The Balkan Assignment (19 page)

"Mi nismo u Jugoslovenskim vodama." Mikhail roared insulted. "Vi nemate prasa aretirati nas." (We are not in Yugoslavian waters. You have no right to arrest us.)

"Primi konope o strelijal nate." (Take the towing line or I will fire on you.) Mikhail swore under his breath. The hauling line came snaking over and in spite of the wind it was a perfect cast. Within a few minutes, the heavy manila hawser was led in across the bow and turned securely to the foremast. Without another word. Obrevgov disappeared, leaving the sailor with the machine gun to keep a watchful eye on us as the patrol boat turned away into the wind, tugging us with it.

Both Mikhail and I went back into the shelter of the deckhouse where Klaus was waiting. There was nothing, literally nothing to say. By now, Obrevgov would have radioed that he had taken us under tow and by dawn, other Coastal Patrol boats would be converging on his course. Overhead, it was even possible that they would be committing aircraft to keep pace with us. International waters or no, they obviously had no intention of letting us get away and that made Obrevgov's oversight even more puzzling. Why had he not warned us about dumping the gold; the evidence that would surely convict us. Then the thought occurred to me: what if Vishailly had not told his superiors everything?

Supposing that he had relayed another excuse for our presence on Kornat, con-veniently neglecting to mention the gold? In that case, wasn't it conceivable that the Yugoslav authorities would have put two and two together and come up with five?

Unless Vishailly had passed on the information that one million dollars in gold was hidden in that cistern, the government would have had no way of knowing so. Ley was depending upon two men in the Yugoslav police for contact with the upper echelons: Mistako . . . dead .. . and Vishailly, now also dead. But Vishailly had died last, long after the time he could have reported the hidden cache of gold as our real objective in coming to the island.

Now my mind was beginning to churn with the frustrating puzzle of what if . . . ?

Suppose Vishailly had not passed on the right word; had come up with some other excuse . . . anything from a Chicom/Albanian plot to plant weapons for a takeover bid to a narcotics operation. Suppose that he had tried to sneak into the cistern that night to surprise the three of us, thinking to kill us all before the troops arrived; had instead been surprised by Mikhail and shot to death? If he had succeeded in killing us, then he could have gotten away scot free with the gold. I was sure that he would have been ready with enough evidence to back up whatever story he had thought up to prevent another exploration of the cistern. Later, he could have put Ley off by telling him that the Yugoslav Government had confiscated the gold and depended on the well-known propensity of Communist governments to refuse to release information concerning their police activities.

It all fit nicely together. How else to explain the fact that the patrol boat had fired with every intention of sinking us? How else to explain the fact that Obrevgov had not warned us about disposing of the gold, the only evidence that could tie us to the murder, over the sides? Simple answer. He did not know that we had gold aboard. Vishailly's beautiful plan had failed the moment Mikhail shot him. The only question remaining was why?

What had Vishailly to gain? A million dollars? He, a dedicated Communist civil servant?

It was out of character. Besides, he was only one man . . . how could he possibly hope to raise the ammunition crates, smuggle them out of the country and convert the gold to cash by himself? He could not do it single-handedly ... therefore, there had to be someone else involved. But who? An

organization . . . a gang? Was he, in fact, part of Maher's operation? Each question led to a dozen more, and I quit before I went out of my mind.

Klaus leaned against the forward windows staring through the streaming glass, well sunk into apathy and self-pity. I could see the single sailor with the machine gun planted solidly on the afterdeck of the patrol boat and since there did not seem to be much chance that we could escape, it suggested that he was there only as a safety measure. The gun crew had demonstrated their ability to shoot accurately under the difficult sea conditions. We could not have gotten more than a few hundred yards before a flurry of shots would have sent us straight to the bottom.

We were trapped like hooked fish, and like fish we danced and jerked on the end of the towing line as the fury of the storm continued unabated. The winds, I estimated, were blowing now at close to fifty knots, almost a full-fledged gale. The waves were topping fifteen feet and the crosscurrents and chop, complicated by the wind, kept Mikhail at the wheel countering the thrust and pull of the calque to prevent the heavy hawser from snubbing up short and ripping away the mast and opening a gaping hole in the deck. Klaus disappeared below and in a moment, returned to report that we were taking on water. For God's sake, I thought, what next, and followed him below, down into the center hold where the air was stale and flat and smelled of dead fish and the creakings of the wooden hull were like the screams of the damned. Nearly a foot of water covered the bilges; seeping through the lapstreaked hull, but at a rate which was of no immediate danger.

