Dr. Death

Fifteen

The Lady Day rounded the mouth of the St. Pierre harbor, Sweets at the helm, at a speed which made me wonder whether it was a yacht or a hydroplane. Standing beside me in the bow, while I struggled into scuba gear, Li Chin swept the harbor with a pair of Sweets' high-powered binoculars.

"Look!" she said suddenly, pointing.

I took the binoculars and peered through them. Only one boat was moving in the harbor. A small sailboat, no more than fifteen feet, and apparently not equipped with an engine, it was tacking slowly in the light breeze toward the mouth of the harbor.

"They'll never make it," said Li Chin. "We'll be all over them in another minute."

"It's too easy," I muttered, keeping my eyes on the boat. "She must realize we'll overtake them. She must have some other idea."

Then we were near enough for me to make out figures moving on the deck of the boat. One of the figures was Michelle. She was in scuba gear, and I could see her gesturing furiously to the two guards. They were carrying a long, thin tube across the deck.

"What's going on?" Li Chin asked curiously.

I turned to the tense, anguished figure of Fernand Duroche.

"How heavy is your underwater weapon?"

"Approximately fifty pounds," he said. "But what does it matter? They cannot launch it from here. It would simply fall to the bottom and stay there. They would have to get outside the harbor, to drop it to at least a depth of one hundred feet before it would self-activate and propel itself."

"And we'll overtake them long before they get to the mouth of the harbor," said Li Chin.

"Michelle realizes it," I said. "That's why she's in scuba gear. She's going to try to swim the weapon out to a depth of a hundred feet."

Li Chin's jaw dropped.

"It's not as impossible as it sounds," I said, adjusting the only two remaining air tanks on my back. "She's good underwater, remember? And fifty pounds underwater is nothing like fifty pounds out of water. I had a hunch she might try something like this."

I adjusted the knife at my belt, picked up Sweets' speargun, and turned to give him instructions. But he had seen what was going on and was ahead of me. He cut back on the engines of the Lady Day and slid across her bow no more than fifty feet away.

I went over the side just as Michelle did, the Duroche torpedo cradled in her arms.

The water was black, murky. For a moment I couldn't see anything. Then, as I worked my fins steadily, slicing through the water, I caught sight of the shallow keel of the sailboat. I curved, turned, and looked for Michelle, hoping for a sign of the telltale bubbles from her mask. Nowhere.

Then, fifteen feet below me and slightly ahead, on the bottom, I caught sight of the Duroche torpedo. Alone. No Michelle.

I curved and turned frantically, suddenly realizing what would come next. And it came — the long, deadly spear slicing through the water inches from my face. Behind me, I caught a glimpse of Michelle slipping behind the sunken wreck of an ancient sailing ship.

She was going to dispose of me before swimming the torpedo out to deep water. Unless I disposed of her first.

I didn't have any choice. I went after her.

Speargun at the ready, I moved slowly around the sunken ship. Jagged wooden spars jutted out dangerously from its rotted sides. A school of small fish flittered across my path. I stopped, holding on to a broken mast, then rose a few feet and looked down.

She came from below this time, the knife in her hand slicing furiously at my belly, then, when I slid aside, at my face. I jack-knifed around a rotted hatch cover, leveled my speargun, and fired in one movement. The shaft shot forward and sliced through the skin of Michelle's shoulder. I saw, through her mask, the agonized twisting of her mouth. I also saw the thin stream of blood from her shoulder coloring the water.

It had to be finished quickly now. The sharks would be on us at any minute, drawn to the blood and ravenous.

I unsheathed my knife and swam slowly forward. Michelle jack-knifed around a spar of the sunken ship, then darted forward at me. Her knife sliced viciously in the direction of my head. She was trying to cut my oxygen line. I swam downward, then made a sudden turn and a corkscrewing back flip. I was suddenly on top of her, and my left hand grabbed her knife hand in an iron grip. She struggled to free herself, and for several moments we swayed back and forth, up and down, in a deadly underwater ballet. We were mask to mask, our faces only a foot apart. I could see her mouth twist with effort and tension.

