Beyond the Poseidon Adventure Page 6

  Anton thrust a thick finger into his ear, pulled it out, and reviewed the result with some pleasure. “But they’re all here before us,” he repeated.

  There was a discernible sigh in the captain’s voice as he resumed, “Quite so, Anton, they are here before us. Let them be first. Let them go about their business. Then we shall move in, which is a great deal better than having them interrupt us at our business. Since the freighter is apparently an honest ship, we must point out that we are much better equipped for such a task, that authority is vested in us from Athens, and that life might become difficult for them if they were to get in our way. The three men must leave on the freighter since they cannot have any conceivable right to be on board. And the petty pilferers from the Naiad? We should not be doing our duty, Anton, if we did not dispose of them permanently.”

  Anton’s broken teeth emerged in a smile that spread across his flat, battered face. Disposal was his territory. “Kill them, captain?”

  “Certainly, Anton. We owe it to the world. And the world will thank us for making the seas safe for honest sailors.”

  His voice took on a more purposeful tone. “Take these instructions. There is a diving job to be done. The Naiad has six or seven scuba divers down and they will almost certainly be heading for the main dining room to rob the dead. Tell Hugo to take nine divers, with spear guns and knives, and lose them. It should not pose any problems. They are children in these matters. I will deal with the freighter and those three men.”

  Captain Bela hummed a jaunty tune and strolled back onto the bridge as Anton lurched down the companionway to deliver his instructions. Ilich Bela was a happy man. It was a tricky job, but he had the crew and the vessel to accomplish it, and if there was an opportunity to exercise his own ingenuity and capacity for violence, then so much the better. Captain Bela enjoyed a challenge. His crew of Iron Curtain thugs was unquestionably well qualified in all matters of brute force, up to and including murder. His vessel, its decks packed with cranes and hoists and booms, was admirably suited to the work of quickly shifting and carrying unspecified cargo. There were few illegal seafaring missions that the Komarevo had not undertaken in the last three years, and Captain Bela had the pleasing thought that those operations had almost been rehearsals for this, the one major strike that would assure his future. He and his boat had delivered guns to people of every political and criminal persuasion. They had transported passengers without passports from one country to another without benefit of immigration authorities. They had recovered sunken ships and lost cargo that were registered with no insurance company. They had staged funerals at sea at night without the ceremony of the last rites. His employers in Athens had told him that the cargo was gold, held in a special hold off the engine room, that it had to be recovered swiftly and silently, and Captain Ilich Bela knew with cold certainty that a very considerable percentage of that gold would stay with the man who recovered it.

  He indulged in speculation as he watched the Komarevo’s determined bow cut through the water. An apartment in Nice would be convenient. Those French girls: even a good Communist must bow occasionally to human frailties. He would have to keep the Lamborghini there, of course, for it was one of the minor irritations of revolution that even half a century later it had not lost its puritanical zeal. What was it he always said when his Western friends queried his excellent if expensive tastes? “Comrades, I would dearly love to wear a hair shirt, but they are always so dreadfully cut.” Bela’s slim fingers again checked his cuff, and he was making a mental note to speak to his shirtmaker about sleeve lengths, when the plump young radio operator came puffing up the steps to the bridge.

  Bela took the decoded message from his hand and read it with a slight frown. More to himself than to anyone, he said, “Do we know a Detective Lieutenant Michael Rogo? I can’t imagine that we do. Whoever he is, our friends in Athens are most concerned that he should not appear on the survivors’ list.” The world, as far as Captain Bela was concerned, would be none the worse with one less policeman of any nationality.

  “And tell Anton,” he told the radio operator, “to stand off one hundred meters. We shall board her in the pinnace, and he is to hold that distance until our return.”

  Captain Bela raised the binoculars once again. No, there was nothing on that half-sunken ruin that the Komarevo could not handle, and although the smooth young Bulgarian had many reservations about the Americans as a people they did occasionally find exactly the right phrase for a situation.

