Death Island

Four

Carter found an empty room on the second floor and took one of its blankets. Back up in their own room he and Tieggs wrapped Yun Lo's body in the blanket, carried him back downstairs, and put him in the bed.

The man's body would not be found until tomorrow, and then there would be nothing official to connect his death with Carter.

Once again in their own room, they cleaned up the blood, and Carter collected his shell casings and reloaded his Luger. It had been a busy evening so far. He suspected it was going to get much busier before it was over.

He and Tieggs both took a shower and shaved, then dressed in their evening clothes.

"What's likely to happen is we'll be kicked out, if we're even allowed into the house in the first place," Tieggs said, combing his hair.

"I don't think so, Bob," Carter said. "Just stick with me at first until we're introduced."

"And then?"

Carter had finished with his bow tie. He turned around. "You don't have to come with me, you know. Just drop me off up there."

"I'll come," Tieggs said, suddenly grinning. "I wouldn't miss it for the world. I just don't know why you want to go up there. I mean, what does it have to do with your investigation?"

"Are you ready?" Carter asked, ignoring the question.

"Yeah… sure," Tieggs said.

Together they went downstairs, got into the jeep, and headed up the hill. A couple of Oriental men stood across the street at the edge of the square watching them. Other than that pair, the street was deserted.

At the end of the business district the road turned left up the steep hill, switching back and forth, following the terraced slope on which the shanties were built.

Near the top the hill began to flatten out, and the road curved around and headed directly toward the governor's mansion, which was contained in a large compound encircled by a tall, wire mesh fence.

The shanties had thinned out up there, but Carter suspected that farther back into the interior were more of them. Tieggs confirmed it.

"You can see them back in the hills on a fly-over if you watch for them."

"Concealed in the trees?"

"The brush back there is pretty thick. Besides, they don't like company."

"Who do you suppose Yun Lo worked for?" Carter asked, changing the subject.

Tieggs glanced at him. They were approaching the compound's gate. Carter could see a couple of armed guards there.

"I think no one."

"Then why did he try to kill me?"

"He knew you were an investigator here to look over the situation. He may have thought you'd come after him. Because of Handley."

"The entire island knows I'm here?"

Tieggs smiled. "Every last one of them."

They pulled up at the gate, armed guards approaching from both sides.

"Bon soir," Carter said and continued in French. "With my compliments to Governor Rondine and his wife, tell him Monsieur Nicholas Carter is here, with his driver."

For several long moments neither guard said or did a thing. They remained rooted to where they stood, staring at Carter as if he were some kind of apparition.

"Neither your governor nor I are patient men," Carter snapped.

The guard on the opposite side spun around and hurried into the guardhouse, and through the window Carter could see him pick up a telephone. Meanwhile, the other guard had placed his hand on the butt of his pistol at his hip.

In the overhead light from a stanchion above the gate, Carter could clearly see the man's face. He was a European, there was little doubt of that in Carter's mind, and yet there was an ever-so-slight Oriental cast to his features. Perhaps a grandparent had been Oriental.

The other one came from the guardhouse. He looked surprised.

"There is parking on the far side of the house, Monsieur Carter," he said.

"Merci," Carter replied.

"Please have your driver remain with your car, or if you wish, he may be dismissed, and a ride into town or out to the receiving station will be provided for you, sir."

"Of course," Carter said, inclining his head.

The gate swung open, and they drove through. They went up the road and around to the far side of the house where there was a large parking lot. It was filled with cars on one side, and fully a dozen small and mediumsize helicopters occupied the other side and a wide, flat field beyond.

Tieggs whistled. "We knew choppers were brought in for these parties, but I never realized just how many."

"Lots of important people here tonight," Carter said. He looked over his shoulder. A separate road ran from the parking lot directly in front of the mansion and then connected with the road back to the gate.

"I know what you're going to say," Tieggs said heavily.

