Dedicated to the men of the Secret Service of the United States of America
Prologue
Handley Duvall stepped outside from the Barbarossa Hotel on the South Pacific island of Hiva Faui and squinted up at the tropical sun as he mopped his brow with his handkerchief. This certainly wasn't Boston. It was at least a hundred degrees in the shade, with a humidity that nearly matched.
The electricity had gone out again in the downtown section of the capital city, something that happened at least twice a week, so even in the hotel barroom there had been little or no relief.
Duvall had been promoted last month to mid-shift foreman, which gave him the privilege of hotfooting it into town once a week for the "booze and treat" run. Booze for his shift for the week, and the treat was a visit to Madame Leone's, next door to the hotel.
This afternoon he wondered, however, if either was worth a damn. The booze was watered down and overpriced, and without air conditioning the girls at Madame Leone's would be somewhat less than appealing.
His stomach growled, a sharp wave of heartburn rising up at the back of his throat.
"Christ," he swore. He hated this place.
He started next door, when he happened to look across the street to the government-run liquor store. Yun Lo, the Chinese shift boy from the site who had come into town to help Duvall, was loading the five cases of booze into the jeep. Only there were several Chinese standing around him. He was passing out bottles of the booze to his friends in exchange for other bottles that he put into the cases, which he then loaded into the jeep.
The goddamned kid is cheating me, Duvall thought. The booze was watered down, all right, but not by the liquor store. It was being done by Yun Lo and probably by all the other Chinese who worked at the receiver site as well.
Duvall, a large man who was over six feet tall and weighed at least two hundred pounds, could feel his blood pressure rising as he hitched up his khakis and charged across the street, the sweat pouring off him, his muscles flexing.
"Hey, you son of a bitch!" he shouted.
Yun Lo and the other Chinese looked up, startled, as did a half-dozen other pedestrians nearby.
One of the Chinese — it looked to Duvall like a woman — dropped the bottle she had been holding, and it shattered on the sidewalk as she sprinted down the street.
The others scattered as well, except for Yun Lo. He stood next to the jeep, smiling uncertainly and bowing repeatedly.
Duvall smashed his fist into the man's left shoulder, sending him skidding up against the jeep.
"You bastard! You son of a bitch!" Duvall screamed, charging after Yun Lo, who stepped aside.
Suddenly Duvall was upside down, and then he was lying on his back on the sidewalk, his head throbbing where he had hit it.
"What the hell…?" he began, and he looked up into Yun Lo's eyes. The young man was no longer smiling. He stood in a half crouch, his eyes flashing, his teeth bared.
For just an instant something in the back of his mind told Duvall to watch himself, to hold back. Hell, he had been an All-Star halfback at Iowa State. But he was damned mad. He had another eighteen months of this place… another year and a half of pure, unadulterated crap to put up with, and already he was sick and tired of it all.
He scrambled to his feet and charged the slightly built Oriental again, swinging as he came. Something very sharp and almost hot pierced his side, causing him to pull back and to the left.
There was no one out on the street now. Half a block away from them was the town square and the police station. Up the hill was the governor's mansion. But they were alone here.
Duvall stood staring stupidly at Yun Lo. The Chinese man held a long, wicked-looking knife from which blood was dripping all the way to the haft.
"You stupid bastard…" Duvall said.
Yun Lo turned and unhurriedly walked away. The knife clattered into the gutter as he disappeared around the comer, and a weakness descended over the American, who looked down at the great gash in his side from which his own blood was pumping.
He had been stabbed. Yun Lo had actually stabbed him. Christ! This is ridiculous! Electrical engineers don't get stabbed on obscure islands in the South Pacific. Professor Albertson never told him anything like that at Iowa State.
Duvall staggered sideways to the jeep, then shuffled around to the driver's side and managed to climb up behind the wheel. He held his left hand firmly against the wide wound.
Apply direct pressure. Wasn't that what his high school Red Cross first aid instructor had told them to do?
