by Nick Carter
"We're going to have to get help from Washington, or we're going to have to shut down. The men won't stand for it. They'll quit, contract or no. This isn't the military. We're all civilians."
"I'll see what can be done," Carter said.
"Duvall quit. He was just outside. He had shot and killed two natives. He just turned around and told me to shove this place. He was quitting."
"The comm center," Carter prompted.
"Across the way in Engineering Able. Next to the antenna farm," Owen said. "But I'll have to go with you. They won't let you in otherwise."
"Fine," Carter said. He turned back to Fenster. "Would you show Madame Rondine to her quarters in the VIP building?"
Fenster nodded.
"Afterward, I want you and your people to question every single person on this base. I want as accurate a picture of what happened, when it happened, who was killed, and who was wounded, as possible."
Again Fenster nodded. "What time do you want to fly over to Natu Faui?"
"Oh-eight-hundred," Carter said. "That'll give you a chance to do what you have to do, and it'll give us all a chance to get a few hours' sleep."
"I'll have some clothing sent up to your quarters, Madame Rondine," Owen said.
"I would appreciate it, Mr. Owen," she said. She nodded to Carter, then left with Fenster.
"We're in for some trouble from the governor and his people before this is all over," Owen said.
"Most likely," Carter said. "I'll see what I can do with State on that score as well."
They went across to the engineering building, to a back, windowless room where they signed in to the top-secret electronic cryptographic room. Here classified messages were sent back and forth between this station and the Central Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon, and to a special circuit addressed to the State Department but in actuality relayed through AXE on Dupont Circle.
A young technician was there on duty. He was extremely nervous and kept fumbling with an M-2 carbine, a thirty-round clip in place.
"You're going to shoot someone if you keep doing what you're doing, son," Carter said.
The young man nearly jumped out of his skin.
Owen led him back to the door. "I want you to wait outside, Brad. I don't want anyone coming in here and bothering us for the next…" He turned back to Carter.
"Half hour, forty-five minutes."
"All right?" Owen asked, turning back to the young man.
"Yes, sir," the tech said crisply, and he stepped outside, the thick metal security door clicking shut behind him.
"You want me in or out. Carter?" Owen asked.
"You can stay," Carter said. "Just don't read over my shoulder. Anyone else read these circuits?"
"Not outside this room… other than the addressees."
"Good," Carter said. He sat himself down in front of the machine marked for the State Department, opened the circuit, and typed in his recognition code and the For-Your-Eyes-Only designation for David Hawk.
The reply came within a second or two, and the indicator for him to stand by came a moment later.
Carter sat back and lit a cigarette.
"Coffee?" Owen asked.
"Sure."
The station manager poured them both a cup, handed Carter his, then went back to the desk, sat down, and put his feet up. It was approaching noon in Washington, so Hawk would certainly be at his desk.
"I get the impression you've done this before," Owen said from over the rim of his cup.
"Done what?" Carter asked.
"I don't know what you people call it… missions, assignments, jobs. Whatever."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"I think you do."
Carter looked at him. "You're going to have to hold yourself together a little bit longer."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Owen snapped, sitting forward.
"It means if you fold on me now, like Duvall folded on you, my job will become difficult if not impossible. If that happens, I have a fair idea a lot of people will be killed."
"Agency hoopla…"
"I don't engage in histrionics, Justin," Carter snapped. He was very tired and at the thin edge of becoming nasty.
"I see…"
The teletype in front of Carter rang five bells, the indication of a highest-priority incoming. He swiveled around to it after noting the impressed look on Owen's face.
FOR YOUR EYES ONLY NICK CARTER N-3
FRENCH HAVE LODGED AN UNSPECIFIED PROTEST OUR AMBASSADOR PARIS QUERY — ANY KNOWLEDGE YOUR STATION
HAWK
Quickly Carter teletyped that he had full knowledge of the protest, which involved kidnapping.
The machine was silent for a few seconds, and Carter could almost see David Hawk, his thick shock of white hair mussed, the ever present cigar clenched in his teeth, staring at the teletype as he thought out Carter's message.
QUERY — PROGRESS REPORT YOUR ASSIGNMENT — DO YOU REQUIRE ASSISTANCE
NOT REALLY KIDNAPPING — BUT CHARGE WILL BE SAME
As quickly and as succinctly as he could, Carter teletyped a full report on what had happened since He had gotten there, including the transport pilot's observation that the Orientals ran the place, his initial meeting and first impressions of Duvall, Fenster, and Owen, his subsequent flyover of Natu Hiva with Tieggs, and men his meeting with the governor, the trip back with Gabrielle Rondine, and the attack on the base.
REQUEST STATE DEPARTMENT CLEARANCE ASYLUM FOR GABRIELLE RONDINE QUERY REQUEST POSITION OF NEAREST U.S. NUKE SUB
This time the circuit was quiet for at least ten minutes, and Owen was beginning to get nervous by the time the five-bell signal rang again.
Carter turned back to the machine as it spat out the latitude and longitude of the U.S.S. Starfish, then translated that into a mileage figure from Hiva Faui.