Carter looked back. "If you can't come in, I don't want you sitting around out here. It's too dangerous considering what almost happened tonight back at the hotel. No, Bob, I want you to go back."

"The hotel or the base?"

"The hotel. But watch your step. I won't be too late, I don't think. We can go back in the morning."

"All right," Tieggs said. He swung the jeep around and drove slowly down the front road, pulling up below the veranda. A few of the governor's guests glanced down in idle curiosity but then looked away.

"See you in a few hours," Carter said, and he adjusted the cuffs of his shirt as he mounted the steps.

An Oriental houseboy dressed in an immaculate white uniform met Carter at the head of the stairs.

"If you will just follow me, sir," he said, and he turned and moved into the house.

Carter followed him across the wide veranda, which was filled with men and women standing around drinking and talking. At one end of the veranda a pair of lovely young women were dispensing drinks to the guests, and at the other end of the balcony a seven-piece band was just beginning to set up.

Inside, the house was lit up and decorated for the party. In two of the rooms they passed through were service bars with young, lovely, female bartenders, and in another room an older black man was playing ragtime piano and singing.

From what Carter had seen so far, he guessed there were at least a hundred men and women there, about two thirds of them Oriental, the other third European.

They had come to the far side of the house, to another wide veranda, but this one faced the jungle. This balcony was only dimly lit and was quiet in comparison to the front area. There were about a dozen people seated around a wide, ornately carved coffee table. Two young girls, bare-breasted and wearing only sarongs, served drinks to the group.

Everyone stopped what they were doing when the houseboy led Carter around to the far side of the table. There sat one of the largest men Carter had ever seen.

Governor Albert Remi Rondine looked up, then smiled as he rose to his impressive six-feet-eight. Carter guessed the man to weigh in the neighborhood of 450 to 500 pounds. His hair, neatly trimmed, was jet black and slicked back with oil. He wore a small goatee, also well trimmed, and a pencil-thin mustache separated his bulbous lips from his grossly huge and misshapen nose.

The governor was, as Tieggs had promised, big, fat, and ugly.

"Mr. Nicholas Carter, I believe," the governor said in heavily accented English, his voice as rich and as deep as his appearance suggested it would be.

They shook hands.

"I heard you were having this little get-together, so I thought I might drop in," Carter said, glancing around at the others. No one was smiling.

"Please feel free to mingle, Mr. Carter. I am sure that some of my guests might find you amusing."

Carter grinned. "Actually, it was you I came to see, Governor…" he said, but then his voice caught in his throat. To the governor's left, looking somewhat disconsolate, was an incredibly beautiful woman. She was neither European nor Oriental, but her olive skin bespoke an exotic background. Carter could not place the exquisite features. She had high, delicate cheekbones, lovely, large sloe eyes, full, moist lips, and a long, delicate neck. Her hair and eyes were very dark. She was dressed in a silk kimono, so he was not able to see her figure. But he guessed it was as lovely as her face.

"I had intended on calling you in within the next day or so," the governor said irritably. "I understand you only just arrived this afternoon."

"That's correct."

"Then there will be time enough for us to speak."

Carter focused on the gross man. The governor wore a white tropical suit with a white gauze shirt and a dark blue ascot. His dress was impeccable. Yet he gave Carter the impression of being a greasy, unkempt animal.

"On the contrary, Governor, there is no time. Americans are being killed."

"It is of little consequence to me," the governor shot back.

No one moved. Even his wife, who was about to raise her wineglass to her lips, stopped.

"It is of great consequence to me, sir," Carter said, choosing his words very carefully. "For when I find those responsible, I shall kill them." He nodded. Then he turned to the governor's wife. "It is a great pleasure for me to be here, Madame Rondine. I had heard how lovely you are, but even the most superlative claims do you no justice."

The woman stood up as the governor's complexion turned red.

Carter had struck a nerve. He started to step aside, half expecting the governor to take a swing at him, when his wife threw her wine into Carter's face.

"You arrogant American bastard," she said in English.

