Death Island

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.

"I've been doing my job out here. I could use more men, not some hot shot investigator from Washington."

"Yes?" Carter said, smiling. He was certain now that he did not like this man.

"We're being counterproductive here…"Owen started, but Duvall leaned forward.

"I just want to know how and when you're going to do something about what is happening here." He looked toward the door. "For Christ's sake, we're sitting ducks out here."

"Who attacked the base this time around?" Carter asked the station manager.

"Natives from Natu Faui, we're assuming."

"You're assuming that they were natives, or about their origin?" Carter asked.

"They were natives, all right. But we're assuming they came from Natu Faui."

"That's the island our Navy has cleaned out a few times already?"

Fenster smiled faintly. "Invasions, they called them, although that would hardly have been my choice of words. More like shore missions, and not very extensive at that. A couple of the patrols were sent inland, and interpreters spoke with the native government."

"And?" Carter prompted after a moment or two of silence.

Fenster shrugged. "Our people were assured each time that the attacks, if they had been mounted from Natu Faui, were the work of a few youngsters who had gotten drunk on whiskey."

"I see," Carter said. "Where do they get their whiskey?"

Fenster curled his lip. "The French… we believe."

"Our problems are not isolated to native attacks," Owen interjected.

Carter turned to him.

"There have been plenty of other incidents in the past. Including the attack on Handley in town by his section aide."

"A Chinese man?"

"Yun Lo." Duvall spat out the name.

"Is the man in custody?"

Owen shook his head. "We can't find him. The French have their people out looking for him, of course, since it happened in town. But neither their people nor Fenster's have come up with a clue."

"Nor will we ever," the security chief said. "Yun Lo has disappeared into the bush like the others. He's living back up there in the hills with his wife and mother and father and grandparents and probably a dozen kids and as many mistresses. They've got it made here. They own these islands."

" 'Others'?" Carter asked.

Owen sighed deeply. "We have had a problem with our help out here. They steal things, then disappear. But until the attack on Handley, we felt they were no serious threat to us."

"You don't believe they have anything to do with your ongoing problem?"

"Not with the attacks on the base," Owen said. "They may be a pain in the ass, but they aren't… weren't dangerous."

"Where are they recruited?"

"Here on the island. There's a fairly extensive population of Orientals."

"I thought the Japanese…" Carter started, but Owen cut him off.

"This was a POW camp during the war. A lot of the prisoners from Manchuria and then later from Hong Kong were brought down here. Men, women, children."

"The Japanese were driven out and the Chinese remained."

"Exactly."

"If you're having so much trouble with them why don't you hire your subcontract people from the States?"

"Too expensive."

"I see."

Carter ate his excellent lunch as Owen briefly went over the history of the satellite receiving station's troubles. He added nothing new to what Carter had already learned from AXE records. But sitting there now at the station, he felt a sense of continuity with the story that he had not picked up back in Washington. He got the sense that the troubles here over the years had been caused by one group for a specific purpose. He also got the feeling that their troubles had picked up in frequency and intensity during the past year or so. He voiced that opinion to Owen.

"You're damned right it's been getting worse.

Much worse," the station manager said.

"Why?" Carter asked.

Owen was nonplussed for just a moment. He looked to Fenster. Then back. "It beats the hell out of me, Carter. I don't know."

"Has anything different been happening with operations over the past year or two? Any new intelligence seam? New equipment?"

Owen suddenly seemed uncomfortable. "Yes to all counts, but it's not something I 'd care to discuss here in the open."

"I'm finished with my lunch," Carter said, getting up.

"We can go to my office, then."

The four men left the club and went back across the street and into the administration building. Owen's office was near the back of the building, large, carpeted, and air conditioned. A large window looked out over the fenced area that contained the shortwave and some of the microwave antennae for communications with various ships and planes throughout the Pacific and Far East.

At the door Duvall excused himself, saying he had to return to work. "I hope you will finally put a stop to this, Mr. Carter," he said. Then he left.

