Father John Mikali stood a few feet away and Kytros was at his side, automatic in one hand, the other hooked into his belt. He looked very calm and completely in control.
Lorn ax stood there, his body aching, the taste of blood in his mouth, and Kytros said quietly, "The boat is waiting for you, Captain Lomax."
Lomax turned and looked at Alexias. On the big man's face was something that might almost have been respect, but there was more also. A slight frown of bewilderment as if for the first time he was unsure of himself and of the situation.
Lomax took a deep breath to clear his head and turned. He brushed past the sergeant and walked back along the pier and the people moved silently to each side.
From somewhere a thousand miles away he could hear Papademos shouting to his men and the rattle of the anchor chain and there was a roaring in his ears.
Katina was there, her arms around him and Yanni, his face white with excitement. She led him to the jeep and the boy opened the door and Lomax slumped into the passenger seat.
She climbed behind the wheel and leaned across to wipe blood from his face. "Are you all right?" she asked calmly.
He could feel her hand trembling and he held it for a moment and smiled. "A good thing Kytros arrived when he did. I'm getting a little old to be playing that kind of game."
She drove away quickly, scattering the crowd, and turned the jeep expertly into the narrow side street.
"Where are we going?" he said.
"To the hotel for your things. Afterwards I'll take you out to the villa. Oliver would want me to."
She turned into the square and braked to a halt in front of the hotel. As she started to get out, Lomax laid a hand on her arm. "Not you, only me." He climbed down and walked round to the other side. "I could do with some tune to think this thing out."
She looked down at him gravely. "Just as you like."
"Are you going to keep Yarmi with you?"
She nodded. "I think it would be better."
He smiled and ran his fingers through the boy's tousled hair. "We'll find you another dog, Yanni."
He moved between the tables and just as he reached the door she called to him. When he turned he saw that she was unfastening a chain that hung around her neck.
She threw it to him, liquid gold in the sun, and he caught it, closing his hand over it at once, knowing what it was.
"I give you back your courage," she said, and drove away very quickly.
He went into the cool darkness, aware of Anna's frightened face peering at him from the kitchen doorway and the stairs seemed to stretch into eternity.
When he reached his room, he closed the door very carefully and stood with his back against it staring at his clenched right hand with the two ends of gold chain hanging down. After a while, he opened it gently and looked at the small bronze coin that bore the face of Achilles.
A long time ago, he thought. A hell of a long time ago. He lit a cigarette and went and lay on his back on the bed and stared blindly into the past.
Book Two
Cover of Darkness
It was the throb of the diesels that brought Lomax awake with a start. He lay there for a moment on the bunk, staring up at the steel bulkhead, a slight frown on his face as he tried to remember where he was.
After a while, something clicked and he pushed himself up on one elbow. Alexias was sprawled in a canvas chair in the far corner watching him.
The Greek removed the cigarette that smouldered between his lips and grinned. "You talk in your sleep, my friend. Did you know that?"
"That's all I needed," Lomax said. "Have you got one of those to spare?"
The Greek nodded and rose to his feet. He was a big,.dangerous looking man badly in need of a shave and his massive shoulders swelled under the blue reefer jacket. "I think that maybe you've been playing this game too long," he said as he gave Lomax a cigarette and struck a match.
"Haven't we all?"
Before the Greek could reply, the curtain was pulled back and Sergeant Boyd appeared with two cups of coffee. He gave one to Alexias and the other to Lomax ùwho took a sip and grimaced. "Everything tastes of submarine. I don't know how they put up with it."
Boyd was a big, dependable northerner with the ribbon of the Military Medal sewn neatly into place above his left breast pocket beneath the SAS wings.
"We've just surfaced," he said. "Commander Swansea asked me to tell you to be ready to go in fifteen minutes."
"Is all the gear ready?"
Boyd nodded. "I had to occupy myself somehow. Couldn't sleep. Never can in these things."
"How do you feel?" Lomax asked.
"About the job?" Boyd shrugged. "The same as usual. Why?"
Lomax shook his head. "No special reason. We seem to have been doing this sort of thing rather frequently lately, that's all. We can't last for ever, you know."
"Neither can the war," Boyd told him. "In any case, it's fifty-fifty every time. Even I know that much mathematics."
"I don't know," Lomax said. "This one's different. In Crete, a man could run a long way in those mountains, but Kyros is a small island."
"We've been on small islands before," Boyd told him. "Besides, we've got Alexias here to show us around. We'll fee all right."
Alexias grinned and his teeth looked very white against the dark stubble of his beard. "Sure, everything's going' to be fine. You've got nothing to worry about."
"Who said I was worried?" Lomax swung his legs to the floor. "You two get the stuff together. I'll see you up top in five minutes."
After they had gone, he sat there on the edge of the bunk finishing his coffee. It tasted foul, but then so did the cigarette.
He was tired, that was the trouble. Too damned tired and everything was beginning to blur a little at the edges. He definitely needed a rest after this one. A month in Alex should do it, but he'd been promised that for a year now. He pulled on his sheepskin coat, reached for his beret and moved outside.
He moved through into the control room and mounted the conning-tower ladder to the bridge. Above him, the round circle of the night was scattered with brilliant stars and he breathed the fresh salt air deep into Ms lungs and suddenly felt better.
