Assignment- Mermaid Read online

  Durell said: "Let’s take the chance.”

  "Of course, of course,” Santesson replied. "Well. You are acquainted with the aims of my organization?”

  "Yes,” Durell said.

  Santesson raised a finger, and said, in a stem tone: "To bring pressure of moral outrage all over the world to bear on governments responsible for violating the basic rights of their citizens. This year we are concentrating our efforts on the Soviet Union.”

  "This year?” Durell smiled without humor. "And last year?”

  "Chile. Uganda.”

  "Next year?”

  Santesson glanced at Marty; he wasn’t pleased with Durell’s tone. "Wherever we are called,” he said.

  Marty’s two security men paced a few feet away, mingling with passersby who ventured that close. Durell could not tell where Harry was. "What about Aleksei Lazeishvili, the Russian dissident?” he asked.

  "Ah.” Santesson nodded. "Mr. Lazeishvili was in immediate danger of arrest. This was an opportunity for us to display our resolve with more than words.”

  "But something went wrong?” Durell said.

  A voice at his back replied, in a flat and rather bored way: "Indeed? Well, it hardly matters now, does it? The cavalry has arrived, in the form of Mr. Sam Durell. I’m sure everything will be peachy.”

  Durell twisted around to see Link O’Dell, accompanied to the wall by one of Marty’s subordinates. He spoke a bit loudly. Durell wondered if he were drunk. A pull at a long cigarette lighted O’Dell’s face and showed a lean visage with a pencil mustache and one brow raised above hooded, disdainful eyes. There was something falconlike about the sharp facial bones, and Durell found his long hand light and dry, like a bird’s wing, although its grip was strong enough.

  Durell knew something of O’Dell, as well as Santesson. When someone of his prominence fled to Sweden to avoid the draft at the height of the Vietnam War, it had made all the headlines. Especially since his family’s chemical companies manufactured a large percentage of munitions used to carry on that conflict.

  "Mr. O’Dell is HRC’s coordinator for the Mediterranean region,” Santesson said.

  "It’s a shame about Lazeishvili. I admired him,” Durell told the youthful Link.

  "Please! Don’t speak of him in the past tense, old boy,” Link said. "I am not accustomed to writing off investments of time or money, and it took both to get Lazeishvili out of Russia.”

  Santesson said: "Mr. O’Dell had direct charge of the operation.”

  Link said: "We know damn well he was smuggled aboard the Nereid successfully. A radio message from our operative, Charles Cullinane, who was aboard the vessel, confirmed that. It was in code, of course.”

  "Of course,” Durell said. "But that’s small comfort, if the ship has vanished.”

  "I do hope you won’t be defeatist, Mr. Durell.” "Make me optimistic,” Durell said.

  Link spoke with a sneer. "I wonder if that’s possible. We were assured you are the best that your agency has to offer, but—”

  Marty cut in: "Let me tell him about the Mermaid Memo, Mr. O’Dell. Sam, it’s a page of the Nereid’s, log—and it washed up on the island of Rhodes.” He took an eager breath. "The Nereid was bound from the Black Sea to Italy, nowhere near Rhodes. The ship must have been diverted. The log could have been thrown overboard, replaced by a counterfeit one to hide the course change.”

  "Who found it?” Durell asked.

  "A girl named Sirena Alatis.”

  "What do you know about her?”

  "Not much. Mr. O’Dell will fill you in later.” Marty hurried on. "She turned it over to the police on the chance that it was important. Greek Intelligence got wind of it through inside channels and passed it on, since they already were cooperating with us. We asked the HRC if it wanted our assistance in finding out what went wrong and, hopefully, locating Lazeishvili,” Marty said.

  "And they jumped at the chance to have us pull their chestnuts out of the fire,” Durell said.

  Link took exception. "Now look here—”

  Durell cut him off. "What was on the page this girl found?”

  "Just routine housekeeping entries,” Marty said. "But there was a notation of the ship’s position the day before the stray page was found. It was fifty-eight nautical miles north of the island.”

  Durell gazed down through the gleaming night. The small, rocky hill to the west, he knew, was the Areopagus, where the oldest Athenian council had met. St. Paul had stood there to deliver his sermons to the Athenians.

