Clive Cussler - The Mediterranean Caper

He watched her closely, mentally predicting what the next blink would bring.

“I couldn’t imagine,” she said dully. “The only ships I’ve ever been on were ferrys.”

He walked over and sat down in the bunk. The soft mattress felt good. He leaned back and crossed his arms behind his head. Then he yawned long and slowly.

“I beg your pardon. That was rude of me.”

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“You were going to tell me what you found on Uncle Bruno’s ship.”

Pitt shook his head and grinned. “Female curiosity, once piqued it’s insatiable. Since you insist, I found a map to an underwater cave.”

“A cave?”

“Of course. Where else do you think your good uncle conducts his slimey business from?”

“Why are you telling me these stories?’ The hurt look was back. “None of them can be true.”

“Oh good God, get some sense in your head. I'm not telling you anything new. Von Till may have hoodwinked INTERPOL, the gendarmerie and the Bureau of Narcotics, but he didn’t fool yours truly.”

“You’re talking nonsense,” she said slowly.

“Am I?” he asked thoughtfully. “At precisely 4:30 this morning your uncle’s ship, the Queen Artemisia, anchored off the coast below the villa. The ship was loaded to the gills with heroin. Surely you must know about the heroin. Everyone else does. It has to be the worst kept secret of the year. I’ve got to hand it to your uncle; he’s a master of the old magician’s routine; dazzle the audience with one hand while you perform the trick with the other. His little act is about to end, however. I have a little trick of my own that will bring down the curtain.”

She was silent for a moment. “What are you going to do?”

“What any red-blooded All American boy would do. I’m going to take Giordino and a couple of other men and dive along the shore until I find the cave. It most likely lies at the base of the cliffs directly under the villa. once we discover the entrance we will enter, seize any equipment and evidence, make a citizen’s arrest of your uncle, and then call the, gendarmerie.”

“You’re insane,” she said again, only with much more feeling this time. “The whole caper, or whatever you call it, is idiotic. You can’t go through with it. Please, please believe me. It won’t work.”

“It’s no use begging. You can kiss your uncle and his rotten money goodbye. We hit the water at 1:00.”

Pitt yawned again. “Now if you will kindly excuse me, I’d like to get a little shuteye.”

The tears were back. She shook her head slowly from side to side. “It’s idiotic,” she whispered over and over, turned and walked into the head, slamming the door behind her.

Pitt lay there, staring at the overhead. She was right, of course, he thought. It did sound like an idiotic caper. But then, what else could she think, she only knew the half of it.

The restless sea curled to a tall crest and beckoned like the ominous finger of doom before it rammed into the unyielding gray cliffs. The air was warm and clear and stirred by a faint breath from the southwest. A ghost, or so the First Attempt seemed — a white steel ghost— glided at slow speed closer and closer to the boiling caldron, until it looked like disaster was inevitable. At the last instant, no sooner, Gunn spun the helm to starboard, sending the First Attempt on a parallel course to the rocky cliff base.

He kept glancing warily from the needle, traveling across the fathometer’s graph paper, to the surfline, a scant fifty yards away, and back again.

“How’s that for curb service?” he asked without turning. The voice was soft and controlled; he was as calm as a fisherman in a rowboat on a placid Minnesota lake.

“Your old seamanship instructor at Annapolis Would be proud of you,” Pitt replied. Unlike Gunn, he Was staring straight ahead.

“It’s not half as grim as it looks,” Gunn said, gesturing at the fathometer. “The bottom is a good ten fathoms below our keel!”

“Sixty feet in less than a hundred yards; that’s quite a drop-off.”

Gunn lifted one hand from the helm and took off his gold braided Navy cap, swiping a few beads of sweat that hung from his hairline.

“It’s not an uncommon occurrence in an area that’s free of outer reefs.”

“It’s a good sign,” Pitt said thoughtfully.

“How so?”

“Plenty of room for a sub to maneuver without surface detection.”

“At night maybe,” Gunn said. “Too obvious during the day. The water visibility is almost a hundred feet.

Anyone standing on the bluffs within a mile in either direction could easily look down and spot a three hundred foot hull that was crawling over the bottom.”

“It shouldn't be too difficult to spot a diver either,” Pitt turned and gazed up at the villa, nestled like a fortress on the craggy side of the mountain.

“You’re mad to take a chance like this,” Gunn said slowly. “Von Till can see any movement you make.

I’ll bet a dime to a donut that He’s had a pair of binoculars trained on us every second since we upped anchor.”

“I’m betting on it too,” Pitt murmured. He lost; himself for a moment in the beauty of the scene. The azure arms of the Aegean encircled the ancient island seascape in a dazzling reflection of sun and water.

Only the voice of the crashing surf answered the steady hum of the ship’s engines, punctuated occasionally by the shriek of a solitary gull. Above the rocky cliffs, a herd of cattle grazed on a sloping green pasture, like tiny immovable shapes in a Rembrandt landscape. And below, in sheltered coves among the lesser cliffs, piles of sun-bleached driftwood lay dead and still on tiny shell carpeted beaches.

Pitt nearly lingered too long. He tugged his mind back to the job at hand. That mysterious area of calm water was coming up now, only three quarters of a mile away off the port bow. He laid a hand on Gunn’s shoulder and pointed.

“The flat pond.”

Gunn nodded. “OK, got it. At our present speed we should be alongside in ten minutes. Is your team ready?”

“All set and primed,” Pitt answered briefly. “They know what to expect. I’ve got them stationed along the starboard cabin deck; out of sight to any prying eyes from the villa.”

Gunn replaced his cap. “Be sure you order them to leap plenty clear of the hull. Getting sucked into a prop can be a very messy business.”

“I doubt that they have to be ordered,” Pitt said quietly. “They’re all good men. You told me so yourself.”

“Damn right,” Gunn snorted. He turned to Pitt. “I’m going to keep the ship close-in to the shoreline for another three miles. We might fool von Till into thinking we’re on a routine sounding course to chart the shallows. It might work, I don’t know. For your sake I hope he’s taken in.”

“Well soon find out.” Pitt checked his watch against the ship’s chronometer. “What time do you make your rendezvous?”

"I'll run a series of doglegs on the return course and arrive back here at 1410. That gives you exactly fifty minutes to find the sub and get out.” Gunn dug a cigar out of a breast pocket and lit it “You and my men be waiting for the ship, you hear me?”

Pitt didn’t answer immediately. A broad smile broke across his lips, and his vivid green eyes seemed to be laughing.

Gunn looked puzzled. “What did I say that’s so funny?”

“For a moment you reminded me of my mother. She always used to say that when my ship came in I’d probably be waiting at the bus depot”

Gunn ruefully shook his head. “If you don’t come back at least I’ll know where to look. Well, let’s get on with it. You had better climb into your diving gear.”