Clive Cussler - The Mediterranean Caper

A quarter of a mile down the steep slope the pathway turned into a road — no road, really, but two parallel tire-worn indentations in the ground cover. The tracks meandered downward in a tortuous series of hairpin curves. Pitt stumbled along at half trot, his heart pounding viciously under the taxing strain. He was hurt, not badly, but he had lost much blood. Any doctor who might have encountered him would have immediately confined his torn body to a hospital bed.

Over and over, since his escape from the labyrinth, pictures of the defenseless scientists and crew of the First Attempt being strafed by the Albatros flashed through Pitt’s mind. He could see in perfect detail the bullets tearing into flesh and bone, leaving heavy red blotches on the white paint of the oceanographic research ship. The carnage would all be over before the new interceptor jets at Brady Field could scramble, providing of course the replacement aircraft had arrived from the North Africa depot before dawn. These visions and others drove Pitt on to efforts beyond his normal capacity.

He halted abruptly. Something moved in the shadows ahead. He left the vague trail and circled wanly around a thick growth of chestnut trees, creeping closer to the unexpected obstacle. Then he raised up and peered over a fallen, decaying tree-trunk. Even in the dim light there was no mistaking the shape of a well-fed donkey that was tethered to a solitary boulder. The unattended little animal cocked one ear at Pitt’s approach and brayed softly, almost pathetically.

“You’re hardly the answer to a jockey’s prayer,” said Pitt grinning. “But beggars can’t be choosy.” He untied the lead rope from the rock and quickly made a crude halter. With no little amount of patience he managed to push it over the donkey’s nose. Then he mounted.

“Okay, mule, giddy up.”

The little beast did not move.

Pitt pounded on the stout flanks. Still no government. He kicked, bounced and prodded. Nothing, not even a bray. The long ears laid flat and their obstinate owner refused to budge.

Pitt did not know any Greek words, only a few names. That must be it, he thought. This dumb jackass was probably named after a Greek god or hero.

“Forward Zeus… Appollo… Poseidon.

Hercules. How about Atlas?” It seemed as though the donkey had turned to stone. Suddenly an idea occurred to Pitt. He leaned over and inspected his mount’s underbelly. It was void of exterior plumbing.

“My deepest apologies you gorgeous, ravishing creature,” Pitt purred in the pointed ears. “Come my lovely Aphrodite, let us be off.”

The donkey twitched and Pitt knew he was getting warm.

“Atlanta?”

Nothing more happened.

“Athena?”

The ears shot up and the donkey turned, looking up at Pitt out of a big confused eyes.

“Come on, Athena, mush!”

Athena, much to Pitt’s joy and relief, pawed at the ground a couple of times and then obediently began to amble down the road.

The early morning turned cool, and dew was beginning to dampen the forest trimmed meadows when at last Pitt reached the outskirts of Liminas. Liminas was an average Greek coastal village, a unique blend of modern construction built on the site of an ancient city, whose ruins rise hero and there among the more recent tile-roofed houses. On the shoreline, jutting into the town with a jagged half-moon curve, a harbor full of flat-beamed fishing boats offered a picturesque travel folder scene with the smells of salt air, fish and diesel oil thrown in. The wooden hulled boats lay dead along the beach like a pack of beached whales, their masts carefully stowed along the gunnels and their anchor ropes stretched loosely to seaward. In rows, behind the white sand beach, high vertical poles stood, supporting long fences of stinking brown fish nets. And, behind those again was the main street of the village, whose shuttered little doors and windows offered no sign of life to the bedraggled Pitt and his plodding four-legged transportation. The white plastered houses with their tiny balconies made a restful real-life painting in the moonlight, a painting that had little bearing on the events which had brought Pitt to the village.

At a narrow intersection Pitt slid off the donkey and tied it to a mailbox. Then he took an American ten dollar bill from his wallet and wrapped it into the halter.

“Thanks for the lift, Athena, and keep the change.”

He patted the animal affectionately on the soft rounded nose and, hitching up his disreputable looking pants, walked unsteadily down the street toward the beach.

Pitt looked for the tell-tale lines of a telephone, but could see none. There were no cars or other vehicles parked along the streets either, only a bicycle, but he was too physically drained to consider pedaling the seven miles back to Brady Field. A lot of good it would do, he thought, even if he could find a phone or someone who owned a car, he couldn’t speak Greek.

The glowing arms and numbers on the Omega said 3:59. Another hot dawn would hit the island in forty-one minutes. Forty-one minutes to warn Gunn and the men on the First Attempt. Pitt looked across the sea, following the inward curve of the Island. If it was seven miles to Brady Field by land, then it was only four miles in a direct line across the water to the ship. There was no time left to loiter, he would simply have to steal a boat. Why not? he reasoned. If he could kidnap a donkey he could pirate a boat.

Within a few minutes he found a well-used dory with a high flaring Carvel hull and a rust-coated one cylinder gasoline engine. Fumbling in the gloom his fingers found the throttle linkage and the ignition switch.:

The flywheel was massive and it was all Pitt could do to crank it over. Every aching muscle strained at each silent revolution. Sweat broke from his forehead and dripped on the engine. His head throbbed and blurriness crept into his vision. Time after time he pulled the crank handle rubbing the flesh from his hands. It seemed hopeless; the engine would not fire.

If the need for speed had been vital before; it was desperate now. Precious minutes were running down the drain as he attempted to get the balky engine into action. Pitt reached deep, drawing from the last untapped reservoir of his strength. Clenching his teeth he gave a mighty pull the engine popped briefly and died. He pulled the crank again and slumped exhausted into the oily bilge water. The engine coughed once, then twice, wheezed, coughed again, caught and settled down to a popping thump as the solitary piston began to ram up and down inside its ring-worn sleeve. Too tired to rise, Pitt leaned over and cut the line with the faithful paring.

knife and kicked the gear lever in reverse. The shabby little boat, its paint peeling down the hull in scaly sheets, chugged backward into the harbor, circled in a hundred and eighty degree arc past the old Roman breakwater and headed out to sea.

Pitt jammed the throttle full against its stop as the dory reeled through the low swells, making perhaps a top speed of seven knots. He hauled himself erect in the stern seat, clutching the tiller tightly between his hands, bleeding from the harsh rasping caused by the rusty crank handle.

A half hour passed, an interminable lapse of time under a cloudless sky and a brightening east horizon, and still the boat chugged steadily around the island. The progress seemed agonizingly slow to Pitt. But every foot gained was a foot closer to the First Attempt. He caught himself dozing off from time to time, head dropping on his chest, then reawakening with a start. He urged his hazy mind on, driving it with a frenzy he didn’t know he possessed.

Then his dulled eyes saw it, a low, gray shape, resting beyond the next small point of land, just over a mile away. He recognized the two white, thirty-two point lights on bow and stern that signified a ship at anchor. The probing rays of the sun were rapidly stretching into the sky, clearly silhouetting the First Attempt against the eastern horizon; first the superstructure, then the crane and radar mast, then the indiscriminate piles of scientific equipment scattered around the deck.