"Who are you, anyway?" I asked. "And what the hell are you doing here?"
"I am Caroline Cheng," she said, her green eyes flashing at me. "My husband is Colonel Cheng of Chinese espionage activities in the South Pacific. I married him some ten years ago, but I've been waiting for a chance to pay back the British and the Australians and all of you smug, superior types for much longer than that."
Her eyes had taken on a hatred I'd not seen in them before. "What are you paying us all back for?" I asked with purposefully infuriating blandness.
"For my father," she shot back at me. "He was a British officer, but he was also a believer in the rights of all men to govern themselves. He thought it would be best if we British got out of Asia and he was reviled and shunned by the others. He tried to help a Chinese independence movement and he was court-martialed for it reduced in rank. And then, years later, after he was a broken, ruined man, they decided to do the very same things he had advocated in the first place. But I never forgot what they did to him. I was there, with him. and I grew to hate them all, every last one of them."
I knew the truth in what she had said. National policies and climates change and yesterday's villain becomes today's hero. But I wasn't interested in the abstractions of political philosophies. I saw a chance, a bare chance.
"Taking away all the nice words, honey, it comes out that at that time and at that place, your old man was a traitor to his country's position," I said. She leaped forward and smashed her hand across my face.
"Lying bastard!" she said, her face contorted in fury. But she stepped back too quickly, dammit. I had to try again.
"You'll pay for what was done, all of you will," she said. "When my husband joined Chinese Intelligence, I thought of this scheme, and when the time came to put it into effect I insisted he let me handle it. It's almost done its work, and you're not going to stop me from completing it. I've made your cooperative defense machinery collapse into discord and anger just as they made my father's good deeds boomerang against him."
"All this because you're old man was a traitor and a screwball officer," I laughed. "Crazy, man."
"You no-good bastard," she screamed and again she leaped forward but this time she raked her fingernails across my face. As she brought her other hand up to dig them into my eyes I moved, grabbing her arm and spinning her about. I had her in front of me, one arm around her throat, applying a slow, steady pressure.
"Nobody moves or I crack her larynx," I said. "First, how did you know I was outside this piece of phony coral reef?"
"The immediate outer edges are circled by sound waves, a version of your sonar system," the Chinese said. "Any large object coming against the coral is immediately detected and we send our men out to investigate. The ordinary fish make a highly individual pattern when they cross the system."
I tightened my arm on her neck, "Now she and I are going for a little swim," I said. "And you are all going to stay right here or I'll kill her."
"Shoot him," she screamed at the others. "Never mind about me. Kill him."
"Maybe you'd better think about how you'll explain killing her to your boss and her husband," I stalled. "If she comes with me, she might just have a chance to break loose and get away."
"No, don't listen to him," the girl screamed. "You know Colonel Cheng will understand. Shoot, damn you all, shoot!"
But my plan and their decision both became academic questions at the same time. A tremendous roar shook the place and I felt myself being knocked to the ground. Mona went flying out of my grip and I knew what had happened. The U.S. sub had arrived and sent off the first torpedo to start the wrecking job I'd ordered. I was scrambling for my feet, as were the others, when the second torpedo landed. This time the whole station upended and I felt myself falling to one end of it. Water started to pour into it from ten or more different spots. Slowly at first, but I knew the pressure would start to tear the holes into bigger ones in moments. The station settled back on its bottom at a crazy, tilted angle and I ran for the side where I'd last seen my diving mask.
Mona was nowhere that I could see and then I caught sight of a small closetlike structure at the far end. This was a helluva time to pick to go to the bathroom, I thought. As I skidded across the tilted floor toward the face mask, I saw the tall Chinese dive for me, a gun in his hand. I let him get me around the legs and we both went down. I wanted the close quarters and I brought a knee up into his belly. He doubled up and tried to get off a shot. It went wild as I pushed him backwards across the angled floor. I brought my arm around in a looping right and landed it across the side of his neck. I heard him gasp, drop the gun and clutch at his throat. Water was more than a foot deep at my end of the station and I managed to grab my face mask as it floated by. I put it on just as the third torpedo struck.
This time the station seemed to rise up and hang suspended for a moment and then one side collapsed and a wall of water rushed in on me. The other Chinese were still struggling to get their suits on — I saw they'd never make it. The tall one I'd hit was a goner. As the water rushed in on me, knocking me backwards and then lifting me up and out with its return surge, I saw a scuba-clad figure moving out of the collapsed station a few feet above me. She only had the top part of her suit on. along with the face mask and aqualung, and the little bikini panties made an incongruous picture. Using her hair-trigger mind, she'd grabbed that much of her equipment and run into the bathroom, the farthest corner of the station, and got into the outfit.
I struck out after her at once. I was catching up to her when I saw she had taken one more thing with her, a spear gun. She whirled and shot at me. I managed to twist my body over and the spear tore through the shoulder of my suit and past my throat with but a fraction of an inch to spare.
I twisted back to look for Mona and saw her coming down at me with a knife. She slashed at my head, and I felt the blade rip part of my suit off. She was like a damned seal in the water, fast and mobile. I grabbed for her and missed, only to feel the knife rake the leg of my suit and the skin under it. I saw the trickle of red that colored the water — and I cursed her. That's all I needed now — sharks. The undersea killers could smell blood in the water a half mile away.
Mona was coming at me again and this time I moved back with her as she came in. She had to come after me again with her arm upraised, the knife poised, when I suddenly reversed gears and shot forward, getting my hand around her wrist. Just then the sub, standing off someplace, let go with another blast that lifted us both up and over helplessly, turning slow cartwheels in the underwater force of the explosion. I lost my grip on Mona and saw her being flung against a genuine coral reef. As I came out of my next slow spin and the turbulence began to die down, I saw she was still there. As I. headed for her, I saw her foot trapped in the vise-like grip of a giant clam. The huge mollusk must have weighed over two hundred pounds, I estimated, and he was partially embedded in the coral. I saw the girl's eyes, behind her face mask, wide with fright as she reached down and tugged at the leg. But she'd never get it out, not that way. As I reached her she straightened up, the knife held ready to defend herself. I reached out my hand for the knife. Slowly, she lowered her arm and handed it to me.
Just then another blast from the sub threw me against the hard, sharp coral and I felt the points go through me like a hundred needles. I clung there until the turbulence stopped and then pushed myself back from the reef. The Navy boys were doing their usual thorough job, but I felt like crying out, "Enough, already." Mona's knife was a thick, sturdy one and I hacked at the spot where the giant bivalve was embedded in the coral. I felt myself cutting through soft spots and sand and as I pushed against the huge bulk, it moved. I didn't know how much air Mona still had in her tank but I knew mine was getting damned low.