The Corporation guard was maintained without a break on the uneventful voyage to Honolulu. Additional Navy ships joined the escort, and the flotilla arrived at the Pearl Harbor Navy base without fanfare. There the Zoloto was dismantled and its contents were returned to the mainland by Air Force cargo planes.
Many of the civilians left the Neptune at Pearl Harbor, among them the entire Corporation contingent. Franklin and Marie Richards gave a quiet party for the entire company before it dispersed, but no speeches were made, and the gaiety was a trifle forced. Regardless of whether an atomic weapon and the Russian naval code had been recovered, no one could forget the coffins stacked in the hold.
If Hawaii was heaven on earth, the citizens of Kauai privately regarded their island, located at the northern end of the archipelago, as the only true paradise. Their waterfalls were more spectacular, their vegetation more verdant, their beaches cleaner and less heavily populated than those found elsewhere in the state. Kauai, in fact, was perfect for people who sought isolation.
The cottage, sturdily built and boasting every modern household convenience, stood on a high rise overlooking the sea, and was cooled by the trade winds. It had its own private beach, a boat was anchored in its tiny, sheltered harbour, and the fishing in a river that raced to the ocean was easily as good as that in Cornwall.
Behind the house was a garden filled with banana and pineapple palms, breadfruit and citrus trees, all producing in such quantities it was impossible to eat everything that grew there. Rising high in the distance was the island’s only peak, Mount Waialeale, and every afternoon white clouds formed around the top of the mountain.
Porter and Adrienne made love and slept, ate and swam, fished and shared the chores of cooking and cleaning. Twice each week they drove in their little car to the nearby village for meat, bread, coffee, and other supplies, and sometimes they stopped at the thatch-roofed tavern for a beer before returning home. Occasionally, too, they stopped at the local post office to pick up stacks of books they had ordered from Honolulu and San Francisco. They received no other mail.
Sometimes they paused, too, to chat with neighbours with whom they shared an evening every week or two.. Like the other citizens of Kauai Adrienne and Porter were bronzed by the sun, their hair streaked by it, and wearing only the clothes that society deemed necessary, they radiated good health. Porter had regained
complete use of his arm, and only the fading scar on his shoulder reminded them of his fight on the Singapore dock.
Late one afternoon Adrienne was frying breadfruit when Porter returned from an offshore expedition with a large fish.
‘I’ve never seen one like it,’ he said, ‘but we’ll try it for dinner.’
‘Provided you clean it, dear.’
‘I’ll clean it.’ He took a knife from a rack and went outdoors to perform the task.
The sound of the kitchen radio drifted out to him. ‘Here are the six o’clock news headlines. A new crisis is building in the Balkans, where—’
‘Turn that damn thing off,’ he called.
Adrienne happily obliged.
As he returned to the kitchen with the fish, the telephone rang.
She eyed it. ‘It may have been a mistake to install that,’ she said.
Porter picked up the instrument.
‘This is Brian Davidson, calling from Washington. How are you?’
‘Doing beautifully until I heard your voice.’
Davidson forced a laugh. ‘I don’t suppose you people have heard the news, but hell is popping in the old cockpit, and we wonder if we can persuade you to undertake a very special mission for us in Bucharest. We simply know of no one else who can handle it.’
‘Davidson,’ Porter said, ‘my wife and I refuse to be separated ever again.’
‘So much the better! This caper is made for a husband and wife team, and you and Adrienne will be perfect for it.’
‘I’ll call you back,’ Porter said, and went to a cabinet for a little-used bottle of whisky.
Adrienne dropped the fish into a pan.
‘Bucharest,’ he said. ‘Together.’
She sighed. ‘I knew this was too good to last.’
‘It’ll be here when we come back,’ Porter said.
‘We’ll do it, of course,’ Adrienne said. ‘Even paradise is sometimes a trifle dull.’
About the Author
Samuel Edwards is also the author of The Naked Maja and Fifty-Five Days at Peking – both of which became successful films. Under his own name of Noel B. Gerson he has written many bestsellers including Because I Loved Him, T’R and State Trooper. His novel The Exploiters is also published in Pan.
The Exploiters
Copyright
Pan Books in association with Helnemann
First published in Great Britain 1977 by William Heinemann Ltd
This edition published 1978 by Pan Books Ltd,
Cavaye Place, London swio 9PG
in association with William Heinemann Ltd
© Noel B. Gerson 1976
ISBN 0 330 25006 X