I went into the dingy engine compartment to switch on the bilge pump. I noticed a glint in the dull light from the single low-wattage bulb mounted directly above the tiny generator. Snugged securely in a wrapping of oily rags and jammed down between the engine and the main fuel tank were two unopened bottles of wine. I grinned in spite of myself. Hidden away from view as they were, they probably belonged to the dead fisherman and had been meant to provide a measure of solace during the long hours of fishing in the winter months. The bottles were unlabeled, which was not so unusual . . . this coastal area was also grape country . . . I bent down again to examine the fuel tank. Sure enough, near the bottom a metal plug screwed into the tank. Klaus had already gone back up into the deckhouse leaving the compartment door braced open and me alone. A quick search turned up a wrench that fit the plug and two sharp blows from a ball-peen hammer loosened the rusty grip of years.

A small amount of hope; possibly, there was a way out. I pulled the corks from the wine bottles with a pair of pliers and dumped the evil-smelling brew into the bilges. Anyone brave enough to drink that stuff would need galvanized plumbing. I loosened the plug in the tank enough to generate a steady trickle of diesel oil and filled both bottles. Two strips of twisted rag, soaked in the oil, made admirable fuses and I had two Molotov cocktails.

In the deckhouse once again, I spotted the patrol boat through the driving rain. She was about twenty yards ahead, stern waggling in the waves as she bucked both wind and the weight of our boat. Klaus stood impassively at the rear of the deckhouse wrapped in his own thoughts. Mikhail was at the wheel, exhaustion beginning to show on his face.

"Can you increase speed to bring us closer?" I asked him. He swung his head to look at me. "Why?"

"Can you?" I repeated insistently and showed him the two fire bombs. Comprehension dawned on his face and he broke into a grin, nodding. Klaus moved forward to hear what we were talking about and I showed him the wine bottles.

"They're full of diesel oil," I explained. "If we can get close enough, I can lob them onto the stern while you cut the tow rope. The fire might keep them busy enough to let us get away . . ."

"So that they can sink us . . ." Klaus countered with a sneer.

"It's that or a hangman's noose. This way we have a chance. I say take it."

"I, too," Mikhail rumbled.

Klaus only shrugged his shoulders. "We have no other choice," he said apathetically.

"All right. Go get the axe from the engine compartment. Mikhail, ease us closer to the patrol boat. Do it slowly so that you don't attract their attention. We have to get within about ten yards before I can be sure of hitting anything." Mikhail nodded and I ducked back down the hatch again. There was a kerosene lantern hanging in the main cabin and I quickly cut the cord suspending it from the ceiling and shook the lamp to see how much fuel was left. It was nearly full; satisfied, I raised the squat glass chimney and lit it, turned the flame up high and shoved the lantern into one of the wooden boxes that served for storage and lugged it back up the ladder.

"What is that for?" Mikhail demanded when I pushed into the deckhouse.

"For lighting the bombs. I want to make damned sure I can get a flame in all that wind without attracting attention."

"The guard has just gone in," Mikhail said, nodding agreement. "Perhaps the storm is too severe for them to have a man on deck."

That was one of the first breaks that we had had in a long time, I thought. In the few minutes I had been in the cabin, Mikhail had surreptitiously increased speed. The stern of the patrol boat was appreciably nearer. Klaus hurried up from below with the axe, his face animated now that action was in the offing. We slid open the door cautiously and inched out onto the deck.

The wind had abated somewhat but the rain was falling harder than ever. I had thrown my slicker over the box to shield the lantern and was wet through to the skin in an instant. Klaus pushed past me and crept to the bow, staying below what was left of the railing on the off chance they were watching us from inside the wheelhouse. I did the same and as soon as I was in position, crouched beneath the railing, I turned and waved an arm at Mikhail.