Somehow he managed to dig out his keys and get the jeep started. He never thought about the hospital around the comer as he pulled away from the curb and accelerated jerkily through town, going out to the seacoast highway that led fifteen miles to the other side of the island where the Hiva Faui Satellite Tracking and Receiving Station was located.
He passed a couple of trucks on the way out, and a lot of pedestrian traffic heading out to the copra drying pits and presses. But the farther he went, the weaker he became, so that after a while he was having a lot of trouble keeping the jeep on the narrow blacktopped road.
He had been stabbed. Even now it was almost impossible to believe.
Blood was leaking between his fingers, down the side of his hip and leg, but the bleeding had definitely slowed down.
Duvall glanced at the wound, and the jeep suddenly swerved to the right. At the last moment he looked up as the jeep crashed through a thick tangle of brush in the ditch beside the road and crashed into a young palm tree.
For what seemed like an eternity, the American sat in the jeep, his head against the steering wheel, his entire world going round and round. It was as bad as being drunk, the fleeting thought crossed his mind.
After a time he looked up. He was in the middle of a goddamned jungle.
Duvall tried to think. He remembered passing the main copra processing sheds, and then he had safely negotiated the hairpin turns around the cliffs. It meant he was not too far from the site. Perhaps a mile or two at the most.
He pushed open the door and stumbled out, then pulled his way to the back of the jeep. He could see the road about ten feet above him. It seemed like a thousand feet.
He started up but fell back against the jeep, his right arm flopping against the cases of booze. He looked back, then opened one of the cases, pulled out a bottle, and opened it. He tipped it up and took a deep drink. Immediately he spat it out. It had been watered down. Probably with tea and iodine. The tea for color, the iodine for bite.
He threw the bottle aside and opened a second, this one from a back row. He took a cautious drink. It was whiskey. He took another deep drink, his head spinning around for a second or two, and then he started back up toward the road.
Twice he stumbled and fell back in great pain. Each time, he took another deep drink, then started up, finally reaching the road as the tropical sun began to go down and the voracious mosquitoes came out.
Immediately he started up the gentle incline, staggering from one side of the road to the other.
Once he thought he heard a siren sounding from above, and he stopped and held his breath. But the wind was blowing up from the sea, and after a while he started up again, not at all sure he had heard anything.
* * *
It was fully dark when he came around the last bend in the access road, in full view of the radomes and the four huge satellite tracking dishes. He was numb by now, his head buzzing. He had long since discarded the whiskey bottle, most of its contents gone. But he knew that what he was seeing was all wrong. Terribly wrong.
There were fires everywhere throughout the tracking site, and now he could definitely hear sirens, and something else… gunfire. He was sure it was gunfire!
"Jesus…" he swore out loud, his voice hoarse. and he redoubled his efforts, hobbling up the road.
As he got closer he could definitely hear gunshots, and he could hear people shouting and screaming.
The site was under attack. But by whom? It didn't make sense. Nothing that had happened that day made any sense to Duvall.
The main gate was lying half off its hinges, the odor of cordite very strong, but the gunshots and cries finally ended. The siren, however, kept on wailing as Duvall cautiously approached.
There were several bodies lying on the blacktop. Some of them were dark-skinned and clothed only in loincloths. But two of them, sprawled near the guardhouse, wore khaki uniforms.
Duvall hurried over to those bodies and turned one of them over.
Christ! It was Wolchek! They had played poker together in the group last night.
Duvall looked up. What had happened here? What in God's name had happened?
He picked up Wolchek's.45 automatic, awkwardly checked to make sure there was a round in the chamber, and he cocked the hammer back and entered the tracking site. Suddenly the alarm cut off and he froze.
The silence was eerie. There were several bodies on the road ahead of him and a burned-out truck. Smoke rose from a building farther up the hill, but the dishes and radomes seemed intact.