The Starfish, with its full complement of men and nuclear weapons, was about 1700 nautical miles away. Estimated time of arrival, according to Hawk, was in thirty hours, which meant the sub could make, submerged, better than fifty-five knots. Amazing.
REQUEST STARFISH ON SITE FOR POSSIBLE ASSISTANCE UP TO BUT NOT INCLUDING NUCLEAR STRIKE
The teletype was still for another two or three minutes. But then the final message clattered:
STARFISH YOURS
Carter cut the circuit, then cranked the paper out of the teletype machine and ran it through the shredder.
Owen had poured himself another cup of terrible coffee, and he had lit a cigar. He sat behind the desk watching Carter's every move.
"Well?" he said. "Do the peons get let in on it? Or do we have to guess?"
"Help is on its way, Justin," Carter said.
Owen looked up hopefully.
"Thirty, maybe thirty-five hours at the most, and this will all be over."
"Are the Marines landing? Is that it?"
"Something like that."
"But I don't get told."
"You don't get told," Carter said. He didn't want to start a panic. If there was a leak on the base, Carter wanted to make absolutely sure that the imminent arrival of the Starfish did not get out. Owen was the head man… it would begin with him.
"I see," Owen said, getting up from behind the desk. He held the cigar tightly between his teeth at the side of his mouth, then unlocked the steel door and stepped outside. Carter followed him, the young technician slipping back into the room.
Halfway down the corridor Carter stopped the station manager.
"It's not what you think, Justin," he said.
"What's not what I think?"
Carter looked into his eyes. "You signed on as a satellite tracking and receiving station manager. Am I correct?"
Owen nodded.
"I'm going to give that back to you."
Owen started to protest, but Carter held him off.
"Stay out of my business, Justin, and I'll give you your business back to you on a silver platter. Is it a deal?"
Owen hesitated.
Carter stuck out his hand. "Is it a deal?" he asked. "You let me do my job, and I'll give you your job in return?"
After a very long, pregnant silence, Owen managed a slight smile. He shook hands with Carter. "It's a deal, Carter," he said. "But then I don't have much of a choice, do I?"
Carter shook his head.
Owen laughed, then turned and walked down the corridor and out the door into the warm night air.
The engineering building had quieted down, and after a few moments Carter followed the station manager out of the building.
There was still a lot of activity on the base, but it was not as frantic as before. The fire in the barracks building was all but out, and there were only two men watching it now, with one fire unit.
As he crossed the main street, Carter looked down toward the main gate. A pair of trucks had been pulled up tailgate to tailgate in front of the main gate, and there were several armed men down there watching for another attack — an event that was highly unlikely to occur tonight.
Beyond the dining hall, Carter crossed the far street and entered the administration building, taking the back stairs up to the VIP housing area.
In his own room he peeled off his clothing and his weapons, then stepped into a scalding hot shower, which he ended with an icy cold blast.
After he dried off, brushed his teeth, and downed a quick shot of brandy from the bottle on his dresser, he crawled into bed and was asleep almost before his head hit the pillow.
* * *
It was just dawn when Gabrielle Rondine climbed into bed with Carter, her breasts pressed against his back, her long legs entwined with his, and her lips brushing his ear.
He had been in a deep sleep but was awake in an instant, and he turned around to face her. She was smiling.
"Good morning," she said, her voice husky.
If her face was beautiful, her body was gorgeous. Her skin was a soft, olive color, her shoulders tiny, her arms long and delicately formed. Her breasts were small, the nipples already erect, and just below the slight roundness of her belly, her jet black pubic hair had been partially shaved… evidently so that she could wear a very brief bikini. Her legs were very long and lovely.
"I'm surprised you're here, like this," Carter said. He reached out and caressed the nipple of her left breast with his fingertips. She shivered.
"I am not," she said. "The moment I set eyes on you on the back veranda, I knew that I would be… with you."
For a long time they just looked at each other. Gabrielle's eyes were very large and shining, her lips full.
"Was it very bad with him?"
"Yes," she said softly.
"Why… how is it you came to be with him?"
For a second or two Carter didn't think she was going to answer him, and he started to ask her a second time, when she began.
"I am a criminal," she said. "It was either go to jail or come with him to this place."
"What did you do?"
"I killed a man. A very bad man who raped me."
"When was this?"
"Years ago," she said. Tears were forming in her eyes, and she pulled away and started to get out of the bed, but Carter pulled her back.
"Tell me about it, Gabrielle," Carter said gently. "Get it out of your system."
She was shaking as she lay back, her hands on her stomach. Carter propped himself up on one elbow beside her.
"I was little — eight years old — when my father was killed in Africa. I am Algerian. After that happened, my mother moved us from Algiers to Paris. The next year she met Henri, a Frenchman, and they were married."
Gabrielle turned her head so that she could look directly into Carter's eyes. "I was nine then. When I came home from school one afternoon my mother was out shopping, and Henri was there.
"He waited until I had gone upstairs to my room to change my clothes. He came in wearing only his robe, and I was in my panties."
Tears were filling her eyes now.
