The Mediterranean Caper (Dirk Pitt 2)

Giordino laid the hinge pins lightly on the ground and let Pitt ease the door open. It swung noiselessly, only an inch, at his touch. Pitt peeked through the widening crack, taking a swift look around, but there was no one in sight, no sound, except their own breathing.

Pitt pulled the door aside and dashed across the balcony, blinking in the harsh sunlight, and hurried up the stairway. Giordino, he knew, was right on his heels. The doorway to the study was open, the drapes blowing inward in billowing folds from an offshore westerly breeze. He flattened against the wall, listening for voices. Then seconds passed, ticking off to half a minute. The study was quiet. Nobody home, he thought, or if they are they’re an awfully dead group, Pitt took a deep breath, turned quickly, and stepped inside the room.

The study seemed quite empty. It was exactly as Pitt remembered it; the columns, classic furniture, the bar. His eyes sped around the room, stopping at the shelf containing the model submarine. He walked over and closely examined the workmanship on the miniature craft. The carved black mahogany that made up the hull and conning tower gleamed with a satin-like: sheen. Every detail from the rivets to a tiny embroidered Imperial German battle flag looked fantastically real, so much so that at any second Pitt half expected to see a diminutive crew leap out of a hatch and man the deck gun. The neatly painted numbers on the side of the conning tower identified it as the U-19, a close sister of the U-boat that torpedoed the Lusitania.

Pitt whirled sharply from the model as Giordino’s fingers dug deeply in his arm, as Giordino’s head leaned closely to his own.

“I thought I heard something,” the voice was a mere breath.

“Where?” Pitt asked in a whisper.

“I’m not sure, I couldn’t get a good fix on it.”

Giordino cocked his head, listening. Then he shrugged.

“Just imagining things I guess.”

Pitt turned back to the model submarine. “Do you recall the number of the World War I sub that was sunk near here?”

Giordino hesitated. “Yeah.. . It was the U-19.

Why ask now?”

“I’ll explain later. Come on, Al, let’s get the hell out of here.”

‘We just got here,” Giordino complained, raising his voice to a murmur.

Pitt tapped the model. “We’ve found what we came for. . . “

He froze into sudden immobility, listening, his hand motioning a silence signal to Giordino.

“We’ve got company,” he said under his breath.

“Split up and circle around the far end of the room to that second column. I’ll go along the windows.”

Giordino nodded. He hadn’t even raised an eyebrow.

A minute later their stealthy paths met, joining behind a long high backed sofa. Both men approached it cautiously and peered over the backrest.

Without moving, without uttering a word, Pitt stood rooted to the carpet. He stood there, it seemed to Giordino, for an eternity, his mind absorbing the shock of seeing Teri peacefully asleep on the sofa. But it was no eternity, it was probably only five seconds before Pitt acted.

Teri lay curled in a ball, her head resting on a huge humped armrest, her black hair falling in piles, nearly touching the floor. She wore a long red negligee that fluffed about her arms and covered her body from neck to toe, teasingly displaying the dark triangle below her belly and the two pink discs of her breasts through its diaphanous material Pitt whipped out his handkerchief and had it firmly stuffed in her mouth before she fully woke. Then snatching the hem of her negligee he yanked it above her head and knotted it around the arms, making her completely helpless. Teri began to struggle back to full consciousness—it was too late. Before she could fully grasp what ‘was happening, she was roughly thrown over Giordino’s shoulder and carted off into the sunlight

“You’ve got to be crazy,” Giordino mumbled irritably when they reached the stairway. “All this hassle to gawk at a toy and steal a

broad.”

“Shut up and run,” Pitt said without turning. He kicked the passage door aside and let Giordino enter first with his kicking burden. Then Pitt pushed the door back into place, aligning the hinge shafts before inserting the pins.

“Why bother replacing the door?” Giordino asked impatiently.

“We got this far without detection,” Pitt replied, grabbing the flight bag. “I want to keep von Till in the dark as long as possible. I’m betting he saw the obvious evidence of my wounds after the dog’s attack, and thinks I wandered off into this honeycombed maze and bled to death.”

Quickly, Pitt turned and ran through the corridor, holding the light low so Giordino, grunting under his struggling burden, could see where he was stepping. The thick coat of blackness, pierced by the small island of incandescence, opened briefly at their approach and then closed, returning the labyrinth back to its eternal night. One foot before the other, the endless routine repeated over and over. Their feet pounded across the hard floor, echoing through the darkness with a peculiar hollow sound.

The Dive Brite and flight bag clutched tightly in his hands, only dimly aware of the curious tingling in the pit of his stomach, Pitt rushed forward. Rapidly, with no attempt at stealthy caution, no expectancy of trouble, but with that strange inner sensation, half-belief of a man who has accomplished something he had thought was impossible. I’m on the path of von Till’s secret and I’ve got his niece, Pitt said to himself again and again. But somehow a lingering fear prodded his mind.

Five minutes later they reached the stairway. Pitt stepped aside, holding the light on the steps, letting Giordino climb first. Then he turned, beaming the light back in the passage, taking a last look, and his face became grim. He wondered how few men and women too, had suffered but escaped from that honeycombed hell. One thing, he thought, no one will ever know fully the history of the labyrinth. Only the ghosts lingered, the bodies had long since turned to dust. Then his mouth twisted and he looked away. Without another backward glance, be mounted the steps for the last time, vastly relieved at seeing sunlight again at the top landing. He was half-way through the rusting bars, vaguely aware that Giordino was standing oddly quiet with Teri still slung over a shoulder, when he heard a loud contemptuous laugh roar beside the archway.