by Nick Carter
"Indeed, my government will be most happy to get their hands on you, Carter," he said.
"By submarine, eh?" I said. "That's how you operate, with a sub bringing you in supplies and money."
"Only periodically, or unless we call for something special," Mona said. "When we planned this operation, we knew it would take time, money and men. We also knew it would be not only unwieldy but risky to keep trying to land couriers with the money on shore from submarines. We needed a station that would be near, yet completely free from detection, accidental or otherwise. With this underwater station, we can operate for months at a time without the risk of frequent contacts with our people for supplies, money or men. And we, on the scene, merely don a scuba suit and disappear into the waters as one more skin-diver exploring the reefs. When we reverse direction we're merely another skin-diver coming ashore."
I cast a glance at the six men who'd brought me in. They were Chinese.
"The diver that was found with the fifty thousand a few months ago was one of your men, I take it," I said to Mona.
"An unfortunate accident," she said. "He'd made a few trips with supplies from the submarine and something went wrong with his equipment. He was to return to us with the money but he never appeared. Of course, I learned what had happened at the office."
"Speaking of the office," I said, "how the hell did you ever get security clearance? Just for the sake of curiosity I'd like to know. Seeing as how I'm not going anywhere, you can tell me."
My last remark was truer than I'd wanted it to be. There was no place to run in the square, undersea station — and only one way out. When the Navy sub started blasting, that would be it for everyone inside. I made a fast note of where they'd put my diving mask. I still had my air tank on my back. But Mona's smug smile brought me back to her at once.
"Mona Star was cleared by Australian security through the normal channels," she said. "She was thoroughly checked out and screened by the British, too. But Mona Star is dead. We killed her after she was screened and ready to leave for Australia. I took her place. In fact, I knew Mona quite well. We had that same background, both of us born in Hong Kong, with British Army officers for fathers — the whole bloody rotten scene."
"Who are you, anyway?" I asked. "And what the hell are you doing here?"
"I am Caroline Cheng," she said, her green eyes flashing at me. "My husband is Colonel Cheng of Chinese espionage activities in the South Pacific. I married him some ten years ago, but I've been waiting for a chance to pay back the British and the Australians and all of you smug, superior types for much longer than that."
Her eyes had taken on a hatred I'd not seen in them before. "What are you paying us all back for?" I asked with purposefully infuriating blandness.
"For my father," she shot back at me. "He was a British officer, but he was also a believer in the rights of all men to govern themselves. He thought it would be best if we British got out of Asia and he was reviled and shunned by the others. He tried to help a Chinese independence movement and he was court-martialed for it reduced in rank. And then, years later, after he was a broken, ruined man, they decided to do the very same things he had advocated in the first place. But I never forgot what they did to him. I was there, with him. and I grew to hate them all, every last one of them."
I knew the truth in what she had said. National policies and climates change and yesterday's villain becomes today's hero. But I wasn't interested in the abstractions of political philosophies. I saw a chance, a bare chance.
"Taking away all the nice words, honey, it comes out that at that time and at that place, your old man was a traitor to his country's position," I said. She leaped forward and smashed her hand across my face.
"Lying bastard!" she said, her face contorted in fury. But she stepped back too quickly, dammit. I had to try again.
"You'll pay for what was done, all of you will," she said. "When my husband joined Chinese Intelligence, I thought of this scheme, and when the time came to put it into effect I insisted he let me handle it. It's almost done its work, and you're not going to stop me from completing it. I've made your cooperative defense machinery collapse into discord and anger just as they made my father's good deeds boomerang against him."
"All this because you're old man was a traitor and a screwball officer," I laughed. "Crazy, man."
"You no-good bastard," she screamed and again she leaped forward but this time she raked her fingernails across my face. As she brought her other hand up to dig them into my eyes I moved, grabbing her arm and spinning her about. I had her in front of me, one arm around her throat, applying a slow, steady pressure.
