Eagle in the Sky - Smith Wilbur - Страница 14

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Hey!  Joe challenged him.  Where are you going?

I've had enough of Spain, David told them.  I'm taking some good advice,

and I'm moving -out, and he felt a flare of savage triumph as he saw the

quick shadow of pain in Debra's eyes.  Both Joe and Hannah glanced at

her, and quickly she controlled the quiver of her lips.

She smiled then, a little too brightly and stepped forward, holding out

her hand.

Thank you for all your help, David.  I'm sorry you have to go.  It was

fun.  Then her voice dropped slightly and there was a tiny quiver in it.

I hope you find what you are looking for.  Good luck.  She turned

quickly and hurried away to her room.

Hannah's expression was steely, and she gave David a curt nod before

following Debra.  So long, Joe.  'I'll carry your bag.

Don't bother, David tried to stop him.

No trouble.  Joe took it out of his hand and carried it out to the

Mustang.  He dumped it on the rear seat.

I'll ride up to the top of the hills with you and walk back.  He climbed

into the passenger seat and settled comfortably.  I need the exercise.

David drove swiftly, and they were silent as Joe deliberately lit a

cigarette and flicked the match out the window.

I don't know what went wrong, Davey, but I can guess.

David didn't reply, he concentrated on the road.

She's had a bad time.  These last few days she has been different.

Happy, I guess, and I thought it was going to work out.

Still David was silent, not giving him any help.  Why didn't the big

bonehead mind his own business.

She's a pretty special sort of person, Davey, not because she's my

sister.  She really is, and I think you should know about her, just so

you don't think too badly about her.  They had reached the top of the

hills above the town and the bay.  David pulled on to the verge but kept

the engine running.  He looked down on the brilliant blue of the sea,

where it met the cliffs and the pine-covered headlands.

She was going to be married, said Joe softly.  He was a nice guy, older

than she was, they worked together at the University.  He was a tank

driver in the reserve and he took a hit in the Sinai and burned with his

tank David turned and looked at him, his expression softening a little.

She took it badly Joe went on doggedly.  These last few days were the

first time I've seen her truly happy and relaxed.  He shrugged and

grinned like a big St. Bernard dog.  Sorry to give you the family

history, Davey.  just thought it might help.  He held out a huge brown

hand.  Come and see us.  It's your country also, you know.  I'd like to

show it to you.

David took the hand.  I might do that, he said.  Shalom.  Shalom, Joe.

Good luck.  Joe climbed out of the car and when David pulled away he

watched him standing on the side of the road with his hands on his hips.

He waved and the first bend in the road hid him.

There was a school for aspiring Formula I racing drivers on a neglected

concrete circuit near Ostia, on the road from Rome.  The course lasted

three weeks and cost $500 U.  S.

David stayed at the Excelsior in the Via Veneto, and commuted each day

to the track.  He completed the full course, but after the first week

knew it was not what he wanted.  The physical limitation of the track

was constricting after flying the high heavens, and even the crackling

snarling power of a Tyrell Ford could not match the thrust from the

engine of a jet interceptor.

Although he lacked the dedication and motivation of others in his class

his natural talent for speed and his coordination brought him out high

in the finishing order and he had an offer to drive on the works team of

a new and struggling company that was building and fielding a production

team of Formula racing machines.  Of course, the salary was starvation,

and it was a measure of his desperation that he came close to signing a

contract for the season, but at the last moment he changed his mind and

went on.

In Athens he spent a week hanging around the yacht basins of Piraeus and

Glyfada.  He was investigating the prospects of buying a motor yacht and

running it out on charter to the islands.  The prospect of sun and sea

and pretty girls seemed appealing and the craft themselves were

beautiful in their snowy paint and varnished teakwork.  In one week he

learned that charter work was merely running a sea-going boarding house

for a bunch of bored, sunburned and seasick tourists.

On the seventh day the American Sixth Fleet dropped anchor in the bay of

Athens.  David sat at a table of one of the beach-front cafes and drank

ouzo in the sun, while he studied the anchored aircraft carriers through

his binoculars.  On the great flat tops the rows of Crusaders and

Phantoms were grouped with their wings folded.

Watching them he felt a consuming hunger, a need that was almost

spiritual.  He had searched the earth, it seemed, and there was nothing

for him upon its face.

He laid the binoculars aside, and he looked up into the sky.  The clouds

were high, a brilliant silver against the blue.

He picked up the glass of milky ouzo that the sun had warmed and rolled

its sweet liquorice taste about his tongue.

East, west, home is best.

He spoke aloud, and had a mental image of Paul Morgan sitting in his

high office of glass and steel.  Like a patient fisherman he tended his

lines laid across the world.  Right now the one to Athens was beginning

to twitch.  He could imagine the quiet satisfaction as he began to reel

it in, drawing David struggling feebly back to the centre.  What the

hell, I could still fly Impalas as a reserve officer, he thought, and

there was always the Lear, if he could get it away from Barney.

David drained the glass and stood up abruptly, feeling the fading glow

of his defiance.  He flagged a cab and was driven back to his room at

the Grande Bretagne on Syndagma Square.

His defiance was dying so swiftly that one of his companions for dinner

that night was John Dinopoulos, Morgan Group's agent for Greece, a slim

elegant sophisticate with an unlined sun-tanned face, silver wings in

his hair and an elegantly casual way of dressing.

John had selected for David's table companion the female star of a

number of Italian spaghetti westerns.  A young lady of ample bosom and

dark flashing eye whose breathing and bosom had become so agitated when

John introduced David as a diamond millionaire from Africa.

Diamonds were the most glamorous, although not the most significant of

Morgan Group's interests.

They sat upon the terrace of Dionysius, for the evening was mild.  The

restaurant was carved into the living rock of the hill-top of

Lycabettus, under the church of St. Paul.

Down the zigzag path from the church, the Easter procession of

worshippers unwound in a flickering stream of candle flames through the

pine forest below them, and the singing carried sweetly on the still

night air.  On its far hill-top the stately columns of the Acropolis

were flood-lit so that they glowed as creamily as ancient ivory, and

beyond that again on the midnight waters of the bay the American fleet

wore gay garlands of fairy lights.

The glory that was Greece murmured the star of Italian westerns, as

though she voiced the wisdom of the ages, and placed one heavily

jewelled hand on David's thigh while with the other she raised a glass

of red Samos wine to him and cast him a look under thick eyelashes that

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