Ник Картер - The Liquidator

One of his helpers brought Scylla in from her mooring, and after he checked me out on the rigging and equipment, the sloop was provisioned and we put our gear below. Xefrates ran an efficient operation, and it was well before noon that we slipped away from the dock. Running under power from the thudding inboard engine, I picked my way through the clusters of boats moored in the cove, getting the feel of the sluggish helm. It wasn’t until we were well beyond the buoy marking the cove’s entrance that I gave the wheel to Christina and went forward.

The jib went up first; it was self-setting, which made things a lot easier for single-handed sailing. Christina had told me she’d done a little sailing, but only on small boats, so except in emergencies I expected to all the serious work myself. When the jib started to fill, I turned back and told the girl to bring the sloop back up into the wind. She nodded, turned the wheel and held it, grimacing fiercely, until the bow swung around and the jib started flapping When I was satisfied she had us going more or less steadily in the right direction, I came back and hauled up the heavy mainsail. It wasn’t easy by myself, even with a winch, but I finally got the heavy canvas snugged at the top of the mast and cleated the halyard.

Scylla was rocking in moderately heavy swells, and I had to do a little dance as I maneuvered along the narrow walk-around past the cabin top When I got back to the roomy cockpit, Christina was having trouble handling the boat; I dropped-down beside her and switched off the engine. The silence was beautiful.

“It is a big boat,” she remarked quietly, gazing up at the big main as the wind began to fill it.

“Big enough,” I agreed, taking the wheel from her.

The day was bright and brisk, the boat traffic moderate and pretty well scattered. Even this close to shore there was the feeling of limitless depths under our hull, the water a dark blue churned into mild foam as we ghosted through the swells. Christina raised her arms to push back her thick, glossy hair; in the sunlight I could see the coppery highlights in it. She took a deep breath, savoring the wind and the salt air, with her eyes closed; when she opened them again she was staring straight into mine.

“Well,” she said.

“Yes.”

She looked behind us; the cove entrance was already just another indistinguishable part of the coatline. “We are alone at last.” She smiled. “I mean truly alone.”

“Uh-huh.” I glanced toward the open companionway leading down into the main cabin and looked cautioningly at her. “Can you handle her for a little while? I want to check out some things below.”

Christina nodded and took the helm again. The only land in sight, other than the mainland behind us, was Zakinthos, and the island was miles off to starboard; as long as she held our general course there was no way she could get us into any kind of boat trouble. I went below to look for another kind of trouble.

Maybe I was being overcautious, but I went over the entire interior of the boat in a search for possible bugs. It didn’t, seem likely that anyone could have planted any listening devices on Scylla, but there was no sense in taking any chances. It was surprisingly roomy below, with a main cabin I could almost stand upright in. The galley was compact and obviously newer than the boat, with a formica top and tiny stainless steel sink. There was an electric refrigerator, which I’d told Xefrates I had no intention of using; it meant running the engines to keep the batteries charged, and that wasn’t what I went sailing for. Anyway, the old, original icebox still remained, and there was a fifty-pound block in it to keep the beer cold.

Also in the main cabin were a set of upper and lower bunks on the port side, and on the other a table with built-in upholstered seats on either side; the table portion could be lowered to turn the whole thing into a double bed.

Up forward, through a short, narrow passage flanked by the head and a hanging locker for clothes, was the other cabin, which slept two on slightly curving bunks. To get in I had to almost crawl, since the headroom was drastically reduced under the forward deck. A hatch with a plexiglas cover provided the only light, and I propped it open slightly to get some air in the dank space. I made a mental note to close it if the weather started to get rough; even though we had an automatic bilge pump, there was no sense in taking on any water if we didn’t have to.

It took me nearly an hour to satisfy myself that Scylla was clean. Silly, I told myself, to be so damned cautious, but one of the first things I learned in the spy business was never to take anything for granted. Besides, there were those two guys who had tried to charter Scylla the day before, not to mention the “accident” that damaged the other boat. No, it was worth the hour. I opened a couple of beers and brought them back up to the cockpit.

“I was afraid you had gone to sleep,” Christina said.

“Just making sure. Now we can talk.” I sat well away from her, out of touching distance; it was time to get down to business.

“No... bugs?” she asked lightly.

“No,” I said flatly.

“Do you want to take the wheel?”

I looked off to starboard. We were getting closer to the point at the southernmost end of Zakinthos, which meant in a short while we’d have to change course and head northwest. I checked the wind; we were on a broad reach, the wind coming from almost due north; the change in course shouldn’t mean anything more than changing the set of the mainsail. The boat plowed steadily ahead, obviously happier under sail than power.

“You keep it,” I said. “You’re doing fine.”

“And now we can talk?”

“If you want to.”

She looked away, her eyes fixed on the compass mounted just ahead of the wheel.

“Well?” I asked.

“What is to talk?”

“Why were you afraid of that car last night?” I started in bluntly.

“The car?” She was stalling.

“Outside my hotel. Is there any reason you should be followed?”

Her eyes were wide when she looked at me. “But of course! Don’t you know?”

I sighed, touched her bare arm lightly. “Look, Christina, we’d better get some things straight. You’re on this trip because your brother insisted on it. But so far I don’t know how much contact you’ve had with him, or how it was made. I’ll be, honest; I don’t like it. Alex is an old friend and I wish he hadn’t brought you into this, but apparently he couldn’t be talked out of it. What I need to know first is how much you’ve been involved in this business.”

She licked her lips, glanced again at the compass, then aloft to check the set of the mainsail. Finally she shrugged. “Okay. The first thing I know about Alex... coming back... is that one of your people comes to me when I am leaving the boutique. He gives me a message that Alex will be in contact.” She turned to me. “You must know, McKee, that I hardly know my brother. I was only seven when he... went over to the other side. And before that he was always away, so I saw very little of him, ever. But then, our mother is dead now, and our father died many years ago, when I was a baby. So I suppose he... he felt that since I was the only member of the family left... he could trust me?” She finished on a questioning note, which wasn’t very reassuring to me.

I didn’t make an issue of it. “What contact have you had with him since?”

“Two, three times, I have had messages; I do not know how he got them to me. I simply found them slipped under my door when I got home from classes or work.”

“What did they say?”

“I do not have them with me. He advised me to burn them.”