Under better circumstances, returning here would be great. Beautiful foliage, great looking architecture. Charlie could see renting a villa on a quiet beach down the road a bit, stocking it with good wine, and bringing something curvy and willing with him. His thoughts drifted to Annie; what would it be like if Hector hadn't gotten to her first? If his beeper hadn't gone off just at the wrong moment? He shrugged at his own thoughts. It wasn't as if he was going to try to muscle in on her. Hector was his brother, and Charlie couldn't do that to his brother.
On the other hand, a place like that might be a little pricey. Splitting the cost with his brother in arms might be the thing to do, and letting two women go shopping in these little bazaars that this tourist trap boasted would work while he and Hector indulged in some scuba diving or rock climbing. Yeah, he could see doing that, once the furor over one Carlos DiGriz died down.
This whole place, however, was starting to prickle. There was something going on, something that was riling the Komkoy natives. Charlie sipped at his drink, using the movement as an excuse to survey the territory, and didn't like what he saw. There were more men here today than yesterday. They were taking pains to seem like tourists—gawd, was that floral Hawaiian shirt awful!—but tourists they weren't. Each one was maneuvering through the crowd like a shark through a school of anchovies, cutting groups in half and eying the remainder with a cold black eye.
The natives knew it, knew that something was happening in their quiet home town. The bartender kept polishing that one glass over and over again. The desk clerk in the lobby kept bobbing up and down like a jack in the box. Even the three boat captains at the dock, normally out hawking for passengers to spend the day looking for dolphins, stayed calmly on board and tried not to attract attention.
Step one: do nothing. The fastest way to get caught was to run. Running would alert the out of town talent that he was here.
How had they found him? Didn't matter. It was probably more luck, or they had simply ruled out every other possibility. Charlie knew that it would happen eventually, but he had hoped that he'd have another day or two. That someone from 'Strasser Investments' would have shown up with a new identity for 'Carlos DiGriz', and bailed him out of this mess.
Charlie calmly finished his drink and stood up. As he expected, three sets of cold eyes settled on him, then carefully looked away, not certain if he was the one that they were looking for. Charlie ignored them. He ambled outside into the warm afternoon, heading toward the small shops and street stands, as any bored tourist might do.
Followed? No. Charlie almost breathed a sigh of relief. They hadn't identified him yet. They thought that he was in the area, but they didn't know for certain and they didn't know exactly what he looked like. Close, but no cigar.
Time to take a hike, set up shop elsewhere. It would mean another call to the back up number, and would mean finding another cell phone to make the call, but that couldn't be helped. Charlie turned his steps toward one of the roads heading out of Komkoy—and then abruptly turned around when he saw the pair stationed at the edge of the line of buildings. They were there for a purpose, and that purpose was to stop anyone with Grey's general appearance for questioning.
Damn! One avenue cut off, and if this avenue was cut off then it was likely that others were, as well. Grey was boxed in.
Not completely. There were two more options: by land and by sea, and he wasn't talking Paul Revere coming down on horseback to ring his chimes. No, if Charlie Grey was to hire one of those boats to take him off shore for a day of whale watching, perhaps the Turkish Feds would get tired of not finding him and go look somewhere else. That, however, would take more Euros than he currently had, and picking someone's pocket under the baleful eye of these dudes was not something that he intended to do.
That left land. Overland, to be more exact, over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house, as the kid's song went.
So much for his little blue signal on the steps in front of the Komkoy government building. It was a given that it would be watched closely. Going there would be an offer to give himself up.
Okay, how to get himself into the woods? Most of these buildings had thick stone walls around them, a holdover from the Middle Ages when it was needed to prevent the bandits from coming in to rape and pillage. Grey could hoist himself over those walls but it would be a trifle obvious.
Better: Grey headed toward the white beach outside the hotel that he'd stayed in last night. With luck, one of the hotel clerks would recognize him as someone who had roamed through the lobby yesterday. A perky wave, and he'd establish himself as a tourist rather than a fugitive. Maybe he could find Genevieve, the blonde from last night? Had the singles' cruise ship put out to sea yet? Maybe he could revise his plan to stow away on the cruise ship as an escape route. Worth a try. Charlie headed for the beach.
He pulled off the sandals that he'd stolen, slinging them over his shoulder, pretending that he was just another tourist entranced with the beauty of the beach. Grey paused to nudge a broken shell with a bare toe, picked it up and flung it into the gentle waves breaking along the shoreline.
Nobody seemed to be watching him. Good. Another quarter mile of beach, and he'd come across the docks where hopefully Genevieve's ship still waited for its newest passenger to board. If that didn't happen, he could 'amble' further up north along the coast until rocks forced him into the wilderness. From there, he could take off. Once in the woods, the only way they'd bring him down was to set a pack of dogs on him, and Charlie Grey knew how to confuse a bunch of canines.
