Assignment- Mermaid

by Will B Aarons

  Marty pulled on the end of his red mustache, then jammed his fists into his pockets. "Nov/ what are we going to do?” he asked, fidgeting. "Panagiotes is getting clean away; we have no idea where he’s headed. . . .”

  "There’s only one thing we can do,” Durell said, and his gaze swung to the gleaming boat owned by Widich Santesson, moored a block away. "We’ll have to follow him. Come on.”

  A girl in a skimpy bathing suit lay sleeping in a deck chair, where the day’s warmth oozed up from the Burma teak fantail of the HRC yacht. Durell touched her shoulder. She looked up and smiled, all golden in the sunlight. "I must ask you to go ashore,” he said politely.

  A young man in bathing trunks strode over and demanded in French: "What’s going on?”

  "I must ask both of you to get off the boat, monsieur,” Durell replied in the same language.

  "We are guests of-—”

  "I know. Please leave. There isn’t much time.”

  The young man gave Durell a hard stare, then turned to the girl, and said: "Pay him no mind; I’ll speak to Santesson about this.”

  Durell grabbed him and tossed him overboard. Water was still plashing against water as the girl arose and stepped down the gangplank with quick, dainty movements.

  Marty grinned at Durell.

  "Let’s find Santesson,” Durell said.

  He was in the main salon, eating a breakfast of fruit and pastry at a table with an ashwood top and leather upholstery. On the deep carpet of gold, blue and white stood an attendant in a red mess jacket.

  "Mr. Durell!” Santesson’s spoon was suspended over a cherry-eyed grapefruit half. "Have you . . . ? Did you . . . ?”

  "Not yet, sir.”

  Marty moved to the other side of the table and watched Durell.

  "Unfortunate,” Santesson sniffed. He dug the spoon into the grapefruit. He wore a silk shirt striped white on white, blue cord slacks and linen deck shoes without socks. "I suppose you still hold to the absurd theory that Link O’Dell had something to do with the kidnapping; that’s why you’ve made no progress,” he said. He popped a section of grapefruit into his mouth.

  "I didn’t say I had no progress, sir. Link O’Dell is dead.”

  Santesson choked; his blue eyes bugged out like marbles. He jumped up, standing taller than Durell, his elderly cheeks flushed.

  Durell’s tone was cool. "I need this vessel. Please order the crew ashore.”

  "You, sir, are mad. Mr. O’Dell? Dead? You’ve done it now! How—”

  "I haven’t time for explanations.”

  "Then take the time, you hear? What do you want my boat for?”

  "To catch Costa Panagiotes.”

  "Costa Panagiotes! You are mad! One doesn’t catch a man of Mr. Panagiotes’ importance.”

  "I know, sir. In your circle there’s always the polite invitation to a quiet talk with the local police chief.” Durell kept his voice bland. "But I’m afraid we’re not dealing with a traffic violation. I have reason to believe that Mr. Panagiotes just sailed out of this harbor with Aleksei Lazeishvili aboard.”

  "I do not believe it,” Santesson asserted.

  "You don’t have to. You didn’t believe it about O’Dell either. Get ashore; take your crew.”

  "You will pay for your insolence! I won’t be a party to—”

  "Take his feet, Marty.” Durell stepped behind the Swede, got him under the arms, pulled him off-balance as Marty lifted his feet. They hauled him outside and down the gangplank. He did not struggle; that was some relief, Durell thought.

  The little waiter did not have to be asked twice to follow his employer ashore. Durell raised the gangplank, the sun a burning hammer on his face and neck in the sheltered mooring. He told Marty to cast off, then ran for the bridge superstructure.

  The captain, a young Swede, was in his cabin, just behind the wheelhouse. He was amiable, clearly devoted to serving others, not fighting them. Durell ordered him to collect the cook and remaining crew members by intercom. He obeyed with a nervous glance at the Makarov stuck behind Durell’s belt.

  As they waited, Durell told him to start the hundred-foot craft’s twin Volvo diesels. The power plants were muttering deep in the yacht’s belly by the time the remaining crew had assembled. Durell had urged the boat away from the pier and was nudging through the harbor, toward the bronze deer that marked the beginning of the open sea. Marty escorted the group down and supervised as they lowered a launch and headed back toward the waterfront.

