The Mediterranean Caper

11

Pitt froze while his mind raced to absorb the shock. He stood there, one leg outside, the other bent awkwardly inside the passage for what seemed to him a lifetime. He threw the Dive Brite and the flight bag behind him down the stairway and then squinted, Waiting for his eyes to adjust to the bright sunlight: he could barely discern a vague, formless shape that detached itself from the low stone wall and moved in front of him.

“I… I don’t understand,” Pitt mumbled dumbly, feigning a peasant kind of stupidity. “We’re not thieves.”

Again the resounding laugh. And the blurred form transformed into the Greek National Tourist Organization guide who wore a broad, white toothed smile beneath his great moustache; a swarthy hand gripped a nine millimeter Clisenti automatic pistol, the barrel aimed directly at Pitt’s heart.

“Not thieves,” the guide said sarcastically in faultless English. “Then kidnapers perhaps?”

“No, no,” pleaded Pitt, a forced tremor in his voice.

“We’re only two lonely seamen on shore leave in a strange land having a bit of fun.” He winked and grinned a knowing grin. “You understand.”

“Yes, I understand perfectly.” The gun remained level and steady as a rock. “That is why you are under arrest.”

Pitt could feel a knot deep down under in his stomach, the dry, sandy taste of defeat in his mouth. God, this was a worse setback than he had feared: it could be the end of everything a trial and then expulsion from the country. He kept the stupid. insipid expression on his face. Then he stepped forward from the gate, making an imploring gesture with his hands.

“You must believe me. We haven’t kidnapped anybody. Look,” he said pointing to Teri’s upended and naked bottom. “This woman is nothing but a village whore we found wallowing in a pig sty of a taverna.

She told us to take the tour of the ruins, promising to meet us at the amphitheatre.”

The guide looked amused. He reached out with his free hand and fingered the material of Teri’s negligee, than ran his finger tips lightly over her smooth, rounded mounds, triggering a spasm of thrashing legs and feet.

“Tell me,” he said slowly. “How much did she charge?”

“At first she asked two drachmas,” said Pitt sullenly. “But after the fun and games she tried to hold us up for twenty drachmas. We, of course, refused to pay.”

“Of course,” the guide replied dully.

“He speaks the truth,” burst Giordino, the words rushed as if he couldn’t get them out fast enough. “This dirty tramp is the thief, not us.”

“A masterly performance,” said the guide. “A pity it is wasted on such a small audience. We Greeks may lead simple, mundane lives compared to you of more sophisticated countries, but we do not possess simple minds.” He gestured the gun toward Teri. “This girl is no cheap prostitute. Expensive maybe, but not cheap. Her skin also makes you out a liar, it’s far too white.

Our island girls are famous for their rich, dark texture and full hips. Hers are much too narrow.”

Pitt said nothing. He watched the guide carefully, Waiting for an opening. Any movement on his part, he knew, would trigger Giordino into instantaneous action. The Greek looked a dangerous man, cunning and alert, but there was no hint of sadistic antagonism that Pitt could see in the dark, sun wrinkled features.

The guide beckoned to Giordino.

“Release the girl, let us have a look at her other end.”

Giordino, without taking his eyes off Pitt, slowly dropped Teri, letting her slide down his shoulder to the ground. She stood drunkenly for a moment, unsure of her balance, arms upraised in their trapped position, and swaying like a giant tulip in the wind until Giordino untied the knotted negligee above her head. As soon as she was free, Teri tore the gag from her mouth and stared at Giordino with white hot hatred in her eyes.

“You bloody, rotten bastard,” she screamed.

“What’s the meaning of this?”

“It wasn’t my idea, sweetheart,” said Giordino, his eyebrows arching slyly. “Talk to your friend over there.” He jerked his thumb towards Pitt.

Her head spun in Pitt’s direction, and she opened her mouth to say something, but choked off the words with a gasp. The big hazel eyes reflected astonishment for an instant, then they changed with blinking speed to icy coldness, then to a glowing twinkle of warmth. She threw her arms about Pitt and kissed him fervently, too fervently, he thought, under the circumstances.

