The Mediterranean Caper (Dirk Pitt 2)

“If my little caper comes off as planned this afternoon, you’ll be out of my hair and in the hands of the gendarmerie by suppertime.”

Suddenly Teri stared at him speculatively. “Is that why you disappeared last night?”

Pitt was ever amazed at the way her huge brown eyes—her devastatingly beautiful eyes—could run through so many emotions in one blink. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I sneaked on board one of your uncle’s ships just before dawn. It was a most instructive excursion. You’ll never guess what I found.”

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.

16

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.