hand in the dark and grasped Dale’s. “I’m Zeff Zeferano. You’re Dale Merriweather,” he said. Dale shook his hand.
Desperado Dale (Scenic Route to Paradise) Page 12