Assignment- Mermaid

by Will B Aarons

  "Óchi, no. You—how do you Americans say it? You turn me on,” she said, her voice husky.

  "What about Panagiotes?”

  "I’m alive; he’s dead.”

  "And if he isn’t?”

  "Don’t talk.” Her fingers slid through the black coils of his hair. The warm richness of her body beneath her flimsy garments was almost overwhelming.

  He muttered against her lips: "Here? Like a couple of alley cats?”

  "Yes. Exactly!” A stifled moan came with her kiss.

  This was a luxury Durell knew he could not afford. He broke loose, feeling a bit shaky in spite of himself.

  "What’s wrong?” Her tone was puzzled.

  "Nothing. Let’s get to the airport.”

  "You don’t like me?”

  "I like you.” He sounded gruff. "But let’s get to the airport.”

  It wasn’t as easy as it sounded.

  Durell and Sirena walked with anonymous caution, just another couple arm-in-arm among those crowding the main streets. They found they could move with some confidence, now that the immediate heat of the chase was off.

  But each time they approached a gate in the old town’s ramparts, they found it blocked by police making identity checks.

  Durell thought regretfully they must be certain he was culpable in the death of Panagiotes, since he had fled to avoid questioning.

  But his luck was still working for him.

  Marty Stone—who remained a cipher to the authorities—waited in the shadows near Koskinou Gate, on the south side of the Turkish Quarter.

  "I knew you’d have to hit this one sooner or later. They’re all blocked,” he said.

  He drove them through in the trunk of his rental Ford, one at a time. Traffic was piling up; the harried Greek cops seemed not to notice his coming and going.

  Marty took them down to Mandraki Harbor and dropped them off near the city’s main taxi rank. Up a short slope behind them, beyond dark cypresses and palms, the floodlighted Grand Master’s Palace loomed austere and forbidding. An open-air cinema somewhere in the neighborhood mixed violent soundtrack music with the roar and sputter of traffic. Patrons filled sidewalk cafés overlooking the yacht-cluttered harbor where the bronze Colossus of Rhodes was said to have stood.

  Marty spoke through the window: "It’s good that you’re leaving now.”

  "It happened to work in with my plans,” Durell said.

  "It buys time for Greek Intelligence. They don’t want this Panagiotes thing to blow up in anybody’s face, theirs or ours. Maybe they can squelch the investigation before you get back.”

  "I won’t let it stop me, if they don’t.”

  "I know. By the way—” he withdrew a key from his pocket and pressed it into Durell’s palm—"this goes to a locker at the airport. I guessed you’d head for the Nereid when you found where she was.”

  "What’s in the locker?”

  Marty shrugged and grinned, beneath his red mustache. "Call it a going away gift.” He switched his eyes to Sirena. "Miss Alatis?”

  "Yes?”

  "What about your engagement at the Grand? Shouldn’t someone call in that you’re ill?”

  "I hadn’t had time to think of that.”

  "I’ll take care of it. Good flying.”

  The fifteen-kilometer drive down the west coast to the international airport passed without incident. The alert for Durell and Sirena must have reached well beyond the walls of the old town by now, but probably the police did not expect them to leave the island by private plane.

  As it was, they paid the cabbie, made their way through the private aviation lounge, rather than the main lobby, and came out on the tarmac without a bobble. There happened to be little activity at this hour, although the island had daily service from London and Athens and innumerable direct charter flights from almost a dozen countries. Hawker Siddeley Tridents and Boeing 720s and 727s gleamed on the parking aprons, as Sirena led Durell around a hangar toward Panagiotes’ white and blue Learjet. "I hope Link’s in the plane,” Durell said.

  "That’s right—he’s to come with us, isn’t he?”

  "He wasn’t in the lounge. He was to bring something.”

  "He shouldn’t be in the plane. It’s locked.”

  "Then why are its lights on?”

  Sirena stopped and stared at the aircraft. Then she looked questioningly at Durell.

  "Let’s go see,” he said.

