fetched, but the facts have a strange way of bearing you out.” He pulled a handkerchief from a hip pocket and dabbed it across his forehead. “You were correct in predicting that the antique plane would attack this ship, and you even knew when.”
“Von Till supplied me with a hint. The rest was conjecture.”
“I can’t figure the weird set-up,” said Giordino.
“Using an old biplane to shoot up the sea and landscape merely to get rid of the First Attempt seems overly complicated.”
“Not really,” said Pitt. “It soon became obvious to von Till that his sabotage attempts on the scientific operations of NUMA’s expedition were not succeeding according to plan.”
“What crossed him up?” Giordino inquired.
“Gunn was stubborn,” Pitt grinned evenly. “In spite of what he thought were accidents and setbacks due to natural causes, he refused to weigh anchor and give up.”
“Good for him,” Lewis grunted, and cleared his throat to speak, but Pitt went on unruffled.
“Von Till had to find another direction. Using the old aircraft was a stroke of genius. If he had sent a modern jet fighter to attack Brady Field, all hell would have broken out in the form of an international crisis. The Greek Government, the Russians, the Arabs; all would have become involved, and this whole island would have been teeming with military personnel on emergency alert. No, von Till was smart: the antique Albatros caused our government some embarrassment and cost the Air Force a few million dollars, but spared everyone a diplomatic mess and an armed conflict.”
“Very interesting, Major.” Lewis’ voice was flat, skeptical. “Very interesting… and most instructional.
But would you mind answering a question that’s been nagging the back of my mind?”
“What is it, sir?” It was the first time Pitt had addressed Lewis as sir, and he found it strangely distasteful.
“Just what are these seagoing eggheads looking for that brought this rotten business down around our heads?”
“A fish,” Pitt replied grinning.
Lewis’ eyes widened and he almost dropped his cigar on his huge lap. “A what?”
“A fish,” Pitt repeated. “It’s nicknamed Teaser; a rare species reported to be a living fossil. Gunn assures me that landing one would be the greatest scientific achievement of the decade.” Pitt supposed wryly that he was overdoing it a bit, but he was irritated by Lewis’ blustering pompousness.
Lewis’ face was not pleasant as he rose trembling from his chair. “You mean to say that I have fifteen million dollars’ worth of wrecked aircraft scattered over a base under my personal command, my military career all but ruined, and all because of a goddamned fish?”
Pitt tried his best to look serious. “Yes, Colonel, I guess you might say that.”
A saddened look of absolute defeat gripped Lewis’ features as he shook his head from side to side. “My God, my God, it’s not fair, it’s just not…“
He was interrupted by a knock on the metal door.
The cabin boy entered, carrying a tray containing three brown bottles.
“Keep them coming,” Pitt ordered. “And, keep them cold.”
“Yes sir,” the boy mumbled. He set the tray down on the desk and hurried from the cabin.
Giordino passed Lewis a beer. “Here Colonel, drink up and forget the damage to Brady. The taxpayers will absorb the cost anyway.”
“In the meantime I’ll probably suffer a coronary,”
Lewis said gloomily. He sat back down in the chair, collapsing like a leaky inner tube.
Pitt held up the ice frosted bottle and rolled its cold surface across his forehead. The red and silver label was stuck on crooked. He stared idly at the reversed printing that proudly proclaimed: BY
APPOINTMENT TO THE ROYAL GREEK COURT.
“Where do we go from here?” Giordino said between gulps.
Pitt shrugged, “I'm not sure yet. A lot depends on what Gunn finds in the wreckage of the Albatros.”
“Any idea?’
“None at the moment.”
Giordino mashed his cigarette into an ashtray. “If nothing else, I’d say we’re well ahead of the game, especially compared to this time yesterday. Thanks to you our ghost from World War I is kaput, and we have a pretty good lead on the instigator behind the attacks. All we have to do now is have the Greek authorities pick up von Till”
“Not good enough,” Pitt said thoughtfully. “That
would be the same as a district attorney demanding the indictment of a suspect for murder ‘who had no motive. No, there has to be a reason, not a valid one in our eyes necessarily, but still a reason for all this intrigue and destruction.”
“Whatever the cause, it isn’t treasure.”
Pitt stared at Giordino. “I'd forgotten to ask. Did Admiral Sandecker send a reply to your message?”
Giordino dropped an emptied bottle in a wastebasket. “It came through this morning, just before the Colonel and I left Brady Field for the First Attempt.” He paused, gazing up at a fly walking across the ceiling, Then he belched.
“Well?” Pitt grunted impatiently.
“The Admiral had a crew of ten men pour through the national Archives on a crash research program.
When they were finished they all agreed on the same conclusion: there is no recorded document anywhere that indicates shipwrecked treasure near the Thasos coastline.”
“Cargos, could any of the recorded wrecked vessels have carried valuable cargo?”
“Nothing worth mentioning,” Giordino pulled a slip of paper from his breast pocket. “The Admiral’s secretary dictated over the radio the names of all the ships that were lost on or around Thasos in the last two hundred years. The list isn’t impressive.”
Pitt wiped the salty sting of sweat from his eyes. “Let’s have a sample.”
Giordino set the list on his knees and began reading aloud in a rapid monotone. “Mistral, French frigate, sunk 1753. Clara G., British coal collier, sunk 1856. Admiral DeFosse, French ironclad, sunk 1872.
Scyla, Italian brig, sunk 1876. Daphne. British gunboat.
“Skip to 1915,” Pitt interrupted.
'H.M.S. Forshire, British cruiser, sunk by German shore batteries on the mainland, 1915. Von Schroder, German destroyer, sunk by British warship, 1916. U-19, German submarine, sunk by British aircraft, 1918.”
“No need to continue,” Pitt said yawning. “Most of the lost wrecks on your list were warships. The chances are slim that one of them might have carried a king’s ransom in gold.”
Giordino nodded. “As the boys in Washington said, ‘no recorded documents of sunken treasure’.”
The talk over treasure brought an alert gleam in Lewis’ eyes. “What about ancient Greek or Roman vessels?” Most records wouldn’t go back that far.”
“That’s true,” said Giordino. “But, as Dirk previously pointed out, Thasos is a long way off the beaten’ shipping paths. The same holds true for the trade routes of antiquity.”
“But if there is a fortune under our feet,” Lewis persisted, “and von Till found it, he’d most certainly keep it a secret.”
“‘There’s no law against finding sunken treasure.”
Giordino exhaled two streams of smoke through his nose. “Why bother to hide it?”
“Greed,” said Pitt. “Insane greed; wanting one hundred percent, refusing to share with others or having to pay the government under which the riches were found any taxes or assessments.”
“Considering the huge cut most governments demand,” Lewis said angrily, “I can’t say as I’d blame von Till for keeping the discovery a secret.”
The cabin boy came and went, Leaving three more bottles of beer. Giordino downed his ‘with one tilt of the head and then dropped the empty bottle beside its mate in the wastebasket “‘This whole game is like a bad deal,” he complained. “I don’t like it.”
“I don’t like it either,” Pitt said quietly. “Every logical avenue winds up in a cul-de-sac. Even this talk about treasure is meaningless. I tried to bait von Till into admitting he was after treasure, but the wily old bastard offered