"Handley is having a hard time of it here, I'm afraid," Owen said as they entered his office and took seats.

"Because of the attack?"

"That too, but he's not fit in since the day he arrived. He counts the days until his contract is up."

"You've offered him the option of quitting?"

Owen nodded. "He says he needs the money and the reference."

Carter turned suddenly to Fenster. "How long have you been here?"

"Entirely too long," the man shot back darkly.

Carter waited.

"Thirty-two months," the man finally said. "I renewed my contract for an additional two years."

Carter managed a faint smile as he turned back to Owen. "I was asking about your operations over the past year or two."

"Yes," Owen said. "About two and a half years ago, as you may or may not know, we put up a new stationary-orbit satellite over the China Sea to keep watch on China as well as Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The entire region. At the same time that system was being put into operation, we were installing new receiving equipment and new photographic analysis gear. State of the art."

"Have we picked up anything from it?"

Owen nodded. "The quality of our intelligence report has risen significantly."

Carter's eyes narrowed. "Do you have intelligence evaluators and analysts out here?"

"No," Owen said. "But from the raw data that we relay back to D.C., it's been very easy to see what the Spy-in-the-Sky system has been doing for us."

Carter glanced toward the window. The day looked hot. "Is there a connection between our successes with Chinese intelligence and the fact that your subcontractors here are all ethnic Chinese?"

Fenster broke in at that. "That was the first thing everyone thought, Mr. Carter. And for my time here I've looked into every rumor, chased down every lead, and tried to figure every angle."

"Nothing?"

"Not a thing."

Carter got up and went to the window. "How far is the town from here?"

"Fifteen miles."

"How big is it?"

"Hiva Faui? Three thousand that we know of. But outside the town there may be three times that many Chinese."

"How about the other islands… Natu Faui, Akau Faui, Tamau Faui?"

"A total estimated population for the entire island group, not including the personnel of this station, is around fourteen thousand people… whites, Chinese, and other Oriental extractions, and of course the Polys."

Carter looked puzzled.

"Polynesians," Owen explained.

"I'd like to see it all."

"I don't understand," Fenster said.

"The town, the islands. I'd like to have the services of a helicopter and pilot, and I'd like to begin by looking over all the islands in the group."

"Of course," Owen said. "Dick can take care of that for you."

Fenster smiled and got to his feet. "First thing in the morning…"

"No," Carter said. "Now. This afternoon."

Fenster looked at Owen. "It'll be dark in a few hours."

"Then we'd better hurry," Carter said.

For a moment no one said a thing, but then Owen finally nodded. "Have Bob Tieggs show him around."

"I was planning on taking you into town myself, in the morning," Fenster said pointedly.

"I'd just as soon do this independently, Fenster. Nothing against you, of course, but I'd like to form my own views."

Fenster scowled and was about to say something, but Owen did not give him a chance.

"Sounds like a good idea to me. Fresh perspective and all that. Tell Bob that Mr. Carter will meet him out on the pad in fifteen minutes."

Fenster looked at them both, then stormed out of the office. When he was gone Owen shook his head.

"You don't particularly care for our chief of security."

"No," Carter said. He went over to the desk, picked up Owen's telephone, and unscrewed the mouthpiece cap.

"What the hell…" Owen said.

Carter soon had the instrument apart, and just behind the microphone was a tiny pickup and transmitting device.

"Good God." Owen whispered.

Carter pulled the unit out of the phone and put the instrument back together. He tossed the pickup across to the station manager. "Send that back to Washington. Have it looked at. Probably Chinese."

Owen looked from the transmitter to the telephone. "How long?"

Carter shrugged. "From the beginning, possibly. Or at least for the past two years."

"Whatever was discussed in this office got to…"

"Apparently. Whoever they are." Carter looked around the office. There were several file cabinets, two of them locked with heavy steel bars down the front of the drawers. "Who has access to your office?"