  He entered the plane first, and saw Link. The sharpfaced man sat on a couch across the rear of the cabin, a clear drink poised beneath his pencil mustache. He wore deck shoes, a tan jumpsuit of a lightweight, linenlike material with a small decorative emblem over the breast pocket, and a scarlet ascot. When he saw Durell, one eyebrow shot up, and his falconlike face lighted with wry anticipation.

  "Mr. Durell,” he said, "allow me to introduce Costa Panagiotes. Mr. Panagiotes, meet Sam Durell.”

  7

  "Costa!” Sirena’s voice was a happy shriek from behind Durell.

  "So! As soon as you believe me deceased, you are ready to elope with this man!”

  Panagiotes spoke in katharevousa, the High Greek of the intellectual, but not very well, Durell noted. Katharevousa was immensely prestigious among the common run of Greeks, who were poorly educated and spoke demotike, as Sirena normally did. It was clearly an attempt to intimidate the fiery woman.

  But she struck back at Panagiotes by replying in better katharevousa than his. "How dare you accuse me! Did I run you down with a yacht?”

  "You said I had no reason for jealousy—and now look at you!”

  "That was this morning.” Sirena’s hands were on her lovely hips. "You got what you deserved with your suspicions, your evil mind.”

  "Ah! So I was right to be suspicious. You—you Jezebel!” Panagiotes’ face was livid, his eyes mere sparks behind oversized sunglasses.

  "I’m through with you!” she shouted, and put her arm through Durell’s.

  "Not before I finish with you!”

  Panagiotes took a threatening step, but the jabbing strength of Durell’s outstretched arm stopped him in mid-stride. The short, square-shouldered millionaire wore a moss-green suit of Italian cut and a white,

  monogrammed shirt with an undone bowtie hanging from under its collar.

  Durell felt a bulletproof vest beneath the shirt. "Just a minute,” he said.

  "Stand aside, Mr. Durell.” Panagiotes’ tone was menacing.

  Durell kept his hand against the man’s chest, turned to Sirena. "Go file a flight plan,” he said. "Make it for Thessalonika to avoid passport formalities.”

  "But—?”

  "It’ll cover us,” he said.

  "You’re going nowhere in this airplane,” Panagiotes said.

  "Go on,” Durell told Sirena. She stepped back out the door. He took his hand from Panagiotes’ chest; the man didn’t try anything, just stared at him, his jaw hard.

  The Greek said: "You can’t do this.”

  Durell held his stare, tossed Link the locker key Marty had provided. "Bring me what’s in that locker,” he said.

  Link, who had been watching with apparent amusement, said: "Really, old boy, I’d rather stay here for the show.”

  "Move out.” There was some irritation in Durell’s voice. "We haven’t any time to waste.”

  When they were alone, Panagiotes snarled: "I could have you put away for life.”

  "Why did you try to kill us with the yacht? It was you, wasn’t it?”

  "What’s your business, Mr. Durell?”

  "Who died in the fire at your villa, Mr. Panagiotes?” "I don’t have to answer questions from you.”

  "You can think about them. You’ll have to answer them sooner or later.”

  "How dare you threaten me!” He drew himself up,

  thrust out his chin, stared from behind his glossy dark glasses.

  "Why did the Nereid go hundreds of miles off-course to pass by Rhodes?” Durell demanded. "Why did she disappear and turn up at Po
rt Said?”

  A flush passed over Panagiotes’ olive cheeks. He pushed strands of the silver that streaked his hair back from his forehead. Thoughtfully, he said: "How could you know that? You are a government agent, aren’t you? Your accent is American, but that could be a pose. You could be a Russian.”

  "It was the Russians who jumped you at the villa, wasn’t it?” Durell countered.

  For the first time, Panagiotes faltered. "I—I don’t know. It was a shock, a terrible shock. I simply ran for my life.”

  "In the yacht.”

  "Yes, the yacht. I didn’t see you out there, I swear it.”

  Somehow, he was less than convincing. "They were after Lazeishvili?” he asked.

  "I don’t know what they were after—I stayed at sea for fear of them. After it was dark I came here, to fly to Athens.” He glanced through a window, and said: "My pilot will arrive at any moment. I suggest you leave. Now.”

  "I will, in your plane.” Durell’s voice was flat, uncompromising.

