The Forty Column Castle (10 page)

I dropped them. “You going to hang in for the finale?” I hooked my fingers through
my thong ready to strip.

He half smiled and pulled his shirt over his head. I chickened out and turned my back,
slipping off my thong and pulling on my bikini. He won that round.

Nude bathing was not unheard of around the island and not infrequently I had been
on beaches where whole families bathed in the nude, usually the Scandinavians, certainly
not the Cypriots. But I found some amount of modesty can be sexy so I elected for
bottoms for this swim.

Zach did not. He wore not a stitch.

I watched the real attractive end of him head into the water ahead of me. I had a
weakness for nice buns. These were exceptional.

I waded in, gasping at the chilly temperature of the Mediterranean in May, scanned
the water for undesirable sea creatures like nettles then swam out toward the deep
blue water.

Zach swam ahead of me with long powerful strokes like he had a destination. I followed
slower then rolled on my back and floated, my hair fanning out around me in the water,
the sun warm on my breasts. What a way to live. If I didn’t end up in a Cypriot prison
with my aunt, I’d move to this lovely island. I certainly could manage the mutual
fund from here.

The mutual fund.

I hadn’t thought about it in over twenty-four hours, and I was to have called Lena
yesterday. Geez, it wasn’t any big deal, because Lena could handle the fund without
me for a few days. She might be worried, but I was sure that Yannis would have filled
her in if she had called his house. I couldn’t believe I had totally forgotten.

I did some surface dives, looking around the rocky sea bottom for ancient treasures
someone may have missed, then remembered why I was here, and the allure of antiquities
dimmed.

I surfaced, swiped the hair from my eyes, and came face to face with Mr. NYPD.

“Enjoying yourself?” he asked.

My breath caught in my throat.

His hair was slicked back from his forehead accentuating the breadth and strength
of his brow. Drops of water glistened in his eyelashes, and the sun reflecting on
the water made his eyes bright and his tan deeper. His face could have been sculpted
by Michelangelo. The lines were clean and strong.

“Yes, you?”

“Yeah, but I’m heading in.” He turned and swam to shore with those long, determined
strokes. On the beach he stood to dry off, and I got a glimpse of all of him. Breathtaking.

I stumbled out of the water, sweeping the hair from my face. He caught my elbow and
pulled me against him. My lord, he felt good. I discovered I wanted him as bad as
he wanted me. Right then and there we satisfied our desire for each other, standing
on that deserted beach with the heat of the sun beating on us, the waves lapping at
our feet.

What a swim.

“What about you and Yannis?” Zach asked.

I blinked out of my post-coital haze. We were on the highway, speeding south toward
to Pafos.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, don’t you two have something going?” Zach stared straight ahead, eyes on
the road.

“No. He’s a dear friend, and our relationship has stayed that way all these years.
He gets jealous, but it doesn’t mean anything. He has plenty of women to comfort him.”

Zach was silent. We were testing new ground after the interlude on the beach at Lara
Bay. I hoped I wasn’t getting into one of those sicko arrangements where nice girl
falls for kidnapper. I never bought those stupid stories, but I might be living one
now.

“Will you pull over at that tourist store up ahead?” I asked.

He glanced over with a puzzled look.

“I need a disguise like a big hat, bigger sunglasses, long pants, loud shirt. After
all, the police are looking for me. Probably wouldn’t hurt if you looked more like
a tourist, too.”

He cracked a grin and swung into the dusty parking lot.

The Park ‘N’ Buy was like hundreds of little tourist stores all over Cyprus. You could
buy anything from drinks to snacks to T-shirts to reproduction pottery with ancient
Greeks doing obscene things around the sides. Everything was open air. Hanging shirts
and purses were blowing in the warm breeze.

I picked out white Capri pants and a pink blouse with Pafos scrolled across the pocket.
A floppy black straw hat caught my eye with Cyprus written across the band in red
italics. I found big black rimmed sunglasses with black lenses and a cheap gold chain
necklace with Saint Christopher medallion that appealed to me. I needed all the help
Saint Christopher could give.