“Dirk, it really is you,” she sobbed. “Back there in the darkness, your voice… I couldn’t be sure. I thought you were… I thought I’d never see you again.”

“It seems,” he said grinning, “our meetings are a never-ending, constant source of surprise.

“Uncle Bruno said.you wouldn’t call me, ever.”

“Don’t believe all you hear from an uncle.”

Teri discovered the bandage on his nose and gently touched it. “You’ve been hurt.” Her voice held a blend of concern and distress. “Did Uncle Bruno do that? Did he threaten you?”

“No, I was climbing some stairs and tripped and fell,” he said, slightly distorting the truth. “That’s all there was to it.”

“What is this all about?” the guide asked in exasperation. His gun hand was beginning to droop. “Will the young lady please be so kind as to tell her name?”

“I am the niece of Bruno von Till,” she said testily. “And I don’t see how that concerns you.”

There was a sharp exclamation from the Greek and he took a couple of steps forward, studying Teri’s face closely. For almost half a minute he stared at her, then slowly, with deliberate ease, raised the gun level again, still pointing at Pitt. Once, twice he tugged at his moustache, nodding in thoughtful perplexity.

“You may speak the truth,” he said quietly. “Then again you may be lying to protect these two unpleasant looking scum.”

“Your ridiculous insinuations are of no importance to me,” Teri thrust out her chin, matching its protruding uplift with her breasts. “I demand you put down that hideous gun and leave us alone. My uncle has great influence with the island authorities. One word from him and you’ll find yourself rotting your miserable life away in a mainland prison.”

“I am well aware of Bruno von Till’s influence,” the guide said indifferently. “Unfortunately it makes little impression on me. The final decision concerning your arrest or release rests entirely with my superior in Panaghia, Inspector Zacynthus. He will wish to see you. Any lies to him and your immediate futures shall be very lamentable indeed. If you will all please step behind the wall, you will find a pathway leading approximately two hundred yards to a waiting car” He swung the gun from Pitt to Teri. “A warning, gentlemen. Do not entertain any thoughts of a foolish move. If I detect even a slight facial tic on either of you, I shall place a bullet in the brain of this delicate and lovely creature. Now, shall we proceed?”

Five minutes later they all reached the car, a black Mercedes parked inconspicuously under a copse of fir trees. The driver’s door was open and a man dressed in a spotless ice cream suit sat casually behind the wheel with one foot solidly planted on the ground outside. At their approach he rose and opened the rear door.

Pitt looked at the man for a long moment. The contrast between the neatly pressed white suit and the dark ugly face presented an impressive picture. About two inches above Pitt’s own height, the man looked like a chiseled stone colossus, and just as solid. He had the largest set of shoulders Pitt had ever seen, and must have weighted at least 260 pounds. The face was misproportioned and strikingly repulsive, and yet there was a strange sort of beauty about it; the kind that artists sought to capture on canvas. Pitt wasn’t fooled. He could read a man who had an indifferent attitude toward killing. His paths had crossed many times with lovable looking brutes who murdered as if it were a run-of-the-mill, everyday routine.

The guide stepped back and walked around to the front of the car. He nodded at the other man.

“We have guests, Darius. Three little goats who have lost their way. We will take them to Inspector Zacynthus. They can stage their little act for him.” He turned to Pitt. “You will enjoy the Inspector’s company; he is an excellent listener.”

Darius soberly gestured at the back seat. “You two In here, the girl rides in front” His voice was what one would have expected, deep and rasping.

Pitt relaxed against the seat and ran through a dozen different plans for escape, each with less chance of success than the previous one. The guide had them by the testicles as long as Teri was present Without her, he thought, he and Giordino stood tossup odds of overpowering the guide and grabbing the gun.

There was also the possibility that if they made an attempt the guide wouldn’t have the courage to shoot a woman, but Pitt wasn’t about to risk Teri’s life to find out. The guide bowed with obviously forced courtesy.