  At his last word, Link and Sirena climbed through the doorway, causing the Learjet to joggle slightly on its shocks. A whiff of kerosene exhaust and the shrill of a jet turbine came through with them.

  Panagiotes’ hand flicked under his lapel, but Durell was quicker. The Greek froze at the sight of the snub-nosed .38 aimed squarely at his face.

  "Place your gun on the seat there. Carefully,” Durell said.

  Panagiotes did as he was told. Anger and hatred laced his voice, as he growled: "The authorities will hear about this!”

  Durell waved him toward the door, and said: "Maybe. But you didn’t notify them when your house was burned down, although people were killed there. Something tells me you’d as soon keep your distance from them, at the moment. I think you’re up to something on the sly, Mr. Panagiotes.”

  "You will pay for your impudence,” the millionaire said.

  "Speaking of paying—you will be reimbursed fuel costs. Your aircraft will be returned tomorrow, with a bit of luck.”

  "Go to hell.”

  "If I do, you’ll be there to greet me.”

  From just inside the hatch, Durell’s aim followed the stocky, energetic figure of Panagiotes across the tarmac. Link sat at the small table and tore brown paper off a package. Sirena was already in the pilot’s seat, when Durell called to her, and said:

  "Get this thing into the air.”

  She went through the preflight checklist with the quick aplomb of a veteran, while Durell, seated beside a window, kept a wary eye on the terminal door through which Panagiotes had disappeared.

  Link pulled a large Olympic Airways flight bag from the ripped wrapping paper, unzipped it, glanced darkly at Durell. "How the devil did you get these?” he asked, and pulled out a flat-black little Uzi submachine gun.

  Durell made no reply. He found another Uzi in the bag, plus six forty-round magazines. Marty was a good man, he reflected.

  Sirena called for them to fasten seatbelts, as she started the turbojets. They trundled onto the runway, received clearance for takeoff, and plunged up into the night.

  Rhodes diminished and faded as they climbed to a silent forty thousand feet, headed southeast. Then Link refreshed his drink at the liquor cabinet and waved his long hand at the submachine guns. "I’d like to think those are merely for dramatic effect,” he said.

  "I hope we won’t have to use them,” Durell said.

  Link’s eyebrow lifted sardonically. "Be almost a shame not to, they’re such perfect little brutes for chopping people to pieces—that’s what they are made for, isn’t it?”

  "We’re not likely to be welcomed with open arms. We’ll be outnumbered ten to one or better.” "Pish-tosh, old fellow. We quest on the side of right, and right will carry us through. With a bit of aid from those chatterboxes.”

  Durell wondered if the man were a little drunk. He hoped not. "Are you having second thoughts?” he asked.

  "Of course not; not in the slightest.”

  Durell’s gaze was even. "Good. There’s no turning back now.”

  8

  "There may be a weather problem,” Sirena told Durell as he slid into the co-pilot’s seat.

  "Looks fine at the moment,” he said. The stars seemed to hang like berries, so near that he could scoop them in with his hands.

  "The weather map showed a low pressure area moving east across North Africa. It could bring the khamsin.”

  Durell knew that the khamsin could be a bitter experience. It sucked hot air off the southern deserts and hurled it across Egypt as shrieking clouds of sand. The khamsin had been known to raise the temperature thirty-five degrees in two hours and bring hurricane-force winds of ninety miles an hour. It might last a day or a week as it baked and blighted, gouged and blinded. The weak perished; the strong went mad.

  "When will it arrive at the target area?” he asked.

  Sirena’s dark, almond eyes cut across the instrument panel to the chronometer. "It could get there about the same time we do, or you might have an hour to spare.”

  "What if it beats us?”

  "Landing would be difficult. Probably impossible. But I doubt it will.”

  "We’ll still have to take off again.”

  "I think I can manage that.”

  A few moments passed in silence. They seemed to sit motionless in the sky, despite their great speed.

  "Where did you learn to fly?” Durell asked.

  "My father was a pilot. He commanded a squadron of fighters in the Greek air force, until. . She studied her hands sadly. "Until the coup of 1967. He resisted in the name of democracy. They killed him.” Her outraged gaze stared straight ahead, through the black windshield.