And when my knife came to stab upward, through her belly and into her chest, I saw that face I had kissed so often distort in agony. And the body I had made love to so many times writhe convulsively, shudder, and then suddenly go limp with the passivity of death.

I sheathed my knife, grabbed her body under the arms, and started to swim slowly upward. When I broke the surface of the water, the Lady Day was only a few yards away, and I saw Li Chin lowering a rope ladder, gesturing frantically, shouting.

Then I heard what she was shouting: "Sharks, Carter! Sharks!"

I had no choice. I let go of Michelle's body, wrenched the oxygen tank harness off my back, and swam for the Lady Day like an Olympic star. I grabbed hold of the rope ladder and yanked myself out of the water bare seconds before a row of razor-sharp teeth took away half of one of my fins.

Then I was on deck, seeing the two guards from the sailboat sitting near Sweets, tied hand and foot, their faces sullen with defeat. And seeing Fernand Duroche staring over the rail, wide-eyed with horror, at the boiling red turmoil where the sharks were ripping apart Michelle's body.

Wearily, I pulled off my fins and walked over to him.

"I know it's small comfort," I said, "but she was dead before the sharks hit her."

Duroche slowly turned away. His shoulders slumped even further. He shook his head.

"Perhaps," he said brokenly, "it is best. She would have been proclaimed a traitor — tried — sent to prison…"

I nodded silently.

"Carter," said Li Chin softly, "do the authorities have to know about Michelle? I mean, what difference does it make now?"

I thought about it.

"All right, Duroche," I said finally, "that's one thing I can do for you. As far as the world is going to know, your daughter died a heroine, fighting for your freedom, and for her country, against the OAS."

Duroche looked up. The gratitude on his face was almost painful.

"Thank you," he whispered. "Thank you."

Slowly, wearily, but with a certain tired dignity, he walked away, to stand by himself in the stern.

"Hey, Carter," said Sweets, from the helm, "I just got a little message for you on the radio. From a cat named Gonzalez. He says old Mr. Hawk is flying down from Washington to debrief you. He also says the French Government has flown in an Army regiment to take over those ships in the Lorrain and Marigot harbors, and to get rid of the OAS sympathizers in the Martinique administration."

"Yeah," said Li Chin. "He was even saying something about a letter of gratitude from the French Government for breaking the back of the OAS and their takeover scheme."

Sweets chuckled and gestured toward the two bound guards.

"These particular OAS men don't have much fight left in them. They surrendered to us the minute Michelle jumped off the boat."

"What happened to the torpedo?" asked Li Chin.

"It's down there, about twenty yards away," I said. "Later, when the sharks have left the area, we can bring it up. Until then, we stay right here to make sure nobody else does."

"Well look, man," said Sweets, "this has been a groove and all, but I've just about run out of my supply of fudge. If you folks don't mind, I'm going to run into town."

"Take the sailboat," I said. "And while you're at it, turn these two OAS punks over to the authorities."

"Mr. Carter?" said Fernand Duroche.

I turned.

"I am grateful to you for rescuing me, and for…"

I nodded.

"But now, I should return to my own people. The Deuxieme Bureau will want to talk with me."

"Go with Sweets," I said. "He'll make sure you get to the right people."

He nodded, then held out his hand. I shook it, and he turned and walked to where Sweets was hauling the sailboat alongside.

"See you later, man," called out Sweets, after the two OAS men, and Duroche and himself, had jumped aboard. "Maybe I'll wait around a bit and bring back old Mr. Hawk with me."

"You do that," suggested Li Chin. "Don't hurry. Carter and I have plenty to do."

"Exactly what did you mean by that?" I asked, when the sailboat had pulled away.

Li Chin moved closer to me. Much closer.

"Well, you see, Carter," she said, "there's an old Chinese proverb that goes, 'There's a time to work, and a time to play. »

"Yes?"

"Un-hunh." She was so close now that her small, firm breasts were pressing against my chest. "And now's the time to play."

"Yes?" I said. It was about all I could say.

"I mean, you don't believe all that junk about French women being the best lovers, do you?"

"Are there better?"

"Un-hunh. Much better. Want to find out?"

"Why not?" I said.

I found out. She was right. I mean, she was right!