Someone came running down the hill from Administration, and Duvall swiveled around, bringing up the.45. But he realized it was one of the technicians. Then his knees gave way beneath him.
What is going on, he thought as he fell to the roadway. What in hell is happening here…?
One
The azure sky out to sea seemed to merge with the fairy-tale blue of the Mediterranean as the yacht Marybelle worked her way northeast up the coast of France from Cannes to her winter berth at Monaco.
It was still early, before noon, as Nick Carter, clad in bathing trunks and a short terry cloth robe, emerged onto the afterdeck where the stewards had laid out champagne and breakfast.
"Good morning, Monsieur Carter," Henri-Rieves, the assistant chief steward said, holding out Carter's chair.
"It is a good morning, isn't it," Carter said, breathing deeply, drinking in the sweetly scented sea air. "When are we due at Monaco?"
"Not until after lunch, monsieur. Mademoiselle Gordon instructed that we stop for an hour or two off Antibes."
"Another wreck?"
"Perhaps more Roman amphorae, monsieur."
"Perhaps," Carter said. The steward poured him a glass of crackling cold Dom Perignon, served him a bit of beluga, some toast, and shirred eggs, then retired gracefully belowdecks.
The gentle motion of the ship easing its way through calm seas, the fine, well-chilled wine, and the comfortable surroundings were deeply relaxing at that moment. Carter sighed deeply. It had been years since he had had a vacation half so purely restful as this one had been.
For the past two weeks he had been cruising the French Riviera aboard the Marybelle, a 210-foot yacht owned by Lady Pamela Gordon, the thirty-year-old daughter of Sir Donald Gordon, former MP and chief of the SIS back in the late fifties and early sixties. Sir Donald and David Hawk, Carter's boss and head of the United States's supersecret intelligence agency, AXE, were old friends, going back together before World War II. It was only natural that Carter had been introduced to Lady Gordon, and last month the invitation to join her for the beginning of her fall-winter cruise had come.
He had another ten days before he had to report to the AXE Rehab and Retraining Facility in Arizona, and his plans included Lady Gordon's villa in Monaco and a bit of baccarat in Monte Carlo.
"Two weeks, and you're already going soft on me," a mellifluous woman's voice came from behind him.
Carter turned around as Lady Gordon, her deep, rich tan stunning against her almost nonexistent yellow bikini, came on deck. She was frowning.
"Enough clay pots, Pamela," Carter said, laughing. "I'm on vacation."
She came around and kissed him on the cheek, then took her place across the small table from him. Henri-Rieves glided to her elbow, the champagne bottle in hand.
"Mademoiselle," he said.
"Please," she said, looking into Carter's eyes.
The steward poured her wine and brought her a lightly salted musk melon half with a bit of cream and a few strawberries on the side, then left.
"Didn't you sleep?" she asked, sipping her wine.
"Like a log."
"Why were you up so early, then?"
"You've done well for the last two weeks. Don't try to arrange my next ten days," Carter said. Lady Gordon's problem had been — and always would be, he suspected — that she did not feel comfortable unless she had arranged the lives of everyone around her. She was a natural-born organizer. Everyone in London — and half of the regulars on the French, Spanish, and Italian Rivieras — was trying to marry her off to a diplomat. She would make a perfect consul's wife or the consort of an ambassador somewhere.
"Sorry, Nicholas," she said, turning her head. "I hope you don't mind that we're stopping at the twelve-foot ledge off Antibes."
"Not at all…" Carter started to say, when Henri-Rieves came up. He was carrying a telephone.
"Pardon, monsieur," he said. "There is a call for you." He plugged the telephone in the afterdeck panel and set the instrument on the table in front of Carter, who picked it up.
"Carter here."
"Mr. Carter, I'm so happy I was able to reach you," an excited man's voice came over the line. This was trouble, Carter sensed.
"What can I do for you?"
"Pardon me. I'm Roger Morton, charge d'affaires for the United States embassy in Paris, and I have a message for you, sir."