  "He taught you, then,” Durell said.

  "He said when he retired we would form a company to charter flights. All the plans were made. It was a year to the day before his retirement that I was informed of his death. They claimed it was accidental; that he fell against a steel bed-frame and crushed his skull. He was in detention, so it was impossible to prove it was not so.”

  "I’m sorry.” It was clear to Durell that she still felt the loss and the injustice of it deeply.

  "They forced me to leave the country,” she continued. "I went to America, first New York, then Chicago. I found there a taste for Greek chanteuses, you know?”

  Durell nodded.

  "Americans are so silly, if you will forgive my saying so. So romantic. So I became a singer, although I had hardly sung a note in my life.”

  "Why did you return to Greece?” he asked.

  "The Resistance found a use for me, flying as a courier. It was nothing, really—I mean, others were taking a much greater risk. I made my living as a singer. When the military regime fell apart, after Turkey’s humiliating invasion of Cyprus, I kept to a life I had come to know and enjoy. So I’m still a cabaret singer.”

  "You’re a brave girl,” Durell said.

  "Hardly to compare with someone like Aleksei Lazeishvili,” she replied.

  "Where did you get his name?” Durell asked.

  "I heard Link mention him at the villa this morning. Are we going to bring him back with us?”

  Durell saw no point in denying it at this late date. "You know of him?” he asked.

  "In a general way. He’s a freedom fighter, too, but not with guns. He has surmounted many crises.”

  "True. And all he wanted to do was make the Soviet authorities comply with their own constitution and laws. For that he has been sent east, to the Siberian labor camps, committed to a mental institution, beaten on the street by KGB goons, and hounded by petty bureaucrats.”

  "But he has survived,” Sirena said.

  "We can’t say that for sure. We should know soon.” He leaned back in his seat and looked through the side window, staring at the nothingness below where the moon silvered a gleaming wing.

  Things had gone smoothly enough, so far. Despite the police in Rhodes Town and Panagiotes at the airport, they were only a few minutes behind the s
chedule he had hoped to maintain.

  A convoy required fifteen hours to transit the canal. There were only three places where one might normally find a ship at a dead stop. Two of them were the bypasses at al-Ballah in the north and Kibrit, between the Great and Little Bitter Lakes in the south. The third was at Ismailia, at the canal’s mid-point, where pilots were changed.

  Because of terrain, the stop at al-Ballah was best—and it had the advantage that it was closest to Port Said and an American consul, if anything went wrong.

  A subtle increase in pressure brought his mind back to the cramped cockpit. "Time to begin the descent,” Sirena said.

  "Take her to the deck, well out to sea,” he said. "We’ll hope to fly under Egyptian radar up to the last moment.”

  "Very well.” Sirena glanced at a chart. "On our present course we will strike the Nile Delta near Damietta, cross the thirty-mile-wide el Manzala Lagoon and arrive at the canal well south of Port Said, quite near al-Ballah.”

  Durell said: "If we can avoid radar until we’re over land, the Egyptians should assume our flight originated within the country. All we need is for them to hold off sending interceptors for a few minutes, and we’ll be on the ground.”

  As yet, there was no sign of land or life, nothing to break the monotony of a horizon where an immense drapery of stars fell against the sea. Air ducts whispered. There was a dim whistle of the twin GE turbojets that pushed them across the sky. Sirena’s eyes roved over the instrument panel with calm assurance. Its lights made pale strokes of radiance against her cool cheeks.

  Durell said nothing until she tugged evenly on the control column and urged the plane back into level flight.

  "Fifty feet altitude,” she said quietly. Her voice showed a trace of strain now.

  "Is that as low as you can hold her?”

  "Are you crazy?” She kept her eyes toward the windshield.

  "All right.” He exhaled briefly. "Douse your navigation lights.”

  Her finger touched the control console.

  "Turn off the anti-collision beacon and radar, too.”

  "The radar? At 500 miles per hour, fifty feet above the ground? Sam, there are power transmission towers; radio transmission towers—even water towers . . ."