  Alone now on the elegant steel vessel, they began to experience the roll of swells and shuddering of windblown waves against the hull.

  "Let’s move up to the flying bridge,” Durell said. The wind was warm over the glare of waves as the island’s coast slid by. Durell scanned the horizon with tense urgency, hands on the walnut wheel, but it was Marty who first spotted the black yacht. It glimmered in the brilliance about two miles to the southeast.

  "He’s headed out to sea.” It was Marty, speaking over the rush of wind and waves.

  Durell adjusted the course a bit, the wheel fighting him slightly in the short, steep seas. "He may only want searoom to get around the island. He can’t turn northwest, toward Athens, until he rounds Cape Prassonlsi.”

  "What if he doesn’t have Lazeishvili?”

  "Sirena thought he did. If he doesn’t, we have to hope that Arbeit and Veerman are keeping an eye on the Russians ashore,” Durell said, and added, thoughtfully: "I have a hunch Lazeishvili is with Panagiotes.”

  The black yacht was beamier than Santesson’s and not as fast. The gap between them closed rapidly at first, before Panagiotes realized he was being chased. Then the remaining distance narrowed more slowly. But still it narrowed.

  "We’re going to overtake him,” Marty said, and wiped salt from his face.

  "He’s still headed for the open sea,” Durell noted, puzzlement in his tone.

  "What do we do when we get him, that’s the question,” Marty said.

  A heavy sea crashed abeam of the yacht; it heeled as if struck by a giant fist as both men staggered to keep their footing. Spray whirled over the decks and spun into the air about the bridge. Durell wiped his eyesockets and peered ahead. Panagiotes’ was a hundred yards away, no more. A stumpy stack just behind the wheel-house spewed wriggling heat waves. The flying bridge was empty.

  To his right, Durell saw the humped mountains of the island through a haze of salty air. They stood out darkly, green valleys lifting up their flanks. The sky had turned milky, and dark squall clouds were tumbling over the mountains.

  A bullet webbed the windshield before him; there was no sound.

  Marty shook loose a .357 magnum revolver, and Durell did not wonder at the damage done to the Russian’s head, back in Lindos.

  "Hold it,” Durell said.

  Marty looked at him, hunched forward and braced against the control panel, both hands gripping the pistol.

  "Wait until you have a target.”

  "I could drill the wheelhouse.”

  "For all we know Lazeishvili is in there.”

  "Or that dame?”

  Durell’s brief stare was scathing. "We can’t afford to worry about her,” he said, his tone matter-of-fact.

  Another slug whanged off the radar mast, behind Durell. "There he is.” He pointed to a man peeking over the coaming of the afterdeck, hair twirling in the air.

  The explosive crack of the .357 blew away. There was no visible effect; the man still was there.

  They were closer now. Durell put it at about fifty yards as both yachts roared at full speed. Waves shattered against their weather sides and slung curtains of spray slapping against their big salon windows and curling across their decks.

  He heard the burring sigh of another slug.

  Seawater ran in streams down his cheeks and neck. His clothing was sodden. He didn’t think there was much to fear from the aim of a pistol in this sea.

  That was when he saw a flash, a puff of smoke, the ugly oblong of a bazooka rou
nd lobbing toward him. It splashed in a gout of water and flame, twenty feet to starboard. The thud of its explosion came up through timbers and decking, trembling beneath his feet.

  Durell clung grimly to the wheel. Another bullet crazed the windshield, but they were just wasting their ammunition. The shots were audible now, the quarters perilously close for these hundred-foot behemoths of steel as they lunged and veered in the gushing waves.

  Two men were visible on the afterdeck. They worked from a crouch, reloading the bazooka. Marty fired. Paint splattered from a bulkhead and they glanced up, then bent back to the bazooka.

  Twenty-five yards.

  One of the men shouldered the launching tube. Durell kept the throttles at full speed, the HRC yacht riding down the froth of the black vessel’s wake. Marty tried another shot, missed again, wrinkled his nose and frowned.

  There came a whooshing bang so close that there was no chance this time to follow the flight of the rocket, and a second explosion almost immediately. The deck jumped, stunning the soles of Durell’s feet.

  "They got a hit,” Marty yelled.

