There were fires everywhere throughout the tracking site, and now he could definitely hear sirens, and something else… gunfire. He was sure it was gunfire!
"Jesus…" he swore out loud, his voice hoarse. and he redoubled his efforts, hobbling up the road.
As he got closer he could definitely hear gunshots, and he could hear people shouting and screaming.
The site was under attack. But by whom? It didn't make sense. Nothing that had happened that day made any sense to Duvall.
The main gate was lying half off its hinges, the odor of cordite very strong, but the gunshots and cries finally ended. The siren, however, kept on wailing as Duvall cautiously approached.
There were several bodies lying on the blacktop. Some of them were dark-skinned and clothed only in loincloths. But two of them, sprawled near the guardhouse, wore khaki uniforms.
Duvall hurried over to those bodies and turned one of them over.
Christ! It was Wolchek! They had played poker together in the group last night.
Duvall looked up. What had happened here? What in God's name had happened?
He picked up Wolchek's.45 automatic, awkwardly checked to make sure there was a round in the chamber, and he cocked the hammer back and entered the tracking site. Suddenly the alarm cut off and he froze.
The silence was eerie. There were several bodies on the road ahead of him and a burned-out truck. Smoke rose from a building farther up the hill, but the dishes and radomes seemed intact.
Someone came running down the hill from Administration, and Duvall swiveled around, bringing up the.45. But he realized it was one of the technicians. Then his knees gave way beneath him.
What is going on, he thought as he fell to the roadway. What in hell is happening here…?
One
The azure sky out to sea seemed to merge with the fairy-tale blue of the Mediterranean as the yacht Marybelle worked her way northeast up the coast of France from Cannes to her winter berth at Monaco.
It was still early, before noon, as Nick Carter, clad in bathing trunks and a short terry cloth robe, emerged onto the afterdeck where the stewards had laid out champagne and breakfast.
"Good morning, Monsieur Carter," Henri-Rieves, the assistant chief steward said, holding out Carter's chair.
"It is a good morning, isn't it," Carter said, breathing deeply, drinking in the sweetly scented sea air. "When are we due at Monaco?"
"Not until after lunch, monsieur. Mademoiselle Gordon instructed that we stop for an hour or two off Antibes."
"Another wreck?"
"Perhaps more Roman amphorae, monsieur."
"Perhaps," Carter said. The steward poured him a glass of crackling cold Dom Perignon, served him a bit of beluga, some toast, and shirred eggs, then retired gracefully belowdecks.
The gentle motion of the ship easing its way through calm seas, the fine, well-chilled wine, and the comfortable surroundings were deeply relaxing at that moment. Carter sighed deeply. It had been years since he had had a vacation half so purely restful as this one had been.
For the past two weeks he had been cruising the French Riviera aboard the Marybelle, a 210-foot yacht owned by Lady Pamela Gordon, the thirty-year-old daughter of Sir Donald Gordon, former MP and chief of the SIS back in the late fifties and early sixties. Sir Donald and David Hawk, Carter's boss and head of the United States's supersecret intelligence agency, AXE, were old friends, going back together before World War II. It was only natural that Carter had been introduced to Lady Gordon, and last month the invitation to join her for the beginning of her fall-winter cruise had come.
He had another ten days before he had to report to the AXE Rehab and Retraining Facility in Arizona, and his plans included Lady Gordon's villa in Monaco and a bit of baccarat in Monte Carlo.
"Two weeks, and you're already going soft on me," a mellifluous woman's voice came from behind him.
Carter turned around as Lady Gordon, her deep, rich tan stunning against her almost nonexistent yellow bikini, came on deck. She was frowning.
"Enough clay pots, Pamela," Carter said, laughing. "I'm on vacation."
She came around and kissed him on the cheek, then took her place across the small table from him. Henri-Rieves glided to her elbow, the champagne bottle in hand.
"Mademoiselle," he said.
"Please," she said, looking into Carter's eyes.
The steward poured her wine and brought her a lightly salted musk melon half with a bit of cream and a few strawberries on the side, then left.
"Didn't you sleep?" she asked, sipping her wine.
"Like a log."
"Why were you up so early, then?"
"You've done well for the last two weeks. Don't try to arrange my next ten days," Carter said. Lady Gordon's problem had been — and always would be, he suspected — that she did not feel comfortable unless she had arranged the lives of everyone around her. She was a natural-born organizer. Everyone in London — and half of the regulars on the French, Spanish, and Italian Rivieras — was trying to marry her off to a diplomat. She would make a perfect consul's wife or the consort of an ambassador somewhere.
"Sorry, Nicholas," she said, turning her head. "I hope you don't mind that we're stopping at the twelve-foot ledge off Antibes."
"Not at all…" Carter started to say, when Henri-Rieves came up. He was carrying a telephone.
"Pardon, monsieur," he said. "There is a call for you." He plugged the telephone in the afterdeck panel and set the instrument on the table in front of Carter, who picked it up.
"Carter here."
"Mr. Carter, I'm so happy I was able to reach you," an excited man's voice came over the line. This was trouble, Carter sensed.
"What can I do for you?"
"Pardon me. I'm Roger Morton, charge d'affaires for the United States embassy in Paris, and I have a message for you, sir."
"This is an open line, Morton," Carter said. He was looking at Pamela, who was pouting. She sensed it meant trouble as well.
"Ah… yes, sir, I understand that. I merely telephoned to pass a message, sir."
"Go ahead. I'll take your message."
"This is from Amalgamated Press. You are to return home immediately. There is an important assignment for you. End of message, sir."
Pamela had gotten up, and she came around the table to Carter and leaned over him, running her fingers through the hairs on his chest as she nibbled on his left ear.
"Who was the signatory?"
"D.W. Hawkins."
It was David Hawk. "All right, Morton. Thank you for your help."
"Any reply, sir?" the charge hastened to ask.
"None. Thanks again," Carter said. As he put down the phone, Pamela straightened up, smiled provocatively, and sauntered back into the main salon and into the owner's stateroom.
Carter smiled. He drank the rest of his champagne, then got up and went up the ladder to the fly deck and up the second ladder to the bridge. Captain Phillipe Jourdain, his dress whites immaculate, looked up when Carter entered.
"Ah, Monsieur Carter, how may I be of assistance this morning?"
"I need to get to Nice as quickly as possible, Captain. I have a plane to catch."
"I am so very sorry, monsieur, but Mademoiselle Gordon has issued us our instructions…"
Carter reached out and picked up the phone, then punched the numbers for the owner's stateroom. He switched to intercom.
"Pamela, this is Nicholas. I've told your captain to make for Nice."
"Yes, Nicholas," Pamela said, her voice husky. "But am I to be kept waiting here all morning?"
"No," Carter said, eyeing the embarrassed captain. He put down the telephone. "What is our ETA?"