But then he saw the barrel.
It lay wedged in the sloping rocks, amid spiny sea urchins and scampering hermit crabs.
Its lid had popped open, but not all the way, and made a sinister, beckoning grin amid the lime and violet-colored wave shadows rippling across the bottom.
His breathing apparatus hissed and rattled as he angled down. There was no other sound, except the faraway put-put of the little outboard. As he approached nearer, the lay of the bottom channeled the current faster, and it rushed against him like a swollen river, flattening and whipping the scanty growth of black weed. A grip on the barrel kept him in place while he shone a flashlight inside. A fine yellow substance reflected the beam. Behind that was sand, as if the steel container had filled with silt.
He bent, tugged, swore in his mind, but the lid would not come loose. He was a big man, but he knew his limits. That lid would never budge.
He read his waterproof chronometer: the tank on his back held air enough for another ten minutes, no more.
A low vibration, not quite a noise, touched his senses, and he gazed briefly into the haze of distant submarine fields where the smoky abyss shelved off beneath a sunshot layer of green.
His mind still was on the barrel. It had no marking or label, so he thrust his hand inside, probed the messy, claylike contents and brought out fingers covered with yellow goo.
The thing that had distracted him before, the shudder that echoed through the water, became more insistent as he studied the muck, thoughtfully rubbed it between thumb and forefinger while the current washed his hand clean. Then he could ignore the noise no longer. He craned his face toward the shore as it abruptly turned into the heavy beat of boat propellers.
The water trembled to their grinding whine.
He saw the black hull of a large vessel that surged in his direction.
Almost at the same time there came a watery crash, and he looked up and saw Sirena’s form emerge from a cocoon of bubbles, her twisted face a mask of terror as she fought to get out of the path of the onrushing hull.
But there was no time to escape, no place to go. Stark horror and dismay fixed Durell to the spot, still staring up when the ship blotted out the sky. He was tossed and whirled through the water, bounced and pounded against the brutal bottom. He was stunned, but his will to survive had been tested many times: he found sense enough to keep a tight clamp on the breathing-mouthpiece between his jaws. The world went from foggy gray to something in a crazy house mirror, but at least recognizable.
Silt sparkled around him.
Bubbles gurgled and spilled from the torn raft as it slithered into the depths.
Close by, Sirena’s black hair was a lank swirl as her outstretched fingers groped at nothing.
She was drowning.
He forced his mind to function, drove to her side, pushed his mouthpiece between her lips. The glossy ripples of the surface seemed a thousand miles away. But for the powerful fins attached to his feet he never would have made it. Up in the air his breath came in hoarse bursts as he jettisoned the useless diving equipment. She spat and clawed, locked the soft strength of her thighs around him, and they went under. He got away from her, gripped a handful of her hair, pulled her up again. She came to the surface coughing, rolled and grabbed for him. He dodged. "Float on your back,” he yelled.
His command penetrated her panic. "Don’t turn me loose,” she gasped.
"Don’t waste your breath talking,” he told her, as she lay on her back She had lost the bra to her bathing suit.
He looked after the black ship that had run the raft down. It had the sleek lines of a private motor yacht as it slowly vanished in the sea haze. His glance went toward the island with its green mountains and smoking breakers. The sea widened visibly between him and the shore, as long minutes ticked away. The current was sweeping them rapidly out to sea. The swell increased; the waves became harder to handle, lifting and dropping and sometimes breaking over them.
By the time an hour had passed, he weighed their chances darkly, and admitted they were slim. Slim chances were his stock in trade, but the constant effort to keep the girl afloat had taken its toll. Alone, he might have had more reason to hope.
The weight of near-exhaustion tugged implacably at his arms and legs.
He thought of the Minoans and Dorians, the Byzantines, Turks and countless others who had died in these reaching depths, and struggled a bit harder.
Sirena’s mind must have been on a similar track, for she said, in panting breath: "I never thought one got what one deserved in this world—”
"Don’t talk,” he said.
