"Don't give me any of that CAA garbage. AXE doesn't work on CAA matters."
"Never has before."
"You're lying to me. I know it. What does AXE want in New Zealand?"
She stepped into her jump suit, wriggled it up around her hips, and tucked in the flushed breasts.
"I'm the only AXE operative here," he said, still smiling. "All I want's my vacation. Can you get some time off too?"
She glared at him. The blue eyes flashed. She zipped up the jump suit.
"Mackenzie was killed by an expert, and for some damned big reason," she said. "We don't have sophisticated killers like that in New Zealand."
"Investigating that sounds more like your job than mine."
"Not if AXE killed him."
"That means you think I killed him."
He gathered his clothes, threw them on the cot, and began to dress. The drunk writhed on his cot and snorted.
"Wha'zit?" Harry the drunk said, batting the air. He sat up abruptly, punching imaginary demons. "Goddamnit all! Bloody thieves!" He opened his eyes and looked around.
Carter buttoned his shirt.
"What about Mackenzie himself?" Carter asked Mike quietly. "Maybe he knew something he shouldn't."
"I miss anything?" the drunk asked, watching Carter and Mike with bleary eyes. "Sorry if I disturbed you," he slurred.
Carter laughed.
"You didn't bother us a bit. Have a good nap?"
Harry rubbed his eyes and swung his legs over the edge of the cot.
"Ohhhh," he groaned, sinking back.
"You bastard," Mike hissed at Carter. "I want to know what's going on! What did you want Mackenzie for?"
"Like I told the chief," Carter said. "I was asked to do a favor, to find out from the man whether he had any information about a missing American flyer. A real maverick. Rocky Diamond."
She stared hard at him and finally nodded.
"Chief Merritt!" she shouted at the office door. "I'm finished!"
She picked up her shoulder bag, and Carter gathered his fishing gear. The sky showed gray with silvery clouds through the small cell window. It was dusk. Mountain night would fall quickly. Carter would get some sleep and be out at daybreak to fish. He could already smell the moist morning air, hear the jump-splash of the trout.
The chief strode down the hallway toward them, keys in hand.
"Hey. Marshal," the drunk called, sitting up again. "Time to let me out?"
"Not yet, Harry," the chief said and smiled. "Get a good meal. Spend the night."
The drunk nodded thoughtfully from his cot.
"You ready?" Chief Merritt asked Mike.
"Right."
The chief unlocked the cell, and she walked through, Carter following. She grabbed the barred door and slammed it shut in his face.
"Mike!"
"He's lying through his teeth," she told the chief. "Hold him for the inquest, and watch him closely!"
She stalked down the hall. The drunk stood up and stumbled to the wall of bars. He grabbed two bars, steadied himself, and watched her.
"Bloody good-looking broad," he observed.
"Dammit, Mike!" Carter shouted.
The chief glanced at Carter, his weatherbeaten face amused. Then he remembered that he still had Carter, alias Noel Cash, on his hands. He frowned, locked the cell, and stuffed the keys in his pocket.
"Wait!" he called to Mike. "I'll get the door for you!"
He ran ahead to open the office door for Mike, an important government official from Wellington with the two best legs he'd ever seen.
She glanced over her shoulder so that Chief Marshal Merritt couldn't see. She grinned wickedly at Carter, stuck out her tongue, and disappeared into the office. She wouldn't be back. The chief closed the door behind them.
Carter dropped his gear and flopped back on the cot.
"She yours?" the drunk wanted to know. "I mean, if I'd had one like that…" He paused, remembering. "It'll enough to make a man stop the drink," he decided.
The bomb exploded in a burst of light and heat.
The impact thundered through the jail. The outside wall of the cell between Carter and the drunk blasted open. Timbers, big pieces of wood, and splinters slashed through the air. The cots rattled and jumped. One toilet flushed spontaneously.
Part of the wall in Harry the drunk's cell disintegrated in the explosion He held onto his bars and looked reflectively back at the gaping hole. It wasn't that he particularly wanted to be free. But when the opportunity was provided on a silver platter, no one should ignore it. He ran toward the hole on wobbly legs.
"Stop!" Carter yelled at him. "You don't know what's out there!"
Carter's cell walls and bars were intact. The darkening night spilled shadows through the gap at the side of the jail. Outside, pines wavered, charcoal and black. "Harry, stop!"
But Harry ran out. He never looked back over his shoulder. It was the principle of the thing.
Instantly the rifle shots rang out, punctuating the village's stunned silence. The first bullet entered the left lobe of Harry's lung and exited through his back. The second bullet caught him as he stumbled with surprise at the pain. It entered the top of his cranium and blew the back of his head off.
Three
The second explosion occurred almost instantly. It shattered the wall of the cell across from Nick Carter. Carter dropped to the floor. Shouts and curses filled the air. Gunfire streaked through the night. It was the two policemen, villagers… and who else?
The office door burst open. Hair flying, Mike Strange hit the light switch and ran down the short hall in the gloom. The young policeman, his pocked face contorted with fear and worry, ran with her.
"It's about time," Carter said.
"What the hell's happening around here?" she demanded.
"Don't really know." He smiled. "I'm on vacation, remember?"
"Vacation! Ha!" Mike said, handing him a.45. "Get in there!" she ordered the policeman.
As she unlocked Carter's cell, the young man unlocked and slipped into Harry's cell. The drunk lay outside, bloody, spread out like a rag doll. The bright light of a full moon glowed on his corpse.
Bullets sang through the hole in the drunk's cell wall. Carter and Mike dropped to the floor. The policeman fell flat, his forehead grazed by a bullet. Determined, shaking, he aimed and fired into the night.
"I can't see anything!" the young man said, shooting again.
Bullets ricocheted in the enclosure and bounced off the bars.
"Watch for their fire!" Carter told him from the floor. "You'll sec the streaks of light."
Carter and Mike crawled to the cell opposite the drunk's where the second wall had been blasted open.
This thing work?" Carter asked, pulling the trigger. It kicked in his hand, the bullet going harmlessly into the ground. It was a good gun, but not as good as Wilhelmina, his 9mm Luger.
"It'd better." Mike said." Watch for the whites of their eyes!"
"You've been seeing too much television," Carter chuckled, then he concentrated on one of the darting shadows that weaved among the pines.
He squeezed the trigger. The figure's arms flew up, and the body keeled over backward.
Gunfire spattered from the side of the building, aimed at the shadowy movements in the trees.
"Chief Merritt?" Carter asked.
Mike nodded and fired. The figure in the distance doubled over and limped off.
"The chief's around the corner with a deputized friend," she said.
"Looks like about a dozen out there," Carter mused, watching for a target.
"We're outnumbered. We got a few, though,"
Quietly the two agents concentrated on their work as the hot stench of gunfire slowly filled the jailhouse. They waited for the movements or telltale streaks of gunfire that would give them targets. Bullets occasionally whistled over their heads. They shot in return, often missing as the attackers disappeared behind trees and deep into shadows. The pine branches sang in a growing breeze, the eerie sound whining between the cracks of gunfire. Each pause between bullets lengthened. Tension thickened the air.