Santorini

'What did they find out?'

'Precious little. It was called the Taormina and registered in Panama.'

'A Sicilian name? No significance. Panama — a convenience registry, some of the most successful ocean- going crooks in: he world are registered there. Anyway, you don't have to be in artist to change both names in very short order ? all you require is a couple of pots of paint and a set of stencils. Where had it come from?'

'They didn't know. As it had anchored off-shore it didn't nave to register with either the customs or the port authorities. But they did know that it took off in a roughly north-easterly direction which, just coincidentally, is the course it would lave taken if it were heading for Santorini. And as Souda Bay is just under a hundred miles from here, even a slow ship

He could have been in this area well before the bomber came down. So your hunch could have been right, sir. Only problem is, we've seen no sign of him.'

'Could have been a coincidence. Could have been that the Delos warned him off. Did Heraklion say anything about going to have a look for this ship?'

'No. Jimmy and I discussed the idea but we didn't think it important enough to disturb you when you were ? ah ? resting lightly. And the Admiral.'

'Probably unimportant. We should have a go. Normally, that is. Where does Heraklion lie from here? About due south?'

'Near enough.'

'A couple of planes, one carrying out a sweep to the north, the other to the east, should locate this lad, if he is in the area, in half an hour, probably less. Part of an urgent NATO exercise, you understand. But conditions aren't normal. A waste of time in near zero visibility. An option we'll keep in mind for better weather. Anything else?'

'Yes. We've heard from both the Washington bank and the FBI. Mixed results, you might say. Under the initials of KK, the bank says it has a certain Kyriakos Katzanevakis.'

'Promising. You could hardly get anything more Grecian than that.'

'Under TT, they have a Thomas Thompson. You can't have anything more Anglo-Saxon than that. The FBI say there are no high-ranking officers in the Pentagon ? by which I take it they mean admirals and Air Force generals or, at the outside, vice-admirals and lieutenant-generals ? with those initials.'

'On the face of it, disappointing, but it may equally well be just another step in the laundering cover-up, another step to distance themselves from their paymaster. The FBI hasn't been in touch with the bank? Of course not. We didn't even mention the bank to them. Remiss of us. No, remiss of me.

Montgomery sipped his drink, gazed gloomily through his cabin window, winced and looked away.

'The weather has deteriorated in the past half-hour, Commander Talbot.'

'It couldn't possibly be any worse than it was half an hour ago.'

'I'm an expert on such matters.' Montgomery sighed. 'Makes me quite homesick for the Mountains of Mourne. We get a lot of rainfall in the Mountains of Mourne. Do you see this lot clearing up in the near future?'

'Not this side of midnight.'

'And that would be an optimistic estimate, I'm thinking. By the time we haul this damn bomber back alongside, cut away the hole in the fuselage, hoist it out of the water and extract that bomb, it'll be dawn. At least. Might possibly be well into the forenoon. You'll understand if I turn down your kind offer to join you for dinner. An early snack for me, then bed. Might have to get up any time during the night. I'll have a couple of boys on the poop all night, watching the plane and with orders to wake me as soon as they think the weather has moderated enough for us to start hauling it in.'

Dr Wickram said: 'How's that for a brief resume of the speech I shall so reluctantly make at the table tonight? Not too much,

I would have thought, and not too little?'

'Perfect. Perhaps the tone a thought more doom-laden?' 'A half octave deeper, you think? Odd, isn't it, how easily this mendacity comes to one?' 'Aboard the Ariadne, it's become positively endemic. Very catching.'

'I've just had a word with Eugenia,' Denholm said. 'I thought you ought to know.'

That you've been neglecting your duty? Not lurking, I mean.'

'A man gets tired of lurking. I meant what she had to say.'

'You spoke to her privately, I take it?'

'Yes, sir. In her cabin. Number One's cabin, that is to say.'

'You surprise me, Jimmy.'

'If I may say so, sir, with some dignity, we had been discussing matters on a purely intellectual level. Very bright girl. Going for a double first at University. Language and literature, Greek ancient and modern.'

'Ah! Deep calling unto deep.'

'I wouldn't call it that, because I spoke only in English. I was under the impression that she was convinced that I didn't speak a word of Greek.'

'She's no longer convinced? A close observer, the young lady? Perhaps you registered a flicker of expression when something was said in Greek when you should have registered nothing. I suspect you were trapped in your innocent youth by some fiendish feminine wile.'

'How would you react, sir, if you were told that a scorpion was crawling up your shoe?'

Talbot smiled. 'She spoke in Greek, of course. You immediately carried out a hurried check to locate this loathsome monster. Anybody would have fallen for it. You have not suffered too much chagrin and mortification, I hope?'

'Not really, sir. She's too nice. And too worried. Wanted to confide in me.'

'Alas, the days when lovely young ladies wanted to confide in me appear to be over.'

'I think she's a little scared of you, sir. So is Irene. She wanted to talk about Andropulos. Girl talk, of course, and I suppose there's no one else really on the ship they can talk to. That's not quite fair, I suppose, they're clearly very close friends. Seems that Irene repeated to her, more or less verbatim, the conversation she had with Number One this morning and told her she'd told Vincent everything she knew about her Uncle Adam. It would appear that Eugenia knows something about Uncle Adam that his niece doesn't know. May I have a drink, sir? I've been awash since dawn in tonic and lemon.'

'Help yourself. Revelations, is that it?'

'I don't know how you'd classify it, sir, but I know you'll find it very interesting. Eugenia's father has quite a lot in common with Irene's father ? apparently they're good friends ? they're both wealthy businessmen, they both know Andropulos and both think he's a crook. Well, nothing new in that so far. We all think he's a crook. But Eugenia's father, unlike Irene's, is willing to talk freely and at length about Andropulos and Eugenia hasn't talked about it to Irene, because she doesn't wish to hurt her feelings.' Denholm sampled his drink and sighed in satisfaction. 'It would seem that Adamantios Soyros Andropulos has a pathological hatred of Americans. Who would suspect such a charming, courteous, urbane and civilized gentleman to have a pathological hatred of anyone?'

'I would. Well, we all know he's intelligent so he had to rave a reason.'

'He had. Two. His son and only nephew. Apparently, he doted on them. Eugenia quite believes this, because she says that Andropulos is unquestionably fond of Irene and herself, a feeling, I'm glad to say, that they don't reciprocate.'

'What about his son and nephew?'

'Disappeared in most mysterious circumstances. Never to be seen again. Andropulos is convinced that they were done in by the American CIA.'

'The CIA has a reputation, justified or not, for eliminating people they regard as undesirables. But they usually have a reason, again whether that is justifiable or not. Does Eugenia's old man know the reason?'

'Yes. He says — and he's convinced of this — that the two young men were heroin peddlers.'

'Well, well. Ties in all too well with what we have been increasingly suspecting. There are times, Jimmy, when I regard the CIA as being a much maligned lot.'

The atmosphere at the dinner table that night was noticeably, but not markedly, less relaxed than it had been at lunch-time. Conversation flowed rather less freely than it had then, and three men in particular, Hawkins, Talbot and Van Gelder, seemed more given than usual to brief and introspective silences, occasionally gazing at some object or objects that lay beyond a distant horizon. There was nothing that one could put a finger on and the insensitive would quite have failed to recognize that there was anything amiss. Andropulos proved that he was not one of those.