"Now," the pilot said. He punched a button. A rocket streaked from their underbelly and in less than three seconds closed on Tieggs's machine. There was a brief pause, then the explosion.
Fifteen
Nick Carter kept seeing the explosion that destroyed Tieggs's helicopter. Tieggs never had a chance, although he had known what was about to happen.
Afterward they had swung out over the water to the southwest but had kept low, presumably to keep well under any radar or detection systems even though there was nothing out here but undeveloped islands.
Carter sat back. Right now there wasn't a damned thing he could do, he thought. The governor was working for the Chinese. Evidently Rondine swung some weight, otherwise the soldiers back at the house would not have deferred so easily to his henchmen. But Carter had wanted to see the man, and he would soon be getting his chance.
The military chopper they were in was very fast. Nevertheless it took them the better part of two hours before they swung around the western side of a large, jungle-choked island, came in low over a lagoon, then slowly followed a wide river or channel several hundred yards up from the beach.
They were almost on top of the yacht before Carter spotted it, and he realized that from more than a few hundred feet in the air it would be virtually invisible despite its size, which Carter estimated to be at least 150 feet.
About a half mile beyond the yacht, they came down in a narrow clearing. As the rotors slowed, the Frenchmen got out of the machine, and the one who had brought Carter out of the house opened the rear door and unlocked his manacles.
He stepped back, his Beretta out, as one of the other men came around and quickly frisked Carter, coming up with his stiletto but not the gas bomb. He gave the blade to the man with the gun.
"As soon as you are done here, come down to the boat. I think he wants to leave at dark."
"Out, Claude," the man said.
Carter's captor motioned with the Beretta, and they started down the path. Behind them the other two men were shoving the helicopter down the slope toward some overhanging trees. When they were finished, Carter suspected there would be little or nothing to be seen from the air.
It was very hot. The weather had cleared, and there wasn't a breath of air.
If they were leaving tonight after dark, they would probably run through the night without lights. By morning they would be far enough away from everything and not arouse the suspicion of anyone. Carter was sure he had seen a Liberian registry flag flying from the mast above the bridge deck.
He pondered his situation. Once he was aboard the boat and at sea, there would not be a lot he could do. Forget a rescue. And there would be little likelihood that he would get off the boat alive.
He stopped and turned around.
"Allans! Allans!" the big man shouted.
Carter let his eyes roll back in his head and flutter. "Christ…" he whispered, and he fell forward as if in a faint.
The Frenchman instinctively reached out. Carter fumbled with the man's gun hand as if he were seeking support. Too late the big man understood that it was a ruse. Carter drove forward and up, butting the man's chin with his head. At the same moment he twisted the Beretta sharply to the right, breaking the man's wrist with a loud pop.
The man cried out, then swore loudly in French.
Carter stepped back, kneed the man in the groin, then drove a right hook into his jaw that sent him flying backward onto the ground. The man was out cold.
All of that took less than five seconds, and Carter was sure the scuffle had not alerted the helicopter crew. Nevertheless he grabbed the automatic and crouched by the side of the path, waiting for any signs that an alarm had been sounded.
But there was nothing other than the soft, jungle sounds of insects and birds.
Carter retrieved his stiletto from the downed man, and with the manacles that had been used to hold him in the back seat of the helicopter, he manacled the Frenchman to a small tree. He stuffed a handkerchief into the man's mouth and used his belt to hold it in place.
On the path he looked down toward where the yacht was tied, then up in the direction of the helicopter. If he went back to the helicopter to take care of the two crewmen, there was a very good chance he would have to use the Beretta. Someone from the yacht would hear it, and his element of surprise would be lost.
On the other hand, the crewmen would be coming down to the yacht within a very short time. Unless he was finished with what he wanted to do, they would be on top of him.
The latter was the more easily acceptable risk to Carter, and he headed quickly down the path toward the governor's yacht.
Rondine was intelligent. He had apparently expected his little island kingdom to come to an end sooner or later, and he had prepared for it with this yacht as his escape hatch.
In all likelihood he had another place picked out and ready for him, probably with the help of the Chinese.
The yacht was the Mariposa, Spanish for butterfly. She lay at anchor in the middle of the narrow channel. A couple of small motor launches were pulled up to the shore.
Carter held back within the protection of the jungle as he looked out at the activity. A couple of crewmen had gone over the side near the stem of the yacht, evidently to check on the propellers or the rudder. Several crewmen were visible on deck, and the ship's radar antenna was slowly spinning.
They were alert and ready for intruders.
Closer, two crewmen waited by the pair of motor launches pulled up to the river bank. Carter, his captor, and the two helicopter crewmen were evidently expected. The boatmen kept looking at their watches and glancing up the path.
His only way aboard would be by one of the motor launches. If he could lure the two crewmen out of sight of the yacht, he might be able to take them out.
He pulled out his gas bomb and started to edge around to the left, when the barrel of an automatic touched his cheek.
"Straighten up very slowly, Monsieur Carter."
Carter did as he was told, very slowly, the gas bomb in his left hand, the Beretta in his right.
There was only one of them… one of the crew from the helicopter. Carter figured if the noise could be kept down, he would still have a chance.
At that moment, however, the other crewman came up the path with the big Frenchman whom Carter had knocked out. The man did not appear to be happy.
"Louis! Jean!" he shouted. The two men from the motor launch jumped up and came running.
Carter let himself relax as one of them pulled his gas bomb and the Beretta out of his grasp.
Claude, the big Frenchman with the broken wrist, backhanded Carter, knocking him backward but not off his feet.
"Salaud," the man hissed.
Carter was smiling. "Send your pals away, and I'd be glad to break your other wrist," he said in French.
The big man was barely able to control his anger as he shoved Carter around and down the path. "The governor will have a few things to say to you, Monsieur Carter. But afterward you will be mine!"
They boarded the two motor launches, and within a minute or so they were climbing aboard the Mariposa, a couple of officers and several crewmen watching from the rails.
Carter was taken immediately aft and then into the main salon.
Governor Rondine, wearing a light gauze shirt and white trousers, a gold chain around his immense neck, lounged in a chaise. Gabrielle was seated next to him. She wore a very brief white bikini that was stunning against her tanned olive skin.