It was, Brian Ritter realized, an absurd moment to be pondering the words of a dead German. A toss-off phrase from long ago, a notion that had lingered, was now, in the most deadly crisis of his life, adding to his torment.
He struggled frantically with the line, trying to free his foot. As pressure built steadily, uncomfortably in his lungs, the implications of it all panicked him.
They would slouch around on the dock staring at his gray flesh, asking how it happened. Police would arrive. A doctor would certify what they all could see. The ambulance attendants would make quips about another hunk of meat, while the boys from the boat grimly shook their heads trying to explain.
How had Thomas Mann put it? “A man’s dying is more the survivors’ affair than his own.” An offensive thought. He was not ready for it. He couldn’t accept it.
Ritter tugged furiously on the line again. His breath was nearly exhausted. He instinctively raised his arm and realized for the first time there was air in the darkness just above him. Air. If he could only get his foot free. With a final desperate effort he doubled up pulled on the line with both straining hands, and yanked his foot loose. He rose immediately to the small air pocket, a few inches of life-supporting oxygen between the briny water line and an unknown surface. The cool air rushed into his gasping, grateful lungs.
When the boat capsized, Ritter had lost his bearing and sense of direction. Now it was totally dark. It was obvious which way was up, but he had no idea which way was out. He rubbed his hands along the surface just above his nose as he continued to tread water. A wall? The ceiling? He had been in the cabin when they hit the rocks. Which way out now? The air was beginning to sour. The limited oxygen already was running out.
Deep shit, he thought. Got to get out. Find one of the doors. Escape. The boat couldn’t be too far down. The sea was no more than twenty to thirty feet deep where they hit the rocks. With luck he could reach the door, open it, and swim safely to the surface with a single effort.
Ritter groped along the pocket, searching for a clue to his position. How well he thought he had known the cabin. Now everything was strange. The table, upside down. Bolted to the floor. So it was the deck above him. The damned boat had somehow turned completely over.
The air was getting worse. Not much time left. He had to use precious reserves to find an exit from this soggy would-be coffin. He might have only one chance, at best two, to make it. He tried to concentrate, to remember where the cabin door was in relation to the table. Keep calm. No panic now. Remember how the cabin was laid out. He realized there was no way to know which side was which. The table was in the middle of the cabin. Any direction was a crapshoot. He tried to relax for a moment, sucked in another breath, and slipped down in the uncertain darkness, heading for a side that hopefully would have a door. He groped his way along. A bench and a shelf. Damn. Wrong way. He pulled along the wall, across the corner. His lungs were straining again. He reached the doorway. Light suddenly began streaming through a nearby porthole. The wreckage was shifting. For the first time he could partially see. Movement of the wreck meant the storm was still roaring or the wreck was caught in a current. Pain seared his lungs. Tough to concentrate. He had to return for more air. But now he at least knew where the door was. He could return directly to it and open it. Safety. He rose back up to the air pocket. Originally fresh and cool, the air was now warm and stuffy. Unsatisfying. Not much oxygen left. He fought to catch his breath, sucking, gasping. Get ready for the last dive. One way or the other.
Ritter took one final breath, gulping all the oxygen left in the air pocket, then pushed off from the deck above him and slipped back under the water. As he did, the boat shuddered and lurched, a loud disturbing noise, distorted in the water. The light began to fade. He swam frantically for where he thought he had left the doorway. He touched the side. The door had shifted. Which way? Damn. Lost the bearing again. Tortured lungs bursting. Darkness tightening in on him. Another loud noise. Thoughts of his body on the dock.
* * *
The rain had stopped. Half a dozen persons who saw the boat capsize on the reef at the height of the squall hovered around him, looking down. His normally bronzed skin had a deathly gray tone to it.
“He’s coming around,” said the man kneading the muscular back with strong, experienced hands. He’d been breathing his own breath into the lifeless form. “Come on. Move back,” the man shouted. “Let him get some air.”
Ritter coughed, regurgitating salty, slimy liquid. His lungs were gradually clearing.
“Close call,” said someone in the crowd. “If we hadn’t reached the cabin when we did, he’d been a goner.”
“Godawful lucky,” said the man with the strong hands, continuing to press down on Ritter’s bruised back. “He was down there a long time. Didn’t think we could get him.” He shook his head. “He’s either got the greatest set of lungs in the business or he’s the most resourceful man alive. Must have taken us at least fifteen minutes to find him.”
Ritter was making a low moaning sound. He was going to make it. The man rolled him over. Ritter coughed up more fluid from deep inside. His breathing was becoming more regular.
“Let’s get something over him, keep him warm. He’s suffering from shock.”
“Yeah,” said the man, dropping an offered jacket over Ritter’s trembling body.
“Cool, this guy, you know. A survival artist. None of the rest of us woulda made it. No way.”
No one contradicted him.
* * *
The hotel’s glass-bottomed boat sputtered into silence and glided through the rolling surf toward the beach. Guests who had spent the morning spearfishing and skin diving off a coral reef two miles east of the bay expectantly gathered together their belongings. Two ebony men leaped over the side of the craft to pull it to the beach, their muscular bodies glistening with dripping sea water and sweat as they struggled to tug the boat to the edge of the sand.