  “Like shooting fish in a rain barrel,” he said aloud, and the Komarevo, its engines drumming solidly, a plume of black smoke lying behind in the windless air, headed for the scene.

  The tired figures around the table in the Athens office stood to attention when Stasiris came bustling into the room. They had been there over six hours now. Jackets were off, ties undone, and dress shirts were rumpled and stained. Their faces, without exception, were drawn with weariness and distress.

  “Gentlemen, we have news.” Stasiris wagged a sheaf of wire messages.

  “Has it sunk?” The questioner did not attempt to conceal his hope.

  “I fear not,” Stasiris replied. “The Poseidon is still afloat, down by the bow, keel up, about two-thirds submerged.”

  The questioner dropped his head into his hands.

  “There are other developments.” Stasiris continued in his impersonal, businesslike manner. “Three of the survivors have returned to the wreck.”

  “Returned?” Several voices repeated the same word.

  The president looked around the group. “One of them . . .” he consulted a paper, “. . . a detective lieutenant of the New York police named Michael Rogo, and two other men.”

  The bleary-eyed faces were blank with astonishment. “Why?” one member asked. “Why did they go back?”

  Stasiris’ upturned palms showed he had no answer. “This confounded detective has complicated everything. Bela will be almost there now and we could have kept the whole operation quiet. I instructed him to salvage the . . . the cargo, if possible, and if not, sink it. Now he has this policeman round his neck, and if this Rogo fellow gets off alive we cannot stop him talking.”

  He sighed heavily and continued. “Again I have had to act and I seek your approval. I have spoken to New York, and they are, as you can imagine, no happier than we are about this. I suggested, and they agreed, that we give Bela carte blanche. I have therefore already wired him that complete security must be maintained.” He looked round the room and added quietly, “At any price.”

  The man who had been drunk a few hours earlier was sober now. He looked at Stasiris warily. “If you mean what I think you mean . . .”

  Pularnos intervened. “I do not think there is any need to spell it out. We are talking about international security now. I must ask you to consider how you would balance the life of a single American policeman against the possibility of war.”

  A messenger entered the room and padded silently to Stasiris. The president took the slip of paper, put his hand over his eyes, and groaned.

  “What is it?” Pularnos asked urgently.

  “As if matters were not complicated enough,” he replied. “A Dutch freighter got a line on the Poseidon first and is claiming salvage rights.”

  Half rising, Pularnos protested, “We cannot allow that.”

  “We cannot disallow it,” Stasiris snapped, writing his acknowledgment on the bottom of the message. “Without wishing to take you through the mysteries of salvage law, his claim as prime salvor is irrefutable.”

  He rose. “Now, gentlemen, I suggest we all go and make ourselves look a little more civilized and reassemble here as soon as possible. We can do nothing for the moment.”

  Their counterparts in New York had just been through an almost identical explanation from Mr. Arthur Haven. He stubbed out a cigar in an overloaded ashtray and added, “Athens has their guy out there, and we can only hope he can do the job.”

  The Secretary of Defense wa
s looking out of the window over the scattered lights of New York. “That doesn’t sound so damned hot to me, Arthur,” he said. “A strong-arm collector of Broadway whores and pimps muscling in on this sort of sensitive deal—my God, if he talks the whole thing blows sky high.” He turned his back on the New York night and added, “And who the hell is this character the Greeks are using anyway?”

  Haven looked at the papers before him. “Bela,” he said. “A Captain Ilich Bela. He is described to me as a man of unbridled violence.”

  One of the disheveled figures at the table straightened suddenly. “Hey, now look here, Arthur, I’m not going to be party to having a slug put into a New York cop.”

  Haven’s calm exterior exploded. “No one is asking you to be party to anything, you goddamn clown! This Bela is going in there and he’s going to fix it so that no one will be any the wiser. Right, Mr. Secretary?”

  The politician agreed. “None of us need know what happens aboard that damned ship. All we need concern ourselves with is that the contents are never known. Don’t forget, if we can’t get this shipment through to the Greek Cypriots, the U.S. government might want to set the whole thing up again. I shall also arrange for one of our security men in Athens to get hold of this bull-headed interfering cop if he should return.”

