"What is happening?" Gabrielle cried.
Carter looked around for a climbable tree as the chopper clattered overhead again. This time it was going much more slowly, however, as if it were searching for something or someone, and almost immediately it swung back again toward the north.
There was a bright flash followed by an explosion. The machine rolled over on its side and dived.
Seconds later the dull thump of an explosion came to them through the trees, and they headed in a dead run toward the north.
Eight
The helicopter, or what was left of it, had come down in a thicket at the edge of a small clearing on the side of a lava flow. The fire was still far too intense for them to get very close to the wreckage. There was no doubt in Carter's mind that Fenster was dead. No one could have survived the explosion and fire.
Carter was certain that the machine had not exploded because of some malfunction. He could have sworn that just before the chopper exploded there had been a bright flash, as if a small ground-to-air missile had homed in on it.
But why had he gone up in the first place? Had the natives come back to the island? Or had someone or something else come in on him?
"What happened here, Nick?" Gabrielle asked.
"I don't know for sure, "he said. "But it's a safe bet the natives didn't do this."
She looked sharply at him. "Who then?" she asked. "There is no one else here. The natives, your people, my people."
"And the Chinese," Carter reminded her. "Let's not forget them, shall we?" If it had been a missile, Fenster never had a chance. But the ship had been trailing smoke when they first saw it. Something had happened down on the beach. He immediately thought about pheasant hunting. The natives had possibly flushed him up into the air, and then the missile was fired. From inland.
It was only a few minutes after nine, but already the morning was becoming brutally hot. To the west the volcano towered over them. Straight inland, among hills rich with vegetation, was something that had interfered with the helicopter's flight instruments.
"How are we going to get back?" Gabrielle asked. She had been staring forlornly at the flaming wreckage.
"We'll worry about that later. I still have a job to do, and I intend doing it."
"But we cannot continue."
Carter took her hands. This had all been too much for her. He should have known better than to bring her along this morning. After her escape from her husband and the attack on the base, she was just overloaded.
He did not think the natives would harm her. They evidently were being directed against the American installation and the Americans, not the French. Besides, she would be known here. And she knew their language and customs.
"Go back to the beach and wait for me there. I'll be a few hours."
"No," she cried.
"You can talk to the natives. We'll need a canoe to take us back to Hiva Faui. Tell them I am French as well. By the time they realize where I am I'll be on my way back."
"No," she said again. "I am not leaving without you. You will come back to the beach with me. Together we will find a canoe and we will return to Hiva Faui."
"I have a job to do, Gabrielle. You can return to the beach or come with me. The beach is the easier alternative."
"You're determined?"
"Yes."
"Then I will come with you," she said. She glanced up at the volcano. "Soon we will be on holy ground. It will be very dangerous if we are caught here. You will need help."
"How do you know this, Gabrielle?"
"That it is dangerous here? Everyone talks about it. Everyone knows that this end of the island is powerful. The last people who were here were killed when the volcano had a minor eruption. An act of nature or of an angry god. It makes little difference."
Carter looked over at the still burning helicopter. "And that?" he asked. "An act of an angry god?"
"Perhaps," she said defiantly. "The natives will think so."
"Right," Carter said. The submarine would be here in less than twenty-four hours. He wanted to be ready for it. "Are you sure you don't want to return to the beach?"
She shook her head.
"Okay," he said. "It's this way." He turned inland, skirting the burning chopper, and followed the general curve of the hills that led up toward the smoking crater of the volcano.
At times they scrambled over old lava flows filled with cracks and loose rocks. At other times, where enough topsoil had collected, they had to push their way through dense undergrowth.
It had become very hot and extremely humid. Their clothing clung to them, and mosquitoes and other flying insects followed them in swarms.
Gabrielle kept up with no problem, although she was sweating just as profusely as Carter.
"I've lived in this heat for a long time, you must remember," she said once when they stopped to rest.
Carter had lit a cigarette, and she looked at him with some amusement.
"What is it?" he asked.
They had stopped at a small spring from which clear, very cold water bubbled. It was pleasant in the shade of several large trees.
"Smoking is one of many things these people do not understand about us. It is one habit they have not picked up."
Carter was about to reply that they were smart, but an odd, high-pitched keening sound came to him from a distance. He looked up, cocking his head so that he could better hear the faint sound.
Gabrielle heard it as well, and she got up from where she had been leaning against the bole of a tree.
"What is it?" Carter asked.
"It is them. The natives. It is their trail hunt cry."
"It's us they're after," Carter said.
"They have picked up our trail from where the helicopter crashed."
Carter ground out his cigarette, then pocketed the butt. "We're not too far from what I wanted to see. We'll continue."
"It will not take them long to catch up with us," Gabrielle said, following him away from the spring, the sun still off to their right as they headed inland.
"Where won't they follow us? The volcano?"
They had gone a hundred yards or so when she grabbed his arm and pulled him around.
"They would not follow us up the side of the volcano, it is true," Gabrielle said. "But for good reason. Anyone who goes up there is a dead person."
"Superstition," Carter said, glancing up toward the peak. Smoke curled lazily from the crater, which had to be three or four thousand feet above the floor of the jungle.
"Yes, there is a lot of superstition here that the Japanese could not control, nor could we. My government has sent three separate teams of geologists up there. Set them down near the summit by helicopter. The first team simply disappeared. Their wrecked helicopter was spotted on the western slope near the peak. The second team… all but the pilot were overcome by toxic fumes. The pilot managed to take off and radio back what happened, but then he too passed out and crashed into the sea."
"How long ago was that?" Carter asked.
"This all happened a couple of years ago," she said. "The last team, about a year ago, came with gas masks. The volcano erupted while they were camped near the top. It is believed they were all killed instantly in their sleep. No one knows for sure. Neither their bodies nor their helicopter were found."
The howling noises were much closer now, but Carter figured he and Gabrielle were coming up fast on the area he and Tieggs had pinpointed the previous night.
If the natives would not follow them up the side of the volcano, he decided that he and Gabrielle could at least start up the lower slopes where they could conceal themselves until after dark when they could make their way back to the beaches.