“Be a gentleman, Darius, and offer the lovely young lady your coat. Her… ab.. prominent attractions might prove embarrassing and somewhat distracting as we drive.”

“Don’t bother,” Teri said contemptuously. “I’ll not wear that bloody ape’s coat. I have nothing I want to hide. Besides, it’ll give me great pleasure to see a greasy worm like you squirm.”

The guide’s eyes grew cold, then lie united thinly and shrugged. “As you wish.”

Teri lifted her negligee lightly around her thighs and climbed into the car. The guide followed, sandwiching her between him and the bilking Darius who hunched over the steering wheel. Then the Mercedes’ diesel engine knocked into life and the car started rolling over the narrow, twisting road; on many stretches edged by deep and marsh covered ditches. The guide’s flickering eyes bounced from Pitt to Giordino and back again, never once twitching the automatic glued to Teri’s right ear. His determined vigilance and unflagging concentration was, it seemed to Pitt, unduly fanatical.

Pitt, warily watching for any negative sign from the guide, very slowly extracted a cigarette from his breast pocket and just as slowly lit it.

“Tell me, whatever your name is…“

“Polycitus Anaxamander Zeno,” the guide offered. “At your service.”

“Tell me” Pitt repeated without an attempt at pronouncing Zeno’s full name. “How did you happen to be coiled back there at the passage when we came out?”

“I have an inquisitive nature,” Zeno said through a twisted smile. “When I perceived that you and your friend had mysteriously disappeared from my tour, I asked myself: What would those two surly looking characters find in the ruins that would interest them? The answer eluded my humble mind so I turned my gawking entourage over to a fellow guide and returned to the amphitheatre. You were nowhere to be found. Then I spied the broken bar in the gate.. no great feat I assure you; I know every stone and crack on the site. Certain you would reappear, I sat and waited.”

“You’d have felt like an idiot if we hadn’t”

“It was only a question of that. There is no other way out of the Pit of Hades.”

“The Pit of Hades?” Pitt’s curiosity was aroused.

“Why do you call it that?”

“I find your sudden interest in archaeology quite unexpected. However, since you ask…“ There was puzzlement in Zeno’s eyes, yet a mixture of attention and amusement. “During the golden age of Greece, our ancestors held their criminal trials in the amphitheatre. This location was chosen because their juries consisted of one hundred elected townspeople. It was their contention, and a very wise one, that the more people who rendered a judgment, the more just the verdict. In a matter of circumstantial evidence, the defendant, if decided guilty, was given a choice of instant death or the Pit of Hades”

“What was so bad about the pit?” Giordino asked, his eyes trained on the reflection of Darius’ face in the rearview mirror, sizing him up.

“The pit was in reality not a pit,” Zeno continued. “But rather a vast underground labyrinth with a hundred different passages and only two openings, an entrance and a hidden exit, which was a closely guarded secret.”

“At least the condemned were given an opportunity to reach freedom.” Pitt flicked an ash into the tray on the armrest

“The choice was not as opportune as it might appear. You see, the labyrinth contained a very hungry lion who had little to eat, except, of course, an occasional passing felon.”

Pitt’s studied calm folded end his face turned grim, but he quickly gained control again. The picture of von Till’s smirking features entered his mind again. Why did the old kraut, he wondered, use historical events to cloak his mysterious schemes? Perhaps this obsession for dramatics might prove to be the chink in von Till’s armor. Pitt sat back and drew deeply on his cigarette.

“A fascinating myth.”

“I assure you it is no myth,” Zeno said seriously. “The number of condemned Greeks who died In the Pit of Hades, their screams echoing through the dark tunnels, is endless. Even in recent years, before the entrance was barred, several people wandered into the pit and vanished, swallowed up by the unknown.

There is no record of a successful escape.”

Pitt flipped his cigarette through an open window into the passing countryside. He looked at Giordino, then more slowly at Zeno. A smug grin spread across his face and widened into a broad smile.