Zach picked out boat shoes, tan Bermuda shorts, multi-hue floral shirt, and a panama
style straw hat with a black band. His day’s growth of dark brown beard with sun streaked
brown hair gave him a trendy look.

The feeling between us had changed. I wasn’t sure who he was or what would happen,
but I was enjoying today better than yesterday.

I changed in the car as we drove down the highway with Zach exhibiting an extraordinary
amount of interest as I pulled off my top, replacing it with the blouse and shimmying
down my shorts and pulling on the longer pants.

“Nice legs,” he said. “Nice breasts. You ever been a model?”

“Not yet, but it might be my next career if I ever get out of the fix I’m in.”

He grinned and pulled out a cigar. A long, fat cigar.

“You don’t smoke cigars,” I said.

He shrugged. “It goes with my tourist image.” He glanced at me. “I won’t light it.
Just chew on it,” he said and grinned maliciously.

“Are you really NYPD?” I asked. Something I couldn’t put my finger on made me ask
that question.

He nodded. “Really am.”

“Where’s your badge?”

He fished in his pocket and pulled out the pile of loose cards he carried, flipped
through them while alternately watching the road, and passed one over.

The man looking back at me from the badge had a beard, dark hair, looked thirty pounds
heavier and wore no uniform. But it had New York Police Department on it and his name,
Zachariah Bronsen Lamont. It wasn’t a police badge. It was one more like tech geeks
wore around their necks.

“This doesn’t look like you.”

He shrugged and chewed on the cigar. “I’m in disguise, and I was a little heavier
then.”

He flashed me another grin.

The man in the photo resembled Zach, but the thought occurred to me that he said he
had three brothers and what if one looked a lot like him and was NYPD. A niggling
doubt. The man in this photo might not be Zach Lamont, although the name said it was.
Forgers could remedy that. I handed it back.

We hit the outskirts of Pafos and more tourist stores. Hotels and restaurants increased
in number and intensity. Most buildings were two story stucco types, white with archways,
some with balconies, a style found all over the world in countries with warm climates.

Zach turned into the car rental agency. It was just opening. “Wait here. Even though
you have your disguise on, we don’t want to arouse anymore suspicion than necessary.”

I nodded. I had fixed my hair into a knot on top my head and with the floppy hat,
my hair and forehead were totally covered. The big sunglasses hid a good part of the
rest of my face.

Zach went in to the small building that served as an office. The cars on the lot were
in various stages of disrepair. This was not Hertz. The blue Maruti looked like it
could have come from here. He came back out with a barrel-shaped man sporting a bushy
black mustache who pointed like he was giving Zach directions. Zach nodded and they
talked, the man making a waving gesture over his collection of cars. Zach pointed
to one of the Honda SUVs on the lot, a muted green color with hardly any dents. They
shook hands, and the mustachioed man went inside.

Zach came over to my side of the car and leaned in. “Get your stuff together and put
it in the Honda over there. We’re changing cars.”

I sighed. I rather liked this luxurious Land Rover, but I guess a fugitive had to
be more careful than comfortable. Zach came back out with keys and moved his stuff
and the supplies in the back that included a heavy duffle bag.

I didn’t want to know what was in it.

As we pulled out, he said, “The man says the American couple have rented the Maruti
for a month and gave me directions how to find the address they listed on the rental
agreement. We’ll pay them a visit. He also said the police had been here and asked
him about the same Maruti.”

I stared at him. “The police? Geez, Yannis must have told them about the Maruti.”
The thought that the police were closing in gave me an attack of claustrophobia.

The house we sought was at the end of a dead end street. Zach made a U-turn at the
end and parked on the opposite side of the street a few houses away. He pulled down
both sun visors.

“What are we doing?” I asked, as he settled down to chew on his cigar.

“This is called a stake out. Take your hat off but keep the eyewear on.” He took his
hat off and laid it on the console between us.

I did as requested. “What are we staking out?”