Owen started to say something but then changed his mind. "Everyone," he said after a moment.

"Change the locks on your safes, and at least once a day check your telephone. I'd also suggest you do the same in every office where sensitive material might be stored or discussed."

"It's a little late for that," Owen said glumly.

"They've got several slices of the pie, but that's no reason to give them the entire pantry."

While he had been talking, Carter had worked his way slowly over to the door. He jerked it open. No one was out there.

He turned back. "Bob Tieggs. How sure of him are you?"

Owen didn't seem to understand the question.

"Do you trust Duvall or Fenster? Completely?"

Owen smiled wanly. "Not really."

"How does Tieggs compare?"

"I get you. Bob Tieggs is a good, no-nonsense man."

"That's all I wanted to know. I'll see you later," Carter said. He left Owen's office, went down the hall, and stepped outside. A technician directed him across the compound back to the airfield where he was met a few minutes later in front of a hangar by a well-built young man with sand-colored hair and wide, deep blue eyes. There were laugh lines around his eyes.

"Bob Tieggs?" Carter asked.

"That's right," Tieggs said without warmth. "Fenster said you needed a pilot. I'll just get the chopper ready." He turned and went inside the hangar.

Carter followed him inside.

"Catch the doors, will you?" the pilot asked.

Carter found the switch for the doors and punched it. As they began to rumble open he went back to where Tieggs was readying a small Bell helicopter. The NASA symbol was painted on its fuselage. Their work here was under cover as a satellite tracking and receiving station for the space agency.

Tieggs had hooked a powered handcart to the front hitch on the helicopter, and he pulled the machine across the hangar and out into the hot afternoon sun.

"Where do you want to go?" the young man asked.

"I want to tour the islands."

Tieggs looked at his watch. "We'll have to hustle to finish by dark."

"I don't want to finish by dark."

Tieggs looked sharply at him. "There's nothing to see out there once the sun goes down. This place, the town, and perhaps a few native fires on some of the other islands is about all."

"We'll see," Carter said.

Within ten minutes Tieggs had warmed up the chopper, and they were rising away from the tracking station's air field and turning out toward the sea.

"Where to first?" Tieggs asked.

"Natu Faui," Carter said without hesitation.

Tieggs swung around toward the south, back over the island, and headed directly toward a group of islands several miles in the distance. Farther to the south, on the opposite end of their own island at the foot of a series of steep hills, the town of Hiva Faui gradually came into view. From here it looked like little more than a wide street that led up to a collection of white buildings scattered in and among the thick jungle growth. A thin plume of smoke rose from just beyond the town.

Carter pointed it out. "What's that?"

"Electrical generating plant. They burn everything from oil and coal to copra and wood."

They made it the remainder of the way across to Natu Faui in a few minutes, and Carter directed the pilot not to overfly the island, but to circle it at a distance of a quarter mile.

It was a very large island, even larger than Hiva Faui, but the western end of the island was dominated by a large volcano.

Once they had gotten around to that end of the island, they climbed so that they could see down into the smoking crater. It seemed to Carter as if it were still an active volcano.

"It is," Tieggs said. "But it hasn't blown its top for at least twenty-five years."

"Is it due?"

"The natives think so. Lots of superstition here."

"But natives live on this island?"

"At the eastern end," Tieggs said. "Not here. This end is very bad medicine."

They dropped down again and circled to the southwest side, and Carter had Tieggs set down on the wide beach. He got out of the chopper and motioned for the young man to shut it off.

"What's the idea?" Tieggs asked, climbing down.

"We're staying here until after dark, then we're going to fly over in a grid pattern."

"Listen, I don't know what you and Fenster have got cooked up, but as far as I'm concerned…"

"Fenster is an idiot who is no friend of mine. It's why I didn't take him along."

Tieggs looked at Carter for a moment. "No shit?"

Carter grinned. "You owe me an apology, Bob."

"I guess I do," Tieggs said, laughing.