They drove out to Olympia. "This is the site of the first Olympic Games," the Count told her. "They were held here every year for a thousand years in spite of wars, plagues and famines."
Catherine stood looking in awe at the ruins of the great arena, thinking of the grandeur of the contests that had been held there through the centuries, the triumphs, the defeats.
"Talk about the playing fields of Eton," Catherine said. "This is where the spirit of sportsmanship really started, isn't it?"
The Count laughed. "I'm afraid not," he said. "The truth is a little embarrassing."
Catherine looked up, interested. "Why?"
"The first chariot race ever held here was fixed."
"Fixed?"
"I'm afraid so," Count Pappas confessed. "You see, there was a rich prince named Pelops who was feuding with a rival. They decided to hold a chariot race here to see who was the better man. The night before the race Pelops tampered with the wheel of his rival's chariot. When the race began, the whole countryside was here to cheer on their favorite. At the first turn the wheel of the rival's chariot flew off, and his chariot overturned. Pelop's rival was entangled in the reins and dragged to his death. Pelops drove on to victory."
"That's terrible," Catherine said. "What did they do to him?"
"That's really the disgraceful part of the story," the Count replied. "By now the whole populace was aware of what Pelops had done. It made him such a big hero that a huge pediment was raised in his honor at Olympia's Temple of Zeus. It is still there." He smiled wryly. "I'm afraid that our villain prospered and lived happily ever after. As a matter of fact," he added, "the whole region south of Corinth is called the Peloponnesus after him."
"Who said crime doesn't pay?" marveled Catherine.
Whenever Larry was free, he and Catherine would explore the city together. They found wonderful shops where they would spend hours haggling over prices, and out-of-the-way little restaurants that they made their own. Larry was a gay and charming companion, and Catherine was grateful that she had given up her job in the States to be with her husband.
Larry Douglas had never been happier in his life. The job with Demiris was the dream of a lifetime.
The money was good, but Larry was not interested in that. He was interested only in the magnificent machines he flew. It took him exactly one hour to learn to fly the Hawker Siddeley and five more flights to master it. Most of the time Larry flew with Paul Metaxas, Demiris' happy-go-lucky little Greek copilot. Metaxas had been surprised by the sudden departure of Ian Whitestone, and he had been apprehensive about Whitestone's replacement. He had heard stories about Larry Douglas, and he was not sure he liked what he heard. Douglas, however, seemed genuinely enthusiastic about his new job and the first time Metaxas flew with him, he knew that Douglas was a superb pilot.
Little by little Metaxas relaxed his guard and the two men became friends.
Whenever he was not flying, Larry spent time learning every idiosyncrasy of Demiris' fleet of planes. Before he was through, he was able to fly them all better than anyone had ever flown them before.
The variety in his job fascinated Larry. He would fly members of Demiris' staff on business trips to Brindisi and Corfu and Rome, or pick up guests and fly them to Demiris' island for a party or to his chalet in Switzerland for skiing. He became used to flying people whose photographs he was constantly seeing on the front pages of newspapers and magazines, and he would regale Catherine with stories about them. He flew the president of a Balkan country, a British prime minister, an Arabian oil chieftain and his entire harem. He flew opera singers and a ballet company and the cast of a Broadway play that was staging a single performance in London for Demiris' birthday. He piloted Ju
stices of the Supreme Court, a congressman and a former President of the United States. During the flights Larry spent most of the time in the cockpit, but from time to time he would wander back to the cabin to make sure the passengers were comfortable. Sometimes he would hear bits of discussion between tycoons about impending mergers or stock deals. Larry could have made a fortune from the information he gleaned but he was simply not interested. What concerned him was the airplane he flew, powerful and alive and in his control.
It was two months before Larry piloted Demiris himself.
They were in the Piper and Larry was flying his employer from Athens to Dubrovnik. It was a cloudy day and there was a report of wind storms and squalls along the route. Larry had carefully plotted out the least stormy course, but the air was so full of turbulence that it was impossible to avoid it.
An hour out of Athens he flashed on the "seat belt" sign and said to Metaxas, "Hold on, Paul. This may cost us both our jobs."
To Larry's surprise Demiris appeared in the cockpit. "May I join you?" he said.
"Help yourself," Larry said. "It's going to be rough."
Metaxas gave up his seat to Demiris and Demiris strapped himself in. Larry would have preferred to have the copilot sitting next to him, ready to act if anything went wrong, but it was Demiris' airplane.
The storm lasted almost two hours. Larry circled the large mountains of clouds that puffed up ahead of them, lovely white and deadly.
"Beautiful," Demiris commented.
"They're killers," Larry said. "Cumulus. The reason they're so nice and fluffy is that there's wind inside of them puffing them up. The inside of that cloud can tear a plane apart in ten seconds. You can rise and fall thirty thousand feet in less than a minute with no control of your plane."
"I'm sure you won't let that happen," Demiris said calmly.
The winds caught at the plane and tried to fling it across the sky, but Larry fought to keep it under control. He forgot that Demiris was there, focusing his entire attention on the craft he was flying, using every skill he had ever learned. Finally they were out of the storm. Larry turned, drained, and found that Demiris had left the cockpit. Metaxas was in the seat.
"That was a lousy first trip for him, Paul," Larry said. "I may be in trouble."