The Vulcan Disaster

By the time I’d showered and shaved and got into deck clothes it was nearly noon, and by that time the coffee had me feeling as though I could face life again. I could hear through the porthole a lot of activity on deck: people hauling on lines, shortening sail. Sailboats, particularly square-rigged dinosaurs like the Vulcan, require an incredible amount of hard labor — which is why they’re such a satisfying hobby, and why nobody in the world uses one to make a living with anymore. I wondered what was happening.

When I got out on deck again I found out. We were coming into the harbor of the little island where we’d be staying the night. It was a spectacular entry: the island itself was nothing more nor less than a gigantic dead volcano, its guts blown out thousands of years before by an explosion of incredible force. The harbor, like so many harbors in the Greek Islands, was itself a drowned caldera, its remaining walls forming three sides of a nearly perfect circle, and we were preparing to enter through the gap carved by fire and lava eons before. On all sides of us loomed tall, precipitous cliffs; far ahead on the land side of the caldera you could see the white, gleaming walls of a tiny town full of scrubbed little fishermen’s houses. My guess was that we’d lie at anchor not near the village, but farther out in deep water; in the calm provided by the natural mole, we’d anchor the big ship and hire the villagers’ caiques for going ashore.

I couldn’t wait for that party to get started.

I must have muttered something like that under my breath. All of a sudden Michel was beside me at the rail, agreeing with me. “Yes, Harry, it is a most lovely sight, isn’t it? I may call you Harry, mayn’t I? And what a marvelous party it will be.” He drew the adjective out: mah-velous.

“Michel,” I said. “I was thinking. I, ah, wonder if the party might not be the right time to make a play for Mlle. Weiner. She really turns me on. Have you seen her?”

“My word,” he said. He turned and looked at me. “Dear boy. You’ve just had an evening in the Forbidden City — with Alex — and you’re already thinking of sex again? My word. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to be ten years younger, with all that vigor and elan. But Vicki? Dear me, I wouldn’t have thought her your type. You surprise me.”

“Fach to his own,” I said.

“Well,” he said, watching — with a more than academic interest, it seemed to me — a sailor hand-over-hand it up through the rigging and hook a bare leg over a yard. “She might, of course, be more fun than one of those dumpy Greek cows in the village.” He shuddered delicately. “Nevertheless, my dear fellow, it’s all academic.”

“Why?” I said. I looked at him, his lined little face taking on an air of world-weary smugness.

“Why, she’s gone, old man. Disappeared during the night. Overboard, someone suggested. Nobody’s been able to find the smallest sign of her all morning.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

I checked my watch once before shoving off. It was pitch dark out there on the rocks, but I could make out the luminous numbers on the waterproof watch. Ten-thirty. Across the little bay, the party was in full swing, with bouzouki music tinkling merrily away.

Now, out on the rocks in my wet suit, with the oxygen tanks strapped to my back and the little oilskin package containing my papers, money and weapons snapped on to my belt, I hesitated for a moment before dropping into the bay. I gritted my teeth and stepped off the edge into the cold dark waters.

There’s one nice thing about swim fins: you don’t have to use your arms at all to make good time. I was thanking Leon’s foresight in forcing the underwater gear on me; in that cold water, swimming with my caved-in rib cage would have hurt like hell. Now all I had to do was relax in the water and kick, keeping the head up and a weather eye out for the ship.

It came into view pretty quickly. There were a couple of lights on deck and, to my surprise, the aft section — the Forbidden City, including both Alexandra’s quarters and the old man’s — was brightly lit. I wondered at that; had Alexandra come back to the boat? I hadn’t seen any sign of her in town all evening.

I noticed a skiff tied up below the starboard rail. I filed that information away and decided to swim around the Vulcan and come up the other side.

Clearing the water without a splash and a lot of noisy dripping was a problem, right up to the moment when someone in the skeleton crew left aboard turned on a portable radio and picked up a loud Athens station. Then, just as I was sticking my head over the side, somebody forward yelled for the guy to turn it off.