But she continued: "The old gods are still up there. Maybe not for you lucky Americans. But for us Greeks, yes. Too busy with their whims and jealousies to care what happens to us.”
Moments later she slipped under the water, eyes open and white, staring at the sky.
Durell reached urgently for her, was startled by the stumbling sluggishness of his own body. Then, as if the futile effort had drained his last reserves, his strength simply failed him.
With astonished disbelief, he sank.
And the waters closed over his face, far from shore.
3
Durell held Ms breath, fought panic that chilled his veins beneath the waves.
His hand found a grip in Sirena’s long hair and jerked, yanking her awareness back from oblivion. She renewed a struggle to help him, as he thrashed and kicked wearily toward the surface.
They used to say a man sank three times before drowning. He’d only been down once, he thought doggedly.
His body begged for respite.
His lungs burned for breath.
Now his arm felt air, and he gave one more kick, aware the reprieve must be brief, even as Sirena’s face broke through the surface beside him.
But there were voices yelling. He heard them with disbelieving ears. Something snaked out over his head, a rope that made a long splash, at its end the salvation of a life ring. He grabbed the line, pulled toward the ring with one arm around Sirena. She clung to him feebly, the forgotten nudity of her breasts flattened against his ribs, her chest heaving for life.
With the ring safely in his grasp, Durell took time to look around. He felt weak with joy. He was in the midst of one of those homeward-bound fishing fleets, and a pair of burly, wool-vested Rhodian fishermen was pulling the life ring, hand over hand, toward a small blue and red trawler.
The fishermen put Durell and Sirena ashore in the cove below the villa, from which the two had started that morning. Despite the sun’s warmth on the sand, she still shivered a bit under a wool blanket they had given her. She wore it doubled, over her shoulders, like an outsized shawl. Durell had offered to pay the men, if they would wait until he went to his car for the money, but one of them had smiled and said if they paid every time they were helped at sea, all fishermen would be in debt the rest of their lives.
When the boat had sailed away, Sirena knelt on the saffron sand, the yellow blanket a tent around her, and looked up at Durell. "I don’t feel very well,” she said.
"You drank too much sea-water.” He surveyed the tiresome path he must climb up the cliff.
"You saved my life.”
He lowered his gaze toward her. Her long black hair glistened in wet ropes. Droplets of water captured the brilliant Aegean light and flashed copper and blue. "The boat saved us both,” he said. "Chalk it up to luck. Let’s get upstairs.”
"Wait another minute,” she said. She looked down at the sand, as if studying the small shadow before her knees. The orange light of morning had long since gone. The sun was high, the sky a white brilliance that hammered at the senses.
"Come on,” Durell said.
She rose to her feet. "I was never so close to death.”
"It’s over now.”
"It makes me want to grasp every moment; surrender to every desire.” The blanket fell away, revealing her golden body.
"How much brandy did those fishermen
give you?”
Her voice was husky, as she looked up at him, and said: "Hold me?”
"What about your boyfriend, Panagiotes?”
"Costa’s harmless.”
"He had a gun the last time I saw him.” Durell looked around, then started up the path.
There was anger in Sirena’s voice, as she shouted from behind: "What kind of man are you?”
"The kind who wants to keep breathing,” he called back. He had enough problems, without inviting the kind an irate lover could offer. He had been shot at last night, run down by a ship this morning. He could hardly wait to see what the afternoon held for him.
He smelled the smoke before he reached the top of the bluff. Sirena had come on up, indifferent to the exposure of her taut breasts. Durell thought fleetingly that she would enjoy shocking Panagiotes’ butler, although he doubted she could shock the shady millionaire himself. He supposed she had to assert her nudity, just as she asserted everything about herself.
He signaled her to stay where she was, then worked his way cautiously over the top.
The odor was heavy up here; still there was no visible sign of a fire. The crash of breakers came from below, where they rolled out of a sea glancing with the sun’s fierce light. The imbat wind pushed through the olive grove before him.
