Bloody Passage - Jack Higgins [45]
She laughed delightfully. "That's what I love most about you, Oliver. All those brains, all that ruthlessness and inside, you're still a little boy back there on your grandfather's farm running through a field of ripest corn."
But by then she had lost me completely, not that it seemed to matter and we continued into the night, walking back toward the boat, arm in arm.
* * *
It was just before nine the following morning when the patrol boat turned up from Tripoli. I was on deck checking the diving equipment with Barzini when Nino gave the alarm.
"There's a boat coming in."
I'd just surfaced after making the first dive of the day and had attached a line to one of the amphorae which Barzini and Angelo were busy hauling in. They got it over the rail and onto the deck where it lay streaming water, looking very impressive what with the mollusks and seashells embedded in it.
I was wearing the top half of an orange wetsuit, a face mask and an aqualung. I came up the access ladder we'd hooked over the rail and said to Langley, "You want to make yourself useful, get one of the other aqualungs on quick and look busy."
He did as he was told without any argument. Simone draped a towel round my shoulders and handed me a lighted cigarette. She was wearing a sweater and jeans. I said, "Go below and get into your bikini. Comb your hair down and wear sunglasses. Anything to gild the lily, then get back up here. Nothing like having a woman around the place to make things look right."
She didn't argue either, which was good because we didn't have much time left to get ready. The boat wasn't much. A shabby old fifty-foot diesel launch that had definitely seen better days and looked capable of fifteen knots at the very most and no more. There were half-a-dozen uniformed sailors on deck and one man stood in the stern behind a Russian RPD light machine-gun, mounted on a swivel and loaded with a hundred-round drum. The red, white, and black tricolor of Libya drooped from a pole behind him.
They came alongside, not too expertly, and Nino and Angelo grabbed the lines they threw. A young officer in a neat khaki uniform and peaked navy cap with what seemed a lavish amount of gold braid in evidence, came out of the wheelhouse and approached the rail.
He straightened his jacket and saluted formally, a handsome young man with a rather melancholy face and a clipped moustache. "I am Lieutenant Ibrahim of the coastguard service. And you?"
"Palmyra out of Palermo," I said and snapped my finger to Barzini. "Have you got our papers, Aldo?"
He produced them from the wheelhouse with a great show of joviality and I passed them to Ibrahim. "There you go, lieutenant. Ship's papers and our permit from your own Ministry of the Interior to dive here."
He examined them quickly, a slight frown on his face. "Archaeological diving."
"Yes," I said. "Perhaps you'd care to give us your opinion on this. We've only just brought it up."
His eyes widened when he saw the amphora. "But this is wonderful. What is it--Roman?"
I shook my head. "No, strangely enough it's a Roman wreck we're looking for, but this is Phoenician. Quite unmistakable."
He examined it with awe. "You've found a wreck then?"
"Timber and planking," I said, "And a sternpost. That's all and several more amphorae. I was just going down for another."
Simone appeared from the companionway looking absolutely devastating in a black bikini, gold sandals, dark glasses, and with her hair combed down as I'd suggested. She was carrying a tray containing a bottle of Scotch and several glasses.
Ibrahim, obviously as impressionable as any normal young man, was knocked sideways. I introduced them and he kissed her hand gallantly.
"If you'll excuse me," I said, "I'd like to see what the situation is below."
I nodded to Langley, pulled on my face mask and went over the side. I paused just beneath the surface to adjust my air supply, gave Langley the thumbs up and followed the line down through the smoky green water.
Fifty or sixty feet and I hovered over a great bank of weeds. I could see one amphora