Rod Wallace

Trapped In A Gordian Knot Rod Wallace

"Mac"Gordon "Mac" MacLeod woke early and glanced out the window of his house perched on the side of a mountain above the Aegean in the bay of Lamoni El Pasha, Greece. The weather forecast was right, he thought. Not a cloud in the azure blue sky. The sea reflected the sky with light ripples indicating the wind a West North West as predicted. The light air will fill in later in the day to a fresh breeze, Mac thought. It was a perfect day for the maiden voyage of his new J(R) 122, Cairngorm. He phoned Petro. "Petro, meet me at the boat, it's a perfect day for our first distance sail.""It looks like it. I'll be there in an hour. What do you have planned?""From Lavrio up north around Kea and then back to Lavrio. It plots out to about seventy nautical miles including the beat to windward from the south end of Kea. If the wind builds and holds as predicted we should be back in Lavrio before the sun sets.""Remember the Aegean winds are fickle.""I know, a sail boat never has an estimated time of arrival, just a destination. I'll see you at the boat. I'll bring lunch."The blue sea on the horizon was beckoning. His reverie was broken when his dogs began to bark. A small black SUV pulled into the driveway. He carefully placed the cigar in the ash tray. Two men stepped from the car slowly, wary of the barking dogs. He whistled to the dogs to let them know it was okay. "They're all bark and no bite."The shoes, dark socks and Hawaiian shirts were a dead giveaway they were not Greeks. Most Greeks in the south seldom wore socks. English or Americans he guessed. The older one with sandy hair, maybe in his 50's said, "Howdy, you Gordon MacLeod?" A Texas drawl confirmed he was an American. "Call me Mac." He walked down the stairs and shooed the dogs. "Come on up." "I'm Bob Ziegler and this is Pete Silva with the US Embassy." Mac went back to the deck and stood uneasily. The coffee was churning sourly in his stomach. In a couple of minutes Bob's cell phone rang. "Bob, yeah okay, here" and he handed Mac the phone. "Hello" A pleasant American voice of a young woman said. "Mister MacLeod, this is the US embassy. Bob Ziegler and Pete Silva work for the US State Department. You can trust them.""What do they want?""They'll explain it, don't worry."He passed the phone to Bob as his own phone rang. "The Embassy verified the guys are okay, and said they would call Bob Ziegler," Dimitri said."Yeah, they just did. I talked to someone at the embassy.""What do they want?" "I don't know but I don't like it. I'll let you know when I find out. I may need your help.""Okay, call me anytime, good luck."A little more confident, Mac went back outside. "Okay, let's start over. You want me to spy on my gardener, Hussein? Why?" "We think he has drug connections," Bob said."That's bullshit. He lives in the refugee camp in the village. He can't even take a beer there or he'll be deported.""Well then the job shouldn't be a problem, should it?" Pete replied with a slight smile."I'm fifty-three years old. I've never been in the military and haven't shot a gun since I was sixteen. You guys are probably CIA. I'm an engineer and too old for any game you're playing. " Mac held out his hands out palms up but couldn't control the shaking. Bob nodded. "Hey, we know who you are and what you do. We're not asking you to do anything difficult. Just keep an eye on your gardener. Look, we're not the bad guys. It's our job to put them out of business and we need your help."With his anger in check and hiding the sick feeling in his stomach Mac said, "No, I respectively decline. I want no part of you two."Pete stood up and grabbed Mac's shirt and pulling his face close to his. "You're just a soft spoiled American. If it wasn't for people like us you wouldn't eve