"This is an open line, Morton," Carter said. He was looking at Pamela, who was pouting. She sensed it meant trouble as well.
"Ah… yes, sir, I understand that. I merely telephoned to pass a message, sir."
"Go ahead. I'll take your message."
"This is from Amalgamated Press. You are to return home immediately. There is an important assignment for you. End of message, sir."
Pamela had gotten up, and she came around the table to Carter and leaned over him, running her fingers through the hairs on his chest as she nibbled on his left ear.
"Who was the signatory?"
"D.W. Hawkins."
It was David Hawk. "All right, Morton. Thank you for your help."
"Any reply, sir?" the charge hastened to ask.
"None. Thanks again," Carter said. As he put down the phone, Pamela straightened up, smiled provocatively, and sauntered back into the main salon and into the owner's stateroom.
Carter smiled. He drank the rest of his champagne, then got up and went up the ladder to the fly deck and up the second ladder to the bridge. Captain Phillipe Jourdain, his dress whites immaculate, looked up when Carter entered.
"Ah, Monsieur Carter, how may I be of assistance this morning?"
"I need to get to Nice as quickly as possible, Captain. I have a plane to catch."
"I am so very sorry, monsieur, but Mademoiselle Gordon has issued us our instructions…"
Carter reached out and picked up the phone, then punched the numbers for the owner's stateroom. He switched to intercom.
"Pamela, this is Nicholas. I've told your captain to make for Nice."
"Yes, Nicholas," Pamela said, her voice husky. "But am I to be kept waiting here all morning?"
"No," Carter said, eyeing the embarrassed captain. He put down the telephone. "What is our ETA?"
"It will take us two hours at full speed, Monsieur Carter," the captain said.
"Get me to the public docks, then I'll need a taxi to the airport," Carter said, and he turned and went below.
Pamela was waiting for him, nude on the king-size bed in the owner's stateroom. They had been going on like this for two weeks, but now Carter was almost glad that Hawk had called him away. He was beginning to feel just a bit kept.
* * *
Carter had no problems getting a seat on the 2:00 p.m. flight to Paris from Nice, and from there the evening TWA flight into Washington's National Airport.
Pamela had put up a fuss at the docks, however, insisting that she come along with him and straighten out his boss about his vacation time. She had even been willing to place a call to the President.
Carter had calmed her down, promised to rejoin her as soon as he could, and to placate her, he even left his tuxedo aboard.
"Hurry back, Nicholas," she breathed into his ear. "We'll have a marvelous fall together. You'll see. I will have everything arranged by the time you return."
He disengaged himself from her, they kissed once again, and he took a cab. By the time he had rounded the corner from the quay, the Marybelle was already pulling out. Pamela wasted no time.
* * *
A chill wind blew off the Potomac as Nick Carter retrieved his bags, hurried through customs, and went outside to look for a cab. It was just a few minutes after midnight, Washington time, but his body clock told him it was six hours later. He was dead tired.
Tom LaMotta, one of AXE's staff drivers, was waiting for him just ahead of the taxi stands. There was a lot of traffic from the late-night Paris arrival.
"Mr. Carter," a familiar voice called out, and Carter looked around tiredly as the round, cheerful driver came across and plucked both suitcases out of his hands.
"Didn't expect to see you here, Tom," Carter said, following the driver back to the nondescript Chevy.
"We knew you were coming in on the midnight TWA."
"Just get me home. I'm beat."
LaMotta opened the trunk and tossed Carter's bags inside. "Sorry about that, sir, but the brass is waiting for you."
Carter was instantly awake, the adrenaline suddenly pumping. "Is Smitty there?" he asked. Rupert Smith was AXE's new head of Operations. If he was waiting, something immediate was happening.
"Yes, sir," LaMotta said.