The newly tanned guests, some loaded with scuba-diving gear and others holding aloft strings of fish for those on the beach to admire, climbed over the side of the boat. A well-shaped young woman barely covered by a black string bikini and a diving mask pulled back onto her head brought a noticeable scowl or two from pudgy sunburned wives whose overweight husbands eagerly jumped up to inspect the catch.
“Now there’s a great looking honey,” Ritter clicked his tongue in an approving way. “We should have gone diving this morning, after all.” A lazy smile eased over his face. It was a face not handsome by Madison Avenue standards; one could never imagine Ritter modeling shirts in The New York Times Magazine. His ears were slightly too big and his infectious grin was sometimes almost too broad. He was only of average height and his nose was slightly crooked, the result of a war injury. Yet Ritter’s almost casual, relaxed approach to life proved irresistible to women. His muscular body, strong arms and legs, his tight belly, added to the appeal. His sandy hair had begun to thin out, but he still carried the eternal-beachboy look. A bright silver cross hung around his neck over the blond hair on his chest.
Ritter and Nelson, a lean wiry man who, like Ritter, looked as if he had spent his entire life somewhere on a beach, gazed out over the sunny scene from the cool comfort of the hotel’s bar. The circular room was walled with large green-tinted glass panels extending from the floor to the ceiling, through which the pair could see the girl. Leafy green plants and strategically placed palm trees along with an artificial waterfall produced the effect of a cool indoor jungle.
Ritter ran a large, weathered hand over his hair and glanced down at his glass. His ears framed a face that only hinted at his nearly fifty years. His blue eyes were filled with bright enthusiasm, but if one looked carefully, the furrows around them and on his forehead, baked into place by years of hot tropical sun, revealed he was not as young as his well-proportioned body suggested. Constant work as a diver had kept him in the excellent shape that much younger men envied.
Ritter and Nelson had arrived at the hotel the previous afternoon for a few days’ relaxation in one of the luxury spots of the Caribbean. For the past seventeen months they had labored recovering treasure from the wreckage of three sixteenth-century Spanish galleons off the coast of Barbados. The dive nearly ended in disaster when a sudden storm capsized one of their boats, trapping Ritter underneath. After settling their expenses, the partners had flown to Jamaica to unwind, enjoy their joint profits and contemplate their next move.
The Barbados dive had brought Ritter more money than he had ever known at one time in his life. As he sat sipping his drink and looking at the bikinied girl, he felt very glad to be alive.
“Come with me to Greece,” he said to Nelson. “Thompson wouldn’t have written unless he thought he was onto something good. Years ago, during the war, I looked for some gold in Greece, but never found it. Always wanted to go back.”
Nelson shook his head. Since he and Ritter had gotten together nearly five years before, things had gone well. They had brought up a number of treasures, and now Nelson was pressing for another big hunt right where they’d just come from, Barbados. He couldn’t understand Ritter’s interest in some fantasy gold at the other side of the world. They’d talked about it many times, but Nelson remained adamant. No Greece. This time, Ritter would go it alone. Although he knew he’d miss Nelson, Ritter felt an odd surge of excitement at the thought of pushing back the clock nearly thirty years.
* * *
For most of the morning, Thompson thought of little else but Ritter’s arrival. This was definitely the answer to his problem. Too old and arthritic to go himself, Thompson needed someone trustworthy. Assuming the gold was really there, a split would not be a bad deal. After all, the gold would be deposited in a Swiss bank, sold off on the Zurich market, and the money put into secret numbered accounts. The tax people would never have to know about it. Half a million sterling tax-free was more than most people ever saw in their entire lives.
Thompson had known Ritter for more than a decade. Although they had met only twice before, when Ritter came to London looking for a Spanish researcher, and later during Thompson’s only trip to the Caribbean, their relationship had always been warm. Ritter was meticulously honest in their dealings, paying on time and twice even paying more than they had agreed on as a result of successful dives. In fact, of all the treasure hunters Thompson knew, Ritter was the best. He liked none better. But above all, Ritter had once told him about a missing British gold shipment in northern Greece. Maybe this was the same gold. Maybe not. But Ritter at least had some experience in the Macedonian mountains, he was smart, and he had always been trustworthy.
Ritter showed up amid Alfred Thompson’s curios at noon. The two men repaired to the pub around the corner almost immediately, Thompson hanging a neatly lettered sign on the door that announced “Out to Lunch.”
“You appear to have survived in excellent shape,” Thompson said, running his eyes up and down Ritter. “But I see you still have that scar on your temple.”
“Compliments of the Wehrmacht,” Ritter said, settling down in the Pig and Grouse, known to local residents for its old London atmosphere and tasty bar snacks, the British equivalent of haute cuisine. “So, what about this big find in Greece?”
Thompson told him about Jimmy Waddell and his maps.
Ritter’s eyes went wide with surprise. “That sounds familiar,” he said, launching once more into his own unsuccessful treasure hunt during the war.
“I’d like to try again,” Ritter said, “but I don’t speak the language. A hunt through those mountains will require a guide, someone fluent in Greek.”
“I know someone who might be persuaded to go with you.”
“Is he Greek?”
“Half and half. The other half is Lebanese. He’s a smooth operator. Just might be interested in this.”