  The original questioner still looked unconvinced. “Call it any name you like, it’s gangsterism,” he said.

  Haven raised an eyebrow. “The name is politics, Ed. It’s one cop, or Greece and Turkey at each other’s throats and the NATO alliance in pieces. Think about it. Now let’s break it up, boys. I’ll have a call put out for you the minute we hear any more.”

  UNDER THE CHRISTMAS TREE

  5

  The three survivors had waited for what seemed like divine deliverance as the two lights had rocked down the scaffolding of the pipes towards them. Hope degenerated into uncertainty as they saw only three figures, and finally, for Rogo at least, into blazing disgust as he contemplated his rescuers. A young chick, an old seaman, and what looked to his eyes suspiciously like one of those kooks who waved banners.

  He reverted to the police manual. “Detective Lieutenant Rogo, Thirty-eighth Precinct, New York Police Department,” he said. “Now just what the hell do you guys think you’re doing here?”

  The older man stepped forward. “Captain Klaas van Zeevogel, commander of the coaster Magt van Leiden. We have a line on board this vessel, which gives us prime salvage rights. Perhaps you could explain what you are doing so far from home, officer.”

  Rogo replied, “Damn right I will. The three of us survived when this tub turned over. I’m on a security job and I’m sitting watchdog on this cargo. And what I don’t want right now is the Swiss Family Robinson walking all over my patch.” He flicked a dismissive hand at the unlikely trio.

  He spoke to the Dutchman, but his eyes were on the younger man, who had detached himself from the other two, strolled to one side and was now leaning against a steel tank.

  “You see my position,” Klaas went on. “You are now, in the eyes of the courts, a trespasser, and have no rights on board this vessel at all.”

  The younger man was brushing his lower lip with his thumbnail with a gesture that stood halfway between boredom and amusement. He’s the one to watch, thought Rogo. He replied, “You’re not the first guy to try to tell me the law, little man.”

  Klaas looked slightly shocked. “I’m afraid that is the position. Under maritime salvage laws, rights to inspect or remove cargo belong to the first salvor on the scene, and that is myself. The owners of the ship have acknowledged my position.”

  His nervousness was showing and Rogo decided to bulldoze him. “I don’t give a monkey’s ass if the Rams’ front four acknowledged your position. The only inspecting and removing around here is going to be done by me, and no guy who runs trips around the bay tells me different.” He jabbed a finger at Jason. “And who’s this you dragged along?”

  More uncertain, Klaas said, “He is a yachtsman who capsized west of here. His name is Jason, he has a captain’s ticket, and he’s going to Athens.”

  Rogo asked, “Then why doesn’t he just keep right on going?”

  Klaas wavered, then said, “He claims he has business aboard the Poseidon.”

  “Is that so?” Rogo folded his arms. “What’s the business, pal?”

  Thumbs hooked in the top of his jeans, Jason grinned, “Private, Batman, private.”

  Rogo advanced one step towards Jason. “You look like you’re on private business. I roll you guys off the park bench every night. The only business you guys know is busting the coin-box on slot machines. I don’t like freaks, mister.”

  The grin flashed back on Jason’s face. “Sorry you don’t like my appearance, officer. But I sure do admire your disguise.”

  Everyone looked at Rogo. His dignity had quite suddenly gone. He was a middle-aged, unshaven, overweight man, filthy dirty and wearing only an undershirt and grimy trousers. Klaas saw Rogo’s eyes begin to pop, and started, “Gentlemen, I’m sure there’s no need . . .” But Rogo’s hand came out of his pocket. He was holding his gun and it was pointing at Jason. Rogo was solving it the only way he understood.

  “That’s enough, funny guy,” he bellowed. “You’re going to tell me what the hell this business of yours is and then you’re going to move your ass offa this boat.”

  The gun did not appear to register with Jason. He simply said, “Not a chance, not a chance. Now what do you do? Shoot me or book me?”