They drove north past the Pentagon to the Key Bridge, and once across the river they cut back on M Street to New Hampshire, which they took up to Dupont Circle where AXE maintained its headquarters under the cover of Amalgamated Press and Wire Services.
LaMotta parked in the basement garage and took care of the luggage while Carter signed in and went directly up to Operations on the fourth floor. He had to be signed in again by security there, then had to punch the six-digit code for the access door.
LaMotta had called ahead. Rupert Smith was waiting for him, a thick bundle of file folders before him. He did not look pleased.
"Sorry to have to cut your vacation short like this, Carter," Smith said. He was very tall and very thin, almost skeletal-looking. He had served in various capacities in the Central Intelligence Agency for the past fifteen years, but when the Company had become too tame for him, he had transferred to AXE. He was very good at his job.
One of his people stuck his head in the door. "He's ready, sir. Will you be needing Karsten?"
"Is he ready?"
"Yes, sir."
"Very good. I want you down in Archives. We may have some more cross-referencing to tidy up the loose ends yet tonight."
"Yes, sir."
Smith, who had been seated behind his desk, got up and came around. Carter got to his feet.
"No rest for the wicked, I'm afraid," Smith said. "But David wants to see you."
"Hawk is here? Tonight?"
Smith nodded. "I don't know the source, but he's taken this as one of his pet projects. It's why you were called, of course."
They went out into the corridor and started toward the private elevator, which was the only access up to executive territory on the fifth floor.
"Something's happened somewhere?" Carter asked. When he had left for vacation with Pamela, everything here had seemed to be on a fairly even keel. No trouble spots had been developing as far as he knew. He said as much to Smith.
"This has been hatching for the past year or two, from what I gather," Smith said. "But NASA was handling it until two months ago, until the Navy took over security."
Carter was about to ask "Security for what?" when Herb Karsten, the major domo of facts, figures, and instant references for AXE, stepped out of his office and joined them.
"Nick," he said, extending his hand. "Trust you had a good vacation?"
"Not bad. Been here long?"
"All night."
They took the elevator up, their passes were checked, and they strode down the corridor into Hawk's outer office. His secretary, Ginger Bateman, was gone, but the inner door was open, and Smith led them through.
David Hawk was a short, very stocky man with a thick shock of white hair and a short bulldoglike neck. He was smoking a dreadful cigar as usual, and he took it out of his mouth and looked up as they came in.
"Are you fit, Nick?" he grumbled without preamble.
Smith closed the door behind them.
"Yes, sir," Carter said.
"You were scheduled for retraining and testing this quarter. Are you ready for an assignment without it?"
"I think I can manage, sir," Carter said. He, no less than anyone else in AXE, had a very deep and abiding respect for David Hawk, the chief. What Hawk said, went. He was hardly ever wrong. And no one, absolutely no one, ever lied to him, or over- or underestimated any situation. When he asked a question, he expected an absolutely honest, totally straight answer.
"Have a seat, then, gentlemen. We have a lot of ground to cover tonight," Hawk said.
They all took seats across from Hawk. Smith opened his top file folder and thumbed through the papers it contained. Karsten sat back.
"What do you know about the Caroline Islands?" Hawk began.
"A group in the Pacific… north of the equator, I think. South of Japan. U.S. trust territory. Truk is there and Hall Island and maybe Bikini."
"Correct on all but Bikini… it's in the Marshall Islands. Nearby. But you understand that not much happens out there these days."
"Satellite tracking and receiving stations?" Carter asked.
"That's the extent of it," Hawk said, glancing at Smith. "Which is exactly our problem."
Smith took up the briefing. The Faui Faui island group within the Carolines," he began. "Have you heard of them?"
Carter admitted he had not.
"Five inhabited islands, plus numerous other coral atolls. Faui Faui itself — which is one of the smaller islands — then Tamau Faui, Akau Faui, Natu Faui — where the biggest native population lives — and then Hiva Faui. Hiva Faui is the main island and on it is the capital city of the same name."