"Nobody moves or I crack her larynx," I said. "First, how did you know I was outside this piece of phony coral reef?"
"The immediate outer edges are circled by sound waves, a version of your sonar system," the Chinese said. "Any large object coming against the coral is immediately detected and we send our men out to investigate. The ordinary fish make a highly individual pattern when they cross the system."
I tightened my arm on her neck, "Now she and I are going for a little swim," I said. "And you are all going to stay right here or I'll kill her."
"Shoot him," she screamed at the others. "Never mind about me. Kill him."
"Maybe you'd better think about how you'll explain killing her to your boss and her husband," I stalled. "If she comes with me, she might just have a chance to break loose and get away."
"No, don't listen to him," the girl screamed. "You know Colonel Cheng will understand. Shoot, damn you all, shoot!"
But my plan and their decision both became academic questions at the same time. A tremendous roar shook the place and I felt myself being knocked to the ground. Mona went flying out of my grip and I knew what had happened. The U.S. sub had arrived and sent off the first torpedo to start the wrecking job I'd ordered. I was scrambling for my feet, as were the others, when the second torpedo landed. This time the whole station upended and I felt myself falling to one end of it. Water started to pour into it from ten or more different spots. Slowly at first, but I knew the pressure would start to tear the holes into bigger ones in moments. The station settled back on its bottom at a crazy, tilted angle and I ran for the side where I'd last seen my diving mask.
Mona was nowhere that I could see and then I caught sight of a small closetlike structure at the far end. This was a helluva time to pick to go to the bathroom, I thought. As I skidded across the tilted floor toward the face mask, I saw the tall Chinese dive for me, a gun in his hand. I let him get me around the legs and we both went down. I wanted the close quarters and I brought a knee up into his belly. He doubled up and tried to get off a shot. It went wild as I pushed him backwards across the angled floor. I brought my arm around in a looping right and landed it across the side of his neck. I heard him gasp, drop the gun and clutch at his throat. Water was more than a foot deep at my end of the station and I managed to grab my face mask as it floated by. I put it on just as the third torpedo struck.
This time the station seemed to rise up and hang suspended for a moment and then one side collapsed and a wall of water rushed in on me. The other Chinese were still struggling to get their suits on — I saw they'd never make it. The tall one I'd hit was a goner. As the water rushed in on me, knocking me backwards and then lifting me up and out with its return surge, I saw a scuba-clad figure moving out of the collapsed station a few feet above me. She only had the top part of her suit on. along with the face mask and aqualung, and the little bikini panties made an incongruous picture. Using her hair-trigger mind, she'd grabbed that much of her equipment and run into the bathroom, the farthest corner of the station, and got into the outfit.
I struck out after her at once. I was catching up to her when I saw she had taken one more thing with her, a spear gun. She whirled and shot at me. I managed to twist my body over and the spear tore through the shoulder of my suit and past my throat with but a fraction of an inch to spare.
I twisted bac
k to look for Mona and saw her coming down at me with a knife. She slashed at my head, and I felt the blade rip part of my suit off. She was like a damned seal in the water, fast and mobile. I grabbed for her and missed, only to feel the knife rake the leg of my suit and the skin under it. I saw the trickle of red that colored the water — and I cursed her. That's all I needed now — sharks. The undersea killers could smell blood in the water a half mile away.
Mona was coming at me again and this time I moved back with her as she came in. She had to come after me again with her arm upraised, the knife poised, when I suddenly reversed gears and shot forward, getting my hand around her wrist. Just then the sub, standing off someplace, let go with another blast that lifted us both up and over helplessly, turning slow cartwheels in the underwater force of the explosion. I lost my grip on Mona and saw her being flung against a genuine coral reef. As I came out of my next slow spin and the turbulence began to die down, I saw she was still there. As I. headed for her, I saw her foot trapped in the vise-like grip of a giant clam. The huge mollusk must have weighed over two hundred pounds, I estimated, and he was partially embedded in the coral. I saw the girl's eyes, behind her face mask, wide with fright as she reached down and tugged at the leg. But she'd never get it out, not that way. As I reached her she straightened up, the knife held ready to defend herself. I reached out my hand for the knife. Slowly, she lowered her arm and handed it to me.
