“He got caught on the way up. McGarvey has gone down for him.”
“Christ,” Lipton swore, and was starting to swing out onto the ladder when Tyrell shouted.
“Here! He’s got him!”
Lipton shined his light on the water as McGarvey surfaced with a sputtering Bob Schade.
Tyrell grabbed the man by the arm but Schade shook it off.
“I’m okay,” he shouted, coughing. “Get the hell out of here. Go, go-go!”
Already the water was up to Tyrell’s waist and rising even faster. The ship would go in less than a minute.
He scrambled up the ladder and at the top Lipton hauled him through the hatch. “Jules is off with the raft and the fishing vessel. Don’t hang around.”
“Aye, aye,” Tyrell said, and he headed down the corridor for the stairwell.
A moment later Schade hauled himself up, and Lipton helped him through.
“Come on,” Lipton shouted, but Schade turned back.
“Mr. McGarvey is coming,” he answered, and McGarvey’s bulky form appeared in the hatchway. Schade helped him the rest of the way up.
“Is that everybody?” McGarvey asked.
“Yes, sir,” Schade said. He was a solidly built twenty-seven-year-old.
“Then what the hell are we waiting for? I don’t want to go swimming down here again.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Schade said, and Lipton led the way back up as the ship continued to list to port.
At the top, the angle of the list was so severe they couldn’t make it to the high side to starboard. Instead they slid down the corridor and had to dive under the water in order to clear the hatch to the outside, and then swim another thirty yards or so to make sure they would be well clear of the ship’s superstructure when she rolled.
Lipton broke the surface and turned back in time to see the ship roll completely over and immediately start down by the stern. McGarvey had already surfaced and he was watching the distant shoreline of the island, not the ship, although it was nearly impossible to see much of anything. The weather had completely closed in over the past few minutes and a light drizzle had begun to fall.
Tyrell and the others were treading water a dozen yards away, and Schade remained a few feet behind and to McGarvey’s left.
Lipton swam over to them. “Let’s go.”
The Dhodhdni was a hundred yards off to the northeast, the rubber raft in tow, and she was beginning to swing around toward them.
“Just a second, sir,” Schade answered. He too was watching the shoreline.
Lipton followed their gaze, but he couldn’t make out much of anything, except that the island seemed to be a darker mass that rose up out of the near-blackness of the sea.
“There,” McGarvey said softly. He studied the shoreline for another moment or two, then turned around.
“What is it?” Lipton asked. “I didn’t see a thing.”
“There was a light showing high up on one of the cliffs.”
“So?”
“It went out,” McGarvey said.
Lipton shook his head, not understanding, but then his attention was diverted back to the ship. The bows were rising very fast now, up out of the water. For a long second or two the Thaxos seemed to hang on her tail, until she slipped quietly beneath the sea, the waves and eddy currents washing past the men, bouncing them in the water.
For a very long time, it seemed, the night was absolutely still, until they began to hear the hiss of the falling rain and in the distance the faint burble of the Dhodhoni’s engine turning over at idle speed as she headed toward them.
On McGarvey’s insistence they kept the Dhodhdni between them and the island as they boarded her, which further puzzled Lipton. But for the moment he was willing to go along with almost anything. His respect was growing by leaps and bounds. He’d been told about McGarvey, but nothing he’d heard had prepared him for the actual man. Besides, they owed him.
“No lights,” McGarvey whispered. “And keep out of sight.”
“What are you talking about?” Lipton asked.
“Spranger’s people on the island were waiting for the Thaxos to go down, and now they’re watching us through starlight scopes.”
“Shit,” Lipton swore half under his breath. He should have seen it earlier. “The lights on the monastery went out so that they could use the night optics. It proved that they were watching.”
“That’s what I figure,” McGarvey said. “But they couldn’t have seen you or your people dressed the way you are, and so long as they don’t spot a lot of movement aboard this boat they’ll never suspect that you’re here.”
“But they’ll know that someone survived. Why not the one we neutralized?”
“There were two of them,” McGarvey said. “And by now they would have radioed their mission accomplished.”
“So Spranger knows that you’re alive.”
McGarvey nodded.
Lipton and Tyrell exchanged glances. They, along with McGarvey and Schade, were huddled on the bridge, Joslow still at the wheel. The engine was at dead idle, and they were barely moving against the swells.
“It doesn’t look as if we’ll be able to do much for you in that case, Mr. McGarvey,”
Lipton said. “My orders specifically forbid me to engage in any action on Greek soil.
We cannot go ashore. And considering what has already happened, and the fact the Spranger has set a trap for you, I would suggest you go no further. Washington can handle it diplomatically.”
“It’s my wife and daughter on that island, Lieutenant,” McGarvey said mildly, but the expression on his face, in his eyes, made Lipton shiver involuntarily.
“I understand, but I won’t be able to help you.”
“Can you communicate with Washington via your ship? Or did you come in from a base on the mainland?”
“We’re off the Nimitz group just southwest of Crete.”
“Have they got a LAMPS III up for you?”
Again Lipton and Tyrell exchanged glances. The man knew a lot for someone no longer on the regular payroll. But then to survive as long as he had, McGarvey would have to have the knowledge.
“Yes, sir.”
“Get a message to Langley that Spranger and K-1 are holding my wife and daughter on the island in the monastery… give them map coordinates if you would. Tell them I’m returning to the port of Thira, and from there overland to the monastery.”
“Sir?” Schade asked, but Lipton motioned him off.
“What can we do?” Lipton asked.
“Stand by out here in case they try to make a run for it.”
Lipton thought it out for a second or two. They’d have to stay on station probably until dawn. In the rain they would be wet and miserable. But he nodded.
“It’s going to take me a couple hours to get ashore, and maybe that long to make it back to the monastery. In the meantime your people can give you updates on my position. I’ll carry the walkie-talkie with me.”
“As soon as you’re in position we’ll start looking for the fireworks.”
“Something like that,” McGarvey replied, smiling wryly.
“I’d like to come with you, sir,” Schade said.
“Negative,” Lipton said immediately.
“Sir, Mr. McGarvey will have big odds against him on the island. I’ll leave my ID, and go as a civilian. I’ll take full responsibility.”
“Goddamnit, Bobby. I’ve got my orders.”
“I’ll go AWOL if necessary, sir.”