"In the Carolines?"
"Yes. Just east of Hall, northeast of Truk, and almost directly north of Oroluk. Lots of white sand beaches, hot days and warm evenings, volcanoes, natives, all that sort of thing."
"But curiously enough, the French actually own it all," Karsten put in.
Carter looked toward him. "I thought it was all a U.S. trust."
"All but the Faui Faui group. Much of that area was French before the war, and then after we liberated it all from the Japanese we took it over. All but the Faui Faui group. There were apparently a number of French families who sacrificed a lot during the war. De Gaulle insisted, and the group remained in French control."
"But with a rather important treaty, as it turns out," Smith added.
"French cooperation," Carter said.
"Yes. Much like Guantanamo Bay. Despite the French histrionics of the sixties and seventies, we managed to hang on to our bit of land on Hiva Faui."
"Satellite tracking?" Carter asked.
"Yes," Smith replied.
"Spy-in-the-Sky satellite," Hawk said. "Interagency. Big stuff."
"I see," Carter said. "How long have we had this operation running?"
"In one form or another since the mid-sixties," Smith said. "Actually, it was one of our first. We watch the Far East from there. Before that it was routine electronic surveillance. Radio and cryptography, and things like that."
"I get the picture," Carter said. "So what's happening out there now that has us worried? Sabotage? A mole?"
"That's just it," Smith said. "We really don't know."
"But it has to stop." Karsten added.
Smith thumbed deeper into the files he held on his lap. He looked up at Hawk, who nodded for him to go on, then cleared his throat.
"In January 1969, Tom Hawkins, a technician at what was then called Number 17HF Site, apparently committed suicide. They found him hanging in the forest," Smith said. He paused just a moment and went on. "August 1971, Stew Scharaga, Donald Deutsch, and Wally Hoggins died when the truck they were driving apparently went out of control and crashed over a cliff just down from the station. May 74, and again in July of 75, 76, and 78, there were major fires at the station. A total of fourteen people killed, twenty-seven injured."
"The list goes on?" Carter asked. He had a funny feeling about what he was being told, although he had no idea where it was going.
"Indeed," Smith said. "The troubles out there increased. Suicides, fires, accidents, landslides, and even several murders."
"What else?" There was something more; Carter could feel it now.
"Headhunters. Cannibals. Natives hostile, for some reason, to our being on the island."
Carter looked at him, then turned to Hawk who nodded. "We're not serious, are we?"
"Perfectly," Smith said. "In the last five and a half years there have been seventeen technicians killed, another thirty or so wounded. And that's not counting the various cases of physical and mental exhaustion reporting back from Hiva Faui."
"What have we done about it?" Carter asked. He could not believe he was hearing what he was.
"As far as the accidents, suicides, and fights among the staff go, not a lot," Smith said. "As far as the attacks go, we've cleaned out Natu Faui and Akau Faui at least three times. Or at least the Navy has."
"To no effect?"
"Apparently not," Hawk said, sitting forward. "It's technically a French protectorate. There isn't a whole lot we can do about it."
"Surely security is…"
"Security is and always has been very good at the Hiva Faui site," Hawk said. "Somehow, though, the natives always find a way of getting through."
Carter sat back and lit one of his cigarettes that were specially made for him in a small shop in Washington. The paper was black, and his initials were stamped in gold near the tip. The tobacco was very strong.
"I'm to go out there and see what the trouble is."
"Something like that, Nick," Hawk said. "You're to see a Justin Owen — he's the station manager — and a Handley Duvall who witnessed a part of the last native attack."
"I see, sir," Carter said. "Who's in charge of the island? I mean, who is the French governor, or isn't there such a position?"
"Indeed there is," Smith said. "Albert Remi Rondine. He and his family own an enormous amount of stock in French manufacturing… especially steel and oil."
"Yet he chooses to be governor of a tiny Pacific island group?" Carter asked.