Carter held perfectly still for several long seconds, resisting the urge to turn around, or at the very least wipe his face. Instead he managed a thin smile.

"There was absolutely no offense meant, madame," he said in perfect French. "You are beautiful, and it is a fact. Bon soir."

He turned, inclined his head stiffly to the others around the table, and then nodded to the governor. "I will call on you at your office tomorrow," he said.

"I'll call you when I desire your presence…"

"I will see you tomorrow. Governor Rondine," Carter said, interrupting.

He turned on his heel and stalked off the veranda, going back through the house out to the front terrace. The houseboy who had shown him to the governor was at his elbow.

"Mr. Carter wishes perhaps for transportation to the base?"

"The hotel," Carter snapped.

"Very good, sir. It will be just a moment." The houseboy disappeared down the steps and into the darkness.

The band was playing a soft tune, and many of the couples were dancing. Carter went across to the bar and ordered a snifter of cognac. The young woman tending bar glanced up at someone across the veranda before she poured the drink. Evidently for permission.

The governor had quite a setup here, Carter thought angrily.

He sipped from his drink — it was an excellent cognac — then turned around so that he could see who the woman had looked to for permission to serve him. A tall man, dressed in a plain tuxedo, a small bulge at his left armpit. One of the governor's goons. But if nothing ever happened here that the governor was involved with — nothing violent, that is — then why the armed guards, why the security around the fence, and why such a close watch on the Americans?

Carter raised his snifter in salute to the guard, who stared back with no expression on his face, then took a deep drink and put the glass back on the bar as the houseboy came back up the stairs and looked around for him.

The car was a big Mercedes limousine. It was parked at the foot of the stairs. The houseboy opened the rear door for Carter. When he was inside, even before the door was fully closed, the limo sped down the road as if it had been shot from a cannon, throwing Carter back into his seat.

A partition of very dark glass separated the front seat area from the rear, and Carter could not make out the face of the driver. But they were going much too fast for a simple lift into the hotel in town.

He thought about the switchback road that led through the shantytown on the steep hill, and he began to sweat.

As they approached the main gate and then flashed past the bewildered guards, he fumbled for the door latch, but just at that moment the electric door locks snapped, blocking his escape.

For a moment Carter thought about shooting his way out of the car, or pulling the panel from the door and shorting the electric lock system, or trying to fire through the back of the front seat in an attempt to kill or wound the driver before they came to the more dangerous sections of the road down the hill.

He sat back instead, poured himself a drink from the rear seat bar, then lit a cigarette.

If the governor meant to kill him, it would not be done so crudely as to destroy a very expensive car and a driver.

Presently they came to the first of the switchbacks on the narrow road, and the car slowed down. Carter allowed the faintest flicker of a smile to cross his lips. He crossed his legs and waited for the next move.

Governor Rondine had probably had this all planned out from the beginning. Merely to test Carter's mettle. Of the other investigators. Carter wondered how many had lost it at this stage.

Of course none of this proved a damned thing other than the well-known fact that the governor disliked Americans and especially disliked their presence here on his island kingdom. It did not in any way prove that the governor was involved with the troubles they had been having at the base — at least not directly.

Halfway down the hill the partition between the front and back silently lowered, and the car turned off the main road and edged back into a very narrow alleyway. Within fifty yards they were out of sight of the road as well as from anyone above or below.

The car stopped, and the driver turned into view. It was the governor's wife, Gabrielle Rondine. She was obviously frightened. Her lower lip was quivering, and her eyes were very wide.

"This is a surprise," Carter said.

"This is very important, Monsieur Carter. You must listen very carefully to me."

Carter stubbed out his cigarette and sat forward. "What is it?" he asked. "Are you in trouble?"

"No, but you are, monsieur. It is your base. It is under attack at this moment."

"Under attack… by natives?"

"Yes."

"How do you know this?"

"Never mind how I know it, I just do."

"Get me down to the hotel…"

"Your driver is not there. He was called away. He is on his way out to the base at this moment."