Sirena joined him impatiently. "What’s that smell?” she asked.
"Stay close to me,” Durell said, and headed through the shadows that thrashed beneath the trees. He came to the long lane leading from coastal highway to the villa, swung eyes right and left.
The dark Mercedes that had turned in there at dawn was not to be seen. But he didn’t trust the empty drive and turned back into the trees. His rental Simca was only a few yards away. It did not appear to have been disturbed, as he collected his .38.
"What’s that for?” Sirena asked.
"Just in case.”
"I didn’t know you had a gun.”
"There’s lots you don’t know about me.”
"You’d better leave now,” she said. "We can meet again. You know where I sing.” She started back toward the lane.
Durell grabbed her arm. It was smooth and small in his grasp. "Will you forget sex for a moment? Please?”
"It isn’t easy with you in those bathing shorts, and me—like this.” She glanced down at herself, then tossed her head, and said in a hurt, defiant voice: "I am a sensual person. It excites me.”
"Let’s go down to the house. And stay hidden by the trees.”
When they had gone a distance, Sirena chided: "You don’t have to be afraid of Costa, you know.”
Durell made no reply, just kept moving, pistol held loosely at his thigh.
"He’s not even here.”
"What?” Durell turned. "How do you know?”
She made a cute shrug with her shoulders. "That was his yacht that ran us down. I wasn’t going to tell you—I was afraid you’d do something like this. But since you are doing it, anyway, you might as well know he isn’t going to be there.” He listened in incredulous silence as she ran on. "You must forgive him. He did it for love, out of jealousy. He showed me how much he cared. Now he will be shattered with remorse. How joyous he will be to see me! Our reunion will be like —like—”
"Planets colliding?” Durell supplied.
"Exactly!” She put her hands on her hips. "Doesn’t that make you jealous?”
"It makes me realize that you came in last when they handed out brains, especially as you must have been first in the other departments.” He ran an appreciative eye down her lithe figure.
"Oh!” Anger shot from her dark eyes. "I am Greek! You wouldn’t understand. What I do is Greek.”
"Certainly, it’s Greek to me.”
"I shouldn’t expect a cold man like you to understand.”
Durell turned away. The sound of trodden grass and leaves came from behind him, as she kept up. He had not wished to trouble her with his worries about what they would find when they arrived at the villa. But, as he paused at the edge of the grove, his fears were confirmed.
He heard Sirena’s gasp, and then: "The villa! It’s on fire!”
"Be careful,” Durell said, moving into the open with caution.
"Do you think—someone . . . ?”
"Set it afire? Yes.” Durell surveyed the scene with care. "They may still be here.”
"Who?”
"I don’t know.”
It was a rambling structure that descended the knob of a bluff on several levels. Yellow-gray smoke simmered from beneath red roof tiles at a couple of points. The steady breeze shredded and dispersed it quickly. Whatever its cause, the blaze seemed to have almost burned itself out against the whitewashed stone, marble and terra cotta of the building.
The silence was eerie as Durell stepped around a corner, toward the entrance. No birds sang in the orange trees. He noted a silver Rolls parked in an open bay. Its tires had been slashed. Then he turned grim eyes on a servant in starched white mess jacket.
The man lay unmoving in the tiled entranceway.
"Niko!” Sirena called. She ran past Durell and bent over the man.
Durell approached with practiced caution, head turning warily to right and left. Niko lay in a puddle of thick blood. Flies buzzed at its fringes. Footprints shone in the dark stain, and from there tracked red into the house. Durell glanced inside, then back at Niko. "He’s dead,” he said.
"I can see that. Hand me his gun.”
Durell gave her the 9 mm. Beretta automatic that lay beside Niko. "Just for defense,” he said. "Don’t go wild with that thing.”
"It’ll be Niko’s murderers”—her voice faltered, and her delicate nose made a sniffing sound as she regained her composure—"who will need defense.”
