to...'
Litsas's expression changed and his body grew rigid. His hand on Bond's forearm felt like heavy metal. He said in a strangled undertone, 'He's here. Herr Hauptmann Ludwig von Richter. To your right, James. Coming out of the grocer's. You can look at him. They still stare at the foreigners in these parts.'
Bond turned his head casually and at once caught sight of the German about twenty yards away. In sports shirt and shorts, a bulging shopping-bag in his hand, the man was looking over his shoulder and laughing, sharing some joke with the grocer. His companion, a fair-haired youngster carrying a wine-jar, grinned amiably. Between them they made an attractive picture of holiday high spirits, innocence, relaxation. Then von Richter faced his front and Bond saw the livid patch of skin round the ear and the dark hairless region above it. Chatting light-heartedly, the pair turned away and moved off along the quay.
'Going home,' said Litsas. 'I'll just stroll along and have a look at their boat. Might help us later.'
He left. Ariadne said, 'James, one thing puzzles me. With plenty of others. Why do they want this guy along? He always might be recognized. What's so special about him that they must have him?'
'A good point. I suppose he might have done some work for them before. Then he's an ex-army man. That could have its uses all right.'
Ariadne nodded thoughtfully. 'Then you're thinking of some sort of gun. A gun on the land more likely than the sea?'
'Oh God, there's no knowing at this stage. Land diversion, sea attack, the other way round. Anything.'
Another thoughtful nod, but one that suggested a private train of reasoning being pursued. 'There are millions of exarmy men. This one's an atrocity expert. That's what's special about him. But why must they have one? And that gun still bothers me. How could you get anything big enough up that slope? And how was it brought here? Perhaps there's a sort of gun that- '
'Atomics,' said Bond grimly. 'Close-support type. That would be portable enough. At the moment I can't think of any feasible alternative.'
The thought silenced them both until Litsas returned.
'A biggish dinghy thing with an outboard motor,' he reported. 'They're casting off now - we'll give 'em five minutes.'
'There's a matter we can settle in those five minutes,' said Bond. 'Yanni.'
'What about him?'
'Well, we've got to pay him off now, haven't we? We shan't get another chance.'
Litsas considered. 'I know we said we'd do that, but must we, the way things have turned out? He's good with the knife. And he's jolly useful on board. He can stay out of the really bad part.'
'Look, Niko.' Bond faced the other man squarely. 'Yanni is going. Right away. The kid's got a family, I suppose, parents? Well, how's anybody going to face them if Yanni's damaged or killed? And there are other ways of being damaged than just physically. Enough has happened to Yanni already on this trip.'
'I didn't think of that,' said Litsas, looking crestfallen and self-reproachful now. 'Of course you're right. There's a chap I know just along there who will go to Piraeus late this evening. I'll fix it up with him.'
Ten minutes later, after a brisk exchange of handshakes, Yanni had been dropped and the _Altair__ was standing out from the port. In one of those mental film-clips that the memory sometimes records at such moments, Bond registered everything around him in all its hardedged clarity.
Astern were the gay variegated tints of the harbour, sails, awnings, flags of a dozen nations and freshly- painted hulls showing among a dense thicket of masts, and above all this the natural colours of Vrakonisi itself, no less diverse, but grim and ancient, giant washes and scribblings on a raw pile of rock with a life-span measured in millions of years. To Bond's right Litsas was at the wheel, dark eyes narrowed, brown hands easing the bows round to starboard; to the left Ariadne stood poised like a statue, clothed marble, fine tendrils of tawny hair blowing forward above her ears in the evening breeze. And ahead, the sun going down like a fat incandescent orange and a hint of lead entering the steely brightness of the enormous sea.
Chapter 15
'Walk, Mister Bond'
BOND SAT on the moonlit hillside two hundred feet above water-level and longed for a cigarette. He had found a lump of granite the size of a golf-hut which gave him shadow and something to lean his back against. It was not a perfect observation post but it was the best that could have been hoped for after a hurried visual reconnaissance from the deck of the _Altair__ just before the daylight went. Stationed at a roughly central point above and behind the five scattered houses marked down earlier as possible headquarters of the enemy, he had a direct view of two, could see a third by moving fifty yards to his left, and had a clear enough grasp of the positions of the fourth and fifth to make it impossible for von Richter's boat, even if it approached unlit, to put people ashore without giving away their destination.
For the moment all seemed in order. While sailing past they had spotted a tiny beach no bigger than a billiard-table, with what was evidently a climbable outlet to the steep slopes above. Down there, after a lot of grumbling, Litsas had agreed to remain and watch developments from a lower angle, the dinghy hauled up behind a tongue of rock that would, by night at any rate, mask it from seaward observation. The _Altair__, with an even more rebellious Ariadne on board, was a mile and half away on the southern coast, tied up at the quay of a fishing village among a dozen other boats of similar build, the best camouflage available.
Though most of the time the silence was immense, it was not altogether unbroken. Until an hour before, a wireless or gramophone in the nearest house had been playing snatches of _bouzouki__ music, that curious amalgam of conventional Western harmonies and Slav, Turkish and Arab rhythms and turns of phrase, a style in which the best singers, with their broken, complaining intonation, can blend together harshness, sexual excitement and desolate sorrow. Now the exotic melodies had faded and the house they came from was in darkness, but its neighbour was still lit up and an occasional snatch of talk or laughter drifted up to Bond on the warm air. Once or twice he had heard the wavering, chilly call of an owl from the crags above him and, immeasurably far off in the direction of the town, the clink of a goat-bell. Otherwise nothing.
Bond peered at the luminous dial of the Rolex Oyster Chronometer on his wrist. Three ten. He had no doubt that his basic reasoning was correct and that von Richter would come. When he would come was another question. First light was favourable, but arrival at some other time could not be ruled out, even possibly well on into the following morning with everything out in the open, von Richter and his companion welcomed as house guests. That would almost certainly put paid to any reasonable hopes of effective counter-measures. Typically, Bond did not allow himself to pursue this train of thought, but he was coldly aware that this operation was becoming more and