Just then another blast from the sub threw me against the hard, sharp coral and I felt the points go through me like a hundred needles. I clung there until the turbulence stopped and then pushed myself back from the reef. The Navy boys were doing their usual thorough job, but I felt like crying out, "Enough, already." Mona's knife was a thick, sturdy one and I hacked at the spot where the giant bivalve was embedded in the coral. I felt myself cutting through soft spots and sand and as I pushed against the huge bulk, it moved. I didn't know how much air Mona still had in her tank but I knew mine was getting damned low.
I slashed at the coral again and this time I felt the huge clam give as I pushed against it. Another hard shove and it broke away from the coral. I put my shoulder against the bottom of it and pushed as Mona swam for the surface. Underwater, we could move the huge bulk. Once on the surface it would be something else.
I felt her change direction and saw the bottom of a small coral island appear. She headed for it and surfaced on the beach, half of her still hanging into the water. I got a foothold on the beach and dragged the heavy bulk of the clam up onto the shore as Mona pulled herself up and lay there, breathing hard. I was taking a few deep breaths myself as I rested on one elbow beside her. I reached over and took her face mask off and unstrapped her tank. Then I did the same for myself. She was on her stomach, unable to do more than half turn over because of the huge bivalve holding her foot. I moved down to the huge clam, took the knife and put it into the opening where his shell had closed around the girl's ankle. The clam's mantle was an electric green and as I moved the knife down inside the shell, cutting into the mantle, down along the edges of the living tissue, suddenly the clam opened with a cracking noise and Mona pulled her bruised and cut ankle free.
I pushed the clam back into the water and looked at her ankle. It wasn't broken but it was badly lacerated, and the bone had probably chipped. She had turned on her back, the little bikini panties almost off altogether.
"Why did you do it?" she asked me, looking at me with green pinpoints. "Why didn't you just leave me there to die?"
"Is that what you'd have wanted?" I asked. "Have you become that Oriental in your thinking? You'd rather die than fail?"
She didn't answer, but continued to watch me with her green eyes. "Sorry, doll," I said. "Maybe it was force of habit on my part. Saving life is more basic to our decadent thinking than taking life, even with people like me."
My leg hurt where the knife had slashed it and I looked down to see it was still bleeding. I was looking to see just how deep the cut was when the hard, sharp piece of coral hit me on the temple. I fell backwards and rolled over to see Mona, fa arm upraised, come down with the piece of rock again. I was seeing her through haze as my head spun, dizzily. The raging anger that spurted inside me like an explosion cleared my head. The no-good amoral vicious little bitch, I heard myself saying.
I got one arm up and partially blocked the second blow from the rock. I grabbed for her leg, but she was off and running. She hit the water in a perfect running dive and struck out. I had started after her when I saw them, five long, triangular shaped fins. They'd been brought by the smell of blood that by now was all through the water around there.
"Come back, damn you," I yelled after her. "You haven't got a chance."
But she kept going, swimming right into them. I saw the fins suddenly start to move in fast, darting motions and then I heard her scream — a terrible, agonizing scream of pain, then another. I saw her body half tossed out of the water and then pulled back into the churning sea. Red colored the blue, and there were suddenly no more screams. I turned away and sat down. I'd have to wait a while, maybe hours, before heading toward the Australian coast, a relatively short distance away. I'd never know what made her plunge headlong into the midst of those sharks — the harakiri philosophy of the Orient or the conscience of the West. Maybe she didn't even know they were there. I had the feeling she did, though.
