Ник Картер - Death Island

He looked at his watch. Thirteen and a half minutes to go. He took the satchel from Haikkinen.

“You get the door,” he said to Jakes.

Jakes nodded and stepped to the door.

Carter turned to Haikkinen. “Ready?”

The young man nodded.

“Do it,” Carter said.

Haikkinen quickly connected the wires. Jakes started to open the door when someone burst into the room from the outer balcony.

Carter spun around, bringing up his Luger, as two crewmen from the Chinese sub came in. He fired twice, hitting them both. Then he spun back.

“Now!” he shouted.

Jakes yanked open the door, and Carter stepped onto the balcony, heads below turning up to him. Someone was shouting something. And a siren began to wail as he swung the heavy satchel over his head and let it go, the bag arcing high out over the room.

He turned and raced back to the operations room. Jakes and Haikkinen were at the outer door, firing down toward the sub.

Carter pulled out his gas bomb, thumbed the trigger, and tossed it over Jakes’s shoulder, out the open door, and down onto the dock.

The gas was effective immediately.

Haikkinen fired another shot, and all three of them scrambled out the door, along the balcony, and down the stairs.

Halfway down, a tremendous explosion shook the entire hillside, partially collapsing the balcony above them, sending shards of glass blowing straight out across the water, and bringing rocks and dirt down from the ceiling.

Crewmen were scrambling out of the submarine as Haikkinen and Jakes hit the dock, and they opened fire.

Haikkinen went down, the back of his head blown off, and Jakes was slammed to the left over a pile of boulders.

Carter, still on the stairs, dropped to a half crouch and fired four shots in quick succession, hitting at least three of the crewmen. The others ducked back into the boat.

Carter leaped down the last couple of stairs, grabbed Jakes’s arm, and pulled him to his feet.

“Arte!” Jakes shouted.

“He’s dead,” Carter said, racing as fast as he could with Jakes down the dock and up onto the catwalk.

Several more shots were fired at them from the sub, but Carter kept going.

The catwalk ended at a thick metal door in the rock wall above the water. Just as they reached the door, it opened.

Carter raised his Luger and fired point-blank into the face of the guard who had been standing outside when they had swum in.

The guard was thrown backward by the force of the 9mm slug hitting his cheek just below his left eye.

His legs were still twitching as Carter dragged Jakes over his body and along the catwalk.

Halfway along the catwalk, the wind and blowing water funneling into the cavern, a shot ricocheted off the walkway. A moment later, as Carter turned back with his own gun, two shots thudded into Jakes’s body.

Carter fired three shots in quick succession, and then the firing pin snapped on an empty chamber.

He raced the rest of the way down the catwalk and around the corner beneath the overhang, where he laid Jakes down. He pulled out another clip and reloaded the Luger, then bent down to check on Jakes.

The man was dead. He had taken two rounds in his back. One had evidently penetrated a lung, the other had pierced his heart.

Carter looked at his watch. He had nine minutes before the other two charges attached to the sub went off.

Someone was on the path above!

Carter ducked around the overhang in time to see a half-dozen Chinese men hurrying down the path.

He stepped out into the open and fired four shots in rapid succession up the path.

At least three of the soldiers went down.

Carter ducked back. They would pin him down here until it was too late.

“Sorry, Paul,” Carter said, looking down at Jakes’s body. He pushed the dead seaman over the edge, then shoved his Luger into his waistband and jumped into the channel.

The waves were very strong, but he was just at the edge of the tidal race into the cavern, so he was able to swim out past the rocks and around toward the west.

Behind him, above on the path, the remaining soldiers scrambled the rest of the way past the overhang and headed back into the cavern.

The surf was very bad. In the troughs Carter could manage a couple of strokes, but then the breaker would bury him, tumbling him end over end toward the shore.

He was just coming ashore beyond the rocks when a tremendous explosion lifted the front of the rock cliffs away from the hill.

A split second later, a second, much larger explosion lit up the sky, blowing out more of the cliff face.

Carter staggered ashore on the beach, rocks and smoke and flames still shooting out of the vast opening in the hillside to the east.

It had been felt all over the island, and probably had been seen and heard on Hiva Faui. Everyone would know what had happened here.

Carter tore off the wet suit top as he hurried away from the surf pounding the beach, then headed west the last mile or so to where the Starfish was scheduled to pick them up.

It was no longer raining, but the wind was strong, and the sky was still overcast. He had no trouble finding the rendezvous spot. It was near where he had found the outrigger canoe the previous night.

Carter was standing on the beach looking out to sea when he saw a flash of light well offshore to the west.

It was most likely the Starfish . But she was much too far to the west...

Seconds later he saw another flash, this time even farther west and definitely farther out to sea.

Captain Petti had warned them that if the Chinese sub came back, he would have to stand off.

Carter watched for another five minutes, but there was nothing. Once again he was stranded on Natu Faui.

Nick Carter turned away from the ocean and looked up the beach in both directions. The outrigger canoes that had been tied up just off the beach were gone now. It was very possible, he thought, that the natives had gone on another raid of the satellite receiving station. Either that or they had hidden their boats after the one had turned up missing last night.

It was very early in the afternoon, but Carter felt a sense of detachment. He had not had much rest in the past forty-eight hours. But he could not quit now.

The base here on Natu Faui was destroyed. The Starfish would probably play cat and mouse with the sub for a day or so, and then the Chinese boat would be ordered back home.

Which left only Governor Albert Rondine and his setup on these islands.

The man was probably working for the Chinese. At least Carter figured he was. But what was his motivation? Simple greed?

Whatever it was, the man held the power of life and death over these people. He was also the apparent master of the Chinese peasants living on Hiva Faui.

Finally there was Gabrielle. Carter could not get her out of his mind. What they had had together, however brief it was, had been wonderful. He wanted to hear from her own lips that everything she had told him was a lie.

He headed up the beach toward the west, his stride long and steady. There was a possibility, he figured, however slight, that the Starfish had left even before the shore party had gotten aboard. It would mean the patrol would probably be in the vicinity of the beach down from the volcano. The area was several miles to the west. He wanted to see if they were still there. If not, he would find another outrigger and make the trip back to Hiva Faui one more time.

For a time, as he walked, he thought about all the strange things that had happened so far on this assignment. Most of all of his misjudgments. Fenster, whom he was certain was somehow involved in all of this, apparently was innocent. Gabrielle he had misjudged from the beginning. He wondered if he was misjudging her situation still.