The Executioners

VII

I found a good atlas on Judy's bookshelf, and had it open on my lap when my call to Hawk finally went through.

"I've got to use the goodies Stewart gave me to take along," I said. "Do we have any subs near the Great Barrier Reef?"

There was a moment of silence and I knew he was checking out the highly classified Naval Deployment chart. Finally he came back on.

"I believe so," he said. "We have three in the Coral Sea. One of them could move down to the reef very quickly."

"Good enough," I said, tracing a line with my finger on the map. "Have him surface and stand by for our signal as near to Flinders Passage as he can. There's plenty of deep water there. We'll use the call name Boomerang."

"I have it," Hawk answered. "Good luck." I put down the phone and smiled grimly. Hawk knew he'd get the details later. And he had gleaned plenty from our short conversation, more than others would. The fact that I'd asked for one of our subs to stand by told him immediately that there was top-level trouble in Australian Intelligence. The stand-by part of it also told him that I was still hunting.

I sat back and studied the map in my hands. The Great Barrier Reef ran for some thousand miles along the northern coast of Queensland. Ordinarily, the search would be a gargantuan task, but I was banking on factors that narrowed down the area. If I was right in my thinking about an undersea station, I could pretty well eliminate all those shallow areas of the reef. I could also eliminate the outer edge of the great reef because of the constantly seething surf that would make any kind of undersea-to-surface operation extremely hazardous. And lastly, as Mona had operated on land from a point near Townsville, I was betting that her sea cover wouldn't be too far away. Judy came in and I took the bag from her.

"Good girl," I said. "Now you can get out of that outfit and gather your scuba gear."

She shook her head and, hands on hips, watched me open the bag. I took out a scuba outfit and a length of thin wire attached to two small, black fitted cases — one a little larger than the other. A small round object, similar to the very front section of a telephone receiver with a stretch rubber-band in the back of it also emerged from the suitcase.

"Maybe I'd better explain these to you first," I said, "seeing as how you'll be using them with me. You'll strap on the larger of these two small sets. You could call them a kind of underwater walkie-talkie. The smaller of the two boxes will be strapped onto my back and the thin wire will run from it to the one you'll have. When I talk into this mouthpiece, which will fit tightly inside my diving mask, my words will be instantly converted into electrical impulses which will travel along the wire, which is of course insulated. When the electrical impulses reach the set you have, they'll be automatically converted back into sound and words. I'll be below, underwater, and you'll be on the surface. It's a one-way walkie-talkie, from me to you, because the other part of the set you'll have on is a sending apparatus. When I give you the information I want to give you, you press a button on your set and start sending it. I'll brief you on what to say and how to say it. Now let's move. Every minute counts."

Judy, looking sober and perhaps a little frightened, went into the other room to change and I quickly put on the scuba-suit, except for the flippers, face mask and special equipment. I made a mental note to congratulate Stewart on being so psychic about what I might need.

Judy came out, filling the scuba-suit with beautiful curves. I never knew one of the damned outfits could look so sexy. We piled everything into the Mercedes, taking along two extra air-tanks, and headed for the coastline. I gave Judy a final briefing on how to signal the submarine if and when we found our target. She, in turn, told me what was the best probable spot to start our search — a little island reef to the south of Magnetic Island. As I pulled the Mercedes onto the firm white sand of the beach, she looked at me with a long, level look.

"Tell me what the ruddy hell I'm doing out here," she asked.

"I'll give you four reasons. You pick out whichever one you like best. You're doing something for your country. You're making up for having helped a group of foreign agents. You're helping me. You're getting a nice, extra-long visa to the States."

She looked at me, unsmiling. "Maybe it's a little bit of all of them," she said. I grinned at her and we started to put on the special equipment and the aqualungs. Before I strapped on my face mask, I took her by the shoulders.

"Now remember, when the time comes, after you send the message I give you to send, you take off, understand. I may come up after you and I may not. But you are to take off at once. Find your way back here to the car and go home. Have you got that right?"

Her lower lip thrust out a little. "I've got it," she said crossly. "But it's a little like having to leave when the party gets started."

"You just leave," I said severely. "Or you'll find this party to be pretty deadly."

I leaned over and kissed her quickly, and she clung to me for a moment. Then we strapped on our special gear and walked into the warm, clear waters of the Coral Sea.

The length of wire was wound around a small spool which attached to my diving belt and wound out by itself. The hunt began; with Judy swimming above, on or just under the surface, feeling the slight tug of the wire to guide her as I moved along far below, 1 explored the hidden recesses of the vast coral formation known as the Great Barrier Reef. Built over the millions and millions of years by trillions of tiny limestone-secreting polyps, the great reef is the largest structure on earth built by living organisms. I avoided the smaller crevices in the coral structures. What I sought would require space. Besides, in the small crevices were the man-killers, the giant moray eels with the razor-sharp teeth, deadly stonefish and giant squid. I wanted no excursions into trouble with the vicious beauty that lurked in these waters. I passed a group of Mako sharks and sighed in relief as they kept going. A school of delicately colored butterfly fish kept me company for a while and then went off on their own pursuits. It was slow and painstaking and frustrating. Though I was well covered by the scuba suit, certain varieties of the coral were deadly sharp and I had to skirt them with the greatest of care. I ran head-on into a red and white reef octopus as I came up to peer across the top of one spot. More afraid and surprised than I was, he scurried off in that strange way they have, moving through the water like an eight-armed ballerina waving all her arms to unheard music.