He remembered the yacht that had nearly killed them, and said: "It might be that Panagiotes was running for his life, out there this morning. Didn’t even see us in the water.”
He rose from the corpse and peered cautiously between enormous brass-studded doors of cypress wood that stood open. He waited and listened. A crested green lizard scampered from an oleander bush. Wind rattled in palm fronds.
He drew a breath and pushed inside.
Damage seemed worse in here, but still was not massive. The impassive head of an Egyptian sarcophagus stared back at him from beside a rare Australian bottle-tree. Durell glimpsed his reflection in a mirrored wall containing a fireplace; to his right was a priceless carved standing Buddha covered with gold leaf.
Thin smoke stung Durell’s eyes as he padded on deep carpet past a collector’s display of brilliantly colored Rhodes plates with patterns of ships, fish and flowers.
Some of the roof beams were charred, down close to the eaves. Tiles had fallen through, and thin smoke wriggled in shafts of white sunlight, as he went down a hallway.
The second body lay in a gutted bedroom.
There was an odor of gasoline, and Durell’s gaze found on the floor a broken wine bottle with a charred rag stuck in it’s neck. Molotov cocktail. Shards of glass glinted around the edges of a window it must have been tossed through, turning the room into an instant inferno. It hadn’t helped that the walls were covered with camel’s-hair fabric, Durell judged by the scorched tatters remaining. Of the bed only steel frame and springs had withstood the heat.
On the sagging springs lay the grotesquely drawn-up figure of the victim, charred beyond any hope of recognition. Not only was the face blackened and blotted away; fingers and toes were gone. Identification would have to be by dental records, Durell decided. He made a face and backed away.
A pinched gasp came from behind him, and he turned around and took Sirena’s shoulders and moved her back into the hallway. "Don’t look,” he said.
"It must be Costa,” she said, under her breath.
Durell had expected screaming and weeping, but there was none. He breathed a sigh of grim relief, and said: "Do you know how many were in the house?” He looked over his shoulder, down the hallway.
&n
bsp; "Only Costa and Niko. Niko was his manservant. But why? Why would someone do this to them?”
"They could have been after me.”
"What?”
"Maybe thought I was in here.”
"Then they must have been in the yacht, when it ran us down.” Her eyes flashed with sudden apprehension, and she said: "But—does someone want to kill you?”
"Usually,” Durell replied.
She threw herself into the comfort of his arms and started to say something. But before she could speak, another voice intoned: "Some might say killing is too good for you, Durell.”
Before Durell could turn around, Sirena’s gun boomed thunderously at his side.
4
"Don’t!” came a voice.
Durell knocked Sirena’s gun aside before she could fire again. He twisted, saw Link O’Dell standing at the end of the hall, a bullethole in the wall beside him. Despite an obvious scare, his narrow face retained a sardonic expression, one eyebrow lifted.
"She’s jumpy,” Durell said. "She doesn’t like people sneaking up on her—and neither do I.” He didn’t trust the HRC man after the affair at the Acropolis last night: if his only fault was a loose tongue, that was enough.
Sirena shielded her nakedness behind Durell and spoke around his shoulder: "I didn’t know it was you.”
"Obviously—I hope,” Link said. He thumbed his pencil mustache, and his eyes turned to accusing green points. "And I hardly anticipated that Durell would make a play for you when I arranged your rendezvous.”
Durell’s cheeks hardened. "Don’t jump to conclusions,” he said.
"I got a look at her! What am I supposed to think?” He tugged at a silk ascot that must have felt stifling this time of day. He wore a silver-gray suit and Panama hat and carried a foppish bamboo walking stick with a brass head. He sighed, and said: "You certainly can pick them, old chum. To think that you had the audacity to try to take advantage of the girlfriend of a man with Costa Panagiotes’ power . . .”
"I’ve had other things on my mind,” Durell said shortly. "But there isn’t time for that. Panagiotes may be dead. We’d better get the hell out of here.”
Assignment- Mermaid Page 3