Zeno stared at Pitt speculatively. Then he gave an uncomprehending shrug and motioned to Darius. Darius nodded and a few seconds later the Mercedes turned onto the main road. The wheels sped over the worn two lane pavement. The trees, lining the shoulders like forgotten sentinels, flashed past in a blur of dust and green leaves. The air was cooler now, and, twisting around in the seat, Pitt could see the setting sun’s rays strike the bald, tree-bare peak of Hypsaxion, the highest point on the island. He remembered reading somewhere that a Greek poet had described Thasos as “a wild ass’s back, covered with wild wood.”

Though the description was twenty-seven hundred years old, he thought, it was still true today.

And then, Darius back-shifted and the Mercedes was slowing down. It turned again, this time leaving the highway, its tires crunching on a rough, gravel-strewn country lane that led upward Into a wooded ravine.

Why Darius had left the main road before reaching Panaghia Pitt could not guess, any more than he could guess why Zeno acted the part of an armed undercover agent instead of a friendly tourist guide.

That old feeling of danger tapped Pitt on the shoulder again, and he felt a tinge of uncontrolled anxiety.

The Mercedes bumped heavily over a dip, rose steeply up a long ramp and entered a large barn like building through a doorway that had been designed to accommodate heavy trucks requiring high roof clearances. The weather-beaten walls of the wooden structure were covered with the remnants of gray-green paint, long since peeled and blistered from the fierce Aegean sun. An instant before the inside gloom enveloped the car, Pitt caught a glimpse of an overhead sign whose faded black letters were printed in German. Then, as Darius turned off the ignition, he heard the sound of rusty rollers creaking the door shut behind them.

“The Greek International Tourist Organization must work under a damn paltry budget if this is the best they can scrape up for an office,” Pitt said caustically, his eyes darting about the vast, deserted floor.

Zeno merely smiled.. It was a smile that left Pitt’s heart pounding against an enormous pressure, as if something was holding it, constricting Its action. An inner coldness crept over him, bringing with it the acknowledgment of failure, the acknowledgment that he had somehow played into von Till’s hands.

Pitt had been aware all along that G.N.T.O. guides do not carry guns or have the authority to make an armed arrest. He also knew that the guides drove around the island in boldly-advertised and gaily-colored Volkswagen buses, not black, unmarked Mercedes-Benz sedans. Time was getting expensive. He and Giordino must make a move, and make it soon.

Zeno opened the rear door and stepped back. He made a slight bow and gestured with the gun.

“Please remember,” he said, his tone rock hard. “No foolishness.”

Pitt climbed from the car and turned, offering his hand to Teri through the open front door. She looked up at him seductively for a moment and, squeezing his hand gently, slowly uncoiled from her sitting position.

Then quickly, before Pitt could react, she threw her arms around his neck and pulled his head down to her level. Both pairs of eyes were open, Pitt’s mostly from surprise, as she brazenly covered his sweating face with kisses.

It never fails, Pitt thought in detached fascination, no matter how cool or sophisticated they act toward the world, show a woman danger and adventure and they’ll always turn on. It’s really a pity, she’s ready but it’s the wrong time and the wrong place. He forced her back.

“Later,” he murmured, “when our audience has gone home.”

“A most stimulating little scene,” said Zeno impatiently. “Come along, Inspector Zacynthus rapidly loses all compassion when he is kept waiting.”

Zeno dropped about five paces behind the group, holding the automatic at hip level Darius then escorted them across the football field length of the building, up a rickety flight of wooden stairs that led to a hallway, lined on both sides by several doors. Darius paused at the second door on the Left and pushed it open, motioning Pitt and Giordino inside. Teri started to follow but was suddenly halted by a huge barrel of an arm.

“Not you,” Darius grunted.

Pitt whirled around, anger clouding his face. “She stays with us,” he said coldly.

“No need to play rescuing hero,” Zeno said lightly, reinforced with an expression of seriousness. “I promise you, no harm will come to her.”

Pitt studied Zeno’s face carefully, finding no sign of treachery. For some strange reason Pitt experienced a marked degree of trust in his captor.

“I’ll take you at your word,” he growled.