Brown he stationed on top of the Athena with the field glasses. There was no more time to pretend to be vacationing fishermen; they had places to be. Blane motored the yacht out to sea to shorten the time spent picking up the fourth member of the team.
Gerhardt hauled up the waterproofed package that Williams brought back with him. "I trust you brought more ammo back with you."
Williams swung his leg over the rail, dripping onto the main deck. "Plenty of ammo, Mack. Six M16's. Half a dozen grenades, just in case."
"In case of what?"
"Whatever." Williams shrugged. "We're talking Betty Blue here, Mack. Who knows what we're going to need?" He swayed with the boat; Blane wasn't wasting any time heading east toward the Turkish shore. He followed Gerhardt into the interior of the cabin, pulling off his wetsuit as he walked.
Brown came in a moment after them. "Think he might be on one of the islands?" he asked. "Cannakale, something like that?"
Mack studied the map. "Not likely," was his opinion. "Not too many ways on and off. Carlitos would want to keep his options open."
"I agree," Blane put in, his attention still on the waves crashing into the front hull, making best time. "Our man will always try to keep his options open for as long as possible. He wouldn't want to be tied to one means of transport."
"Which means that he's on the Turkish coastline," Williams agreed, "unless he managed to sneak over the border into Greece. Top?"
"If he had, he would have contacted someone," Blane said blandly. "You have the most up to date intel, Hector."
"Which was already some twelve hours old," Williams said, stifling a groan. He peered at the map. "I'd say that we've got some thirty miles of coast to explore. How are we going to cut that down, Top?"
Blane spared enough attention for a quick glance over his shoulder at his team. "I'm not," he said cryptically. "You are. You and Bob."
"Me?" Brown knew better than volunteer for anything, and he didn't recall volunteering to explore all thirty miles of Turkish coast.
Sgt. Blane issued orders. "Mack, I want you up top. Watch out for anything that might slow us down; anything official looking which will require us to set up housekeeping to keep under the radar. Bob, Hector, I'm assigning the pair of you to retrace our man's route. He was last heard from in Rize, along the Black Sea. That's a fair distance from both the western coast and from Istanbul. Set up the most probable route and probable transportation, then decide where he's most likely to be based on your best assumptions. Go to it."
"Aye, Top."
Grey left the docks behind. Sweet Genevieve was gone with her singles' cruise, off to live the life of luxury for three more days until the ship harbored back in Italy. A chance overheard remark told him that he'd missed the cast off by a mere two hours. If he'd just put two and two together a little faster…
No help for it now. It was the woods for him, with another foray into the life of crime in order to acquire enough money to get him some place else fast. It didn't really matter where he ended up; Komkoy was getting too hot for him to stay. He spotted two more men scanning the crowds on the street just beyond the docks, and another two at the other end. Charlie ducked down onto the beach, the hot white sand a good six feet down below street level. For the first time in a long time, Charlie blessed his lack of height. Jonas Blane would have been spotted, towering over the dunes leading from the water to the town.
It would be a good mile to the end of the beach, a mile with rocks to crawl over at the end before the dark trees beckoned with groves of bushes for hiding. Charlie tossed a glance over his shoulder; uh-oh. Two men, looking acutely uncomfortable in suits, were mincing their way over the sand, destroying some fine Italian leather as they questioned some of the sun-worshippers in their path. One such pointed in Charlie's general direction.
Crap. Charlie picked up his pace just enough to keep from being noticed.
Sheer luck: a dark-haired Miss Universe First Runner Up came jogging along the sand, pony tail flying in the wind, sweat coursing down tawny skin. Her skimpy two piece bathing suit hugged her curves like honey on baklava.
If this isn't the best piece of luck…! Charlie fell into step beside her, keeping up easily, swearing that he would never skip his routine five miles with this as the reward. He pulled off his shirt and tucked it into his waistband for safe-keeping. "Hi, gorgeous." No fear. They'll all be looking at her, not me.
"Buenos tardes, senor." Good afternoon, sir, with just the right amount of caution in her voice. A bit of puffing, too; either this was the end of her workout, or those curves came more from diet than exercise. Charlie didn't care. He could certainly keep up his end of the conversation.
"Te gusta esa playa?" You like this beach? If he could keep her going for another ten minutes, they'd be at the end of the sand. Even if she insisted on turning around and going back, he'd be that much closer to his destination and escape.
"Si, mucho," she told him. Yes, very much. "Y mi esposo le gusta, tambien." She wiggled her ring finger at Charlie, demonstrating the diamond-encrusted wedding band that encircled the finger. "Alli esta." And there my husband is, coming for me. He likes the beach, too.
Charlie sighed. "Es un hombre muy afortunado," he told her with sincere regret. Such a fortunate man.