  Link said: "The point is that the page turned up at all. It means the ship was in the vicinity, don’t you see? And that Lazeishvili even could be on Rhodes.”

  "It also could mean the ship went down, the log book just part of the debris,” Durell said.

  "No other debris was found,” Marty said. "An air search was ordered. Results negative.”

  Santesson told Durell: "We know you have the option of refusing this assignment. Please don’t. If we lose Aleksei Lazeishvili, it will be a tragedy for the HRC.”

  Durell spoke politely, but bluntly. "The HRC meddled in affairs beyond its competence, sir. But I’ll do what I can, because the real tragedy is Lazeishvili’s.”

  "You’re quite a fellow,” Link said. "I knew the lure of glory would be irresistible.”

  Durell’s eyes turned to obsidian as he checked his hot Cajun temper. "Glory isn’t all I find hard to resist at the moment,” he muttered.

  Marty intervened. "Sam, you will go to Rhodes as soon as you leave here. Link will meet you there later tonight and fill you in with whatever details he has. He’s to be your HRC contact.”

  "I’d rather work alone. No offense,” Durell said.

  Link’s smile was sardonic. "Of course you mean offense, old boy. Never mind. I like spunk.”

  Durell turned a hard face to Marty. "I don’t think I can bear it,” he said.

  Marty rolled smiling eyes. "This is a marriage made—well, not in heaven, exactly, but way, way upstairs. I’m afraid there is no choice, Sam.”

  "Just one question, first of all,” Durell said, turning to the two HRC men. "Has either of you mentioned any of this to anyone anywhere else?”

  "Oh, no,” Santesson pledged.

  "Of course not, dear fellow,” Link agreed.

  "Good.” Durell sucked a long breath. "This is our secret. Got it? Otherwise—”

  One of Marty’s security men had chosen that moment to step in front of Durell, had abruptly stiffened and twisted and tottered toward the group. A chill touched the back of Durell’s neck as the man’s mouth worked soundlessly in a cheesy face, white ringing his eyes, a ragged dark stain spreading down his shirtfront. A second shot blew dust from the wall, just as the man fell at Durell’s feet.

  Durell stiff-armed Link and sent him sprawling, glimpsed Marty wrestle Santesson down without apology. In the same instant, he dived and rolled to the left of the dim silhouette of a man thirty feet away who advanced with an enormously long-barrelled, silenced pistol held before him. It was Harry. He popped away deliberately as he came, the bullets snapping and zinging. Although he had lost the element of surprise, he still had the initiative, and seemed unshakably confident—which might have been justified, if he had taken time to aim carefully.

  As it was, Durell’s .38 was out before he hit the ground. He rolled once, came up on a knee and aimed, bracing the gun with both hands.

  The stubby weapon cracked once, and Harry sat down without bending his knees. Dim moonrays showed bewilderment on his round face.

  Durell waited a moment, ready to fire again, as Harry leaned on an elbow, shook his head, flopped onto his back.

  Everything had happened in seconds. Now a woman screamed, knuckles against her cheeks. There were calls across the great open space of the Acropolis; feet scurried; shadows flitted everywhere between the Parthenon and the bone-colored Porch of the Maidens across the way.

  Durell bent low over Harry’s clouding eyes. There wasn’t much time.
The police would be here soon.

  "Who paid you?” he demanded.

  "Russkies.”

  Durell lifted his head. "How did they know?”

  Harry coughed and grinned.

  "How?” Durell repeated.

  "Came through—grapevine. I heard—before—told —me.”

  "You?” Durell was stunned.

  "Was all over—town.”

  Blood came through Harry’s grin, and his neck bent back, and he died.

  Durell looked up and saw Marty. The Control’s eyes hardened; his red mustache was black against a face the white of cooked marrow. He turned on Link O’Dell. "You loose-mouthed son-of-a-bitch,” he snarled.

  "I told only a few friends. Close friends.” Link was defensive, but not particularly apologetic.

  Marty started to go for him, but Durell held him back. "The damage is done. Check the man Harry shot,” he told him.

