Ник Картер: The Liquidator

It’s not a long drive from Washington down to the Outer Banks; it just seems that way. Since this was a vacation, we backtracked a little and took the Annapolis-Bay Bridge across the Chesapeake to the Eastern Shore, then snaked down the highway through countryside as exciting as the stretch between Indianapolis and Terre Haute. There used to be a great ferry ride from Cape Charles across to Norfolk — long enough to relax, have a meal in the dining salon, and watch the seagoing traffic between the Atlantic and the bay. But no more. Now there’s a complex of bridges, like concrete strips across the water, and a couple of shocking plunges into the tunnels that supposedly allow the ships to pass without disrupting traffic. The trouble is, it seems as though every time a storm blows up, a barge breaks loose from its moorings, smashes some bridge pilings, and closes down the whole works for weeks at a time. I sometimes wonder how those people who commute from the Cape to Norfolk manage, but that’s their problem.

The best thing to do when passing through Norfolk is close your eyes. Then, heading south, forget the Great Dismal Swamp off to the right and concentrate on that great chain of islands that make up the northern half of the coast of North Carolina. Once you hit the Outer Banks around Kitty Hawk, you get the feeling you’re far out at sea with just a skinny strip of sand dunes and motels to keep you out of the water. As a matter of fact, you are pretty far at sea, but don’t believe that tourist-bureau nonsense about Cape Hatteras being the easternmost point of the U.S.; Philadelphia’s got it beat by a good hundred miles, just for starters.

But we weren’t stopping at Hatteras. Too many tourists, and Monica and I hadn’t taken this long weekend to mingle with a bunch of camera-toters. After driving forever along the straight, monotonous highway we reached the ferry to Ocracoke, the last stop on the Outer Banks. The late spring day was bright but sullen, with a light overcast that made the sun almost oppressive.

When we were underway, we got out of the rented yellow Mustang and stood at the blunt bow of the boat; there was enough of a breeze to toss stormlets of spray in our faces, but it was more refreshing than annoying. Monica was the kind of girl who didn’t worry about her makeup — or anything else — which was one of the reasons I’d brought her along on this little jaunt.

My boss back in Washington wasn’t happy about my choice for a long weekend; I couldn’t even tell him where I’d be staying because I’d never been to Ocracoke before; it’s not exactly on the tourist beat. I’d more or less promised I’d let him know once we found a motel, but we both knew I’d be likely to forget. It’s nice to know you’re needed, but somewhere you have to draw the line.

We settled for a place just outside what passes for a town on Ocracoke, a group of houses and shops arranged around a harbor that forms a perfect circle. I was pleased to find there was no telephone in the room, but we had an ice machine just outside. Some years ago a friend of mine wrote an article about this little out-of-the-way island, and since it stressed his major interest in life, I knew Ocracoke was not only bone dry but that there wasn’t even a man who could get you an odd bottle or two. But we had come well supplied, and Monica and I had no worries as we began our strenuous business of relaxing for a few days.

Monica worked at a health spa in Bethesda, and one look at that small but splendidly vibrant body was all the advertising the place would ever need. At twenty-five, with a couple of ruined marriages behind her, she had the naive high spirits of a teenager, but there was a streak of shrewdness in her that I appreciated. She never asked about my scars, the nasty ones not even the AXE supersurgeons could entirely remove. The place where she worked catered to that kind of Washington clientele — military brass, diplomats and their satellites, men and women in various governmental departments with titles that say nothing about their true functions. In other words, questions were discouraged, which was the main reason my boss had sent me to the place after one of my assignments left me in pretty bad shape.

Monica and I took a short swim in the chilly Atlantic, followed by a long, leisurely bake in the sun, then another brief dip and a hasty return to the motel as the sun started plummeting toward Pamlico Sound on the other side of the island. After showers we spent a fabulous hour in bed, then got up to find a place for dinner. There wasn’t much of a choice, but the fresh fish at the place we decided on was well prepared if not exciting, and we couldn’t honestly complain.

It went like that for a couple of days; we wandered the beaches, stopped to talk to surfcasters now and then, checked the souvenir shops, and agreed there didn’t seem to be anything worth buying at any of them. The weather never changed, always the mild haze that turned the blue sky a milky gray, and after a short while, it began to depress us both. By noon on the third day we agreed it was time to start heading back; we would stop somewhere else along the Banks for the night — no hurry, but we just wanted to get moving.

We’d heard about the Ocracoke ponies, a wild breed similar to those on Chincoteague Island, off Virginia, but hadn’t spotted any until we were on our way to the ferry. Then, as we were driving along the narrow two-lane blacktop, through the rolling dunes, Monica suddenly pointed across my nose to the left.

“Look!” she squealed. “Ponies! A whole herd of them!”

I turned my head just in time to see a couple sets of equine hindquarters disappear behind a towering, scrub-covered dune. “They’re gone,” I said.

“Oh, please stop, Nick,” the girl insisted. “Let’s See if we can find them again.”

“They’re wild; they won’t let you get anywhere near them.” I knew Monica was crazy about horses; she went riding regularly at a stable out in Maryland. To me horses are just a faster way to cover ground than walking if those are the only choices you have.

“Let’s try anyway.” She put her hand on my knee and gave me that little gamin grin of hers that says she knows damned well she’s going to get her way. “We’re not in any hurry, and we’ve never even looked at this part of the island.”

True enough, I admitted to myself as I eased over to the side of the road and stopped the car. With the engine silenced, the only sound was the soft sigh of a breeze through the scrubby red-brown shrubbery that somehow managed to thrive in the sandy soil. I looked at Monica, with her turned-up nose and bright eyes, her sunburned cheeks just beginning to peel at the edges. And then I looked at her amazingly full breasts, which were straining against the light knit shirt, and the faded denim shorts that clung to her hips like a lover’s embrace. I took her hand from my knee and kissed it briefly.

“Okay. Let’s start the big roundup,” I said, opening the door on my side.

“Take the camera. I’d love to get some pictures.”

“Got it.”

We walked, both of us barefoot, through the heavy sand in the general direction of the sound. There was a kind of path — or at least a ribbon of sand where no shrubbery grew — between the towering dunes on either side of us. I kept an eye on the spot where the horses had disappeared, but when we broke out into the open on the beach, they were nowhere to be seen.