Finally, I surfaced and waved to Judy a short distance off. It was getting dark and we clambered onto the top of a small reef, only a few inches above the water. I took off one tank that was just about empty — my eyes must have mirrored my discouragement.

"You've another hour before it gets real dark," Judy encouraged. "Let's give it another try." I grinned at her and strapped on my face mask. It would be possible to continue the search after dark, I knew, but a helluva lot harder.

I slipped into the water again and started down, catching a glimpse of Judy's form as she moved out on the surface overhead. I swam hard this time, moving from coral formation to coral formation. I was about to give up when swimming past a long expanse of coral that seemed endless, without a break in it, I suddenly noticed something strange. Of all the coral I'd gone by, this was the only section where there were no fish darting in and out among its striated sides. No anemone sent wavy fingers up from its surface and no tiny damselfish peeked out from it. I swam over to it and felt along its rough edges.

It was lifeless, without the touch of coral. It was plastic — beautifully made and beautifully fashioned plastic. I had been starting to think that if there was an undersea station, I'd never find it by searching this way. I was even beginning to think that perhaps they'd hidden it far from the area. But now excitement went through my body with a tingling shudder. My calculations had been right all along.

I swam alongside the man-made coral until I found a grotto-like dark opening. I didn't enter but I was pretty certain what I'd find if I did. It was obvious that they had transported and set up a station made up of self-contained, self-operating huge tanks. A certain number of personnel would be there at all times, and entrance could be gained only by scuba-diver. I looked at the underwater compass attached to my belt. Then I snapped on the little underwater walkie-talkie.

"Hear this, Judy," I said into the speaker mask in front of my mouth. "Hear this, Judy. Transmit this message from Boomerang. Repeat, say 'Boomerang calling' until you get an answer. Message is to proceed to one-four-six north by ten west. Blast and destroy long coral formation at that location. Coral is pink shelf, coral pattern. Repeat, blast and destroy entire coral section. Over and out."

I waited a moment and felt a tug on the wire which meant that Judy had received my message. I pulled the wire loose and let it float off freely so she could swim back to shore. I was going to stick around a while, until I saw the sub at least.

I didn't expect company so soon but I got it, six black-suited scuba-divers, coming out of the opening in the coral. Armed with spear-guns, they separated to circle me. In moments I had the choice of being skewered from six different directions or going along with them like a fish in a net. I chose to be a fish.

They swam along surrounding me, moving me into the grotto-like opening. Inside, a fluorescent light suddenly came on to bathe the area in a blue haze and I saw the door of the entrance chamber open. As they closed in tight on me, hustling me toward the entranceway, I saw again that the inner airtight chamber was built within the phony reef — the whole plastic coral formation attached at the back to a real reef. It was beautifully done, and anyone swimming by or passing in an undersea craft would have seen just another stretch of pink coral. I had been searching desperately, and it had almost fooled me. But it hadn't fooled the fish that live in and around the natural coral areas.

I was pushed into the entrance chamber, the door pulled closed behind us and I stood with the six other frogmen as the chamber was drained of water. Then the second door opened and I found myself inside the square, brilliantly lighted undersea station. I took off my diving mask and flippers as Mona came over, clad in a black bikini. The tall, slender Chinese was standing next to her. Beyond her, 1 saw cots, tables, a refrigerator and an array of oxygen tanks and pressure gauges lining the walls of the station.

"I've never seen anyone so determined to get himself killed as you, Nick." Mona smiled — a deadly smile.

"And you've never seen anyone so good at avoiding it," I said.

"You do have a talent, I must admit," she said. As I looked at that gorgeous body, those magnificent breasts that made the bikini look like a band-aid on a watermelon, I wondered what made her tick. She was beautiful, passionate and smart. What the hell did she need this bit for? I'd nothing to lose by trying to find out. "What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?" I grinned at her. She shook her head in amazement.

"I'd heard that you're never flustered," she said. "I must admit that's certainly true. In your shoes, most men would be either pleading for mercy or resigned to their fate. You're asking flip questions. In fact, you're so damned relaxed, it worries me. I think you must have something up your sleeve."

"Little ol' me?" I said. "Now what could I do in a spot like this?"

"Nothing that I can see," she said. "You're going to be taken by submarine to China. I imagine there's a lot of information they can pull out of you."

The tall Chinese beside her spoke up, his black eyes glittering at me.

"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 back 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.