"He is quite a colorful character, actually," Karsten said. "He was born in Hong Kong in 1930 or 31, and when the war broke out he was taken prisoner by the Japanese."
"How'd he end up on Hiva Faui?"
"We don't know. But he is autocratic. He hates Americans. And he has a wife and at least half a dozen mistresses. It's his little kingdom."
"You want me to find out what or who is killing our people and put a stop to it on Hiva Faui."
"Exactly," Hawk said.
"Our people at the tracking station call it Death Island," Karsten added.
Two
Heading west, San Francisco was very nice for a night's stay, and Honolulu was expensive and very cosmopolitan. But after that things began to get a bit primitive by comparison. At Wake Island, the local BOQ — which the soldiers stationed there jokingly called the Holiday Inn — was a two-story barracks that had been built during World War II and had seen very few improvements since then, but there was hot water, and every room had its own shower and sink. At Agaña, on Guam, no one had the guts to call the accommodations anything but the "crash pad." And by the time the Faui Faui group showed up as a number of thick clouds on the horizon from the cockpit of an ancient but still serviceable DC-3, Carter had to wonder if he hadn't slipped backward in time.
They were bringing supplies down from Hall Island for the Hiva Faui Satellite Tracking and Receiving Station, and Tim Torrence, the sardonic civilian pilot, had nothing good to say about the place.
"The French may own it, and the Americans may work there, but the Chinese run the joint," the man said.
They had already begun their long descent, and the copilot, a little man from New Zealand, was just waking up. The cockpit smelled like a cross between lubricating oil and body odor. It was not very pleasant.
"What do you mean?" Carter asked. "I would have thought the Japanese would be here, if there were any Orientals."
Torrence laughed out loud. "You've got a lot to learn if you think anything like that. pal. The Japanese may have been here for the duration of the war, but right afterward they were either all killed or they hotfooted it back to their home islands."
"The Japanese aren't very well liked here? Still?"
"Still. But neither are the Chinese, for that matter, although the bastards are a fact of life."
They broke out of the intense cloud cover over the main island a few miles north of the end of the runway. Carter sat forward as they came in, and he got a good view of the sprawling satellite receiving station and the radar domes, four of them stark white in contrast to the dark green of the surrounding jungle. But even from here Carter could see where repairs were being made to a long, low brick building, and he could see that a number of the barrackslike structures were blackened by fire.
He swiveled around in his seat and looked toward the south, in the direction of a paved highway. "Where does the road lead?" he asked.
Odets, the copilot, glanced sleepily that way. "Town," he mumbled, and he turned back to the landing.
Torrence was very good. The DC-3 greased in for a landing on the paved runway, and soon they were pulling up and swinging around in front of a long, low building. The engines were cut, and Torrence looked around and grinned. "Here we are, pal, home sweet home. For you, that is."
Carter unstrapped from his seat and worked his way back to the cargo bay. Odets came back a moment later, undogged the main hatch, and shoved it open. The furnacelike heat hit them in a big rush at the same moment as a canvas-covered truck backed up to the open hatch. There were several men, all dressed in khaki, waiting below.
Carter jumped down, and Odets tossed down his two leather bags. A short, slightly built Chinese man scurried around the truck and scooped up Carter's bags, then hurried over to a jeep with them as a tall, rugged-looking man with red hair came over. Just behind him was an even taller, more heavyset man.
"Nick Carter?" the first man asked, extending his hand. Carter took it.
"Justin Owen?"
"That's right," the red-haired man replied. "I'm station manager out here, although these days that's nothing to brag about." He half turned as the other man came up. It seemed as if he were in pain. "I'd like you to meet my chief engineer, Handley Duvall."
Carter shook hands with him. "How are you feeling, Mr. Duvall? I understand you were wounded in the latest attack."
"No, sir. It was in town… one of our civilian workers," Duvall said. It seemed as if he were at his wit's end.
"One of the subcontractors," Owen put in.