  "Our turn’s coming,” Durell said. The rocket seemed to have penetrated the main salon, exploding inside it; if so there would be no hull damage; that was the main thing. The vessels were so close now that Durell could look down into the afterdeck well of the black yacht. Marty ripped off another round, and this time one of the two men down there spun over the side, lost to sight immediately. The other ran. Suddenly the black yacht veered wildly, heeling in the grip of centrifugal force as its helmsman made a tortured effort to dodge the HRC vessel.

  But it was too late.

  "Brace yourself!” Durell yelled.

  There was a crash, a sickening crunch of splintered wood, the ear-piercing screech of rent metal. Durell’s body hit the wheel, bounced into the control panel and slammed to the deck on bruised knees. He nimbly sprang back to his feet, glimpsed Marty staggering up with blood on his cheek. The stem of the black yacht slewed and shivered as the bow of the Santesson vessel rode up on it like a great, shining knife.

  Cries and commands came on the wind.

  Bullets pinged around the bridge; Durell counted two of Panagiotes’ crew firing from the top of the salon. A grinding, drill-like sound shattered the air as one of the black yacht’s propellers sheered off against the bowplates of the HRC boat.

  Durell threw the controls into reverse and Marty banged away with the .357 as the two ships parted, the black one coasting away in a dumb, wounded arc. Waves pounded, heaved, swirled. Black clouds scudded overhead and blue shafts of rain blotted out portions of the island. The sea was a white and turquoise frenzy.

  Throwing the throttles full ahead, Durell spun the wheel, and the damaged bow angled to cut across the arc of the black vessel’s turn.

  "Ram them again?” shouted Marty. The hand that held his pistol rested on a counter above the instrument console.

  "It’s the only way to stop them,” Durell replied through the ripping wind and spray. "Better reload while you have the chance.”

  Marty cast empty cartridges out of the gun’s cylinder and replaced them with fresh rounds, working feverishly. Durell kept the yacht aimed full-tilt at the point where it would meet Panagiotes’ boat, if the other didn’t turn away. And it showed no signs of that; its rudder must have been jammed by the collision. He wished he could be more surgical in stopping Panagiotes; ramming was crude, totally destructive. But it was the only option he had.

  He could only hope that Lazeishvili and Sirena were not in the way when the tons of steel and horsepower drove through.

  The sun was gone completely now, the air dusky and howling, laced with twirling ribbons of sea foam.

  He wished he had more cartridges for the Makarov, but those in its magazine were all. His mouth felt dry as he considered the coming shock.

  "Hang on!” he yelled, but it was unnecessary: Marty already sat on his heels, back braced against the front panel. There was nothing more Durell could do at the wheel, so he followed suit and left the throttles wide open.

  Seconds that seemed like hours ticked by, as he waited, gun in hand.

  Waves battered, kicked and shoved, frothing over

  the gunwales and sliding across the deck like clear glass.

  They collided with a trembling, savage impact that almost capsized the black yacht. Timbers groaned and beams snapped like cannonfire. The great weight of the HRC yacht shoved its collapsing bow through the side deck and into the wheelhouse. The noise was overwhelming. Glass shattered. There was an interminable tortured growl of steel on steel.

  Then it stopped.

  Windblown seas churned, leaped and hissed.

  Words were not necessary, as Durell and Marty charged across the uptilted foredeck and jumped onto the other vessel. It listed like some prehistoric monster, wounded and sinking to its knees.

  Durell went right, Marty left.

  The first thing that struck Durell’s senses was a high, keening scream. The second was the dark odor of diesel fuel as it escaped from ruptured fuel tanks.

  One of Panagiotes’ men darted into view, pistol drawn, and Durell fired. A sappy blue hole appeared between the man’s eyes, the bulkhead behind him splattered head-high with gore.

  Durell kicked through the remains of a shivered wooden door and into the wheelhouse, or what was left of it. The scream had come from there; it might be Sirena. But it wasn’t. It was Panagiotes, hanging over the wheel, dark glasses askew, silver-streaked hair knocked down over his forehead.

  "Help me!” he screamed.

  The sight curled Durell’s lip. A leg was pinned below the knee in a crushing tangle of metal. The trouser leg was ripped, sodden with blood, bone and flesh protruding.