  "Already did.” Marty’s voice sounded bleak. "He’s dead.”

  "Let the Embassy claim him at the morgue, then.” Durell turned to Link, his tone grim. "In our business it is not enough to be clever; you have to be smart. Lives are at stake. Do you understand?”

  Link nodded; Santesson nodded vigorously.

  "Then split up. Let’s get out of here before the police come.”

  Many of the sightseers had shed their fright by now, and were merely curious. A few had dared to gather near the two bodies and stare, and there was a general drift in that direction, as more were drawn by the sight of a growing crowd. No one knew who Durell and the others were in the darkness.

  No one noticed as they quietly dispersed.

  2

  The other car, a dark-colored Mercedes that might have been blue or black, approached slowly, coming up the lane from the coastal highway.

  Durell saw it through the imperfect screen of an olive grove, in which he had parked. There was a chance it had not followed him—he’d had no hint of it since leaving Rhodes Town in the predawn darkness. Still if it had, he might go unnoticed here in the grove.

  He worked feverishly, retrieving a packaged rubber raft, diving gear and ten-horse outboard from the trunk of his rental Simca. The headlamps on the Mercedes went out as it came on. The sky over the island was growing lighter every moment.

  Durell spared a glance for a large, red-tiled villa that stood above terraces of gardens and swimming pool a couple of hundred yards to his left. There was no sign of activity there.

  The Mercedes slowed uncertainly, its windows a mirror-glaze that Durell’s vision could not penetrate.

  He turned away and hurried through the trees, lugging his equipment awkwardly, and came out on an open headland some hundred feet above the Aegean Sea. Gulls wheeled and called overhead; the thunder of wave against rock was unremitting. The sun was just coming up, and the horizon seemed to catch fire with the dawn.

  He looked back—no one was there.

  Those in the car might have been anyone. Early callers. Or the KGB.

  The breeze was cool out of the receding night, a bit less than comfortable for him in his bathing trunks, as he leaned toward the grassy verge. The cliffs were fox-red in the flat sunbeams. Remains of a Greek temple glowed on another jut of land to the north. Far out on the water a fleet of small fishing boats chuffed homeward after the night’s work. They were painted gay colors: red, green, yellow and blue, like toys.

  Durell could not spot the girl at first, because she was in the water.

  Then she came out, the sea flashing and sparking around her, and ran onto a narrow crescent beach immediately below him.

  He thought he could breathe a little easier for this part of his job—but then his heart almost stopped.

  A short, broad-shouldered man with a wide streak ' of silver in his black hair came out of nowhere, shouted something and brandished a revolver.

  The girl on the beach shouted back, her words blown away on the wind, defiance on her lovely face.

  It turned into a screaming match in a second; then the man pointed the gun at the girl’s chest, and all Durell could do was kick a large stone loose and send it bounding down to the startled man’s feet.

  He saw Durell and ran, disappearing among rocks and boulders at the foot of the cliff.

  Durell scrambled down.

  She watched him from a haughty stance, knuckles on her bikini-clad hips. Her lovingly cared-for body demanded his admiration.

  All he knew about her was what Link had told him. She was in her twenties, schooled in Athens and Switzerland—her family once had money. Her father, an air force major, had come to grief for resisting the military dictatorship and had been murdered in prison, his estate confiscated under a guise of bankruptcy. She had been exiled and spent a couple of years in the U.S., returning to Greece before the junta fell apart in the Cyprus crisis.

  Link had met her a couple of seasons ago, when she sang at the Palace Club in Gstaad.

  "Why don’t you mind your own business?” she called now, when Durell had descended within earshot.

  "I'd call your life my business at this point,” he said as he approached across the narrow sands.

  "I said I would do you a favor; that doesn’t give you the right to meddle.” Her black eyes sparkled with assertiveness and fiery independence. "You are Sam Durell, aren’t you?”

  "And you’re Sirena Alatis, I presume?”

  She ran her gaze up and down his muscular frame. Her eyes flicked from its tanned scar slashes to his face. "I know nothing about you,” she said. Her English was heavily accented, but more than adequate.

  "Maybe you’ll learn more.” He nodded toward the rocks. "Who was the man with the gun?”