“Don’t worry, Dirk,” Teri threw an icy look at Zeno. “As soon as this stupid inspector, whoever he is, finds out who I am, we’ll all be free of these wretched people.”

Zeno ignored her and nodded at Darius. “Guard our friends here, guard them closely. I suspect they’re very cunning.”

“I'll be alert,” Darius promised confidently. He waited until Zeno and Teri, padding the dusty floor in her bare feet, were gone. Then he closed the door and leaned lazily against it, arms folded across his massive chest.

“Personally speaking,” Giordino muttered, for the first time since the ride from the rains, “I prefer the accommodations at the Hotel San Quentin.” His gaze focused on Darius. “At least the roaches weren’t king size.”

Pitt grinned at Giordino’s insulting comment to Darius and scanned the room, taking in every detail of Its construction. It was small, no larger than nine by ten feet. The walls consisted of warped boards nailed crudely to warped support posts that stood facing inward at irregular intervals, in rotted and barren starkness. The room was void of any furniture and windowless; the only available light came through large horizontal cracks in the walls and a jagged hole in the roof.

“If I was to guess,” said Pitt. “I’d say this place was a deserted warehouse.”

“You’re close,” Darius volunteered. “The Germans used this building for an ordnance depot when they occupied the island in forty-two.”

Pitt pulled out a cigarette and casually lit it. To offer Darius a cigarette would have immediately put the brute on his guard. Instead, Pitt took a step backward and began tossing the lighter in the air, each time tossing it a little higher till he noticed Darius following it out of the corner of one eye. Once, twice, four times the lighter sailed into the air. On the fifth toss it fell through Pitt’s fingers and clattered on the floor. He shrugged stupidly and bent down, picking it up.

Pitt charged Darius harder than he had ever charged any halfback, any quarterback, in his Air Force academy days. Lunging forward from a football crouch, his feet dug firmly into the coarse grained wood of the floor, he thrust his head and shoulders like a battering ram, backed with every driving ounce of power his muscular legs and one hundred and ninety pounds could muster. At the instant before impact, he drove upward, catching Darius in the unprotected stomach just above the beltline. It was like running at full speed into a brick wall, and Pitt gasped at the shock: it felt as if his neck was broken.

In football terminology it was called a running block, a vicious, maiming block, and it would have put most unprepared men in a hospital bed: all others it would have left on the ground in momentary stunned helplessness — all others, that is, except Darius. The giant merely grunted, doubled over slightly from the force of the blow, and grabbed Pitt by the biceps, lifting him off the floor.

Pitt went numb. The shock and the pain that erupted from his arms and neck gave way to utter surprise that any man could not only take such a charge and remain standing but shake it off like a love tap.

Darius pushed him against the wall, slowly bending Pitt’s body, like a vertical pretzel, around an upright support post. The pain really began to come now. Pitt clenched his teeth and stared into Darius’s expressionless face, only a few inches away. His spine felt as if it would snap at any second. His vision began to fade.

Darius just stood there, eyes gleaming, and increased the pressure.

Suddenly the pressure stopped and Pitt dimly perceived Darius staring back, his lips working, fighting for breath. Mutely Darius mouthed an agonized groan and sank to his knees, weaving silently from side to side.

Giordino, blocked by Pitt’s frontal assault, was forced to stand by helplessly till Darius swung sideways, pinning Pitt to the wall. Then, without hesitation, he hurled himself across the room, his legs jackknifing open, his feet imbedded in Darius’ kidneys. He braced himself, half expecting the giant’s body to absorb most of the force from the violent blow. It didn’t work out that way. It was if a handball had struck a backstop:

Giordino rebounded off Darius with a tooth loosening jolt and crashed jarringly to the floor, badly stunned. For a moment he lay quite still, then dazedly he began struggling to his hands and knees, shaking his bead back and forth to clear the waves of blackness that threatened to engulf his conscious mind.

