“You will be careful now,” Chiclet advised anxiously. “You don’t know what kind of odds you’ll be up against.”
I nodded. I had my faithful Luger, Wilhelmina, fitted snugly in my shoulder holster, and my stiletto, Hugo, was in its own sheath under my coat sleeve, ready to spring into my hand with the slightest move of my arm. I didn’t worry much about the odds.
It wasn’t long before the helicopter that we had been waiting for arrived. It was a UH-1 Huey chopper. Chiclet introduced me to the pilot, a young Frenchman named Marcel Clement, a big, rangy, tousled-haired man who smiled easily.
Chiclet instructed him that he was to follow my orders and warned him that die job could be dangerous.
“Danger doesn’t bother me, Chiclet,” the pilot assured him. “You know that.”
I climbed into die chopper, but before we took off, Chiclet made a circular tour around the craft to be satisfied that it was in top working order. Then he waved us away. Marcel sat in die forward bubble-nose of the helicopter, and I sat behind with the doors slid back so that I had a clear view below with the pair of powerful binoculars that Chiclet had given me.
We headed west, following the shore line. After we had passed Frejus, Marcel flew low while both he and I scoured die ground for some sign of a place where the helicopter might be hidden. We passed a few spots where the foliage was dense and other places where there were recesses in the cliffs — places where the copter could be concealed — but I could spot nothing to indicate that any of them was the hiding place. By then we had traveled the whole length of the coast from Monaco to a point far beyond Frejus where there had been reports of a helicopter during the night. The cluster of islands, lies d’Hyeres, was visible to die south.
“Let’s go out and make a swing over there,” I shouted to Marcel, pointing seaward.
He nodded and veered the helicopter. Soon we were over the islands and making another low-level sweep over the terrain. The binoculars gave me a close-up view of everything below, including some of the residents of the island who waved cheerily to us, but we saw no sign of the elusive helicopter.
“What now?” Marcel asked from the cockpit.
“Might as well take us back,” I said reluctantly.
Marcel put the copter into a turn to head back to shore. I was still studying the area with the binoculars when suddenly I spotted a small dark speck in the sea. When I focused on it, I saw another small island, rocky and barren, except for a few trees and some sparse undergrowth. It was so small that it hadn’t been recorded on the map in Chiclet’s office. Nevertheless, it was still large enough — a mile to a mile and a half square — for a helicopter to land, and it was also remote enough from the mainland to make a good hiding place.
I tapped Marcel on the shoulder and pointed to the island. “What’s that place there? Are you familiar with it?”
“It is called ‘Satane Roc,’ ” Marcel said, “ ‘Devil Rock,’ a name given to it by the French underworld, who used it years ago as a transfer point for guns and drugs flowing into the country. The authorities put an end to their operations a long time ago. Since then, it’s been deserted, except, I’ve heard, for a colony of rats that infests the place. They say the rats got there from some ship-wreck long ago and have multiplied in the years since.”
“I think we should take a closer look at it,” I said.
“You think our men might be hiding there?” Marcel asked doubtfully.
“It’s possible. It’s just possible.”
Marcel turned the copter seaward again. We passed over lies d’Hyeres once more and continued southward. As we got closer to Satane Roc, I could see what a bleak, forbidding place it was, with nothing more than a pile of black rocks jutting up out of the sea and, here and there, a few scrawny trees and patches of waist-high brush. Satane Roc — a suitable name.
Marcel took die helicopter down until we brushed the treetops to make a slow, circular sweep of the island. As we flew close to the ground, I could see hundreds of large black rats, frightened by the sound of our engine, scurrying among the rocks.
“You see anything?” Marcel asked.
“Rats,” I answered. “Swarms of rats.”
We had almost completed our circle when I suddenly spotted something with the binoculars. It was a brilliant flash of light, the reflection of sun on metal, beneath one of the large outcroppings of rocks in the center of the island. It could be the hidden helicopter.
I told Marcel what I had seen and asked him to circle the place once more.
He nodded and banked the copter, and we started back toward the spot. Marcel was flying so low that we nearly brushed the tops of the trees below. I had my binoculars trained on the spot where I thought I had seen something and was concentrating so hard that I had no thought of danger until Marcel screamed. Suddenly I felt the helicopter lurch and sputter.
In the next second we were assailed by a barrage of bullets that slammed into the helicopter from below, smashing the glass shield of the cockpit, ripping through the copter’s metal exterior, and thudding into the motor. As I crouched behind the cockpit, I could see four or five men firing at us with upraised submachine guns from the top of some rocks.
“Marcel!” I yelled, grabbing him by the shoulder, “Get us out of here.”
When he turned toward me in his seat, I saw that his face was a bloody mask. He tried to say something, but only blood came from his mouth. His eyes closed, and he toppled sideways from his seat. I grabbed Wilhelmina from its holster, but before I had time to aim and fire at the men below, the helicopter engine blew up in a great flaming fireball. The machine plunged toward the sea, trailed by a giant sheet of flame and smoke.
The low altitude saved my life. I jammed the Luger back into the holster and jumped through the open doorway to avoid the flames just before the helicopter hit the water. The fire and smoke surrounding the copter screened me from the sight of the men who had shot us down. When I surfaced, I found that I was still hidden from the view of those on the island, the flaming helicopter, still floating on the surface of the sea, was between me and land.
I rapidly calculated the distance to the island, dove deep, and swam underwater until I felt that my lungs would burst. I kept swimming until I finally scraped up against some rocks. Feeling my way inch by inch up the rocks with my hands, I eventually broke through the surface of the water soundlessly. With only my head above water, I pressed myself flat against the rocks and gulped down air. When I was able to breathe normally again, I cautiously raised my head and looked around.
Fortunately, as I had hoped, I had come to shore a good distance from where the helicopter had crashed. From that point, I could still see the charred remains of the copter floating on the water. I watched as several of die men who had been on the island set out in rubber rafts and paddled toward the wreckage. I saw them remove Marcel’s body and place it in one of the rafts. Afterwards the men searched the water around the wreckage. They had obviously seen two men in the helicopter and were hoping to find my corpse, too. I was careful to keep low in the water and to remain partially hidden by the rocks until they had given up their search.
As the men paddled back to the island, the smoldering heap of metal that had once been the helicopter sank beneath the surface of the water. I clung to the rocks until the men had pulled their rubber rafts on shore and had returned to the center of the island. I briefly considered swimming down the shore to one of the rafts so that I could try to make it back to the mainland. But then I remembered the urgency of my assignment. The men on the island, and die money they had taken from the casino, might lead me to something vital.