The Mediterranean Caper

“Be a gentleman, Darius, and offer the lovely young lady your coat. Her… ab.. prominent attractions might prove embarrassing and somewhat distracting as we drive.”

“Don’t bother,” Teri said contemptuously. “I’ll not wear that bloody ape’s coat. I have nothing I want to hide. Besides, it’ll give me great pleasure to see a greasy worm like you squirm.”

The guide’s eyes grew cold, then lie united thinly and shrugged. “As you wish.”

Teri lifted her negligee lightly around her thighs and climbed into the car. The guide followed, sandwiching her between him and the bilking Darius who hunched over the steering wheel. Then the Mercedes’ diesel engine knocked into life and the car started rolling over the narrow, twisting road; on many stretches edged by deep and marsh covered ditches. The guide’s flickering eyes bounced from Pitt to Giordino and back again, never once twitching the automatic glued to Teri’s right ear. His determined vigilance and unflagging concentration was, it seemed to Pitt, unduly fanatical.

Pitt, warily watching for any negative sign from the guide, very slowly extracted a cigarette from his breast pocket and just as slowly lit it.

“Tell me, whatever your name is…“

“Polycitus Anaxamander Zeno,” the guide offered. “At your service.”

“Tell me” Pitt repeated without an attempt at pronouncing Zeno’s full name. “How did you happen to be coiled back there at the passage when we came out?”

“I have an inquisitive nature,” Zeno said through a twisted smile. “When I perceived that you and your friend had mysteriously disappeared from my tour, I asked myself: What would those two surly looking characters find in the ruins that would interest them? The answer eluded my humble mind so I turned my gawking entourage over to a fellow guide and returned to the amphitheatre. You were nowhere to be found. Then I spied the broken bar in the gate.. no great feat I assure you; I know every stone and crack on the site. Certain you would reappear, I sat and waited.”

“You’d have felt like an idiot if we hadn’t”

“It was only a question of that. There is no other way out of the Pit of Hades.”

“The Pit of Hades?” Pitt’s curiosity was aroused.

“Why do you call it that?”

“I find your sudden interest in archaeology quite unexpected. However, since you ask…“ There was puzzlement in Zeno’s eyes, yet a mixture of attention and amusement. “During the golden age of Greece, our ancestors held their criminal trials in the amphitheatre. This location was chosen because their juries consisted of one hundred elected townspeople. It was their contention, and a very wise one, that the more people who rendered a judgment, the more just the verdict. In a matter of circumstantial evidence, the defendant, if decided guilty, was given a choice of instant death or the Pit of Hades”

“What was so bad about the pit?” Giordino asked, his eyes trained on the reflection of Darius’ face in the rearview mirror, sizing him up.

“The pit was in reality not a pit,” Zeno continued. “But rather a vast underground labyrinth with a hundred different passages and only two openings, an entrance and a hidden exit, which was a closely guarded secret.”

“At least the condemned were given an opportunity to reach freedom.” Pitt flicked an ash into the tray on the armrest

“The choice was not as opportune as it might appear. You see, the labyrinth contained a very hungry lion who had little to eat, except, of course, an occasional passing felon.”

Pitt’s studied calm folded end his face turned grim, but he quickly gained control again. The picture of von Till’s smirking features entered his mind again. Why did the old kraut, he wondered, use historical events to cloak his mysterious schemes? Perhaps this obsession for dramatics might prove to be the chink in von Till’s armor. Pitt sat back and drew deeply on his cigarette.

“A fascinating myth.”

“I assure you it is no myth,” Zeno said seriously. “The number of condemned Greeks who died In the Pit of Hades, their screams echoing through the dark tu

There is no record of a successful escape.”

Pitt flipped his cigarette through an open window into the passing countryside. He looked at Giordino, then more slowly at Zeno. A smug grin spread across his face and widened into a broad smile.

Zeno stared at Pitt speculatively. Then he gave an uncomprehending shrug and motioned to Darius. Darius nodded and a few seconds later the Mercedes turned onto the main road. The wheels sped over the worn two lane pavement. The trees, lining the shoulders like forgotten sentinels, flashed past in a blur of dust and green leaves. The air was cooler now, and, twisting around in the seat, Pitt could see the setting sun’s rays strike the bald, tree-bare peak of Hypsaxion, the highest point on the island. He remembered reading somewhere that a Greek poet had described Thasos as “a wild ass’s back, covered with wild wood.”

Though the description was twenty-seven hundred years old, he thought, it was still true today.

And then, Darius back-shifted and the Mercedes was slowing down. It turned again, this time leaving the highway, its tires crunching on a rough, gravel-strewn country lane that led upward Into a wooded ravine.

Why Darius had left the main road before reaching Panaghia Pitt could not guess, any more than he could guess why Zeno acted the part of an armed undercover agent instead of a friendly tourist guide.

That old feeling of danger tapped Pitt on the shoulder again, and he felt a tinge of uncontrolled anxiety.

The Mercedes bumped heavily over a dip, rose steeply up a long ramp and entered a large barn like building through a doorway that had been designed to accommodate heavy trucks requiring high roof clearances. The weather-beaten walls of the wooden structure were covered with the remnants of gray-green paint, long since peeled and blistered from the fierce Aegean sun. An instant before the inside gloom enveloped the car, Pitt caught a glimpse of an overhead sign whose faded black letters were printed in German. Then, as Darius turned off the ignition, he heard the sound of rusty rollers creaking the door shut behind them.

“The Greek International Tourist Organization must work under a damn paltry budget if this is the best they can scrape up for an office,” Pitt said caustically, his eyes darting about the vast, deserted floor.

Zeno merely smiled.. It was a smile that left Pitt’s heart pounding against an enormous pressure, as if something was holding it, constricting Its action. An i

Pitt had been aware all along that G.N.T.O. guides do not carry guns or have the authority to make an armed arrest. He also knew that the guides drove around the island in boldly-advertised and gaily-colored Volkswagen buses, not black, unmarked Mercedes-Benz sedans. Time was getting expensive. He and Giordino must make a move, and make it soon.

Zeno opened the rear door and stepped back. He made a slight bow and gestured with the gun.

“Please remember,” he said, his tone rock hard. “No foolishness.”

Pitt climbed from the car and turned, offering his hand to Teri through the open front door. She looked up at him seductively for a moment and, squeezing his hand gently, slowly uncoiled from her sitting position.

Then quickly, before Pitt could react, she threw her arms around his neck and pulled his head down to her level. Both pairs of eyes were open, Pitt’s mostly from surprise, as she brazenly covered his sweating face with kisses.

It never fails, Pitt thought in detached fascination, no matter how cool or sophisticated they act toward the world, show a woman danger and adventure and they’ll always turn on. It’s really a pity, she’s ready but it’s the wrong time and the wrong place. He forced her back.