The Mediterranean Caper (Dirk Pitt 2)

Pitt grasped his scraped crotch and sat up, ignoring the stabbing pain and unable to believe his success. He was out, but was he in the clear? His eyes, now acutely used to the dark, darted around the immediate area.

The vaulted bars of the labyrinth faced onto the stage entrance of a great amphitheatre. The ponderous structure reflected a vaguely unearthly glow from the

white light of the stars and the moon, whose imperfect circle peeped over a shadowed mountain summit. The architecture was Grecian but the massiveness of the construction signified Roman hands. The edge of the round stage was separated from the theatre’s upper rim by almost forty rows of steeply banked seats. Except for the invisible flight of nocturnal insects,, the entire amphitheatre was deserted.

Pitt slipped into the remains of his uniform. Knotting the damp sticky cloth of his shirt, he stiffly wrapped his chest with a crude bandage.

Just to be able to walk and breathe in the warm evening air gave him a new surge of strength. He had gambled back there in the labyrinth and without Theseus’ string to guide him had beat the immense odds and won. Laughter rang from his lips and traveled in loud echoes to the last row of the amphitheatre and back. The pain and the exhaustion was forgotten as he visualized von Till’s face at their next meeting.

“How would you like a ticket to see that?” Pitt shouted at his nonattendant gallery. He waited, caught in the mood of the eerie setting. There was no reply, no applause, only the silence of the warm Thasos night. For a moment he thought he saw a ghostly Roman audience cheering him on, but the toga clad figures faded

mutely away into the white marble, leaving Pitt with no answer to his lonely invitation.

He looked up at the maze of stars in the diamond clear air to get his bearings. Polaris blinked its friendly light in return and advertised approximate north. Pitt’s eyes scanned a full three hundred and sixty degree circle of sky. Something was wrong. Taurus and the Pleiades should have been overhead. Instead, they were far to the east.

“Goddamn,” Pitt cursed aloud, looking at his watch. It was 3:22. Only an hour and eighteen minutes. before dawn. Somehow he had lost nearly five hours.

What happened, he asked himself, where was the time lost? Then he realized that he must have passed out after colliding with the stairway.

There was no time to lose. He hurriedly walked across the stone paved stage and presently discovered, in the little available light, a small path leading down the mountainside. He took it and set out on a race to beat the sun.

8

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!”