  "Where’s Lazeishvili? Where’s Sirena!” Durell demanded.

  "We’re going to sink! I’m going to die!”

  Durell looked toward the stern, saw no sign of anyone. The ship heaved in the waves. He found a better hold to steady himself.

  "Get me out!” Panagiotes screamed, tearing and yanking at his leg like an animal in a trap.

  "The others first,” Durell said.

  The man turned a sweat-sodden face up at him, and shouted: "I demand—”

  "Make your demands to Davy Jones,” Durell snarled. He could waste no more time. He turned and groped his way outside, Panagiotes hurling curses after him. Spray dashed him in the face.

  Again came the stifling odor of spilling diesel fuel. A spark from the rubbing yachts could set it afire any second.

  He had to find Lazeishvili. Sirena. Either could be maimed, drowning. Dead.

  Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks, the skin crawling between his shoulder blades at what he saw across the tossing waters.

  It was the Nereid.

  23

  The freighter still was two to three miles away.

  Visibility was poor through blowing spray and lashed foam, but Durell knew the Nereid’s silhouette at a glance—and she clearly was on a course for the tangled yachts, the bright curl of shattered waves beneath her bov/s.

  He ran for a hatch, clattered with difficulty down a canted wooden ladder, found himself in a storage hold cramped with smashed wooden cases of 155 mm. artillery rounds. This explained what had happened to the ordnance in Panagiotes’ basement warehouse, he thought. The man had removed it aboard his yacht. He made his way through into a stateroom packed with more, this time grenades and bazooka rockets. The boat must be crammed with the stuff.

  He smelled fuel oil.

  With renewed urgency, he fought his way over and around the heavy cases. The boat seemed to be listing more, as waves crashed against its hull. He heard the rattle of water pouring into the steel holds, the fear of a capsize burning at the back of his mind.

  His nose stung from the intensity of thickening fumes.

  Water squirted from around the next door, sloshing shin-deep, rolling from side to side with the pitch of the ship. He opened the door, and the water shot
out in a waist-high cataract. He heard shots. The water

  knocked his feet from under him and he choked and gagged on a mouthful of brine as he was hurled back, thrashing for a hold. Then the level in the two rooms equalized, the flow stopped. He splashed to the door amid raw groans of metal, pinched noises, sounds like old-fashioned bulb horns, the grinding of enormous weights against each other. The commotion came from the next compartment, where he now saw the shredded, mangled bow of the HRC yacht. It filled half a stateroom. A double bed with a scarlet spread was shoved half up the wall, broken in the middle like a cracker, satin pillows spilling into the rising, gurgling water. The way through was blocked.

  The black yacht shuddered, rolled another degree.

  Waves thundered.

  Durell waded hip-deep from handhold to handhold along the canted deck, found the ladder, scrambled onto the weatherdeck. The wind spewed him with spray, stinging his eyes. He could hardly tell where the gray sea stopped and the charcoal sky started, when he looked to the weatherside of the ship. He clambered over the wreckage of the wheelhouse, was momentarily glued to the spot by a chilling sight. Below, visible through a shattered skylight, was Panagiotes, his pale face turned up in gritting pain as one of his men sawed at the flesh below his knee with a blood-spattered butcher knife.

  He didn’t take the time to do anything about it.

  Time had almost run out.

  The lee rail was under water.

  The locked yachts rose and fell, not always in unison, and the bow of the HRC vessel worked into the other like a knife twisted in its side. There was the noise of shattering crockery, crashing furnishings, shifting cargo.

  And the Nereid had closed the distance to a mile, mile and a half at the most. It loomed ghostly gray through the mist and spume.

  He found a hatch, lowered himself into the rubbish-strewn main salon: even here was packed with munitions. He dodged at the sound of a gunshot behind him, twisted around, the Makarov leveled in his fist. His eyes took in everything at once: Marty’s back, and beyond him two knit-shirted crewmen firing from the aft entrance to the salon. A bullet snapped past Burell’s ear. Marty’s hand jerked as his .357 replied; then Marty spun, his gun wheeling overboard, and Durell pumped three hurried shots at the others. One went down in a heap. The other slipped and slid toward the fantail and dived into the grinding seas, committing certain suicide in his panic.