"That little s.o.b.," Duvall began, but he became silent at a glance from Owen.
"We have a room set up for you," the station manager said, leading Carter around the truck and over to a second jeep. The Chinese man who had taken Carter's luggage was already gone. Several other Orientals, all dressed in white shorts, white long-sleeved shirts, and straw hats, had begun to unload the aircraft.
Carter looked back. Odets and Torrence stood in the cargo hatch, and the pilot waved. "See you next month," he shouted.
Carter waved back. "Only one plane a month?" he asked Owen.
" 'Fraid so, Mr. Carter. But even at that, I wouldn't be too optimistic about my chances of being on it. This is a tougher problem than you might think."
"There've been other investigators out here?"
"Investigators, committees, platoons, submarines. The entire gamut. But I'll tell you all about it later. I imagine you'll want to freshen up first, and I'll have the cook rustle you up something to eat."
"Sounds good," Carter said. As he climbed into the jeep with Owen and Duvall, he glanced again back at the plane. Several of the Orientals who were unloading the cargo were looking back. It struck Carter as odd, but then so did Owen and Duvall strike him as odd.
* * *
Carter was shown to a room on the second floor of a long wooden building that apparently served as a combination VIP quarters and administrative center. It was across a narrow road from one of the receiving equipment units and just next door to the dining hall. It was small but pleasantly furnished, and most importantly, it was air conditioned. He had his own private bathroom.
His suitcases had already been brought up, and most of his clothing had been unpacked and was hanging in the small closet.
Carter got undressed, took a quick, cool shower, and then got dressed in a pair of lightweight slacks, a military-cut shirt-jacket, and soft slip-on boots. He lit a cigarette as he strapped on Wilhelmina, his Luger, at his belt beneath his shirt, and made sure Hugo, his razor-sharp stiletto, was secure in its chamois sheath at his left ankle. He normally carried it on his forearm, but his shirt was short-sleeved. He also carried a very small gas bomb attached high on his inner thigh, much like a third testicle.
For a time he stared out the window at the activity down in the compound. Duvall had been the one who had been wounded in town by one of the Chinese from the station. From what Carter understood, there was not much love lost between the civilian employees — most of them Oriental — and the station engineers and technicians. But as far as he knew, Duvall's was the first incident stemming from that animosity.
From everything he had been briefed on, there was no connection between what had happened to Duvall and the attacks on the camp. And yet now that he was here, he had to wonder…
Someone knocked at his door, and he turned around as a young Chinese man came in and smiled. "It is time, Mr. Carter. Mr. Owen say your dinner is ready across the way at the club."
"Where is that?" Carter asked, looking closely at the man. It was hard to tell his age or his specific nationality. Taiwanese, possibly, he thought.
"Behind the dining hall, venerable sir."
"Thanks," Carter said, smiling. He stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray on his desk, then left the room.
After being in the air conditioning, even for just a short time, the temperature and humidity outside were nearly unbearable. He was sweating heavily by the time he made it across to the dining hall. A young man in white coveralls directed him around back to the club. Inside, Owen, Duvall, and a third, thin, sullen-looking man with a military crewcut were waiting for him at a large round table.
Owen waved him over. "You look a little less frazzled than before," he said pleasantly.
Carter sat down, and Owen introduced him to the thin man who, Carter noticed, wore a.357 magnum revolver strapped to his hip.
"Richard Fenster, chief of station security."
Carter nodded, but the man made no move to shake hands. Carter decided he didn't like him. He seemed shifty; his eyes refused to remain on one object for more than an instant.
An Oriental came from behind the bar and laid out several plates of sliced corned beef, thickly sliced rye bread, and all the trimmings, plus a round of cold beers.
"How long have you been out here, Mr. Fenster?" Carter asked, making himself a sandwich.
"Too long. And I don't mind telling you that I resent interference."
"What interference is that?" Carter asked, looking up.