In more ways that one; Charlie turned around to run backward, giving a wave as if saying good bye to good friends. He spotted the pair coming after him, saw that they'd been joined by two more who equally miserable about getting sand in their expensive shoes. This was so not good; with a final wave to his new 'best buds', husband and wife, Charlie turned back around to 'finish his run'. He'd be able to easily outrun the four down the beach, but this whole episode would cut down on the lead time. Charlie had been counting on a good couple of hours at least to muddy his trail, and now it looked as though he'd be lucky to stay fifteen minutes ahead of them.
He was getting boxed in, and he didn't like it. Someone, somewhere, was thinking very clearly. Someone had a fair amount of training in the same sorts of planning that Charlie Grey had, and had used that training to figure out how to trap him.
Charlie stretched his legs, making every step count, putting more distance between him and his pursuers with every second. No need to hide; being out in the open, running on the beach, was hiding enough. He passed another runner heading back the other way, straight toward the group of suits. Charlie wasn't the only jogger on the beach, and if he played it just right, he could look like every single one of them. He could disappear into the crowd, and then across the boulders marking the end of the beach. He put on a small burst of speed, catching up with a group of three, winking at one whose tongue was hanging out.
The tongue pulled back in, and the jogger tried to persuade his tired body to cooperate for just a bit longer. Charlie sympathized; he usually felt that way around the fifteen mile mark. He coasted ahead of the tired runner, allowing the man to partially shield Grey from the view of his pursuers. Charlie became one of four instead of a singleton. Safety in numbers…
The boulders loomed. The other three slowed and turned, the tired one lifting his hand as if to ask if Charlie was going to run back down the beach with them.
"Sorry, man," Charlie told him. "Nice running with you."
The man blinked; he didn't understand English.
Given time, Charlie would have tried another language or two. French usually worked when English didn't. Time, however, was one thing that was in short supply. He clambered up onto the boulders, wondering if the suits carried guns and were prepared to use them. Probably…
The little itch that Grey associated with a target painted on his back died down as he finished crawling over the rocks with no bullets fired. Maybe they wanted him alive, had orders not to shoot? That was not reassuring.
The trees were less than a dozen yards away. Charlie put on another burst of speed, wanting the security of the brush to hide him. Fast, that's what was needed at present. Fast enough to leave them in the dust, to win himself some breathing room in order to plan a more successful place to hide.
Blam!
It sounded like a shotgun, harsh and loud, designed for maximum force over a short distance. Even as he identified the sound Charlie tripped over something entwined in his legs. Slender ropes scraped across naked flesh, twisting around his arms, sending him helplessly to the rocky ground.
A net. A damn net, fired from a gun, bringing him down like a rabbit herded into a damn trap.
Pretty accurate comparison, too. Grey himself had been herded here. All those men in the village of Komkoy were placed there to flush him out, and Charlie Grey had gone just exactly where they'd wanted him to.
Damn. How the hell was he going to get himself out of this one?
"We got trouble, Top," Mack called down from atop the observation deck of the Athena.
"Can we go around it?"
"Don't think so. They're coming in pretty fast."
"Damn." Couldn't be helped. "Official?" Blane started to slow the engines for boarding. It could take hours to satisfy either the Greek or the Turkish patrols that they were simply vacationers out for a few days of fishing. Passports would be looked at, papers would be examined, and there was a good chance of more than a few Euros changing hands. Blane didn't look forward to the experience. They were under cover, and that meant the opportunity for mistakes. And if the patrol captain decided to search the boat for contraband? There were drug-runners in this area as well as black market gun dealers, and the guns that Hector had brought back with him would do more than simply slow Blane and his team down.
"Not unless officials have decided to cut their flags from their budget," was Gerhardt's response.
Blane picked his head up. "Pirates?"
"Unless you know of any patrol boat that looks that skuzzy?"
Blane pushed the throttle forward. "Can we outrun them?"
"We can try." Doubtfully. "Nope. They're already catching up. They'll be on us inside of ten, Top," Gerhardt warned.
Not as though his team had a choice as to what to do. Swimming the last few miles to Turkey was not an option. "Williams, Brown," Blane ordered, "get out your gear. Prepare to repel boarders. Fire on my command."
Brown shoved the maps into the drawers so they wouldn't float away in the breeze. Williams opened the makeshift weapons locker, hauling out the M16's and tossing one to Brown.
"Those guys are in for a rude awakening," he commented, a small smile playing over his lips.
"Couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch of people," Brown returned. He handed another weapon up to Gerhardt on top of the observation deck. "Top?"
Blane accepted his own gun, placed it with the safety on in a spot where it wouldn't slide away from him. Both hands were needed on the wheel, keeping the Athena headed toward the Turkish coastline. There was no land in sight, nothing to suggest that they were getting close. This whole little slice of life was taking too long, and they had places to be. "Let's make this short and sweet," he told them.