"I asked him what he was doing in my room, but he just smiled at me and said it would be all right. He just wanted to talk to me… father to daughter.
"I told him to leave, but he made me sit on the bed with him, and he started telling me about how sometimes my mother didn't kiss him enough — that was how he worded it, I remember — and that made him sad and angry. And when he was sad and angry he might be forced to hurt her very badly.
"But he said it didn't have to be that way if only I would help him."
Carter knew what was coming, of course. It was not a new story. She had been used by that man and then later by Rondine.
"That first day he only made me…touch him. I was so ashamed, but I was so afraid that he would hurt my mother, or do something very bad to me, that I did not tell. Each time he came to my room I told myself it would never happen again, and mat soon I would tell what he made me do. I was just a skinny little girl and he was a big man — with a temper."
"You don't have to go on…" Carter started to say, but she kept talking as if she had not heard him.
"Later he would make me take off all my clothes, and he would fondle me as I was playing with him. It made him happier, he told me. Made him less likely to hurt my mother.
"Then, about a year after it had started, my mother almost caught us, and it stopped for a long time. Until I was thirteen or fourteen, and had begun to look like a woman.
"It started the same way, only this time it progressed much faster."
Gabrielle shut her eyes.
"I came home from school one afternoon — my mother worked during the day at a cafe, and Henri worked in a factory at night. He was there in my bed, naked.
"I told him I would call the police, but he said they would never believe me. And even if he did go to jail because of me, when he got out he would kill me and my mother.
"I was standing near my bed while we were talking, and when he saw me glance toward the doorway, he leaped up and grabbed me. Henri was a very strong man…"
Gabrielle's chest was heaving as she relived that time.
"When it was over he went into his own bedroom and went to sleep. I went down into the kitchen, got the biggest knife I could find, and came back upstairs and killed him. I kept stabbing him over and over, and there was a lot of blood.
"My mother came home an hour later, and I told her everything. We left that very night for Algiers, where we hid in a very bad section of the city."
"Rondine was there?" Carter asked.
Gabrielle opened her eyes and nodded. "He was the consul there. My mother worked as a housekeeper in his big mansion. There came the day when the police in Algiers were notified by the police in Paris to be on the lookout for me. My mother didn't know what to do, so she went to Albert and told him everything.
"I was brought to see him, and he immediately agreed to help. My mother and I were sent out here to these islands. Albert joined us a year later, and within two months my mother became ill and died. Albert said I was to be his wife, and if I tired of that he would send me back to France to stand trial for murder."
She shuddered. "I could not stand it any longer," she said. "And now I do not want to go back to France."
"You won't," Carter said. "Nor do you have to go to bed with me to get my help."
She managed a smile, and she reached out and caressed his cheek. "I am not here because of that," she said. "I am here because you will be the first man I have been with whom I wanted to be with."
This was all wrong. Carter thought. She was a very vulnerable woman, and for a moment he felt as if he were taking advantage of her, no matter what she said. But the feeling lasted only a moment as she sat up and pushed him back gently.
"Relax," she cooed. She kissed his eyelids, then his nose, and finally his lips, her right leg moving against his.
At first he just lay there, but soon she was kissing his neck, and behind his ears, her breath warm and close and lightly scented with cinnamon, and he began to respond.
He drew her close, crushing her breasts against his chest, and they kissed deeply, his tongue exploring hers, his hands on her back, then down the incredibly long, soft small of her back to her lovely derriere.
"Oh… God," she breathed. "Oh… God…"
Carter eased her over on her back, and kissed her breasts, taking the nipples in his mouth and using his tongue to stimulate her.
Her chest was heaving now, her legs spread, as she moved against him.
He kissed the spot between her breasts and then worked downward to her navel, and even lower, his hands on the mounds of her buttocks.
She wanted to scream as she moved back and forth; he could feel it as a vibration in her entire body, her legs around his shoulders, her hands grasping his head.
But then she was pulling him away, up, on top of her. She reached down and grabbed him, guiding him inside her, her long, lovely legs wrapped tightly around his waist.
Carter forced himself to slow down. He looked down at her. She was staring up at him, a half smile on her full, sensuous lips.
He began to move then, carefully, deeply, and with each movement she rose up to meet him, a half moan escaping from her lips with each thrust.
"This is…the way it is… always supposed to be, mon chéri," she breathed.
Carter kissed her eyes, and her lips.
"I have always dreamed of this…"
He sensed that she had been on the verge from the very beginning. Her breathing was even more shallow, much faster, and her eyes shone.
"Gabrielle," he whispered her name. "Sweet Gabrielle."
"Oh… yes," she cried as Carter thrust deeper, and harder and faster, her body continuing to rise against his, her legs tightening around his waist, her fingernails clawing at his back.
And then they were both coming, a moan escaping Carter's lips, as she clung to him with everything in her power.
Afterward they lay in each other's arms. Carter smoked a cigarette while Gabrielle looked up at him.
"It was very good for me, Nick. Was it for you?"
He smiled at her, happy he had given her pleasure. "It was very good for me, Gabrielle. Very good."
Seven