  "Costa? My boyfriend. He threatens to kill me all the time. It’s very stimulating.”

  "Costa Panagiotes? The former Greek diplomat? The millionaire who keeps to himself ?” He owned the villa above, Durell knew.

  "He just picks his friends carefully.”

  "And you?”

  She lowered her lids. "I am choosy, too.” She cut her black almond eyes toward the rocks where her lover had vanished and said, sullenly: "But no one owns me. That is what he refuses to learn. He said I came here this morning to meet a man. So what, if I did?”

  Durell felt a start of apprehension. "He knew about us?"

  "Most likely he only guessed—he’s insanely jealous.” She abruptly advanced on Durell. "Let’s give him something to be jealous about,” she said, and opened her arms.

  "Not now, thanks,” he said. His long career had taught him that each player was prone to have his or her own set of rules. If they endured hardship or danger, it probably was not out of devotion to Durell’s cause but from self-interest: lust, greed or revenge. He did not trust her. Moreover, he was remembering the dark Mercedes, somewhere above.

  Her arrogantly sensual lips had fallen open. Her mouth was pink as a cat’s. "You must find me attractive,” she said.

  "I suppose I must, but your other friends make me too nervous to enjoy it. You or Panagiotes were expecting other callers, weren’t you?”

  "At this hour? Don’t be absurd.”

  Durell sighed. "I was afraid of that. Let’s get this raft inflated, and clear out of here.”

  Fifteen minutes later Durell cut the throttle on the little outboard and tapped Sirena’s shoulder. She turned, pulled a black net of windblown hair out of her eyes.

  "Is this about where you found the Mermaid Memo?” he asked.

  "Is that what they call it?”

  Durell nodded. "For the missing freighter, the Nereid. Nereid is Greek for 'mermaid,’ so . . .”

  "It was only a page of its log.”

  "But it was hundreds of miles off-course.”

  "Why should the Americans be interested?”

  "It carried a VIP—a very important person.”

  "Who?” She stared at him with frank curiosity.

  The black material of her bathing suit top looked sufficient for a couple of eye patches, hardly more. Dur
ell pulled his thoughts back from their wanderings, shook his head, and said: "Don’t ask to know more than you should.”

  She surveyed the cliffs. A cap of dark foliage, palms, orange and pomegranate trees, marked the location of Panagiotes’ villa. Her eyes swung to another headland on the left, then to the ruined temple, a mere pile of stones and two golden columns remembering the Trojan War, when Rhodian ships sailed with Agamemnon’s fleet.

  "I was diving,” she said. "It was exactly this time of day. Yes. This is the spot.”

  Out of the tail of his eye Durell caught a distant glint of sunlight on glass. He spoke as he shrugged into the harness of his air-tank. "Think Mr. Panagiotes is watching?” he asked.

  "Who cares?”

  "Someone is.”

  "Let them. Perhaps I shall disrobe.”

  'That wouldn’t take much.”

  "Give them an eyeful.”

  "Maybe a heart attack.”

  She smiled. A slight overbite lent charm to her mouth. Durell did not feel like smiling; he already felt naked, exposed out here on this flat, heaving expanse of cruelly indifferent sea. He judged he was out of gunshot range. Even for a high-powered, scope-sighted hunting rifle—he hoped.

  Sirena spoke as he bellied over the side and lowered flippered feet into the water: "Be careful.”

  "Use the outboard to hold your position against the current. Don’t go anywhere while I’m gone,” he said.

  "I wouldn’t think of it,” she replied.

  The rocky bottom was forty feet down, through ragged curtains of fish. It slanted rapidly away on Durell’s right, toward a black abyss that plummeted more than ten thousand feet. A current stronger than he’d expected pressed against him in weighty silence, helping then hindering, as he cast back and forth in the green light. He did not know what he would find, if anything. More pages of the mysterious log, snagged on coral. Jettisoned cargo. The Nereid's sunken hulk . . .

  When half an hour had passed, he was almost prepared to give up. A chill seemed to have crept from the lightless depths on the east right into his bones. The pace of the current had increased while he had tired, and it was a constant battle to keep from being swept out to sea.