“We’re going to watch the activity around this house and on the street for a while.
If we become too obvious, we’ll drive away. I want to see who is staying in the house,
what they do, where they go. Unfortunately, the Cypriot police might have the same
idea, so keep your eyes peeled for another stake out car.”

I laughed to myself. How would I know what a stake out car looked like? But I didn’t
want to appear that unversed so I put on my best stake out face. We waited. And waited.
I nodded off at some point for lack of sleep and the creeping heat of the day. I started
awake at the touch of Zach’s hand on mine.

“I’m going to walk to the back of the house and look around. Can I trust you to stay
here?”

I looked at the ignition.

He smiled. “I’m taking the keys with me.”

“Then I won’t be going anywhere, will I?” I closed my eyes again and leaned my head
against the seat.

He squeezed my arm. “You’re supposed to stay awake and watch the house.”

“Okay, chief. Will do.” I sat up and tried to appear alert.

He put on a navy blue NY baseball cap he had bought at the Park ‘N’ Buy and eased
out of the car. Very clever disguise. No walkers, no runners, no residents out for
a stroll or going to the store. If my memory served me correctly, it should be Tuesday.
Most Cypriots would be working. It was getting on toward noon, so the tourists had
probably drifted away to the beach or sightseeing. If the American couple were tourists,
then they were probably at the beach or sightseeing. Or maybe they were helping with
the archaeological dig at the Castle of Forty Columns, since they were supposed to
be part of the team. If they were, Zach and I should walk over there since it wasn’t
far to walk to the dig by the beach road.

My thoughts wandered to the guy holding binoculars and looking at us on the cliffs
above Agios Georgios. Was he driving the blue Maruti that the American couple had
rented? Why had two guys pursued us through Pafos? Had they been watching Yannis’s
house? If so, why had they followed me to the Coral Bay, unless they were watching
the Coral Bay or vacationing there and didn’t have anything better to do and decided
to follow me.

I mulled over something that was bothering me. The first time we saw the Maruti was
on the cliff at the beach. Zach and Yannis were with me. The second time was Monday
morning at the Coral Bay. Zach was staying there.

They were following Zach. Why?

Who were those guys? Did they kill Max and Irene? No, they couldn’t have killed them.
They were following us, and we lost them on the other side of Pafos. They were behind
us. Then who killed Max and Irene and why? My partner wasn’t offering any explanations,
but I could ask him again.

And here he came looking like he was trying to hold a run to a walk. He jumped into
the car and took off flying to the intersection and hung a right without stopping.
Thank all the Greek and Roman gods, no traffic was coming.

“What happened? What’s the rush?” I said, as I clutched the hand hold to keep from
flying through the window as we careened around the corner.

“I found the Maruti.”

“Where?” I looked around, bobbing back and forth, trying to see through the traffic
behind us.

“It was parked in the drive behind the house, accessed through a narrow alley at the
end of the dead end.”

“So?”

“You see anyone following us?” Zach looked in the rear view mirror.

I checked. “No blue Maruti, if that’s what you mean. Would you please tell me what
is going on?”

“I slipped in the back through the sliding glass doors.”

“Great, breaking and entering we add to the list.”

“No, that’s not breaking and entering. I was just visiting friends if anyone asked.”

“Then what?”

He slowed down, made a series of right turns, pulled over into a crowded parking lot
in front of a downtown restaurant advertising the world’s best seafood, found a parking
space, and cut the engine.

“Slide down in the seat,” he said, and I, being the obedient slave that I was, obeyed.

“Will you please tell me what is going on?”

“Two guys were in a room upstairs. It’s packed with communications equipment, computers,
routers, radios. Maps on the wall.”

“What would they be doing with that?”

“Fomenting terror, maybe. That’s what I’m here to find out. I’ll go back when they
aren’t there and check out the computers.”

“They didn’t see you?”

“I don’t think so, and I don’t think they followed us. But let’s wait here for about
five minutes just in case.”

We waited. It got miserably hot in the car real fast. I had a better idea. I was hungry.

“How about we wait in the restaurant and get something to eat while we do?” I asked.

“All right. Walk as quickly as you can but don’t look like you’re being pursued.”