He caught the signal and I felt the boat jump ahead as he yanked the throttle out. I lit the first of the fire bombs. The oil-soaked wick flamed and burned harshly in spite of the rain. The fishing boat closed rapidly now on the larger patrol boat and just as I stood up to throw, I saw the cabin door burst open and an armed sailor stumble through. I didn't wait any longer but threw the fire bomb with all my might.

It arched up, over the tossing waves, the burning fuse describing an orange arc in the night until it smashed down on the stern of the patrol boat, bursting high and exploding into flame. The sailor jumped backward and as I prepared to throw the second, he got the machine gun into action. A spray of bullets raked the bow. I saw the phantom shape that was Klaus slamming the axe into the hawser, once, twice, a third time. The rope • parted as the second bomb smashed and exploded on the afterdeck and the entire stern of the boat became a blazing inferno.

The fishing boat slewed away, heeling dangerously and Klaus and I went down under a plunging low wave. The water tore at my body, covering me completely, tearing at my arms where I had wrapped them around a jagged piece of broken railing. The bow surged up again as she steadied around and began to run due west. The burning patrol boat was two hundred yards behind and fast disappearing into the rain. Klaus and I broke and ran for the deckhouse.

By dawn, the rain had slackened to a thick drizzle. In little less than an hour, the sky had lightened to a dead gray, lowering down until the clouds seemed barely a hundred feet off the waves, leaving little difference between day and night. There had been no pursuit. By the time the crew of the patrol boat had gotten the fire under control, we were certain to have been long gone from their radar screen. And slow as we were, we would have gained enough of a head start that pursuit would have been impossible in the storm. Klaus had fallen asleep on the same "bed" that I had made up the evening before, and Mikhail had finally relinquished the wheel to me while he caught some sleep below. Now, in the dreary light of morning, I could make out the faint Italian coastline off our starboard beam. I had the idea that we had made landfall somewhere north of the port city of Pescara. I had decided in the long hours to dawn that the best approach to the port was bold-as-you-please and straight in. Since Pescara was also home port for a large Adriatic fishing fleet, we might, by sailing boldly in, fool the customs officials into thinking that we were part of that fleet long enough to unload an, disappear. The closer we came to the coast, the thicker became the fog and rain until it was heavier now than it had been farther out to sea. Mikhail had come up a few minutes before, wakened Klaus and was using the binoculars to examine the coastline. Just as Klaus had gone below to brew a pot of coffee, Mikhail grunted and passed the glasses to me, pointing across the starboard quarter to the low headlands and the breakwater indicating the port of Pescara. We were right on . . . not bad navigating. I nodded back at him, my grin matching his.

Very slowly, sticking to the channel edges, we ran in to find the harbor docks deserted in the lashing rain. The lack of activity puzzled me until I realized that it was Sunday . . . in Italy, on Sunday mornings, nothing stirs except the churches and cafés. We tied up at the far end of a remote pier, in the shadow of an oil tanker that had come up the Adriatic from the new pipeline terminal at Haifa. The tanker's bulk would serve to hide our battered, gunshot ripped boat from the casual eye . . . particularly one belonging to a wandering customs official. As the morning grew older, rain or no rain, they would be venturing out for their daily inspection tours.

We wasted no time. While Mikhail and Klaus wrestled the ammunition crates up onto the deck, I left hurriedly for the taxi stand at the end of the dock. I had managed to hang onto all of my papers throughout the uproar of the past few days, and twenty minutes later, in spite of my half-drowned appearance, I was leaving the nearest car rental agency with a Ford van.

We loaded the ammunition crates into the van, ignoring the dangerous way it sagged onto its springs, and drove slowly off the dock and into the new city. An hour later, not even stopping for breakfast, we were solidly onto the four-lane highway leading down the coast to Bari two hundred miles south and from there another seventy-five miles to Brindisi. The drive south, in contrast to the activities of previous days, was completely uneventful. Mikhail and Klaus both slept the deep sleep of exhaustion and semi-security. In spite of a dragging weariness, I was wide awake and too keyed up to be sleepy. The highway was slippery in the winter rain and driving the overloaded van required enough concentration to prevent road hypnosis.