Ник Картер - Death Island

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.