It was too late. Darius was the first to recover, triumph etched in every scar of his ugly face. He lunged at Giordino, the great mass of his weight crushing the smaller man beneath him. There was an evil grin on Darius’ face now, a sadistic sign of the violence yet to come. Iron hands clasped together, fingers interlocking, around Giordino’s head and squeezed — squeezed with the unrelenting pressure of a closing vise.

For what seemed like unending seconds Giordino lay inert, fighting off the shooting pain that burst in his skull from the crushing palms. Then he stirred, slowly raised his hands and grabbed Darius around the thumbs and pulled downward. For his size Giordino was strong as an ox, but he was no match for the man who towered above him. Darius, seemingly oblivious to the bone twisting pull, hunched his shoulders and exerted an even greater effort.

Pitt was still on his feet, but just barely. His back was a spreading sea of pain that flowed to every part of his body. Numbly he stared at the murderous scene on the floor. Move you stupid bastard, he screamed to himself, move fast. He clutched the wall with both hands, preparing to launch himself at Darius. Something gave behind him, and he swung around, new hope ablaze in his eyes.

A wall plank had torn loose from the support post and was dangling at a crazy angle, one end still held by rusty nails. Frantically he jerked at it, first one way then the other, until metal fatigue broke the nails and the board, about four feet long and an inch in thickness, tore free from the post. God, if only it wasn’t too late.

Pitt raised the board above his head and, drawing on the last of his ebbing strength, brought it down on the back of Darius’ neck.

Pitt would never again forget the shock of hopelessness and despair that flooded through his mind at that moment as the rotted plank shattered with all the harmless force of a piece of peanut brittle around the giant’s shoulders. Without turning, Darius let loose of Giordino’s temples, giving his victim a brief respite, and struck Pitt with a sweeping backhand blow that caught him in the stomach and sent him reeling across the room to fall limply against the doorway and melt slowly down to the floor.

Somehow, clutching the door knob, Pitt pulled himself to his feet and stood there swaying drunkenly, conscious of nothing, not even the pain, the blood that began to seep through the bandages onto his shirt, and Giordino’s face, now turning blue under the tremendous hands. One more try, he told himself, knowing it would be his last. Pitt’s mind slowed down. The forgotten words of a marine drill sergeant, he once met in a Honolulu. bar, returned and pounded into his brain. “The biggest, toughest, meanest sonovabitch in the world will always go down, and go down fast, from a good swift kick in the balls.”

Weakly, he staggered behind the crouching Darius, who was too intent on killing Giordino to notice him.

Pitt aimed and kicked Darius between the legs. His toe collided with bone and something that was rubbery and soft. Darius released Giordini's head and threw his monstrous hands upward, fingers clawing at the air. Then he rolled over on his side, twisting about the floor in silent agony.

“Welcome to the land of the walking dead,” Pitt said, lifting Giordino to a sitting position.

“Did we win?” Giordino asked in a whisper.

“Just barely. How’s your head?”

“I won’t know till I look for it.”

“Don’t worry,” Pitt grinned. “It’s still attached to your neck.”

Giordino gently probed his hairline between his fingers. “Christ, my skull feels like it has more cracks than a broken windshield.”

Pitt cast a wary look at Darius. The giant, ashen faced and breathing heavily, ‘was stretched out full length on the dusty floor, both hands clutched over his crotch.

“The party’s over,” Pitt said, helping Giordino to his feet. “Let’s disappear before Frankenstein recovers.”

Suddenly, the ominous click, the hollow thud of the door flung open against its stop, froze Pitt and Giordino in their tracks. They had no warning, not even a moment to brace themselves, nothing except the knowledge that time had run out and they could fight no more.

Then a tall, thin man with large sad eyes sauntered easily into the room, one hand shoved casually into the pants pocket of an expensive ivy-league suit.

He stared at Pitt pensively for a long moment over the bowl of a long-stemmed pipe, gripped tenaciously between uncommonly even teeth. Like an account executive who just stepped out of an advertising agency, he looked suave, neat and citified. His free hand, in a practiced gesture, reached up and removed the pipe.

“Sorry to invade your privacy, gentlemen. I’m Inspector Zacynthus.”