  As Rogo’s frustrated tongue stumbled, Martin decided to help. “You should listen to Mr. Rogo,” he told Jason. “He really is an important police officer. It’s just that we all got, well, kinda mussed up trying to get out. But he’s on a real big-time security job here looking after half a billion dollars in gold.”

  His keen little face searched around for the reaction to this information. He didn’t see Rogo’s hand until it grabbed the front of his tattered dress shirt and heaved him up onto his toes.

  “Martin, what’d you do with your brains—sell ’em with those goddamn socks?”

  Martin’s chin strained. Through trapped teeth he mumbled, “Gee, I’m sure sorry, Mr. Rogo. I was only trying to help.”

  Rogo’s fist opened and Martin fell like a sack. Rogo’s venom again faded. It was all too much. Take a rest, they had told him. Take Linda along with you. No one will know a thing, and all you have to do is to keep an eye on it. Go and sit in the sun, Rogo, they had said, and try to keep your hands off the belly dancers. Rogo spat into the pool. He said, “For Chrissakes!” but without real enthusiasm.

  “Is that true?” Jason’s smile had gone.

  “Yep.” Rogo was, temporarily at least, defused. “It’s true, okay. It’s in there.” He indicated the hold with a weary wave of the gun. All security had gone now.

  Jason said, “Okay, then listen to me. We don’t have much time. This ship can’t stay afloat forever. She’s one-third clear of the water, there must still be quite a lot of air trapped down there, but we can’t be more than a couple of hours. Captain Klaas here, whether you like it or not, does have full authority to exercise salvage rights on this ship. That needn’t concern you. Klaas is a straight man. Look at him, for God’s sake. You’re supposed to be a cop, you should know an honest face when you see one. He’s not interested in trying to get his hands on government money of any kind. Right, Klaas?”

  The Dutchman nodded. “I’m sure we can agree that you must continue your security operation, lieutenant. That sort of . . . well, extraordinary consignment is outside my scope, I assure you.”

  Jason continued, “So you sit on your crock of gold and let Klaas go ahead with normal salvage work.”

  It sounded reasonable. Rogo weighed it all very carefully. The Dutchman was a captain. Rogo’s faith in the integrity of a uniform and peaked cap was considerable. And the freak was at least American.

  He spoke to Jason. “What about you? You tell me what your stake is and we got a d
eal.”

  They all waited. Klaas juggled with his puzzle: if the man was honest, why wouldn’t he explain himself? This stupid argument was wasting time; the ship could go down at any moment, and they must act quickly and leave. Coby prayed that he would say something, anything, so that they would believe in him as she did. Manny wished this difficult man would declare himself so that they could leave this stinking cavern and the cold crumpled body that had been his wife. Martin, who had always believed in the authority of a clean collar and a regular change of underwear, wondered how it could be that such a shabby figure could command their attention and only wished he could do the same.

  Rogo had a rough grasp of crowd psychology. He knew how to move them on, how to make the loudmouths back down. He had disliked this man on sight. His style was too close to that of the longhairs he despised. He loathed the flippant manner and the open contempt for authority. Rogo was the tough kid who had crossed the line to join the forces of authority and conformity; like most converts, he was fanatical in his beliefs. But he had seen something else in this man that made him uncharacteristically anxious to find a compromise: a quality Rogo could not pin down. He recognized it by the instinct all policemen develop. A hundred times you step into a bar fight. Sometimes it’s a Puerto Rican with an ax, sometimes a black with a knife, sometimes it’s a bunch of Poles. It didn’t matter. You took a quick look, and you knew you could take them, and batter them down with anvil fists.

  Occasionally, not even once a year, you went through that door and saw a different type of man. It wasn’t size, it wasn’t toughness, it wasn’t anything like that, but you always knew it. “Sure I coulda took him,” he remembered hearing another cop say once, “but not without my .38 I couldn’t.” Here was another one. Rogo was not afraid. He was never afraid. But he was cautious.