VIII
When I finally made it to the mainland, I walked down along the beach alone — slowly — my body tired — the job done. A deadly blow aimed at the South Pacific Defense Alliance had been deflected. There'd be reports and explanations and all the questioning to go through, but right now that could wait. I wanted to go back to Judy and see if she really delivered the promise that lay in her eyes. I hadn't expected to see the Mercedes still on the beach where I'd left it, nor the yellow bikinied figure that rose as I approached. She ran toward me and pressed herself against the wet scuba suit.
"Oh, Lord, I was so worried," she said. "I didn't leave right away, not really, anyway. I swam to a little coral reef that stuck up about a quarter mile away, and I thought I'd wait there."
She saw the set of my lips and the gathering disapproval in my eyes. "I know, it's not what you told me to do but don't start a ruddy fuss over it," she said. "Anyway, I waited there and waited and I started to get worried. Finally, I decided to come back here and I was just starting off when the whole bloody ocean seemed to be exploding. Well, I dived off on the other side and made a big circle to get back here. If I was worried before, I was sure worried then."
She leaned her head against my suit. I felt her body quivering.
"Hey, now," I said, lifting her chin up. "None of that." I took her arm. "Let's go back," I said. "I need some doctoring."
We were back at her place and I'd slept a few hours and was feeling a lot better as she came in with some coffee and muffins. I was in shorts and she had a thin cotton dress on. Her breasts moved softly under it. She could have had a bra on or they were just that beautifully molded and high. I finished the muffins and reached for the phone.
"I'm calling my boss," I said. "Collect," I added with a grin.
She put her hand over the phone and her eyes were unsmiling. "No," she said flatly. "Not till later."
She moved toward me and her lips opened on mine and I fell back on the bed. The cotton dress came off and Judy lifted herself high, pressing one round, sweet breast into my lips. I kissed her and ran my tongue in concentric circles around the pink tip of her nipple and felt it grow large. Her hands were holding me, moving up and down, exploring, and her body was alive with its own desires. She offered herself to me, not with the angry abandon that had been Mona, but with a sweet passion that was no less strong for its sweetness.
"Yank, Yank," she murmured, burying her face into my chest, biting against my skin as I brought her to the doorway of doorways, the dwelling place of ecstasy. And then, as I let her in, she cried out in a gasp that was part release, part joy and part gratitude. We la
y together quietly, after, in contented happiness. Finally, when she stirred and looked up at me, I got up on one elbow and drank in the beauty of her firm, young body, the rounded breasts, high and proud, the girl-woman figure of her, the sweet sensuousness that was an echo of her smoke-gray eyes.
"Why didn't you let me call before?" I asked, watching her eyes.
"I didn't want you to think I was doing it because you'd gotten that visa for me," she said quietly. "You've done more for me than getting that visa could ever do. You've made me feel proud of myself again. And you've made me feel, which is more important. I was just living, just scratching, and that's no good. A person has to feel, even if to feel means to get hurt. Don't you think so?"
"I think so, Judy," I said and I reached out for the phone. The call went through quickly, and I heard Hawk's flat, dry voice.
"It's over, Chief," I said. "You were right. You don't have to be surprised. The Chinese Reds were behind it. They had a subtle, clever operation going. I'll give you all the details when I get back. I'll take the plane in the morning. Meanwhile, get an extended visa rushed through for me, will you? I'm bringing someone back with me."
"Someone who's helped you in this?" he asked warily. It was just his natural suspicion. He knew I wouldn't pull anything smart on him.
"That's right," I answered.
"A girl, of course," he commented, a touch of asperity in his voice.
"Not a kangaroo," I said and hung up. The visa will be waiting when we get there," I told Judy.
"Thanks, Yank," she said.
"Don't you think, seeing as how you're going to the States with me, that you might call me Nick?" I said. "Just once in a while?"
"As soon as you make love to me again," she giggled.
I took her in my arms quickly. She'd be calling me Nick often, I knew. After all, she'd be visiting in the States and I wouldn't want her to get homesick.