"Damn…"

"I will take you to your base, but in exchange you must help me, Monsieur Carter."

"What do you want?"

"I want to get away from here… from this place… from…"

"Your husband?"

"Yes," she said with much passion. 'You must help me. You are the only one to stand up to him like that, and you did not panic when I drove fast down the hill — like the others."

"You drove them all?"

"No. But I knew about it. We all did."

There would be trouble with the State Department… in fact there would be hell to pay, Carter thought. But if he gave his word here now, David Hawk would back him up. He knew that for a certainty; it was why he made damned sure of what he was doing before he made a promise.

"Are you involved with the trouble against us?" Carter asked.

She shook her head.

"I must know the truth, Madame Rondine. If you are involved, there is nothing I can do for you."

"I am not involved!" she cried.

"I'll help you," Carter said. "Unlock the doors. I'm driving."

She did, and Carter jumped out.

"I know the roads better than you," she said. "I can get us there faster."

Carter didn't argue. He climbed into the passenger seat, and she slammed the car in reverse, rocketing them out onto the main road, where she turned and then headed down the hill, sliding around the switchbacks and once or twice nearly losing it.

They careened through town, hitting nearly seventy going past the hotel, and then they were on the road out to the base, climbing along the cliffs that edged the sea, the powerful headlights slashing the darkness. Gabrielle was an expert driver, but the best they could do with the big car around some of the curves was forty or forty-five.

"How do you know the base is under attack?" Carter asked.

She did not dare glance away from the road, but she shrugged. "There was a telephone call just before you showed up. Albert took it."

"From who?"

"I don't know," she said. "But when he hung up he was very happy. He clapped his hands, and said you… Americans were getting it again."

"How did you know that my driver went back to the base?"

"I telephoned the hotel to tell him about the attack, but they said he left in a hurry after getting a telephone call."

Odd, Carter thought. He would have expected that Tieggs would have either come up to the governor's house to get him, or at the very least would have telephoned.

"Is the governor involved, then, with the attacks on the base?"

She glanced at Carter. "I do not know for sure, but I do not think so, monsieur. Albert is — how shall I say? — a coward. I do not think he would have the fortitude to do anything so covert. Besides, the commissioners were here, along with the SDECE. They found nothing. I think he is a bastard, but he is not attacking your people."

"Then how did he know about tonight's attack?"

She laughed, the sound lovely. "Albert knows everything that goes on here. Everything!"

Carter thought about that for a moment. "About us, now?"

Gabrielle nodded solemnly. "Yes, even this."

Their headlights flashed across a fallen palm tree partially blocking the road and the wreckage of a jeep half in a ditch.

Gabrielle slammed on the brakes, and the big car fishtailed left and right, finally slewing around to a halt just before the tree.

Carter was out of the car in a second, his Luger in hand. Keeping low, he raced across the road and leaped down into the ditch.

Bob Tieggs lay half in and half out of the jeep, the windshield starred where he had crashed into it with his head.

This had been set up. The entire mess smelled of it.

Tieggs was unconscious, but he was breathing regularly, and his color did not seem bad. He had lost some blood from a number of superficial scalp wounds, but other than that — unless there was a serious concussion — Carter did not think he was hurt too seriously.

Gabrielle was at the edge of the road, and she looked down. "Is it your driver?"

"Yes," Carter said, holstering his Luger. He gently picked Tieggs out of the wreckage of the jeep and brought him back up to the limousine. Gabrielle opened the rear door.

"Get our suitcases out of the jeep," he said.

She hurried back to the wrecked vehicle as Carter laid Tieggs in the back seat, then slammed the door.

Gabrielle was back a moment later with his and Tieggs's overnight bags, which she tossed into the back on the other side, and then she climbed behind the wheel.

Carter jumped in the passenger side, Gabrielle maneuvered the big car around the fallen tree, and within a minute they were once again racing down the highway toward the base.