Swanson was looking towards the shore, night glasses raised to his eyes. Lomax extinguished his cigarette and moved beside him. "How's it going?"
"So far without a hitch," Swanson said.
They were moving through a scattering of jagged rocks and tiny islands and Lomax whistled softly. "Looks pretty dicey to me."
"We didn't have a great deal of choice," Swanson told him. "After all, you did want to be on this side of the island and at least this gives us some sort of cover against their radar. They tell me the harbour here is usually crammed with E-boats. Care to take a look?"
Lomax took the night glasses and immediately the cliffs jumped out of the darkness at him, white surf pounding in across the rocks.
Swanson was speaking into the voice-pipe and when he turned his teeth gleamed in the darkness. "Not long now. How do you feel?"
"Fine," Lomax told him. "You don't need to worry about us."
"Of course you've done this sort of thing rather a lot, haven't you? I must say I like the look of your sergeant."
"We've been together two years now," Lomax said. "Crete, Rhodes, all over the Aegean. He knows more about explosives than any man I ever knew. Used to be a shotfirer in a Yorkshire pit before the war. They tried to defer him, but he wasn't having any of that."
"How does he handle the language problem?"
"He's picked up enough Greek and German to get by, but it doesn't really matter. I'm fluent in both languages."
"That's interesting," Swanson said. "What were you doing before this lot blew up?"
"University, journalism. A little writing." Lomax shrugged. "I hadn't really got started on anything properly."
"The war, the war, the bloody war," Swanson quoted. "I know what you mean. I was a third-year medic and look at me now."
They were close inshore and he glanced up at the' single peak of the island, black against the night sky. "Don't the locals believe Achilles is buried on top of the mountain?"
Lomax nodded. "So they say. The Monastery of St. Anthony is up there too."
"You seem to know your way around."
"Not really. That's where Alexias comes in. He was born and raised here. We couldn't do this job without him."
"He's a rough looking customer," Swanson said. "Has he been with you long?"
Lomax shook his head. "He's been working with a group in Southern Crete. Intelligence brought him out specially for this particular show."
"How are you getting out when the job's done?"
"The Special Boat Service are handling that end. Using a Greek caicque and pretending to be fishermen. A bloke called Soames is in charge.
"I know him well," Swanson shuddered. "You'd be better off with the Jerries."
"We'll survive," Lomax said.
"I was talking to a chap in one of the bars at Shep-heard's last week," Swanson said, "and he told me that Oliver Van Horn was still living here. That the Germans have left him alone. Is that true?"
"So I understand," Lomax said. "He came here just before the war because of his tuberculosis. I don't suppose he can do them much harm and allowing him to continue to live on the island makes for good publicity. Have you read any of his books?"
Swanson nodded. "One or two. Rather Maughamish with wonderful characterisation."
"I wish I had half his talent," Lomax said feelingly.
Swanson had been watching the shoreline carefully through the night glasses and now he leaned down and spoke briefly into the voice pipe.
The submarine started to slow and he turned to Lomax and said crisply, "This is as far as we go, I'm afraid. They're bringing your dinghy and gear out through the forward hatch. You'll find your sergeant and the Greek down there waiting for you."
"Thanks for the ride," Lomax said.
They shook hands briefly and he went over the side and descended the ladder to the circular hull. The dinghy was already in the water and as he arrived, Boyd dropped down into it followed by Alexias.
There was quite a swell running and the three ratings holding the lines cursed and one of them slipped and lost his footing on the slimy steel plates of the hull.
The Chief Petty Officer in charge handed the submachine guns and the radio pack to Boyd and then turned to Lomax. "I'd strap my pack on if I were you, sir. It's going to be a bit tricky going in through that surf."
"That's an understatement if ever I heard one," Boyd called softly.
Lomax slipped his arms through the straps of the heavy pack and buckled it securely.
"Ready to go, sir?" the CPO said.
"No tune like the present, Chief."
He waited, judging the distance, and as the dinghy lifted on the swell, stepped into her and sat down at once. The ratings released the lines and immediately the tide pulled the dinghy away from the submarine and in towards the shore.
The wind was freshening, lifting the waves into white-caps. As he reached for the paddle, the dinghy heeled and water poured over the gunn'l. He adjusted his weight and started to paddle.
Through the curtain of spray the cliffs loomed larger and at their feet waves rolled in to dash upon jagged, dangerous looking rocks.
Boyd was cursing steadily as water slopped over the sides and Alexias plunged his paddle deep into the water, using his great strength to control their progress. And then they were lifted high on a great swell and Lomax saw the base of the cliffs no more than a hundred yards away.
For a moment they seemed to poise there and then they swept down between two great rocks. Strange, swirling currents twisted them in a circle and there was a hollow, slapping sound against the bottom of the dinghy.
The water broke into white, foaming spray that soared high into the air and then they slewed broadside into the surf and lifted high over a great slab of rock.
Lomax went over the stern into the boiling water and floundered to his knees, groping for the radio pack. As his fingers fastened over its straps, another wave sent him staggering.
He tried to stand up and Boyd plunged through the boiling surf, hands outstretched to help him. For a moment they clung together and then another great wave cascaded across the reef bowling them over.
Lomax instinctively released his grip on the radio pack and grabbed for Boyd. He held on desperately, the fingers of his free hands hooked into the gravel as the wave receded with a great sucking sound.